ICUGW Chapter 32
- Hanim
- Sep 15, 2025
- 9 min read
Chapter 32 The House Where People Are Chased (5)
The alarm clock showed 6:30 in the morning; it was dawn.
Did Zhu Ning really sleep in the room all night? How could it be so unreal?
System voice prompted:
[Random quest: "The Haunted House"
Current purification progress: 10%]
This prompt means that she has completed the mission of sleeping inside the house, right?
This was the first system prompt she heard after entering the house. She had never felt the mechanical sound of the system so pleasant before.
Zhu Ning tilted her neck; she didn't feel relaxed at all after a night's rest. Instead, she felt extremely tired, even more tired than after attending a fighting class and getting beaten up everyday.
The furniture in the bedroom stood silently beside her bed, surrounding her body.
Zhu Ning's first reaction was to check her helmet, which had a video recording function. It was the first time she watched a video of herself falling asleep from a first-person perspective.
But the helmet's field of view was limited. She fell asleep lying on her back, and the helmet could only capture the lamp on the ceiling.
Zhu Ning sped up the video. It was tinted green under the night vision perspective. At the beginning, there was only a lamp, looking like it was a still picture.
After a slight rustling sound, Zhu Ning turned over.
Something suddenly appeared on the screen.
It was pressed tightly against Zhu Ning's helmet.
Zhu Ning watched the video and felt as if she was experiencing the scene herself, as if the thing was really right in front of her.
'Is this ... a pot of green ivy?'
Did the green ivy on the bedside table came to check on her in the middle of the night? And so close to her face too?
The Green Ivy was too close to Zhu Ning, blocking most of the picture. Half an hour later, Zhu Ning turned over again.
She flipped from the left side to the right side, and from here, another furniture appeared in the video.
The time displayed in the lower right corner was four o'clock in the morning.
Zhu Ning sorted it out and confirmed two facts based on the video playback of the helmet.
First, she actually fell asleep last night.
Second, the furniture moves in the middle of the night.
The technology in the cleaning center should be far superior to the surveillance videos used by the public, but like Huang Ya Ruo, she was unable to capture the movement of the furniture.
The scene changed and they were suddenly right in front of her.
Normally, moving furniture would make a lot of noise. Zhu Ning, a survivor from an apocalyptic world, didn't hear a single sound?
Impossible.
Mental pollution. This was definitely mental pollution. The type that causes you to mentally collapse by repeating abnormal events.
But Zhu Ning's mentality remained intact. Was she simply too resilient? Or was this contaminated area trying to boil her like a frog in boiling water?
By the time you realize it, you would've gone completely mad.
Do normal things in an abnormal place.
What should do people do the next day after waking up from sleep?
It was to wash up.
So Zhu Ning got out of bed and went to the bathroom to wash up.
But Zhu Ning had no desire to go to the bathroom to shower, and she also couldn't take off her helmet to brush her teeth, so she pretended to wash her hands and her... helmet. After all, her work clothes were waterproof.
If there were people at home at this time, they would definitely think of Zhu Ning as a lunatic.
Zhu Ning splashed water on the helmet with her hands very freely, wiping it carefully with a towel after finishing.
The house was not normal, and Zhu Ning was not normal either.
Get up, wash up, and eat breakfast.
Yes, she has to go to the kitchen next.
Zhu Ning paused when she opened the bedroom door.
A whole row of furniture was lined up at the bedroom door , including refrigerators, washing machines, TV cabinets, and sofas. All of them had changed their positions and were now lined up in an orderly manner at the door of Zhu Ning's bedroom.
It kind of looked like... they were eavesdropping on her door all night...
So gossipy?
She could even imagine that while she was sleeping, the furniture was moving slowly, watching Zhu Ning inside with bated breath.
Were they... observing her?
After the furniture in the house moved, the whole warm home looked very strange, as if the furniture were the owners of the house and were walking around freely.
Zhu Ning asked, "Is anyone there?"
It was quiet, very quiet all around. It was still that eerie, extreme silence.
No one answered her at all.
In this contaminated area, no one made any sound except Zhu Ning. She felt like she had stepped into the void.
'I kind of regret coming in alone... If I had brought someone with me, then maybe I could've talk with them.'
She discovered that the greatest fear in life was boredom.
The sun outside was as bright as an incandescent lamp. The light was fake, and it doesn't have the warmth of sunlight when it touched her suit.
Zhu Ning sat on the sofa, which was placed at the door of her room, next to a double-door refrigerator. She had never sat on a sofa from this perspective before, so she looked at the refrigerator with her chin lowered, observing it carefully for a while.
Her danger premonition didn't warn her.
But just because it didn't activate, doesn't mean that there was no danger. Her talent for predicting danger can only predict it thirty seconds later.
If a large knife suddenly chops from behind, she will be killed instantly; that is when her danger premonition will trigger. But if something kills her silently and slowly, the danger premonition would be useless.
This kind of horror was completely different from what Zhu Ning had experienced before.
No monsters, no contaminants, no blood or broken limbs, just a strange house.
' Idon't even know where to start.'
She decided to turn on the TV, and it actually worked. Television was generally a medium for receiving information, so maybe she could find a clue there.
Zhu Ning moved the sofa to the opposite side of the TV and started watching TV with a serious attitude. An advertisement was playing on the TV.
[Have you been suffering from insomnia recently? Do you have trouble falling asleep? Use the Wanning cervical pillow and have a peaceful and sweet dream!]
