Chapter 24
... What am I saying?
Should I listen to what I am saying?
Standing like a wooden stick in Xu Ming's room, Qiu Yufei had never felt so isolated and helpless.
She didn't know if it was her illusion, but the moment she said that, the maintenance worker's eyes even looked a little complicated. It was as if he was looking at an idiot.
... Fortunately, this state of isolation and helplessness was soon relieved -
not long after, the half-closed door was pushed open again, and Xu Ming walked in from outside, rubbing his waist.
"Good news, nothing..." She wanted to say that there was no special movement at the front desk on the first floor, but she stopped talking immediately when she noticed the maintenance worker busy not far away.
Then she smiled politely.
"Master, you are busy." Qiu Yufei heard her naturally, "What kind of work are you busy with?"
The maintenance worker who was carrying the cat-faced woman on his shoulders and preparing to climb down the ladder: "..."
Silently placing the motionless cat-faced woman on the toolbox beside him, I don't know if it was Qiu Yufei's illusion, his expression seemed to be more stiff.
Maintaining this stiff expression, after dealing with the cat-faced woman, he squatted in front of the TV and cut off the hard monkey claw. Then, one of them carried it on his shoulder, the other held it in his hand, plus a toolbox, and walked out without saying a word.
Xu Ming and the others kept polite smiles on their faces and watched him walk out of the room. Then, the moment he left, they closed the door without hesitation.
"...So." Xu Ming pressed the door handle and turned to look at Qiu Yufei, with genuine confusion on his face, "What exactly is he here for?"
She could probably guess that this was the maintenance worker sent by the front desk. But she really didn't know how he would do the maintenance.
From beginning to end, all she saw was him gesturing to the air.
The maintenance master, who was still outside the door and heard her question clearly: "..."
He glanced at the two strange bodies in his hands again, blinked slowly, and finally couldn't help but show a little genuine confusion on his face.
...Is he a fool?
He thought silently, and finally turned around and put the strange body in his hand on the small cart he brought.
Then he pushed the cart along the corridor and slowly walked towards the elevator.
The bright incandescent light filled the corridor, but for some reason, it gave people a bleak feeling. The wheels of the cart rolled over the thick carpet, moving forward quietly and steadily, but at a certain moment, it suddenly stopped.
The maintenance worker who had been pushing the cart with his head down slowly raised his eyes and saw an open door crack not far away.
It seemed that someone was secretly looking out from inside the crack. The moment he met the eyes, he immediately stepped back, and the door was quickly and silently closed.
"..." A trace of emotion appeared on the maintenance worker's usually wooden face again. He frowned slightly, pushed the cart forward a few steps, and when he passed the door, he deliberately raised his head to take a look.
That was the room at the end of the corridor, and the house number should have been 8301.
At this moment, in his eyes, the number on the door was clearly 8313.
The repairman's brows immediately wrinkled more tightly. He took a deep look at the room, but his footsteps did not hesitate for a moment. Soon, with the slight rolling sound of the wheels, he gradually disappeared into the corridor.
*
The other end.
Only when the sound outside the door faded away did the two people in the room really breathe a sigh of relief.
"Okay, then take out the things you took pictures of." Without further ado about the maintenance worker's work, Xu Ming decisively turned to the topic that interested her more. She skillfully took out a pen and another notebook from her bag.
Since she confirmed the role of the rule book, she made herself a new draft book to jot down some design inspirations. It came in handy right now.
The current situation is too chaotic and needs to be sorted out. Compared with electronic products, traditional handwritten notes are more reliable. And you only need to add the signature of "Strange Talk Demolition and Relocation Office" so that you don't have to worry about losing it, which makes people feel more at ease.
Qiu Yufei nodded hurriedly and took out her mobile phone. The photo was quickly retrieved.
Because she was a little panicked at the time, she was anxious and didn't align it very accurately, so the photo was a little blurry. But it was still roughly visible.
"Tang Menglong, Tang Menglong... found him!" Xu Ming enlarged the picture, swiping from the bottom to the top, and soon found their focus, "8307. It's the room in the middle of the corridor."
"It's on the floor above Bo He." Qiu Yufei whispered, dragged the picture to the side, and said "Huh" softly, "What do the numbers at the end mean? Why is he the only one with 5?" "
?" Xu Ming was taking notes, and when he heard this, he took a look curiously and found that it was true -
there was a single-digit number at the end of each tenant's registration information. She and Qiu Yufei were 1, Bo He and the one above her were 2, and Tang Menglong was 5. Apart from him, the one with the largest number was Tan Tu, who lived in Room 8301, with the first number being 3.
"And 8206!" Qiu Yufei kept enlarging the photo and quickly added, "That's the strange yellow-haired man that Bohe mentioned. His number is also 1."
