Chapter 72 Fire
There were only two beds in the room, so someone was destined to sleep on the sofa. Lin Qiushi, consciously displaying his respect for the elderly and children, and prioritizing women, firmly stated that he could sleep on the sofa, while Cheng Yixie and Ruan Nanzhu could sleep on the bed.
Cheng Yixie didn't bother to be polite with Lin Qiushi. He changed into pajamas and climbed into bed to sleep.
Ruan Nanzhu sat by the bed and looked at him for a long time.
Lin Qiushi felt strangely terrified by his gaze: "Why are you looking at me?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Because you are pretty."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Ruan Nanzhu: "Do you want to squeeze in with me?" He patted the bed under him.
Lin Qiushi declined, saying he would come back if he truly couldn't sleep. Ruan Nanzhu tilted his head, but didn't force it, saying yes.
The sofa here was actually quite spacious and soft, and sleeping on it wasn't uncomfortable at all. Lin Qiushi draped a thin blanket over himself and turned his gaze to the mirror on the floor. The mirror was now covered with a bath towel, obscuring its bright surface and preventing anyone below from seeing what was happening inside. They also checked the other mirrors in the room and discovered both two-way and one-way mirrors. They then spent some time covering all of the two-way mirrors with towels.
The apartment was very new and seemed to have just been renovated. Lin Qiushi curled up on the sofa and fell asleep in a daze.
The first night in this world is usually quite peaceful. Lin Qiushi thought he would sleep through the next day, but he didn't expect to be woken up by Cheng Yixie in the middle of the night.
When Lin Qiushi woke up, he saw Cheng Yixie sitting on the edge of the bed with a frown on his face, his nose twitching constantly as if he was sniffing something.
"Yixie, what's wrong?" Lin Qiushi asked in a daze.
"There's a smell." Cheng Yixie whispered, "...the smell of something burning. Do you smell it?"
Lin Qiushi was stunned when he heard this. He moved his nose hard, but couldn't detect any scent. So he shook his head and said, "No, I can't smell anything."
Cheng Yixie stopped talking. He stood up, walked to the wall, and squatted down to observe.
This action seemed really strange. Lin Qiushi looked at his back and was about to ask a question when he heard Ruan Nanzhu on the bed next to him ask softly, "What's wrong?" Ruan Nanzhu also woke up.
Cheng Yixie was still observing the corner.
The light golden wallpaper covered almost every corner of the room. Lin Qiushi saw Cheng Yixie stand up, walk to the table, pick up a fruit peeler, then return to the wall and start scraping the wallpaper.
After a few minutes, the wallpaper was scraped off, revealing a pitch-black color.
In the dim light, Lin Qiushi saw the wall behind the wallpaper. He showed a slightly stunned expression: "Was there...a fire in this room?" The wall was a charred black, clearly indicating something had happened in this room.
Cheng Yixie began to cough softly, as if he was choked by some smell.
Ruan Nanzhu looked at Cheng Yixie, got up and went to the bathroom. There, he took out a wet towel and handed it to Cheng Yixie: "Cover it."
Cheng Yixie took it and covered his mouth and nose with it, and the coughing eased slightly.
"It seems like there was an accident in this apartment before," Ruan Nanzhu said, "at least there was a fire."
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Qiushi unexpectedly smelled something burning. Initially, he thought it was an illusion and looked at Ruan Nanzhu. Ruan Nanzhu nodded at him, "I smell it too."
He quickly went into the bathroom, prepared two wet towels, handed one to Lin Qiushi, and said, "I'll go out and take a look."
Lin Qiushi covered his mouth and nose with a towel and said, "Come along, I'm going too."
Ruan Nanzhu did not refuse and walked towards the door.
There was silence outside the room, and no one else seemed to notice the strange smell. But as soon as Cheng Yixie left the room, his brows furrowed even more.
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at him and asked, "Is the smell stronger?"
Cheng Yixie nodded, his eyes wandering around the corridor, as if trying to identify something. Lin Qiushi also vaguely heard some strange noises. These noises were very subtle, a bit like someone scratching at a door panel... He looked in the direction of the sound, and at the same time, Cheng Yixie pointed to the end of the corridor.
The rooms at the end of the corridor all have double beds, and it seems that there are only two girls living there.
They took a few steps toward that direction. Lin Qiushi was about to walk towards the place where the sound came from, but Ruan Nanzhu stopped him.
"What's wrong?" Lin Qiushi was slightly stunned.
Ruan Nanzhu didn't say anything, but suddenly raised his head.
Lin Qiushi followed his gaze and discovered that the corridor was also lined with mirrors overhead, reflecting the entire corridor. At this moment, the image in the mirror also raised its head and performed the same movement as Lin Qiushi.
Ruan Nanzhu pointed to the end of the corridor again.
