The corridor floor was smeared with patches of black stains, and from downstairs faint scratching noises could be heard, as if something was drawing near.
Gao Ming stepped out of 2706 and lightly knocked on the door of Room 2707, "Teacher Yao? It's Gao from Building Number 4, we've talked about gardening before."
"Why don't you listen to advice at all!" The investigator saw that not only had Gao Ming gone out into the corridor, but he was also knocking on a neighbor's door, and he hopped anxiously, "The hallway is very dangerous! The neighbors could also have been replaced by something, we might encounter the strange at any moment! Come back quickly!"
"The old man in 2707 is seriously ill, but..."
"No buts!" The investigator grabbed Gao Ming's clothes, "Once you're involved in an abnormal event, forget about saving others. If you can survive and leave with useful information and rules, you will have made a huge contribution to the entire city!"
He pulled back with force, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't move Gao Ming, "Stop being so sanctimonious! You don't understand the horror of abnormal events, you're going to get us all killed!"
Gao Ming didn't want to waste time explaining to the investigator either. He grabbed the doorknob, and his voice grew colder, "Teacher Yao, I know you're inside. If you don't open the door, then I'll have to break it down."
The investigator had wanted to continue persuading, but the following words from Gao Ming made him pause slightly, this didn't seem like the attitude of a saint trying to help a neighbor.
The door lock turned, withered mugwort leaves fell, and the old door was pushed open, Teacher Yao looked at Gao Ming through his glasses, "Come in."
"Don't just enter your neighbor's home! If the neighbor has been killed by the strange ahead of time, what we'll have to face..." The investigator couldn't finish his sentence before Gao Ming pulled him into 2707, and he looked at the closed door, his mouth still half open.
"I received your message and turned off the microphone and camera in advance," Teacher Yao said, placing black gloves over his smartphone's camera.
The situation is urgent, so I'll make it short," Gao Ming took out Zhao Xi's phone, "I suspect that the seemingly normal neighbors in the group chat are all fake, they seem to only appear in videos."
You guys started a group chat without me knowing?" The investigator just saw the group chat.
"I don't quite understand what you're saying. Aren't you and I both real?" Teacher Yao, a police academy lecturer, had quick wits and broad knowledge, but tonight's encounter surpassed his understanding.
"If reviving a corpse is compared to a horror game, then the three of us are like players, while the rest of the neighbors in the chat could be something else, or they might just be fabrications made by the phones to deceive us," Gao Ming stared at the group video, "Zhao Xi's body is crawling towards the fifth floor, once he enters Huang Mingming's apartment 2501, we'll pry open the door of Room 2607. If the occupant Jia Qi is different from what's in the video, it will prove my guess."
"Ghosts want to pry open doors, and you want to pry doors too?" Teacher Yao's face furrowed with wrinkles, and the investigator's scarred face twitched slightly.
"Staying inside the apartment, we'll inevitably be caught by Zhao Xi. If I have to choose a way to die, I'd rather die on the road seeking survival." Gao Ming wasn't entirely sure of Teacher Yao's identity yet. If Teacher Yao was the strange, then his conjectures would all be wrong, which is why he wanted to take another look at 2607 and get a closer look at Zhao Xi, as he was a very cautious person.
"Aren't you being a bit reckless?" The investigator had seen ordinary people involved in abnormal events in Xinhu, but few were as bold as Gao Ming, "There's something strange out there! It will kill you alive!"
"I also think it's inappropriate," Teacher Yao coughed, "Why don't we take the chance when the body crawls into 2501 to run downstairs, leave Lijing Apartment and seek help? I believe there must be people in the city who specialize in solving these kinds of problems."
"They exist, but isn't he trapped here too?" Gao Ming walked past the investigator, and through the rain, looked towards his own home across the street.
In his heart, he contemplated, "I only brought in one blank memorial portrait. If I had brought in the 'Family Photo' with my dad and mom, I wonder if they would come and bring me a cake in the middle of the night. Maybe next time I can give it a try."
Screams again came from Zhao Xi's phone, and Gao Ming looked down to see Huang Mingming from 2501 in a state of collapse.
One by one, the neighbors met violent deaths, and the oppressive feeling that crept upwards was extremely intense. Every nerve in Huang Mingming seemed to be scraped by a small knife, and he began to shout towards the camera on his phone.
