1TWITF[C Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Lu Yanli returned to “his” residence.

They were assigned to an old-fashioned residential building, four stories high, with brick-red exterior walls covered in ivy, giving them a cold and damp feeling as soon as they entered. A quick glance revealed yellowed walls with water stains and tiny ants crawling around. When touched by mugwort smoke, they disappeared into the cracks in the wall.

“It’s the returning southern air recently, my legs are hurting again.” The old man smoking mugwort turned around, smilingly asked, “Little Lu, are you still having nightmares?”

Lu Yanli showed a gentle smile: “Not anymore.”

“Please tell me.”

Lu Yanli said okay, watching his back cross the threshold. The old man was old, his steps were a bit stiff. When crossing the high threshold, he first stood sideways, lifted one leg with both hands and placed it straight over, then did the same to get the other leg over the other side of the step.

“No one?!” The old man clearly hadn’t gone far! No… Lu Yanli turned his head and looked, the old man was already gone. He rushed to the door and looked outside, but he didn’t see anyone.

“Old man?” Fang Ping’s heart tightened, and he exchanged glances with the two people behind him, shaking his head implicitly.

“It’s good that nothing happened, rest early.” Fang Ping said.

Lu Yanli also guessed it, but since they wanted to hide it, there was no need for him to expose it.

“Okay.”

Zhou Qi filled a pot of hot water and carried it upstairs. Lu Yanli followed behind him, secretly looking around.

“Hey, Little Lu, you’re back early today?”

Captain Yang frowned and puffed on his cigarette. Lu Yanli let him look him over, his eyes firm and calm.

Knife glanced at Lu Yanli’s pale face, grinned, and smiled: “Okay.”

Everyone was very friendly to Lu Yanli, but he didn’t believe it.

After smiling gently and accepting it on the surface, he kept thinking in his mind about how to get out of the predicament.

“Sorry, didn’t pay attention.”

Lu Yanli followed behind him and stopped in front of a bronze-green door. He fumbled on his body, found a bunch of keys, and simply handed them to the other party. Zhou Qi didn’t suspect anything, took it and opened the door.

On the large window opposite the main door of the room, there was a promotional picture of a woman, blocking the light. That face… Lu Yanli was very familiar with.

In the returning southern air, the walls were wet, seeping water, flowing out streaks of yellowed wet marks. Even the poster was curled due to the dampness.

The eyes on the poster had been chasing him, Lu Yanli felt very uncomfortable, but he didn’t want to tear it off rashly, so he tested Zhou Qi.

That woman’s face had been looking at Lu Yanli with a smile. The iron frame window had rusted. Zhou Qi’s movements were slightly larger, and the rust and water stains stained the back of the paper. From the front, two lines of blood flowed from the woman’s eyes.

Lu Yanli said: “You sleep on the top, I’ll sort things out.”

Without waiting for Zhou Qi to refuse, he had already cleared the upper bunk and also took a rag, wetted it with water, and planned to wipe it clean.

The glass was blurry, old and rusty. Even if the sun shone through, it was dim. Lu Yanli turned the latch a few times and pushed hard—with a “creak,” the window was pushed open.

Across the street on the other side was a lush forest. When the wind blew, all the green leaves and moisture came in, occasionally mixed with the chaotic conversations of the people below.

Just before he was about to withdraw his gaze, Lu Yanli’s eyes suddenly condensed, and he immediately turned his head to look!

He saw it—

On a branch extending from a tree stood a woman wearing a blood-red robe with a hideous face, her long hair scattered down, covering half of her face with bulging veins. She was staring at Lu Yanli intently!

Seeing that Lu Yanli had discovered her, the woman slowly grinned, revealing sharp fangs. She stretched out her hand and pointed in the direction where Lu Yanli was.

Lu Yanli was very sure that he had not seen that figure just now. He turned his head to call Zhou Qi. When he looked again, the woman had disappeared.

“What did you see?” Zhou Qi, who was called over by him, asked suspiciously, sticking his head out. No matter how he looked at it, everything was normal, and there was nothing.

“It’s nothing, I saw wrong.” Lu Yanli said calmly.

But he could be sure that tonight would not be peaceful.

The whole building gradually became quiet, with only the whistling wind passing through the long corridor, beating on the window lattices. They scraped in through the window cracks, making a whirring sound like a woman crying.

He heard… footsteps in the corridor.

“Tap, tap, tap…”

The door was knocked.

Three gentle knocks.

Naturally, no one opened the door. Zhou Qi was sleeping soundly and didn’t hear it at all. Lu Yanli would never get up to open the door either.

It was useless. He heard the latch behind the door being slowly moved.

Then, the door was gently pushed open, making a tooth-aching friction sound of an old metal door rusting.

The woman slowly walked in, and the sound of high heels stopped by the bed.

Lu Yanli sensed a gaze circling on his face. He didn’t move, breathing lightly, pretending that he was already fast asleep.

The feeling of being watched didn’t disappear, but became stronger and stronger.

