Chapter 1: Rain
For the past twenty years of his life, Yu Sheng had always considered himself to be just an ordinary person, living an ordinary life, doing ordinary things, and in the foreseeable future, this ordinary was destined to continue - until the day his life came to an ordinary end.
Yes, he'd always thought so - but those days seemed so long ago.
The sky was overcast, dusky clouds gradually spreading like thick cotton wool from the northeast, enveloping the entire city, and the air was saturated with a humid scent, a rainfall was brewing on that scent, and perhaps in ten minutes or so it would come down.
Carrying the vegetables and seasonings he had just bought from the supermarket, Yu Sheng mingled among the pedestrians and crossed the street with hurried steps, walking towards his residence under the increasingly dim light of day.
As he passed a store, he subconsciously stopped and looked at the sign in front of the store, staring that way for a few seconds before retracting his gaze and resuming his brisk walk forward.
The pedestrians on the road gradually sparse, the large city seems to be in the atmosphere of the imminent rain became quiet, Yu Sheng lifted his eyes to look at the commercial street in front of the bottom of the lights lit up by the lights of the commercial street, although it is already familiar with the scenery, some kind of ineffable strangeness can not help but rise from the bottom of the heart.
Yes, strangeness - he had been living in the city for more than twenty years, but now this outrageously huge, seemingly limitless "Boundary City" was a very unfamiliar place to him.
Because this city is not what he remembers as "real", although some places are very similar, but more places are not - he grew up living in Boundary City is not so huge, he remembers that the building in the center of the city should be called Boyuan Building, not the current "Council Tower", he remembers that the shop at the intersection of Siyuan Street was originally a wall, and his original home is not the huge and dilapidated to the point of crumbling deep in the old city. He remembered that the building in the center of the city should be called the Boyuan Building, not the current "Council Tower", he remembered that the store at the intersection of Siyuan Street was originally a wall, and his original home was not the huge and dilapidated old house deep in the old city.
And more importantly, the city he remembers doesn't have so many ... "wrong" things, including and not limited to the old telephone booths that randomly appear at certain intersections and look like they're from the last century, the steam locomotives that drive over the roofs of buildings late at night, the empty classrooms with the constant sound of reading, and ... the empty classrooms with the constant sound of reading, and the empty classrooms with the constant sound of reading. and empty classrooms with the constant sound of reading, and ...
The dark shadows, thin and tall like utility poles, stood under the streetlight on an evening when it was about to rain.
Yu Sheng raised his head and stared dead at the street lamp not far away, a humanoid silhouette that seemed to be like a spar was standing there stolidly, on top of the three to four meter tall body was a pitch black face that made it impossible to see the five senses, that shadow seemed to have noticed this side as well, but it just stood stolidly, facing Yu Sheng's gaze from afar.
Hurried passersby passed underneath the tall, thin shadow, as if no one noticed the bizarre thing standing next to the streetlight, and even someone passed right through the shadow without being affected in any way.
Only Yusheng himself could see that thing.
So after a few seconds of meaningless staring, he withdrew his gaze, suppressed his somewhat thumping heartbeat, and switched to the other way to walk away with hurried feet.
Yusheng had never been quite sure whether it was the city that had suddenly changed, or whether it was a change in himself, but he remembered clearly that the ordinary, normal life he remembered had left him one early morning two months ago--
He remembers pushing open the front door of his house on that sunny morning to get a couple of oranges from the mini-mart at the intersection.
That was the last time he pushed open the door of "his home", and after that, he never saw the home he remembered.
He had also analyzed that perhaps this was some kind of "crossing over", that he had pushed open the door of his house and stepped into another parallel world that seemed different from his hometown, and that he could no longer find the door that would allow him to return to the original world because the passageway of space and time had collapsed the moment he had stepped through the door.
The other possibility is that he had a "strange change" in his body, and when he stepped out of the door, or maybe at some time after that, because of some unknown influence, he became "different from the ordinary", and his eyes began to be able to see certain "things" hidden under the surface, and he still lived in the same place he knew, but he could no longer see those familiar things. Hidden under the surface of the "things", he is still living in his familiar place, just can no longer see those familiar things just ...
But none of these analyses make sense.
In any case, he can no longer return to the "ordinary and normal world" in his memory, this strange and huge city is like a boundless forest, confining a bewildered drifter between its eerie, intertwined branches and vines, and just two months are not enough for Yu Sheng to unravel the secrets of this "forest". The two months are not enough for Yu Sheng to unravel the secrets of this "forest".
In fact, he had only just gotten used to his familiar yet unfamiliar "new home" and had barely resumed his "daily life" here.
Fortunately, he is still "Yu Sheng" in this boundary city which is different from what he remembers, he has a normal identity card, a legal and valid address, and some savings and a job which doesn't seem to be reliable - if this is really some kind of "crossing over", then at least he doesn't have to face the three major problems of "who am I, where should I go to get an ID card" like most travelers. If this is really some kind of "crossing over", then at least he doesn't have to face the three major problems of "who am I, where am I, and where should I go to get an ID card" like most of the travelers.
Considering that this is a well-ordered modern metropolis, the above dilemma takes on extra importance; after all, modern society has a perfect population management system, and it's not easy for a traveler to get rid of his black household status when he lands in such a city.
Of course when you think about it from another angle, there may be other minor troubles with traveling to an old society with chaotic order or an alien world with barbaric laws - such as being sliced and diced as an enemy country's spies, being sliced and diced as an alien invasion, being sliced and diced as evil creatures emerging from the earth, and being sliced and diced and braised by kobolds in the caves as a makeshift food ration ...