Lin Qiushi understood what he meant and looked up at the end of the corridor in the mirror. He held his breath at this glance. He saw in the mirror that there was a raging fire at the end of the corridor.
The raging fire burst out from the crack in the door, accompanied by thick black smoke.
Lin Qiushi finally knew where the pungent smell came from. He retracted his gaze and looked at the corridor again, and saw that the end of the corridor in the real world was still shrouded in darkness, without a trace of fire.
"Cough cough cough." Cheng Yixie couldn't help coughing.
Lin Qiushi asked, "Will this fire come over here?"
Ruan Nanzhu shook his head, "I don't know."
Lin Qiushi looked at the end of the corridor in the mirror. The flames were burning more fiercely, and the iron security door seemed to be deformed. The sound of knocking on the door began to become sharper, accompanied by low howling - there seemed to be someone inside the door.
"Help, help..." Someone was calling for help.
Lin Qiushi wasn't sure if he alone could hear the sound, or if they could all hear it, so he asked, "Did you hear it?"
Ruan Nanzhu and Cheng Yixie both shook their heads, indicating that they didn't hear anything.
However, Ruan Nanzhu said: "Although I didn't hear it, I saw it."
"What did you see?" Lin Qiushi asked doubtfully.
Ruan Nanzhu said, "A hand stretched out from the room." He observed carefully, "Now there are two."
Just when Lin Qiushi was thinking that he saw nothing, a hand gently patted his back. He was frightened and broke out in a cold sweat. Turning around, he saw a man and a woman standing behind him. Lin Qiushi had some impression of these two people. He should have seen them before downstairs of the apartment. They were part of his team.
"What are you looking at?" the woman asked.
The two men appeared silently, and none of the three of them actually noticed them. If Lin Qiushi hadn't seen them before, he would have thought they were ghosts.
Lin Qiushi thought that this ninth door was indeed a place where hidden dragons and crouching tigers were hidden.
Ruan Nanzhu seemed quite calm when he saw the two people. He said, "Watch the fireworks."
The woman smiled. "Fireworks?" she asked. "Are they pretty?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Average."
The woman said, "Prettier than me?"
Ruan Nanzhu also smiled and said calmly, "Prettier than you, but not as pretty as me."
The smile on the woman's face disappeared, and anger began to show in her eyes. She stared at Ruan Nanzhu's face with a rather unfriendly expression.
The man next to the woman stood up at the right time and briefly introduced himself, saying that he and the woman were brother and sister. His name was Luo Qianshan and his sister was Luo Qianshui.
Luo Qianshan said, "There was a fire at the end of the corridor?"
Lin Qiushi and the other three did not answer Luo Qianshan's question. After all, to some extent, they were all competitors, and providing clues to their competitors was indeed not a wise move.
"It's on fire." Luo Qianshui also saw that the scene in the mirror was completely different from reality. She looked at Luo Qianshan, "Will the people inside be burned to death?"
Luo Qianshan said: "I don't know."
So the five of them stood in the corridor and continued to watch quietly.
The fire did not seem to be spreading outwards and was limited to that one room. Lin Qiushi glanced at the dark night outside the window and yawned slightly.
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at him and said, "Let's go back to sleep."
Lin Qiushi: "Not watching anymore?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Are we going to watch here all night?"
That was true, and there were two strange people standing beside them. The three of them no longer paid attention to the brother and sister and planned to turn around and go back to their room.
Cheng Yixie's sense of smell was a little too sensitive, and because of this, he was choked by the smell of smoke and kept coughing, looking very unhappy.
Ruan Nanzhu was the last one to enter the room. Before entering, he glanced at the end of the corridor again and frowned slightly.
After entering the house, his first words to Lin Qiushi and Cheng Yixie were, "The things in the house have come out."
Lin Qiushi asked, "What is it?"
"People who were burned to death," Ruan Nanzhu replied. Just before entering the room, he saw two figures at the end of the corridor, one large and one small. It looked like an adult holding a child. Their bodies were charred and still blazing with flames. They stood quietly at the end of the corridor, gazing at all the rooms on this floor. It made one feel uneasy.
As Lin Qiushi listened to Ruan Nanzhu's words, he recalled a clue: "Using the past as a mirror, we can understand the rise and fall of things." Could this "past" refer to the events that had occurred in this apartment?
As the three of them pondered, the smell of burning gradually faded.
"Go to sleep first." Ruan Nanzhu glanced at the time. "Think about it tomorrow, otherwise my body won't be able to take it."
Then the three of them got into their beds.
Honestly, a normal person experiencing these things would probably have trouble falling asleep due to the terrifying images in their heads, but Lin Qiushi now felt that they were no longer normal. Not only did he fall asleep quickly, but he also slept very well, sleeping through the next morning.
