Shi Xiaojie lifted his head in a daze, belatedly realizing that the hallucination had vanished.
However... there was actually someone standing a short distance away, holding a flashlight and silently watching him!
He swallowed hard; because the stairwell was so quiet, he felt the sound of his own swallowing was unnervingly loud.
Shi Xiaojie opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.
The person was drawing closer.
Tap... tap...
The footsteps were slow and leisurely. Shi Xiaojie watched the other person with intense nerves until...
The figure stopped right in front of him.
Seeing that face, which overlapped perfectly with the one from his hallucination, Shi Xiaojie stumbled back a step.
"It's... it's you!"
The newcomer tilted his head. "Hmm? So you found out?"
"Hee hee."
"Strange, how did you find out?"
...
Gu Xiang Kai waited for a few minutes, and when Shi Xiaojie still hadn't returned, he knew something was wrong.
He jumped out of bed and opened the door in one fluid motion. The hallway was empty. He searched two floors up and down with his flashlight, but there was no sign of Shi Xiaojie.
Something had happened!
The moment Nan Yue received the call, she knew Shi Xiaojie couldn't be saved.
Either he had died at the hands of a ghost, or... the murderer was right here in this building.
They searched every abandoned room but found nothing.
They couldn't knock on people's doors in the middle of the night, and their search couldn't be too loud. Eventually, the group gathered in Nan Yue's room.
"It was only one floor. I was too careless."
Gu Xiang Kai felt frustrated.
"It's not your fault. You did your best."
Shi Xiaojie was a stranger to them; they had no obligation to protect his life.
Furthermore, Gu Xiang Kai had been following closely. To avoid being spotted by Shi Xiaojie, he'd had to return to the room ahead of him.
For something to happen in a distance of less than a floor and in under a minute meant the culprit was extremely proficient, and might have even noticed Gu Xiang Kai's actions.
It was impossible to guard against everything.
"As long as it isn't a ghost, there will be tracks to follow."
Nan Yue wanted to see exactly how the culprit intended to dispose of the body.
"Keep a close eye on your neighbors."
Chi Yu and Yin Qian watched the third floor, Jiang Haoyu moved in with Gu Xiang Kai, and Jiang Siyan took responsibility for Uncle Zhong.
There were only a few people in total; it was impossible for the killer to keep the body in their room forever.
Without any treatment, a corpse would easily rot and be discovered in this kind of weather.
The group took turns sleeping for a bit during the latter half of the night. The next day, the demolition area returned to its usual noise and bustle, as if everyone had already forgotten the man who died on the first floor.
Zhu Xi Ning's condition had worsened. She began to cough violently and developed a low-grade fever, looking completely drained.
Nan Yue also began to feel a headache coming on.
It was only then that Nan Yue felt certain it wasn't an issue with Zhu Xi Ning herself.
It was this mission.
Although she wasn't yet sure how she and Zhu Xi Ning had both been affected at the same time, Nan Yue naturally thought of Old Wu, who made his living by treating illnesses.
She paid a visit to the clinic.
"Dr. Wu, to be honest, ever since we moved in, my sister and I haven't been feeling well. Now she has a fever, and my head is starting to ache too."
"There wasn't anything wrong with the medicine you gave her last time, was there?"
Old Wu looked deeply hurt upon hearing this. He slapped the table and chairs, guaranteeing that the medicine was absolutely fine, even telling Nan Yue that if she didn't believe him, she could take it to a large hospital to check.
Seeing how confident he was, Nan Yue took the opening to back down. "It's not that I don't trust you. I was just... a bit worried."
Old Wu let out a burst of anger, but hearing Nan Yue say that, he softened into an expression of sympathy.
"This... actually, I've always wondered if there might be something unclean..."
"Did other tenants get sick easily before?"
"Not really."
Things didn't go the way Nan Yue expected, which surprised her.
"No one else who stayed in our room got sick and died?"
Old Wu laughed. "How could everyone who stays there get sick and die? If that were the case, word would have spread long ago, and no one would dare live there."
"The tenants before you all left on their own. The only one who died of illness was that one person."
Nan Yue frowned slightly. Then she heard Old Wu say thoughtfully, "But the symptoms you mentioned... hiss, they really are similar to the early stages of that woman who died of illness."
Nan Yue snapped her head up, giving Old Wu a start.
"Hey, I'm just talking. May the heavens forgive my tongue."
Old Wu muttered a few words. "That's a rare disease that only appears once in millions of people. It couldn't be such a coincidence. I'll prescribe some more medicine for your cold and fever."
Nan Yue watched Old Wu write the prescription and asked as if casually, "Are there other people in the building who are sick?"
Old Wu smiled. "As long as you're human, you'll have headaches and fevers. Only gods don't get sick."
Nan Yue left with the medicine.
"Two possibilities. One is that Old Wu tampered with things, and the other... is that it's one of the rules of this pollution world."
Zhu Xi Ning lay on the bed with a towel over her forehead, listening to Nan Yue.
"Old Wu's livelihood is the medicine money, so I can understand him tampering with things, but wouldn't it be difficult to target us specifically?"
Nan Yue's lips curled into a cold smile. "When someone does this for a living, they usually have their own tricks."
Zhu Xi Ning thought about it and agreed. "Then regarding the other possibility, didn't you say the previous people didn't get sick?"
Nan Yue nodded. "Because the previous tenants were natives of the pollution world. The path they take is different from ours."
Zhu Xi Ning understood immediately.
The natives truly lived here. Although the things they encountered were strange, they wouldn't face such concentrated conflicts and accidents.
The pollution world was different. It was essentially a small world formed from the fears or resentment of Federation people.
By cutting out the beginning and end, the logic chains couldn't possibly be as long and boring as reality; they were designed to show the most abnormalities within a few days.
For example, in reality, it might have been that everyone in this demolition building was murdered, and the fear and resentment of the residents before they died formed this pollution world.
Any strange things encountered by the scavengers who entered could be manifestations of that resentment.
The NPCs on the same timeline as them would naturally encounter these supernatural phenomena as well.
"It's actually a difference in difficulty."
Nan Yue thought for a moment and said, "If it were a normal difficulty, the hints would be very obvious. It might manifest as every household living here getting sick."
"But missions in a pollution zone are inherently high-difficulty, so it takes a detour. It won't be so direct. If you waste too much time, the scavengers might just be worn down until they die inside."
Zhu Xi Ning sighed and gave a bitter smile. "I thought my mental stability was quite strong."
Nan Yue patted her head. "This isn't a matter of mental stability. Your ability is perception, so you're more sensitive. These kinds of rules will cause erosion to you much faster."
Since it was a rule of the pollution world, it wasn't something Jiang Siyan could fully heal. He could only alleviate the symptoms to buy them some time.
They still had to find the truth behind the demolition building as quickly as possible.
This was a pollution world with a time limit.
And from the looks of it, time was quite tight.
Rate on N.U.
