Volume 1: Breaking Ground Chapter 14 The Old Man Blowing the Whistle
At 10 o'clock in the evening, no one could stay in the house anymore, so they went to the corridor to get some fresh air and cool down.
Ever since people learned that the tops of the tube-shaped buildings were slowly moving inward, everyone felt that the entrance to the skylight above was becoming cramped and narrow. Every time they looked up, they felt as if they were suffocating .
Sha Liu, Qiu Lu and Xin Miao, three girls gathered together against the fence, discussing something with nervous expressions.
"I always feel that Shaliu is not normal." Ke Xun fanned himself with a large palm-leaf fan and glanced at the three girls not far away.
"Come to think of it, I've also experienced the last painting. Everyone would be nervous, but she wasn't like this before." Wei Dong looked at Sha Liu coldly. He always felt that this girl was a little scary.
It is true, as the saying goes, it is difficult to change one's nature. When people face terrorist incidents, they often show their true selves. When Sha Liu faced Hei Shi Tian, she did not panic and get scared. Instead, she showed a rare calmness for a young girl and tried her best to protect herself.
In the afternoon, when everyone was discussing "bamboo shoots breaking through the ground", she was a little out of control. When she heard about the new instructions from the NPC during dinner, she became even more impatient. I don't know if she discovered something or had other purposes.
Sha Liu's eyes were fixed on Ke Xun and the others at this time, but he did not stop talking: "Anyway, once we finish breaking the ground, we will all die."
Qiu Lu was a little anxious: "I have already said all these words at the dinner table. I want to ask, is there anything else?"
Sha Liu seemed to be hesitant to speak: "I didn't hide it from you on purpose. After all, no one has thought of a solution, and I'm afraid that telling you would scare you again."
"It's fair if everyone knows the truth!" Qiu Lu said hurriedly, and Xin Miao nodded beside her.
Sha Liu looked up at the skylight, and seemed to muster up a lot of courage: "Do you remember the disappearance of the stairs the night before last?"
When the two heard this, they looked towards the stairwell with lingering fear.
"Brother Mu thinks that the sudden shrinkage of the patio entrance may be related to tonight's events." Shaliu's hands, which were resting on the railing, were trembling slightly, and she was obviously very scared.
Xin Miao was shocked: "You, you mean, the change of the entrance to the patio is actually the same as the disappearance of the stairs?"
Sha Liu nodded with difficulty: "Brother Mu analyzed it this way, but he just mentioned it casually and didn't say much."
Xin Miao's face turned pale as paper: "Brother Mu is always so accurate... What should we do? The whole building wants to kill us!"
Qiu Lu was so frightened that she couldn't speak. After a long while, she finally said, "If the tube building is closed, then the monster will be trapped in a jar for us."
"I don't know how the ghost in 307 wants to harm us. He won't really chop us into minced meat, will he?" Xinmiao began to make horrible associations.
"Maybe it's not as intuitive and simple as we think, just like the white woman last night... Who would have thought that Shouzhu would die in that way..." Shaliu mentioned what happened last night with difficulty.
Xin Miao was so scared that he was shaking non-stop: "I am the only one left in 402. I don't want anyone to plot my death. If I encounter something like what happened to Shou Zhu last night, I would rather die first!"
"But we'd better not touch the hard conditions of the NPC, otherwise we will die suddenly and uncontrollably like Tina and Zhitiao," Shaliu analyzed.
The other two girls also thought she was right, and they also admitted that Shaliu was the smartest of the three girls. Qiu Lu asked directly: "Do you have any good ideas?"
Sha Liu sighed: "The only thing I can think of is that stupid method. If all else fails, just jump out of the window... After all, there is a concrete wall outside, so we can't be considered to have escaped to the outside world... Besides, we live on the fourth floor, so it doesn't mean we will definitely die from falling..."
The two girls thought about it silently. Qiu Lu's eyes lit up slightly: "The original words of the NPC are: Don't go out! If we go out through the window, will it be considered a loophole in the text?"
Sha Liu looked at Qiu Lu and said, "What you said makes sense. The doorman only said not to go out, but he didn't say not to jump out of the window."
Xinmiao was still afraid: "That's like jumping between the outer wall and the concrete wall!"
Sha Liu and Qiu Lu were very calm: "We went to the gate this afternoon and saw that it is open for an hour at 5pm every day for people who buy groceries or get off work to go in and out. There is space between the concrete wall and the outer wall, and the passage leads directly to the outside."
"But……"
"This is a desperate measure. If I really run into a situation like what happened to Shouzhu yesterday, or even worse..." Qiu Lu frowned, "It would be better to jump out of the window. If I die, I die. If I live, I live."
In the face of Qiu Lu's determination, Xinmiao also nodded.
Sha Liu didn't say anything else.
The doorman's voice came from the courtyard downstairs: "Everyone go back to the house, the lights will be turned off soon!"
Everyone had to go back to their rooms and continue to face the darkness and all the unknowns.
After returning to Room 411, Ke Xun suddenly discovered that the curtains on the small window facing the corridor were gone: "Who took down our curtains?"
Mu Yiran's voice was steady: "There are no curtains in every room. It should be done by the NPC."
Ke Xun looked at the bucket in the corner of the bedroom. He guessed that the NPC took away the curtains when he put the urine bucket away.
In order to avoid embarrassment, Ke Xun drank almost no water and very little porridge in the evening, while Mu Yinan didn't even drink the porridge.
Both of them had gotten enough sleep at noon and were sitting on the bed.
"Will this person tonight have the same walking route as Yafen?" Ke Xun recalled Yafen last night. No matter which floor she was on, she always walked counterclockwise.
