Chapter 138
The strange nursery rhyme was repeated three times before it stopped.
The sound of the newspaper can was so sharp that it made Xu Ming's already aching head even more dizzy. She was afraid of missing any hints, so she stood on the ground and listened to the nursery rhyme three times. She also took a piece of paper and hurriedly wrote down what she heard.
After the damn newspaper can finally shut up, she sat down on the ground as if exhausted, leaned against the display cabinet for a long time, and finally got rid of the lingering ringing in her ears.
She exhaled softly and tentatively reached for the rule book in her bag.
"Hey?" She pressed the cover of the rule book, trying to talk to Lu Yueling inside, "Xiao Liu? Are you okay? How do you feel now?"
The rule book did not move.
After a while, Lu Yueling's voice rang in her mind weakly: "Not bad. Just a little weak."
"What about you?"
Although the situation was very chaotic before, she still saw Xu Ming fall. The sound was particularly loud, and it sounded like he fell hard.
"Not too bad." Xu Ming rubbed his temples resignedly, "Do you want to come out now?"
"...No." After a pause, Lu Yueling said depressedly, "I still feel something is wrong. My hair...my roots, it seems that there is something wrong. I'm afraid they'll go crazy again as soon as I get out."
At the end of her speech, her voice gradually lowered. Xu Ming also understood -
no matter who it was, if they found that the weapon they relied on most suddenly started to run wild and attack themselves, their hearts would be shocked.
What's more, the mental shock that Lu Yueling encountered was far worse than this - what is more terrifying than seeing a twisted shadow crawling in the corridor?
It is to find out that this twisted shadow is actually yourself a few minutes later.
Lu Yueling herself is afraid of ghosts... Xu Ming dare not guess how much psychological shadow this incident has left on her.
"Okay, don't worry about me." As if she noticed Xu Ming's thoughts, Lu Yueling spoke again, "When I feel better, I'll ask you to let me out. "
Come to think of it, where are you now? Before I entered the rule book, I seemed to vaguely see a room that was similar to the previous one..."
"Remove the 'seems'." Xu Ming sighed and looked around again, "Remove the 'almost' as well."
More than just almost. It's exactly the same - even the doll she had knocked over before was now lying on the ground in exactly the same position.
Trying to calm down, Xu Ming briefly described the current situation to Lu Yueling. After hearing Xu Ming chasing her across the entire corridor but returning to the original room, Lu Yueling let out an undisguised "Huh"; after listening to Xu Ming repeating the nursery rhyme he had heard, his tone was a little confused again.
"...What kind of wicked thing?" she couldn't help but say, "Can the riddle teller get out of the strange story?"
"Good question. "Xu Ming nodded affirmatively, "I want to know too."
Lu Yue Lingpin read her words, his tone subtle again: "Don't tell me you understand."
"Not that I fully understand it." Xu Ming pursed his lips and looked at the notes in his hand, "but combined with the information we have at present, in fact, some of the references can still be roughly guessed."
For example, "the moon" and "the ground" - judging from the current situation, it is most likely referring to the existence behind the door and the real world, and the meaning of "illuminate" is also very clear - it's just another way of saying "open the door.
" "Following this line of thought, the first 'doll' to be illuminated is most likely Xu Ling. "Xu Ming drew circles on the paper with the tip of his pen, and slowly spoke to Lu Yueling in the rule book, organizing his thoughts as he spoke.
"Xu Ling was originally the 'root' in my aunt's hands. Because my aunt found something wrong with her, she was sent to Teacher Yang Duyi's unit before she fully 'awoke' - in other words, Teacher Yang Duyi is the 'bully' in the nursery rhyme. "
Xu Ling woke up little by little in the unit building, and finally almost completely controlled the entire building, but she could never break through Yang Duyi's restrictions and completely come to reality. And after Xu Ming broke into... and visited the unit building, she was sent back to the world behind the door by the building manager and others, which just echoed the "lost home" in the nursery rhyme.
"Then the sentence 'wait for mother to come' is wrong, right?" Lu Yueling asked curiously, "She was sent away after you entered the unit building... You should be the 'sister'?" "
Maybe this mother refers to the building manager Yang? Doesn't she like to claim relatives randomly? "Xu Ming speculated uncertainly, "It is also possible that it is simply for the sake of rhyme..."
Some authors are like this, they can do anything for the sake of rhyme.
"..." Lu Yueling expressed her opinion with a subtle silence. Xu Ming stretched out his hand and knocked on the spine of the rule book, and said: "More importantly, the building manager and others have revealed that the door opened by Xu Ling is very likely the first door."
It was after that door was opened that the number of psychics increased, the rule books proliferated, and the ghost stories entered a bad evolutionary period - and this corresponds to the order in which the dolls were illuminated.
As for the "eyes" part, Xu Ming really didn't understand. Combined with the context, she guessed that this should refer to the second door that opened, which quietly opened by itself when no one was paying attention.
However, judging from the description in the nursery rhyme, the result of this door does not seem to be too good.
"The next two paragraphs are easier to understand. "Xu Ming poked the paper with his pen tip," The general meaning is, there are actually other doors in this world, but they don't mean much to the things behind the doors, which are the so-called 'assembly line products'. When one batch is gone, there will be another batch to take its place. But the last door is crucial. Once this door is successfully opened, it will truly achieve its goal and win..."
"To put it bluntly, it represents the thing behind the door, a summary of the current situation and a bright future." Xu Ming concluded firmly, "The overall format is quite standard. "
If the Demolition Office wants to write something mysterious in the future, maybe we can learn from it.
" "..." Lu Yueling fell silent again because of her summary. After a long while, she murmured, "Teacher Mingming, I think your thinking is a little too lively now."
