MMPS Ch. 11

Chapter 11: A Conversation with the Man in the Yellow Jacket

“What do you mean by that?”

Yu An met the consultant’s gaze, but there was nothing warm in her eyes. Her smile was wide and bright, but it looked like a mask—a façade that concealed something darker.

Just like the security guard downstairs, her jawline bore a long, jagged scar, as if this face once belonged to another person—another person whose features had been sewn onto her. The sight unsettled him, the way her smile didn’t reach her eyes, the eerie stillness in her expression.

A sense of danger crept over Yu An. What does she mean, that the price depends on the next guest’s needs? The thought struck him like a cold chill—was she suggesting that they would harvest his organs to sell to the next guest?

But all he could do was maintain an outward calm. Fear was a luxury he couldn’t afford in this strange, stifling environment. In situations like these, fear only made you a target.

He’d come into this building for one reason. He didn’t believe the interviewer would assign him a task that was an outright death sentence. It was a strange mix of suspicion and trust he felt toward him. Despite everything, he believed he wouldn’t send him into the jaws of the unknown.

“Is there a bathroom here?” he asked, seizing the chance to divert the conversation, hoping to buy himself more time to observe his surroundings. His mission was clear: protect Mr. Zhou, the overweight client who’d been kidnapped, and expose whatever grotesque horrors lurked within this beauty salon.

Protection… He couldn’t help but think of it as a hollow word. One step at a time. Worst case, he’d fail the internship, get kicked out, and lose nothing of real value.

But that was a lie. He knew there was more at stake.

In his mind, he pictured the interviewer lying asleep in his bed, his robe undone to the waist, red marks still lingering on his skin from earlier encounters. 

The consultant nodded politely, gesturing for him to turn left, where the bathroom was just a short distance away.

“Okay.”

Yu An slowed his pace, his eyes scanning the area with every step. The hallway was lined with four white European-style wooden doors on the left, each marked with a number—701, 702, 703, 704. Each door bore the advertisement of Xiliu Beauty Salon, suggesting the salon had rented the entire seventh floor. The room where he had just spoken with the consultant, Room 704, was the last on the left.

The décor of the hallway felt oddly… domestic. It was like walking into a teenager’s bedroom, more cozy than professional, with soft pink leather wallpaper covering the walls on both sides.

The space was cramped, the walls too close together. In the corners, the wallpaper had peeled off, revealing another layer beneath it. Yu An gingerly pulled a strip of the wallpaper away, and underneath, he found the bare, unsightly wall covered in greasy stains, specks of blood, and patches of dirt. The thick, grimy layer looked like it had been there for years. Had they just kept applying more wallpaper over it, hoping to cover up what was underneath, making the hallway narrower and more suffocating with each new layer?

He pushed the unpleasant thoughts aside, focusing on the task at hand.

The bathroom was across from the doors, slightly to the left. As soon as Yu An entered, he found a row of sinks directly opposite the door. Above them hung a long, rectangular mirror, reflecting his image and the doorframe behind him.

He walked in, washed his hands absentmindedly, and studied his reflection in the mirror. The black hood he wore kept his face hidden—so well, in fact, that even he couldn’t see his own features.

But how had that security guard seen him? Was it possible that the info on midnight traders were all lies? Or was there something about the consultant that didn’t add up? She had pointed out, without hesitation, that Yu An’s left eye needed to be replaced. That should not have been something she could know… unless…

“But… I don’t have a missing eye.”

Yu An slowly removed his hood, revealing his left eye. It wasn’t bandaged, as it should have been if it were an injury, but instead, as soon as he entered the pedestrian street, he’d inserted the Aberrant Core: The Night Walker Mosquito—into the eye socket.

The core, linking directly with the left eye, distorted into a chaotic pattern and then formed a dark pupil. It moved with eerie fluidity, looking almost identical to the right eye.

Given the effect of his black hood, Yu An couldn’t help but wonder: Could it be that the security guards and the consultant are not real people?