Yu Sheng's mind was spinning with these random thoughts that suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and he crossed the old path next to the shopping street and walked in the direction of his "home" from another road.
The sky became more and more cloudy, and it seemed that precisely because of this more and more cloudy sky, those "not quite right" things slowly began to become more and more.
At the edge of Yu Sheng's field of vision, some shaky silhouettes were reflected on the mottled and aged facades of the buildings along the roadside, and an agile cat jumped out from the shadows on the wall, lightly climbed onto a beam of light shining from nowhere, and meowed twice in Yu Sheng's direction before melting and spilling along with the raindrops and splattering the ground with a sheet of water.
It's raining, a little earlier than expected.
The wind became a little colder, and the cold air swirled like substance, burrowing into the seams of his clothes.
Yu Sheng tsked and could only hold the shopping bag in his hand over his head as his feet picked up speed.
He could have gone down the avenue and gotten home faster if he hadn't been trying to avoid that dark shadow under the streetlight - the house was more or less strange and spooky as well, but at least it was a shelter from the wind and the rain.
Thinking of that dark shadow under the streetlight, Yu Sheng was more or less chagrined in his heart.
He knew from experience that the strange things he saw were basically harmless, or at least that they would ignore him as much as a normal person would ignore them if he didn't actively provoke them, but even if he knew that in his heart, he usually instinctively avoided anything that looked too sinister to be true - but now It didn't seem like a good idea to take a detour today.
It's getting cold.
That's a bit of an outrageous cold for a rain.
Yu Sheng realized that his exhaled breath was slowly turning into condensed ice fog, and the raindrops falling from the sky were like sharp nails smashing down, hard and cold, smashing raw pain.
And the ground is turning into a smooth mirror in this freezing rain.
The great unease alerted Yu Sheng instantly, and he realized that the situation was not right, very wrong, even in this eccentric city, this was the first time he had ever seen this situation.
Unlike the usual "shadows" that are at best a bit of an eyesore, this time he felt ... malice.
There is malice in this rain.
He snapped his head up, but saw that the path where there were three or two pedestrians before had been empty at some point, and he was the only one left in the not-so-wide street.
Can't see a single person, the lights in the distance have become hazy and illusory, the intersection at the end of the field of vision is like being blocked by something far and near, the surrounding area in addition to the cold and closed buildings, there is only rain, cold rain.
He felt as if the whole world was raining down on him alone.
Yusheng sucked in a sharp breath and darted towards the nearest house, an old iron door stood there, it looked like it should be the back door of some kind of ground floor business-whatever that was, he had to get help as soon as possible.
For the droplets in the rain had begun to take on the sharp texture of a blade, and the temperature around them had dropped to the point where every breath brought a pinprick of pain in the lungs.
In a few short steps, Yu Sheng ran to the door and reached out and slapped it down hard, "Someone ..."
His eyes widened and his voice came to an abrupt halt.
His hand slapped against the wall where the door was painted.
Nearby windows are also painted on the wall.
A rustling sound came from nearby.
Yu Sheng slowly turned his head and looked at the direction the voice came from.
In the blade-like falling freezing rain, a strange-looking thing was slowly emerging from the mirror-like water, and it gained solidity from the blackened shadows, gazing indifferently at Yu Sheng.
It was a frog, a frog nearly a meter tall, with a head densely covered with eyes and a body reflecting the freezing rain.
The frog opened its mouth and a sharp tongue shot straight up towards the heart of its prey.
"Crap X you fucking ..."
Yu Sheng elegant words, reaction sharp, the mouth of the tone of voice auxiliary word has not yet landed, the body has already made a step ahead of the reaction - he violently to the side of the dodge, a hand has been out of the pocket to touch the usual defense of the throwing stick, pad step twisted waist bent forward ...
The frog's tongue turned a sharp angle in mid-air and penetrated Yu Sheng's heart position from the back.
Yusheng: "...?"
He blinked and watched as the frog's tongue stuck out of its chest, a heart beating rapidly at its tip.
"...X assholes, this shit is mine ..."
He thought about it and cursed so in his mind.
And died.
Chapter 2: Victimlessness
Dusk is approaching, slanting sunlight from the end of the city all the way over, in the forest of tall buildings between the leak a channel of light golden glow - but in the depths of the old city surrounded by high-rise buildings, the sun is difficult to reach the place, the alleys have long been the first step into the darkness.
The residual dampness and slight coolness in the air seemed out of place in the dry air outside the alley, while the ice shards that were melting and disappearing between the cracks in the masonry became some kind of "evidence" that something unusual had happened in this quiet street.
Several darting and streaming black shadows crossed the gaps of the buildings between the streets and alleys, leaping down from the air as if they were weightless and landing in a corner of the alley, the black shadows shivered at the edges and quickly condensed into wolf-like forms, these blurred-faced shadows balked and sniffed at the alley for a while, then slowly converged together, the leader of the shadows tilted his head up and let out a loud and clear howl into the sky:
"oww ..."
"Bang!"
A rock smashed into the wolf shadow's head, knocking back the half-hearted howl, followed by a scolding from the shadows of the building, "Shut up! No barking in the city - not even with a 'woof' at the end! Humans aren't stupid, no one will believe you're dogs!"
The few wolves that had coalesced from the phantom suddenly let out a few small grunts and retreated knowingly to the side, while a slightly petite figure approached from a short distance away.
It was a short-haired girl wearing a short black skirt with a dark red jacket, a strand of hair slightly upturned in front of her forehead, looking no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, with an expression of extraordinarily calm sophistication - she stepped out of the shadows and walked straight through the wolves with their heads bowed down, and then caught sight of the body of the male, which was collapsing on the side of the road.