The sun rose, bringing with it a gray smell. Lin Qiushi was awakened by the light coming in from the floor-to-ceiling window and opened his eyes hazily.
"Good morning." Ruan Nanzhu greeted him.
"Yeah." Lin Qiushi rubbed his eyes, sat up from the sofa, and went into the bathroom to wash up.
Cheng Yixie seemed to have woken up early. He had changed his clothes and was standing silently by the window looking at the scenery outside.
"Breakfast is on the second floor." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Let's go. I'm really hungry."
The three of them went downstairs and saw that quite a few people had gathered in the restaurant.
Lin Qiushi swept his eyes across the crowd and saw the people he was looking for—the two girls living in the double room.
They were full of energy and were still chatting happily, as if what happened last night had no effect on them at all.
Lin Qiushi had been observing them the entire time when he heard Ruan Nanzhu's half-smiled voice. He asked, "Why are you looking at them so intently? Are they prettier than me?"
Lin Qiushi looked helpless upon hearing this: "Of course you are the best looking."
"Why do you say that so reluctantly?" Ruan Nanzhu took a bite of bread and said, "Those two people are here too."
The two people were Luo Qianshan and Luo Qianshui, the brother and sister they met in the corridor last night. They came in from outside, one smiled at Lin Qiushi, and the other looked at Ruan Nanzhu hatefully.
It seems that Luo Qianshui is already holding a grudge against Ruan Nanzhu for his provocation last night.
Ruan Nanzhu wasn't afraid at all. He raised his chin towards her, leaned on Lin Qiushi's shoulder, and said in a neither-too-loud nor-soft voice, "Oh, that woman's eyes are so scary. She scared me."
Lin Qiushi was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.
Cheng Yixie seemed to have long been accustomed to Ruan Nanzhu's dramatic behavior, and he ate bread with an expressionless face the whole time.
When they had almost finished eating, the waiter who had given them the room cards yesterday showed up with a stack of things in his hand, which should be the travel guide he mentioned.
The waiter asked, "I wonder if everyone slept well last night?" He smiled and said, "This is the tourist guide here. Everyone must read it carefully after receiving it." Then he began to distribute it to everyone.
Lin Qiushi also got a copy. After he opened it, he found that it was actually an introduction to some attractions in the city, including this apartment with a mirrored exterior.
According to the information, this apartment is a local landmark building. It was renovated two years ago. The appearance before and after the renovation is completely different. The exterior of the apartment is covered with countless mirrors, which looks particularly weird.
Lin Qiushi was flipping through the pages when he heard Cheng Yixie coughing softly again.
"Cough, cough, cough, cough." Cheng Yixie covered his nose and said with difficulty, "Something is burning..."
"What?" Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu were both confused. They didn't smell anything.
But soon, they no longer needed to smell it, because thick smoke appeared before their eyes - the burning thing was a person, one of the girls living in the big bed room.
At first, only some smoke began to emerge from her body. When everyone cast their astonished eyes on her, glaring flames suddenly shot out from her body. These flames seemed to emerge from her flesh and blood, and in an instant, they burned all over her body.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" The girl screamed miserably and began to roll around on the ground like crazy. However, the flames were burning from the inside out, and her rolling was completely useless. Lin Qiushi grabbed the milk on the table and tried to pour it on her to put out the fire, but it was of no use.
In just a minute or two, the girl who was as beautiful as a flower turned into a charred corpse in front of everyone.
"Ugh—" Someone vomited on the spot, and the faces of others were not looking good either.
It is said that being burned to death is the most painful way to die. Lin Qiushi slowly walked back to Ruan Nanzhu and put down the milk can in his hand.
It seems that what happened last night was the reason for the girl's death.
"Xiao Yan!! Xiao Yan!!" The remaining girl burst into tears and threw herself beside the charred corpse, looking almost collapsed.
Lin Qiushi watched from the side without saying a word.
Ruan Nanzhu asked, "Are you okay?"
Lin Qiushi shook his head, signaling he was fine. He'd seen plenty of bloody scenes before him, but this one was too horrifying... It was truly the difficulty of the Ninth Gate. On the first night inside, someone had already fallen prey.
"How disgusting." Luo Qianshui, who was sitting not far away, said coldly, standing up and about to leave, "It makes me sick."
Her brother followed her out of the restaurant.
Luo Qianshui's attitude was too cold, but in fact, her attitude was the mainstream. After this happened, most people in the room looked numb. Only in the five-person group with the newcomers, some people were vomiting and some were cringing.
"I'm so scared, Sister Xia." A young boy said to the leading woman.
The woman called Sister Xia should be the one who brought them in. She said, "Don't be afraid, there's nothing to be afraid of. Just be obedient and follow the rules, and nothing will happen."