Zhou Qi turned over on the upper bunk, muttering a few words. Just when Lu Yanli thought he was about to wake up, Zhou Qi’s muttering stopped, and he continued to snore.

Lu Yanli didn’t speak, continuing to pretend to be asleep without moving.

These things were not the first time. He knew that he must not open his eyes at this time to see something he shouldn’t see.

A rustling sound rang out. Suddenly, a cold wind blew past his ear, with a bit of itchiness, as if some hair had fallen beside his ear.

Lu Yanli still didn’t move. Intuition told him that he couldn’t open his eyes at this time.

But he still didn’t open his eyes, always “sleeping soundly,” and the sound of high heels never rang out.

That woman… had been staying in the room, without leaving!

Half asleep and half awake, Zhou Qi was awakened by the urge to urinate. He touched the watch placed beside the pillow and squinted his eyes to look at it. It was still early, and it would be several hours before dawn.

Zhou Qi woke up.

Lu Yanli heard the sound of the other person getting out of bed. After a while, the light sound of high heels rang out in the room, gradually moving away.

But he had a dangerous intuition, which made him remain lying on the bed without moving.

Zhou Qi was completely unaware. He came to the end of the corridor and walked in.

He felt a bit cold on his body, especially on his back, and always felt like he couldn’t walk. He thought he hadn’t slept well.

The sound of dripping water rang out.

It was getting heavier and heavier on his body… his back ached, did he have a stiff neck?

Zhou Qi shook himself twice. He put on his pants. He was about to turn around to wash his hands, but he felt his body getting heavier and heavier, and it was difficult even to walk.

What’s wrong with me?

He touched his forehead, but he wasn’t sick.

Zhou Qi was startled by his own imagination. He tried hard to recover, holding on to the wet and slippery corridor handrail, slowly walking forward.

Still… can’t walk…

Zhou Qi saw two legs belonging to a woman.

Pale, blue, covered with corpse spots, and wearing red high heels on her feet.

He finally understood what was happening, and reached out to touch behind him—he touched a cold body.

He suddenly thought of something.

When he came out just now, the door was open.

But, they had clearly locked the door before going to bed…

What thing had come in?

“Ugh…” He couldn’t make a cry for help in his throat. Zhou Qi struggled to crawl forward with his limbs. Slowly, his eyes widened…

With a crow of a rooster, the sky dawned.

People got up early. Lu Yanli didn’t fall asleep, listening carefully with his eyes closed. Outside the door, there were clanging sounds, and a commotion broke out, not knowing what had happened.

Zhou Qi hadn’t come back all night, could it be… his body had been discovered?

Suspecting it was a hallucination, Lu Yanli didn’t wake up until a hand with body temperature shook him vigorously and patted his face, then Lu Yanli opened his eyes.

“What head?” Lu Yanli was shocked, and sat up to look over.

He saw the other person’s face through the long hair, then quickly retracted his gaze and looked at the man who had just spoken, pointing to the headboard of his upper bunk.

“It was just now, hanging here?”

On the horizontal bar of the headboard, there was a bloody knot. It seemed that they had just taken scissors and cut the rope.

“Yes.” Captain Yang stared at Lu Yanli’s pale face, on which he could no longer see the panic of the past few days. He asked, “Zhou Qi lived with you last night, didn’t he?”

Lu Yanli was startled, nodded, and seemed to react. He immediately asked, “What happened to him?”

The crowd, who had originally been whispering because of fear, instantly quieted down.

Captain Yang glanced at the woman’s head, then looked at Lu Yanli, saying word by word, “He’s dead.”

“What?!” Lu Yanli was shocked on the spot, his face even paler. He turned his head to look at the others, trying to get a negative answer, but… everyone who came into contact with his gaze turned their heads away, without responding, tacitly agreeing.

Lu Yanli was still immersed in shock and couldn’t recover.

“It’s her.” Captain Yang pointed to the woman’s head on the ground.

“Her head was found hanging above your bunk, and her body… along with Zhou Qi’s, was hanging on the clothesline outside.”

“Now, Zhou Qi’s head is also missing.” The wrinkles at the corners of Captain Yang’s mouth were deeper because he was pursing his lips tightly. He asked, “Haven’t you been saying you’re having nightmares? Last night, did you hear anything? Or, do you know anything?”

The eyes of the others looked over, all staring at him.

“I…”

Just as he was about to speak, an extremely dangerous and terrifying intuition quickly surged into his heart. Lu Yanli suddenly realized that something was wrong.

These people… have no shadows!

“How could you not know?”

“Wake up! Don’t sleep!”

“Tell us quickly! What did you see?!”

Lu Yanli turned a deaf ear, letting those voices coax, threaten, and the hands pushing him also became impatient. He thought for a while and sang that song in his heart. In an instant, those voices disappeared, and the room returned to silence.

A long, long time passed, and the sun rose.

The real sunlight shone in, and then… Lu Yanli heard a scream.