Chapter 132 Day and Night
After finishing the call, Lin Qiushi sat up from his bed. He went to the living room and checked the door and TV, confirming that everything was still in the same condition he had seen yesterday, without any damage.
After confirming these things, Lin Qiushi hurried out the door. On the way, he received a call from Wu Qi asking him why he didn't go to work.
"I have something to do." Lin Qiushi, who was in the car, had actually completely forgotten that he had to go to work. He said perfunctorily, "Please ask for leave for me."
Wu Qi asked, "Oh, how long would it take?"
Lin Qiushi: "Half a year?"
Wu Qi was shocked: "...half a year?? Are you planning to resign?"
Lin Qiushi glanced at his watch, no longer in the mood for work. "Or just help me quit."
Wu Qi seemed to want to say something, but the words were on the tip of his tongue and he couldn't get them out. He just sighed, "Okay, I'll ask for leave for you. If there's anything, you must tell me. Don't carry it all on your own."
Lin Qiushi nodded, his expression still very solemn.
The car drove forward and arrived at the place Lin Qiushi wanted to go after about an hour. Lin Qiushi got out of the car, went upstairs, and knocked on the door. His movements were done in one go, but in fact, just these few simple actions required him to prepare mentally for a long time in the car.
The door he knocked on opened after a while, revealing the beautiful face of a middle-aged woman behind it - it was Ruan Nanzhu's mother.
Because Ruan Nanzhu had taken Lin Qiushi back home once before entering, Lin Qiushi clearly remembered the location of Ruan Nanzhu's house. He came this time to confirm one thing...
"Hello, Auntie." Lin Qiushi greeted her politely.
"Hello." The middle-aged woman looked at Lin Qiushi puzzledly and asked, "What can I do for you?"
"I want to ask you, do you know Ruan Nanzhu?" Lin Qiushi asked cautiously.
"Ruan Nanzhu?" The woman's suspicious tone made Lin Qiushi's heart sink. The confusion on her face intensified. "Sorry, I don't know this person."
"Do you know Ruan Baiye?" Lin Qiushi said another name, which was the name of Ruan Nanzhu's brother.
"Bai Ye? He's my son..." Ruan's mother said, "He's not at home now and won't be back until tonight. Do you have something to ask him?"
Lin Qiushi asked, "You... only have one son?"
Mother Ruan nodded, and the look in her eyes when she looked at Lin Qiushi became increasingly strange. That was right, coming to her house suddenly and asking such questions made it seem like Lin Qiushi didn't seem like a normal person.
Lin Qiushi didn't know what to say. After saying goodbye to Ruan's mother, he hurried downstairs and rushed to another place.
Ruan Nanzhu's existence was wiped out. No one in this world knew a person named Ruan Nanzhu, not even his parents. So, along with the obsidian, it no longer existed...
This time, Lin Qiushi went to Bailu, which was led by Li Dongyuan.
Upon arriving at Bailu's base, Lin Qiushi discovered that a building that had originally belonged to Bailu had been converted into a commercial office building, labeled XX Bank. Lin Qiushi stood at the door, pondering how to get upstairs, when he saw a familiar face enter. The man, dressed in a suit, was talking to someone nearby. Judging by his appearance, it was the baby-faced Li Dongyuan.
Seeing this, Lin Qiushi hurried forward and called out, "Li Dongyuan!"
Li Dongyuan paused and looked in his direction, his eyes distant and cautious. "Who are you? If you have anything to say, please make an appointment with my secretary first."
"I—" Lin Qiushi said, "Do you know me?"
Li Dongyuan raised his eyebrows. He didn't say anything, but his expression had already given Lin Qiushi the answer. He didn't know Lin Qiushi and even thought Lin Qiushi's question was very strange.
"You don't know me?" Lin Qiushi couldn't explain his feelings at the moment.
"Should I know you?" Li Dongyuan looked at Lin Qiushi with a half-smile.
Lin Qiushi suddenly thought of something and asked, "Then do you know Zhuang Rujiao?"
Li Dongyuan remained silent, still looking unfamiliar with the name.
"Where is Jin Yurui?" Lin Qiushi tried again.
"Do you know her?" Li Dongyuan's smile faded. "You are hers."
Lin Qiushi could finally determine why some people in this world no longer existed. It was because they were still alive, still living in the world outside the door, and therefore they did not exist inside this door. Li Dongyuan and Jin Yurui were both dead, so they had completely new identities inside this door.
Apart from those who died inside the door, other people who had nothing to do with the door seemed unaffected by this law. They existed outside the door and inside the door, and had nothing to do with life and death.
