So close.
Just a little closer… and Ning Qiushui would’ve died at the hands of that terrifying woman!
If Liu Chengfeng hadn’t rushed out with the blood jade at the critical moment, risking his life to help, Ning Qiushui would have been done for.
“Thanks…”
Ning Qiushui sat cross-legged on the floor, one hand propped on his knee, gasping for breath.
That was way too close just now.
Liu Chengfeng, still shaking, slapped his trembling legs while shaking his head.
“I should be the one thanking you, man…”
“If you hadn’t brought me up here, I probably would’ve been eaten by that terrifying woman eventually, too!”
Then he laughed.
That uncontrollable joy of having survived certain death burst out of him.
He looked like someone who’d just lost his mind, laughing wildly on the floor like a madman.
It was a long time before he calmed down.
“Hey, what about the others?”
Liu Chengfeng helped adjust the old woman’s position, checking that she was okay, then looked at Ning Qiushui.
Ning Qiushui’s gaze flickered slightly.
“We absolutely can’t go out right now…”
“It’s way too dangerous out there. We’ll see tomorrow if we can contact them from the third floor. If not, then… we’ve done all we can.”
Ning Qiushui seemed quite indifferent to the idea of strangers dying.
Of course, he didn’t mind helping others—especially since those people hadn’t done anything to harm him.
But only under one condition: that he wouldn’t be putting himself at risk.
Back when he asked if anyone wanted to come explore the truth with him, not a single person had stepped up.
He took all the risks, and others expected to enjoy the rewards?
Yeah—no one would be happy with that.
He wasn’t some saintly monk trying to save the world.
“…Hey, one more thing,” Liu Chengfeng said after finally regaining his composure, as if something had suddenly occurred to him.
“I’ve got a question.”
“Go ahead,” said Ning Qiushui.
“How… did you know the killing rules of that thing in the villa?”
Hearing that, Ning Qiushui fell silent for a long while in the darkness.
“…Because, before I got on the bus, I received an anonymous letter.”
“A letter?”
“Yeah. It had a photo in it… and a few lines of writing.”
Then, Ning Qiushui slowly recited the lines:
“Do not light lamps when the wind blows.
Do not burn candles in the rain.”
“Do not go upstairs during the day.
Do not close your eyes at night.”
Hearing those four lines, Liu Chengfeng’s eyes widened in disbelief, his face filled with shock:
“Holy crap… it matches!”
“Bro, this is insane—someone powerful is backing you up!”
“W-Where’s that photo?”
Ning Qiushui shot him a glance, his gaze flickering slightly.
“You want to see it?”
Liu Chengfeng froze for a moment.
“What? Is it… inconvenient or something?”
“If it’s a problem, then—”
Before he could finish, Ning Qiushui reached into his checkered shirt and pulled out a slightly yellowed photograph, holding it up right in front of him.
Liu Chengfeng’s pupils suddenly contracted!
“No way…”
Bathed in the pale moonlight, he saw the photo clearly—it was of a person.
And not just any person… it was him.
It was a photo of Liu Chengfeng himself!
The two of them stared at each other, only separated by the thin photo, silent for a long time.
What Liu Chengfeng didn’t see, however, was the back of the photo.
Yes—on the back of that worn old photo, there was a single line of black handwriting:
“A friend worth keeping… but a hundred thousand questions.”
Liu Chengfeng reached out, trying to take the photo for a closer look, but Ning Qiushui pulled it back and smiled at him:
“Surprising, right?”
“I was shocked too.”
“At first, I thought it was just some prank… or maybe someone sent it to the wrong address.”
“But when I woke up on that driverless bus, and saw you… I realized things weren’t as simple as I thought.”
“That driverless bus, that mysterious fog, that creepy blood-red door… and us, the people on the bus.”
“All of it—every bit of it—there’s got to be an invisible hand behind the scenes, controlling it all.”
Liu Chengfeng gave a bitter laugh.
“Bro… with all due respect, I don’t think anyone in the real world has the power to pull all this off.”
“You’ve seen what’s out there.”
“That stuff… it’s beyond what humans can do.”
Ning Qiushui fell silent.
He didn’t argue the point any further.
But that mysterious letter…
So far, everything it mentioned had come true.
The eerie blood-red door, the strange rules of killing… and even the friend he never knew, who would risk his life to save him.
This was a terrifying realization.
It felt like… someone had been watching him all along, from some unseen corner.
The night passed without further incident.
Neither of them had gotten much sleep the night before, and after enduring such intense stress, once things finally calmed down, exhaustion crashed over them like a wave.
It wasn’t until early the next morning that a shrill scream from the second floor shattered the silence of the villa.
Clearly, someone had died. Again.
And what made it even more horrifying for the survivors on the second floor wasn’t just the fact that yet another person had died in their sleep—but that three people had gone missing!
Among them was Ning Qiushui, the one everyone saw as their backbone and leader, and more importantly, a key role in the mission!
After all, the blood-red door had given them a task: Take care of the elderly woman in bed for five days.
Now that the old woman was gone, how the hell were they supposed to take care of anything?
Ning Qiushui and Liu Chengfeng listened to the voices from downstairs and quickly figured out who had died—it was the man named Beidao.
He had been eaten.
“Sob… sob…”
“Th-they’re all gone…”
“Do you think… they’ve already been…”
“Waaah… I don’t want to die here…”
Yan Youping’s sobbing echoed up from the floor below.
Liu Chengfeng shouted toward the window, trying to get a message down to them, but it seemed their voices were somehow trapped on the third floor. No matter how hoarse Liu Chengfeng’s voice got from shouting, no one came to help… or even seemed to hear.
“Enough. Stop howling.”
Ning Qiushui shook his head slightly, watching Liu Chengfeng stubbornly keep trying.
Liu Chengfeng couldn’t help feeling a little uncomfortable at Ning Qiushui’s cold demeanor.
“Bro, you’re a doctor, right? There are still living people down there. If we just give up on them like this, isn’t that a little too…”
Ning Qiushui closed his eyes and said calmly:
“I may be a vet—but even in medicine, there are three types you don’t save.”
Liu Chengfeng blinked, stunned.
“Three types? What three types don’t you save?”
Rate and review this novel on NU to help people find this novel. Bonus chapters on reaching milestones. Happy reading!