Free Web NovelThere was no conversation along the way.
The Uncle Driver had no interest in chatting, and Lu Yibei wisely kept quiet, checked the Half-Mountain Apartment on her phone after lowering her head, and then, looking at the scenery outside the window, silently organized the information in her mind.
The information about Half-Mountain Apartment available online was not ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) much different from the rumors she had heard.
That residential area was located in the suburbs of Hua City, originally the site of a primary school, which was converted into an apartment building forty years ago, adjacent to the Huacheng Cement Factory mining area, and served as employee housing for the Huacheng Cement Factory.
The reason Lu Yibei had an impression of Half-Mountain Apartment was because eighteen years ago, there had been a serious accident there, which rendered the apartment buildings unsafe and resulted in deaths.
Consequently, the entire apartment complex was abandoned, and over time, some terrifying urban legend legends spread from there; when she was a child, the Old man in the courtyard often used those ghostly stories to scare Lu Yibei.
According to rumors, some people passing by the foot of the mountain late at night heard sounds of arguments coming from the mountain.
Some drivers who picked up passengers going to Half-Mountain Apartment after two in the morning saw a faint glow emanating from the houses, like will-o'-the-wisps.
Some even saw a group of strangely dressed, furtive people, carrying some sacrificial items, heading up the mountain together as dusk fell, their backs to the setting sun, like a funeral procession.
Thinking carefully, those strange incidents were likely caused by the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society.
Perhaps they had gathered there and held various bizarre rituals.
Besides this, Lu Yibei also had some other information about Half-Mountain Apartment from her dream memories.
From her dream memories, she vaguely knew that she had gone to the location of Half-Mountain Apartment for some unknown purpose, but the primary school had not been demolished, so there were naturally no apartment buildings there, only a dilapidated primary school.
In the Hua City of her dream memories, there was also a place called Banshan Residential Area, but it was located near the West District of Hua City, about five kilometers away from the foot of the mountain by the cement factory mining area.
——————
About forty minutes later.
Uncle Zhang Shan pulled over and stopped the car a few hundred meters away from Half-Mountain Apartment.
No one had come to this place for many years, the road was in disrepair due to age, severely damaged with cracks appearing in many places, coupled with the chilling legends, Uncle Zhang Shan clearly did not want to continue forward.
Unless he was paid extra.
But how could Lu Yibei, someone who wanted to get the fare for free, possibly pay extra?
Helplessly, she paid the fare and got out of the car; before she could even say goodbye to Uncle Zhang Shan, she saw Uncle Zhang Shan execute a clean and sharp tail swing, then step on the accelerator and drive away.
"Ah—! Uncle Zhang Shan in my dream memories was much friendlier!" Lu Yibei sighed, "Although he always left quickly too, at least he didn't charge money."
After complaining for a few sentences, she followed the broken path to find the place, and a few minutes later, she found the long-abandoned apartment complex.
There was more than one apartment building, all of them were either about to be demolished or half-demolished houses; a bright red "dismantle" (demolish) character could often be seen on the ruins.
As far as the eye could see, it was a scene of devastation, overgrown with weeds, utterly dilapidated and crumbling.
This kind of dilapidated old-style apartment always gives people a sense of obscure fear.
This is likely because the architectural layout of old-style apartments is always like that, every floor's corridor is dimly lit and very long and wide, and some old buildings with special designs even have winding corridors.
And the doors in the corridors are almost all the same, the walls of the corridors are also the same; if nothing is placed in the corridor, there is absolutely no difference to be seen.
It's as if they were deliberately built that way to trap people or something else inside.
Lu Yibei continued forward.
A dark cloud drifted across the sky, and the light quickly dimmed, also casting a gray haze over the dilapidated Half-Mountain Apartment; if it weren't for the wildly growing weeds, it would seem completely lifeless.
In front of the rusty iron gate at the entrance of the apartment complex, Lu Yibei paused briefly, took out the toilet plunger from her backpack, and then took out an exorcising jade pendant and hung it on her chest.
After walking a few steps, she turned back, picked up a steel pipe that had fallen off the iron gate, swung it twice in the air, and gripped it tightly in her other hand.