His thoughts were interrupted by a growing unease. He really didn’t want to go back to that suffocating beauty salon room. His best option seemed to be climbing out through the bathroom’s ceiling, away from the consultant with her strange, lifeless smile.

The bathroom was small—two stalls. He reached for the first stall door, only to find that it wouldn’t budge.

The door didn’t have an external handle, meaning it could only be locked from the inside. Someone must be inside.

He pulled his hand back, unwilling to bend down and peer through the gap under the door. His instincts told him that doing so would reveal something terrible.

Instead, he turned to the second stall.

He gripped the hilt of his dagger, his fingers brushing against the cool steel as he nudged the door open. With a swift kick, the door opened slightly, and something—or someone—bounced it back. A muffled grunt echoed from within.

A person.

Yu An quickly pulled out his knife, rushing into the stall, the blade aimed directly at the man’s throat.

The man froze in fear, his wide eyes locked on the blade, but he didn’t dare make a sound. He raised both hands in surrender, pressing them to the filthy walls of the stall.

Yu An watched him carefully, raising a finger to his lips. Shh.

The man, barely breathing, nodded frantically, still trembling.

He was in his twenties, not much older than Yu An. Dressed in a flashy yellow jacket with a pair of sport headphones around his neck, he was good looking but a little short. But his nervousness was palpable. His eyes were wide, his breath ragged.

“You’re not here for surgery, are you? You’re a reporter, aren’t you?” The man whispered, glancing nervously at the door. He pushed it closed as best as he could, though the lock was broken, leaving it ajar.

Yu An didn’t answer directly, but the man’s sudden interest in him felt odd. His unsettling grin, the teeth glinting beneath his smile, made Yu An uneasy. He sheathed the knife, maintaining a careful distance from the man.

But the man leaned closer, whispering in his ear: “Look up.”

Yu An raised his head. Above the stall, the ceiling was disturbed. A rope hung from the adjacent stall’s ceiling, its taut length stretching downward. Something—someone—was suspended just beyond the edge of his view.

The man shuddered. “There’s someone hanging…”

“This place is cursed. It’s too horrifying here. I need to leave. Can you help me get out?” he begged, his voice trembling with panic.

“You can take the elevator down.” Yu An replied flatly, not wanting to engage further.

The man shook his head violently, his eyes wild with fear: “I’ve tried! The elevator shows it’s going down, but when the doors open… it’s still the same place. After doing their… procedures, they won’t let you leave unless you pay. No one gets out without paying!”

The man, his voice shaky, explained further: “I came here once before. During a live gaming stream, I got burned. My face was scarred, and, well… in this business, we have to rely on our looks. My career would have been over if they left me like that, so my agent sent me here.”

Yu An gave him a sideways glance. A game streamer?

“I didn’t even ask the price—my company paid for it. The surgeon was great, the scarring was gone instantly after the procedure. But when I tried to pay, they wouldn’t accept the money. Instead, they told me that I had to bring them a lock of hair within seven days.”

Yu An thought: “That’s… a blood deal.”

The man’s eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling as they gripped his own face: “They wanted the scalp attached to it!”

Yu An raised an eyebrow. A hair transplant operation?

“But I’m lucky. I have a friend in the underworld who knows someone at the crematorium. I paid him to steal a piece of it for me. I thought I could just get away with it.”

The man was visibly breaking down. His voice cracked, and he looked on the verge of losing it completely.

“I came back, hoping to fix my height before the fan meeting next month. I mean, I’m not ugly, but I’m short, and if I go there like this, I’ll lose a lot of followers. So, I came here for the height surgery.

The surgery was supposed to begin any moment now, but my consultant received a sudden message. Then, she turned to me and said, ‘The payment this time will be a left eyeball.’”

The man in the yellow jacket was unraveling, his face slick with cold sweat that streaked down his temples, soaking his hair. “I thought… I thought I could fake it. I planned to buy one from a crematorium, but… but…”

Yu An felt an ominous weight settle in his chest.

