Chapter 350: Please Don’t Knock on a Stranger’s Door
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound of dripping water was conspicuously loud in the empty washroom that Lin Sanjiu was in. The fluorescent light above her flickered now and then, thrusting the washroom into a limbo between light and dark. It was almost as if the whole washroom would turn dark suddenly.
Letting out an exhausted sigh, Lin Sanjiu turned open the tap covered in water spots. Right now, she really needed to refreshen herself by splashing some cold water on her face. However, after the tap squeaked twice, no water came out.
Lin Sanjiu looked up and scrutinized her own reflection. Under the flickering light, she could see her pale and pallid face. Her wings loomed behind her, partly hidden in the shadows.
"What will you do next?" Mrs. Manas quipped suddenly. She had not made an appearance for quite a while. Lin Sanjiu did not reply because she didn't know what to do.
—
A few minutes ago, she had searched the entire apartment building. She started from the first floor and examined every corner. She covered every single floor from the first to the seventh floor, which was also the top floor. The stairway stopped there, leaving her with an old rundown ceiling which blocked her from moving forward in an almost mocking manner.
It was as if the entire building was carved out from a single concrete slab. There wasn't even a single opening to the outside world, let alone an exit. Even though Lin Sanjiu could guess that using violence wasn't going to work, she tried hitting the wall at the end of one of the corridors anyway. Broken concrete pieces fell off the wall once her fist connected as the wall wasn't that strong. However, no matter how many times she hit the wall and how much concrete debris fell, there was still a thick wall behind that dent she had created. It was as if the wall stretched out infinitely. When she walked downstairs to check the dent after a few minutes had passed, she realized that the dent had disappeared. The two-toned, white-green wall had returned to its original state.
"Where is Puppeteer now?" Lin Sanjiu couldn't help mulling over this matter every minute she was trapped in this building.
"We have already been trapped here for three years." Lin Sanjiu remembered those words as if the girl from the apartment unit was speaking just at her ear. She could even visualize the girl's smile in her head. "At the beginning, I tried to look for the exit. But, I have already gotten past that. Life is life no matter where we are, right? I won't have to change worlds every few months, I am not in any danger, and I have everything I want here… My advice to you is just to change your perspective on things. Why don't you have another glass of whiskey?"
"Three years..."
After Lin Sanjiu heard what the girl said, she rushed out of the room. She scoured through the building once more. She was reluctant to accept the girl's words. Yet, she found nothing.
Sighing, she suppressed her anxiety and walked out of the washroom.
Even though she was in an apartment building, there was a public washroom on the seventh floor. It lacked maintenance, and the floor was wet. Nevertheless, it was usable.
The wooden stairs creaked noisily as Lin Sanjiu ran back to the third floor. The corridor on the third floor was exactly the same as before. The only difference was that there wasn't any noise. It had somehow stopped.
Lin Sanjiu strode toward the previous apartment unit she had been in, unit 320. In any case, those people had arrived in this pocket dimension before her so they might have other useful information...
She stopped in front of unit 320. She raised her fist and knocked a few times on the door. Dust fell from the gold door unit number. When she pulled her hand back from the red door, she could see the knuckle print she left behind.
After knocking a few times, the apartment unit remained silent.
"Is there anyone around?" she shouted with an unsettling feeling in her gut. "I came here before. Open the door!"
Her voice reverberated through the corridor but no one answered the door. She placed her ears to the door and listened, but there was only silence. Just when she was about to knock on the door again, Lin Sanjiu heard a sudden whisper amidst the dead silence.
"Stop knocking."
Lin Sanjiu felt all the hairs on her body standing. She extended her wings and quickly backed away from the door. The owner of the voice did not approach her. He simply looked at her quietly from where he was standing with light reflecting off the surface of his spectacles.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"When did he appear? Why couldn't I detect him?"