Uh, this wasn't a lack of trust in the ancestral "treasure sword" Lingtai Pure Karma!
This was dual-wielding!
Dual-wielding adds critical hit, understand? Lu Yibei muttered to herself.
Entering the complex, Lu Yibei stood beneath an apartment building, surveying the surroundings.
Signs of life had left striking marks on the remains of the remaining houses; pots and pans and broken furniture were scattered everywhere, the windows of many houses were broken, and clothes that hadn't been taken in could still be seen on some balconies.
They were all styles from a bygone era, covered in dust and stains.
After observing for a while, Lu Yibei suddenly felt a bit of despair looking at the six haphazardly arranged buildings; she had no idea which one was Gu Qianqian's home.
The information Su Mi provided only said that Gu Qianqian's family lived on the top floor of Apartment Building Six.
However, nearly twenty years had passed, and these apartment buildings were already unsafe structures; two of them were even half-demolished, and coupled with the long period of no residents or management, the remaining buildings were severely damaged.
It was impossible to tell which building was Apartment Building Six.
Did she have to search room by room?
Could she really find it?
Maybe Gu Qianqian's home was in one of the two half-demolished apartment buildings and had already been torn down.
Lu Yibei looked at the windows covered in shadows, seemingly with someone standing at each one, peering at her from afar, making her feel a little chill down her spine.
For a moment, two voices popped into her head. freēwēbηovel.c૦m
A timid voice said, "This ghostly place isn't right, and it might have been a gathering place for a cult; hurry up and leave? Your life is important!"
The other voice was that of a soft-spoken girl, with a hint of urgency in her tone, "If you leave now, you probably won't come back in the future; don't you want to know who Jiang Li is?"
After a moment of hesitation, Lu Yibei decided to listen to the girl!
Driven by the excellent traditional concept of "since you're already here" and intense curiosity, she gritted her teeth and bravely walked into the apartment building closest to her.
Perhaps it was psychological, but the moment she stepped into the apartment building, she suddenly had a very special feeling.
She felt that the truth was waiting ahead.
————
Entering the building, the light before her dimmed, and a faint smell of mildew mixed with dust rushed towards her.
As soon as she entered the apartment building, she had a strange feeling, as if the entire building was a huge living organism, and the chilling cold wind was its breathing.
Lu Yibei frowned slightly, did not linger on the first floor, found the stairs directly, and walked up.
"Cough, cough, cough—!"
The moment her front foot stepped onto the second floor, the next second, she heard a muffled coughing sound, which was extremely violent; just listening to it made her feel like her lungs were being coughed out.
The sound was unusually clear, right behind her; for a moment, she suspected she had encountered some urban legend, her muscles tensed, gripping the toilet plunger and steel pipe tightly, looking around cautiously.
Then...
Through the gap in the stairwell, she saw a strange Old man near the staircase entrance on the third floor.
The Old man had dark skin, wore a worn-out cultural shirt, carried a bulging woven bag on his shoulder, leaned on the shaky stair railing, and poked half of his body down to look, staring fixedly at Lu Yibei, holding an L-shaped iron rod in his hand, likely used for poking through trash.
In this dimly lit stairwell, suddenly making eye contact with him, Lu Yibei's heart leaped, and she frowned.
Someone actually lives here? He looks like a homeless person...
Will he suddenly attack me? It seems many homeless people aren't mentally stable.
Isn't that how it's always portrayed in movies? In remote or abandoned old buildings, there lives a psychologically twisted homeless person who enjoys hunting passing "little lambs" all day, and then a group of foolish college or high school students, as if they have a death wish, come in groups to deliver themselves.
Thinking this, Lu Yibei struggled to force out an ugly smile at the Old man, and then her mouth wouldn't close; the words in her mouth seemed to have grown legs of their own, constantly jumping out.
"Hello, sir, have you eaten? What did you eat? Was it tasty? This place you live in is quite nice, isn't it? Syrian battle-damaged style architecture, retro decoration, backed by a big mountain, green mountains nourish people, it's really great for your health! Actually, I didn't come here for anything special, just wandering around, you don't need to mind me. Well, if there's nothing else, I'll just..."