A slight haze flickered imperceptibly across the young girl's face as she crouched down beside the body and examined something, while a wolf approached from the sidelines, conveying certain information in a low, chaotic grunt.
"... The smell of rain?" The young girl frowned and raised her head to look at the sky that had been clear for the past two days, and even though it was now nearing dusk, the sky that was exposed between the high-rise buildings still appeared to be crystal clear and clear, with not a trace of haze to be seen, and only the sunlight was gradually dimming down.
After a few moments, she seemed to understand what was going on, and looked down again to confirm the horrific incision on the male corpse, and cooed in a small voice, "... Rain, heart, stench of frogs ..."
Just then, a sudden ringing of her cell phone from her waist pouch interrupted her self-talk - the ringtone was the opening song of the 86th version of Journey to the West.
The short-haired girl picked up the phone before the monkey could flip on his fourth heel.
"Hello which one ... Oh yeah, it's me," she pressed her cell phone to her ear and waved one hand around, signaling the wolves that followed to watch the scene while she stood up and stepped aside, "I'm already here, my wolf sensed it first something different over here ... didn't catch it and pounced."
The young girl said and sighed, her eyes falling on the unlucky corpse.
"It's 'rain', accompanied by the generation of the entity 'rain frog', but this rain should only be a localized projection, the area of influence is only for one person ... Yes, it's very Unlucky, the 'rain' for only one person, it had stopped by the time I arrived, and now that the depth here has returned to L0, the 'rain' has been detached from the junction."
The young girl paused, the voice coming through the phone receiver seemed to be confiding and asking for something, and she listened patiently for a moment, glancing again at the body not far away.
"... Medical personnel? Send a body collector, how can an ordinary person who encountered a 'rain frog' alone survive, his heart is gone ... Tsk, I'll stand guard here, don't forget to pay extra for overtime."
The rambling voice of some middle-aged leader came from the cell phone, but the young girl had run out of patience and hung up after casually responding to a few sentences.
Then she sighed again and stepped back, raising her hand to greet a wolf that was standing guard next to her and plopped down on the ground, sitting directly on top of the wolf, her hands propped up on her chin as she looked at Yu Sheng's body.
"Unlucky guy, don't know if he has any family, dying here alone ... Alas, let me stay with you for a while ... It's cold to die in the 'rain', isn't it? It's a pity I'm not the match seller either, or I could have warmed you up for the road ..."
The young girl whispered to herself and waited patiently for the arrival of the closing crew, and after a short while she heard a roar of an engine coming from the direction of the intersection a few dozen meters away - the sound was earth shattering, as if a heavy armored vehicle was coming over the ten-lane deceleration zone dragging another container behind it, burning firewood all the way, and even her ass The wolf underneath her was so startled by the commotion that she almost jumped - but the person sitting on her body didn't jump.
Then the young girl followed the sound and saw a large van squeaking through the intersection, shivering over speed bumps as if it were the Soviet Union in 1991.
The young girl got up from the wolf's back nonchalantly and watched with an expressionless face as the big van went over the speed bumps, turned off the engine, and then jumped out of the van as several burly men dressed in all black tactical suits, full high-tech gear, and armed to the back of their teeth began to push the van around in the back ...
Another middle-aged man in a curry-colored jacket with a slightly dark complexion and a stocky build got out of the car, followed by a young woman in a white dress with shaggy brown hair, and the two of them turned back to the team members who were pushing the carts with a somewhat helpless glance before turning around and heading this way.
Waiting for the two to get closer, the short-haired girl couldn't help but mutter, "Seriously, can't your second team apply for a replacement car with the top? The Secret Service shouldn't be in such dire straits,... I think the equipment on just about any of your team members is enough to replace this broken car."
"Hush!" The robust middle-aged man heard hurriedly waved his hand, lowered his voice and looked back at the stalled car as well as push the cart of the subordinates, "Don't talk nonsense ... you don't understand the situation, our Secret Service Bureau situation is special, this car is not in very good condition today, but change is not allowed to change! ..."
"Big organizations sure are a lot of trouble," the short-haired girl bristled, obviously not very interested in the topic, and then immediately turned her head to look at the petite lady in a white dress who had followed her here, "Good afternoon, Dr. Lin, long time no see."
"It's time to say good evening, 'Little Red Riding Hood,'" the white-skirted woman known as Dr. Lin smiled faintly, her lips thin and seemingly restrained and introspective, "How's the last injury?"
"Almost as good," the short-haired girl known as Little Red Riding Hood moved her right wrist, "You know, wolves are generally more resilient ..."
"It's the human's ability to recover that's the strongest - it's just that humans have always been rather resistant to getting hurt." Dr. Lin corrected with a serious look on his face.
"... Oh," the short haired girl gave a casual, perfunctory comment before changing the subject back to the body on the floor, "Better look over here first, victim, male, appears to be in his mid-twenties, heart removed by a rain frog, dead Time of death was about two hours ago, I haven't searched him yet, not sure if he had any ID ... with him right, to protect the scene."
While saying this, she gave Dr. Lin a puzzled look, "You come over here and make a trip ... It's hard to believe that you are planning to cure even this kind of ah? Can this also be cured?"
"I can't, I'm not a god," Dr. Lin shook his head and spoke while bending down towards Yu Sheng's body, "just came over to take a look, it's very close to my home ..."
She examined the body for a while, identifying the wounds in addition to the deceased's belongings and finding identification documents.
"The name of the deceased is 'Yu Sheng', twenty-four years old, and his registered address is No. 66 Wutong Road in the old city," she looked at the thin card representing his identity and said while comparing the deceased's appearance, "Captain Song, turn around and use the Bureau's equipment to check and see if you can contact his family."
