Chapter 84: News

When we entered the elevator, the old lady took the initiative to greet me.
“What a pretty little girl.”
“Are you carrying bags from grocery shopping?”
“I haven’t seen you before, are you a new tenant?”

I saw her press the button for the tenth floor, so she must be a resident of this building as well.
I nodded and said, “Yes, I’ve just moved to the twelfth floor.”
“Please take care of me in the future.”

“The twelfth floor, ah.”
“I remember a gentleman named Xia rented out that entire floor.”
“He’s in the rental business, just like me,” the old lady said with a smile.

Before she could finish, the elevator arrived at the tenth floor.
Before I could say anything more, she slowly walked out.

From her words, this old lady was also a landlord.
No wonder she was so rich and wore so many artifact accessories.
Wearing so many artifacts really gave one a sense of security.

Back in my own apartment, I first respectfully took out the two paper effigies of Xia Yubing’s parents.
I set up a table in an empty room, placed them on it, lit candles on both sides, and placed a bowl of glutinous rice and a plate of fruit in front of them.

Although I didn’t have an incense holder yet, it at least looked the part.
I then bowed respectfully three times in front of them, making sure I had fulfilled my duties.
‘Please, you two, don’t come and scare me.’

Then I took out the pork, cut off a small half, and released the Golden Bee Gu.
I watched as it burrowed into the pork and began to eat.
Given its size, it should be full after just a small bite.

Next, I went to slice the meat, wash the green onions, and cook the noodles.
Although I wasn’t very good at cooking, my family used to be in such a state, especially with my father who only knew how to drink.
Sometimes I had no choice but to cook for myself.
Simple dishes like making noodles were probably one of the few things I could manage.

While I was cooking the noodles, a loud noise came from outside.
It felt like it was coming from downstairs.
It seemed someone had turned their TV volume up very loud.
Although I didn’t know which floor it was, it was really a bit annoying.

Even though it wasn’t late at night, it was still very inconsiderate.
Who watches TV that loudly?
I wondered if any of the other residents had gone to say something.
Just as I was feeling agitated, my jade pendant emitted a faint spiritual light, calming my heart once more.
The noise didn’t seem so jarring anymore.

After I finished cooking, I carried a bowl of noodles to the laptop.
I ate my noodles while continuing to browse the internet.
I felt that my cooking skills weren’t too bad; the noodles were quite delicious, and the pork was very tender.

This time, I searched for vicious criminal cases and accidents that had occurred around Xunjiang City in recent years, especially those without a clear beginning or end, where neither the cause nor the follow-up results were reported.

The results of a careful search were, to say the least, shocking.
There had been a large number of incidents in just the past few years.
For example, there was a report of a home invasion where the perpetrator killed the entire family.
But a comment below said that the family’s heads were all missing, and when discovered, they were standing stiffly in a row in the living room, which had scared the police officers who entered.

There was also a report of a building fire.
It mentioned neither the cause of the fire nor the subsequent accountability.
And the scorched building was quickly demolished and rebuilt.

Another comment said that the body of a woman who had hanged herself was found at the scene after the fire.
There were no traces of burns on her body at all, and she was naked.
It was said that she was a resident of that building who had been missing for several years.

Another one wasn’t even news, but a post on Weibo.
A person claiming to be a parent said that their child’s entire class had disappeared during a school trip.
In the end, only one little girl returned, but she wouldn’t respond to any questions.

Although the rescue team immediately went to investigate, they claimed that the school bus had fallen into a deep valley, leaving no remains.
The school immediately paid each family six hundred thousand yuan in compensation.
But he couldn’t accept this result because there were no canyons on the travel route at all.

In the comments section, other people claiming to be parents of students from that class supported him, demanding an explanation from the school.
But this was three years ago.
The Weibo account was never updated again.
I didn’t know if he ever got an explanation, or if the school managed to handle the parents, one way or another.

On a forum, I also saw a post saying that there was a very popular amusement park in Xunjiang City ten years ago, but it was shut down abruptly after several accidents.
It was said that there were fatalities.

But the poster said that the amusement park was extremely popular at the time, so much so that the parking lot couldn’t even hold all the visitors’ cars.
It shouldn’t have closed down so suddenly.
Someone replied below, saying they also remembered that amusement park, and that someone had returned to the abandoned site only to find nothing there.
It was as if the amusement park had never existed.

This last incident was one of the few I knew a little about.
I remembered that when I was a child, there really was a very popular amusement park in Xunjiang City.
At that time, my family hadn’t fallen on hard times, and my parents’ relationship hadn’t broken down yet.
My family had even talked about wanting to go to the amusement park.

Later, it seemed I heard on the news that there had been some accidents, and then the amusement park vanished without a trace.
There was no more news about it.
I had never paid much attention to it, but I never expected it to have closed down back then.

All these incidents had some suspicious points and rumors.
They could just be ordinary events, or they could indeed be supernatural incidents.
With the limited information I had, I couldn’t be sure.

Just then, I suddenly heard a sound from the windowsill in my room.
At first, I thought it was the wind blowing against the window.
But immediately following the sound of the window rattling, there were also some scraping noises, as if someone were scraping the glass with claws.

But I live on the twelfth floor!
How could someone be scratching my window in mid-air?
Just as I realized something was wrong, the Golden Bee Gu, which had been eating the pork, flew up and issued a strong warning to me.

At the same time, “Whoosh!” a gust of sinister wind blew up.
The two red candles offered to Xia Yubing’s parents were extinguished by the sound.
But strangely, this wind didn’t seem to blow into the room from outside, but rather seemed to have started from within the room.

I happened to see the exact moment the two candles went out.
They weren’t blown out by wind from one direction, but were blown out diagonally to the left and right, the wind forming a figure-eight shape, as if they had been blown out by the two paper effigies respectively.

I had heard before that among tomb raiders, there was a legend called “Ghost Blows Out the Light.”
It was a simple understanding between humans and ghosts.
When a ghost blows out a candle, it is a warning to the living.
At this point, no matter what stage the tomb raiders were at, they had to return the burial goods exactly as they were and then leave the tomb, or else they would surely face disaster.

Now the candles in front of Xia Yubing’s parents have been blown out.
I was afraid it was those two ghosts warning me.
I was so scared that I immediately stood up, clutched my jade pendant, and looked at the window.

Outside the window, two points of crimson light floated and flickered in mid-air, as if someone were shining a laser pointer at my eyes.
In an instant, I felt as if my very soul was being drawn in by those two red lights, and my entire body was paralyzed.