Free Web NovelChapter 338: Chapter 142: The Apartment Rife with Strangeness
Unlike the Ninth Psychiatric Hospital and the Zao Lake Village he had visited before, Bai Wu felt a cold and gloomy aura assail him as he entered the apartment building.
The so-called horror and ghost stories were nothing but tales of spirits, and these spirits were nothing more than the obsessions of former tenants of the building or the tenants themselves, who, under the twisted rules, had become troublesome entities.
Bai Wu was quite accustomed to it, except that the first floor of the apartment building was divided into twelve rooms, covering a wide area. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Of the twelve rooms, nine were single occupancy, intended for solo travelers. The other three were family rooms, with a three-bedroom, one-living-room layout, for families to live in.
The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, but the panel next to it showed that there were a total of fourteen floors in the building.
He was quite pleased with the capacity and confidently considered himself the landlord of this area.
Of course, before that, he had to clean up the ’filth’ in the area.
The information did not come from the eyes; instead, there were markings on each room. When Bai Wu walked into the first floor of the apartment, the first thing he did was visit each room.
The majority of the information he gathered was the same.
"[The logic of annihilation selects at random numbers. You’d better head to the most fortified room and take a look. There, you’ll discover an interesting ghost story. Or maybe not just one, they may all be eager to find you!]"
What the most fortified room meant was immediately clear to Bai Wu, and after a short search, he found the room.
But he was still unclear about the phrase regarding the logic of annihilation selecting random numbers.
The room was 1-9.
It was a single occupancy room, dubbed the most fortified room because its door had been replaced.
The other rooms mostly had composite security doors, but the door to this room was red.
The door wasn’t locked, not because there was no lock, but because it had been damaged.
"[The order of the ghost stories is intentional; this is not the first ghost story. When you find one of them, it’s likely that others will have found you as well. You are about to get clues about the ghost stories. Please pay close attention to every piece of information you see. I mean every piece, because all the ghost stories in this building are actually interconnected.]"
The remark didn’t mean much; Bai Wu was always very careful to take note of everything.
"Since the remark mentioned that clues to the ghost stories are hidden in this room and there are no signs of life here... they must be kept in paper documents," he thought.
Bai Wu began searching the room.
The room was large, and although it was a single, it even had a small bathroom with a bathtub rather than just a shower.
Bai Wu noticed something: although the room was in disarray as if someone had rummaged through it, there was hardly any dust.
"Considering Lin Rui’s sense of looming crisis... It seems that this building, which appears to be extremely desolate, actually has its active elements."
The room was a mess, yet with no dust. No dust for seven hundred years, and that had nothing to do with the rules of the environment.
Bai Wu seemed to see a pervert tossing the room every day, searching for something.
If every room was dust-free... did it mean that right at that moment, there was a monster in another room, searching for something?
Bai Wu calmed his heart and held his breath, trying to listen for any movements. It was 4 p.m., still a few hours away from nightfall.
Bai Wu had changed from before; he just wanted to quickly locate the ghost stories and eradicate them with the truth.
He was no longer about hiding and seeking, piecing together all the clues before finally persuading the other party.
The times had changed, and he was probably more terrifying than these ghost stories now.
But just as he strained to sense something, the TV across the bed suddenly came on.
It used to be like a pitch-black box, as if holding something dreaded within, long disconnected, but now it suddenly lit up, and after making several sizzling sounds,
Bai Wu heard a woman’s laughter.
It was like dew about to freeze, dripping onto the neck, that voice sending an instant chill through the heart.
Unfortunately, by the time Bai Wu emerged from the bathroom, the television had gone silent again.
It had once again become pitch-black.
[The TV itself wasn’t that high-definition and didn’t really have any issues, but if you had to pinpoint something, it would be that the apartment could only receive a limited number of channels.
Do you think I’m about to reveal the secret of the sudden noise from the TV? Well, let me tell you, this is also a ghost story, but its main subject isn’t here. It’s just a TV set, what bad intentions could a small television have? It’s merely a medium, the ghost story used it to greet you, signaling — I’m watching you.]
I’m watching you.
This phrase made Bai Wu feel an inexplicable discomfort. He looked around but found nothing unusual.
Then, he looked up, and at that very moment, a cell phone rang.
The cell phone belonging to Bai Wu, as well as the one from a tenant 700 years ago, rang simultaneously as Bai Wu looked up.
He didn’t check his own phone, instead, he followed the sound and found the 700-year-old tenant’s phone under the bed.
[A small cell phone... well, a small phone can have many sinister intentions. You’ll find two related messages within it. After "I’m watching you" found you, you have now been found by another ghost story, "You are watching me."]
Bai Wu didn’t understand the meaning of this riddle for the time being.
