ICUGW Chapter 31

Chapter 31 The House Where People Are Chased (4)

One o'clock in the morning.

At the police station branch of the Public Security Bureau nearest to the Rome City Community, a suspicious-looking person appeared at the door. He introduced himself as Ding Chaojie and that he had come to report a crime late at night.

He spoke incoherently, "Really, there was a house with a green door chasing me. I'm not lying!"

"Someone came to my house today. She was a liar! I think she's not from the Sheriff's Department at all."

"She tried to trick me into going inside the Green Door. She wanted to kill me! She's a murderer. Go investigate her!"

"Why are you pulling me? I'm not crazy! I'm telling the truth, please believe me!"

"Who am I? I'm a thief. Right, arrest me! I stole things, broke into people's houses, and I even intentionally injured someone before and then fled."

"I have a criminal record. Go check my criminal record!"

"Is this guy crazy? Turn him away." Someone scoffed.

"You don't believe me?! I, I, I am a murderer! Really! You should believe that, right? I have killed people!" Ding Chaojie shouted at the top of his lungs.

"He's a lunatic! A real lunatic!" Others finally caught on.

"Old Liu! Hurry up and detain him first! Don't let him embarrass himself here!"

Ding Chaojie was eventually detained in a detention room.

Unexpectedly, the madman who had been shouting like crazy, became quiet after entering the detention room.

Ding Chaojie was on the verge of collapse due to long-term mental pollution. After entering the detention room, he immediately lay down on the bed and curled himself up into a ball.

"Is that kid sick? He's acting like this is his home!"

"Leave him alone. We have a lot to do today. Just let him stay overnight."

"What about his criminal record he mentioned? Shouldn't we check on that?"

"We don't have time now, we'll take care of it tomorrow. In my opinion, that guy's crazy right now. Maybe he'll be more normal tomorrow."

The two agents walked away muttering to themselves, and soon the sound of their footsteps disappeared.

Ding Chaojie was curled up on the bed, but his eyes were wide open. His red eyes were staring at the void, when suddenly, his pupils shrank.

A green door appeared on the blank wall opposite him!

At first, an outline appeared, and then the full green door emerged. There were mottled shadows on the green door, like flowing blood trying to seep out.

Ding Chaojie's whole body tensed.

CREAK–

The green door opened a crack, and a dark gap faced Ding Chaojie. Inside was densely packed black lines, wriggling and moving wildly.

It's coming.

It's chasing me!

"Help!" Ding Chaojie shouted, "Save me!"

His cries immediately called over the night shift staff. "What are you doing? Behave!"

Ding Chaojie pointed to the opposite wall and said,

"There's a door! A green door!"

"What door?"

"It's catching up, I didn't lie to you!"

"It's really catching up!"

"Save me! Save me!"

Ding Chaojie grabbed the agent's collar through the iron bars as if he was grabbing a life-saving straw.

"This is fucking crazy," the agent yelled, "Fine, fine! I'll look, okay!"

The agent took a look inside and saw that the walls were clean.

What door?

There was no door.

He wondered why Ding Chaojie was so crazy.

"Yes, please look again, please look again! Wait, wait, don't go, don't leave me!"

The agent took great effort to pry Ding Chaojie's hands open. "If you're crazy, go to a mental hospital."

Ding Chaojie's hands were empty, and he struggled trying to grab the agent's collar again, but this time he caught nothing.

"Help me, help me!"

"I don't want to go in."

"I don't want to go in!"

"I DON'T WANT TO GO IN!"

"Old Yang, don't bother with him. Let him go crazy alone." Someone called the agent from a distance.

Old Yang straightened his collar, feeling rather sorry for the young man. How could he have gone mad at such a young age?

"Calm down. Get some sleep first. I'll call a doctor for you tomorrow."

Doctor?

Doctors are useless.

Old Yang looked at Ding Chaojie and said, "I'll take you to the cleaning center tomorrow."

With a click, Old Yang closed the door after he finished speaking.

"Don't...don't leave me alone..."

Ding Chaojie cried uncontrollably. His face stuck in the iron bars, regretting not choosing to go with Zhu Ning.

At least Zhu Ning could see the green door. These people couldn't even see the door.

At least Zhu Ning would listen to him and wouldn't think he was crazy.

Ding Chaojie has put himself in danger. He and the green door were now locked together in a cell he can't escape.

He felt a cold chill on his back, but Ding Chaojie didn't dare look back. He held on tightly to the iron bars.

It was right behind him, wasn't it?

It was pressed behind his back.

…

It was a pity that Ding Chaojie didn’t choose to come in with Zhu Ning.