It doesn't look like he just had a brainstorm.
"There's no way. After all, I don't have much time left to be lively." Xu Ming sighed, folded the papers in his hand and put them away, "There will be no meaningless ballads in ghost stories. Nor will they design something incomprehensible, just to let you experience the pleasure of a brainstorm - so, guess, why is there such a nursery rhyme here? "
Lu Yueling: "..."
As if she realized something, she took a breath and said, "You mean..."
"It is known that this strange story is related to the existence behind the door, and also involves the key to open the door. It is also known that this place has a newspaper barrel specially designed to inform entrants about the last door." Xu Ming closed his eyes tightly, "Then what do you think is the probability of the last door appearing in this place?"
Lu Yueling: "…………"
"Oh my." After a moment of silence, she couldn't help but cursed directly in Xu Ming's mind.
Xu Ming shrugged, supported by the shelf and climbed up again.
"That's why I said that there is not much time left to be active." She patted her clothes and whispered, "If you don't seize the time to be active now, you may not have the chance in the future."
After all, judging from the hint of the nursery rhyme-when the last door opens, what greets them will definitely not be a good thing.
Of course, it's useless to worry about this right now. They don't even know the specific situation of the room yet.
Xu Ming pondered secretly, and his eyes swept around again. He noticed that the pen that Lu Yueling had dropped before was still on the ground, and he hurried over to pick it up. The moment he stuffed the pen back into the bag, he let out a low "hmm".
"What's wrong!" Lu Yueling immediately trembled, which scared Xu Ming instead - fortunately, under the influence of the whale fat man, she is now quite adaptable to this kind of brain communication.
"Nothing..." Xu Ming rummaged through his bag again, but his tone became a little subtle, "I just suddenly found that something was missing in the bag."
Lu Yueling: "?"
"Remember the note we found when we first entered here?" Xu Ming said, "It's gone."
She was referring to the one with italic words. Xu Ming remembered clearly that after reading the note, she carefully put it into her bag. She never moved it since then.
But now, she can't find it.
Lu Yueling also found it strange, and then gave a suggestion: "Do you remember which doll you found it from? Why don't you go and have a look again?"
Since the room they are in now is exactly the same as before, maybe the small note has also been refreshed back to its original location as they moved.
Xu Ming also thought of this, and hurriedly found the doll and took a closer look. However, in the same position, there was no trace of the note.
It was as if it had evaporated on the spot.
Unable to find it anywhere, Xu Ming could only put the matter aside for the time being. In the process of looking for the note, she noticed another thing.
- The time on the clock seemed to be wrong.
Xu Ming had noticed this clock before. The time indicated was about 8:10, but now, the time on the clock has pointed to more than 9 o'clock.
The difference is almost an hour. This is too different from the time Xu Ming felt.
"Maybe it's the problem of this room--" Lu Yueling tried to use her meager knowledge of science fiction novels to help Xu Ming explain everything in front of him, "When you enter this room again, it is equivalent to a time jump."
Xu Ming: "...Do you really understand what you are talking about?"
"Why do you care so much?" Lu Yueling snorted softly, "And please, I saw myself a few minutes later before. For such a hellhole, how can you expect it to be normal?"
Isn't it basic to jump in time? It would be strange if time went normally.
"...That's right." Xu Ming was silent for a moment, and really agreed with this statement. In fact, she had guessed before that the "more and more chaotic" written in the italic note might refer to time.
However, further speculation was impossible to continue - there was indeed no more information in the room now.
So after a brief thought, Xu Ming made a decisive decision. He carefully approached the blue door in the upper left corner, looked out through the doorway again and again, then retracted his gaze and walked out very carefully.
Outside the door, it was still the familiar corridor. At the end of the corridor, there was still a blue door.
Behind the blue door, it was still the same room.
The same layout, the same furnishings, the same overturned shelves and dolls, and the same blue doors on both sides.
The first thing Xu Ming did when he went in this time was to look at the clock - as expected, the time on the clock had changed again.
Now it was ten o'clock.
So it ticks on the hour... Xu Ming's eyes moved slightly, and he raised his hand to rub his swollen forehead again, as if he remembered something, and glanced nervously at the newspaper barrel in the display cabinet next to him.
Fortunately, now doesn't seem to be the right time for this guy to talk. The newspaper barrel stood quietly, and Xu Ming breathed a sigh of relief.
However, this relaxation did not last long, and the moment she reached into the bag again, it turned into deep confusion.
"Strange." Through the connection of the rule book, Lu Yueling heard Xu Ming muttering to himself, "It's gone again."
"?" Lu Yueling tried to get a little consciousness, "What's missing?"
"The note." Xu Ming said as he rummaged through the bag.
"...Huh?" Lu Yueling was stunned, "Didn't it disappear at nine o'clock..."
"Not that one." Xu Ming interrupted her, "It's the one you left behind."
Before Lu Yueling was dragged away by her hair, she left a record for Xu Ming. The paper described the terrifying illusion she saw through the doorway - although from the subsequent developments, it was not entirely an illusion.
When Xu Ming entered the room for the second time, he picked up the paper and put it in his bag after reading it. But now, this piece of paper is gone.
There is only one record left in her bag. It is the nursery rhyme she dictated.
Lu Yueling: "..."
"That is to say, you handled three records in total. When you entered the room for the second time, the one you collected at the beginning was lost. When you entered the room for the third time, the one you collected the second time was lost."
After a moment of thought, Lu Yueling's slightly complicated tone resounded in Xu Ming's mind again: "No, Teacher Mingming, why does it sound like there is something wrong with your bag?"