Volume 1: Breaking Ground Chapter 15 Jumping out of the window
Ke Xun felt happy, but he was still nervous deep down. He didn't feel relieved until the old man did the same thing to 616 and then slowly left.
The old man did not go downstairs, and no one knew where he went. Perhaps as Mu Yiran said, the old man himself was a kind of field.
Just when Ke Xun was about to lie down for a nap, there was a sudden rapid knock on the door of room 410 next door. This knock was very strange and almost unexpected to everyone.
Then, another miserable scream came from next door.
The scream was familiar, and seemed to come from the willow.
His relaxed heart suddenly tensed up again. Ke Xun tiptoed to the window, only to find that no one was at the door of Room 410.
Immediately afterwards, there was another round of terrified screams from next door. The voices of Shaliu and Qiu Lu rose and fell, and all kinds of noises were heard in the house. I don’t know what kind of danger the two people encountered inside.
Finally, Ke Xun heard the sound of the big window next door opening, the big window facing the concrete wall...
As soon as the sun rose, the first thing everyone did when they rushed out of the room was to lean over the railing and look down to see if there was a body covered with a white cloth in the courtyard.
When Ke Xun looked forward to it for the first time, he found that everything in the yard was normal. He felt relieved for a moment, but soon his heart became complicated.
Mu Yiran's eyes were fixed on something hanging on the clothesline in front of the door of Room 410 - it was a plastic red whistle tied with a dirty thin nylon rope.
Although it was daytime, the blood-red whistle made people more terrified. Shaliu opened the door and came out, and was obviously frightened by the whistle.
"What's going on? This must be left by the ghost last night!" Sha Liu looked at the whistle swaying in the wind and walked away from it shyly, "Why tie the whistle to our door?!"
Mu Yiran said in a cold voice: "Because someone knocked on your door last night, probably wanting to leave the whistle to you."
Shaliu was frightened by this statement, and then heard Ke Xun ask: "What happened to you last night? Where is Qiu Lu?"
Sha Liu shuddered with fear: "Qiu Lu? The knocking sound on the door last night was so scary, as if someone had entered our house and knocked over a lot of things...Qiu Lu, she jumped out of the fourth-floor window..."
Ke Xun's first reaction was to rush into 410 and look down from the open window. The dark gray concrete wall still stood narrowly in front of him. The distance of more than half an arm's width was enough for a person to jump down. Ke Xun used his mobile phone to shine the dark hole below, but saw nothing.
"Did someone enter your room last night?" Mu Yiran asked in a questioning tone.
Shaliu swallowed and nodded.
"What happened? What were you doing after Qiulu jumped?"
"I... don't know anything," Sha Liu shook his head and looked at the red whistle dangling in front of the door. "I fainted and it was already daybreak when I woke up."
Mu Yiran looked at Shaliu with an inquiring look and said nothing more.
Everyone went downstairs and gathered in the courtyard. Weidong and Zhu Haowen came down last. Weidong was still complaining: "If there is another big-bodied and big-faced guy messing around, I will never let him go! I was wondering why he took down the curtains for us... "
Before Wei Dong finished speaking, several people suddenly came in carrying a body covered with a white sheet. Everyone's heart sank. Qin Ci asked, "How did they carry the body in from outside?"
One of the people carrying the body said, "The body was found at the base of the cement wall. Please check to see if it is one of yours."
Everyone subconsciously took a step back, especially Shaliu, who hid far away and didn't dare to come over.
Finally, Qin Ci lifted the white cloth: "It's Qiu Lu."
Qiu Lu eventually died.
"Did he die from a fall?" Ke Xun asked.
Qin Ci's expression was a little puzzled, and he lifted up the white cloth to conduct a thorough inspection.
Mu Yiran also walked forward, and Ke Xun followed. They had experienced too many life and death situations, and now they had lost their previous fear and resistance when facing corpses.
Qiu Lu's expression was peaceful. If she hadn't stopped breathing, she would have looked like she was fast asleep.
Qiu Lu was covered in dirt, as if she had been pulled out of the dirt. Her clothes and shoes were also covered in dirt.
Qin Ci gently pressed Qiu Lu's chin and found that her mouth was also full of dirt. He turned sideways to observe her ears and found that they were also full of dirt.
The soil is very soft, mixed with plant roots, and occasionally one or two insects will crawl out.
"No wonder we didn't hear the sound of her jumping off the building last night. It turns out that her whole body was buried in the ground." Ke Xun looked at Shaliu who was hiding in the distance with a cold look.
"Okay, carry it out." The doorman's voice rang out.
Soon, Qiu Lu's body was carried out of the door again.
Weidong looked at the people present: "Where is Xinmiao?"
Everyone then realized that Xinmiao had not shown up since dawn.
"Let's go to Room 402." Mu Yiran went upstairs first, and everyone followed.
Except Zhu Haowen and Sha Liu.
Zhu Haowen raised his eyes from his phone: "Why don't you go?"
Sha Liu maintained a tough tone: "Didn't you go there too ?"
Zhu Haowen looked at Sha Liu with complicated eyes, said nothing more, and continued to play games with his head down.
Sha Liu turned around and went upstairs, her steps somewhat impatiently.
The door of Room 402 was locked all the time and no one answered when I knocked on the door. Finally, it was pushed open by a few people, but the room was empty.
"Xinmiao? Are you there?" Weidong called twice, but there was no response.
Room 402 was full of traces of the fire, just like before. On a large bed, 2/3 of the wooden boards were burned black, and Xinmiao's single mattress was placed at the innermost part against the wall.
I don’t know how this girl managed to survive two horrific nights alone.
