Knock on the door
The clock in the house was functioning normally.
The current time is 20:02.
Lu Miao and his team members entered Qingshui Apartment at around 19:45.
She put on the white shirt hanging in the entrance hall and tied the black and fluorescent green jacket around her waist.
303, the key has the house number on it.
The silver water purifier had a green light on.
Lu Miao carefully observed the sink and the water outlet of the faucet.
It's dry.
There wasn't even a grease stain on the kitchen walls.
A tidy apartment with no signs of the previous resident's life means there are no other clues hidden, which is not a good thing.
The darkness outside made the glass windows shine, reflecting her clear reflection in deep thought.
While I was thinking, there was a sudden knock on the door.
Knock. Knock.
The pace is very fast.
But the knock was not on her apartment door, but on the door of other apartments on the same floor.
Lu Miao strode to the cat's eye and peeked out of the door.
Knock. Knock.
The person or thing outside will be knocked on by the next house.
Keep knocking on Lu Miao's door.
The haggard and thin man's face squeezed into the cat's eye's field of vision. He looked left and right, his chin covered with blue stubble.
Knock. Knock.
It didn't match the knock on the door for the food delivery.
The man kept wiping sweat with his other hand, and his eyes were bloodshot - obviously caused by lack of sleep.
Lu Miao, with a cold face, pretended to be delicate and said, "Who... are you?"
The man outside the peephole's eyes immediately lit up and his eyes leaped with joy. "Hello, I'm your neighbor who lives on the fourth floor. I finally met a normal neighbor..."
She frowned. "W-what do you mean?"
The man blushed with excitement. "I came in yesterday. There aren't many people left from the same group. This damn apartment is weird. We are gathering the normal neighbors to find a way to escape."
"You've been here for a whole day and haven't escaped. Is it useful to gather together?" she questioned in a delicate voice.
The man looked around and spoke faster: "Because the rules here are difficult, it's easy to fall into traps. Gathering together to figure out the rules will make it easier to find a way to escape. It's not safe outside. If you are interested, come to 407 to talk to us in detail."
"Okay, I'll think about it."
"Remember, don't go out until you no longer hear footsteps." The man outside looked panicked and left in a hurry.
This guy's rhetoric is quite good and his words are carefully crafted.
Lu Miao’s brows furrowed even more tightly.
When the man's footsteps disappeared on this floor, she stared out the peephole for a moment and gently opened the door.
A strong fishy smell filled my nose, and pale light filled the corridor.
She stuck her head out and looked around, making sure that there was no one in the corridor before leaving.
There are eight unit doors on this floor, and she was the only resident who responded to the man.
Fluorescent lights illuminate the snow-white walls, the clock at the end ticks, and the smooth floor is spotless. If it weren't for the strange fishy smell, it would be no different from an ordinary apartment building.
She whistled.
Soon, the doors of the two neighboring units opened one after another, and two heads, one black and one pink, popped out from each.
"team leader."
The two men in white shirts closed the door quietly and tiptoed over.
"This building stinks, it smells fishy." Wang Keke pinched her nose in disgust. "Also, do you think the color of the font in the rules looks better?"
Lu Miao's eyes tightened. "Is your font also red with glitter?"
"yes."
He Ping'an was calm. "If the font color is good and helps to escape, I don't mind the font carving."
"That's a good idea. At least it's not that scary."
"Oh."
"Little brat!" Wang Keke moved her finger joints with a "crunching" sound.
Lu Miao interrupted the two: "Since the rules we saw were all written in gold, pink and red, it proves that the color of the font has no special meaning. Did you all hear what that person said?"
He Ping'an said seriously, "I roughly heard it. After he finished talking to you, he didn't knock on other residents' doors. Didn't he confirm if there were other residents on this floor? This contradicts what he said about gathering normal neighbors."
"Captain, are we going to 407?" Wang Keke rolled up his sleeves. "If those people want to do something bad, I'll blow their heads off!"
"No hurry, let's get familiar with the environment first."
The staircase is located at the far left end of the corridor and the elevator is located in the middle of the corridor.
The three went to check the elevator.
The silver metal door was tightly closed, slightly distorting the reflections of the three people, and the bright red numbers on the display did not change for the time being.
There is an instruction manual posted next to the elevator door, with red Song font sparkling with gold powder, full of girlish style.
[Elevator Instructions]
【1. Elevators are tools to improve security patrol efficiency. 】
【2. If you find that the elevator is malfunctioning, please ask the administrator to repair it immediately. 】
【3. When residents use the elevator, they can only go up to the 6th floor. 】
"Just three? That's all?" Wang Keke was disappointed.
The more rules there are, the more information is exposed.
"Article 3 seems to be in conflict with Article 13 of the Residents' Rules, but the tone of Article 13 is not absolute." He Ping'an frowned.
Lu Miao drew a “?” next to rule 3. “The man’s footsteps disappeared only after they were far away. He chose to take the stairs in fear, which shows that stairs are a little safer than elevators.”
"But abnormal residents can also use the stairs."
"Yes." Wang Keke got goosebumps.
Lu Miao sneered: "Mind-polluted residents can also take the elevator."
"That's right... But if you encounter security guards or unusual residents in the elevator, you won't be able to escape. It's safer to take the stairs."
All in all, only your own residence is relatively safe.