Her gaze suddenly fell on the shadow behind the Old man, Lu Yibei's pupils contracted, and her words came to an abrupt halt.
The light outside was dim, the light in the stairwell was dim, so there shouldn't have been such a distinct shadow.
However, the Old man's figure cast a darkness on the wall so thick it seemed to swallow people.
What was even stranger was that the Old man's shadow was not a normal human shape.
Two heads, four arms, faintly visible in the darkness, twisted and bizarre, looking as if something invisible to the naked eye had parasitized the Old man's body.
The shadow was like liquid, constantly writhing, making various bizarre poses that normal people couldn't do, and faint sounds of twisting bones could be heard in the air.
The twisted shadow, combined with the Old man's own limbs, made him look like a giant spider with a human face.
"Gulp!" Lu Yibei's throat slowly moved, and she swallowed, a few beads of sweat appearing on her forehead.
This was no longer a simple matter of a mentally ill homeless man.
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She was afraid she might be some kind of urban legend!
Lu Yibei thought, and subconsciously took two steps back.
"Shhh—shhh—!"
The soles of her shoes rubbed against the concrete debris on the ground, making soft sounds.
Noticing Lu Yibei's movement, the Old man suddenly tilted his head, his expression as if he had discovered something new and interesting, and grinned at her, revealing a mouth full of uneven yellow teeth.
"Heh heh—!" The weak laughter was sharp and eerie, the wrinkles on his face piled up, and his pale eyes trembled rapidly in their sockets, as if they would fly out of his eyes uncontrollably at the next moment.
Accompanied by the somewhat strange laughter, the Old man suddenly rushed down.
His movements were so swift he didn't seem like a senile old man.
"Tap tap—!"
Urgent footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Lu Yibei's heart tightened, and she subconsciously let out a soft cry, "Coat, Alchemy Dirty Bomb!"
However...
Her clothes didn't writhe or deform, and it was even less likely that they would deliver the non-existent Alchemy Dirty Bomb into her hands.
"Damn!"
Things like exploding potential in times of crisis really only exist in stories!
"Tap tap—!"
The sound of footsteps was still closing in.
Lu Yibei suddenly snapped back to her senses. There was no time to think. Her body moved directly, and she turned around and ran downstairs.
The Old man, whether human or urban legend, suddenly disappeared from her sight and was approaching the direction she was in. She immediately panicked.
Although in her dream memory, she possessed superhuman strength, and in her hand was a toilet plunger suspected to be a treasured sword, she was still unsure whether that was real or a dream.
You only have one life. When you encounter danger and can clearly run, why gamble?
Although she was now a 'mental patient' with a combat power bonus, who doesn't have a bit of a mental illness?
That Old man had some strange and eerie thing on him.
As for whether the Old man suddenly rushed down to attack or do something else, she didn't want to know and had no interest in knowing.
In a place like this, encountering an eerie homeless man charging towards you with a blood-stained iron rod, if anyone isn't panicked at all and tries to understand his true intentions, Lu Yibei would definitely cup her fists and respectfully call him a 'Warrior!'
"Tap tap—!"
The sound of footsteps behind her was getting closer and closer. A strong stench invaded Lu Yibei's nostrils, letting her know the Old man was not far behind her without even turning around.
It was a strange smell formed by a mixture of the sour smell of sweat and the smell of rotting garbage, faintly mixed with a hint of blood.
The suffocating stench drilled into her nostrils, hitting her soul directly and stimulating her nerves.
"Quick, faster!"
Lu Yibei was terribly panicked inside, constantly low-roaring and urging herself forward.
In times of crisis, people can always unleash a certain potential.
Under the self-suggestive urging, she rushed down the four-meter-long stairs in just three large strides, then hurried forward along the first-floor corridor for a distance, and rushed out of the apartment building.
Then, fresh air mixed with the scent of mountain grass assailed her face with the cool breeze.
After leaving the apartment building, Lu Yibei didn't dare to stop for a moment.