The robust middle-aged man beside him gave a hmmm, and at the same time, he also probed at the identification document in Dr. Lin's hand, and couldn't help but frown, "Why is the photo on this blurry?"
"Little Red Riding Hood" heard and curiously came over to look at the ID card that was found on the dead man's body.
Only the portrait part of the document seemed to be coated with a gray and black stain, and the whole face was muddied so that it was impossible to see the details.
Dr. Lin rubbed his fingers over the stains and found that he could not get them off at all; they were firmer than expected and almost glued all over the papers.
"Can't even make out the name," muttered Little Red Riding Hood, "can't make out what the ID number is, you'll just have to take it back and read the chip in a machine ..."
The middle-aged man called "Captain Song" sighed helplessly, nodded, looked at the pile of wreckage on the ground, said with some regret: "Unfortunately, if only we could find the victim's identity documents, it would be ... too few clues. The clues are too few."
Dr. Lin followed suit and nodded regretfully, looking at the bloodstains on the ground that had been washed away by the rain to the point where they were barely visible, "... There wasn't even a body left behind, so it's hard to find out what happened at the time."
Little Red Riding Hood listened to the conversation between the two and seemed to quietly think about something, then suddenly raised her head and looked at the white-skirted woman beside her, "Good evening, Dr. Lin."
"Good evening, Red Riding Hood," Dr. Lin smiled up and greeted the short-haired girl, "How was the patrol?"
Little Red Riding Hood looked around and reached out to stroke the head of the nearest wolf, "It's been 'raining' here, and it may have generated physical 'rain frogs', but no victims should have appeared. "
Dr. Lin looked relieved, "That's okay."
The sound of an engine starting up came from not far away, the broken big van started up with a whimper and a whimper, then the sound of the engine gradually stabilized - a few armed cadres who had been pushing the car before came around from behind the car with a rough breath, and the leader of the first one walked towards this side: "Captain Song, the car has started up, let's go! ..."
The robust middle-aged man known as Captain Song nodded and stepped towards his teammates.
"Alright, then go back to the station. By the way, don't forget to bring Dr. Lin with you."
Chapter 3: The locked room
The head is drowsy, the things in the field of vision seem to be covered with a heavy veil, and the sound of traffic coming from the direction of the main road in the distance seems to be erratic, far and near, unrealistic as if in a dream.
After walking for an unknown amount of time in such an uncomfortable drowsy state before his mind finally regained some of its ability to think a little bit, Yu Sheng hesitantly stopped and looked back at the path he came from.
The sky is almost completely dark, along the street lamps lit early, he was walking on a narrow street near his home, the road on both sides of the low old residential buildings like two rows of prostrate beasts in the night, while the first floor of those privately converted by the tenants of the "bottom of the business" but to the outside of the warmth of the light, dispersing his heart coiled in the bottom of a hint of coldness. A hint of cold.
Cold?
Suddenly, it was as if Yu Sheng felt the coldness that pierced into his lungs and marrow again, felt the blade-like freezing rain fall on his skin, and felt the two cold, slippery gazes-the gazes of the frogs watching him.
He choked violently for a good ten seconds before he seemed to suddenly remember how to breathe again, looking down at his chest quickly while gasping for air.
At this moment he had a momentary illusion, feel like there is still a big hole in his chest, feel like he has no heart, chest like the extinguished furnace as silent and cold, but the next second, he felt his heartbeat again, and even his ears seem to hear an exceptionally clear "plop" sound! ... right, living people have a heartbeat.
He's still alive and hasn't had his heart eaten by a creepy giant frog.
But those crazy upwelling fragments of memories were like a tsunami washing over the mind, and no matter how much they were ignored, they could not be crowded out of their own memories, and Yu Sheng remembered the rain, the door painted on the wall, and the huge frog.... He tried to tell himself that it was just a hallucination, but this thought was being washed away with the repeated washing away of the memories and the gradual clear and quickly faltered.
He died once, but somehow he's still alive and on his way home - already almost home, two road crossings away.
This was the most evil of all the evil things he had encountered after coming to this evil city.
Gazes came from nearby, and Yu Sheng noticed that his unusual demeanor at this time seemed to have caught the attention of passersby, and someone beside him was hesitantly approaching, perhaps wanting to come and ask if he needed help - he hurriedly waved his hand without interacting too much with the passersby, before speeding up his steps and leaving the place.
He didn't know what was happening to him, but apparently stopping to get caught up in thought obviously didn't help with the confusion.
He hurried across the path, leaving the last street near the old neighborhood and heading for his "home" in the city.
Although there were only two road junctions, the surroundings obviously looked a little more desolate and cold again - as if he had walked into a forgotten corner of the city, there were fewer and fewer pedestrians on the road, and in the end, all that was left beside Yu Sheng to keep him company were the cold street lights, and after walking for a little while longer, he saw the old mansion that stood in the night, and the surrounding The building seemed to retain a slight barrier between it and the surrounding buildings.
It was a big, plain, three-story old house with mottled siding, pitched roof, old doors and windows that were old but still clean and intact - a house that looked like a "self-built building" that had been privately built in an urban village decades ago when the management was not yet strict. "With the passage of time has become a historical relic stuck in the urban construction management bugs ...
Yu Sheng didn't really understand what kind of city construction and management system this "Boundary City", which was very different from what he remembered, after all, he had just arrived here for two months, and excluding the time he had wasted in the beginning when he was cautious and kept his door closed, he was just now adapting to his new life here, and figuring out the situation of the surrounding area. --But there was one thing he knew very well.