"That……"
"Shhh."
Lu Miao and He Ping'an both signaled for silence.
Wang Keke said nothing, her beautiful eyes with eye shadow wide open.
Da-da-da
There are footsteps!
They were relatively close to the stairwell and could hear footsteps echoing in the stairwell, but they didn't know if it was a person or an object coming down the stairs.
Lu Miao raised his hand silently, asking the two to return to their residence quickly.
They turned and slipped away without hesitation.
In a blink of an eye, Lu Miao tiptoed to the stairs, pressed his back against the snow-white wall, and peeked into the stairwell with one eye.
Her hand clenched around the apartment keys.
Da-da-da
The pervasive fishy smell became faintly stronger, and the air wafting from the stairwell became sticky and moist, like the arrival of the return of the south wind in the south. Lu Miao felt as if the strands of hair on his forehead had turned greasy.
The other party's footsteps were not smooth, and he seemed to be dragging something.
Da-da-da
The footsteps were getting closer, approaching the third floor.
The next second, a strange shadow was cast on the upper wall.
Lu Miao retreated without hesitation and casually glanced at the elevator display board.
The floor numbers remain unchanged.
She opened the door quietly and closed it quietly, all in one go.
She panted, with her back against the door, listening to the noise outside.
She recalled the hunched back just now and felt something unusual.
Unfortunately, the same footsteps echoed in the corridor outside the door.
clatter--
clatter--
Come to the third floor.
The deer seedlings listened with bated breath, their cat eyes by their ears.
clatter--
Boom—boom.
That thing is knocking on the next door.
"Please... ask, do you have any medicine... at home..." Its voice was trembling and weak.
After a few seconds of silence, there was another knock on the door.
Boom—boom.
This time, the thing knocked on the door diagonally opposite hers.
"Excuse me... ask, do you have any medicine at home..."
Exactly the same problem.
She lives in 303, and the other party will knock on her door next time.
Sure enough, the sound of shuffling footsteps approached and stopped behind her door.
Boom—boom.
Her heart vibrated with the sound of the door behind her.
"Excuse me... ask, do you have any medicine at home..."
She said nothing.
After a few seconds, the sound of dragging footsteps shifted and it was the turn of the door opposite to be knocked.
"Excuse me... ask, do you have any medicine at home..."
Lu Miao turned around suddenly, put his right eye to the cat's eye and peeked at what was outside the door.
It had its back to 303, with a large blood stain on the back of its white shirt. Its back was hunched like a shrimp, with half of its black head vaguely visible.
Suddenly, the thing opposite turned around and looked over.
Lu Miao leaned his back against the door calmly, holding his breath.
The air became stagnant, as if anything outside the door might notice the slightest ripple.
But the next knock did not come.
She knew very well that the cunning thing was still outside the door.
"Five hungry ants marching in a line."
The gloomy singing voice was just one door away from her, and the other party was singing behind her head.
"Occasionally there was a picnic where they could eat."
"They go straight in for salad. They go straight in for cake. They go straight in for chili."
"Oops, that was a mistake."
“Now, how many ants are there?”
The deer seedling was silently counting sheep in his mind, not concentrating on listening to the bird singing, alert to the spread of pollution through its singing.
Ghost story investigators are all professionally trained, and she believes that Ping An and Coco will be alert.
There was silence outside for a few seconds, and the sound of shuffling footsteps faded away from behind her door.
Boom—boom.
She heard a knock on the door next door - it was Wang Keke's unit door.
Perhaps it heard that Lu Miao hadn't responded, and Wang Keke next door hadn't responded either, so after asking the question, it knocked on the next door.
It kept asking and knocking.
Knock on all eight doors on the third floor.
Da-da-da
The sound of dragging footsteps faded away and gradually disappeared on this floor.
After a long while, the three dared to open the door to check.
"Oh my God..." Wang Keke was stunned.
All eight doors were left with bright red marks and emitted a faint smell of blood.
There were intermittent bloody footprints on the floor of the corridor, extending to the stairs.
shocking.
The smell of blood and water mixed together, it was disgusting.
He Pingan squatted down and studied the bloody footprints. "Look at the front of the footprints. Does it look like a frog's flipper?"
There are light red lumps connecting the five toes of the footprint.
"He must be a resident who has been mentally polluted." Wang Keke frowned and crossed his arms across his chest.
Seeing that the two were full of energy and not confused at all, Lu Miao felt relieved. "Sorry, I took a look at it, but I didn't expect it to be so perceptive."
Wang Keke was very excited. "What does it look like? Is it interesting?"
Lu Miao & He Pingan: "..."
"I only saw its back. It was wearing white clothes and its hunched back was bleeding profusely."
"It's obviously mutated, why doesn't it find blue clothes to wear?" He Ping'an pondered.
Wang Keke made a bold guess: "Too late? Not daring? After all, we have to go to the first floor, which is quite far."
"Also, did it come to the third floor by choice or on purpose?"
Lu Miao hesitated for a moment. "Sounds. It used some method to capture the sounds from the third floor. Did you notice that the old residents were all heading towards us?"
He Pingan was silent.
Wang Keke's hair stood on end.
Lu Miao looked at the snow-white wall thoughtfully.
Instantly, she made a prompt decision: "It's almost an hour. Let's go back and write in our diaries, and then go to the first floor to check."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
