At 10 PM, everyone was restless inside and went out into the corridor to get some fresh air and cool off.
Ever since they learned that the top of the tenement building was slowly converging inwards, everyone felt that the skylight above was becoming increasingly cramped and narrow, and every time they looked up, they felt a suffocating sense of impending doom.
Sha Liu, Qiu Lu, and Xin Miao, three girls, huddled together by the railing, discussing something nervously.
"I feel like Sha Liu isn't quite right," Ke Xun said, fanning himself with a large palm-leaf fan and glancing at the three girls not far away.
"Speaking of which, having experienced the last painting, everyone would be nervous, but she wasn't like this before." Wei Dong gave Sha Liu a cold look, feeling that this girl was a bit scary.
Indeed, it's said that old habits die hard, and people often show their truest selves when faced with terrifying events—when Sha Liu faced the Black Corpse Heaven, she didn't panic or lose her courage, but instead showed a composure rarely seen in young women, and did her best to protect herself.
In the afternoon, when everyone was discussing "bamboo shoots breaking through the soil," she became somewhat out of control. At dinner, upon hearing the NPC's new instructions, she became even more agitated. It was unclear whether she had discovered something or had other motives.
Sha Liu's eyes were also fixed on Ke Xun and the others, but her mouth didn't stop talking: "In short, once the breaking through is complete, we'll all die."
Qiu Lu said anxiously, "We already said all this at the dinner table. I wanted to ask, is there anything else?"
Sha Liu hesitated, "I didn't intentionally hide it from you. After all, no one has thought of a solution yet, and I was afraid of scaring you if I said it."
"Everyone should know the truth; that's fair!" Qiu Lu said hastily, and Xin Miao nodded in agreement. Sha
Liu looked up at the courtyard, as if gathering great courage: "Do you remember the stairs disappearing the night before last?"
Hearing this, both of them looked towards the stairwell with lingering fear.
"Brother Mu thinks the sudden shrinking of the courtyard opening might be related to tonight's events." Sha Liu's hand trembled slightly as she leaned on the railing, clearly also afraid.
Xinmiao was stunned: "You...you mean, the change in this courtyard is actually the same as the disappearance of the stairs?"
Sha Liu nodded with difficulty: "That's what Brother Mu analyzed, but he only mentioned it casually and didn't say much."
Xinmiao's face was ashen: "Brother Mu is always so accurate...what are we going to do? The whole building is going to kill us!"
Qiu Lu was also too scared to speak, and after a long time she said: "If the tenement building closes up, then the monster will be like a turtle in a jar for us."
"I wonder how that ghost in 307 is going to harm people. Will it really chop us into mincemeat?" Xinmiao began to have terrifying thoughts.
"Maybe it's not as straightforward as we think, just like that white woman last night...who would have thought that Shouzhu would die in that way..." Sha Liu brought up the events of last night with difficulty.
Xinmiao trembled with fear: "I'm the only one left in 402. I don't want to be tricked into dying. If I were to encounter something like what happened to Shouzhu last night, I'd rather die first!"
"But we'd better not violate the NPCs' restrictions, or we'll end up like Tina and Zhishao, dying suddenly and uncontrollably," Shaliu analyzed.
The other two girls agreed with her and admitted that Sha Liu was the smartest of the three. 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, we'll jump out the window... After all, there's a concrete wall separating us from the outside, so it's not like we're escaping to the outside world... Besides, we live on the fourth floor, so we're not necessarily going to die from a fall..."
The two girls thought about it silently for a moment, and Qiu Lu's eyes lit up slightly: "The NPC's original words were: Don't go out! If we go out the window, wouldn't that be exploiting a loophole in the wording?"
Sha Liu looked at Qiu Lu: "You're right. The gatekeeper only said not to go out, not not to jump out the window."
Xin Miao 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. It's open for one hour every afternoon at 5 pm for people who are buying groceries or getting off work—there's an opening between the concrete wall and the outer wall, and that passage leads directly outside."
"But..."
"This is a last resort. What if we encounter a situation like Shouzhu's yesterday, or something even worse…" Qiu Lu frowned. "It's better to jump out the window. We'll either die or live."
Xin Miao nodded in agreement with Qiu Lu's resolute decision.
Sha Liu didn't say anything more.
The gatekeeper's voice came from the courtyard downstairs: "Go back to your rooms, lights out soon!"
Everyone had no choice but to return to their rooms, continuing to face the darkness and the unknown.
Back in 411, Ke Xun suddenly noticed that the curtains were missing from the small window facing the corridor: "Who took our curtains down?"
Mu Yiran's voice was calm: "There are no curtains in any room. It must have been done by an NPC."
Ke Xun looked at the bucket in the corner of the bedroom, guessing that the NPC had taken the curtains when emptying the chamber pot.
To avoid embarrassment, Ke Xun barely drank any water and ate very little porridge for dinner. Mu Yiran didn't even drink any porridge.
Both of them had slept enough at noon and were sitting on the bed.
"Could this person tonight, like Ya Fen, also have a specific route?" Ke Xun recalled Ya Fen from last night, who always walked counter-clockwise, no matter which floor she was on.
"There might be a rule involved." Mu Yiran glanced at the unobstructed window; the moonlight was bright enough to see the railings of the corridor clearly.
