Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 114: Chapter 114: Sleepless Night

The night was deep.

Bai Wu and the others stayed on the third floor.

Despite never having visitors, Mrs. Wang, who played the role of the mother, still cleaned the rooms diligently every day.

The only difference between them and real wealthy people was that they had no servants.

Many things had to be done by themselves.

Fortunately, the mansion was modern enough; each guest’s room came with an independent bathroom, toiletries, daily necessities, TV, air conditioning, and magazines.

It looked similar to a business hotel, yet the decoration style and quantity of furniture made it feel completely different.

It was truly a place where guests could feel at home.

Bai Wu’s room was the largest, Yin Shuang’s was the next largest, Lin Wurou’s room was very small, but it was already bigger than the entire apartment he had been assigned on the second floor, so he did not suspect anything.

Similarly, on the other side, Wu Jiu’s room was the largest, Qin Lin’s was the next largest, and Bai Xiaoyu’s was the smallest.

The allocation for the two families of three was completed.

As for what would happen at night, Bai Wu was not yet clear.

...

...

Eleven o’clock.

Suddenly, outside the house, the barking of dogs sounded, six dogs, six extremely similar frequencies.

Bai Wu calmly made himself a cup of coffee, recalling the details of the day. Coupled with the barking at this moment, he remembered something.

According to Bai Xiaoyu’s perception, there were dogs in the courtyard.

However, it was strange that during the day, he had not seen these dogs, and even when guests arrived, the dogs did not bark.

But now, at night, when there was no longer any movement outside, the dogs began to bark.

Their barking was intermittent and seemed to carry some fear.

In the silence of the night, the barking was already a noise disturbance; the six dogs barking together, and although the mansion had decent soundproofing, the windows in every room were open.

And at this time, everyone was in bed, out of laziness, no one wanted to close the windows.

Even if they did, no one felt it would block out the noise.

The six dogs barked for a full ten minutes, with some of the barking even carrying a certain anger, until later, it suddenly became shrill, then lowered in volume, and the dogs scattered.

Their voices became much softer, but they were still incessantly barking.

The first who couldn’t stand it was Lin Wurou; although he was fierce in cursing people, he wouldn’t stoop to the dogs’ level.

Lin Wurou got out of bed, wearing the silk pajamas prepared in the bedroom, the close-fitting texture was very comfortable, but he didn’t like the tigers and lions printed on the pajamas.

But the only other pajamas available in the wardrobe were all of this style.

Lin Wurou had no choice but to compromise.

The moment he closed the window, the soft breeze and the delicate scent of flowers seemed to be instantly cut off.

Lin Wurou suddenly had an illusion, as if the entire house tingled with a ding.

The barking of the dogs stopped abruptly, and he listened carefully, it seemed as if all sound from outside had ceased.

The effect of closing the window was beyond Lin Wurou’s expectations.

He went back to bed, and should have fallen asleep easily, but maybe because it was too quiet, he found himself unable to sleep?

All he could hear was the ringing in his ears. freewёbnoνel.com

In extreme silence, one would hear a persistent ringing in their ears.

"Why can’t I sleep at all, I should go chat with Bai Wu."

Lin Wurou suddenly stood up, but then he thought that as a burly man, wearing such a cutesy, cartoonish pajama would invite Bai Wu’s mockery, so he decided to change into his usual clothes.

Clang... Bang!

It was as if something had suddenly struck the bathroom door while Lin Wurou was preparing to change, and a strange noise suddenly came from the restroom.

Due to the extreme silence after closing the window, the clang was unusually loud. But it faded quickly.

Lin Wurou furrowed his brows, stopped what he was doing, and decided to go check the restroom.

His footsteps were light, yet, because of the silence, they made a very obvious sound.

The surroundings were simply too quiet. Lin Wurou tried to sense something, but what replied to him was still absolute silence.

Although the room was very new, the moment Lin Wurou pushed open the bathroom door, he heard the sound of rusty metal scraping, but only briefly, brief enough that the visual in his sight might have only moved one frame.

The bathroom was spacious, with an exquisite bathtub and shower facilities enclosed behind a glass wall, and outside was the vanity area.

Even though the clothes in the house were playful, the design of this room was suitable for both adults and children.

Lin Wurou scrutinized the area carefully; there was nothing in the bathroom.

"Weird, did I hear it wrong?"

Every item in the bathroom was placed exactly in its spot as before.

Lin Wurou looked for a full five minutes, but still couldn’t find the source of the sound.

He turned around, his back to the mirror, and after making sure that no object had made the sound, Lin Wurou’s expression gradually became calm, doubting that he’d heard anything.