Huang Mingming from 2501, "I can hear the sound of nails scratching at the door! Zhao Xi's head seems to be hanging on my doorframe! Save me! We've all been neighbors for over a decade, please help me!"
No matter how Huang Mingming shouted, the surviving neighbors didn't respond.
Veins bulged on his face, and Huang Mingming seized the fruit knife on the coffee table, "You will be caught by him too! You'll get your comeuppance!"
Locks on the security door seemed like decorations, stained with blood, the door was slowly pushed open, as fingers squeezed through the crack.
Extreme fear overwhelmed Huang Mingming as he screamed and rushed toward the security door, raising the fruit knife in his hand and swinging it forward.
The investigator and Teacher Yao were both drawn to the video, trembling with fear.
"Don't just stand there being stupid, get ready to go to the sixth floor!" Gao Ming rummaged through to find Teacher Yao's toolbox, "We only have one chance!"
"Are we really going over there? Be rational!"
"I am being very rational." Gao Ming led the two to the sixth floor, while the video on the phone showed Huang Mingming struggling with a corpse on the fifth floor, the corridor was dead silent, and now Teacher Yao also sensed something was amiss.
Without needing Gao Ming to say more, Teacher Yao took out his tools to pry open the door to 2607.
In the group chat video, Huang Mingming was so terrified that he went mad, his phone had fallen on the couch, and he was hysterically waving the fruit knife on camera.
"Even in death, you won't rest in peace! Go find the people who bullied you if you're so capable, you deserved to be a coward your whole life!"
Black blood splattered in the living room; Zhao Xi's ragged body writhed on the floor while Huang Mingming held the knife with both hands, repeating the same motion over and over.
Both clothes and skin were torn apart, but no matter what Huang Mingming did, he could not stop Zhao Xi from approaching.
Bones clashing against each other, Zhao Xi's riddled corpse seemed like a cracked mouth, slowly opening.
Shadows were spreading; Huang Mingming couldn't dodge at all, he was almost completely enveloped by Zhao Xi's skin.
This horrifying scene made the investigator and Gao Ming who were watching the video feel their skin crawl; the Huang Mingming in the video, wrapped up, was still struggling forcefully, but all the struggles were in vain as his legs moved uncontrollably towards the balcony, his arms covered with Zhao Xi's skin.
"Let me go! Zhao Xi! I know I was wrong! I shouldn't have framed you for stealing goods from the Harbor District! I'm sorry! I really was wrong!" Broken bones drilled into the back of his hand, and under the influence of a force, Huang Mingming grabbed the window frame and pushed the glass window open.
The torrential rain instantly wet Huang Mingming's face; he wailed and begged for mercy, his expression grotesquely pained, yet his body slowly climbed onto the windowsill.
A few days ago, the real Zhao Xi might have been the same.
"Zhao Xi! Put me down! Put me down!"
As if hearing Huang Mingming's plea, Zhao Xi, enveloping Huang Mingming's back, fell together from the window!
The investigator watching the video felt chills in his hands and feet; the "abnormalities" in this building were even more terrifying and horrible than he had imagined, "Typical abnormal events don't involve specific supernatural entities; we've run into big trouble this time!"
"Bang!"
A brittle sound rang out; the door to 2607 was pried open by Teacher Yao and Gao Ming, who stood at the entrance looking into the room.
Thick dust covered the tables and chairs; room 2607 was pitch dark, as if it hadn't been inhabited in a long time.
"All the neighbors in the mobile video are fake; all the neighbors we saw being killed by Zhao Xi is also fake, they are just reflections of the dark side of Zhao Xi's heart." Teacher Yao looked at Gao Ming with admiration, "You got it all right!"
"What are you planning to do next?" The investigator also turned his gaze to Gao Ming.
Gao Ming exited the group chat video and browsed through Zhao Xi's phone, which contained many clips of Zhao Xi's own recorded life, his sister-in-law playing with the children, his aged foster mother cooking in the kitchen. Zhao Xi wanted to join them, but various rumors made him fearful, and both his sister-in-law and foster mother truly did not welcome him, a disabled person.
Besides the life clips, this lonely middle-aged man also recorded himself; no one looked up to him, so he talked to himself. The mobile phone had become the object of his confessions, big data would also care for his emotions, in that regard, the phone indeed seemed like "The Only Family" he had.
"I have a pretty bold idea," Gao Ming looked at the dark stairwell as though talking to himself, "I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with the deceased."