chapter 2

I opened the door to that house.

Once the lights were switched on, what greeted my eyes was a lavishly decorated interior.

Over a hundred square meters of space-even I felt a bit envious.

The layout of the house was excellent: square-shaped, quiet both day and night, with almost no noise to be heard.

The only drawback was the poor lighting, which was also the reason why the price of this building was cheaper than the others nearby.

I changed into disposable slippers and started by installing cameras, placing one in each room.

After adjusting the cameras, every room’s footage was displayed on my laptop.

With the preparations done, I had nothing else to do.

Feeling a bit bored, I searched online for “why does it always feel like there are eyes watching me at home.”

To my surprise, I actually found some results.

Some people said that the feeling of being watched isn’t just a human illusion, but that there really is something watching you. However, this thing exists on a different dimension from humans, so we can’t see it, but it can see us.

People with a strong sixth sense can feel themselves being watched.

And the “thing” referred to here is a ghost.

I saw people online talking about this in great detail, even claiming that if you truly feel that sense of being watched, someone must have died in the house-and not just died, but died violently.

Therefore, after the Zi Hour, you mustn’t go out or open the door, or something bad will happen.

After reading these interpretations, I just laughed them off.

If I’d seen this as a child, I might have believed it, and even exaggerated the story to tell Meng Yifan.

But now I’m an adult-how could I believe such nonsense?

After closing the webpage, I played a few rounds of games. I played until about eleven o’clock, then got ready to sleep in the master bedroom.

I’m a good sleeper and not picky about beds; I fell asleep within minutes of lying down.

I don’t know how long I slept, but in a daze, I heard a knocking at the door.

For someone like me who sleeps deeply, I never want to respond to any noise once I’m asleep. When I was a kid, my dad would come home from his night shift and forget his keys, knocking at the door all night and I still wouldn’t open it. The next morning, when I finally let him in, he gave me a good beating before sending me off to school.

But tonight, the knocking was ridiculously loud, and it kept going, as if the person wouldn’t stop until I opened the door.

Eventually, I dragged myself out of bed, annoyed, and went to open the door.

“Who is it? It’s late-did you forget your key?”

I called out instinctively.

But as soon as I spoke, I froze.

I suddenly remembered this wasn’t my rental apartment-it was someone else’s house. And my rental was a one-bedroom, just me living there.

Who could be knocking at the door this late?

When no one answered, I quickly peered through the peephole.

Outside stood a young woman, dressed all in black, wearing red high heels, and she was very pretty.

I was about to open the door and ask who she was looking for, but for some reason, I suddenly recalled what I’d read online: after the Zi Hour, you mustn’t open the door…

Zi Hour is from eleven at night to one in the morning. I remembered I’d gone to the master bedroom at eleven, which meant it was already after the Zi Hour.

My right hand was already on the doorknob, but suddenly I didn’t dare open the door so easily…

It wasn’t that I believed those things, but as a guy living away from home, I had to be careful.

I quickly called out again, “Who are you? Who are you looking for?”

This time, the young woman outside replied, “I’m looking for Li Xiumei. Is Li Xiumei home?”
Her voice was icy cold, without the slightest hint of apology for disturbing my sleep.

I thought to myself, who is this Li Xiumei?

The current owner of the house doesn’t have the surname Li, nor does his wife. I even remember the surnames of the couple who sold the place, and neither of them is Li.

If Li Xiumei was a relative or friend of the current owner, I wouldn’t call them in the middle of the night to ask.

Since I was eager to get back to sleep, I replied, “You’ve got the wrong place. There’s no Li Xiumei here.”

Suddenly, it went quiet outside again.

I quickly leaned over to the peephole and took another look. The girl was still there, hadn’t moved an inch, and kept staring at the door.

I admit I was frightened by her behavior. I felt like something was wrong with her. I’d already told her she had the wrong place, so why wasn’t she leaving?

I went back to the master bedroom, grabbed my phone and cigarettes, and sat in the bathroom for over ten minutes.

After I finished, I checked the peephole again and saw that she was gone.

“Where does a lunatic come from in the middle of the night…”

I breathed a sigh of relief, returned to the master bedroom, and got ready to go back to sleep.

Even though I was wide awake, I still fell asleep soon after lying down.

I slept soundly for the rest of the night; no one woke me up again.

This time, I slept for a long while, and it was the urge to pee that finally woke me. But I still didn’t want to get up. Half-awake, half-asleep, I heard another sound.

It wasn’t knocking-it sounded like the TV was on.

But there’s no TV in the master bedroom, only in the living room. How could I hear the TV?

And the bed in the master bedroom is really hard, but now I realized I was lying somewhere soft, like the living room sofa.

I jolted upright, instantly alert.

I realized I wasn’t lying in the master bedroom at all, but on the living room sofa, and the TV was on.

My eyes widened, and confusion and fear hit me at the same time. I clearly remembered falling asleep in the master bedroom, and I hadn’t turned on the TV at all. Who turned it on?

How did I end up sleeping in the living room?

By the light from the TV, I noticed several patches of wet cement on the floor. They looked like they’d been stepped on, but the footprints were odd-one spot at the back, a pointed tip at the front, just like high heels would make.

I followed the trail of footprints and saw they led all the way to the master bedroom door.

The master bedroom door was wide open, and the footprints disappeared at the threshold.

Looking at row after row of footprints, my scalp tingled. Without thinking, I grabbed my phone, didn’t even bother with my shoes, flung open the door, and dashed out, running wildly downstairs.

I kept running until I reached Unit 3, then out of the complex, finally collapsing on the ground, gasping for breath.

What the hell were those footprints?

I was sleeping soundly in the master bedroom-who moved me to the living room?

Suddenly, I remembered the girl who knocked on my door last night. She seemed to be wearing high heels-a pair of red high heels!

Could it be… she snuck in while I was asleep, turned on the TV?

Was she the one who made those cement footprints?

But even if she did all that, how did she move me to the living room?

This string of bizarre events left me feeling terrified.

Whether it was supernatural or human, I didn’t dare go back to that apartment alone.

I quickly grabbed my phone and called Meng Yifan for help.