"Do you have anything else to do?" Li Dongyuan looked at the thoughtful Lin Qiushi and raised his chin slightly with a cold expression. "If you don't have anything else, please leave first. This is the office."
Lin Qiushi glanced at him, then turned and left.
"Who is this person?" The person next to Li Dongyuan asked as he watched Lin Qiushi walk away.
"I don't know." Li Dongyuan said, "I just feel that it looks familiar. Forget it, bring the information over and I'll confirm it..."
Lin Qiushi left Bailu's base and glanced at his watch. It was already noon. An idea occurred to him. He pulled out his phone and booked a round-trip flight to City C for the next morning.
He had some things he wanted to confirm in City C, but it would be too late to go there today. He had to seize the time tomorrow morning and try to go back and forth within one day.
In fact, Lin Qiushi didn't want to try to spend the night on the plane. Who knows what terrible things might happen then.
After grabbing lunch somewhere, Lin Qiushi returned home for a nap. Thinking about what was about to happen that night, he thought he'd have trouble sleeping, but in reality, he slept soundly. He fell asleep as soon as he lay down on the bed, and when he woke up, it was already five in the afternoon. Li Zi sat beside him, meowing, looking hungry again.
Lin Qiushi got up, made some food for Li Zi, and ordered some takeout for himself. He ate while watching TV.
He saw the promotion for Tan Zaozao's new movie. From the promotional slogan, Lin Qiushi learned that Tan Zaozao had won an award. The winning movie was exactly the same as the one outside the door, except that the director was changed and it was no longer Zhang Yiqing.
This place is so similar to the world where Lin Qiushi lives, but there is an essential difference - Ruan Nanzhu, the person Lin Qiushi wants to see the most, is not here.
Fortunately, this door is probably an insurmountable obstacle for many people. For example, Zhuang Rujiao and Cheng Yixie, because here they can see their loved ones again...
As the night deepened, Lin Qiushi made all preparations.
At around ten o'clock, it suddenly started raining outside.
Heavy rain washed over the sun-scorched earth. Lin Qiushi stood by the window, watching some people who were walking on the roadside rush back home in a panic. Only the empty street lights and the occasional passing car were left outside.
Li Zi fell asleep, lying on the sofa, his breathing became quiet, the TV was still broadcasting boring programs, and a strange silence began to spread in the house.
Lin Qiushi smelled the scent of rainwater moistening the soil. He used to like this smell, but later he encountered some problems after entering a certain door. From then on, the fishy smell of rainwater became unpleasant to him.
The hour hand moves little by little, and it will soon be twelve o'clock.
Lin Qiushi sat in the living room, like a soul awaiting the judgment of the god of death. The transition from day to night was approaching, and the clock hanging on the wall finally began to chime. Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong... twelve chimes heralded the arrival of another world.
As soon as twelve o'clock arrived, there was another knock on Lin Qiushi's door. He came to the door with his bag on his back. Through the peephole, he saw a woman standing outside his door, smiling at him.
He remembered the woman's name, it was the NPC hidden in the crowd in Sister Drum, Xu Jin.
"Come out quickly," Xu Jin said to Lin Qiushi. "Come out quickly! My sister is here to see you."
Lin Qiushi did not open the door. He heard a slight sound coming from the window. Lin Qiushi turned his head and saw a person sticking to the outside of his window.
It was a skinned person, her body a bloody mess. Her blood-red face was pressed against Lin Qiushi's glass, her mouth wide open, baring her sharp white teeth. She seemed to be trying to open the window that Lin Qiushi had locked, and judging by her movements, she was about to succeed.
It seemed that the only option at this moment was to open the door. Lin Qiushi gritted his teeth, turned the doorknob, and faced Xu Jin outside.
Xu Jin clearly understood Lin Qiushi's concerns and chuckled. "How could I bear to hit you?" she said. She paused, her gaze fixed on Lin Qiushi's backpack. "My diary is still in your hands. Have you read it carefully?"
Lin Qiushi: “…” Why did he feel like he was being teased?
But he didn't have much time to dwell on this problem, because Xu Jin's sister was about to climb out of the window. Xu Jin grabbed Lin Qiushi's wrist, turned around and ran. The two walked along the corridor and reached the elevator.
"Go in, but be careful," Xu Jin said, "there are other things that want to kill you."
Lin Qiushi asked, "What about you?" He remembered that Xu Jin and her sister didn't seem to have a good relationship.
