Chapter 196
Chapter 196
After Liu Jing met Wang Guofu, the contents of the diary suddenly took a bizarre, almost surreal turn.
The last few pages had probably been written shortly before her death, and we couldn’t make sense of a single sentence.
By that point, the entries had become completely disjointed. There was no common sense or logic to them at all. They read like something written by a mentally ill person.
“How did the later entries turn into this…?” Anning looked utterly baffled.
I said, “It was the influence of Feng Shui. Feng Shui’s influence is limited, but those three Yin Gathering Talisman intensified it. That caused Liu Jing to lose her mind and eventually commit suicide.”
“Liu Jing loved her child very much. Her husband didn’t care about her, so she could only pour all her love into the child. Even if she had thoughts of ending her own life, she wouldn’t have taken the child with her. She must have been misled into killing the child only after she had a mental breakdown and was no longer in her right mind.”
“That Wang Guofu really has no conscience.”
But whether Wang Guofu had anything to do with Lv Zhengxian was something we still had to investigate.
Only, we were trapped here right now. Getting out was the most important thing at hand.
I had already burned those three Yin Gathering Talisman with a lighter, but outside the window, it was still night.
The yin energy here was so heavy, and the windows had been sealed shut. We couldn’t even open them, so there was no way for the yin energy to disperse. Even if it could, it would take at least a week. After a week, Anning and I would probably be corpses.
At that moment, we left the Master Bedroom and returned to the living room.
Anning suddenly grabbed me and told me to look at the ceiling.
I looked up and saw that the ceiling had somehow become covered in cobwebs. And it wasn’t just the ceiling. Cobwebs had formed in many places throughout the room.
When I looked down at the floor, I realized that a layer of dust had appeared there at some point.
The entire living room looked as if it had been vacant for two or three years, with no one living in it.
A faint moldy smell in the air stung our noses.
“The illusion is changing along with Liu Jing’s state of mind.”
I said to Anning, “Before we came here, Liu Jing had always believed her husband would come back. Now she knows he won’t. So this family has already fallen apart. With no one at home, over time, dust piles up and cobwebs spread everywhere.”
Anning seemed unable to understand. “Was she really that dependent on a man? I haven’t relied on a man all these years, and I still got through it.”
I said, “Some people have suffered too much. If someone comes along and loves them at a time like that, they’ll place all their feelings on that person wholeheartedly. Even if that person treats them badly later on, they’ll still keep being good to him. That was Liu Jing’s whole life.”
“You’re not like that because no one has ever walked into your heart.”
As soon as I finished speaking, I suddenly felt like that last sentence had been unnecessary.
Anning glanced at me.
I quickly changed the subject. “Let’s just wait for someone to come rescue us. The limit for a person without food or water is three to seven days. I refuse to believe that if we don’t go back for a day or two, no one will come looking for us.”
At the very least, Meng Yifan and Song Xiaotian would definitely come looking for us.
Maybe if we didn’t go back tonight, they would come to find us.
But it seemed I had overestimated things.
After waiting, Anning and I were still trapped inside this house for several more hours at least.
After all that struggling, both Anning and I were exhausted.
We took turns sleeping to guard against Liu Jing launching a sneak attack.
Just like that, several more hours passed.
Outside, the sky was still dark. The time on our phones remained frozen, so we had no sense of time. All we knew was that it was now the second day.
I had been completely out of contact for an entire night, yet those two jerks, Meng Yifan and Song Xiaotian, still hadn’t come looking for me.
But I stayed optimistic. If I was still missing today, they would definitely come.
Only, once again, I was overthinking it.
I had no idea how much time had passed. All I knew was that it had been a very, very long time-at least forty-eight hours.
By then, both Anning and I were already dehydrated.
A person could go seven days without food, but water was essential. I was even starting to feel dizzy.
“Chen Mo, I’m so hungry… so thirsty…”
Anning was curled up on the bed, so weak she could barely speak.
“Why hasn’t anyone come to save us…”
“It wasn’t easy for me to find a proper job…”
“First day at work… and I die in the line of duty…”
Listening to her mutter beside me, I slowly opened my eyes and said, “Stop talking… conserve your strength… I suspect something happened to those two as well…”
By now, everything I looked at had started to blur and double.
I noticed the cobwebs in the room had grown thicker and thicker, and even the walls were starting to show patches of mold.
This didn’t look like a place that had been vacant for years. It looked like it hadn’t been lived in for decades.
Just then, the bedroom light suddenly went out. The living room light went out with it, plunging the entire apartment into darkness.
Inwardly, I cursed Liu Jing. She was torturing us. She wanted to break us mentally.
I struggled down from the bed. Anning and I supported each other, held up our phones, and made our way from the bedroom to the living room.
We shone our phone lights around the living room, and when we saw what was there, both our scalps went numb.
If the bedroom looked like it hadn’t been occupied in decades, then the living room looked like it hadn’t seen anyone in over a century. The walls were covered in moss and vines. The whole apartment looked like a haunted house.
No-this was a haunted house.
“Liu Jing is completely in despair. This is a manifestation of her inner world. She hasn’t attacked us again, so I’m guessing she wants us to stay here and keep her company.”
I sighed, then hurried back into the bedroom with Anning and shut the door.
Time continued to pass. I had completely lost all sense of it. I had no idea how many days we had been trapped inside.
In the end, Anning and I were both lying on the bed, without even the strength to move.
Later, Anning lost consciousness completely. No matter how I called her, she wouldn’t wake up.
I also gradually became delirious. Most of the time, I was drifting in and out of unconsciousness.
In my haze, I had a dream. I dreamed that someone had come to save us.
The man was tall, with a gaunt face. It was none other than Seventh Master.
He grabbed one of us in each arm and hoisted Anning and me straight off the bed.
I thought to myself that this dream felt pretty real. Seventh Master was pressing right into my lungs. It hurt like hell.
The pain snapped me awake for an instant, and I realized this wasn’t a dream-because my lungs really did hurt.
Seventh Master had actually come to save us!
At that moment, he was carrying us into the living room. The living room still looked the same, desolate beyond belief.
I saw Liu Jing appear. She still looked the way she had when she died by hanging: a blue-green face, a long tongue, and bulging eyes, staring at Seventh Master with venomous resentment.
It seemed she wanted to keep Seventh Master here too.
“Get lost!”
Seventh Master let out a thunderous shout and stomped hard on the floor.
Liu Jing was like a startled rabbit. In an instant, she turned into a shadow cast against the wall, then vanished without a trace.
Seventh Master carried Anning and me out the door, kicked it shut behind him, and ran downstairs with both of us over his shoulders.