Chapter 97

On the other side.

As if falling heavily from a dream, Xu Ming took a deep breath and suddenly opened her eyes.

What she saw was the familiar ceiling. She had returned to her body.

Lu Yueling was standing by, holding a small bowl of water and a cotton swab in her hands. It seemed that she was busy feeding Xu Ming water while she was asleep. Seeing this, she immediately came over, but she pulled back proudly halfway through, coughed lightly, and just leaned towards the bed, slightly leaned forward, and asked about her condition with lowered eyes.

Lando sat quietly in the corner, his half-closed eyelids slowly opened, and a pair of eyes were seen, which had returned to normal.

He closed his eyes and immediately looked towards Xu Ming. The shoulder bag hanging on the hanger beside him swayed slightly, and a small dog head popped out from it, also looking at him intently.

Xu Ming was busy responding to Lu Yueling. Seeing this, he waved his hands and said that he was fine and not uncomfortable. At most, he just felt a little unreal - the kind of unreality like waking up from a dream. Fortunately, he quickly adjusted. Niu Bugeng

and Ma Taigeer were sitting outside the door with Xu Ming's mobile phone, whispering to each other to reply to her messages. Seeing this, they also rushed in and asked about the strange talk. Xu Ming drank water from Lu Yueling's hand and hurriedly passed it over in a few words. As he spoke, he seemed to think of something and gradually calmed down.

"?" Lu Yueling looked at her in confusion. Just as she was about to ask something, her hand suddenly felt lighter - Landor had come to the bedside without her noticing, and took the bowl of water from her hand.

"You guys go out first." Landor whispered, "let her be quiet for a while."

"???" Lu Yueling looked at him in surprise, with a question mark in her eyes that became more obvious. Not to mention why you suddenly seem to understand a lot; not to mention how the conclusion of "let her be quiet" came about; how did you define the scope of "you guys"?

If I remember correctly, from the time Xu Ming woke up to now, I have never spoken to you alone, right? How did it become "you guys" and "us"?

Lu Yueling was muttering in her heart, but the next second, she saw Xu Ming pursed his lips and nodded at her.

...Okay.

As if nothing had happened, she raised her hand to smooth the lace on her cuffs. Lu Yueling curled her lips, called the Ox-Head and Horse-Face, and went out first.

Of course, Xu Ming's mobile phone was left behind. Since Xu Ming was awake, they didn't need to operate this thing.

Xu Ming sat on the bed, picked up his phone, and first called Qiu Yufei to confirm the situation on her side. Then he stretched out his hand and made a few strokes out of boredom. Not surprisingly, he found that during the time he was sleepwalking, there were a lot of messages in his phone -

almost all from Anxin Gardening and Dali Weeding. As for the content, they were all about the Lanziqiao unit building. There were further inquiries and some sharing of internal intelligence.

Because of Xu Ming's previous arrangements, this part of the content had basically been replied by Lu Yueling and the three people of Niu Tou Ma Mian. What surprised Xu Ming was that they replied quite well. Not only did they control their tone, but their words were also particularly appropriate. They looked full of the aura of trained professional workers.

... I have to say that this was a great surprise for Xu Ming.

But she really couldn't be happy at the moment, so she just smiled slightly, and the corners of her mouth soon sank again.

Landuo stayed by the bed, carefully observing her expression, and said softly:

"Are you still thinking about Ms. Tian's last words?"

"..." Xu Ming raised his eyes and looked at him, was silent for a while, and finally nodded.

- In the unit building, Room 201. In the end, Ms. Tian stopped her from saying those words, and besides her, only the puppy hidden in her bag could hear it.

And Landuo happened to be empathizing with the puppy at the time. So he became the second person who knew about it besides Xu Ming.

Xu Ming was not sure if this was a good thing. But at least now it seems that having one more person know about it is not a bad thing for him.

After all, if you keep some things in your heart, it is really uncomfortable...

Xu Ming thought silently, and he bent his legs involuntarily and hugged his knees slowly. After a moment, he couldn't help but sigh.

"...It said that it would not leave that building. Because there is a possibility of a 'door' there." Xu Ming said softly, "But it also asked me to help keep an eye on the ghost stories outside, worried that there will be 'doors' opened in other places..."

And beware of the "key".

Xu Ming remembered clearly that when his "brother" - to be precise, Ms. Tian, ​​said this, her face became more and more solemn and serious.

"Keys" will be generated naturally and take effect in appropriate ghost stories. It is not that the door comes first and then the key, but because there is a "key", the corresponding "door" is born.

And what will happen after the "door" is opened?

Xu Ming did not get a definite answer from Ms. Tian. She only remembered that after hearing her doubts, she asked a very familiar question in return.

She asked, what is the world of ghost stories outside like now?

——Xu Ming responded quickly. The manager of the fifth floor also asked a similar question.

She did not think this was just a coincidence. Combined with the various things that happened since she entered the building, as well as the intelligence she obtained through various channels, she had to make a bold guess in her heart:

"Xu Ling is the 'key'. And it is very likely that she is just one of the 'keys'."

With her face buried in her knees, Xu Ming explained her guess to the only person who knew the truth beside her as calmly as possible:

"This key may be in the form of an alien root, or a root... At that time, my aunt picked up the corresponding root and watched it turn into an alien root with her own eyes. She probably felt that this thing was not right, so she wanted to lock it up somewhere, and ended up finding it in the unit building that her friend was managing..."

