The shadow made a sound, responding with a soft “Hmm.”
***
Yan Chuan woke up again in the middle of the night.
This time it was not a cold touch that startled him, but the unusually loud noise outside his door.
He furrowed his brow and stepped barefoot out of the bedroom.
The shadow, which was his legitimate husband, had already left. After revealing his name, he told Yan Chuan to continue sleeping.
Yan Chuan didn’t even have time to check the time before he noticed that the living room was also empty.
Where is his fake husband?
After realizing that the man he had been living with was deceiving him, Yan Chuan began to mentally refer to him as the impostor.
Now the impostor husband was also gone.
Standing in the empty living room, Yan Chuan felt a bit lost.
Where is everyone?
He couldn’t help but think that the impostor had vanished after he discovered his legitimate husband wasn’t really him.
Frowning, Yan Chuan heard a “bang bang” sound in his ears. He focused and deduced that it was coming from outside the door.
It was noise coming from the corridor.
He could also hear shouting.
It sounded like Chen Sheng and Zhang Nan, whom he had just met during the day.
What was happening?
Hesitating for a moment, Yan Chuan put on his shoes and decided to take a look.
The night air was exceptionally cool. As he stepped outside, he regretted not putting on a jacket first. But as he turned to look back, the apartment door behind him slammed shut with a loud “bang.”
The door was shut.
Yan Chuan tried to pull the doorknob, but the iron door was tightly shut, and he couldn’t even turn the knob.
What was going on?
In the chilly wind, Yan Chuan thought for a moment and quickly realized that not only was there something wrong with his apartment, but other contestants were also coming out one by one.
They gathered outside the door of Room Five, where they had met during the day.
The entire thirteenth apartment building was pitch black; not a single light was on, and no light could be seen.
Only Room Five had its light on.
Yan Chuan could tell that something was amiss. He guessed it was because the contestants had all discovered Zhou Wu’s true identity during the day, triggering some important plot points.
Clearly, he couldn’t miss out on that; otherwise, the door wouldn’t have closed automatically behind him.
With a steely determination, Yan Chuan walked to the entrance of Room Five.
The door swung open, revealing a mess inside. The sofa and old radio were overturned, as if a fight had taken place.
Squinting, he spotted an old man with graying hair lying on the floor, uncertain whether he was dead or alive.
The sounds were coming from inside a room.
That room… was the one where they had discovered the young man who they were unsure was a contestant or an NPC.
As Yan Chuan hesitated, unsure whether to go inside or wait outside, he heard chaotic footsteps approaching.
It was Chen Sheng and Zhang Nan.
Their faces were filled with rage as they emerged grappling with Zhou Wu. Due to the cramped space, they occasionally crashed against the walls, the sound of bodies hitting hard surfaces echoing in the narrow area.
Yan Chuan didn’t see anyone else, not even the other NPC from Room Five.
Confusion spread in his mind, but the three of them didn’t seem likely to answer any of his questions.
As the three fought, Yan Chuan glanced outside.
It was pitch dark.
It was as if a thick, impenetrable black fog enveloped the entire thirteenth apartment, and danger was imminent.
At that moment, Yan Chuan finally heard Zhang Nan’s voice.
“Where have you taken my child?” she yelled, furiously hitting Zhou Wu, her tone filled with rage as if she wanted to tear him apart: “Where is he?!”
Chen Sheng echoed her sentiments, and together they chased Zhou Wu around the room.
Yan Chuan remembered that Chen Sheng and Zhang Nan had the identities of a middle-aged couple who had lost their child, coming to the thirteenth apartment in search of their missing child.
Their child had reportedly been kidnapped by a family from Room Five?
That certainly sounded reasonable.
Desperate parents looking for their lost child, tracking clues to a foreign place, and finally confronting the trafficker.
As for the child… Yan Chuan suddenly recalled the child’s corpse he and Tang Zhen had found in the ventilation duct.
Could that be the child they had been searching for?
Uncertain, he suddenly heard Zhou Wu wailing.
“I really don’t know!” Zhou Wu was being pulled by the hair, his face bruised: “That child is already dead! Who knows where the body is?!”
This news evidently infuriated Chen Sheng and Zhang Nan even more; their attacks became more violent, not sparing even the person already lying on the floor.
Fearful of getting caught in the fray, Yan Chuan hesitated and stepped back, noticing that the elderly man lying on the ground had somehow managed to stand up, swaying unsteadily.
“Be careful!”
Yan Chuan couldn’t see a thing.
The thick black fog spread, and he stumbled forward, groping the wall for support to avoid falling.
Not only was visibility poor, but the fog was filled with sharp cries and sobs that came and went, piercingly loud.
It was the cries of a child.
Yan Chuan couldn’t fathom the kind of terror that would produce such sounds. His eardrums felt like they would burst, so he had to cover his ears with one hand.
Without sight, he couldn’t gauge his direction and lost track of where he was going.
Suddenly, he felt a different texture in front of him compared to the wall, and upon reaching down, he found the doorknob.
Whose room was this?
With a bit of force, the door opened without resistance, unlike when he had been forced to leave the apartment.
Caught between entering and staying out, Yan Chuan hesitated for a moment but ultimately decided to go in.
If he stayed outside, he might encounter another NPC from the script, the child who had been trafficked and met a tragic end in the apartment.
While there is a saying about seeking revenge for vengeance, Yan Chuan didn’t know if other creatures would attack a contestant on sight.
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