Although these words seemed perfunctory, it seemed that this was the only way, and the fear on the young man's face did not diminish.
Ruan Nanzhu also stood up: "Let's go and take a walk around."
They left the restaurant and went to the street near the apartment.
Unlike the previous world, this one seemed open. Crowds of people streamed down the bustling streets, surrounded by a variety of shops, and buses that could take them to other places. Even the currency used was the same as in their original world.
Lin Qiushi looked at everything around him, genuinely curious: "Can we go somewhere else?"
"Sure." Ruan Nanzhu said, "As long as you come back before dark."
Lin Qiushi: "What if I don't rush back?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Then you will be able to see all kinds of strange ways to die." He said this with certainty, obviously having seen these situations before.
"Is this world complete?" Even though he had restrained himself, Lin Qiushi still had many questions in his mind. He looked at the crepes on the street and asked, "Is this edible?"
"Hmm." Ruan Nanzhu said, "It should taste good."
So Lin Qiushi paid for three, one for each person.
Lin Qiushi chose the chocolate flavored crepe with ice cream inside. He took a bite and found it quite delicious. He mumbled, "Then what's the difference between this world and the real world?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Difference? The biggest difference is probably that ghosts exist in this world." He continued, "I'll go inquire about the apartment."
He went to the small shops near his apartment and asked some of the owners.
It must be said that the advantage of women's clothing was clearly evident at this time. These shop owners were very friendly to Ruan Nanzhu. There was even a candy store owner in his thirties who gave Ruan Nanzhu a box of candy and said that if she was free that evening, they could meet up...
Ruan Nanzhu rejected his invitation bluntly.
I have to say that these NPCs in front of me are completely different from the NPCs in the previous doors. They are more like normal humans, and their words or actions cannot tell that they are different from the real world.
Even Lin Qiushi was a little dazed: "Are we really inside the door?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "Of course." He glanced at Lin Qiushi, "The more difficult the door is, the greater the overlap with reality. The tenth door I entered before..." He paused here, a hint of gloom in his eyes, as if he was recalling some unpleasant memories.
Seeing this, Lin Qiushi did not ask any questions and just pretended that he did not see it.
Apart from this, they still found out a lot of information about the apartment.
Two years ago, a fire broke out in this apartment, killing two people and leaving one missing. It's said the three were a family of three who happened to be traveling in this city when they encountered this incident...
"The first floor of the apartment was burned down?" Ruan Nanzhu got the news from a small newsstand next to the apartment. The newsstand seemed to be quite old, and the person selling newspapers was an old man.
"Yes, a whole floor," the old man said. "Later, the apartment was renovated, and the outside walls were blackened by smoke, so they were all covered with mirrors." He pushed his glasses and said in an old voice, "The reflected light is really eye-catching..."
Lin Qiushi thought of the mother and daughter he saw in the mirror. It seemed that they were the victims of the fire.
"You'd better not live there. It's haunted," the old man said. "It's said that there are people crying every night..."
"Which floor of the apartment was burned down?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"The thirty-fourth floor." The old man replied.
The thirty-fourth floor - that's where they lived. It seemed the key had something to do with the fire.
After walking around outside, it was lunchtime and the three of them planned to return to the apartment.
It was noon, and the sun shone down from the sky, hitting the mirror outside the apartment, reflecting a dazzling light. The entire apartment was so bright that it was impossible to look directly at it. The entire building seemed to be engulfed in a glaring flame. Lin Qiushi only took one look, and tears flowed from his eyes.
Ruan Nanzhu said from the side: "Why are you crying so cutely?"
Lin Qiushi glanced at Ruan Nanzhu with red eyes.
As a result, this guy started to act immediately. When he arrived at the restaurant, he told Lin Qiushi in front of everyone to stop crying and that he would be responsible for him.
Lin Qiushi: “…” Forget it, as long as you are happy.
Cheng Yixie remained silent, cleverly pretending to be just a background figure. Seeing this, Lin Qiushi strongly suspected that he had also been teased by Ruan Nanzhu many times.
During lunchtime, not many people came to eat here. After all, there is a busy street outside, and there are many choices, so you don’t have to squeeze into the restaurant.
However, Luo Qianshan and Luo Qianshui, whom he had met before, were there. Luo Qianshui saw Ruan Nanzhu rolling his eyes at him again.
Ruan Nanzhu accepted the eye roll with a smile, patted his chest and said that he felt like being chased and bitten by a dog.
Luo Qianshui was almost so angry that he rushed over to fight with her.
Lin Qiushi once again expressed his admiration for Ruan Nanzhu's flirting skills, but the word "flirting" took on a new meaning for Ruan Nanzhu, essentially meaning provocation. If the angry girl was a cow, then Ruan Nanzhu was the red cloth that angered the cow...
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