Chen Ge wanted to remind the middle-aged man, but it was too late. The cat's meowing became louder and louder, so he quickly hid in the corridor next to him.
The elevator stopped at this floor. There was no sound of footsteps or breathing.
A moment later, there was a knock on the door in the corridor.
The sound seemed to come out of nowhere, without any warning.
"The middle-aged man is likely to tell others about me." The knocks on the door were loud, but no one opened it. Chen Ge was standing on the steps of the corridor. Even though he lost his vision, he remained very calm. In this situation, he did not run away, but chose to stay.
Yingchen doesn't know his information yet, so the situation is temporarily favorable to him.
After knocking for a long time, the security door finally opened and the voice of a middle-aged man was heard in the corridor.
"Ying Chen? Why did you come to me? Are you asking me to pay the property management fee?" There was a hint of impatience in the middle-aged man's voice. He did not take Chen Ge's previous warning to heart.
"My brother Ying Tong secretly ran away from home to play, and he hasn't returned home yet. When I went upstairs just now, I heard someone walking around here, so I wanted to come over and ask, have you seen my brother?" Ying Chen's voice sounded very young, and his image in the world behind the door seemed to be younger than in reality.
The world behind the door is woven according to the memory of the person who pushes the door, from which we can draw a conclusion that Ying Chen's younger voice is the one that Ying Tong remembers most deeply.
In other words, Ying Chen may have done something to Ying Tong a long time ago, and that incident became the deepest shadow in Ying Tong's heart. He always remembers his brother's voice.
"If you are blind, you should be more careful. You didn't close the door properly, and when something happened you came to ask others for help?" The middle-aged man had a very bad temper, which could be seen from his previous attitude towards Chen Ge.
"I'm really sorry, these are some date cakes sent by my relatives from my hometown. I hope you can accept them. If you see my brother, I hope you can tell me. His eyesight is not good, and I'm really afraid that he will have an accident."
"Date cake? It's so red? Did you add coloring?"
"It's pure natural, and has a very delicate taste. You can try it. If you think it's delicious, I have some more at home." Ying Chen was very enthusiastic. He acted just like what the middle-aged man said, like a weak, nice-to-have guy.
"It tastes really good, completely different from what I bought on the street. Okay, if I see your brother, I will notify you the first time." The middle-aged man was chewing something in his mouth. He closed the security door while eating.
"The middle-aged man didn't reveal my presence, but the problem is that Yingchen didn't enter his house either. He should be standing at his door now."
The sound of the elevator door opening was heard in the corridor, and Chen Ge was about to leave, but at this moment he heard another cat's meow, which came from the middle of the corridor.
"Yingchen didn't get on the elevator!"
Chen Ge immediately walked downstairs, sticking close to the wall. He did not dare to make any sound. He was blind and could not walk fast. If he made any sound, he would be caught by the other party for sure.
He was completely unable to determine Yingchen's location at this moment. He only knew that the cat's meowing continued to be heard and that the pervert was walking towards the corridor.
"Hey!" The security door in the corridor opened again, and the middle-aged man's voice came from the door: "Why are there so many letters in this bag of date cakes?"
"That was written to me by a relative. Sorry, I forgot to take it out." Ying Chen's voice sounded above Chen Ge's head. He had already entered the corridor, but he was on the fourth floor, while Chen Ge had just reached the third floor.
Chen Ge was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat. He held his breath and stood still.
"I'll take the letter. If you see my brother, remember to tell me."
The cat's meowing stopped, and when Ying Chen's voice sounded again, he had already left the corridor and walked to the middle-aged man.
"Okay." After the middle-aged man finished speaking, he said another sentence not long after: "Why do you always look into my house? Do you suspect that your brother is in my house?"
"No, I just..."
The sound in the corridor suddenly disappeared, and then there was the sound of something heavy falling to the ground.
"Yingchen attacked the middle-aged man?" Chen Ge gritted his teeth. The other party attacked without saying a word, and his style of action was extremely decisive. Such an enemy was very scary.