The stench emanating from the Mad Old Man had not dissipated, indicating that he was still in hot pursuit.
Running frantically, constantly changing direction to shake off the Mad Old Man, in her haste, she actually dashed into an apartment building, and the light in front of her instantly dimmed.
After her eyes adapted to the dim light and she saw the scene in front of her, Lu Yibei's heart tightened.
Didn't follow her out?
Did he stop chasing halfway, or was he not coming for me at all just now?
Lu Yibei thought and turned her head to glance at the building she had just come from, looking thoughtful.
She also didn't know if that Old man was a member of the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society... freewēbnoveℓ.com
If all members of the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society were as crazy as him, even if she found them, she probably wouldn't be able to ask anything. It would be better to go back early. Lu Yibei thought.
----
Lu Yibei hid in the shadows and hesitated for a long time, but finally decided to bite the bullet and continue exploring.
Although the Mad Old Man didn't follow her into this apartment building, he was still lingering outside, and she could occasionally hear the 'crunching' sound of his footsteps on the rubble and gravel.
If she went out now, she might run right into him.
Should I call the police? Say that I came to Half-Mountain Apartment to find members of the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society and met a Mad Old Man whose shadow contained urban legend?
Don't be ridiculous! I have a suspected mental illness record at the hospital. When the Uncle Police arrive, they probably won't have caught the Mad Old Man before they take me away first.
It would be better to go up and explore for a while first. It's best if she can find something, but if not, she can also use this time to wait for the Mad Old Man to leave on his own. Lu Yibei thought.
What's more, after encountering such strange things, her curiosity about the people who appeared in her dream memory became stronger and stronger.
Her intuition told her that if she didn't figure all this out, she might regret it for the rest of her life.
However, she was here to look for clues about the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society.
And in the eyes of ordinary people, the Xunzhen Mutual Aid Society is a group of lunatics. If she asked others for help, she would probably also be treated as a lunatic.
Therefore, to know the answer, she still had to find it herself.
However, before setting off, just to be safe, Lu Yibei took out her phone and sent a message to Su Mi.
Lu Yibei: "Xiao Mi, I'm at Half-Mountain Apartment. It seems a bit abnormal here."
A person always has to leave themselves a way out!
Su Mi: "??? Are you crazy, man? What are you doing running there? It would be strange if that kind of haunted place was normal."
Lu Yibei: "My curiosity is just too strong!"
Su Mi: "Strong my ass! Get your butt back here right now, understand?"
Lu Yibei: "Since I'm already here... 【aggrieved】"
Su Mi: "Then go ahead. Anyway, I'll be sitting at the kids' table when the time comes. 【picking nose】"
Lu Yibei: "Damn it! Are you still my good buddy? We agreed to be each other's angels, didn't we? 【angry.jpg】"
Su Mi: "But this is too dangerous!"
Lu Yibei: "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. At worst, I'll send you a text message every ten minutes to report that I'm safe! I sent you a message because I wanted to tell you this in the first place."
Su Mi didn't reply for a long time, as if hesitating.
Three minutes later.
Su Mi: "You said it! Once every ten minutes, and the reply must be a complete sentence. If you don't reply to me, I'll call the police!"
Lu Yibei: "Love you, mwah!"
Su Mi: "Lu Yibei, I've noticed you've been getting more and more effeminate lately..."
Lu Yibei: "Get lost! Speaking of which, have you gotten your driver's license?"
Su Mi: "What do you want?"
Lu Yibei: "If it's convenient, can you drive the car near Half-Mountain Apartment later and wait for me? I remember your dad seems to have given you his old car to practice with, right? 【sinister smirk】"
If it really doesn't work out, she should quickly withdraw from Half-Mountain Apartment and leave in Su Mi's car.
Even if that Mad Old Man or whoever else is hiding here can outrun her, they can't possibly outrun a car, right? Lu Yibei thought.
Su Mi: "Having a childhood friend like you, I've really hit rock bottom for eight lifetimes! Wait for me, I'll go get the keys from my dad now, and I'll be there in two hours at the latest."
