Chapter 9: Tube Building (IX) Fusion
A thin soapberry tree stands alone in the sparse grass.
It looks particularly barren and desolate.
Amid the crackling sound of raindrops, a cold breeze quietly blew in from the gap in the window.
Wen Yin, wearing her coat, shivered involuntarily.
Seeing Wen Yin's unhappy expression, 028 said with some concern: [Host, go back to bed first... It's cold standing like this.]
Xiaotuan was still snoring softly on the bed, and the room was dim.
Wen Yin gathered her coat in the dark and was about to go back to bed when she heard several slow and steady knocks on the door.
knock.
knock.
knock.
Accompanied by the sound of raindrops hitting the glass outside the window, like some kind of death spell.
[Host……]
028's mechanical childish voice began to tremble.
[Someone... is knocking on the door...]
Wen Yin turned slowly and her eyes fell on the door that was closed in the dark. There was a rusty cat's eye inlaid on the old-fashioned door panel.
A gust of cold wind blew in from the window gap again, invading Wen Yin's back through the thin clothes.
Wen Yin clenched her palms, which were icy cold.
She stood quietly in the darkness, without moving.
Until an unclear voice was heard outside the door.
There is gentleness in the coldness and youthfulness in the maturity.
Like... a fusion of those people.
"Wen Yin, are you asleep?" the "person" outside the house spoke.
Wen Yin did not respond. She stood in the increasingly thick darkness and suddenly remembered what the old lady had said during the day.
"Don't go out on rainy nights. Keep quiet and you'll be fine."
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The heavy yet slow knock on the door sounded again, and the whole building fell into an eerie silence.
"If you're scared... I can protect you."
A low voice quietly intruded through the gap under the door. Wen Yin was barefoot and felt a wetness on the back of her feet. Something cold and sticky clung tightly to her ankle.
Slowly, winding upwards.
Like a snake with a fishy smell of mud.
The rain was getting heavier and heavier, making the windows rattle.
The little ball on the bed hummed suddenly, turned over, hugged the quilt and murmured in his sleep: "Mom..."
It is a tender and pure child's voice.
Not a trace of filth.
The damp and cold feeling that was wrapping around my calves suddenly stopped when I heard the murmur of a child's voice.
It was like a monster touching the purest formation.
The next second, Wen Yin felt her feet lighten, and the wet, cold, and sticky feeling that had just entangled her disappeared strangely in the whisper.
The noise outside the door stopped, and the sound of raindrops outside the window also softened.
Wen Yin stepped barefoot on the cold concrete floor, like a ghost in the dark night.
She slowly approached the closed door and pressed her eyes against the rusty metal cat's eye.
The long and thick eyelashes blinked, and Wen Yin only saw a thick and surging black in the cat's eyes, like the bottom of the deep sea.
After an unknown amount of time, the black fog dissipated and the layout of the corridor became faintly apparent in the darkness.
Everything is back to normal.
[“Ghost” has left…]
028 still felt a little scared when he spoke.
[Today's "weirdness" seems to be different from yesterday's.]
Last night, the dark shadow and Dr. Shen both came in while Wen Yin was sleeping soundly. The door was just a fake decoration to them.
And today…
Wen Yin turned her head to look at Xiaotuan who was sleeping soundly on the bed. She didn't know what sad thing the boy had dreamed about, and there was a hint of crying in his humming.
Wen Yin closed the curtains, returned to the bed, and held the crying little girl in her sleep in her arms.
"Don't cry, go to sleep, sister will protect you."
-
In the second half of the night, the rain gradually subsided, and Wen Yin fell asleep while hugging Xiaotuan.
When I woke up again, the sky was already turning pale.
Xiaotuan was still asleep. Wen Yin got out of bed and walked to the window to look downstairs. The dense weeds were half a person's height and in a messy state. The skinny soapberry tree in the lower right corner last night was gone.
She looked up at the clouds in the sky, and saw a faint warm glow.
It looks like good weather again.
In the corridor, the sounds of tenants getting up, talking, footsteps, and a noisy and chaotic atmosphere could be heard.
Wen Yin withdrew her gaze, put on her clothes, sat on the edge of the bed and put on her shoes and socks. Xiaotuan turned over in bed, rubbed his eyes and woke up.
The room was still a little dark. Xiaotuan looked at Wen Yin in a daze and murmured, "Mom."
It seemed that he mistook Wen Yin for his mother.
"Xiaotuan, you're awake."
Wen Yin touched Xiaotuan's hair that was curled up due to sleep, "Do you want to sleep a little longer?"
"elder sister……"
Only then did Xiaotuan see clearly that the person in front of him was Wen Yin, and he called Wen Yin "sister" softly.
"No more sleep, I can get up now."
"Okay, then sister will take you to wash up first."
Although Xiaotuan is only three or four years old, he has very good self-care ability.
Getting up and dressing can be done independently.
It was the peak time for getting up and washing up. On the way to the bathroom with cups and washbasins, the two of them were looked at by many people with scrutiny.