'I hope that unlucky old guy can meet a good person.'

Zhu Ning stood in front of the green door and took a special look at the cat's eye hole, but did not see the eyeball that Ding Chaojie mentioned. It seemed to be just an ordinary door.

Maybe Ding Chaojie was mentally polluted at the time and saw it wrongly?

Before going in, Zhu Ning sent a message to Liu Niannian: [Get ready. Come to the 13th floor of Building 22 in the Rome City Residential Community alone within an hour.]

[Then, wait for my instructions.]

Zhu Ning could only do a rough estimate of finishing the mission within an hour. If she still wasn't finished by then, it would be considered a mission failure.

Liu Niannian replied quickly, like she was squatting in front of the deputy chief, waiting to be assigned a job: [Okay, boss!]

Zhu Ning: “…”

Who knows where this rich girl's enthusiasm comes from?

Zhu Ning could find the source of the contamination by herself, but she definitely couldn't handle the containment of the contaminated spores after. She thought carefully, but she realized the only person she could ask was Liu Niannian.

Liu Niannian's spirits were quite high, so there won't be any problem if she was kept there for one night.

Zhu Ning turned off her secondary brain and made all the preparations. Then, she grasped the door handle and pushed it gently, but the green door did not move at all.

It seems that only the person who was being chased by the green door could enter it.

It wouldn't budge no matter how hard Zhu Ning pushed. Perhaps this was the exact reason why the Green Door has not been eliminated by the cleaning center for a long time.

Zhu Ning has studied the cases of purification in cleaning centers. Generally, contaminated areas were classified based on their pollution level. Those that are higher in grade were considered large-scale pollutions. They were the type that would infect the entire area if not immediately controlled.

Thus, higher grade areas were prioritized, while some old and stable polluted areas would put in the back of the queue. After all, the cost of each mission they undertake was very high, and money must be spent wisely.

On the contrary, the underground organization with "Grave Posts" created by Prometheus has been cleaning up those old contaminated areas.

The green door was very stubborn. If who it was chasing was Ding Chaojie, then no one except Ding Chaojie can open it.

But... the green door was a bit unlucky today.

Zhu Ning has her own plug-in.

System:

[The Master Key has been selected. Do you want to use it?]

Zhu Ning: "Yes."

Click—

The master key can open any door and any lock. The green door was a contaminant, but it was still a door in itself.

Just like the previous times, after opening the door, twitching black lines floating inside the contaminated area could be seen, but not touched.

Ah, yes. The background special effects of the contaminated area.

Zhu Ning's helmet was relaying its automatically calculated data:

[It has been confirmed that cleaner Zhu Ning has entered a contaminated area.

The pollution level is roughly estimated to be Class C.

Please choose whether to report to the cleaning center's technical department.]

[The pollution concentration rate has reached 120%.

The contaminated area is estimated to be 2,500 cubic meters in size.

Living contaminants are detected inside.]

The area of ​​the contaminated area seems to be smaller than that of the hot pot restaurant, but the pollution concentration was higher than any of the two she had experienced.

It was also a Class C mission, but hot pot restaurants could accommodate many people, so it would make sense that the more contaminants there are, the higher the pollution concentration.

But Zhu Ning remembered that the house only had three bedrooms and a living room. A large contaminated area could mean higher pollution rate because there's a lot of contaminants. Then, what about a small contaminated area with a high pollution rate?

It could only mean danger.

As usual, Zhu Ning chose not to report the situation to the cleaning center. She also didn't send scheduled text messages. If Zhu Ning couldn't eliminate the contaminated area, her AI ​​boss would definitely notify someone else to come.

Bang!

Zhu Ning looked behind and found that the green door had closed itself. She shrugged and decided to focus in front of her. She was currently standing at the entrance hall, and like every other home, there was a living room past the entrance hall.

There were also three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen.

'I have to say, it must be very comfortable for one person to live in such a big house.'

Zhu Ning immediately discovered the first suspicious point. Huang Ya Ruo did not explain the reason why she bought the house. She was a single woman and also said in the video that she lived alone.

She has no children, no husband, and no intention of bringing her parents over.

Moreover, Huang Ya Ruo was not financially well-off. Otherwise, she would have immediately moved away the second that things went awry, instead of spending so much time and effort double thinking whether to move or not.

In the wasteland, every inch of land was worth a fortune. The price difference between a three-bedroom apartment and a two-bedroom apartment was huge. Most single women would choose a one-bedroom apartment to reduce their financial expenditure. At most, they would buy or rent a two-bedroom apartment for storage.

But three-bedroom ones?