The reflection in the mirror calmly gazed at his back.

...

...

The bed in Yin Shuang’s room was much softer.

Even though Yin Shuang hadn’t lain down yet, she could feel that it was much more comfortable than her second-floor apartment.

She disliked wearing pajamas, preferring to sleep naked, but being at someone else’s house, she still resolved to restrain herself.

She hadn’t gone to bed, just sitting on it.

When the sound of a dog barking reached her, Yin Shuang felt a bit cold. The wind outside was cool and refreshing, and the bedcovers had gotten cold as well. Being in a certain period made her slightly uncomfortable.

So she closed the window.

The moment she closed the window, Yin Shuang noticed the sound of the dog barking suddenly stopped.

She didn’t quite believe in such absolute soundproofing and was more inclined to think that the dog had stopped barking suddenly.

Yawning, she reminisced about the delicious food she’d had that day, while her mind pondered that she should be vigilant, causing Yin Shuang slight confusion.

It was like living between sugar and poison, but she didn’t overthink it, as she was indeed sleepy.

Yet just when she was about to fall asleep, Yin Shuang suddenly paused.

Because her neck suddenly felt itchy. She touched it and found a long strand of hair on her neck, which happens occasionally and wasn’t worth fussing over.

For someone with a calm heart, extreme silence was a very good sleeping environment.

Yin Shuang lifted half of the blanket and swung her smooth, long white legs onto the bed.

The environment was comfortable; whether it was the temperature, the degree of silence, the softness of the bed, or the warmth of the bedding, all of this made Yin Shuang fall asleep quickly.

Forty seconds later, Yin Shuang woke up, startled.

She suddenly escaped from the cozy bedcovers, her eyes wide open, having never looked at anything with such an expression before, even in the infirmary outside the tower.

She suddenly remembered that she hadn’t gone to bed up until the point she closed the window.

...

...

There was also a bookcase in Bai Wu’s room.

But the books inside were all business-related: success psychology, marketing, trade knowledge, all kinds of meaningless things.

Unlike the other two tenants, Bai Wu knew about a third of the script, so he could feel that, even though the room was meant for a guest, it was purposefully designed to make the guest adapt to the owner’s room.

The head of the household.

The reason he chose Yin Shuang to be his wife wasn’t that Bai Wu had any thoughts about Yin Shuang; in his eyes, she was too restraining, especially with the remark that she was a revenger.

This made Bai Wu all the less interested in the background of intense hatred and bitterness, and Yan Jiu felt the same way.

"Business..."

Bai Wu pondered the conversations from the day.

"Come to think of it, it’s strange. Everyone’s trapped in the Manor, so why ask the guests whether they prefer business or household chores?"

Bai Wu remembered someone had asked Bai Xiaoyu this question.

At the time, Bai Xiaoyu had chosen household chores, because he didn’t understand business.

Bai Wu suddenly realized that there was also a certain problem with this survey itself.

"I can understand household chores, Mrs. Wang, a woman in her thirties, does all sorts of household work. But business... how do they conduct business? And with whom?"

Bai Wu began to browse through the business books. Aside from marketing and feel-good success theories, most of them were about trade.

Looking at the bookshelf, it seemed that knowledge related to trade occupied about seventy percent.

Bai Wu vaguely felt there was a problem here.

But at that moment, the sound of a dog barking came from outside the window.

Bai Wu got up and made himself a cup of coffee. He originally wanted to speculate on the reason for the barking, but he couldn’t bear it as they kept barking incessantly, and he did not have a "dog language level four" proficiency.

Bai Wu closed the window.

The moment the window was shut, an eerie atmosphere made him quite uncomfortable.

Everything in the room was normal, Bai Wu had confirmed it with Prayle’s Eye; there were no surveillance devices, nor any spirit possession items.

"Can it really be this quiet?"

So Bai Wu did one more thing, he opened the window. At that moment, the TV suddenly turned on.

"According to our station, at four o’clock in the afternoon in Food City Third District’s sewer, sewer workers discovered a large number of giant rats running out of the pipes. There may be a large infestation of rats in the city soon, and the Disease Control Center is preparing to respond to a possible rat plague,"

The TV showed images of many rats pouring out of the sewer, some as big as chunky tabby cats. Some of the rats even had various human organs in their mouths.

Food City, Third District.

Bai Wu subconsciously furrowed his brows because he had heard this address before. But soon he thought of something.

"When I open the window, the TV suddenly turns on by itself."

Bai Wu didn’t let the sudden news he saw disturb his process but prepared to open the window again.