The large house was the only reasonably safe place for him to land in this dangerous and defiant city - at least he hadn't seen any of those evil shadows while he was in the house.
Though the large house itself had many things that seemed spooky to him.
Yu Sheng gently inhaled a breath, carrying the supermarket shopping bag that was still in his hands, stepped through the cold light sprinkled by the street lamps, and came to the door to pull out the key to open the door.
The door of the old house opened with a creak, and Yu Sheng entered the house and turned on the lights - although the house was almost completely different from the "home" he remembered, the moment the lights came on, he still felt a certain... ...solidity.
He turned and closed the door, shutting out the city night.
He then casually tossed his purchases from the grocery store on the kitchen doorway shelf to the right of the entry door, and hurried across the somewhat empty living room on his feet to the bathroom mirror, pulling his shirt off his chest as he did so.
The images in his memory were just too clear and deep for him to resist the urge to double-check.
There was no wound on his chest, no blood, as if the "death" had never happened.
Yusheng frowned, checked the integrity of his clothes again, and pressed the spot where he remembered being hollowed out by the frog, before he was truly sure that he wasn't an open-minded person right now.
"Wicked ..."
He muttered softly, leaving the restroom and turning to walk back into the living room.
Behind him, the surface of the mirror above the sink silently cracked and then closed quickly and silently ...
Sitting on the sofa in the living room, Yu Sheng organized his disorganized thoughts, and he didn't know how long it took before his extremely tired mind finally drifted off and quieted down.
Sleep enveloped him.
The drowsiness lasted for a long, long time, until a sudden "thud" sounded in his head, which sounded like someone hitting a rock with a shovel on his head, waking Yu Sheng from his drowsiness instantly.
He opened his eyes in the darkness and froze for a moment before reacting - the lights in the living room had been turned off at some point.
He clearly remembered leaving the light on before he went to bed!
Alarm in his heart, Yu Sheng almost subconsciously reached out to the stick next to him - after coming to this strange and weird city, the first thing he did was to prepare this self-defense tool for himself, and although it didn't seem to be of much use at the moment, as a scary upright ape, a stick in his hand could at least bring a little bit of psychological comfort - and it was only then that he cautiously and slowly rose to his feet, all the while keeping an eye out for any movement in the darkness.
In such a desolate and remote place, the home into the thief does not seem to be something unimaginable, rather at the moment Yu Sheng more hope that the home is into the thief, at least the thief can be knocked to death by a stick, more than a meter high frog can not.
But the parlor was silent, and there was no sign of a break-in to be seen or heard of the thieves.
The good news is that you can't hear the frogs moving either.
Borrowing the faint light from the street lamps spilling in through the window, Yu Sheng ambled low and moved while recognizing his surroundings, slowly feeling his way to the vicinity of the switch on the wall, and lifting his hand to press the electric light.
His eyes glowed brightly for an instant, scanning the living room in the darkness.
Yu Sheng blinked his eyes, always feeling that there was something strange in his field of vision, but he couldn't tell where it was abnormal - but no matter what, at least the surroundings were lit up, and he could see the living room clearly now.
He arched his back slightly as he began to inspect every part of his home, carrying a shaking stick.
On the first floor there is only the living room, kitchen & dining room, and a vacant room that is not being used at the moment, and everything is normal.
He stood hesitantly at the head of the stairs leading to the second floor and took a step up.
There were three rooms on the second floor, one of which was his current bedroom, one of which was stacked with clutter, and the last room at the end was locked.
That room was locked when Yu Sheng arrived here, and he had never found a key even after rummaging through this large house.
He checked his bedroom first with the utility room across the hall and then came to the locked room.
As usual, the doors were closed.
In fact, Yu Sheng did not try to use some technical means to solve the lock, these technical means include and not limited to impact drills and handheld chainsaw, but all attempts were unsuccessful - impact drills and saws in front of the seemingly fragile wooden door sparks, drills and saws with the teeth of the grinding bald and did not cut out a little trace.
Of course, he also tried to seek more advanced technical means, such as looking for locksmiths, has looked for three, the first two to the old city got lost, wandering half a day did not find Sycamore Road 66 in which the third just across the intersection was hit by a motorcycle last week just out of the hospital ...
It was as if some mysterious force was preventing Yu Sheng from opening this locked room in his house.
Yes, although this big house is the only safe place for him to stay in this city, but even this big house itself, in fact, there are many ... "wrong" places.
Yu Sheng reached out and gripped the doorknob in front of him and tried to turn it, but it didn't budge.
There were no unexpected "accidents", it was still locked.
But I don t know whether it was an illusion or not, but as he turned that handle in vain ... he seemed to hear a faint, soft laugh.
The laughter came from across the door, sounding like a young female voice, as if mocking his inability to do anything about a door.
Yusheng instantly sweated!
The only safe landing place he had in the city, the house he had been living in for two months, was in his home, the room ... which was always locked, and in which a man was hiding!
... How come she didn't starve to death?
Chapter 4: No one in the room
The locked room that could never be opened was hiding a person - something that made Yu Sheng instantly feel his scalp tingle, and what sprang up immediately afterward was an uncontrollable series of conjectures.
Who was that? When did the owner of that voice hide in? Did he sneak in while he was asleep, or was he already here when he arrived here two months ago?
If it is the second case, then he once stayed in this big house for a long time without going out, and he can be sure that during the period this room on the second floor has never been opened, then the room has been hidden inside? Is there another passage in the room, or is ...
Is the one who laughed really a "person"?
