ICUGW Chapter 30

Chapter 30 - The House That Chases People (3)

The mission needs to be completed before dawn, same as her first grave post mission. Are contaminants more active at night?

Zhu Ning hadn't finished her theory class yet, so she was vague on some matters regarding contaminants.

The post had ended with an address to the last location of the video. She went out and looked for the owner of the Big Wave shop downstairs to ask for a ride.

When they reached the destination, the proprietress didn't even turn off the engine. She waited for Zhu Ning to get off before leaving immediately without saying a word.

Zhu Ning: "..."

In front was a residential area with a sign at the entrance: Rome City.

In pursuit of high-end appeal, many communities give themselves strange names. Zhu Ning had even seen a community called Grand Palace before.

After observing the "Rome City" for quite a while, she could tell that the developer of the residential area probably did a half-assed job and called it a day. There was a lot of buildings in the community; each one closer to the other, giving an overwhelming sense of oppression.

There was a security guard at the door of the community, and some office workers who just got off work could be seen dragging their tired bodies into the buildings.

After Zhu Ning got injected with the genetic drug, all five of her senses were enhanced. The community was very noisy, she estimated that there should be around a thousand of families living inside.

Zhu Ning concluded that she still won't be able to use the bombs here unless she plans to become a well-known maniac who killed an entire community inhabited by thousands of people.

So, with a straight face, she jumped over the wall while no one was paying attention.

Hey, no need to bother the security guard for trivial matters...what if he remembers her face later on?

The address on the post said that it was on the 13th floor of Building 22.

Zhu Ning climbed through the stairs. After being beaten continuously by the witchers in the past few days, her physical strength had become very good. She reached the 13th floor very quickly without even breaking a sweat.

'Gene medicine, the light of humanity.'

The community had two households per floor, which was considered a "luxurious" compared to the Beehive slum.

Just as described on the grave post, there were two rooms on this floor. One housed a normal family. It had a vermilion security door that was commonly chosen by household families. Hanging on it were withered mugwort leaves, a decoration back from when it was the Dragon Boat Festival. The family probably haven't had the time to remove it yet.

But the room opposite looked quite strange. The forest green door originally looked fresh and clean, but no one had taken care of it for many years. It was covered with a layer of dust and looked lifeless.

Zhu Ning turned over the wooden sign on the door, and sure enough, it said: Warm little home.

It was unknown who had flipped the wooden sign for it to be faced backwards.

There were also some mottled marks on the forest green door. Zhu Ning tried to rubbed them off and was able to remove them.

'This stain...'

'Blood?'

There weren't any sound on the video after Huang Ya Ruo had entered the room. Seeing that there was some blood here, was she still alive or...?

There was no date mentioned on the grave post, so Zhu Ning couldn't guess when the incident happened. Was it decades ago like the hot pot restaurant post? Or was it just recently? Why was there no specific time displayed?

In the grave post, Huang Ya Ruo's house chased and hunted her until she went crazy and entered the house. The mission quest also stated that it was a house that chases people. Based on the video, the house usually appears opposite of the room of the person being hunted, so what was the situation of the family living opposite of it?

Zhu Ning thought about it and decided not to enter the 'warm little house'. She planned to go to the other room instead to ask for information.

Zhu Ning turned and stopped in front of the opposite door. The door was closed, but she could hear the heavy breathing of someone through the thin door panel.

On the other side of the door was a man listening to the noise outside, looking at the outside world through the deformed cat's eye door hole. He was only separated from Zhu Ning by a wall, his breathing turning heavier.

Knock

Knock

Zhu Ning: "Is anyone there?"

She could feel the person inside tense up in an instant.

Zhu Ning: "I know someone is in there. Would you mind if I ask something? It won't take up your time."

The person inside didn't say anything.

Zhu Ning was wondering if she should just break into the room directly.

Then, she remembered her outfit. She was wearing a full set of black protective clothing with a black helmet, carrying a huge backpack. Any normal person would think Zhu Ning was a criminal.

After about a minute, the person inside slowly asked, "Are you an official?"

'Official?'

Zhu Ning thought for a moment. The cleaning center should be considered an official organization, right?

"Yes, I am."

"Are you here to arrest me?"

Woah, arrest? What a heavy word.

Zhu Ning felt that the situation was becoming increasingly strange. Before she could ask what was going on, the door suddenly opened wide.

A bearded man appeared from behind the door, his eyes bloodshot. He yelled, "Take me away now! I can't stand it! Take me to jail! I'd rather go to jail!"

Zhu Ning: “?”

'Why would anyone want to go to jail??'

However, this person seems to be a human, not a contaminant.

Zhu Ning, like a social worker offering reassurance, patiently said: "Tell me slowly."

"Okay, I'll tell you! I'll tell you!." The man seemed to be shaking uncontrollably as if this was the first time he had met someone who really wanted to help him.

"Or should we go in first?" Zhu Ning reminded him.

The man was in a state of muddle-headedness. He agreed to whatever Zhu Ning said. "Yes, yes, yes. Come in first. We'll talk inside."

They came in, but Zhu Ning didn't let the door close.