'Hmm, pillows? Don't need it.'
The next ad: [Tossing and turning and still unable to sleep? Feeling tired after waking up? Super Moon sleeping pills are here to help.]
'Are sleeping pills even allowed to be advertised on TV?'
Next: [White tea fragrance, gives you a gentle dream...]
Next...
Zhu Ning felt that the sound of the advertisement was getting weaker and weaker, and the picture in front of her was getting more and more blurred. Zhu Ning nodded.
Zhu Ning suddenly raised her head.
What was she doing just now? Did she fall asleep?
The TV was still playing commercials in a loop.
Zhu Ning looked up and saw that it was already dark outside. She glanced at the time and saw that it was 9:36 pm.
She slept for a whole day?
Impossible. She couldn't have not known after sleeping for so long.
There was no light on in the house, only the faint light from the street lamp outside shone in. It was like waking up and being abandoned by the whole world.
The furniture in the room had changed again. With the exception of the sofa where Zhu Ning sat, all the other furniture faced the wall, their backs to Zhu Ning. It was as if rows of furniture were standing facing the wall as punishment.
There it was again.
That feeling of terror.
It makes you lose control of your body, not knowing whether you are asleep or not, and not knowing how time passes. It breaks all your senses and makes you completely confused.
What’s even more terrifying was that Zhu Ning’s system panel never reminded her that her mental value was decreasing.
The system couldn't have been broken, and all other props in the panel can be used. So this was not mental pollution in the traditional sense, but it can still make you gradually lose your instincts.
It was more terrifying than mental pollution.
After sleeping twice in this room, Zhu Ning discovered that she had lost her sense of time and reference points. Nothing was trustworthy; the time indicated by the clock was not necessarily the real time.
Just because you fell asleep doesn’t necessarily mean you were asleep.
She wasn't even sure if there was a source of pollution in the area. Was it really a contaminated area? But when she first entered, her helmet clearly warned her that this was a Class C contaminated area.
The task given by the system was to find Huang Ya Ruo. The house was not big; there was no place to hide people.
If she was still in the house, where could she be hiding?
Huang Ya Ruo and Ding Chaojie both heard a noise in the middle of the night. They said someone was making strange noises, like they were boxing.
There was no sandbag in this house at all, and Huang Ya Ruo doesn't look like a fitness fanatic, so where does the boxing sound come from?
Boom!
The entire floor shook.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Ah, there it was. That should be the sound.
The noise described by Ding Chaojie really sounded like someone boxing, punching a dull sandbag.
In a residential building with poor sound insulation, if a neighbor works out with sandbags in the middle of the night, the entire floor of the room may even shake.
It was now 10:01 pm.
The sound of fists pounding echoed through the house, a noise that would become irritating if heard for too long. Ding Chaojie had been tortured for months and was nearly driven mad.
But where did the sound come from?
Neighbor?
Zhu Ning carefully searched for the source of the sound. She leaned against the living room wall and listened for a while, checking every wall and even the floor.
The source of the sound cannot be found.
Zhu Ning's hearing was quite good, but she couldn't find the source of the sound. It seemed to come from all directions, emanating from every pore in the cracks of the wall.
It's like there was a little boxing man living in the wall.
Zhu Ning stopped.
She was wearing a helmet, standing in a room with very strange furniture, listening very carefully to the noise of boxing.
She was thinking.
This was an independent space. Zhu Ning cannot accurately feel the passage of time and space.
There was a sound coming from somewhere else.
The system asked her to find the missing Huang Ya Ruo to prove that a living person was still hiding here.
The furniture like to face the wall with its back to people.
Question: Where can Huang Ya Ruo be?
Zhu Ning moved suddenly. As if possessed by a ghost, she turned around and faced the wall.
Then start moving backwards.
She walked very slowly, step by step, slowly walking backwards. If there was a surveillance camera watching her, it would look like she was sleepwalking.
The first step...
The second step...
The third step...
Huang Ya Ruo's house was not big, and the living room ended after ten steps.
Zhu Ning's back hit the wall; she had reached her limit. She could feel a solid wall blocking her way, and one of her feet had already hit the base of the wall, leaving her with nowhere to retreat.
Zhu Ning raised her foot and took another step back.
If there was a real wall behind her, she would have hit it with her foot. However, the step she took backwards caused her to fall.
Her feet dug into the ground.
Theoretically, there was no space behind her, but she stepped into a solid ground.
Sure enough, the time and space in this place were very strange. The space of the house can even be extended.
Every time Huang Ya Ruo woke up, she saw that all the furniture was facing the wall with its back to her. That was because the furniture was looking at the real house.
The furniture wanted to get in.
Maybe Huang Yaruo was inside too.
Zhu Ning had guessed correctly that the time and space here were different, but she didn't dare to look back at all.
One of her feet had stepped into another dimension, and half of her body was still inside the room.
Zhu Ning stood motionless, as if stuck between the walls.
She heard a woman crying.
Ding Chaojie said that in the middle of the night, there would be people fighting and sometimes women crying. He was not lying; Zhu Ning really heard it.
The ground beneath Zhu Ning's feet felt soft, as if... she was stepping on a corpse.
The translator has something to say:
The furniture: hey another victim!
The green ivy: her head is so weird
The sofa: she sat on me!!! she actually sat on me!! I can't move!
The fridge: why does she keep on staring at me??
The TV: I don't have commercials to play anymore! Stop skipping!!
Comments