In that instant, Ning Qiushui felt every cell in his body freeze solid!
Screech—
Screech—
The icy scrape of metal sounded behind him, and his scalp nearly split apart!
That was... the sound of a knife scraping against a fork!
Right behind him!
And it was getting... closer and closer!
At the same moment, the shutter window ahead at the corridor's end blew violently open!
Cold wind, thick with the stench of blood, stabbed again and again at Ning Qiushui's nose and lungs!
Terror... flooded through his whole body!
Was he...
Going to die?
In that instant, a fear beyond words rolled over him like a tide, threatening to drown him where he stood!
He raised his hand—instinct screaming at him to turn on the light!
Light... he needed light!
Only light could drive back this hideous darkness!
But just as his hand was about to slam down on the switch, he wrenched it to a halt!
In his mind, fragments of the mysterious letter he had received surfaced abruptly—
...
【...】
【In wind, light no lamp; in rain, burn no candle】
【By day, climb no stairs; by night, close no eyes】
...
—In wind, light no lamp.
Gritting his teeth against the unspeakable terror in his chest, Ning Qiushui did not turn on the light!
He drew back his hand, and step by step, into the icy wind that reeked of blood, he walked forward down the corridor!
The horrible scrape of metal seemed to hang at his very ear, sawing at his nerves again and again.
As if at any moment, the thing behind him might drive its sharpened knife and fork into his body and carve him to pieces!
Ning Qiushui sucked in a breath, steeled himself, clenched his fists, ignored the horrific scraping at his back, and advanced one step at a time!
He was gambling.
Gambling that he had not triggered a death condition—that the thing behind him... could not touch him!
One step...
Two steps...
In that moment, Ning Qiushui felt his adrenaline surge to its absolute limit.
Every single step was a brutal trial of his nerve!
But he dared not run—and couldn't have run anyway.
The wind blowing against him was too cold; it seemed to pass straight through his skin, into muscle, into marrow... his whole body was going stiff.
Thankfully... Ning Qiushui had gambled right.
The dreadful thing behind him seemed blocked by something, unable to harm him. When at last he made it to his own door and closed his hand around the handle, the shrill scrape of metal behind him abruptly ceased...
The bloody wind in the corridor gradually died down. By the pale moonlight, Ning Qiushui saw that the shutter window at the corridor's end... had at some point sealed itself shut again.
"Just a hallucination, then..."
Ning Qiushui panted, his eyes narrowing.
The bone-deep cold at his back was ebbing too, as if the thing that had been following him... had left.
His mind was a blank.
Only when he pushed through the door did he realize his clothes were soaked through with sweat.
In the darkness, Liu Chengfeng's rough voice rose, carrying a note of fear:
"Bro, you... you okay?"
Clearly, he too had heard the horrific scraping of metal out in the corridor!
Ning Qiushui shook his head.
"I'm fine."
Liu Chengfeng came over, fumbled in the dark for Ning Qiushui's hand, and only when he had confirmed it held a living man's warmth did he let out a long breath and say with open admiration:
"Bro, you are un-fucking-believable!"
"I honestly thought you weren't coming back!"
"Just now, out in the corridor, was there—was there really..."
Ning Qiushui nodded.
"It appeared."
Liu Chengfeng's eyes went huge with disbelief:
"And it... it didn't kill you?"
Ning Qiushui was silent a moment, then said:
"It can't kill us however it pleases."
"Only once we trigger a 'death condition' can it lay hands on us."
Liu Chengfeng thought back over everything that had happened, and waves upon waves crashed through his mind!
"So... you know what the death conditions are, bro?"
Ning Qiushui said in a low voice:
"Some of them."
"I already told you."
"But those aren't all of the death conditions. How many there are in total... only it knows."
"What we need to do now... is dig out the truth of this place, and fast."
Liu Chengfeng's breathing came a little quick:
"But even if we learn the truth, how much would it actually help us survive?"
Ning Qiushui was quiet for a moment.
"The truth should come with the means to fight it."
"Remember what the suited man told us?"
"The worlds behind the Blood Door always hold more than one path to survival. They look lethal beyond measure, but they are not entirely beyond resisting."
"Besides—the woman in the red dress warned us not to go up to the villa's third floor. Which means that place must matter enormously!"
Light warred back and forth in Liu Chengfeng's eyes; at last he hardened his heart and gritted out:
"Fine!"
"Bro, just say when. I'm going with you!"
"Worst case, we die together—at least there'll be company!"
Ning Qiushui:
"Not yet. We wait."
The two of them waited in the room for a long time.
Deep in the small hours, the hair-raising scrape of metal suddenly rang out in the corridor once more!
They both knew: it was the sound of the knife scraping against the fork!
The thing on the third floor... had come down to feed again!
Even braced for it, Liu Chengfeng clearly felt countless hairs stand up all over his body, his hands and feet trembling beyond his control!
Whose turn... would it be this time?
Screech—
Screech—
Screech—
As the scraping drew nearer and nearer, Liu Chengfeng's heart pounded faster and faster.
He glanced at Ning Qiushui sitting beside him—and found the man... drinking tea.
Liu Chengfeng blinked.
Then, once more, admiration for the man's nerves welled up from the bottom of his heart.
"Bro—someone who can sit sipping tea at a time like this... you'd be the first I've ever seen."
Liu Chengfeng kept his voice down to a wisp.
Ning Qiushui set down his teacup.
"I'm nervous too."
"But different people show their nerves in different ways."
"When I'm nervous, I like to eat a little something. Or drink a little something."
He said it—yet his voice was steady, with hardly a tremor to be heard.
Outside the door,
The dreadful sound stopped, as before, in front of theirs first.
The scrape of knife against fork rang out over and over, as if some famished fiend stood at their door, drooling as it watched them...
Liu Chengfeng felt pathetic for it, but his palms truly were pouring sweat.
He was afraid.
Afraid the terrible thing outside would suddenly burst in...
But thankfully, what he imagined didn't come to pass.
The ghost-thing lingered at their door a while, seemed to find that it could not touch them, and shifted its target to another room.
This time...
It played out exactly like the night before.
The sound... vanished outside the neighboring door.
About five minutes passed. Ning Qiushui, pressed against the door, still heard nothing, so he eased it open a small crack.
He watched for a while, opened the crack wider, and slid half his head out, scanning the dark, dead corridor in both directions.
Apart from the shutter window hanging open at the far end and the cold wind whistling through it, there was nothing in the corridor at all.
"Now. Go!"
Ning Qiushui beckoned to Liu Chengfeng, and the two of them slipped out on soft feet, stealing through the darkness toward the stairwell...