Chapter 74

... Building Master?

Xu Ming couldn't help but frowned as she smacked the two words.

She wasn't very familiar with this position. When she was a child, she lived in a country house with her aunt. She lived on campus from high school onwards and rented an apartment after graduation. She had basically never come across this position. She only knew that it was usually set up in residential communities, but she wasn't very clear about the specific functions.

Of course, the "building master" in such a place is not quite the same as expected in reality.

The question is, what role does the building master in this building play?

Judging from the hint in his hand, he seems to have the function of guiding the intruders to leave, and he is on the friendly side; but this is the only thing that can support this conclusion.

"...No matter what, let's stay alert."

Xu Ming exhaled, silently made up his mind, and scanned the paper again, and soon locked on three other keywords.

"Home", "Neighbors", "Induction Light".

Always remember that your home is not here - at least for the current situation, this is valuable. Forgetting where you came from and getting it wrong about where you are going are two very common taboos in the area of ​​ghost stories. What

Xu Ming cares more about are the other two:

don't alarm any neighbors, don't trigger the induction light.

...First of all, why neighbors?

The word "neighbor" means that there must be multiple "residents" in this building. This is already a very bad situation for Xu Ming. This wording makes her feel even more strange - it is known that this note is written to outsiders. In this case, why write "neighbors"?

In the conventional sense, it would be more accurate to write "residents", right?

And then there is the induction light...

Xu Ming raised her head slightly, and her eyes quickly locked on the light bulb hanging not far away.

Induction lights, she knew this. Usually, they are installed above the platform between the stairs. They are usually dark and will only be activated and light up when the sound is loud enough.

Like at this moment, the light bulb is installed in the center of the top of the corridor. It is in a state of being extinguished - and because of this, the light on the entire floor is quite dim, and only the position where Xu Ming is located is slightly brighter.

Because there is an exit behind her, a little light is coming out from the gap in the iron door at this moment.

Xu Ming looked at the light bulb from a distance and pursed her lips with some vigilance. She looked down at her hands again, with a thoughtful look on her face.

... Although she couldn't tell the specific difference, she could feel that after she entered the strange legend area, this body's perception of the outside world was obviously different.

Unlike before when she was walking in reality, the whole person felt light and floating, as if she could go up to the sky by pushing off the ground hard; now the sense of reality she can feel is obviously stronger, almost the same as the original body.

Recalling the skill description that he had read before leaving, Xu Ming couldn't help but exclaimed in his heart, "Oh."

- Entering a ghost story in a sleepwalking state, the external characteristics displayed are similar to those of a dead person. And even a dead person must abide by the laws of physics in the ghost story area.

In other words, it is not realistic to rely on floating around to avoid certain risks, including the induction light mentioned in the paper...

What's more, there is no way to be sure that the induction light here is triggered by sound.

Xu Ming pondered secretly and glanced at the dim light bulb again. After thinking about it, he tentatively took a step up the stairs to the side.

——Almost at the moment when her feet landed on the stairs, the light bulb not far away suddenly made a crackling sound!

Xu Ming's heart was shocked, and he quickly retracted his feet, but it was obviously too late - the light bulb was still crackling, and in the gaps between the sounds, a dim light kept flickering, lighting up for a moment and then going out, as if the circuit was unstable. But as the flickering intensified, it was obvious that the light was gradually getting brighter -

and almost at the same time, the corridor quickly became cold. There was clearly a light flickering, but Xu Ming had an illusion that the darkness around him was getting worse; although he hadn't seen anything yet, his scalp began to numb instinctively. Xu Ming secretly thought that something was not good

and quickly took two steps back. His mind raced and he made up his mind in a flash. He picked up the puppy on the ground and quickly and quietly hid behind the handrail of the first-floor stairs. - At this time, it was obviously not wise to rashly make a bigger noise. On the other hand, she had tried it before. In this state, it seems that she can still leave the strange story directly. And this position is both concealed and can be observed. It is close to the door. If you stand up and go up, you can go directly to the second floor. You can go forward or backward, which makes people feel more at ease. After waiting for a while, the light flickered a few times, but it didn't light up completely after all. Finally, with a snap, it went dark. "..." Xu Ming, who was hiding behind the stairs, carefully poked his head out. She and the puppy in the bag stretched their necks to look outside. After a pause, she noticed that the temperature around her began to rise again, so she tentatively stretched out a foot again and got up from the stairs lightly. The sole of her shoe landed steadily on the ground, but this time, the sensor light did not respond at all. ... Strange. Xu Ming blinked and muttered to himself. It seems that the judgment of this sensor light is indeed not based on sound. But the real basis for the judgment cannot be figured out for the time being. In any case, Xu Ming thought it would be better to be cautious - after all, based on her experience just now, the sensor light is fully on, which is probably not a good thing. I just don't know why it went out just now? Is it because I hid too far away? Still no sound? What if I get closer again? Xu Ming quickly listed various guesses in his mind while walking deeper along the corridor again. When he came to the side of the induction light, he was almost tense, with his body slightly tilted, ready to run away as soon as he noticed something wrong. Fortunately, the induction light was really like dead at this moment, and it never lit up again. This made Xu Ming secretly relieved, and then frowned again. Here comes the question - what should she do next? Go directly to Qiu Yufei? That is to go directly upstairs to 301. But after finding her, there was still no clear idea of ​​how to take her away from here. There were only two options: either go to 502 to find the "building manager", or take Qiu Yufei to continue adventuring in the building and try to escape. Or, explore on your own first. After accumulating a certain amount of experience, go find someone - this is also the option Xu Ming prefers at the moment.