"I have to leave this building quickly. I'd better stay far away until my eyesight recovers." Chen Ge didn't know Ying Chen's ability, nor did he know what the world was like. The world perceived only through hearing, smell and touch was very incomplete.
Not daring to stay where he was, Chen Ge quickened his pace and walked downstairs.
"The middle-aged man is probably dead. It would be perfect if Yingchen could mistake him for me. However, with Yingchen's intelligence, he will definitely be suspicious. I have to prepare for the worst."
Holding onto the wall, Chen Ge walked down all the way, silently calculating the number of floors in his mind.
"Assuming Yingchen's family lives on the seventh floor, I should have reached the first floor by now."
There would be a corner between the two floors, so it was impossible to make a mistake. However, when Chen Ge took a step toward the next floor, he found that there was no flat ground under his feet, but stairs!
"Does Yingchen's building have a basement?" Chen Ge recalled carefully and came to a very bad conclusion. He clearly remembered that the building where Yingchen's family lived did not have a basement.
"The world behind this door doesn't completely correspond to reality! Damn it!"
It was invisible to begin with, and Chen Ge had not been discovered by Yingchen until now. In addition to relying on the cat's meow, another important reason was that he had been here before and had a basic topographic map in his mind.
By consulting the map in his mind, he didn't get completely lost.
But now he discovered that there was a discrepancy between the map in his mind and the world behind the door, and the fear of the unknown was instantly magnified.
“Should I continue going down, or knock on the door and ask for help from the residents in the building? There is obviously no basement in reality, but this corridor continues to extend downwards. I wonder where it will lead to in the end?”
He should have reached the first floor, but he didn't finish walking up the stairs. In the absence of a basement, Chen Ge didn't know what went wrong.
"Is there a distinction between seven floors above ground and seven floors underground? Just like inside and outside a door? Everyone on the seven floors above ground is normal, but the seven floors underground are filled with blood and ghosts?"
Standing in the corridor, Chen Ge walked down a few more steps. He did not feel uncomfortable, nor did he sense anything different. The surrounding environment did not seem to have changed at all.
"It shouldn't be seven floors above ground and seven floors underground. Is it possible that this is an infinite loop with no end?"
"The lowest floor of the building is connected to the top floor, and the top floor is connected to the lowest floor. For a blind person, repeating the action of going downstairs in the dark will produce a special sense of despair, as if there is no end to everything and he is just struggling in vain."
Most people would not have this kind of experience, but Chen Ge was different. Some time ago, he had done a nightmare-level mission in Jiangyuan Community, and happened to blindfold himself to experience the feeling of a blind person going upstairs.
Darkness, loneliness, and the unknown, everything will ferment in your heart, giving birth to a devil that represents fear, and will eventually devour you.
"I can't go any further. The world behind this door is different from the real world. I must be more cautious."
Chen Ge retreated to what he thought was the "first floor", feeling the wall and moving in the corridor. He ran all over this floor and found something very hopeless.
"There is no exit. You can't get out of here."
Despair grew in his heart, and Chen Ge found that he had underestimated the difficulty of the world behind the door.
"Am I experiencing what Ying Tong experienced? The community clearly has an exit, but to him, this building is completely closed. This building is his entire world and he can't escape at all."
Chen Ge bit the tip of his tongue lightly, using the pain to calm himself down.
"It seems that the hope of breaking the impasse lies with Ying Tong. He is the door-pusher of this world and should know how to 'open his eyes'. I must find Ying Tong before Ying Chen finds me!"
Without any clues or help, in a closed building, a blind man had to find another blind man while being chased by a psychopathic killer. Chen Ge had never encountered such a difficult task before.
"From now on, I must remember every step I take, every position I take, and every direction I face."
The reality and the world behind the door are different and cannot be compared, so Chen Ge wants to draw a new map in his mind.
This is extremely difficult to do, but Chen Ge has no choice but to do this in order to increase his chances of survival.
I can’t see, so I have to remember all the paths I’ve taken.
As long as he is familiar with the terrain, he can also run, and even set traps to kill the ministers.
Simply hiding has never been Chen Ge's style. He wants to use everything around him to solve the danger once and for all.
