Chapter 161: House Of Evil Ghosts
Little Lu began thinking: from entering the platform until now, where could be the place that might trigger a certain-death situation?
The room?
Those corpses?
Or the “taboo” written on the blackboard?
There were too many possibilities. Most importantly, she hadn’t sensed any “danger” aura.
Three days of time, and now it was only the first day after entering the platform, less than three hours had passed. There were some places where she felt something was off, but Little Lu really couldn’t judge at the moment which point exactly made the parchment think she would die.
She didn’t plan to fall into panic because of this. She might have already fallen into the ghost’s trap without knowing it, but she didn’t think she was really doomed to die.
Whether it was the pocket watch or the shadow puppet, both had given her extremely powerful life-preserving abilities. The parchment couldn’t possibly not know this, but it still made such a transaction. Little Lu thought it was intentional.
The parchment saw her fall into the ghost’s trap. Even if it wouldn’t immediately trigger the ghost’s attack right now, it deliberately gave an early “warning” to try to make her fall into self-doubt and panic, accelerating her death.
As for why she thought this way, the reason was also very simple. Right now, at this very moment, everything was too calm.
Little Lu knew that her intuition had always been very accurate since childhood, and her perception of danger could even be called keen. This had indeed been verified after entering the platform. She was always quicker than ordinary people to sense the arrival of danger. The ghost’s aura always made her hair stand on end. In the early stages, she even suffered excessive stimulation from her keen perception, leading to her brain going blank.
She felt this was a bit like a spider’s senses. Sometimes, even before reason detected the danger, her subconscious would already give a hint.
But now, Little Lu didn’t have such a premonition.
Had she become so numb and careless that she didn’t even notice the slightest sign of death approaching?
Little Lu absolutely didn’t think so.
She tended to think her current situation was more like a butterfly caught in a spider web. The ghost had detected her for some reason, and she had indeed discovered some clues that felt off, just like those transparent but real spider silk threads. However, the ghost hadn’t launched an attack yet, so she still had room to struggle and escape the web.
And the parchment was trying to make her start struggling early, consuming her “stamina”.
Returning to inside the room, Little Lu lifted a few white cloths, looked at the corpses that showed no change from before, and began rapidly analyzing the known clues in her brain.
The most obvious thing that made Little Lu feel uneasy was clearly the three corpses inside the room.
Next were the prohibition rules on the corridor blackboard. Could something so similar to the “ghost’s taboo” appearing inside the platform be just a red herring or something irrelevant?
Then, it was the current state of the entire apartment: the abandoned floors, the tightly closed doors on the third floor, the room layout assigned to them by the train, and the things in the other tenants’ rooms.
Finally, it was her teammates.
Teammates who were clearly hiding something and had some ulterior motive.
Among these, which ones were the key points that the parchment thought meant she had walked into a death trap?
Or maybe all of them?
“If I have already violated the ghost’s taboo now, then what would be the reason?”
As a tenant, leaving her own room?
Just like in [Loss of Control]?
She thought of the [Loss of Control] platform back then.
However, that platform’s name alone was a hint, and the waiting information clearly stated [Once the sacrifice goes wrong, the evil existence in the village will lose control].
In contrast, this platform’s name was [House of Evil Ghosts]. Every word and sentence in the waiting information revolved around [apartment]: [a haunted apartment], [you entered this apartment, and then strange events kept happening]. The prohibitions also stated [cannot leave the apartment main entrance], and that sentence [leave the apartment alive] all indicated that the problem was with the entire apartment, not just the room alone.
But the word [home] gave Little Lu some concern. Could an entire apartment be called a [home]?
She felt it couldn’t, because there would be other people living in the apartment. [Home] should refer to the room that belongs exclusively to oneself, right?
“So, both home and apartment are problematic, and they are different problems?”
If she couldn’t figure it out, changing the angle seemed to yield the answer.
The apartment has a problem, the room has a problem, and they are different problems.
Would stepping into the apartment kill her?
Not necessarily. After all, back in [Loss of Control], their disembarking location was a safe area, and this mission required them to enter the apartment, so the situations were different.
Would leaving the room kill her?
Not necessarily either, because this apartment’s structure includes a public toilet, which means the tenants here would naturally leave their rooms for physiological reasons to go to the public area, and her identity is “tenant”.
After thinking it over, Little Lu still felt there was a lack of clues.
Was there anything else she hadn’t discovered?
Death was already knocking on the door, yet she still hadn’t figured out where the grim reaper came from.
“No rush. Isn’t it supposed to be haunted?”
“Wait a bit more.”
The “strange event” in the waiting information might bring danger, but it could also bring clues. Little Lu decided to calm her mindset, not let the parchment’s words affect her, prepare well, and wait and see.
The smell inside the room wasn’t pleasant, but fortunately Little Lu had long grown accustomed to the stench and rotting smell of corpses. Even if it was nauseating, she could stay in the same room with these corpses without changing expression.
Night soon fell. As she expected, even though the parchment proposed the transaction, the danger didn’t arrive immediately.
The incandescent lamp inside the room, even though it was at the end of its lifespan, was still dutifully providing light and hadn’t shown the sudden power outage that Little Lu had anticipated.
But she didn’t relax her vigilance because of this.
Time passed bit by bit. She just sat on the edge of the mattress, waiting for the change to happen.
Approaching two o’clock, finally, Little Lu waited for what she wanted.
In the silent corridor, faint sounds vaguely appeared—very light, very blurry, not like the sound of someone walking, more like something sliding on the ground.
Then, that sound stopped at her room door.
—Knock knock
The door was gently knocked.
The position was very low, at a spot very far down.
It was as if someone was lying prone outside her door, trying to peep inside through the lowest door seam, and in that twisted posture, gently knocked on her door.
Little Lu didn’t move, just quietly looked at the three corpses inside the room.
The corpses showed no change.
A voice came from outside the door: “Little Lu, open the door, it’s Qiu Tian.”
Little Lu didn’t respond.
The thing outside the door waited a moment, knocked again, and then a ghostly voice came: “Little Lu, open the door, it’s Auntie Duan.”
A trace of absurdity appeared in Little Lu’s eyes. This thing didn’t even make any noise of “leaving” and then “returning,” just changed names and continued knocking?
Half a minute later, seeing she still had no movement, another voice came.
“Little Lu, open the door, it’s Tan Meng.”