The room was in a mess. Beer bottles and cigarette butts were all over on the table, the kitchen sink was piled high with unwashed dishes, and Zhu Ning could even smell a foul odor lingering inside the room.

This did not look like the room Huang Ya Ruo lived in before she disappeared.

Zhu Ning looked around and didn't sit on the sofa. Instead, she stood beside it, looking very professional.

"Could you please introduce yourself first?"

"My name is Ding Chaojie, and I..." The bearded man was so nervous that his legs kept shaking. He seemed to have difficulty speaking. "I-I'm a thief."

'Brother, aren't you too honest?'

Zhu Ning's mouth twitched.

The public security in the wasteland world was quite poor, with a lot of petty thefts and robberies. The authorities were too busy to handle every single one of them each year.

Ding Chaojie said: "One day, I entered this room intending to steal something then leave, but after walking around, I found that no one seemed to be here."

"I'm a very experienced house thief, so I could tell right away that the owner hadn't been home for a long time. The room was deserted, so I figured, 'I have nowhere else to live, so I'll just stay here.'"

Ding Chaojie shook his legs as he spoke. "I didn't think anything of it at first. The owner probably paid a lot for water and electricity. I lived here for a month without power or water outages. I really started treating this place like my own home and even moved all my luggage and furniture in."

"I called my friends over on the day I moved. They were all gang members. They congratulated me, saying I finally had a new home."

When talking about the joy of moving to a new house, Ding Chaojie smiled bitterly. Thinking back, those words didn't feel like congratulations at all, but curses.

Zhu Ning raised her eyebrows She could already guess what happened.

"There was a neighbor across from my room, the one with the green door. You should've seen it before you came in."

Zhu Ning responded: "I saw it."

"I didn't think much of it at first, but ever since the day I officially moved in, I felt something was wrong. There were always noises coming from behind the green door."

"Initially, it was just a woman crying. I thought it was just a normal couple having a quarrel, so I didn't take it seriously. Then a thought hit me. I've lived here for two months, but I've never seen what my neighbor looks like."

"Again, I didn't think much of it. Then one night I was woken up by a noise from that family. It was really loud, like someone was punching a sandbag inside. Every time they punched, my house would shake. I couldn't stand it anymore, so I thought about going there to talk and asking them not to disturb others."

"I went to knock, but no one answered. I was in a bad mood because of their noise, so I knocked very loudly."

"But the harder I knocked, the harder the person inside punched, like he was getting mad at me. I lost my temper, so I looked through the peephole, and then, and then..."

Ding Chaojie suddenly raised his head.

"I saw an eye inside."

There was an eye staring at him from inside. The eye was blood red, and not even a bit of white could be seen.

"It can't be seen unless you look directly from the eye hole....I– I think the eye was alive."

Ding Chaojie felt heat coming towards him, as if it was something hot was about to touch his eyeball.

"I was frightened and ran away on the spot," Ding Chaojie repeated. "I ran away that same day."

"For the next few days, I heard noises behind the green door. Someone was doing something inside, and the noises were getting louder and louder. I didn't dare knock on the door anymore, but I couldn't complain either. After all, I didn't even own the place. If I were found out, I'd go to jail."

"Then I thought, it's not my house anyway, so why not just run away? It wouldn't cost me much to run away, and I could just give up the house." Ding Chaojie clenched his fists as he spoke, seeming to be lost in some terrifying memory. "But, I realized then that if I ran, it would be even more terrifying."

Zhu Ning: "Was it targeting you?"

"Yes!"

Ding Chaojie cursed. "It was targeting me! After I moved, it followed me. I was so scared when I saw that door again after I moved. I thought I was hallucinating."

"I didn't believe in superstition, so I kept moving. It followed me wherever I went. Later, I even moved to a building with no neighbors."

"There was only one room every floor. I thought, 'I don't even have a door opposite me, let's see how far you can go.' Then I woke up the next day and found it embedded in the wall opposite my room."

"Fuck! It drilled into the wall!! Every day there was someone punching in there, and every day my floor was shaking. I'm going crazy! I, I, I..."

Ding Chaojie rubbed his hair and pulled it hard. "I'm going crazy. It keeps following me, keeps following me, keeps following me..."

"I know I did something wrong. This must be God's punishment for me. Please save me, save me! I'll go to jail! Let me go to jail, and lock me up!"

Zhu Ning was silent.

The person she saw in the grave post was Huang Ya Ruo, but the victim now was Ding Chaojie. The house found a new owner and began to hunt him down.

There are currently two known victims, but there could also be more of them.

Moreover, Ding Chaojie didn’t enter the green door at all; he entered the house opposite. Was the warm little home connected to the house opposite of it?

Zhu Ning asked, "How many times have you moved?"

Ding Chaojie: "This is the fourth time."

The fourth time he moved, the door opposite was still green, which proved that the green door was the main body. The room where Ding Chaojie lived now was not the one where Huang Yaruo disappeared. It seems that the address that the grave post gave wasn't Huang Ya Ruo's, but Ding Chaojie's.

Zhu Ning asked, "Have you ever tried opening the green door?"