Finally, there was another tenant who also lived on the second floor. His number was the same as Bohe, which was 2.
"In other words, there are a total of eight tenants in the building now. Three of them are numbered 1, three are numbered 2, one is 3, and one is 5." Xu Ming said as he quickly took notes in his notebook, "But the question remains, what do these numbers mean?"
"Check-in order?" Qiu Yufei tried to guess, "We are the latest to check in, so it is 1? The larger the number, the earlier the check-in time?"
"If it is in order, then the numbers should be arranged from small to large, right? How can they be arranged backwards?" Xu Ming frowned, "Also, why is there no 4? It jumped directly to 3..."
Also, there are three people under the numbers "1" and "2"; why are there so few people under the numbers "5" and "3"? Were there only so many people, or...
Xu Ming suddenly had a bad guess in her mind, which made her scalp numb.
At this moment, Qiu Yufei, who continued to study the registration book, discovered another strange thing.
"Hey, Teacher Mingming." She looked up and confirmed with Xu Ming, "Mint said that she came with 'two' friends, and those two friends stayed in the same room, right?"
"Yeah." Xu Ming nodded without hesitation, and then seemed to realize something, his face suddenly changed.
Qiu Yufei observed her expression, and her tone became more subtle:
"Yes, I remember she said so. But in this case, there should be two people registered in Room 8203, right?"
- But in the record they took, there was clearly only one person living in Room 8203.
"...Could it be that it is the same room, and one person is enough to register?" Xu Ming tried to explain this mystery, but he couldn't say it well.
Is Bo He lying? Why is there a need for such a lie? And Bo He provided relatively accurate information about other tenants except for this matter. Xu Ming didn't think she would lie about this matter alone.
"It can only be like you said, that her cognition was affected." Qiu Yufei whispered, "But if that's the case, then what exactly is that person she thought was another 'friend'?"
Xu Ming: "..."
Good question, I want to know too.
And compared to this matter, she is more concerned about the status of Mint's original friend - assuming that Friend No. 2 is really the product of Mint's cognitive disorder, then Friend No. 1 who lives with it is probably not in a much better situation.
On the other hand, if Mint itself is really in a very confused state, then is the information she provided about Tang Menglong really reliable?
"...I think this part of the information should still be reliable." After a brief thought, Xu Ming concluded, "At least she must have had contact with the person holding the leaf pattern business card."
"But didn't you say that before? Her description was very confusing." Qiu Yufei curled her lips, "One moment she said she came back from dinner, and the next moment she said she didn't go downstairs to eat. And the message that Tang Menglong asked her to convey was also very strange."
Don't talk - where to talk?
There is no swimming pool in the hotel.
Xu Ming lowered his eyelids and pursed his lips thoughtfully.
"About this point, I've actually been thinking about it before..."
She glanced at Qiu Yufei and said softly, "Could he mean not to leave any candy?"
"......?" Qiu Yufei was stunned for a moment, "What?"
"That's right, this candy." Xu Ming reached out and took out the white chess candy from the bag, "Don't leave any candy - don't leave any candy with you, doesn't that make more sense?" "
That's true..." Qiu Yufei nodded in sudden realization, then frowned again, "But the tenant's instructions mean that we should keep them carefully and use these candies with caution..."
Literally, these two pieces of information constitute a certain contradiction. But... how to say it?
"I still think it's weird." Qiu Yufei frowned, "Why is it 'don't leave any candy'?"
If you just want to express the opposite of the tenant's instructions, there is a more direct way to express it. For example, "throw away the candy", "use up the candy", or even more bluntly, "don't believe in the tenant rules".
Why must such a difficult and homophonic expression be used?
"Maybe it's because... the rule he wants to target is not the tenant rules?" Xu Ming was silent for a while, and spoke uncertainly.
Qiu Yufei: "? Then what is he targeting?"
"Other rules?" Xu Ming guessed, "A rule that emphasizes that the candy must be kept."
It's just that they haven't come into contact with this rule yet.
Compared to this, Xu Ming is actually more concerned about another issue.
Bo He said that when she saw Tang Menglong in the elevator, the other party was already in a very bad state. What he said to her afterwards was full of the flavor of a will.
If we follow this scenario,
is Tang Menglong still here?
"... Let's go check it out." Xu Ming hesitated for a moment, then checked the time, packed up his things and stood up. Qiu Yufei paused, "Ah, go now? It's past nine, a little late, what if he's still sleeping?" "
Then try again tomorrow morning. Anyway, the sooner the better." Xu Ming said quickly, "Besides, how can you sleep in a place like this?" After
saying that, he turned around and walked out quickly.