“But she said it has to have 6.0 vision!” The man’s voice cracked as his panic boiled over. “My eyes… my vision is exactly 6.0.”

“…” Yu An scratched his head, frowning.

Perfect vision on the international standard was 5.0. While some people exceeded this benchmark, such individuals were rare. Finding someone in a crematorium with such a specific requirement in just seven days? Nearly impossible.

He’d asked his consultant for a rare eye casually, not expecting this level of difficulty. If he’d known it would turn out like this, he might’ve joked and said 7.0 instead.

“Can’t you just refuse?”

“If the consultant can’t secure the resources, you can walk away. But once they do, the deal is sealed. If you can’t deliver the resource she wants within seven days, they’ll force you to plan a scheme to kidnap someone for them—preferably a fat one. And if you fail again, you’re as good as dead.”

The man’s voice trembled, his terror tipping into madness. His wide, desperate eyes fixed on Yu An.

“Your eyes… they look good too…” The sheer panic broke him, driving him to irrationality. He lunged, seizing Yu An’s shoulders and clawing wildly toward his face. “What’s your vision? Give it to me! Haha… GIVE IT TO ME!”

“My left eye? It’s useless. All it sees is a haze of mosquito-like static, flickering mosaics. Don’t believe me? Take a look.”

He raised a hand to his left socket and, with an unsettling precision, pressed and removed his malformed eye. The bulbous, distorted orb rested in his palm, shimmering grotesquely.

From the man’s perspective, the stranger in black had casually plucked out his own eye, as though showing him a trinket.

The freshly dislodged eye remained connected by thin nerves, rolling in Yu An’s hand. Its pupil locked onto the man, gazing at him with unsettling clarity, alive despite its removal.

Underneath Yu An’s left brow was now an empty, dark socket.

The man in the yellow jacket let out a scream that tore his throat, his voice cracking into something primal. His eyes rolled back as he fainted, crumpling to the floor. His limp body slid into a urinal, one leg dangling awkwardly.

“…” Yu An froze, momentarily stunned by the overreaction. Maybe he’d played one too many horror games. He had unconsciously assumed the man’s courage would match that of the average horror game streamer.

Silently, he pressed the eye back into its socket, adjusted it, and pulled his black hood low to cover his face.

The air in the empty office building was thick with silence, broken only by the echo of footsteps.

The distinct clack of high heels rang down the corridor outside the restroom, deliberate and unhurried.

The sound came from Room 704, growing louder, closer. It was probably heard the screams of the man in the yellow jacket.

The heels stopped at the bathroom door.

Yu An nudged the unconscious man deeper into the corner and placed a hand on the hilt of his dagger, his body tense and poised against the partition wall.

She entered. This was the men’s bathroom.

Her high heels clicked sharply against the marble floor as she moved toward the stalls, each step deliberate.

She stopped at the neighboring stall, testing the door. It didn’t open.

Yu An held his breath, his pulse pounding in his ears.

Then, silence.

The woman seemed to freeze, standing motionless outside the stall.

A full minute passed, agonizingly slow. Yu An crouched down, lowering himself to peer through the gap beneath the partition.

The moment he leaned forward, his heart stopped.

A face.

She was there, her head bent unnaturally low, peering through the gap with an impossibly wide smile. Her teeth gleamed, eight perfectly straight teeth in a plastic grin.

Yu An’s breath caught. A sharp, visceral chill raced up his spine, every hair on his body standing on end.

Fear drowned out thought.

He reacted on pure instinct, surging forward and kicking the stall door with all his strength. The decrepit door gave way with a splintering crack, flying off its hinges. It struck the woman, flinging her into the opposite wall.

The force was enough to seriously injure—if not kill—a normal person.

But she didn’t cry out.

She lay silently beneath the fallen door. Then, with deliberate slowness, she lifted it off herself and rose.

The side of her head was caved in, the indent deep and grotesque. Yet her grin remained, fixed and unyielding. Her neck twisted as she turned to face him, her eyes flickering erratically, rolling in opposite directions like malfunctioning machinery.