The tenant’s phone model looked similar to most smartphones from Bai Wu’s previous life, with increasingly exaggerated numbers of cameras on the back.
Without any password, he quickly unlocked the phone and didn’t wonder why it could still work after 700 years.
It wasn’t a call, but a text message. Bai Wu took out his own phone and found he had received a message too.
He opened both phones at the same time, and surprisingly the messages were identical.
"Night is approaching, look up at the starry sky."
Very strange...
Bai Wu looked up, though it seemed like this action had triggered something, resulting in both phones receiving the same unknown message, he didn’t see any stars above.
It was only the afternoon, and it seemed there was still some time before night would arrive. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
Even if he stepped outside the apartment, he wouldn’t be able to see any stars.
But the message was eerie; Bai Wu’s phone had only received this one message, while the tenant’s phone had received quite a few messages 700 years ago.
Around noon.
"The weather is so nice today, are you at home? Why not look up at the starry sky?"
Of course, you couldn’t see the stars at noon, and Bai Wu saw that the owner of the phone had replied to the message —
"I’m eating at the restaurant, can’t see the stars."
In the afternoon.
"Good afternoon, did you take a nap after lunch? Go out and stretch your legs, look up at the starry sky."
"I’ve slept, but can’t see the stars now, are you fucking sick? Are you blind? Can’t you see for yourself?"
At night, the phone received another text message.
"You know what I’m going to say, look at the starry sky! Look up fast! Look up!"
"Who the hell are you? Can I go out and look? Please leave me alone, stop harassing me! I haven’t done anything wrong!"
This last message seemed to be panicked or ferocious; it was sent late at night, after nine o’clock.
And it seemed the tenant was somewhat afraid. But why?
At midnight.
"Starry sky, look up, look up, look up, look up, look up, look up, look up."
No response.
In Bai Wu’s mind, an image formed, and the tone of the message seemed as if someone was whispering into his ear, the lips moving at an incredible speed...
In the picture laid out by his intuition, it was like he could hear a voice.
Bai Wu always felt that his line of thought was going in the wrong direction—why should he look at the starry sky? He couldn’t figure it out.
He decided to check other messages first, for there were more than just texts on the phone.
Soon, Bai Wu found another bizarre tale in the draft box of the memo app.
When he opened the memo, Bai Wu finally understood what one of the six strange tales referred to.
The content of this memo was lengthy.
"It’s really weird, the elevator always stops on the thirteenth floor. I remember several times I pressed the elevator button to go to the first floor, but in the end, it always stopped at the thirteenth floor.
I started to feel something was wrong, I didn’t know what I was being meticulous about, I’m afraid of the number thirteen.
I asked the other tenants living here, what’s on the thirteenth floor? Is it inhabited by something unclean?
They left with wooden faces, absolutely refusing to answer my questions! It seemed as if the elevator would forcefully shift from other floors to the thirteenth floor, just as automatically as it does every night at eleven o’clock. I wake up early every day, so I always see the elevator stopped on the thirteenth floor."
"What exactly is on the thirteenth floor? I dare not go up to see, but I’m very curious. Until one day, I finally saw someone pressing the button for the thirteenth floor on the elevator!
I happily went over to ask, ’Buddy, what happened on the thirteenth floor?’
The guy shook his head and said, ’Someone died on the thirteenth floor, I work at the funeral home, got a call to go check it out.’ I had an epiphany—it was a death. It seemed like I had found the answer, yet it felt like I hadn’t...
The next day, the elevator finally behaved normally, it didn’t stop at the thirteenth floor anymore. I always send the elevator down to the first floor before going to sleep, but every morning when I wake up, it’s stopped at the thirteenth floor as if it goes back to thirteen when no one’s around. Today it finally stayed on the first floor."
After reading all this, Bai Wu instantly thought there must be something on the thirteenth floor.
But just as he was planning to go check out the thirteenth floor, he suddenly realized something was wrong!
Although he didn’t feel fear, Bai Wu’s body still reacted at that moment.
"A death occurred on the thirteenth floor, so what’s the connection with the elevator always stopping there? And why would this tenant need to reinforce their door?"
"The logic of extinction is to pick a random number. I understand now... The first strange tale is on the fifth floor!"
When Bai Wu entered the apartment building, he noticed that the elevator had stopped at the fifth floor.
And from what could be seen in the tenant’s memo, the elevator had consistently stopped at the thirteenth floor until someone died there.
After the death, the tenant sent the elevator to the first floor, and the next day the elevator was also on the first floor. The tenant on the memo thought the elevator had returned to normal.
In fact... the truth is, the elevator had chosen to stop at the thirteenth floor last time, and this time it chose the first floor.