Xu Jin said, "Me?" She curled her eyes and suddenly smiled, "How do you know that I don't want to take your life?" After she said this, the skin on her body began to fall off piece by piece. Lin Qiushi was frightened and quickly got into the elevator and pressed the number key.
Xu Jin giggled again. Her laughter was as crisp as a silver bell, forming a sharp contrast with her horrible appearance at the moment.
Although he looked terrifying, Xu Jin had no intention of chasing after Lin Qiushi.
The elevator started to move, and Lin Qiushi should have been safe, but the strange feeling of danger once again hit him.
Lin Qiushi looked around and got goosebumps all over his body after seeing something hanging in the elevator. Behind him, on the elevator wall that should have been empty, there was a huge black-framed picture hanging. The picture frame was empty, but the direction of the picture frame was exactly where he was standing.
Lin Qiushi reacted quickly and pressed the floor closest to him. At the same time, some faint black water stains seemed to appear on the white drawing paper in the picture frame. At first, it was just a drop, and then it began to spread on the drawing paper.
The shape that looked like a water stain began to resemble more and more a woman, spreading and expanding on the drawing paper, filling the entire huge frame in a very short time.
Fortunately, the elevator just arrived at the nearest floor at this time. Lin Qiushi turned around and left. As soon as he left the elevator, a pair of pale hands stretched out from the drawing paper, groping around, as if trying to grab something.
Lin Qiushi was on the sixth floor at the moment. After exiting the elevator, he turned and entered the emergency passage next to it, then walked down the stairs.
The light in the stairs was dim, and he could barely see the road under his feet. Lin Qiushi ran down two floors, but felt something was wrong. After looking carefully, he found that he was actually wandering around on the sixth floor.
The stairs seemed to have turned into a Möbius strip. Whether going up or down, the sixth floor was always there.
Lin Qiushi stopped his hurried steps and observed his surroundings for a moment. He noticed that black water stains began to appear on the white ceiling of the stairwell, and the air was filled with the fishy smell of water that made people feel cold all over.
The thing was chasing him, so Lin Qiushi made a quick decision, turning away from the stairwell and heading for the hallway. However, upon returning to the hallway, Lin Qiushi noticed a terrifying change in the scene. The walls on both sides were covered in black picture frames, each depicting a human with a hideous expression. The ceramic floor was now covered in a thick black blanket—the pattern of the blanket was exactly the same as the one he had seen inside the door.
Lin Qiushi raised his head and looked towards the end of the corridor. There was also a painting hanging at the end of the corridor. The painting was of a woman dressed in black and wearing a long pointed hat. She had her eyes half closed, but seemed to be staring at Lin Qiushi who was looking at him at the end of the corridor.
Lin Qiushi wanted to leave the corridor, but when he turned around, he found that the stairwell he had just come from had disappeared, and the distance of the corridor seemed to be gradually shortening. Lin Qiushi could clearly feel that the woman's painting was getting closer and closer to him...
At that moment, a drop of water fell on Lin Qiushi's forehead. Lin Qiushi wiped it with his hand and realized it was blood. He raised his head reflexively and found that a black hole had appeared on his head. Blood dripped from the hole onto his head. A pair of black eyes appeared in the darkness, and then a pair of bloody hands reached out from the hole towards Lin Qiushi.
Lin Qiushi instinctively wanted to step back, but strangely, the hands stopped in front of him, and miraculously he didn't sense any danger from them.
The corridor was shrinking continuously, as if it was a cage that was about to trap Lin Qiushi inside. Lin Qiushi gritted his teeth, raised his hand and grasped the bloody hands, then felt a force pulling him out of the increasingly smaller corridor.
"Oh, it seems you still can't do without me." This was Xu Jin's voice, but she was completely unrecognizable from the outside. The skin on her body was gone, leaving only scarlet flesh. At this moment, her eyes were looking at Lin Qiushi with a smile. This strong contrast was very grotesque, but Lin Qiushi did not find it scary.
"Thank you." Lin Qiushi thanked her.
Xu Jin didn't say anything. Her eyes passed Lin Qiushi and looked behind him.
Lin Qiushi seemed to notice something and turned his head to look. He found a pair of red eyes appearing on the other side of the darkness.
"Sister, my sister." The owner of the eyes was also a flayed monster. She had no legs and could only walk on her hands, but her movements were not slow. She stared at Lin Qiushi with vicious eyes, baring her teeth like a hyena looking for prey. The malice in her eyes was almost tangible. She said, "Why did you betray me? Do you like him that much? Since you like him, how about I let him accompany you?"