*
At the same time.
In the room at the other end of the corridor on the third floor.
The ragged man leaned against the door, still trembling. After hearing the sudden knock on the door in the corridor, he reflexively shrank his head, and then trembled more violently. While panting nervously, he turned around carefully and opened the door behind him.
The door was opened a little, and in the gap was a dim corridor with an emergency light on. With the light of the emergency light, he tried to look outside, and it took a lot of effort to finally see Xu Ming and the other person knocking on the door not far away.
The next moment, he saw his pupils suddenly shrink, as if he saw something extremely terrifying, and then he saw his face pale and sneaked back into the room.
"It's true, it's true..."
He couldn't help muttering until the door in front of him closed again. His eyeballs kept shaking as he spoke, and his irises reflected strange colors under the white light.
"They have no heads, and the waiters have cat eyes. Cats can kill people, cats can kill people..."
It's all true, it's all true.
- Everything written on that piece of paper is true.
The man thought in horror, and involuntarily grabbed his blood-soaked clothes. Large patches of blood had dried up, dyeing the coat an even stranger color.
His eyes turned slightly, and his gaze fell on the TV cabinet not far away.
On the TV cabinet, there was a strange sculpture. It looks like a clock, but the entire clock shell, including most of the dial, has been covered by layers of overlapping butterflies, with only two hands still exposed, still turning with difficulty.
Under the sculpture is a white folded card. Next to the card is a waist belt that was removed not long ago. On the waist belt are randomly arranged butterfly patterns, so densely arranged that if you look at it for a long time, you may even have the illusion that a butterfly is about to flutter on your face.
The man panted violently, his fingers trembling, and picked up the card again. When he opened it, the first thing he saw was a line of neatly printed words:
[Hello, welcome to [Butterfly Building]. We regret to inform you that you have come to a very bad place. In order to ensure that you can be redeemed as soon as possible, we have specially prepared the following instructions for you, and we hope that you can read them patiently...]
*
The other end.
Hearing the sound of a door closing faintly from not far away, Xu Ming turned his head vigilantly, and his eyes quickly scanned the brightly lit corridor, but saw nothing.
"What's wrong?" Qiu Yufei, who was sticking close to her, said nervously, "Did you find anything again?" "
...I heard the sound of a door closing." Xu Ming said honestly, "It felt like someone was peeking..."
From their position, no matter who opened the door and came out, they could easily see it. Since no one was seen opening the door, and the sound of the door closing was heard, it could only be that someone opened a crack in the door and quickly closed it.
Of course, this is just a purely scientific interpretation - there is another possibility that there is something she can't see, wandering in the corridor, making strange noises.
Qiu Yufei was already very nervous, and when she heard her words, goosebumps immediately fell all over the floor, and she grabbed her and walked back. Xu Ming looked at the door in front of him that he couldn't knock open, and didn't insist anymore, and still asked her to drag him back to the room.
It was not until she shut the door again that Qiu Yufei realized that Xu Ming's second guess was actually unreasonable
. "I was scared by you for nothing." Qiu Yufei sat back on the sofa and muttered, "Didn't you say that you have that idiotic attribute? You can't sense strange things in the ghost story area..."
Then how could there be strange movements that she could hear but he couldn't?
"Yeah...that's right." Xu Ming thought for a moment and affirmed her judgment, "Then it seems that someone could only be peeking."
Qiu Yufei: "..."
Oh, I feel even more creepy. What's going on?
"Anyway, be more careful. Forget about Tang Menglong tonight. We'll try to find him tomorrow." Xu Ming said, yawning uncontrollably, "I'm so sleepy. Why don't we take a rest first?"
Qiu Yufei: ...
How can you sleep in a place like this?
"You have to sleep even if you can't. Mental rest is very important." Xu Ming said seriously, handing his bag to Qiu Yufei, and carefully taught her how to use the meteor hammer made of whale blubber. Then he took out the last wet towel, rubbed his lower back and walked into the bathroom.
Although the conditions were difficult, she still wanted to clean herself as much as possible before going to bed.
Qiu Yufei pursed her lips, hugged her knees, and sat on the sofa waiting. After waiting for a while, I was really bored, so I took out my phone to look for some stand-alone games. When I glanced at the WeChat icon on the interface, I couldn't help but pause.
"Hey, Teacher Mingming!" She shouted to the bathroom, "I remember when we first came in, we sent a message through the phone, right?"
But since this is a ghost story area, how could the message be sent?
"I don't know." Xu Ming's voice came through the door, "Maybe we just thought we were sending messages to each other."
Qiu Yufei:...
???
"Maybe our message was sent out and received by some kind of existence. In order to prevent us from discovering the abnormality here, it pretended to be a living person and sent a reply on our behalf..."
