Volume 1: Breaking Ground Chapter 11 Yafen
When everyone arrived at the courtyard, the naked male corpse downstairs had been covered with a white cloth.
Everyone's expression was as if carved from stone; even fear was forgotten.
Only Wei Dong rushed towards Ke Xun in despair and asked in a low voice: "Ke'er, did you see it last night? It was so devastating!"
"Don't you guys always go to bed early?" Ke Xun asked back.
Wei Dong pounded his chest and said, "I don't know why I woke up in the middle of the night. They were making too much noise... At that time, Haowen was leaning against the window to watch, and I went over there too. As a result, I couldn't move my eyes and watched the whole show... I'm almost blind..."
Ke Xun patted his friend and said, "Just pretend you didn't see it."
Pretend you didn't see it? The problem is that you will never forget that kind of scene even if you live for 800 lifetimes! Wei Dong looked at the body covered with a white cloth on the ground, sighed, and suddenly felt that this person was very pitiful. He died of exhaustion... So what? Before he died, he exposed all his sexual desires in front of people, and it was infinitely magnified.
Qin Ci and old man Li Taiyong had just walked down the stairs, both of them had very gloomy expressions. Qin Ci turned around and said to the person behind him: "Carry it down and cover it with a white cloth."
The stone faces of the people suddenly came to life, and Qiu Lu rushed over like crazy: "Who died? Who else died?!"
Soon, two people were seen carrying a corpse covered with white cloth and placed it side by side with Shouzhu's body.
"Is it Zhitiao?" Ke Xun asked.
Qin Ci nodded.
Qiu Lu turned around and asked Ke Xun like crazy: "It was Zhitiao? How do you know it was him? How did you know?"
Xin Miao, whose face was as pale as paper, suddenly spoke up: "I saw it. Last night, the woman in red knocked on the door of Room 309. After the woman went in, Zhi Tiao rushed out." Then he looked at Qin Ci again, "It seems like he entered your room."
Qin Ci nodded: "He must have been frightened last night and knocked on our door in panic. Uncle Li couldn't bear it and opened the door for him."
"Is his death related to the woman in red?" Zhu Haowen suddenly asked.
Qin Ci shook his head helplessly, "I can't explain what happened here. Last night, he came into our room in a panic. He first said that the woman was not Xiao Sang, but a very scary white monster. Then he complained about Shou Zhu opening the door for her... Anyway, he kept talking forth about these things. After about an hour, he strangled himself to death." Qin Ci obviously didn't sleep well, and the dark circles under his eyes showed a bit of depression. "I don't know if this has anything to do with that woman."
"What?! He strangled himself?" Qiu Lu asked with her eyes wide open, "Why did he strangle himself? How could a person strangle himself?!"
Qiu Lu rushed towards the corpse covered with white cloth frantically. Before anyone could stop her, she had already lifted the white cloth covering it. Zhitiao was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, with both hands tightly clamped around her neck. Her entire face was dark blue, her red eyes were bulging, and her black and purple tongue was sticking out...
"Ah!!!" Someone screamed in fright.
Soon someone covered the body with white cloth again, and the body was lifted up and ruthlessly carried out of the gate together with Shouzhu's body.
Qiu Lu's entire body seemed to have been stripped of its skeleton, and she leaned limply against the wall. "Zhi Tiao... He said he would marry me, and he will marry me after he gets his divorce done! He said he would marry me!"
This surprised people because there was no sign of anything going on between the two men before, but these things had now become insignificant in the face of death.
Sha Liu felt that Qiu Lu's current state was affecting everyone's analysis of the problem, so he walked over and gently patted her shoulder: "The dead cannot be resurrected, what we need to do now is to find a way to escape and survive!"
Qiu Lu did not react to this and continued to repeat the words over and over again. No one was bothered to comfort her and they immediately started discussing the situation.
Sha Liu was the first to speak: "The situation is now in chaos. Two deaths occurred at once. Shou Zhu's death was obvious. He was killed by the woman in red last night... But Zhi Tiao's death was very strange."
"Zhi Tiao violated the hard rules and knocked on the doors of other rooms." The speaker was Zhu Haowen.
Ke Xun also nodded: "Zhi Tiao's death is similar to the two girls' death the night before. They were both punished with death for visiting. The two girls died in a fire that happened in 402 before. So Zhi Tiao's death should also be related to 309 where he lived."
"But Zhitiao didn't die in 309!" Xinmiao was skeptical.
"This is what we said before. The place of death is not necessarily limited to this room. As long as you violate the hard rules, you will be retaliated by this room no matter where you escape to." Ke Xun explained further.
Xin Miao wanted to ask something else, but was interrupted by Zhu Haowen: "We can pass on this matter. Let's continue talking about the woman in red."
Mu Yiran looked at Shaliu and asked, "Where did she come from?"
Sha Liu tried to remain calm: "It was from our 410."
Obviously, no one expected this result, and everyone's eyes were on Shaliu.
"The white woman appeared in our room last night. I watched her in the dark, put on a red dress, put on makeup, a wig, and high heels before she went out..." Sha Liu still feels scared when she thinks about it.
Qin Ci showed an expression of realization: "No wonder she didn't knock on the door of 410 last night." - It seems that he had been observing these situations last night.
"If 309 and 402 use the same set of death rules, then the 410 White Woman incident obviously belongs to another set of rules," Zhu Haowen said again, "and this set of rules needs to be explored by ourselves."
Everyone nodded thoughtfully, agreeing with this statement.