The moment he opened the window, the TV screen began to flicker with static interference, and a distinct buzzing of electrical current could be heard.

The sound of the wind, the barking of dogs outside, came through again.

Bai Wu felt puzzled. Was it really just that the window had good sound insulation?

That’s not right... If the sound insulation was good, why was there no noise from outside the door either?

He closed the window again, and the TV signal became much more stable.

"Why would the TV be broadcasting news from seven hundred years ago..."

The news quickly moved on to the second item.

"Regarding the difficulty of purchasing tickets, the public representative of the Ark Project has claimed that they will resolve the issue as soon as possible, to ensure that the general public is qualified to board the departing ships. Despite this, a sizable crowd has gathered on Financial Street, expressing their protest through strikes and marches."

Tickets?

Bai Wu recalled the plane ticket to the High Tower...

What is the Ark Project? The High Tower?

Based on Bai Wu’s current understanding of the High Tower, he didn’t believe it was made by humans.

"What is the meaning of these news broadcasts here? Are you the Manor itself? Or some Evil Fallen? What exactly do you want me to see?"

This sentence seemed to have some kind of magic, as Bai Wu hadn’t fully checked in yet; it seemed he could still say some things.

The TV screen instantly turned to a black background with floating green zeros and ones.

Bai Wu initially thought it was a very long string of binary numbers. But he soon noticed something unusual.

Some of the numbers were brighter, some were dimmer.

Under the contrast of light and dark, an outline of a smiling face was formed.

But before Bai Wu could make out the details of the smiling face... the TV channel changed again.

"What would happen if I were to turn you off right now?"

Even though the event was rather eerie at this point, Bai Wu was not afraid. He didn’t turn off the TV, because he had a feeling that these news items weren’t being broadcast without meaning...

Perhaps if he didn’t watch today, he wouldn’t be able to see it tomorrow.

Especially concerning the next piece of news—he was rather interested. The TV screen showed a reporter interviewing a senior Chief Inspector.

"Do you believe the Masked Strange Person’s actions constitute a crime?"

"Yes, as of now, I need to capture the Evil Fallen, study its Origin, but the Masked Strange Person clearly believes their existence supersedes our laws, taking the Evil Fallen to places we know nothing about..."

"But isn’t it true that the Evil Fallen indeed threatened the safety of the citizens? According to many, if the Masked Strange Person hadn’t appeared, they would have been in life-threatening danger."

"Impossible, our city is very safe!" The Chief Inspector’s last sentence was clearly spoken in anger.

The TV then switched to another program.

Every time the channel changed due to signal issues, Bai Wu would briefly see a particular image.

This time he committed it to memory.

It was a smiling face, seemingly that of a girl.

This program seemed to be a talk show.

"Actually, there’s no need for everyone to panic at all, right? Evil Fallen? End-of-world scenarios? The Ark? The High Tower? They’re all fake! Human history is full of doomsday rumors, but when have they ever come true? Our resources—we have enough for our lives, don’t we? Clearly, this planet hasn’t been completely depleted yet... Our technology isn’t enough to get us through tough times? If you’re watching this show right now, it means that you, at this moment, are cozy in your warm bed, enjoying the pleasures those anxious people can’t feel, right?"

"Don’t believe it? Just turn on Food City Guardian. If at eight o’clock, Food City Guardian is still showing cartoons instead of the prime time news, it means there’s no end of the world at all."

The TV’s upper right corner displayed a countdown timer that updated every hour. Even though it was not eight o’clock at night where Bai Wu was now.

The TV conveniently switched to Food City Guardian. The delicately-drawn anime character was speaking Japanese:

"My name is Liang, 33 years old. I live in the villa area near Food City Commercial Street, unmarried. I work at my friend Xian’s coffee shop. Every day I have to work overtime until 8 PM to get home. I don’t smoke, and I only sip alcohol lightly. I go to bed at 11 PM and make sure I get a full eight hours of sleep. Before going to bed, I always drink a glass of warm milk and do 20 minutes of stretching exercises, then sleep as soon as I hit the bed. I sleep soundly until morning, never carrying the fatigue and stress into the next day. My doctors say I’m completely normal."

Even at this point, Food City Guardian was still showing an animated show, but soon, a line of text appeared in the middle of the cartoon—

An emergency broadcast! An unprecedented group of Evil Fallen is about to attack our city! All residents, please evacuate immediately!

The TV turned off.

Bai Wu was still pondering the connections between the news in the TV, not realizing that the TV hadn’t actually been turned off. Within the depths of darkness... it was still broadcasting something.