After all, she can't use the rule book now, nor can she rely on idiocy to avoid risks. She has a blank slate. Whether it is saving people or taking people away, the success rate is more unstable than in the past; on the other hand, the other party tried every means to trick Qiu Yufei in, not just for the purpose of simply "killing" or "eating"; and judging from the results of Gu Yunshu's previous tests, this behavior may even come from a kind of spiritual need that is better to have nothing than to have too much.

Of course, the spiritual needs in the ghost stories are unlikely to stay only at the spiritual level. The good news is that to meet such "needs", a certain sense of ceremony is often required.

And the sense of ceremony often takes time.

Now I just hope that the sense of ceremony will take long enough and Qiu Yufei can hold on for long enough.

Having made up his mind, Xu Ming quickened his pace and walked to the end of the corridor. He quickly observed the surrounding situation

. At the end of the corridor were two residents on the first floor. Room 101 on the left and Room 102 on the right faced each other and were both closed at the moment.

Room 101 was an old-fashioned two-layer door structure. The outermost layer was a screen door. Inside the screen door was the real door. An upside-down blessing character was pasted on the yellow door panel. Room 102 was a more common reddish-brown anti-theft door with a large cat's eye on it.

The wall between the two families was equipped with their electric meter boxes. This was exactly the same as in reality.

The appearance of the electric meter box was also very similar to reality. It is divided into two halves, the left and right halves, with the electricity meters of the two households placed in them respectively. The outside of the electricity meters is covered with a layer of transparent plastic shell, which provides protection and is convenient for reading. There is also a small door diagonally below the two electricity meters, and there are keyholes on the doors, which are now locked tightly.

If Xu Ming remembered correctly, the small door should be a switch to control electricity consumption.

Looking more closely, the two electricity meters enclosed in plastic shells are also quite strange. The electricity meter in Room 101 does not move at all, but the meter in Room 102 is spinning like a fan.

However, Xu Ming only observed it briefly, and quickly looked away, and turned to walk towards the bottom of the stairs -

she came back for only one purpose. It is the pile of debris under the stairs.

Since the puppy can find the advice left by the "floor master" here, maybe there are more valuable clues hidden here.

... Even so, after seeing the situation below the stairs, Xu Ming was a little undecided.

The reason is simple - it's too messy.

It's really messy. The small space is full of messy things. There are a lot of black garbage bags alone, and there are also torn clothes, toys, skateboards, school bags... There is also a pile of bundled old books in the corner. There seems to be an electric car in the deepest part.

...She said that she always smelled a strange smell after approaching. With so many debris and garbage bags, how can there be no smell.

Xu Ming pursed his lips again, took a deep breath to prepare himself mentally, and approached lightly.

The smell of those garbage bags was very strong. If you got closer, you could even smell blood. It was obvious that they were not good things. So Xu Mingguo gave up searching this part and turned her attention to the pile of books in the corner.

She took out the pile of books as quietly as possible and opened them. The pungent moldy smell instantly penetrated her nose. She wrinkled her nose indifferently and quickly searched inside. She actually found something -

there was a hardcover book mixed in the middle of the pile of old books. When she pulled it out, she found that the cover was severely damaged and the spine of the book was twisted. It was obvious that the damage was very serious; when she opened it, she found that a lot of paper had been torn off in the middle, making the whole book empty.

Xu Ming couldn't help but frown, and quickly turned a few pages forward. Soon, a few lines of messy small characters attracted her attention.

[…It has been confirmed now.

[When the sensor light is on, the corresponding pig will appear.

[Pigs can hurt pigs at will. But they cannot hurt people at will. The person living in the house may be a person or a pig, but the one who stays outside is definitely a pig.

[The question is…how do I know whether I am a person or a pig?]

- The last question mark is particularly dark in color. It is obvious that the writer's pen stagnated for a long time after writing this sentence.

Xu Ming couldn't help but fall into thought.

...What does it mean? What is a "pig"? What is a "human"?

At least one thing can be confirmed-the "human" here is probably not the same concept as the "human" in the conventional sense. The good news is that, judging from this information, "human" seems to be a relatively safe identity.

Does that mean that if you can figure out how to become a "human", the risk of death in this weird story will be reduced accordingly...?

Xu Ming didn't think exactly, and after a little thought, he put the notebook away first, and continued to rummage through the pile of old books in front of him. While searching, her peripheral vision suddenly caught something, and a strange feeling instantly entered her brain, causing her whole body to freeze -

then she stood up and turned her head quickly.

She met a pair of lifeless eyes.

- Someone was looking at her.

Xu Ming then realized that the door of Room 101 next to her had been opened at some point, and a woman with disheveled hair was standing behind the screen door, looking at her quietly.

Her eyes were dull and her lips were purple. She was wearing the heavy home clothes that she would only wear in winter, and she looked extremely bloated.

"...Pan."

The woman did not take any further action after meeting his gaze. She just stared at Xu Ming quietly, and after a moment, she slowly squeezed out a word from her mouth: "...Pan."

"Re...Re..."

Xu Ming: "..."

What?

She didn't hear what the woman was saying at all, and she couldn't make up her mind what to do next. While she was still hesitating, she saw the woman's face suddenly change, as if she felt something extremely fearful. The next second, she saw her head not looking back, and quickly ran into the house -

with a "bang", the door inside was heavily slammed, making a loud noise.

Just as Xu Ming was dumbfounded, the puppy hidden in the bag suddenly started to howl. Almost at the same time, a louder sound rang out like thunder -

right next to her, in Room 102, a heavy sound was coming from behind the door.