That's why it was suspicious.

Why does Huang Ya Ruo need three bedrooms? Was she planning to raise a child?

Zhu Ning didn't remove her shoes. She was still wearing a full set of work clothes to prevent contaminated spores from parasitizing her (again).

After walking around the house carefully, she found that the furniture inside was arranged normally.

It can be said that Huang Ya Ruo really put a lot of thought into the decoration. Red fabric sofa, warm yellow wallpaper, green curtains, and retro yet high-end flooring.

She specially matched the items with each other, and has her own aesthetic sense. At first glance, people will think that the house was really beautiful and comfortable.

Even though the house had become a haunted house, it was still very well-preserved. The walls weren't scratched at all, and the sunflowers on the table were fresh.

To be honest, the house was much more comfortable than Zhu Ning's beehive community. In fact, Zhu Ning even wanted to live here.

So what if it was a haunted house? Poverty is scarier than ghosts.

Not to mention that this haunted house even has its own positioning system. Once it recognizes its owner, it will move wherever you move.

It's really a dream house!

Zhu Ning walked around the house and then opened the curtains to take a look.

Outside the window was a "normal" residential complex. The natural greenery in the Rome City community was very good; there were also a few people walking around in the middle of the night.

The house seems to be just like an ordinary residence perfectly integrated into the community.

Zhu Ning then opened the window. She stretched out her hand, but felt no wind. It was also completely silent outside.

It was probably an illusion created by the pollution source to manipulate its prey into staying inside the house. Otherwise, the person who enters the green door would have escaped long ago.

If there was one thing that was particularly strange about this house, it was that it was extremely quiet. So quiet that the only sound in the house was the sound of Zhu Ning moving around. Apart from that, there was no sound at all.

No sound of wind, no subtle noise from the air conditioner, no rustling from the neighbors next door. The time and space inside the house were absolutely independent from the outside world.

Zhu Ning walked around, but she didn't find any trace of Huang Ya Ruo, nor did she find any more clues. She was sure that she was the only one in the house.

The system had given her the mission of sleeping inside for one night.

So she decided that if she's going to sleep here, she might as well sleep in the best room.

Zhu Ning opened the masters bedroom and saw that an entire wall inside was made into a bookcase. Maybe the owner loved reading, or maybe it was just for decoration?

The double bed was covered with a silk quilt, and every detail showed that the owner of the house loved life. Zhu Ning habitually searched every corner, and after making sure there was no hiding place, she lied down on the bed.

The bed was very soft, and nothing strange happened. No tentacles suddenly stretched out from under the bed and dragged Zhu Ning into the abyss.

Zhu Ning's danger premonition also did not trigger anything.

It was very... quiet and peaceful.

So peaceful that it felt eerie, like the calm before a storm.

In order to complete the system's task, she was actually sleeping in a haunted house. Zhu Ning thought that sooner or later, the system would probably assign weirder missions than this.

If an outsider came in and saw this scene, they would definitely think it was strange.

She didn't take off her clothes and was still wearing her full-body motorcycle-like suit with her black helmet still attached to her head.

Zhu Ning clasped her hands together and laid on the bed peacefully like a mummy. She thought she wouldn't be able to sleep since it was too awkward, but less than three minutes later, Zhu Ning's eyelids began to twitch.

Before she closed her eyes, the clock on the bedside table read 2:16 AM.

Zhu Ning closed her eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

Ding-ling-ling—

The alarm clock vibrated wildly, waking Zhu Ning up from her slumber. When she opened her eyes, what came into view was a sun-shaped lamp hanging from the ceiling.

She began to breathe heavily, feeling a little dazed for a moment.

What was she doing?

Did she really fall asleep in the haunted house?

How long did she sleep?

Warriors have absolute control over their bodies; It was their instinct for survival.

Especially for someone like Zhu Ning. Whether she was a professional shooter or a garbage cleaner, she has great survival instincts. The main reason why she can stay calm in most situations is that she believes that she has absolute control over her body.

But just now, her sense of control over her body disappeared. She didn't know when she fell asleep or when she woke up.

Although she was not encountering any monsters or pollutants, she felt an extreme panic.

'This house was really weird.'

Zhu Ning took a deep breath, blinked, and looked away from the ceiling. She looked around and her eyes twitched.

The furniture in the house has changed.

But unlike what Huang Ya Ruo described in the video, the wardrobe and furniture were not facing away from her, but facing her.

The wardrobe, desk, clothes rack, and green plants inside the bedroom had all been moved.

They gathered close, surrounding Zhu Ning on the bed, as if they were quietly looking at her as an outsider.

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