Chapter 25: Classmates Reunion (Part 4)
Lu Ren's night vision was not very good, not to mention that the villa was located in the wilderness without even street lights. It was pitch black outside at night. Now the lights in the room suddenly went out, and the whole room fell into pure darkness, where one could not see one's hand in front of one's face.
Lu Ren turned on the light from his phone, but the area it could illuminate was very limited. He could only barely see the entire room in the split second when the lightning flashed.
He found that Xi He by the window had disappeared, as if he had never been there, and had evaporated into thin air. Lu Ren was the only one left in the room. Lu Ren breathed a sigh of relief. Although he was grateful that Xi He had just saved him, in this situation, Xi He's presence would scare Lu Ren more than not having Xi He.
The darkness blocks the vision, but often at this time people's hearing becomes more sensitive.
Lu Ren heard Zong Yi from next door swear, and then he pushed open the door and bumped heads with Lu Ren. He kept complaining, "It must be the typhoon that cut the power lines. In this horrible weather, the internet and the power are both out."
Lu Ren didn't respond. He was still observing the darkness vigilantly.
Confused, Soichi asked, "What's wrong with you?"
"Don't you think it's... too quiet?"
On the night of the power outage, after Soichi's curse, there was no other sound. Although everyone lived on different floors, they just lived on the same floor, not two miles apart.
Why didn't anyone else react?
Even if the guest was brave enough to wait quietly in the room, what about the host? Didn't he even say a word of concern?
In the dark and silent night, it seemed as if time had been stretched out. Only this old mansion, when no one was around, breathed freely like a giant beast lurking in the dark.
Zongyi was a little panicked. Although he was born in the Zong family, he was not very talented in exorcism. Fortunately, it is the 21st century now, and it is not like the feudal society, where the Qian family would tell fortunes when children are born, and if they are not talented, they would just find a pond and let them fall freely. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, superstitions were eliminated, so that children like Zongyi who had no talent could thrive. For this reason, Zongyi regarded the Marxist philosophy book as his amulet since he was a child.
Sometimes when Zong Chen went to exorcise evil spirits, he would bring along a few of his peers to help. When it came to the critical moment, everyone took out the self-defense magic treasures given by their elders, but only Zong Yi would take out the Marxist philosophy book he carried with him and shout: "The economic base determines the superstructure."
An idealist who regards materialism as his spiritual pillar.
Now the Zong family treats children with high and low talents equally. No, it should be said that they make the best use of them. For those with low talents, they should work hard to learn scientific and cultural knowledge, and be outstanding in the social field, so as to provide better resources for those with high talents. For this reason, Zong Yi was beaten more than Zong Chen when he was a child because he did not study hard. For those with high talents, they will concentrate on cultivation and feed back these members with low talents from the field of metaphysics. In other words , when Zong Chen becomes the head of the family in the future, he will have to support a large family of useless people like Zong Yi.
Unity is the key to the long-term success of the clan.
Zongyi, who grew up studying science, had never seen such a scene before. When he realized what was happening, he was shaking even more than Lu Ren. But he knew that if something really happened, the only one who could help here would be himself, who had a connection with Xuanmen, so he should not scare himself. So he pretended to be calm and said to Lu Ren, "Maybe it's because it's a typhoon tonight, there's no internet, and everyone went to bed early."
Just as Lu Ren was about to nod, he heard a woman's shrill scream coming from downstairs .
It's a maid.
Lu Ren and Zong Yi looked at each other and were about to go downstairs to check, when they heard the sound of breaking glass, as if the window was broken.
The two of them thought something was wrong and quickened their pace.
The maid's room downstairs was empty, and one of the huge French windows on the side was broken. The wind blew the unclosed gauze curtains up, and the floor was covered with splashed rain. The broken glass was scattered all over the flowerbed outside, and a row of winding footprints could be clearly seen extending into the garden, and it seemed that they were barefoot.
Lu Ren frowned when he saw this.
Zong Yi walked to the window cautiously to observe the scene, then shook his head at Lu Ren: "There is only glass and rain on the ground. It doesn't look like she was attacked by anything. It's more like she ran away on her own. I suggest calling all the men and splitting up to look for her. It's too dangerous for a woman to be alone outside in this weather."
Lu Ren looked at the messy flowerbed, in which lay a bottle of broken women's cosmetics , and guessed that was the culprit that broke the glass.
But who would break glass with makeup?
It must be the maid.
Lu Ren couldn't help wondering: "She screamed first, then broke the glass and ran away."
Zong nodded and expressed his confusion: "But why did she run out on this day? She is so brave."
Yes, why not be afraid of such a night of lightning and thunder?
It's impossible for anyone not to be afraid. After all, there are so many trees here, and it's easy to be struck by lightning if you're not careful. Even if there's no thunder, humans' fear of darkness is not so easy to overcome.
Then why did she run out alone?
Maybe, she wasn't running but... escaping?
It’s not that she is not afraid of thunder and lightning and the darkness, but is there something more terrifying in her room?
Thinking of this, Lu Ren and Zong Yi simultaneously used their mobile phones to scan the maid's room, and finally the light converged in a corner of the room.
A paper man stood there.
The paper figurine had a pink face, a pair of large, narrow eyes and a small mouth. It looked more like an unsalable item in a funeral supply store, but on such a night, it suddenly appeared in such a place, which could only be described as terrifying.
The two men were in a stalemate with the paper man for about a minute, and no one dared to move. Only two beams of light silently illuminated the paper man's face, and it was as quiet as a dead object.
Soichi breathed a sigh of relief. "Maybe it's just the maid's weird quirk?" he thought.
Then he heard Lu Ren say to the paper man: "I saw you blink just now!"
Blink?!
Soichi looked at Lu Ren in horror, but he found that Lu Ren's expression was very calm, not like he had seen something terrible. So Soichi realized: "Ah, Lu Ren is lying."
But the paper man didn't realize it.
"Damn it, I've been discovered." Zongyi heard a little kid's voice saying this. He hadn't realized what was happening yet, but he heard Lu Ren's voice beside him. Lu Ren said, "I'll count to three, then run into the rain, don't look back."
"One..." Lu Ren pulled him back a step toward the window. He clearly saw the paper man tilt his head.
"Two..." The mouth made of red paper on the paper man seemed to form a sinister arc.
"Three!" Lu Ren gave the order.
Zong Yi didn't dare to delay at all. He shouted, "All reactionaries are paper tigers!" and followed Lu Ren and rushed into the heavy rain like an arrow.
The heavy rain was pouring down, and the raindrops falling on the ground would cause a large amount of water mist, blocking people's vision. The weak light of the mobile phone can actually illuminate a very limited area. After running for a while, Zong Yi found a huge problem. Lu Ren in front of him was gone.
They got separated.