Although he has lost his sight, if Yingchen only treats him as an ordinary blind man and plays with him like a cat and mouse, he will definitely suffer a great loss.
"The middle-aged man we just met had something similar to corpse spots on his body. His body temperature was very low, so he was definitely not alive. From this perspective, could all the residents in this building be dead?"
"Some of their deaths are probably related to Yingchen, and some of their deaths may be related to the ghost fetus."
"In their eyes, Yingchen is a good person. I have to find a way to change his image in their eyes. It would be best if I could win their trust and help."
There was no cat's meow. Yingchen was far away from here. Chen Ge walked to the corner of the "first floor" and gently knocked on the door near the corridor.
In the dark and quiet world, the monotonous knocking sound kept repeating. Chen Ge himself felt creepy, as if someone was lurking in the darkness.
"No one?"
Chen Ge moved to the next house and knocked for a long time but still no one opened the door. There was not even any sound from inside the house.
After knocking on five doors in a row and none of them opened, Chen Ge gradually became impatient.
"After Ying Chen has dealt with the body, he may continue to walk around the corridor, looking for Ying Tong. If he hears a knock on the door, he will definitely come over to check. Now is my best chance."
Chen Ge moved faster and knocked on the seventh door. Suddenly, an iron door on the other side of the corridor was opened.
"Are you looking for someone? Why are you knocking on the door?" A woman's voice came from behind Chen Ge, startling him.
After adjusting his state, Chen Ge turned around and said, "Yes, I am looking for a child. His name is Ying Tong."
"Ying Tong?"
"It's the kid who lives on the seventh floor. He's blind..."
"I know him, but why are you looking for him? This is not the seventh floor." The woman was talking to Chen Ge when a child's painful scream suddenly came from the room behind her. The scream was somewhat similar to Ying Tong's voice in Chen Ge's memory.
He couldn't be sure whether the child in the woman's room was Ying Tong, because he only heard Ying Tong say one sentence outside the door.
Footsteps were heard, and the woman walked towards her home, while Chen Ge followed behind her.
The woman seemed to be in a hurry. She did not close the door after entering the house. Chen Ge also stumbled and followed her in by feeling the door frame.
"Why is there this stench again?"
The woman's room, like the middle-aged man's room, was filled with a mixture of various odors that were very pungent.
The cries and screams of the child continued to come from the inner room. Chen Ge was worried that the noise would attract Yingchen, so he found the security door and closed it.
"Why are you sick again? You were fine just now? What did you see?" The woman sounded anxious, rummaging through the drawers in the house, looking for something.
Although Chen Ge felt that the child's voice was a bit similar to Ying Tong's, he heard the woman say - what did you see?
Ying Tong is blind, but the child in the woman's house is not blind.
"Stay here and don't move. I'll go find you some medicine!"
Footsteps sounded in the house, moving towards the door. Chen Ge wanted to make way, but he didn't expect that he would bump into the woman directly.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to do that." In the darkness, Chen Ge wanted to support the woman and grabbed the woman's arm in panic.
The woman's arms were thin and unnaturally twisted.
Chen Ge's hand was quickly shaken away by the woman. She seemed a little angry and her tone of voice changed: "Let's talk about your matter later. I need to go upstairs to borrow some medicine."
The security door was opened, the woman walked out, and then the security door was closed again.
"medicine?"
The child's crying and screaming gradually became quieter, and the house gradually became quiet.
"This woman's body is deformed, just like the twisted dolls in Ying Tong's bedroom. In addition, her body temperature is very low..."
More than ten minutes later, the security door was opened again and the woman with twisted arms entered the house.
Chen Ge heard the sound of pouring water and swallowing. After the child's crying completely stopped, he moved towards the house: "Can I ask what disease your child has? Don't think too much, I'm actually a doctor."
"No ordinary doctor can cure his disease." The woman came out from the inner room and walked in front of Chen Ge: "Have you heard of sharp weapon phobia?"
"Is it a kind of phobia?"
"Pretty much. Whenever this child sees something sharp, he gets sick. He becomes anxious, desperate, cries, and makes noises. He always imagines someone stabbing his eyes with that thing."