Ding Chaojie: "I thought about it, but I didn't dare go in. I always felt that once I went in, I wouldn't be able to get out."

"But..." Ding Chaojie licked his dry lips, "I keep having this urge to go in. Obviously I don't want to go in at all, but my mind keeps telling me to go in! I don't know if you can understand what I mean, but I really–"

"Don't worry, I think I understand."

Rationality told Ding Chaojie not to go in, but people's rationality would be affected after being mentally polluted, so Ding Chaojie kept getting attracted to go inside the green door.

"I just called the police today. If the police doesn't come, I would go in and take a look myself. I had a feeling that today was the day that green door would kill me. But then, you came."

No wonder Ding Chaojie mistook Zhu Ning as an official. He must've thought that she was the investigator sent by the authorities.

The system said that the mission time was only for twelve hours. If Zhu Ning did not show up today, Ding Chaojie would probably die, and the mission would be automatically closed.

But the objectives of the task was also very strange. The system did not ask Zhu Ning to protect Ding Chaojie, but instead asked her to find Huang Ya Ruo.

Ding Chaojie: "How are you going to solve this? Are you going to take me away?"

Zhu Ning: "I'll go in and take a look first."

Ding Chaojie's face turned pale: "You're going to go in?"

Zhu Ning: "Yes, I want to help you solve the problem."

"No..." Ding Chaojie said, "I checked online before and found someone else's post with a similar experience, but I didn't find the follow-up to that post. Anyway, they said that no one should go in."

Ding Chaojie spoke very quickly, but Zhu Ning understood. "Let me see the post."

Ding Chaojie showed it to Zhu Ning. The poster was not Huang Ya Ruo, but another girl. The description was similar to that of Ding Chaojie and Huang Ya Ruo.

Someone commented below: "Don't go in. You can't get out once you go in."

The video was posted three years ago.

"There are other people's posts as well." Ding Chaojie must have done his own research for a long time and showed the collected information to Zhu Ning.

Twenty posts in total.

It's not certain how many of these were just meme-driven stories and how many were real victims, but even if half of them are true, the number itself was scary enough.

The matter had become quite complicated.

Zhu Ning felt that Ding Chaojie must have something he didn't tell her. He had withheld some information, and she was guessing that he might not be just a simple thief.

Zhu Ning: "Based on these posts, if you don't go in, the connection between you and the door will not be broken."

Zhu Ning glanced at the time. She had been listening to Ding Chaojie telling stories for twenty minutes; it was now half past one.

Zhu Ning hurried because according to the mission description, she had to stay inside for one night.

Zhu Ning: "I'm in a hurry. I still need to sleep inside."

Ding Chaojie's eyes widened. He had thought that he had finally met with an official investigator, but he didnn't expect the officer to be a crazy person! She was actually going to go inside the door and sleep over for a night?

How do crazy people think?

Zhu Ning had already reached the green door. Ding Chaojie asked, "What about me?"

Zhu Ning: "Hmm?"

Ding Chaojie: "What should I do if you go in?"

Once Zhu Ning goes in, Ding Chaojie would be left alone. There was a high chance that he might encounter some troubles again. After all, the house was chasing Ding Chaojie, not Zhu Ning.

If Zhu Ning had a partner, she could have entered the green door and her partner would have stayed behind to protect Ding Chaojie. Unfortunately, Zhu Ning was alone.

Zhu Ning already had one hand on the door handle. "I have two suggestions. It's up to you which one to choose."

Ding Chaojie: "You... Well, what is it?"

"The first option," Zhu Ning said, "Come in with me."

Zhu Ning has experience in protecting people. You can even say that she's exceptionally good at protecting and rescuing people. She had already protected one "little brother" and rescued one "little sister" in the contaminated areas she had entered before.

So, as long as she's alive, Ding Chaojie will survive. But if she dies, Ding Chaojie by himself would probably die too. Rather than letting Ding Chaojie run around, perhaps staying with Zhu Ning would be the safest option.

"I can't." Ding Chaojie refused immediately. He didn't want to enter the green door unless it was absolutely necessary. He would rather die here than die inside the green door.

"Then you'll have to settle with the second option."

Zhu Ning said, "Go and surrender yourself."

"Ah?" Ding Chaojie thought he had misheard.

Zhu Ning: "Weren't you planning to go to jail? Go on and stay in the detention center for one night. If you're lucky, they might be able to protect you."

She hadn't come into contact with the Police Bureau yet, but there should be quite a few people with special abilities there.

"But, what if I'm unlucky?" Ding Chaojie stared at Zhu Ning, hoping she would give him an answer again.

If he went to the detention center, but no one cared about him, or that no one could protect him, what then?

But this time Zhu Ning didn't say anything. She just remained silent.

Life and death are determined by fate. Wealth and honor are determined by heaven.

She was waiting for Ding Chaojie's choice.

---

The translator has something to say:

Life and death are determined by fate. Wealth and honor are determined by heaven. - kind of like saying that some things are beyond human control. Basically, Zhu Ning was telling Ding Chaojie that if he was unlucky, then there was nothing he could do about it.

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