Chapter 170: House Of Evil Ghosts
Upon arriving at the first floor, Lu Jinzhao saw the blackboard with the words written on it: [Inside this apartment, loud noise is prohibited, running in the corridor is prohibited, leaving garbage inside the room is prohibited]
“Building 1?”
“I’m back?”
This was undoubtedly the rule she most wanted to draw, but Lu Jinzhao didn’t expect she could actually draw it.
“Could Qin Wan have secretly helped me with luck transfer outside?” Of course that was impossible, after all Qin Wan wasn’t that powerful yet.
However, Lu Jinzhao didn’t know that after Qin Wan learned Yuncheng surprisingly had only Lu Jinzhao as a passenger, she had transferred luck to herself.
“So it is possible to return to the previous apartment.”
That meant that the different spaces switched by entering and exiting 302 and toggling the switch all existed, and her teammates needed to constantly switch between these spaces to find her?
She hadn’t previously drawn familiar rules, so she couldn’t confirm this and could only consider jumping spaces multiple times to evade, but now that she knew this, Lu Jinzhao thought that at least during the day, she should try not to jump anymore.
Even though the total number of apartments added up was just over ten now, the unspoken rules that weren’t fully understood yet and the sense of crisis in her heart made her unwilling to jump more spaces.
Moreover, [No running in the corridor] was already a sufficiently advantageous condition.
“Can’t stay on the first floor.”
When her teammates searched for her, they would surely stop by the first floor along the way to check the rules, so after thinking about it, Lu Jinzhao decided to stay on the fourth floor.
“Even if they search one by one, with over a dozen apartments, if there’s no immediate way to locate me, it’ll still take them a while.”
On the way to the fourth floor, she also stopped by 302 to take a look; the room layout was the same as in her memory, but even 302 in Building 1 was still full of bloodstains.
“This is really bad.”
The sense of crisis in her heart grew even stronger, and thinking that she still had to return to the room at night made Lu Jinzhao even more troubled.
She left the shadow puppet at the corner in the third floor stairwell and hid on the fourth floor herself. Although this little ghost had no self-consciousness, it was like a useful tool that could give her hints when it detected a ghost, and due to its special mechanism, unlike other fates whose “release” time was limited, as long as the shadow puppet wasn’t destroyed, she could even keep it nearby indefinitely for early warning.
The premise was that her “consciousness” was clear enough to command and control this shadow puppet.
When she fell into a coma or her consciousness was unclear, the shadow puppet couldn’t act on its own.
However, the speed at which those teammates found her was faster than Lu Jinzhao had anticipated.
“I sense her.” Hiding outside the stairwell door, Lu Jinzhao heard a blurry voice from below.
“She’s here, in this building.”
“How did she get back here?”
“No problem, she can’t escape.”
“I’ll go to the first floor.”
As they spoke, two sets of footsteps headed upstairs.
They didn’t even intend to check other places and came straight to the fourth floor.
The situation worsened further; this apartment had only one stairwell, so no matter where Lu Jinzhao stayed, if found, she would face the risk of being surrounded by ghosts, but she didn’t want to stay on the third floor, where switching spaces immediately upon discovery would be necessary.
That might be a shortcut—as long as she kept switching spaces, she could never be caught, but in the platform, such a “good thing” would only be an even more terrifying trap.
She would rather take her chances; if it really didn’t work, she could try that method last.
The footsteps drew closer bit by bit; Lu Jinzhao quietly controlled the shadow puppet to go upward, while she herself put on the bell.
Sure enough, as the shadow puppet’s presence headed to the top floor, two heavy footsteps passed by her fourth floor and continued upward.
Lu Jinzhao didn’t relax because of this; this was just the beginning of the “hide and seek,” but she didn’t expect that just as she prepared to control the shadow puppet to lead these two ghosts to the third floor pretending she was switching spaces again, a pale human face suddenly protruded from behind the iron door in the stairwell.
“Found you.”
It was Qiu Tian’s face, smiling, with her two eyes curved in exactly the same arc, just like a mask simulating a human.
What was going on?!
Lu Jinzhao’s pupils dilated slightly as she abruptly retreated a step.
“You really hid.”
Two sets of footsteps came down from upstairs.
“Fake.”
“Tricked.”
“But no problem.”
“Caught her.”
With each word, the footsteps slowly approached.
Lu Jinzhao realized that the ghost in front of her hadn’t gone to the first floor at all; it was also deceiving them.
Having been tricked by the shadow puppet once, these ghosts had actually learned.
Tricky.
More tricky than ever before.
Ghosts with such strong learning ability were a first for Lu Jinzhao.
They hadn’t even gone to confirm the rules first, but came straight to catch her?!
Lu Jinzhao’s gaze sharpened as she realized the plan had to change.
So instead of retreating further, she quickly stepped forward, kicked open the half-closed door, and dashed downstairs!
However, no matter how fast her movements, she was still grabbed by Qiu Tian!
In that instant, Lu Jinzhao felt her arm gripped like by an eagle’s claw, five fingers like a cold vise embedded in her arm; even though her strength was much greater than a normal person’s, in the ghost’s grasp, she still couldn’t budge an inch!
But the next second, Lu Jinzhao transferred this attack to the shadow puppet; the shadow puppet’s left arm, which had been racing toward Lu Jinzhao, sizzled as if being burned, then gradually melted.
At that moment, Qiu Tian seemed to have grabbed something hot and suddenly let go, then looked at her hand in confusion.
The instant Qiu Tian let go, Lu Jinzhao ran toward the third floor. Now that the ghost had discovered her whereabouts and was no longer fooled by the shadow puppet, all she could do was try to maneuver in the stairwell with the ghost as much as possible and switch spaces in the extreme time limit.
“I originally wanted to avoid switching as much as possible, but now it seems impossible.”
This platform hadn’t left her much room to proceed step by step; she could only respond to moves as they came and act according to the situation.
Running to the third floor, hearing the pursuing footsteps behind her, she looked at the long corridor on the third floor, then at 302 right next to the stairwell entrance, and sighed.
“So the room placement here has this additional meaning?”
Extremely close to the stairwell entrance; even with [No running in the corridor], the room layout didn’t leave her much room for pulling.
After all, the end of the corridor was a dead end.
“But it’s not completely hopeless.”
The footsteps behind her grew closer.
Lu Jinzhao ran into the third floor, passed by 302 without entering, and instead ran toward the end of the corridor!
The teammates following her had already entered the third floor; Lu Jinzhao heard those heavy footsteps, especially clear in the silent and narrow corridor.
They hadn’t looked at the rules, but they were complying with every one, so they were just walking in the corridor.
But even just walking, this distance would soon reach the end; the time wouldn’t even take a few minutes.
Death was approaching.