Ke Xun enjoyed listening to Mu Yiran speak in the darkness of night like this. His voice was always calm and unhurried, clear yet mellow: "According to last night's rules, Ya Fen hasn't knocked on 410's door since leaving. The same should happen tonight."
Ke Xun hadn't thought of this detail before: "It seems the people in 307 won't go back to knock on their own door either, but will go directly to another apartment. The key to 309, where Shou Zhu and the others live, has been taken away; it's currently empty. That means the people in 307 will go straight to the fourth floor."
Discussing such matters in an environment like the fourth floor is bound to be nerve-wracking, but sitting next to Mu Yiran, Ke Xun inexplicably felt very at ease.
Mu Yiran's voice rang out again: "If the person in 307 is also going counter-clockwise, then he will go up the stairs between 305 and 304, and after reaching the fourth floor, he will proceed counter-clockwise to 402."
Ke Xun's voice followed: "If that person is going clockwise in the opposite direction, then he will go up the stairs between 308 and 309, and after reaching the fourth floor, he will proceed clockwise to 410."
No matter how you judge, 411 won't be the first one.
It sounds cruel, but there will always be an example to make it clear what kind of person came out of 307, what he would do to these people, and whether he would politely knock on the door first, like Ya Fen did last night.
A cough came from outside, the voice sounding somewhat old.
"Wang Fu—" A sudden shout startled everyone.
Ke Xun and Mu Yiran got out of bed simultaneously, finding a suitable angle to look out the window—enough to see outside without having to lean against the window.
An elderly man appeared in the fourth-floor corridor, his legs seemingly lame, his body hunched, carrying a basin in one hand and stirring something in the other.
This person perfectly matched Qin Ci's description.
"Wangfu—Wangfu—come home—" the old man's voice was hoarse, but he was still calling out with all his might, like calling for a child who hadn't returned home.
The old man's unsteady steps moved counter-clockwise, tapping the basin with his hand, making a clattering sound: "Wangfu—dinner's ready—go home—"
The old man fumbled for something on his chest, then quickly let out a sharp whistle, apparently blowing the whistle hanging around his neck. The whistle was blown rhythmically, sounding like a drawn-out "Wangfu."
The old man finally stopped in front of apartment 402, ceasing his whistling and hoarse shouts, standing silently at the door.
This stillness created an inexplicable sense of oppression.
Eventually, the old man broke the silence himself, tapping the basin in his hand, then tapping it again, gradually turning into a frantic, angry pounding. The clattering sound was like some kind of nighttime incantation, attempting to summon some ferocious beast.
"Wangfu! Come out! Come out quickly!" the old man's voice was extremely anxious. He pressed his entire body against the window of apartment 402, banging on the glass with whatever he was holding: "Come out, Wangfu!"
This neurotic shouting and banging lasted for about ten minutes before slowly subsiding.
It's hard to imagine the psychological pressure Xinmiao, who lived alone in apartment 402, had just endured.
The old man seemed exhausted from shouting, dragging his heavy steps forward counter-clockwise, tapping the basin or whistling every few steps.
After a while, the desperate scream rang out again: "Wangfu—Wangfu—come back—"
Following the counter-clockwise order, the next door was 411.
"Don't get too close." Mu Yiran went back to sit on the bed, and Ke Xun quietly sat back down as well.
The angle they chose was slightly towards the window, making it difficult to see the people inside from the outside.
"Wangfu, stop being naughty, come out!" The old man's voice, like a nightmare, came to the window of 411.
The window was pounded on forcefully, making angry banging sounds.
Ke Xun then vaguely saw that the old man was holding something that looked like a large iron ladle.
The window banged for a long time, each sound like the glass was about to shatter, but it didn't.
"Wangfu! Wangfu!! Wangfu!!!" The old man's voice became more and more agitated, and when his emotions reached their peak, he actually let out a sob, "Come back—"
With this cry, the scene in front of the window changed drastically.
Ke Xun could feel Mu Yiran beside him stiffen as well—the entire window was filled with a gigantic face, belonging to an old man, wrinkled and unshaven.
Even more disturbing was the expression on that face—an expression of suppressed grief, desperately holding back tears, biting his lip tightly, his entire face trembling uncontrollably…
"Wangfu! Let's go home!" the weeping giant face pleaded, its shabby appearance revealing its weariness.
Ke Xun and Mu Yiran sat motionless.
The gigantic face stopped speaking, but pressed even closer, its cloudy eyes straining to see inside, its grayish pupils darting around, seemingly trying to discern every corner of the room. The gigantic
face, the constantly shifting eyes, the forceful breathing—all created an immense sense of oppression and terror.
Ke Xun avoided eye contact with the gigantic face in the window, gently closing his eyes, imagining himself as a piece of furniture, a stone.
After a long while, the old man finally blew his whistle and used the iron ladle in his hand to knock on the window of the next apartment, 410…
Mu Yiran quietly walked to the window and watched silently for a long time.
In apartment 410, the old man did the same thing as before; when his emotions reached a peak, he began frantically banging on the window, roaring, crying, and cursing…
After he finished, the old man staggered upstairs.
Mu Yiran then gently returned to the bedside: "From the outside, that person's overall size hasn't changed. The giant face at the window just now must have been some kind of field or…"
"Magical realism style," Ke Xun summarized.
Mu Yiran actually nodded: "That makes sense."