Chaotic thoughts in the mind crazy ups and downs, but Yu Sheng face expression gradually calm down - seems to be the previous encounter with the "frog" experience brought about some changes, or perhaps the "back from the dead Perhaps it is also the effect of "coming back from the dead", he feels that his current state of mind ... is a little strange.
That voice could not be heard as kind or malicious, but it could be heard as tangible and eerie, but Yu Sheng found that after the initial moment of numbness in his scalp, all fear and hesitation had disappeared from his own heart, and he was now left with ... only intense curiosity.
He was trying to figure out what was in the room.
He was trying to figure out what secrets were in this big house that he had made his landing spot.
This was his safe house, his only "home" in this huge city - a safe house where nothing could be unsafe.
He slowly moved up and pressed his ear against the door, hearing a low chuckle as if it were still hidden inside, but it could have just been an illusion; it was probably just the sound of hollow wind swirling in his ears.
He curled his fingers and knocked on the door.
"Open the door, I hear you."
The door didn't open, of course, but the hollow, soft laugh did disappear.
Expected situation, Yu Sheng said nothing, just turned to leave - he went to the next room where a lot of miscellaneous things were piled up, and went inside to get an axe.
Returning to the door of the locked room, he raised his axe high in silence and chopped down with all his strength.
The sharp axe chopped on the thin wooden door, making a sharp sound when metal collided, sparks flying in front of the axe blade, and not even a trace was left on the door of the room that looked like it could be kicked open with a single kick.
That light laughter came over again in a blur, but Yu Sheng did not care in the slightest, but just lifted the axe again with a calm face, as if he was doing an extraordinarily conscientious, meticulous and patience-demanding job, and continued to chop down axe after axe.
He knew that the door wouldn't open, not with a drill or a chainsaw, but even knowing that, he'd tried to open it almost every day for the past two months in various ways - and today an eerie voice coming through the door had rather fueled his drive to open it today.
And with the unsuccessful return of the chopping time and time again, this motivation, on the contrary, is more and more sufficient, and every axe chop under Yu Sheng has become harder and smoother, and even ... more attuned to his own mind.
Some rare associations even popped up out of nowhere in his gradually emptying brain - he felt like Wu Gang who was chopping down trees on the moon, and as soon as he chopped down that damn osmanthus tree, Chang'e, Jade Rabbit, Baldie and Sisyphus who were watching the show beside him would gather around in a circle and give themselves a round of applause... ...
He didn't even know why Sisyphus was in his associations.
And that soft laughter coming from behind the door was getting more and more piercing, even in becoming more and more obvious, getting closer and closer, as if the owner of the voice had already come step by step and was sticking to the back of that wooden door, as if she was fully aware of the impenetrable nature of the door, and so she recklessly taunted Yu Sheng, who was swinging her axe outside, through this wall of sighs.
But all of a sudden, another voice emerged from that weirdly piercing light laughter, sounding tense and irritated, "Can you stop being happy! He really opened the door and came in the first one to cut was me!"
The soft laughter from inside the door was instantly displeased.
Yu Sheng, who was raising his axe to slam down, also froze momentarily before hearing a crunching sound from his waist.
With a crunching sound, the axe he couldn't gather the strength in his hand fell with it, chopping in a position that was completely out of his plan.
Some kind of crisp sound completely different from the previous ear piercing collision sound came from the door, and the axe in Yu Sheng s hand fell to the ground, and immediately after that, he raised his hand ... violently to hold his waist.
Back pain, flashed pretty bad, excruciating pain.
Holding his back he trudged up to the door, taking a couple seconds to focus on the spot he had just hit with his last axe blow.
There was a "flash of light" about two or three centimeters away from the door panel, positioned on the side of the door shaft, which seemed to be the sparks from the axe, but it was frozen in the moment of the explosion of the fire as if it was fixed in the air.
And with this little bit of bright light, Yu Sheng vaguely saw that there seemed to be something on the door panel in that neighborhood.
He reached out and touched it there.
A suppressed, shrill shriek came from behind the door, "Yikes-"
Yu Sheng snapped his eyes open, the living room's bright electric light seems a bit blinding, lying on the sofa to fall asleep makes him feel sore, not far from the wall clock ticking, the time on the dial shows that he just slept less than forty minutes.
Yu Sheng lay on the sofa and froze for a while, before the somewhat numb memories in his mind finally became gradually clearer.
Fell asleep on your own ... just had a dream?
He fumed, but suddenly it didn't feel right.
The course of the "dream" was so real, and the details so clear and complete, that he could clearly remember the touch of the axe in his hand, the stagnant firelight on the door, and ...
He suddenly sat up from the sofa and jerked his hand ... up to hold his waist.
Back pain, flashed pretty bad, excruciating pain.
"Crouching ... hissing ... trough ..." Yu Sheng couldn't help but mouth the praise words, just flashed waist with the fierce upward movement and then Coupled with the sofa sleeping brought about by the whole body aches and pains produced a mixture of therapeutic effect, for a moment let him feel better than let that frog stab the heart, at least that one just hurt for two seconds - and then he pressed the waist while standing up with difficulty, at the same time in his heart more and more sure that it was definitely not a common "dream! "He was sure that it wasn't an ordinary dream.
The flashing back in the dream can't hurt the reality, there really is something evil out there.
That thing hacked into his safe house.
He adjusted his posture and mindset so that the back pain didn't interfere too much with his own activities, then thought briefly before grimacing as he made his way up the stairs to the second floor.
Holding the flinging stick in one hand, he went back to the room where the miscellaneous items were kept, found the axe he had used in the dream, and gripped it in his right hand - the handle of the axe felt exactly the same in his hand as it did in the dream, even as the wooden handle seemed to still have the warmth of his own palm on it.
