"Who?!" Fu Ning immediately took out a police stun gun warily.
They didn't come to Green City in the capacity of police officers for investigation this time, so they didn't carry guns with them.
Seeing two flickering red lights at the end of the corridor, Fu Ning's heart tightened abruptly. He hissed in a low voice, "Stop pretending to be ghosts!"
Xue Donglai remained calm. He walked forward slowly, took a look, and waved to Fu Ning. "It's okay. It's just a Buddhist shrine."
Only when Fu Ning got closer did he find that there was a small square table leaning against the wall at the end of the corridor. On the table was a small black Buddhist shrine. He couldn't see clearly what Buddha was enshrined inside. Two small LED simulated candles were always on, looking creepy in the dim and lightless environment.
"Damn it! Didn't they say no one has lived on the second floor for a long time? What's this then?!"
Fu Ning was a bit annoyed and amused. It was all because of what the old man and old woman downstairs had said that had made him tense.
"It's electronic. It will stay on as long as there's power." Xue Donglai touched the tabletop, and immediately a trace of dust was left on it. "Let's go! Let's check the rooms inside."
With that, he reached out to push a half - open door. With a creak, as soon as the door opened, a gust of wind blew in.
The window in the room was not closed. The setting sun had turned into a dim red spot hanging in the sky. Behind the curtain fluttering in the wind, a black shadow appeared, as if someone was hiding inside.
"Stop pretending to be ghosts!"
It wasn't dark yet. The light of the setting sun gave Fu Ning infinite courage. He grabbed the stun gun in his hand and rushed over, stabbing it behind the curtain.
"Thud!" A dull sound. The hard wall made his fingers ache. There was nothing behind the curtain. Not to mention a person hiding there, even the window was tightly closed.
Fu Ning suddenly felt a burning pain in his chest, as if a piece of charcoal had fallen into his clothes.
"Ouch!" He instinctively covered his chest, but felt as if something had touched his shoulder and then suddenly disappeared.
He looked up and saw a pair of pale, bloodless bare feet floating less than five centimeters above his shoulder.
"Come back!"
It was Xue Donglai's growl in his ear.
Fu Ning was so scared that his mind went blank. He involuntarily looked up along those bare feet. A woman in a floral home dress with disheveled hair was hanging on the window frame. Her head was hanging down, and her slightly open eyes happened to meet his gaze.
Then, the corner of the woman's mouth suddenly curled up into a strange smile.
"Get out!"
Xue Donglai kicked Fu Ning hard on the butt. He was kicked and scrambled out of the room.
"Go downstairs, go downstairs!"
He could hear Xue Donglai's hasty footsteps following him out. The two rushed into the stairwell one after the other.
"Thud, thud, thud, thud..." In the narrow space were the messy footsteps of the two. After running for an unknown amount of time, Fu Ning suddenly felt something was wrong. They had only gone up to the second floor. How could they have been running for so long and still not gotten out of the stairwell?
He looked up and found that the sign on the wall that was faintly glowing clearly read "2nd Floor".
They had been running for so long, but they hadn't even managed to get off the second floor?!
"Damn it!" Xue Donglai cursed in a low voice behind him. He took off his peach - pit bracelet and hung it on the sign.
The peach tree has always been regarded as a divine tree that wards off evil spirits since ancient times. The "new peach" in the ancient poem "Always replace the old talismans with new peach wood ones" refers to the branch of the peach tree facing the southeast. The ancients would hang it on the door, and no evil spirits could enter the house.
No one knew how many years Xue Donglai had been wearing this peach - pit bracelet. As soon as it was hung on the sign, the red string of the bracelet broke. Eighteen reddish - brown peach pits "crackled" and fell on the stairs, rolling all the way down.
In an instant, they saw a hazy daylight shining through from the corner of the stairs.
"Go quickly!"
Xue Donglai behind him pushed Fu Ning hard. Fu Ning staggered and rushed downstairs. Vaguely, he saw a woman with a face exactly the same as the one in the video photo they had printed. With a ferocious look on her face, she reached out and pounced on him, then hugged his body and tried to drag him upstairs.
It was a real human body!
Fu Ning could feel the icy cold hands pinching his neck. The fingernails were almost digging into his flesh.
The bone - chilling cold immediately enveloped all his senses. Just when he thought he was going to be strangled to death, the burning sensation in his chest appeared again. It was almost as if it was going to burn through the skin on his chest. He couldn't help but let out a loud scream and struggle.
"Ow!!"
The woman hugging him also let out a shrill howl and quickly scurried into the darkness of the stairwell.
Fu Ning covered his neck and tumbled down the stairs, losing consciousness...
"Hey! Kid! What's wrong?!"
"Alas! It's so pitiful! I've already said not to go up there..."
A noisy sound came into Fu Ning's ears. He opened his eyes with difficulty. What came into view were several old faces, including the two old people he had seen sitting on the sofa just now.
"Master! Where's my master?!"
Fu Ning struggled to get up from the ground and looked around. Only then did he find that he was already in the elevator hall on the first floor. There were four or five old people holding vegetables and lunch boxes looking at him.
"You just shouted and ran downstairs by yourself and then fell to the ground. We didn't see your master come down," the old woman said, looking at the dark stairwell with a pale face. "Could he still be up there?"
By now, it was completely dark. Fu Ning felt that they had only been upstairs for three or five minutes, but the sun had already completely disappeared on the horizon. Only a faint crescent moon was inlaid in the dark sky.
Fu Ning gritted his teeth. Ignoring the old people's dissuasion, he rushed upstairs again and found Xue Donglai lying at the stair landing between the first and second floors. A large pool of blood had seeped out from behind his head...
Although the banquet hall was brightly lit and full of guests, after hearing Police Officer Fu Ning's story, everyone still felt a chill in their hearts.
Some timid female guests were so scared that their faces turned pale. They huddled together and whispered to each other.
"Are you sure that woman is not alive?"
By now, I had almost understood what Si Jiangchen meant. So without him saying anything, I continued to ask Fu Ning, "Then, after your master had an accident, who came to find you to testify that I was the one who pushed Song Yixuan downstairs?"
"..."
Fu Ning couldn't help but turn to look at Du Peiyun.
I didn't wait for his answer. "The person who came to you first approached your master, Xue Donglai. When Xue Donglai refused to testify, this person had evil intentions. He either killed your master or made it impossible for him to influence you. In this way, he could smoothly persuade you to be the one to step forward..."
I paused for a moment and glanced at Du Peiyun again. "Moreover, this person even said... that as long as you testified, he could wake your master up from the coma... Am I right?"
There was a faint smile on my face, but my voice turned cold!