Seeing Lin Sanjiu's hostility, the scrawny young man adjusted his spectacles and pointed at the door of unit 320 with his veiny hand. He did not answer her question but instead warned her once more, "Don't try to get those people to open the door again. Trust me. You won't want to see the occupants opening the door for you a second time."
"What do you mean? Who are you?"
The scrawny man spoke very softly with his deep voice. It was as if he was afraid that his voice would alert someone.
"Did you arrive here today?" he asked before turning around. After he took a few steps, he realized that Lin Sanjiu was not following him so he couldn't help raising his brow. "I came here last month. I've already been trapped here for almost 20 days. My name is Geran."
"He must be another Growth-type who had entered this amusement park." Lin Sanjiu wasn't sure if he belonged to Progressor Alliance, so she just nodded cautiously, "My surname is Lin. Why did you stop me from knocking that door? What do you know about this attraction?"
The scrawny man tilted his head as if he had gotten some information from what she said. But, he answered her quickly with a quiet voice, "I saw and heard you the last time you knocked on that door."
Geran seemed to be a rather stoic person. He spoke with a cautious and collected tone. He pointed at the stairs, explaining, "I was standing at the stairs. No, I know you might not believe me. In this building, no matter what sort of detection techniques you use, it will always be inaccurate… Just like before, you didn't notice me approaching, right?"
Lin Sanjiu was speechless. Just like what Geran said, she did not sense anyone with her hypersensory state. If she weren't in this place, she wouldn't even imagine what it would be like.
Seeing that Geran wasn't hostile to her and had exposed his back to her once again, Lin Sanjiu followed him keeping a distance between them.
"I told you not to knock on the door because…" For a moment, Geran couldn't find the right word. After some consideration, he continued, "It is because both of us don't know what is behind that door."
"Over the past 20 days, I have observed other posthumans who knocked on the doors. I don't know what they saw, and I don't know if they met the same group of people you met. But, they acted the same way. After searching through the entire building, they usually went back the apartment unit doors a second or third time.
"I understand their mentality. No one would give up on any possible clues that will lead them to the exit… I was lucky. If I didn't realize that something was amiss, I would follow suit and start knocking on the doors to ask questions." As Geran spoke, they reached the stairway. With his hand on the railing, he turned his head and added, "I discovered that any posthuman who saw the occupant opening the door for the second time would…"
Before he could finish his sentence, his eyes, behind the sheen of his spectacles, widened. When Geran caught sight of what was behind Lin Sanjiu, his face turned sheet white. Before Lin Sanjiu could make a sound, he turned around and rushed down the stairs without saying a word.
Lin Sanjiu felt the back of her head go numb. Before she could follow behind him, she heard a creak from a door behind her. It seemed to be from unit 320. In the end, she did manage to make one of the occupants from unit 320 open their door.
A drop of cold sweat rolled down Lin Sanjiu's back and onto her spinal dimple.
"You're back. I fell asleep just now so I didn't hear the door," the girl's voice rang out behind Lin Sanjiu. She sounded the same. She spoke with a tipsy, intoxicated and indolent tone of voice. "Am I right? You didn't find the exit, did you?"
Lin Sanjiu quashed her urge to turn around. With her gaze fixed straight ahead, she took one stiff step forward. Geran had escaped without explaining things properly but Lin Sanjiu could infer what he meant from his unfinished sentence. "Any posthuman who saw the occupant opening the door for the second time would…"
Lin Sanjiu didn't know what would happen to them but she knew that it wasn't anything good. In other words, she must not turn her head back no matter what happens. Lin Sanjiu had the impression that the girl with her converse shoes was approaching her. Lin Sanjiu wasn't certain. Between the rugs on the floor and the entire building, Lin Sanjiu felt that she could not trust her senses anymore. She opened her wings backward stirring up a gust of wind. Then, she sprinted toward the stairway. She made a sharp turn and raced down the stairs.