Anyway, it's not difficult to imitate modern people chatting. A "hmm" can handle countless occasions.
"......No way." Qiu Yufei felt a little dumbfounded when she heard it, "Are ghost stories so perfunctory these days?"
"That may be the case. Four years ago, I never thought that a ghost story would give me such a big bathtub for free." She heard Xu Ming's voice continue to float out of the bathroom, "The key point is that it's still very clean."
Qiu Yufei: "......"
In a place like this, how dare you look at the bathtub.
Unable to help shaking her head, she carefully moved on the sofa, trying to find a more comfortable position. Her eyes accidentally glanced at the tea table in front of her, but the whole person was stunned.
I saw a hot water kettle on the tea table in front of her.
The hot water kettle was made of metal, and the surface was very bright silver. It was so bright that it looked like a distorted mirror.
Through this distorted mirror, Qiu Yufei clearly saw that behind her, at some point, there was something -
a blurry image with a very distorted outline.
"..."
Qiu Yufei's eyes widened involuntarily, her breathing stagnated, and she subconsciously reached forward.
Slowly but forcefully, she grabbed the bag left by Xu Ming.
At the same time -
in the bathroom.
Xu Ming had completed the general cleaning, but his eyes uncontrollably drifted to the large bathtub next to him again.
I have to say, it's really exciting. And she just tried it out of curiosity, and the hot water here is also very stable, and it heats faster than her home...
If Xu Ming didn't really want to get sick if she went out, she really wanted to try taking a hot bath here. Anyway, even
if something went wrong during the bath, she would probably not see it. It's a waste not to take a bath.
On the other hand, since the rule book can change the objective laws to a certain extent... is it possible to change the properties of the clean water here?
If I can avoid the problem of getting sick, then at least I can take a bath every day for free, which seems pretty good...
Xu Ming was thinking silently, but suddenly heard a bang from outside - followed by another scream.
She was so scared that her heart immediately hung in the air. She immediately put on her bathrobe and rushed out. The moment she opened the door, what she saw was Qiu Yufei's nervous and frightened profile.
- She was clinging to the wall, her face pale, as if she had seen something extremely terrifying.
Xu Ming was startled, and subconsciously followed her gaze. Then, Qiu Yufei's frightened voice came to her ears:
"Ming, Teacher Mingming, I know you can't see it now, but listen to me, there is a very scary thing in our room now..."
The scariest thing is that she can't attack it.
She clearly took out the meteor hammer that Xu Ming mentioned and attacked it as soon as the other party appeared. However, the other party was completely different from the slow-reacting monsters she encountered before -
She moved to another place lightly, as if nothing had happened.
She was even still talking.
She said, I'm sorry.
...I'm sorry for what? Are you going to kill me for being sorry? At this distance, is it too late for me to get behind Teacher Mingming?
Qiu Yufei widened her eyes, and eighteen thoughts flashed through her mind. The next second, she caught a glimpse of Xu Ming slowly raising his hand.
He waved in the direction of the other party.
"Don't rush to apologize." She heard Xu Ming say, "Tell me first, how did you find this place?"
"......?!" Qiu Yufei looked over in shock, and then looked back in shock. Her shocked eyes went back and forth several times, and finally fixed on Xu Ming.
"You...can see her?" She said in disbelief.
"...Hmm." Xu Ming responded awkwardly, looking a little confused, "Maybe it's because of the binding relationship?"
"Binding?" Qiu Yufei couldn't help but raise her voice, "So you not only raised a little man with two penises, you also secretly raised a female ghost?"
"No, what kind of wording is that!" Xu Ming immediately corrected righteously, "I didn't raise her!"
"I just thought she was a good person and didn't want her to disappear, so I established a simple binding relationship with her, so that I could use the power of the rule book to provide her with some..."
Xu Ming suddenly paused when he said this.
Hiss. Now that you say it, it seems that I am indeed raising a female ghost.
Forget it, this is not the point.
Taking a deep breath, Xu Ming decisively chose to skip this topic.
"Well, introduce them." She coughed, stretched out her hand and pointed at each other between Qiu Yufei and the visitor, "This is Yufei, my friend. Yufei, this is Gu Yunshu, my..."
Xu Ming paused slightly when he said this, as if he was a little confused about how to introduce them. But she soon found the answer.
"My colleague." She said in a firm tone, "and your colleague."
"Come to think of it, she joined the company earlier than you...so she should also be considered your senior?"
Qiu Yufei: "..."
So that's it.
I understand.
There is something wrong with my cognition.
At this moment, she suddenly felt that her brain was clearer than ever before.
- There must be something wrong with my cognition, absolutely!