A familiar sound of keys rang out, and the doorman walked to the door of the hotel.
People came over in twos and threes, and the doorman said something similar to yesterday: "Everyone is here, let's talk about two things today."
At this time, everyone pricked up their ears and listened carefully, including Qiu Lu who was wiping her tears.
"Let's talk about Room 309 first. Old Mrs. Sun used to live there. She had many children and grandchildren, but not a single one was filial to her. None of her sons and daughters were willing to take care of her. As a result, she couldn't bear the consequences and hanged herself." The doorman sighed as he finished speaking.
Zhitiao strangled himself to death last night, which was the same as death by suffocation if hanged. It seems that this was indeed the backlash from Room 309.
"Let's talk about 410. This is a long story." The doorman sat on the stool brought by Ke Xun, nodded and smiled, then cleared his throat and continued, "The earliest 410 was a family of senior intellectuals in our factory. It was occupied by Engineer Chen and Doctor Zhou, and their three children. The eldest, Yafen, had a disease since childhood. We call it Tianlaoer in the old saying, and the scientific name is albinism. Her hair is white, her whole body is white, and she was born with bad eyesight and cannot see the light.
"These three children are all smart. Yafen is also clever. However, when she was in high school, her classmates often gave her nicknames, so she simply stopped going to school. Yafen has a strong sense of self-esteem and doesn't like to go out. She is also afraid of the sun, so she stays in the house reading all day. Mr. Chen and his wife bought a new house a long time ago and moved out with the children a few years ago. Yafen is the only one left in the dormitory. She doesn't want to go to a strange place. After all, the neighbors here know her, so they won't be scared if they see her suddenly.
"Her parents live far away, so Dr. Zhou comes once a week to bring some food and drinks to Yafen. Usually Yafen stays in her room. She is afraid of light, so she urinates and defecates in the room and only dares to go to the toilet at night. The toilet in the west corner of the fourth floor is her exclusive use, and people don't like to see her in the middle of the night.
"Yafen is talented, loves reading and learning, and often writes poems, novels, etc. Sometimes she sends them to newspapers, and some of them are actually published. Later I heard that she made a pen pal, and the two of them corresponded for several years. Finally, they met in person, but the other party must not be happy.
"Then Yafen changed. She was crazy for a while. We said she was obsessed with love. She was thinking about finding a partner all the time. She also said that she wanted to meet the sun and the light, and to be in public with her partner so that everyone would bless them. We all coaxed her with laughter. That child was pitiful.
"Her parents patronized her younger siblings. Their family was well off, and the whole family went on vacation every year, but she couldn't go. After moving to a bigger house, she said she didn't want to go, and her mother didn't try to persuade her. Our tube building was surrounded by cement walls by those beasts for three days, but her parents didn't know about it and didn't care about her.
"Later, Yafen stopped locking herself up in the dark room and often went out in the hot sun without a hat or sunglasses. The disease is afraid of the sun, and Yafen died early, probably because of too much sun exposure. Besides, she was not happy.
"Many people didn't know about Yafen's death. They thought she was taken to the city center by her parents to live a comfortable life. In fact, she died on 410. Her parents hurriedly took care of the funeral and didn't let us, the old neighbors, go to see her off."
After the doorman finished speaking, no one spoke for a long time.
The Yafen that the doorman mentioned was not the same person as the strange phenomenon that appeared last night - the huge, joyful white woman.
"She has always wanted to see the light of day. What happened last night might be an opportunity for everyone to bear witness." As a woman, Xinmiao began to consider the issue from Yafen's perspective.
"Then she shouldn't have hurt anyone." Qiu Lu murmured, "She even killed two people directly or indirectly."
"Because she has resentment," Mu Yiran's expression remained cold, "This resentment is just right as a condition for death."
"In fact, there are grievances behind the three cases that have occurred so far," Ke Xun added, "Just like Grandpa Li said before, everything has its cause and effect."
"It's time for dinner!" Fifth sister greeted everyone.
People walked into the restaurant one after another. No one wanted to eat breakfast in the yard today. The two corpses covered with white cloth seemed to have a lingering aura.
"The three events have been basically sorted out. Where should we look for the seal next?" Sha Liu asked first without wanting to eat.
"The 410 incident has not been resolved," said Zhu Haowen. "We only know the cause of death, but the rules of death are not yet clear."
Qin Ci also fell into thought: "Indeed, the incidents in the other two rooms were because the parties involved violated the ban on visiting each other and were killed by the vengeful spirits in the room. But Yafen in Room 410 is a special case. Why did she appear out of nowhere? The people living in Room 410 did not violate any ban."
"So Yafen didn't attack anyone in our room," Shaliu said immediately, "She was circling the building last night, searching for a suitable prey. Shouzhu took the initiative to open the door for her, which was an obvious response."
An obviously suicidal response - Sha Liu did not say this.
"But why is it Yafen from 410? And not someone from 411 or 307." Ke Xun said while peeling an egg.
"Because..." Shaliu always felt that he could find the answer, "Because Shouzhu responded to the other party during the day! Shouzhu was the first one to discover and point out the poems that Yafen wrote in the toilet! And he was the only one who said that those poems were romantic, which in itself is a kind of praise and affirmation!"
"If that were the case, Yafen wouldn't have to look for prey, but would have directly knocked on the door of 309 Shouzhu," said Zhu Haowen.
Sha Liu was left speechless.
Just when everyone was at a loss, Mu Yiran's voice rang out: "The reason why it was Yafen from 410 was because someone released her the night before."