Yu An’s grip tightened on his dagger. Now certain she wasn’t human, he charged, driving the blade down with all his strength.

There was no blood. Only the hollow scrape of metal against plastic, accompanied by faint static from a hidden speaker.

His stomach sank as he realized the truth.

She wasn’t human.

She was a mannequin, like those used in clothing stores, her body molded plastic. Only her head bore a disturbingly lifelike mask, stitched on with cruel precision.

Panting, Yu An stepped back, sliding his dagger into the sheath strapped to his thigh.

Before he could regain his composure, he heard a sound.

The doors opposite the restroom—the white, European-style ones—began to creak.

Their handles jiggled, and one by one, the doors to Rooms 701, 702, and 703 opened.

From each doorway emerged a consultant, their faces fixed with the same eerie, mechanical smile. Their movements were stiff, their joints creaking. Each one carried a sterile metal tray.

The consultant from Room 701 held a severed finger.

The one from Room 702 carried two segments of a dismembered leg.

The tray from Room 703 was empty, except for a label neatly affixed to its side: Eyeball.

The three consultants moved in eerie synchrony, each turning sharply to the right before taking measured steps toward the adjacent rooms. The consultant from Room 701 disappeared into Room 702, the one from 702 entered 703, and so forth, as if performing a grim ritual.

Yu An stood frozen, his breath caught in his throat, his gaze locked on their mechanical movements. The horrific logic of the cosmetic surgery project became painfully clear. From the client in Room 701, they had harvested a single finger, which they had then attached to the person in Room 702. From 702, they extracted a pair of legs to graft onto 703’s occupant.

The realization hit him like a blow: the person in Room 703 could only be the man in the yellow jacket, now unconscious in the restroom stall. He had sought new legs to increase his height, and the clinic had delivered.

But then there was Room 704—his room. If they took the man’s eye as payment, what would they demand from him?

A sudden, unnatural crack snapped the air. The consultant on the threshold of Room 704 twisted her head, rotating it a full 180 degrees to face Yu An, who was still concealed in the shadows of the restroom.

Her unblinking smile fixed on him like a predator’s gaze.

As if summoned by her motion, the other two consultants turned their heads in unison, their faces still plastered with that grotesque grin, their eyes locking onto Yu An.

He had been discovered.

Without thinking, Yu An spun on his heel and fled.

The darkness enveloped him as he darted out of the restroom, his black hood aiding his swift, silent movements. He sprinted in the opposite direction from the consultants, but dread gnawed at him. He had already studied the layout earlier. The office building was designed in a looping square. No matter how far he ran, the path would eventually bring him back.

Ahead, the lights had already vanished, leaving him to race blindly down a corridor lined with imposing white European-style doors, each marked with a “7.”

Behind him, the doorknobs began to rattle and turn. The sound of latches snapping open echoed through the hall. Doors burst wide, and one after another, the consultants poured out, their fixed smiles gleaming faintly in the dimness. They moved toward him in unison, a wave of inhuman persistence, their rigid limbs and unyielding gait unrelenting.

The corridor ahead was a tunnel of blackness, devoid of any light. Behind him, the grinning horde pressed forward, cutting off any retreat. Yu An forced himself onward, ignoring the burning in his lungs, his fingers trembling as he considered reaching for his flashlight—until he realized he didn’t have time.

Then, out of nowhere, he felt it.

A hand—warm, steady, and strong—wrapped itself around his own.

In the oppressive darkness, Yu An couldn’t see who it belonged to. All he knew was the sudden, comforting heat of those fingers as they pulled him forward.

“Interviewer? Is that you?” His voice wavered, nearly swallowed by his labored breaths as he allowed himself to be led.

They weaved through the blackness, turning sharply at unseen corners, the path growing more labyrinthine with each step in the darkness The owner of the hand didn’t say a word.

But the hand guiding him was resolute, its touch transmitting a strange sense of calm. It steadied him, its silent assurance acting as a beacon in the suffocating dark.