30 The House Where People Are Chased (Part 3)
◎That is, life and death are determined by fate, and wealth and honor are determined by God◎
It needs to be completed before dawn. Will pollutants be more active in the middle of the night?
Zhu Ning hadn't finished her theory class yet, so she was still figuring things out, combining it with the courses she'd already taken. The posting ended with an address, and she asked the owner of the Big Wave restaurant downstairs to take her there.
The proprietress was already very familiar with her. She rode her motorcycle to take Zhu Ning to her destination, and then left without saying a word.
In front of me is a residential area with a sign at the entrance: Rome City.
In pursuit of high-end appeal, many communities give themselves strange names. Zhu Ning had seen a community called Grand Palace before.
This developer has really bad taste. The building density in the community is extremely high, and the buildings are very close to each other, giving an overwhelming sense of oppression.
There was a security guard at the door, and the community was still inhabited. Some office workers who had just gotten off work were dragging their tired bodies in.
After Zhu Ning took the genetic drug, all five of her senses were opened. She listened for a while and found that the city of Rome was very noisy, with thousands of families living there.
So Zhu Ning still couldn't use the bomb unless she wanted to send the entire community to hell.
Zhu Ning had no intention of disturbing the security guard, so he jumped over the wall while no one was paying attention.
The post said it was on the 13th floor of Building 22.
Zhu Ning took the safe passage. After being continuously beaten by the demon hunters in the past two days, her physical strength was very good. She climbed the 13th floor at a very fast speed without even taking a breath.
Gene medicine, the light of humanity.
Zhu Ning entered the 13th floor. This residential complex had two households per elevator, which was considered a "luxury house" compared to the Beehive slum.
Just as described in the tomb post, there are two families on this floor. One is a normal family. They have the kind of vermilion security door that everyone often chooses, and hanging on it are withered mugwort leaves that were not picked off during the Dragon Boat Festival.
But the house opposite his looked very strange. The forest green door was originally quite fresh and clean, but no one had taken care of it for many years. It was covered with a layer of dust and looked lifeless.
Zhu Ning turned over the wooden sign on the door, and sure enough, it said: Warm little home.
It was unknown who had turned the wooden sign over. There were some mottled marks on the forest green gate, but Zhu Ning rubbed them off and was able to remove them.
What is this? Blood?
Huang Yaruo fell silent after entering the room. Is she still alive?
There was no date on this tombstone, so Zhu Ning couldn't guess when the incident happened. Was it decades ago, like the hot pot restaurant owner?
Or recently? Why is there no specific time displayed?
The tombstone says that it is the house of the person being hunted. This house is usually located opposite the person being hunted, so what is the situation of the family opposite it?
Zhu Ning thought about it and didn't enter the cozy little house. She planned to go across the street to ask.
Zhu Ning stopped in front of the door. There seemed to be someone inside. She could hear the person breathing through the thin door panel.
There was a man lying on the door panel listening to the noise outside, looking at the outside world through the deformed cat's eye. He was only separated from Zhu Ning by a wall, and his breathing was very nervous.
Chila Chila——
Zhu Ning knocked on the door: "Is anyone there?"
She could feel the person inside tense up in an instant, wishing she couldn't breathe.
Zhu Ning: "I know someone is home. Would you mind asking about the situation? It won't take up your time."
Silence, the people inside didn't say anything.
Zhu Ning was thinking that she could just break into the room directly.
Maybe they were observing Zhu Ning's outfit. She was wearing a full set of black protective clothing and carrying a huge backpack. I guess any normal person would think Zhu Ning looked like a criminal.
After about a minute, the person inside slowly said, "Official?"
Official? Zhu Ning thought about it and realized that the cleaning center was an official organization. "Yes."
"Are you here to arrest me?"
What's coming to catch you?
Zhu Ning felt that this trend was becoming increasingly strange. Before he could ask what was going on, the door suddenly opened.
A bearded man appeared from behind the door, his eyes bloodshot. He barked, "Take me away now! I can't stand it! Take me to jail! I'd rather go to jail!"
Zhu Ning: “?”
Why would anyone want to go to jail? However, this person is alive, not a pollutant.
Zhu Ning patiently said, like a social worker offering warmth: "Tell me slowly."
"Okay, I'll tell you slowly." The man seemed to be shaking uncontrollably as if this was the first time he had met someone who really wanted to help him.
"Or should we go in first?" Zhu Ning reminded him.
The man was in a daze. He responded to whatever Zhu Ning said, "Yes, yes, yes. Come in first. We'll talk later."
They came in but didn't close the door, so Zhu Ning could clearly hear the movements in the corridor.
The house was in a mess, with beer bottles and cigarette butts piled on the table. The kitchen sink was piled high with unwashed dishes, and Zhu Ning could smell a foul odor before even entering the kitchen.
