Pu Kun didn't get off the bus immediately at the unfinished building after Nan Yue. He was still a bit afraid.
That woman was erratic, and the unfinished building itself felt far too dangerous. He spent a long time mentally preparing himself, yet he still hesitated.
But while he hesitated, the bus would not wait for him. The open doors snapped shut, and the vehicle began to move again.
Only then did Pu Kun react. He initially wanted to ask the driver to stop, but he feared the driver might not be human either, so he forced himself to swallow the words right at the tip of his tongue.
He rode the loop one more time, and it was nearly one o'clock by the time Pu Kun finally got off the bus.
As soon as the bus left, he felt a chilling breeze. The two buildings stood solitary and desolate, their grey walls mottled and peeling.
He decided he would just go in for one quick look to see if there were any clues.
Besides, that woman had said her husband was a construction worker, so there might actually be people here.
Pu Kun silently encouraged himself, though he didn't know if he hoped for someone to appear or for the place to be empty.
When he stepped into the unfinished building, Pu Kun realized it was quite large and mostly completed on the inside.
Judging by the skeleton of the unfinished building, it wasn't hard to see that it was originally intended to be a shopping mall. A pile of plastic mannequins lay scattered on the ground nearby.
"Building a mall in the middle of nowhere, no wonder it failed,"
Pu Kun grumbled in a low voice, wandering aimlessly through the mall for two loops.
He was very tense at first, but when nothing happened, his courage grew. He began searching for clues in the corners.
However, this place truly seemed to be nothing more than a long-abandoned unfinished building.
Pu Kun checked the time. It was nearly three o'clock. He had wasted a whole day and found nothing.
With the fifth day approaching, his lack of progress made him increasingly anxious.
Right at that moment, he seemed to hear a sound.
It sounded like... the sound of someone screaming and running.
There was someone here?!
Pu Kun became alert and slowly walked toward the source of the noise.
When he reached the transparent glass walkway connecting the two buildings, he saw a woman with disheveled hair running and stumbling in the other building.
The woman spotted Pu Kun as well, and in the next second, she ran toward him.
Pu Kun cursed under his breath and took two steps back in defense. Fortunately, the woman didn't throw herself onto him, instead collapsing a short distance away.
Pu Kun approached cautiously, and the woman looked up, crying out for help in a piercing voice.
"Please, help me! He... he's going to kill me!"
Pu Kun froze in place when he saw the woman's face clearly.
This woman was actually his neighbor, the erratic woman from the apartments!
Pu Kun found it hard to believe. It was impossible for her to be here, as he had been the only one on the bus.
Yet the woman before him certainly had that face, though she was much thinner than when Pu Kun had seen her at the apartments.
It looked as if she hadn't eaten properly for a long time. She was nothing but skin and bones, her skeletal frame visible even through her clothes.
Pu Kun also noticed deep scars on her limbs, looking as if they had been bound for years by something that had embedded itself into her skin.
She must have been unable to move freely for a long time, as she found it difficult even to run, stumbling with every step.
What was going on?
The woman acted as if she had never met Pu Kun before, continuing to plead for help.
"Please, save me... He's been keeping me prisoner. I only just managed to escape. There are... there are others."
Pu Kun was startled. Connecting this to the behavior of the woman at the apartments, he seemed to understand what his neighbor had endured.
She was being imprisoned by her husband.
That was why she couldn't leave the apartments every day, why she sought help from Pu Kun whenever she could, and why she begged Pu Kun to let her in late at night when her husband wasn't home.
She knew that once her husband returned, what awaited her was a bleak and endless imprisonment.
But she said there were others...
Pu Kun knew this was his clue.
It appeared his neighbors weren't just this woman, but also her husband who had never appeared.
This husband was clearly far more dangerous than the woman.
"I'll get you out of here first."
Pu Kun didn't hesitate. He helped the woman up, intending to lead her outside.
The woman was far too light, her bones poking painfully against Pu Kun, but his heart was racing with excitement. He knew he had found the solution to the mission.
However, that excitement turned into sheer terror the moment he turned around.
A tall man was standing right behind him. There was no telling how long he had been watching.
An unnatural smile was plastered on the man's face, and in his hand, he carried an axe stained with old, blackened blood.
...
After Nan Yue boarded the bus, she realized there were no other people from the apartments on this trip, but that woman was still there.
She seemed exhausted, still clutching her unfinished handicraft as she leaned her head against the glass and fell asleep.
Nan Yue lightened her footsteps and found a seat near the back. The bus slowly carried her past the unfinished building.
This cluster of unfinished buildings was located in the suburbs with nothing else around. The two five or six-story buildings stood abandoned by the roadside, without even a single streetlamp nearby.
The sky was already half-dark, making the buildings look even more sinister than the apartments.
She wondered if Pu Kun and Lu Li had returned to the apartments yet.
It seemed there was no signal on the bus, so Nan Yue couldn't contact anyone else. By the time the bus brought her back to the stop near the apartments, it was completely dark.
Nan Yue checked the time. It was nearly six o'clock when the bus finally slowed to a stop at the intersection.
There were no lights at the intersection, only a broken traffic light that continued to flash. Nan Yue stepped off the bus, but she wasn't frightened by the oppressive silence. Instead, she remembered the ash she had seen that morning.
During the day, Scavengers came and went here, and no one reported any issues.
Perhaps this ash only appeared at night.
It seemed she would have to find time to come out and check before the curfew.
Before returning to the apartments, Nan Yue went to the supermarket to buy a pack of instant noodles. Worried she had already missed dinner, she was now famished.
But when she returned to the apartments, she discovered they hadn't waited for her to eat at all.
Everyone watched in shock as she strolled through the door, carrying a cup of instant noodles in her hand.
"You... you're okay?"
Lu Li looked at Nan Yue with surprise. She had returned in the afternoon and waited a long time, but neither Pu Kun nor Nan Yue had come back.
Seeing that it was dark, everyone knew that darkness in a mission meant greater danger. They had already lost hope that Nan Yue would return.
"I'm fine. I just stayed in the woods a bit late,"
Nan Yue replied kindly, which reminded her of what she had seen in the woods.
"Where is Luo Feifei?"
Seeing Nan Yue's expression change instantly, the others didn't dare delay.
"I don't know. She hasn't come out. She had that movie date with Zhao Ming today, so we didn't want to disturb them."
Zhang Qingyang spoke vaguely, but everyone understood they simply didn't want to bring trouble upon themselves.
Regardless of whether Luo Feifei was in danger, none of them wanted to provoke a neighbor.
Rate on N.U.