The second she twisted her body to make that sharp turn, she noticed a black round shoulder from the corner of her eye. Somehow it had already reached the back of her hand. It seemed like a face. "Why don't you come to me, come here…" the round face in the shadows taunted.
Lin Sanjiu blocked her left eyes with her hand. She did not dare to even look at the corridor again. She scrambled down the stairs all the way to the first floor. Seeing that she didn't have another way out, she shot a glance upstairs as her body tensed up like a threatened prey.
"Regardless what that girl was, she's not behind me now."
Lin Sanjiu waited with bated breath for a few seconds. The stairway was silent and there was no sign of anyone coming down.
"As long as I avoid seeing that 'person' who opens the door the second time, I'm safe?" Lin Sanjiu thought to herself shuddering at that thought while her heart pounded. She waited a while more until she was sure that things have calmed down before she let out a sigh of relief.
Incidentally, she found herself standing at the spot where she arrived. She looked around and felt a moment of doubt.
"Where is Geran?"
"There is only a single stairway in the building and there is no exit. If Geran ran down from the third floor, shouldn't he be here? Did he stop on the second floor?" Lin Sanjiu did not dare to make a single sound. She stepped on the rugs in front of the doors and slowly walked through the corridor on the first floor once more. However, it was just a straight corridor with no hiding spot. How was she going to find a fully grown man who had disappeared without a trace?
"Geran? Where are you?" It wasn't easy for Lin Sanjiu to meet a slightly more normal person. Even though he wasn't the most loyal person around, Lin Sanjiu wanted to see him again. Since Geran had been in this apartment building for more than 20 days, he definitely knew a lot more...
The only difference between the first floor and the other floors was that there was a dome-shaped alcove where the entrance was supposed to be. Lin Sanjiu loitered at the alcove for some time and just when she decided to go upstairs to look again, she heard a familiar creak sound.
That was the sound of a dark red wooden door opening and it sounded just beside her. The door to unit 101 opened before Lin Sanjiu's bewildered eyes. She saw the sheen from a pair of spectacles and the scrawny man who had introduced himself before peeked out.
Geran recognized Lin Sanjiu the moment he opened the door but he did not move. Instead, he peered cautiously at the corridor. After he confirmed that nobody had chased them down the stairway, he turned to Lin Sanjiu whispering, "You're pretty quick-witted! You didn't look behind you?"
Lin Sanjiu had her skeletal wings pressing against a wall. She did not move.
"My conjecture was right. The 'occupants' on each floor can only move within their own floors…" Geran adjusted his spectacles. "Are you alright?"
Lin Sanjiu gulped. She didn't forget what she did just now…
The door of unit 101 opened only after she called out Geran's name a few times. In a sense, this could be considered the first time the door of unit 101 had been opened—
"Why… why are you in that apartment unit?" Lin Sanjiu asked dryly, feeling slightly afraid of the answer that she might get.
"Didn't that girl say that there was everything she wanted in her apartment unit? " Lin Sanjiu thought to herself.
Geran crooked his head and instantly understood her expression. "Ah," he exclaimed knowingly. "This room? 101 is the only apartment unit in the building that protects the players… It is our 'living space'. There isn't anything here. There are some sofas here and some drinks. The drinks get replenished every day."
"How did you find this place?" Lin Sanjiu stared at him unblinkingly. It was as if she was trying to find any warning signs from his face, but the man's skin, hair, eyes, and body looked very normal. He didn't look any different from before.
"That's because… the first door that I knocked was unit 101." Geran scratched his hair feeling a little hard-pressed by Lin Sanjiu's questions. Since nobody answered, I opened the door and walked in. After that, I found out that this was the only room that was truly unoccupied."
He walked out and stood in the corridor. Following Lin Sanjiu's gaze, he pointed at the rows of doors at the two sides of the corridor. There was silence.
"It is quiet so you might think that no one is living in those apartment units… If you knock on those doors, each one of them will eventually open."