He came to the locked door, which was still intact, and there was no sign of the "light mark" left by the dream's chopping.
Inside the door, it was quiet.
It's as if it's business as usual and nothing has happened.
But Yu Sheng still clearly remembered the location of the light mark.
He slung the flinging stick around his waist, switched the axe to his left hand, and reached out with his right hand to feel for the door, to feel where the flash of light he had hacked out in the dream had been ... He remembered that it was near the door shaft, when he had seen a vaguely ...
The next second, he touched a handle, one that was unobservable to the naked eye.
But he clearly remembered that there was no handle here; he had examined every inch of the locked door on the first day he had found it, had felt every surface, and he was certain that he had not touched any "non-existent handle" at all!
Why? Because you observed it in a dream? Because you "broke through" some kind of disguise with your axe? Because you confirmed its existence, it really exists?
Yu Sheng's mind went through all the movies and TV games and novels he had watched, instantly looking for a whole bunch of possible reasons, while the movement of his hand didn't hesitate at all, and he had already gripped that door handle which was invisible to the naked eye, and then gently turned it.
The impenetrable door of the locked room opened so easily, from the side of the door shaft.
It was an empty room, looking in through the gradually opening doorway, the only thing there was the floor and the wall, the light that spilled in through the doorway illuminated the dimly lit area a little bit, however, until carefully opening the door completely, Yu Sheng didn't see the owner of that scoffing voice that was making a mocking sound in the room.
He gripped the axe tightly in one hand and carefully surveyed the room, only to realize that there was literally nothing in it, not even a bed or a chair.
Only the cool moonlight, spilling into the room through the cracks in the old curtains, left a mottled stain on the floor.
But suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something.
There was "something" in the room, a painting on the wall facing the door.
Beautifully framed, the edges of the image are adorned with an intricate and classical vine pattern, and in the center of the image is a seat covered with a soft red carpet that serves as a backdrop.
But beyond that there was nothing else, not a single cursed ghost with a mocking laugh sitting in a painting watching the intruder.
Yu Sheng frowned and stared carefully at the roughly half-meter tall oil painting frame for half a day, fumbling to find the light switch next to the door frame while keeping his eyes on it and turning on the lights in the room.
The details on the canvases are even more finely detailed when illuminated by the light.
He carefully made his way to the painting and stared and observed it for a long time.
Then you see a very, very inconspicuous bit of ... skirt in the corner of the frame.
"..."
He thought for a moment and spoke with a slightly odd expression, "In?"
"No!"
A heartfelt voice came from the oil painting.
Chapter 5: Irene in the Painting
Yusheng felt as if his heart had broadened considerably since he had been hollowed out by that frog.
Like right now, for example, he wakes up from a weird dream that doesn't seem right no matter how he looks at it, opens up a creepy locked room, finds a talking painting, and remains calm even though there's apparently some kind of evil thing hidden in this painting.
He even stepped forward and plucked the painting from the wall, holding it in front of his eyes and examining it carefully.
The frame was very weighty, the texture in his hand seemed to be of great value, and after careful observation, he found that the surface of the black painted frame was covered with complicated and exquisite patterns, which seemed to be some kind of continuous writing down, but skillfully connected and twisted each other into a structure like a vine, and finally connected with the patterns on the edges of the picture as a whole.
Yu Sheng didn't know anything about paintings or art, but he thought this thing must be worth old money.
And the guy hiding in the depths of the painting still refuses to show himself, except that the skirt in the corner of the picture recovers a little further.
Yusheng tried to look sideways to see inside the frame, but saw nothing.
"I know you're in there," he said to the oil painting as he shook the heavy frame, "and you're lying to yourself by hiding it now."
There was a little rustle of movement from the corner of the screen, but no response.
Yusheng put the frame on the ground and squatted down while fumbling for a lighter from his pocket.
He struck the flame and approached the frame, his face expressionless, "I'm going to count to three, and if you don't come out I'm going to light this thing."
Two or three seconds later, a soft, childish voice came from the oil painting, "... It's just mundane flames, that stuff doesn't work on creepy entities."
But Yu Sheng could be sure he heard weakness in that voice.
So he set fire to the corner of the frame directly, "Oh, well, I'll light it and try-"
The scream was almost simultaneous with his movement to light the fire, "Don't! You really light it!!!"
Yu Sheng instantly extinguished the lighter, and immediately afterward, he saw a figure hastily jumping out from the edge of the image that seemed to be like a thorny flowering vine.
It was a young girl, dressed in an elaborate and gorgeous gothic black dress, wearing a hairpin decorated with white lace on her head, with long black hair, skin as white as snow, and a lovely appearance, but with a pair of heterogeneous scarlet pupils - those eyes were staring wide open, looking straight at Yu Sheng, as if checking whether the human outside the frame would really burn the painting or not. The
Yu Sheng admitted that he was startled when the girl suddenly jumped into the center of the frame.
Although the young girl in the painting is not scary when you look at it carefully, and even considered very beautiful, but with such a gloomy and dark background, and such a sudden appearance, anything that pops up on the screen actually has to be scary, not to mention that the girl also has a pair of eyes drenched in blood - she followed up to the front of the screen, and pressed her face completely onto the canvas, and those eyes almost filled the whole painting. Her face was completely plastered on the canvas, and those eyes filled almost the entire painting, making it look even weirder.
"Don't you light a fire," came the girl's voice from the oil painting, "that's all I have to live on."
