Chapter 4: Treating The Symptoms, Not The Root
Just as Yu Lianyun felt doubtful about the number “7”, the sudden mobile phone ringtone made her heart jolt fiercely again. She turned her head; it was the mobile phone on the bed that was ringing.
Yu Lianyun took a deep breath, picked up the mobile phone, and the screen displayed “Unknown call”, with a series of 4s—a number that didn’t feel comfortable at all, as if it was called from hell.
Answering the phone, Yu Lianyun probed by calling out, “Hello?”
There was silence on the other end. Yu Lianyun felt uneasy in her heart. Although the icy chill that had been invading her body had temporarily receded, she seemed to have a new worry.
What exactly was the thing in this video tape? This was definitely not the blessing the boss had mentioned!
About ten seconds later, a voice finally came from the phone, a voice she was quite familiar with. Then the voice from the other end made her filled with terror, nearly scaring her soul out of her body.
“No! Don’t! Don’t come over!!”
The woman’s scream was heart-wrenching, utterly miserable, and finally the voice completely fell silent after a bout of dry coughing and suffocating whimpers.
Beep… beep… beep…
The call ended just like that. Every regular busy tone sounded restless and chaotic in Yu Lianyun’s ears, just like her heart—a tangled mess.
That was her voice!
The voice on the phone just now was her voice!
Yu Lianyun seemed to hear herself from another spacetime emitting a wail during her experience of death. She could not only empathize but also imagine her own tragic death.
That must be just as gruesome as the pervert father and son in the video tape! And the one who killed her must be the woman in white recorded in the video tape.
In this way, Yu Lianyun suddenly understood and finally grasped the implication behind the shopkeeper’s strange words.
“The rental period is seven days. Please return it to me within seven days.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t return it; the purpose of extending your lifespan can still be reached anyway.”
“The best method to eliminate difficulties is to face fear. This is a video tape full of blessings.”
“…”
So, the number “7” in the pupils of the woman in white represented the countdown of her lifespan?
So, what was recorded in this video tape was not a blessing, but a curse!
Fighting poison with poison, using an evil curse to confront the dimensional invasion—that was the solution?
Extending her lifespan of less than three days to seven days—that was the method to save her dying life?
Just how twisted was the shopkeeper’s brain!?
Yu Lianyun once wanted to curse out loud, but she soon dejectedly accepted reality. Actually, thinking about it carefully, going from three days to seven days, and possibly not having to endure the pain of icy chill invasion during that time, was already a rare bit of luck. After all, what she was facing was dimensional power, a realm humans could not set foot in and a problem they could not solve.
If dying young at twenty-nine was her inescapable destiny, then at least let her choose a death without a painful process.
“Wait!” Yu Lianyun took a deep breath. Amid her despair, she suddenly noticed a glimmer of hope. Bright light flashed in her beautiful eyes. “Since the boss wants me to return the video tape within seven days, doesn’t that mean he knows how to solve the video tape’s problem? Right, this is one of the shop’s things. Perhaps the boss himself is some powerful exorcist or demon hunter, and the thing in this video tape is one of his trophies. Since he could subdue the curse of this video tape once, he can naturally do it a second time.”
Thinking of this, Yu Lianyun couldn’t help but regret it and wanted to give herself a hard slap. Why had she been so clever and insisted on buying the video tape?
Recalling Lin Ling’s strange smile, Yu Lianyun finally understood the playfulness in his smile. What kind of twisted and wickedly mischievous person was that boss? Would he still be willing to take back this video tape now?
Yu Lianyun took off her jacket. Having regained normal body temperature and sensation, she once again felt the summer heat and the coldness of human hearts. She wiped her forehead, took the video tape out from the projector, but paused the moment she held it.
At this moment, Yu Lianyun thought of a new problem.
Since the “blessing” of the video tape could resist the dimensional power behind the nameless female corpse, if she returned the video tape to the boss now, and the “blessing” on her was also taken back at the same time, would the dimensional power targeting her come back in full force?
Damn!
Yu Lianyun felt her vision go black. She seemed to have fallen into a cesspit she could never climb out of, and the only lifeline rope lowered into the cesspit could only let her gasp for breath outside it for a while, without suffocating to death!
“What kind of exorcism is this? It only treats the symptoms without addressing the root cause!” Yu Lianyun couldn’t help but complain. “If the dimensional icy power keeps targeting me, and watching the video tape once also wants to take my life, does that mean from now on, every seven days, I have to go through a borrow-and-return operation with the boss?”
Thoroughly clear-headed in her vexation, Yu Lianyun decided at this moment to go back and find Lin Ling to get a clear answer from him.
Changing into a new set of clothes, Yu Lianyun took the yellow sachet containing the black video tape and prepared to go out. But when her shoe tip was still three steps from the room door, the door was knocked on.
Yu Lianyun paused her steps, unconsciously gripping the sachet’s strap tightly, and asked, “Who is it?”
The cat eyes on the inner side of the room door had been sealed by her with tape, so she wasn’t worried about people outside seeing the room’s condition.
The person outside the room said, “Hello, housekeeping service. We’re here to add shower gel and shampoo to your room’s bathroom.”
Hearing this, Yu Lianyun peeked into the room’s bathroom and found that the shower gel and shampoo in the bathroom were indeed empty and needed refilling. She slightly relaxed her vigilance, said “Okay”, and then opened the room door.
At first, she only opened a crack, without removing the door chain on the door lock. She looked outside; indeed, only one smiling service miss was standing there, holding bottles of shower gel and shampoo respectively, with no other people present.
Yu Lianyun then felt relieved. She nodded dryly at the service miss outside the door, closed the door, removed the door chain, and reopened the door.
But what Yu Lianyun didn’t expect was that when this fresh and refined service miss walked into the room, and she was still marveling at what kind of hotel could train a service staff to be so poised, she heard a male voice from behind the service miss. At the same time, her eyes blurred, and in the blink of an eye, two men wearing special black uniform appeared behind the service miss.
“Hello, Miss Yu Lianyun. We are the Shenzhou Region special emergency event investigation analysis and rescue assurance organization. Regarding a anomaly event under investigation, we hope to get your cooperation in the investigation.” A pale-faced man as tall as her stepped out from behind the service miss and said to Yu Lianyun with a smile.
Yu Lianyun clenched her fists, her heart as nervous as his precarious hairline, on the brink of the cliff edge.
She had naturally heard of this organization’s name, because its folk abbreviation was the Mysterious Group, a special organization dedicated to handling anomalous matters in the public.
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