Xu Ming was still unclear about the cause of that unit building. But at least one thing is certain, that is, at that time, the unit building must have been under the control of the building manager. There was no obvious crisis inside, which was why her aunt was willing to send Xu Ling in.

Unexpectedly, it was in such a place that Xu Ling gradually completed her final evolution, and finally served as a "key" to open the "door".

What is the world behind the door? Xu Ming didn't know. But judging from the questions raised by the building manager and Ms. Tian, ​​as well as Ms. Tian's final instructions, Xu Ming suspected that the crazy evolution of ghost stories in the past few years was probably related to this door.

Thinking about it carefully, the time is almost right.

Lando listened quietly beside him, and when he heard this, he finally understood: "So Ms. Tian finally said that ghost stories should be closed... because that door has been closed?"

"Not only was it closed, but it also swallowed the key." Xu Ming said coldly with an expressionless face, then sighed heavily, and his forehead hit his knees again, "The problem is that she also said that this state can't be maintained for long..."

Affected by the "closure" in the unit building, all the strange stories will indeed be closed for a while, but only for a while - and even Ms. Tian herself can't tell what the state will be after the closure is lifted.

The most ideal situation is to return to the state before evolution, and become a scene limited to psychics again, and the rules will also return to the past straightforwardness and clarity; the relatively bad situation is to maintain the status quo, of course, it is also possible to be in between these two.

...The worst case scenario is that during this process, another "key" appears and opens another "door".

Although Ms. Tian did not state the corresponding result - from her explanation, she really did not understand, after all, she was the only one who had not directly come into contact with the concept of "behind the door" at the time; but if Xu Ming's guess is true, then the corresponding result seems to be obvious.

The ghost story has evolved further. A more unpredictable hunting method, more malicious and insidious built-in rules, and a more arrogant sense of presence.

If it is exaggerated a little, it might really become what those players said, a "ghost story invasion".

And this is exactly what Xu Ming is most worried about.

If you don't know, it's fine. Since you know it, you can't just ignore it - but on the other hand, she really has no idea about this matter.

Ms. Tian herself only had a vague understanding of the definition of "key". It was the same thing. Among the group of people at that time, she was the farthest away from the "world behind the door", so although she could give reminders, she really could not continue to provide some more specific intelligence.

I don't know what is considered a "key", and I have no direction even if I want to start. This is why Xu Ming was in a hurry to float back and lie down after pretending to be cool - it was a headache.

Of course, it's not that he has no direction.

"...Let's get something to eat later, and then go check on my aunt's room." After lying down for a while, Xu Ming finally calmed down, raised his head, and exhaled deeply, "My aunt's disappearance is probably related to this matter. There may be some written materials left behind."

When she mentioned her aunt, her heart sank again.

Landor saw this, carefully reached out his hand, patted her shoulder soothingly, thought about it and suggested: "Or ask Anxin Gardening and Dali Weeding? They have been studying these for a long time, and they may have some results."

Indeed. Xu Ming nodded in agreement: "Yes. From Ms. Tian's diary, there should be people outside the unit building among their group at that time. Maybe they are also doing research in this area..."

Before he finished speaking, Xu Ming's expression suddenly froze.

Landor next to him sent an inquiring look, but Xu Ming just waved his hand, signaling him not to speak. After a pause, Fang exhaled softly: "Yes, what about the research report?"

"???" Landor blinked blankly, and the confusion in his eyes became even greater. Xu Ming then remembered that he probably hadn't "seen" this part, so he explained briefly:

"In Ms. Tian's diary, she mentioned that she had left a written research report in the building, hoping that someone who saw the diary could help take it out. But we looked around the house at the time and didn't see any reports..."

In fact, Xu Ming felt a little strange at the time. Especially when she realized that most of the terms they were using now seemed to come from a small group of people including Ms. Tian at the time - does this mean that outside the unit building, there were friends of Ms. Tian who participated in the naming work? Or maybe someone entered the unit building, saw the diary, found the report, and took it out of the unit building to submit it...

But this still doesn't seem to make sense. For example, why "pickpocket" and "villain", which were originally just nicknames, became designated nouns... But the people who participated in the naming definitely knew Ms. Wada and the others, and they were even good friends. There is no doubt about that.

Xu Ming acted as he said and picked up the phone on the spot. But she was "Gu Ming" after all. As an intern, it was not good to ask about other people's internal members right away. So after a moment of hesitation, Xu Ming decisively chose a more roundabout way of asking -

Gu Ming: [Sorry to bother you, Teacher Shi. I am very grateful for your concern for Yufei!

Gu Ming: [If it is convenient, I can ask you one more thing. I've been asked to compile a document, but there's one thing I just can't figure out...

Gu Ming: [That is, regarding the terms [root] and [alien root], where did they first come from? My colleagues are [not very realistic], and don't seem to know much about this matter...]

After the message was sent, the reply came very quickly.

Xu Ming glanced at the reply from Shi Mian, but his expression suddenly became strange. Noticing the curious look of Landor next to him, he didn't hide it and handed the phone to him directly.

Landor glanced at it quickly, and his expression also became strange.

On the screen, there was a reply from Shi Mian:

[Origin? I don't know. I heard people shouting like this as soon as I entered the industry. I feel like they have been shouting for a long time...

[Oh, I just asked an older colleague about it, but he didn't know the details. It seems that they have been shouting like this since the strange talk... Is this urgent for you? If you need more details, I will ask again! ]