Chapter 168: House Of Evil Ghosts
Lu Jinzhao had already anticipated this. The rules on the blackboard restricted the ghost, and she, as a tenant, could leave the room at night but couldn’t stay out forever. Now she had confirmed this.
“Since the ghost can only stay inside the room tonight, then if any strange event occurs, it will only appear inside the room.”
With this thought in mind, Lu Jinzhao did not return to the bedroom. Instead, she stood at the doorway, staring intently at the three corpses not covered by white cloth.
Time passed bit by bit. The dim light inside the room occasionally flickered slightly due to unstable voltage, but at least there was no complete power outage.
The three deformed corpses did not suddenly move as in her worst expectations. They just stayed quietly in their original places, like statues of bizarre art.
The windows pasted over with newspaper blocked the view of the outside world. The corridor, which should have been dangerous, was unusually quiet. Tonight seemed to be a quiet night.
Lu Jinzhao’s back leaned against the wall surface, her line of sight scanning the room. A whole night of vigilance indeed consumed one’s essence. She occasionally realized that she had just zoned out for a moment.
The mottled wall surface behind her still emitted a chill. Through her not-too-thick clothes, she could feel that the wall surface was somewhat uneven. Her slightly low body temperature hadn’t warmed the wall surface even after leaning against it for a long time. Instead, those uneven parts became uncomfortable after leaning for too long.
Lu Jinzhao slightly straightened her body to change position and avoid the more uneven wall surface. After moving to a flat area, her gaze fell back on the corpses.
Most of the night had passed, yet there was still no change.
She suddenly frowned. Her body sprang away from the wall surface like a spring. She quickly took a few steps forward to distance herself from the wall surface, then turned back to look at the spot she had just leaned against.
It was very flat. Apart from some old marks on the wall surface, there was nothing else.
But just now, for an instant, she felt as if a pebble had fallen between her back and the wall surface.
In that instant, Lu Jinzhao reflexively moved away from the wall surface. Now, recalling the strange sensation on her back, she slowly realized that it wasn’t a pebble. It was more like a protrusion from the wall surface—five small points. To describe it, it was exactly like
a hand stretching out from inside the wall, trying to grab her.
But because of the wall surface in between, only five fingers protruded.
The weird feeling made Lu Jinzhao’s back feel discomfort. She stared carefully at the wall surface but found no traces.
Even so, she was certain that something had just been pressed against her back.
Inside the wall—did that count as “inside the room”?
What was trapped inside the walls of this apartment?
Lu Jinzhao’s heart tightened slightly. At this moment, she could only stay in this cramped room, with nowhere to hide and nowhere to go.
The atmosphere was oppressively intense. Perhaps because Lu Jinzhao was no longer leaning against the wall surface, the thing bound inside the wall lost its patience to keep waiting. In the silent room, a blood handprint suddenly appeared on the spot where Lu Jinzhao had leaned earlier.
Then one, another, and yet another.
They appeared one after another, seeping out from inside the wall, as if the wall was bleeding. They didn’t cover the entire room but only appeared on the spot where Lu Jinzhao had leaned earlier. Gradually, the blood handprints covered that area, forming a blurry human shape.
When the spot where Lu Jinzhao had leaned was completely filled with these handprints, thick blood began to slowly flow out from this blood-colored figure, slowly extending to the ground. Immediately after, a handprint that had only appeared on the wall surface emerged on the ground.
At first, it was just at the corner where the wall surface met the ground. Then the handprint moved forward one step, then another, just like… a ghost with only half a body constantly pulling itself closer to her using its hands.
Or as if there was really an invisible ghost on the ground, approaching her.
Lu Jinzhao couldn’t help but take a step back.
Even though there was nothing in front of her, she instinctively didn’t want this blood handprint to catch up to her.
But in the cramped room, how much space was there for her to stand?
She took a step back, and the blood handprint followed one step forward. Even if she retreated to the bedroom and stood on the mattress, the next moment, the mattress seeped out a pool of blood from the center, just as Qiu Tian had said.
Seeing this, Lu Jinzhao’s gaze immediately fell on the window.
Even though it was pasted over with newspaper, she could vaguely feel that a mass of thick darkness was pressed against the window—a blurry human shape.
It was clinging to the outside of the window, pressed tightly against the glass. If it had facial features, they might even be deformed and distorted from being pressed so closely against the glass.
The weird events mentioned by her teammate were appearing one by one in her room tonight.
What should she do now?
She couldn’t stay on the mattress. The bloodstains spread too quickly. The center of the mattress seemed to have turned into a swamp made of a sea of blood. Just looking at it made her feel that anyone standing on it would surely be swallowed by the blood. Perhaps hands would even stretch out from the pool of blood, grabbing her body and pulling her down.
Could she stand on the ground?
No.
The handprints kept approaching, constantly filling every place. It wouldn’t be long before this house would have nowhere to go.
Suddenly, Lu Jinzhao’s retreating steps stopped.
Amid the terror closing in from all directions, she raised her hand. As her right index finger waved like conducting an orchestra, a shadow puppet fell off her body, then climbed onto the room’s wall surface with stepping movements.
The next moment, the blood handprints that had been chasing Lu Jinzhao suddenly appeared behind the shadow puppet.
This shadow puppet, made from Lu Jinzhao’s skin, completely inherited her aura. Under the effect of her upgraded fate, it could even deceive ghosts.
Just the ground alone wasn’t enough to last until dawn, but adding the wall surface and ceiling would be sufficient to stall for time.
The shadow puppet ignored the laws of physics, constantly running on the wall surface and ceiling. The blood handprints chased after it like a dog being walked, filling all the blank spaces behind it.
When the sky began to lighten slightly, Lu Jinzhao was already as if she were soaked in a room constructed from blood.
Even though there weren’t many handprints on the ground, the bloodstains dripping from the blood-covered wall surface and ceiling had spread to the ground, creating a hellish scene.
Fortunately, tonight, because of the shadow puppet’s existence, she wasn’t caught. Otherwise, she would probably have had to “die” at least once.
Even worse, even though it was now dawn, the shadow figure outside the window had disappeared, and the blood handprints no longer kept appearing, the bloodstains inside the room showed no sign of fading at all.
This meant that when the abnormality reappeared tonight, she would truly have nowhere to hide.
“I need to change the rules.”
But now… it was dawn. Her teammates should be waiting for her in the corridor, right?
Lu Jinzhao looked toward the door, and right on cue, a knocking sound came from the doorway.
——Knock knock
“Little Lu, it’s dawn.”