The large window facing the concrete wall in the bedroom was completely open. Mu walked over happily and said, "The person is here."
Xinmiao was stuck in the narrow gap between the second and third floors. Perhaps the concrete wall was not built very straight and some places were uneven. When people jumped from it, they were stuck in the middle.
"The person is still alive." Mu Yiran's words cheered everyone up, except Sha Liu, who was getting farther and farther away from the crowd, and his face was getting paler and paler.
Saving people might be troublesome, so Ke Xun finally volunteered and asked people to tie ropes around their waists, then slowly climb down. Another rope was tied around Xin Miao's waist, and then they rescued the person little by little.
Xinmiao looked dazed, with lifeless eyes.
"This child is scared." Old man Li Taiyong followed the crowd up out of concern.
If I'm not mistaken, Xinmiao jumped out of the window out of fear when the old man appeared in front of the window last night. So, she was stuck in the narrow gap in the dark for almost the entire night, unable to go up or down, feeling suffocated and extremely terrified.
No matter what others said, Xinmiao always looked dazed.
Wei Dong suddenly became angry: "Why did she jump out of the window?"
What answered him was the silence of the crowd and Xinmiao's daze.
"Yafen also knocked on the door of Room 402 the night before, and the feeling of terror was no less than last night. Xinmiao didn't even think of jumping out of the window then, so why did he jump out of the window last night?!" Weidong always felt that something was fishy.
Ke Xun looked at Sha Liu who was standing at the door. "Coincidentally, Qiu Lu also jumped out of the window last night. Sometimes it's like this. When there is no way out, people may be able to grit their teeth and hold on. Once they have a way out in their hearts, most people will choose to retreat to the end of the way out."
Sha Liu suddenly became angry and glared at Ke Xun: "Why are you looking at me? I didn't ask them to jump out of the window! We just discussed jumping out of the window because we were scared."
Wei Dong walked directly in front of Sha Liu: "Then why don't you jump?!"
Sha Liu was forced to take two steps back by Wei Dong, and suddenly shouted with tears in her eyes: "I'm scared too! I don't dare to jump! What are you doing? Are you going to force me to jump too?!"
Suddenly there was a burst of laughter in the room. It turned out to be Xinmiao.
Xinmiao stood up with a smile, as if he didn't see everyone, hummed a song as he walked out the door, did a few very professional ballet poses in the corridor, and then ran and jumped downstairs.
Xinmiao is crazy.
Everyone went downstairs one after another.
The doorman was waiting for everyone with a large key tray in his hand: "The lock of room 402 has been repaired, and the key is collected."
“Why are you collecting the keys? There are still people living in 402!” Wei Dong said.
"nobody."
"But..." Wei Dong looked at Xin Miao who was dancing on the second floor, "We haven't checked out yet!"
The doorman seemed not to have heard and began to count the number of people with his fingers: "There are seven people in total. All are here. Let's go eat quickly."
Ke Xun looked at the people around him. There were indeed seven people, but if Xin Miao was included, there should be eight people.
Everyone seemed to have thought of something, but no one said anything.
Weidong's eyes were red. Ke Xun stepped forward and hugged Weidong's shoulders: "Xinmiao's journey in the painting has ended."
Weidong looked at Xinmiao on the second floor: "But he's still there, breathing and dancing!"
"But in the real world, Xinmiao is already dead." Qin Ci's tone was also heavy.
"Maybe this is also a kind of relief." Ke Xun pulled Wei Dong into the restaurant.
Finally, everyone had to accept this fact and went into the restaurant to eat in silence.
Sha Liu seemed to adjust his mood quickly and cleared his throat at the table: "Don't you think it's strange? The doorman didn't tell us about 307 today."
Everyone also found it strange. According to convention, after something happened last night, the doorman would gather everyone together to talk about what happened in the room where the incident occurred, or the origin of last night's death.
This kind of speech usually takes place before breakfast, but today is an exception.
"This can only mean one thing," Zhu Haowen chewed his steamed bun expressionlessly, "Last night's death had nothing to do with 307."
Everyone was obviously surprised by this inference, but after thinking about it, this seemed to be the only reasonable explanation.
"So how did they both die?" Wei Dong asked directly.
"You scared yourself to death." Zhu Haowen still had no expression on his face.
Sha Liu didn't want to dwell on this issue any longer, and directly analyzed: "If the issue of 307 is not resolved, will it happen again tonight?"
Everyone remembered the giant face outside the window last night, feeling a little scared and a little impatient.
Sha Liu continued, "There was no death summoning incident last night. Is it possible that if no door is knocked, the horrific incident last night will repeat indefinitely?"
Ke Xun sneered, cracked the egg in his hand, and said nothing. ——Sha Liu was trying to prove to everyone that the reason why the NPC did not explain the death was because no members knocked on the door to summon them last night, not because of anything else...
"This statement seems to conform to the rules," Zhu Haowen glanced at Sha Liu, "but the old man didn't do any real harm to anyone last night. Unless there's an enhanced version tonight, otherwise we'll really be stuck in an infinite dead end."
"The horror room is secondary. What's important is breaking the ground," Mu Yiran's voice rang out. "We have been here for four days. If I'm not mistaken, breaking the ground should be completed on the seventh day."
Yes, breaking ground is the biggest event in the whole painting.
Zhu Haowen said: "The deformation of 616 is even more serious. The house is no longer a cube, and the entire patio has obviously gathered together, which is visible to the naked eye."
"But we have searched all the places we should look," said Qin Ci.
"We can't be too impatient about this," said old man Li Taiyong. "Didn't Xiao Keer find some bamboo shoot paintings yesterday? There must be some nooks and crannies that we haven't looked for yet."