"The tenant apparently realized this later on! So they started reinforcing their door! That’s why the logic of extinction is to select a random number. This sentence is telling me... The stationary position of the first strange tale, and the automatic floor the elevator stops at when no one’s around, are the same, so now it’s on the fifth floor!"
Bai Wu wasn’t mistaken, the floor the elevator stayed at when unoccupied was indeed where one of the six strange tales was located.
However, he didn’t hear any voices, unable to sense the presence of the other.
"If it’s just on the fifth floor, I surely wouldn’t be unable to sense it. It seems that it must appear at a specific time, and the hints in the eyes about several strange tales are related."
Bai Wu calmed down; weird things mostly happen at night.
So, instead of taking the elevator, he decided to walk through the fourteen floors, one by one.
The staircase entrance on the first floor was just around the corner; the whole apartment had a communal laundry room with coin-operated washing machines.
Out of curiosity, Bai Wu popped in to take a look, and on the wall of the laundry room, there was a notice posted.
"Missing Person Notice. My little daughter is lost. If you have seen her, please be sure to contact me."
The notice also had a photo of the little girl. She appeared to be about seven or eight years old.
[The security staff received the alarm, but when they checked the surveillance, they discovered that the little girl had never left the apartment building, and of course, a person doesn’t just disappear without reason. However, no matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find the little girl.
Could there be human traffickers hiding in the apartment? Without a doubt, yes, but how were they hiding people? You should think carefully, after all, you have already come into contact with it.]
The bone-chilling specter seemed to instantly thicken, and Bai Wu was slightly taken aback:
"Up to now, I have come across three strange tales. They should be, the strange television, the strange text messages, and the strange elevator."
"The little girl in this missing person notice has vanished, but no one has found her. There are human traffickers living in the apartment, so how did the traffickers hide an eight-year-old girl?"
Bai Wu didn’t take down the missing person notice. The printed black and white notice, with its photo, seemed like an obituary for the deceased.
The little girl’s eyes were staring straight at Bai Wu.
Not feeling any fear, Bai Wu continued to climb the stairs.
The structure of the second floor of the apartment was the same as the first floor.
At that time, the time reached five o’clock in the afternoon.
Bai Wu quickly scanned the rooms using the notes provided by his eyes and finally found a bit of information in room 2-9.
[People always say about certain things, ’if you believe, they exist; if you don’t, they don’t.’ But in fact, once you believe and they become real, they won’t just disappear whether you choose to disbelieve or not.]
This was undoubtedly another riddle, but it seemed to explain some sort of rule.
The notes from his eyes only changed when he was in room 2-9, offering up this riddle, so Bai Wu decided to go in for a look.
It was a broadcasting studio.
It was a midnight radio station that the owner tinkered with at home, tuning into some obscure channels. If you dialed into certain offbeat broadcast frequencies, you could listen to the tales of a tenant from seven hundred years ago, telling ghost stories.
It was a sort of solace for drivers running their midnight shifts or listeners who liked supernatural themes.
The room was filled with cassette tapes, mostly white, but Bai Wu noticed that the cassette by the radio was red.
People who play games record their shows onto cassettes for their collection.
[You see a red cassette tape, a radio in front of you as if it’s waiting for you to turn it on. What could be so sinister about a small radio? I mean, it really has no ill intentions. Why not listen and see?]
Bai Wu put the tape into the radio and pressed the play button.
Unsurprisingly, this thing could still work after seven hundred years; it was like a deliberately placed guide.
The radio’s voice was a bit hoarse. After crackling several times, a middle-aged man’s voice could be heard. This man deliberately lowered his voice, making his tone sound somewhat sinister.
"Welcome to this episode of ’Darkness is Right Beside Me,’ I’m your host, Zhao Cuican. Before I begin the stories today, I need to ask everyone for a favor.
My sister is missing, and it happened right here in this apartment. I’m very worried about her. She’s only eleven. I suspect there are human traffickers in this building. I’ve been telling horror stories, but I’ve found that the most terrifying thing is my own reality. I’m very concerned for my sister."
Again, the radio crackled, as if suddenly influenced by some force, it started spinning rapidly.
Bai Wu sensed something was wrong, but when he tried to turn off the radio, it returned to normal again, except it had jumped a long segment.
"This last story is also one that happened to me. Perhaps my long-time listeners will think it’s nonsense, but I’m very serious when I tell you that this truly happened to me.
A classmate I hadn’t seen for years called me. He told me he was a fan of mine and wanted to urge me to update my show more quickly, which I found odd.
He was in Denglin, and I was in Baichuan. He shouldn’t have been able to receive my show in the first place. The words he said gave me a sense of dread.
He said, ’But I’ve been watching you on TV for two days.’ I asked him what channel, and he hemmed and hawed, unwilling to tell me.
At that moment, I suddenly hung up the phone, shaking with fear!"