"Maybe there are rules here." Mu Yiran looked at the window that had a panoramic view. The moonlight was very bright tonight, and one could even see the railings in the corridor.
Ke Xun really likes to listen to Mu Yiran speak in such a dark night. His voice is always steady and mellow in its coldness: "According to the rules last night, Yafen has not knocked on the door of 410 since she came out. The same should apply tonight."
Ke Xun had never thought about it in such detail before: "It seems that the people in room 307 will not turn back to knock on their own doors, but will go directly to other houses. Room 309 where Shouzhu and his friends live has had its keys taken away and is now vacant, which means that the people in room 307 will go directly to the fourth floor."
In an environment like this on the fourth floor, discussing such things, it would be a lie to say that he wasn't nervous, but sitting next to Mu Yiran, Ke Xun felt inexplicably at ease.
Mu Yiran's voice sounded again: "If the person in 307 is also walking counterclockwise, then he will go up the stairs between 305 and 304, and after reaching the fourth floor, he will go counterclockwise to 402."
Ke Xun's voice continued: "If that person was walking in the opposite direction, clockwise, he would go up the stairs between 308 and 309, and after reaching the fourth floor, he would go clockwise to 410."
No matter how you judge it, 411 wouldn't be the first.
It may sound cruel, but there will always be an example that makes people clear about what kind of person came out of Room 307, what he will do to these people, and whether he will knock on the door politely first like Yafen did last night.
A cough came from outside, and the voice sounded a little old.
"Wangfu——" A sudden shout startled everyone.
Ke Xun and Mu Yiran got out of bed at the same time and found a suitable angle to look out the window, so that they could see outside without having to lean too close to the window.
An old man appeared in the corridor on the fourth floor, staggering. His legs seemed to be a little lame, his body was hunched, and he was holding a basin in one hand, while his other hand seemed to be stirring something in the basin.
This person is exactly the same as Qin Ci described before.
"Wangfu - Wangfu - come home -" The old man's voice was a little hoarse, but he was still shouting with all his might, as if calling a child who had left home.
The old man walked forward in a counterclockwise direction, knocking on the basin with the object in his hand, making a bang-bang-bang sound: "Wangfu - dinner is ready - come back -"
The old man was groping for something on his chest, and soon he made a sharp whistle. It seemed that he blew the whistle hanging on his chest. The whistle was blown in a rhythm, and if you listened carefully, it sounded like he was calling "Wangfu" in a long tone.
The old man finally stopped in front of the door of 402. He no longer blew the whistle or shouted hoarsely. He just stood quietly at the door of 402.
This stagnation gives people an indescribable sense of depression.
Finally, the old man broke the silence himself. He knocked on the basin in his hand, and knocked it again and again, gradually turning into crazy and angry knocking. The bang-bang-bang sound was like some kind of spell in the night, trying to summon some ferocious beast.
“Wangfu! Come out! Come out quickly!” The old man’s voice was very anxious. He leaned over the window of Room 402 and knocked on the window with something in his hand: “Come out, Wangfu!”
This neurotic roaring and banging lasted for about ten minutes before it slowly came to an end.
It is hard to imagine what kind of psychological pressure Xinmiao, who lives alone in Room 402, has just endured.
The old man seemed to be tired and continued to move forward counterclockwise with heavy steps, knocking on the basin or .
After a while, the desperate cry sounded again: "Wangfu - Wangfu - come back -"
Going counterclockwise, the next door is 411.
"Don't get too close." Mu Yiran went straight back to the bed and sat down, and Ke Xun also sat back quietly.
The angle chosen by the two people is biased towards the window, so it should be difficult to see the people inside from the outside.
"Wangfu, stop being naughty and come out! " The old man's voice came to the 411 window like a nightmare.
The window was being banged on with angry banging sounds.
Only then did Ke Xun vaguely realize that what the old man was holding looked like a large iron spoon.
The window rattled for a long time, and with every rattling it felt like the glass was going to shatter, but it didn't .
"Wangfu! Wangfu!! Wangfu!!!" The old man's voice became more and more impatient. When his emotions reached the extreme, he actually burst into tears, "Come back——"
With this cry, the scene in front of the window changed drastically.
Ke Xun could feel Mu Yiran beside him also stiffening - the entire window was filled with a huge face, that face belonged to an old man, full of wrinkles and untidy beard.
What made people feel even more uncomfortable was the expression on his face. It was an expression of trying hard to suppress grief. He was holding back the tears in his eyes, biting his lips tightly, and his whole face was shaking ...
"Wangfu! Come home!" the crying giant face begged, looking shabby and haggard.
Ke Xun and Mu Yiran sat there motionless.
The huge face made no more sound, but moved closer. Its cloudy eyes tried their best to look inside, and its gray eyeballs moved around as if trying to see every corner of the room clearly.
The huge face, the constantly rotating eyeballs, and the gushing breath formed a huge sense of oppression and terror.
Ke Xun avoided looking into the giant face in the window, closed his eyes gently, and imagined himself as a piece of furniture, a stone.
After a long time, the old man finally blew the whistle and knocked on the window of the next 410 with the iron spoon in his hand...
Mu Yiran quietly walked to the window and looked at it quietly for a long time.
The old man still behaved the same way as before at 410. When his emotions reached a certain peak, he began to knock on the window frantically, screaming, crying, and cursing...
After it was over, the old man hobbled up the stairs.
Mu Yiran then gently returned to the bedside: "From the outside, the man's entire body shape has not changed. The huge face in front of the window just now should be a field or..."
"Magical realism style." Ke Xun summed it up in one word.
Mu Yiran actually nodded: "That makes sense."