This was not the last house Huang Yaruo lived in before she disappeared. Zhu Ning looked around and didn't sit on the sofa. Instead, he stood beside it, looking very professional.
"Could you please introduce yourself first?"
"My name is Ding Chaojie, and I..." The bearded man was so nervous that his legs kept shaking. He seemed to have difficulty speaking, "I'm a thief."
Thief? Is that so straightforward?
The public security in the wasteland world is quite poor, with a lot of petty thefts and robberies, and the authorities are too busy to handle them every year.
Ding Chaojie said: "I entered this house that day, intending to touch something and leave, but after walking around, I found that no one seemed to be there."
"I'm very experienced and could tell right away that the owner hadn't been home for a long time. The house was deserted, so I figured, 'I have nowhere else to live, so I'll just stay here.'"
Ding Chaojie shook his legs as he spoke. "I didn't think anything of it at first. The owner probably paid a lot for water and electricity. I lived here for a month without power or water outages. I really started treating this place like my own home and even moved all my luggage and furniture in."
"I called my friends over on the day I moved. They were all gang members. They congratulated me, saying I had a new home and congratulated me on moving."
When talking about the joy of moving to a new house, Ding Chaojie smiled bitterly. This was not a congratulation, but, thinking back carefully, it was simply a curse.
Zhu Ning raised her eyebrows, as if she had guessed what was going to happen.
"There's a neighbor across from my house. His door is green. You saw it when you just came in."
Zhu Ning responded: "I saw it."
"I didn't think much of it at first, but ever since the day I officially moved in, I felt something was wrong. There were always noises coming from behind the green door."
"At first it was just a woman crying, and I thought it was just a normal couple having a quarrel, so I didn't take it seriously. Then I thought, I've lived here for two months, and I've never seen what my neighbor looks like."
"But I didn't think much of it. Then one night I was woken up by a noise from that family. It was really noisy. It sounded like someone was punching a sandbag inside. Every time they punched, my house would shake. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I thought about going to talk to someone and asking them not to disturb the neighbors."
"I went to knock on the door, but no one answered. I was in a bad mood because of the noise I had made that day, so I knocked very loudly."
"But the harder I knocked, the harder the person inside punched, just like he was getting mad at me. I lost my temper, so I looked through the peephole, and then, and then..."
Ding Chaojie suddenly raised his eyes and said, "I saw an eye inside."
There was an eye staring at him from inside. The eye was blood red, and not even a bit of white could be seen.
Ding Chaojie said: "People outside the cat's eye can't see what's inside, but I can see it, and the eye seems alive."
Ding Chaojie could feel a heat coming towards him, as if it was not a cat's eye, but a hot eyeball, right next to Ding Chaojie's eyeball.
"I was frightened and ran away on the spot," Ding Chaojie repeated. "I ran away that same day."
"For the next few days, I heard noises behind the green door. Someone was doing something inside, and the noises were getting louder and louder. I didn't dare knock on the door anymore, but I couldn't complain either. After all, I didn't even own the place, and if I were found out, I'd go to jail."
"Then I thought, it's not my house anyway, so why not just run away? It wouldn't cost me much to run away, and I could just give up the house." Ding Chaojie clenched his fists as he spoke, seeming to be lost in some terrifying memory. "I realized then that if I ran, it would be even more terrifying."
Zhu Ning: "Is it targeting you?"
"Yes!" Ding Chaojie cursed. "Damn it, it's targeting me. After I moved, it followed me. I was so scared the first time I moved that I thought I was hallucinating."
Ding Chaojie moved and woke up the next day to find that the door opposite his house had turned green. It had followed him.
"I didn't believe in superstition, so I kept moving. It followed me wherever I went. Later, I even moved to a building with no neighbors."
"There was only one household in the elevator. I thought, 'I don't even have a door opposite me, let's see how far you can drive it to.' Then I woke up the next day and found it embedded in the wall opposite my house."
"Fuck it, it's drilled into the wall, and it's so loud every day. Every day there are people punching in there, and every day my floor is shaking. I'm going crazy, I, I, I..."
Ding Chaojie rubbed his hair and pulled it hard. "I'm going crazy. It keeps following me, keeps following me, keeps following me..."
"I know I did something wrong. This is God's punishment for me. Please save me, save me! I'm going to jail. Lock me up!"
Zhu Ning was silent.
The person she saw in the tomb post was Huang Yaruo, and the current victim was Ding Chaojie. The house found a new owner and began to hunt him down.
There are currently two known victims, and it is unknown how many there are.
Moreover, Ding Chaojie didn’t enter the green door at all. He entered the house opposite. Is this house connected to the house opposite?
Zhu Ning asked, "How many times have you moved to this house?"
Ding Chaojie: "The fourth one."