Xu Jin tilted her head and laughed too. She said, "But sister, even if you do this, I won't like you."
After she said this, she shouted to Lin Qiushi to run, and then pounced towards her sister in front of her. The two monsters entangled together.
Lin Qiushi stood up and ran towards the light. When he ran into the light, he found that he had run out of the apartment and was standing in the courtyard of the community.
It was still raining outside. Lin Qiushi took out an umbrella from his backpack, slowly opened it, and walked into the rain.
The road was empty except for the splash of raindrops on the ground. The sound of rain was noisy, but at this moment, this noise made the world even quieter.
"Help—Help—" A miserable cry for help suddenly rang out. A stumbling figure appeared in the rain. Lin Qiushi could barely make out her appearance. It was a pitiful girl in a long skirt, stumbling as she ran in the rain. She seemed to be being chased by something. After catching sight of Lin Qiushi standing not far away, she rushed towards him as if she had discovered an oasis in the desert. "Help! Help!"
She said, "Please save me, something is trying to kill me..." She fell to the ground and looked at Lin Qiushi pitifully, "You are also a married woman, right? I am also a married woman, this door is so scary—"
If this happened in the real world, Lin Qiushi would have definitely stepped forward to help the girl up, but at this moment he did not move, and his brows slightly frowned. In fact, he felt that the person in front of him looked somewhat familiar. To be precise, everything that appeared at night was familiar. He must have seen this person somewhere.
"Sir, sir." Seeing Lin Qiushi's indifference, the woman lying in the rain slowly climbed to her feet. She raised her hand to wipe the rain from her face and said in a trembling voice, "I know a safe place. I can take you there. Do you want to come with me?"
Lin Qiushi asked, "Do I know you?"
The woman said, "We met before, inside this door, and you helped me." Her eyelashes fluttered slightly, and she looked pitiful. "But I was not so good as to survive."
"Have we seen each other inside this door?" Lin Qiushi felt that her features looked familiar. He asked, "Which door?"
The woman walked towards Lin Qiushi and said, "That's the fan."
Lin Qiushi looked at her and suddenly said, "There's something behind you."
The woman stopped walking.
"A huge picture frame," Lin Qiushi said, "She's chasing me."
The woman turned around in horror, but didn't see anything behind her. She suddenly realized that Lin Qiushi had recognized her, and her originally pitiful expression suddenly became gloomy.
"Long time no see," Lin Qiushi said, "Yang Meishu."
The woman sneered: "You can actually recognize me?"
Lin Qiushi spread his hands, "I didn't mean to, but the number of people who harbor ill will towards me can be counted on one hand. Since you're not a ghost, you must be someone who hates me..." He paused and quickly said, "She really did chase after me."
Yang Meishu didn't believe Lin Qiushi's words. She said, "Do you think I'm stupid? I was fooled by you once, and you want to fool me a second time? I..." She was talking excitedly, but she felt a gust of wind behind her. Yang Meishu turned around and saw the woman in black standing behind her. Her pale face had no expression, and she was holding a black photo frame in her hand, which was thrown towards Yang Meishu.
Yang Meishu knew that she was doomed and let out a shrill scream. After the scream, she turned into a painting in the woman's hand. She was soaked all over, her expression was full of fear and resentment, but so vivid.
Lin Qiushi took advantage of this opportunity to run further away. The woman didn't seem to have any intention of chasing him, but simply stared coldly at Lin Qiushi's retreating back.
It was raining heavily and Lin Qiushi was soaked from head to toe. In such heavy rain, the umbrella was almost useless. While running forward, he took out his mobile phone and sent a text message to Ruan Nanzhu.
"How are things going over there?" Lin Qiushi thought for a moment and then sent another message, "I'm fine here, don't worry."
After the text message was sent, there was no response for a long time. It was not until Lin Qiushi found a place to shelter from the rain that the text message rang again. There were only six words displayed on it: I'm fine, don't worry.
Lin Qiushi smiled wryly at the message. It had never occurred to him that if Ruan Nanzhu was truly alright, he wouldn't have sent such a brief message. Ruan Nanzhu had cleared so many doors, and who knew how many malicious NPCs and deceased humans he'd encountered at night. Knowing him well, if he wasn't so overwhelmed, he would have definitely messaged Lin Qiushi to inquire about his situation. Now that he even replied so briefly, the situation over there must be grim.
Lin Qiushi really wanted to be by his side and accompany him. He held the phone tightly and thought bitterly that no matter what he went through, as long as he could be by his side, it would be fine.
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