"You step back a little first," Yu Sheng subconsciously kept a little distance between him and the oil painting, somehow he always felt that the other party's scarlet eyes were unusually evil, that red color seemed to gradually seep into his own memories and thoughts when staring this way, the more he looked at it, the harder it was to erase it from his mind, but in order to keep the upper hand in the conversation , he forced himself not to shift his gaze again, "I can do without the fire."
"Oh." The girl in the painting was quite negotiable, she didn't seem to notice Yu Sheng's momentary dissimilarity, and with a nod of her head she retreated to the center of the screen and took a seat on the chair covered in thick red velvet, then she bent down again, grabbed a stuffed bear that she had just thrown on the ground and hugged it in her arms, and just sat on the chair and continued to stare at Yu Sheng's movements with a straight face.
Gothic girl sitting on a red velvet chair holding a teddy bear - in a trance, Yu Sheng felt that he saw the original "normal" picture of this "painting".
And immediately afterward he frowned slightly, noticing something unusual in the picture.
He noticed the young girl's exposed wrists, which were distinctly ... spherical structures.
Human joints don't grow like that.
Doll's are the only way to go!
Probably because the gaze from outside the picture was too obvious, the young girl in the painting twisted her body somewhat unnaturally and frowned at Yu Sheng, "Why are you staring at me?"
Yu Sheng opened his mouth, at first he wanted to ask the other wrist joints, but before he opened his mouth, he stopped the question - he knew little about this "world", and asking about things involving the transcendental realm might blow up his own shortcomings, so he changed his question to " Who are you? So he changed his question to: "... Who are you? Why are you here?"
The young girl in the painting clearly hesitated, but answered Yu Sheng's question after a moment.
"My name is Erin," she adjusted her sitting position slightly, as if to make herself look solemn, "I'm from 'Alice's Cottage', and I was one of Alice's dolls... . but that was a long time ago."
Dolls?
Yu Sheng keenly noticed this word, and at the same time subconsciously glanced at the clearly different spherical joint structure on "Irene's" wrist, and immediately afterward, his attention was focused on the two words that the other party mentioned very naturally:
"Alice's Cottage" and "Alice's Dolls".
What does this mean? He understands dolls, and he can accept talking dolls and living dolls in oil paintings with imagination and generosity of heart, but what is this "Alice"...?
The cottage sounds like a place name, or maybe an organization named after a place, and "Alice's Dolls" ... sounds like some kind of collective name for a group of people?
The girl in the painting is part of a group of people who call themselves "Alice's Dolls"?
As soon as the thoughts in Yu Sheng's mind opened up, he instantly became a bit unable to collect himself, and his ability to make associations began to soar all the way-
There's more than one like her? A bunch of them? Are they all hanging out in homes just like hers? The price of the house is so high that they still have to occupy a house, lock the door and not open it and laugh at the owner of the house for not having a key, but in reality a lighter can bluff ...?
... always felt that the main purpose of this organization's existence was a bit of a mystery ...
Probably because Yu Sheng was silent for a bit too long, Irene finally couldn't help but speak, "Why did you suddenly stop talking ... You're not still thinking about lighting a fire, are you?!"
"To ask you something." Yu Sheng snapped his head up, the seriousness in his expression startling the young girl in the painting.
"Ah ... you say."
Yu Sheng looked serious: "Is that 'Alice's Cottage' you mentioned specializing in taking orders to press home prices?"
Erin: "... huh?"
"It's when someone pays for you to hang yourselves out of other people's homes, occupy the house and lie down on the land, steal in the middle of the night and lock the doors during the day, with the goal of knocking down neighborhood prices - the nature of which is equivalent to hanging in front of a property door to help add to the leveling off of housing prices ... ..."
Irene stared with scarlet eyes, froze for nearly half a minute before finally catching up with Yu Sheng's psychopathic train of thought, and figured out what the man with the lighter in front of her meant, so she immediately revealed an annoyed look: ''You ... can insult me, you can't insult the Ancestor of the Dolls and my sisters! I ... we are a very powerful ..."
"Then why did you hang it in my house!" Yu Sheng directly interrupted the girl in the painting with a glare, "And a locked door! Ah yes, and that dream I had before, was it also your doing? And that punchy smile ..."
He asked a series of questions, but also to take advantage of the air head to appear aggressive, but after asking the heart is a little weak, he remembered that the frog in the rainy night, always feel that in front of this painting looks just as evil should also be the same dangerous things, this self-proclaimed "Irene" painting doll now looks good to talk to, but maybe the next second will be a change of face! Rise up and start a difficult hand up bear fall to chop him in front of the painting ...
However, he quickly shook off this weakness, because he remembered that the frog gave him "happy" after seemingly no big deal, but just died once, in front of this with a lighter can be bluffed in the painting doll can not eat himself?
Yu Sheng now heart is very wide, this world has been so evil anyway, and he experienced a happy to death, now he does not want to have so many worries, he just want to figure out what the many evil things around him in the end is all about ... just start with this painting.
And "Irene" was a better talker than he thought.
The painted mannequin did not storm out, nor did she whip up that stuffed bear in her arms and smash it in Yu Sheng s face, and in the face of the imposing series of questions, she just shrunk her body in the chair, and her face was actually really a little ... guilty.
"I ... I it was an accident, I wasn't originally like this," she squirmed uncomfortably, strangling the teddy bear in her arms, "I met with an accident a long time ago, and was blocked off from this painting, and also lost the connection to the other dolls ..."
She lifted her head again and looked at the room outside the painting.
"As for why it's in your house, this ... I don't know ah, I'm trapped in a painting, and there's no way to decide where I'm hung ... really not you yourself one day when you shopped for a painting show to buy me back to hang on the wall? "
Yusheng: "..."