The fourth time he moved, the door opposite was still green, which proved that the green door was the real one. The house where Ding Chaojie lived now was not the one where Huang Yaruo disappeared. I don’t know how many times he had changed houses in the middle. The grave sticker gave the latest address.
Zhu Ning asked, "Have you ever tried opening the green door?"
Ding Chaojie: "I thought about it, but I didn't dare go in. I always felt that once I went in, I wouldn't be able to get out."
"But..." Ding Chaojie licked his dry lips, "I want to go in more and more. Obviously I don't want to go in at all, but I want to go in more and more. I don't know if you can understand."
Zhu Ning: "I probably understand."
Reason told Ding Chaojie not to go in, but people's reason would be affected after being spiritually polluted, and Ding Chaojie was constantly attracted to the green door.
"I just called the police today. I thought if the police didn't care, I would go in and take a look myself. I had a feeling in my heart that I knew today was the day. That green door would definitely kill me, and then you came."
No wonder Ding Chaojie thought Zhu Ning was an investigator sent by the authorities.
The system said that the mission time was only twelve hours, which meant that if Zhu Ning did not show up, Ding Chaojie might die today and the mission would be automatically closed.
But the description of this task is also very strange. The system did not ask Zhu Ning to protect Ding Chaojie, but asked her to find Huang Yaruo.
Ding Chaojie: "How are you going to solve this? Are you going to take me away?"
Zhu Ning: "I'll go in and take a look first."
Ding Chaojie's face turned pale: "You want to go in?"
Zhu Ning: "Yes, I want to help you solve the problem."
"No..." Ding Chaojie said, "I checked online before and found someone else's post with a similar experience, but I didn't find the follow-up to that post. Anyway, they won't let anyone in."
Ding Chaojie spoke very quickly. Zhu Ning understood and asked, "Let me see the post."
Ding Chaojie showed it to Zhu Ning, and the protagonist was not Huang Yaruo, but another girl. The description was similar to that of Ding Chaojie and Huang Yaruo. Someone commented below: "Don't go in, you can't get out once you go in."
She posted this three years ago.
"There are other people's posts as well." Ding Chaojie must have done his own research for a long time and showed the collected information to Zhu Ning.
Twenty posts in total.
I don't know how many of these are just meme-driven stories and how many are real victims, but even if half of them are true, it's still scary enough.
This matter is quite complicated.
Zhu Ning felt that Ding Chaojie must have something he didn't tell him, and he might not be a simple thief.
Zhu Ning: "I guess if you don't go in, the connection between you will not be broken."
Zhu Ning glanced at the time. She had been listening to Ding Chaojie telling stories for twenty minutes, and it was already half past one.
Zhu Ning hurried because according to the mission description, she had to stay inside for one night.
Zhu Ning: "I'm in a hurry, I still need to sleep inside."
Ding Chaojie's eyes widened. He had thought he was waiting for an official investigator, but he never expected to be met by such a ruthless person. Zhu Ning was actually going to go in and sleep over for a night?
What does she do?
Zhu Ning had already reached the green door. Ding Chaojie asked, "What about me?"
Zhu Ning: "Hmm?"
Ding Chaojie: "What should I do if you go in?"
Once Zhu Ning goes in, Ding Chaojie will be left alone, and he may encounter some troubles alone, after all, the house is bound to Ding Chaojie, not Zhu Ning.
If Zhu Ning had an accomplice, he could have entered the green door and his accomplice would have protected Ding Chaojie. Unfortunately, Zhu Ning was alone.
Zhu Ning already had one hand on the door handle. "I have two suggestions. I wonder which one you like."
Ding Chaojie: "You... tell me."
"The first option," Zhu Ning said, "You can come in with me."
Zhu Ning protected her "little brother" twice in the contaminated area. If she hadn't died, Ding Chaojie should have survived.
If Zhu Ning died, Ding Chaojie himself would not survive. Rather than letting Ding Chaojie run around, perhaps staying with Zhu Ning was the safest option.
"I can't." Ding Chaojie refused immediately. He didn't want to enter the Green Door unless it was absolutely necessary. He would rather die than die in the Green Door.
"That's the second option," Zhu Ning said, "Go and surrender yourself."
"Ah?" Ding Chaojie thought he had misheard.
Zhu Ning: "As you originally intended, stay in the detention center for one night. If you're lucky, they might be able to protect you."
She hadn't come into contact with the Sheriff's Bureau, but there might be a few people with special abilities there.
"Then, what if I'm unlucky?" Ding Chaojie stared at Zhu Ning, hoping she would give him an answer again. What if no one cared about him?
But this time Zhu Ning didn't say anything. She was very silent. That is, life and death are determined by fate, and wealth and honor are determined by heaven.
She was waiting for Ding Chaojie's choice.
The author has something to say:
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2022-08-19 08:57:34 and 2022-08-20 09:32:46~
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution: I am going on a long voyage with 5 bottles;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
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