"Isn't this Song Wan's child who ran away with someone?"
Someone muttered behind him, "I heard he hasn't been back in a few days. He left this wild child in the building. I wonder who he's looking for to take over."
"Oh, I expected that," another woman muttered, but in a lower voice, "She dresses so frivolously every day, it's obvious she's not a decent person..."
"Then who is this girl...?"
"Tsk tsk... just the same kind of people."
Xiaotuan was still yawning and rubbing his eyes, not paying much attention to the mutterings behind him.
But Wen Yin heard it.
She suddenly stopped walking forward with Xiaotuan in her hand, and turned around to see two women in their forties with permed noodle curls hanging clothes and chatting in front of the door.
The door behind them was open, and they could vaguely see their idle husbands.
When they saw Wen Yin turning around, they were stunned at first. After a brief embarrassment of being caught, they changed the subject and talked about other family matters.
Wen Yin took Xiaotuan a few steps closer to the two people, with a smile on her face and a clear voice.
"Grandma, are you talking about me?"
When the two people who were hanging clothes heard this call, they paused and looked at her in disbelief.
Women are naturally sensitive to age, so they ignore the second half of Wen Yin's sentence.
"Who are you calling grandma?!"
Wen Yin looked innocent, as if she was shocked: "You guys."
The two looked at each other, and one of them became visibly furious: "Can't you tell how old grandma is and how old I am?"
Wen Yin took a step back in fear and "accidentally" knocked over the flowerpot on the windowsill.
After a crisp sound, a slightly plump middle-aged man who was getting dressed appeared from behind the instant noodle roll woman.
“I…I…”
Wen Yin immediately froze in place, feeling aggrieved. She looked at the middle-aged man who had poked his head out for help.
"Uncle... why is grandma suddenly so fierce..."
Being looked at with pleading eyes by a young, beautiful, weak and helpless girl.
For every man, there will be a kind of spiritual pleasure.
As expected, the slightly plump middle-aged man immediately reached out and grabbed his frantic wife.
"Don't be so fierce... The little girl is still young. What if you scare the neighbors with your fierce and ferocious look..."
It would have been better if he hadn't tried to persuade her. Once he did, the conflict was immediately diverted.
"Okay, okay, call me grandma and call you uncle..."
"You must be so happy in your heart!!"
"Hey, don't talk nonsense... I just think I'm younger..."
"You are young... I am old! You old thing..."
“Hey, hey, hey, don’t do it…!”
The situation gradually became chaotic, and many neighbors who didn't know what was going on came closer to watch the fun.
Wen Yin pulled Xiaotuan back a few steps, avoiding the increasingly crowded crowd, with a smile on her face.
"Come on, let's go brush our teeth and ignore them."
Xiaotuan didn't know what was going on, so he just nodded obediently.
The two walked towards the bathroom, and the door of room 502 opened, and the well-dressed Shen Sinian walked out from behind the door.
He stared in the direction of the quarreling middle-aged couple for a long while, his eyes narrowed slightly behind his glasses, and finally he uttered two sarcastic words.
"uncle?"
-
After washing up, Wen Yin and Xiao Tuan went to have breakfast as usual.
The morning market is bustling with people, noisy and full of the bustling atmosphere of the city.
The two were sitting at a breakfast stall eating. In the woods across the street, no one knew what was happening, but a crowd of people was gathering.
Some people also put up isolation warning tape.
"What's going on..."
The owner of the breakfast shop glanced over there and spoke in confusion while busying himself.
A passerby who had just come from that direction to buy breakfast chimed in: "There's a body buried in the woods. The heavy rain last night washed away the mud, and it was discovered by sanitation workers this morning..."
"It was so scary. From a distance, I saw what looked like a female corpse wearing a blue dress..."
With a bang, the porcelain spoon in Xiaotuan's hand fell into the soup bowl.
"Little group!"
Just as Wen Yin realized something, Xiaotuan had already slid off the stool and rushed towards the road without a word.
It was so small that it squeezed into the crowded crowd in two seconds and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"Oh no."
Wen Yin didn't even have time to settle the bill. She just took out a piece of cash and put it on the boss's shop, then stood up and chased in the direction where Xiaotuan disappeared.
It is human nature to love watching the fun, especially this kind of gossip that carries a romantic connotation and can become a topic of conversation among people after dinner.
The protagonist of this incident is Xiaotuan’s mother, Song Wan, who has been missing for four days and has been constantly slandered.
A cordon had already been set up at the edge of the forest, and professional personnel came to the scene to survey and collect evidence.
The crowd surrounded the scene in three layers, and no matter how people shouted to evacuate through loudspeakers, they could not stop the crowd's determination to watch the excitement.
Wen Yin couldn't squeeze in, and could only listen to the heart-wrenching cries of children coming from the woods through the noisy crowd.
"Mother!"
"Mom, what's wrong with you..."
"I'm Xiaotuan, Mom, don't sleep..."
"Mom, look at me..."
"Don't sleep... wake up..."
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