Chapter 34-I Clean Up Garbage in a Wasteland World

Chapter 34: The House That Hunts People-7

Ding Chaojie felt the main door behind him open, like a monster opening its mouth, forcing him to step backward into the space behind him.

Clang. Then, he watched helplessly as the Green Door closed once again.

Before him was an entryway. He must have walked inside the Green Door. Ding Chaojie had been hunted for so long, but this was his first time actually entering. His hands and feet were immobile, like a pathetic fly stuck in a spiderweb.

It was freezing all around. He was only wearing a jacket, and the hair all over his body stood on end. He couldn't even utter a single sentence.

Ding Chaojie's neck was stiff. He had just entered and hadn't even had time to observe the environment when he felt someone slowly approaching him.

He couldn't turn his head, but he could see the shadow cast in front of him. Someone behind him was raising a hammer high.

Bang!

...

The Demon Hunter who had mutated into a snail was beneath the TV set.

Zhu Ning faced the television. She had just intended to check the Employee Wristband on the Demon Hunter's hand.

The Employee Wristband functioned similarly to a black box; it might contain a record of the Demon Hunter's death process. Zhu Ning couldn't figure out how a Demon Hunter had died here. If he was on a mission, did he have teammates?

Suddenly, her movements stopped. There was someone behind her. She could see the shadow cast by the arrival; judging from the reflection in the TV, it looked like a tall, thin woman.

A hammer smashed down forcefully from behind. Zhu Ning's body went limp, and she crashed to the ground with a thud.

Zhu Ning had been beaten hundreds of times by Demon Hunters in combat class; it was impossible for her to be taken down so easily. She had originally intended to struggle, but after a moment of hesitation, she stayed still.

Bang! Bang! Two more hits. The person, perhaps afraid she might counterattack, smashed the back of her neck two more times viciously.

After injecting the GeneBoost, her skin's resistance to impact had increased. It was as if she were wearing a layer of soft armor inside her work uniform, protecting her fragile cervical vertebrae. There was pain, but not to the point of being unbearable.

Danger Sense didn't go off, unlike the dangerous sneak attack by the Pigman last time.

Zhu Ning heard a clang as the person threw the hammer away. Then, there was a woman breathing loudly. She seemed to have been in a state of extreme panic for a long time; her gasping was particularly loud, and the voice sounded very familiar.

"Caught you," the woman said, still shaken. "I caught you."

Immediately after, Zhu Ning felt a weight on her feet. The woman dragged her by her feet like she was dragging a corpse. Zhu Ning was a bit curious about what the woman intended to do.

Between Zhu Ning herself and this work uniform, she weighed at least one hundred and fifty pounds. It was very strenuous for the woman to drag her; she had to stop and go repeatedly.

Zhu Ning took the opportunity to observe the room. There was a set of Demon Hunter steel armor on the floor; it must have been left by that Demon Hunter. She didn't know if the woman had stripped it off him.

At the bathroom door, there were two highly decomposed corpses. They were likely failed mutations; it was no longer possible to tell if they were male or female.

The woman dragged Zhu Ning into the master bedroom's bathroom. The interior of the bathroom was practically a murder scene. It was a sea of red; blood spots were splattered on the ceiling, and the tiled walls engraved with small red flowers had long been dirtied by fresh blood.

The bloodstains on the edge of the bathtub had dried. It seemed like someone had killed a person here once, draining a bathroom full of blood. There was another person in the room.

With a click, the woman cuffed Zhu Ning's wrist to the water pipe.

Thanks to this position, Zhu Ning finally saw the woman in front of her—Huang Yaruo.

She was wearing the floral nightgown from the day she went missing, and on her feet were a pair of white slippers shaped like rabbits, only now they were dyed red with blood. The fur on the slippers was matted, with bits of minced meat sticking to it.

Huang Yaruo's hair was disheveled and withered. She was so thin her eye sockets were sunken inward. Because of her sunken eyes, she looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin.

Just like her helpless image in the video, she barely seemed to have aged. She still fell into a state of panic easily, but her eyes clearly revealed a strand of madness.

The System voice rang out: [Side Quest: The House That Hunts People - Find the missing Huang Yaruo: Completed. Current Purification Progress: 60%]

This person really was Huang Yaruo. Huang Yaruo didn't seem to have any abnormalities either; at the very least, she hadn't grown a snail shell. Why was she the exception?

Huang Yaruo kept muttering, "Why is there an extra one? Why is there an extra one?"

Extra what?

Huang Yaruo had originally wanted to take off Zhu Ning's work uniform, but a Cleaner's protective suit was harder to remove than a Demon Hunter's, especially with a living person inside. Unless one was an insider, they wouldn't know where to start.

Sure enough, Huang Yaruo gave up after only trying for three minutes. In the end, she took off Zhu Ning's Cleanup Backpack.

Inside the Cleanup Backpack, aside from containment tools, were standard-issue weapons. Ordinary people wouldn't even dare to touch them if they saw them, as they could easily misfire.

Huang Yaruo frowned when she saw a backpack full of weapons and asked, "Are you the same as him?"

Same as what? Was she saying she was the same as the Demon Hunter outside? Had Huang Yaruo seen that Demon Hunter?

Huang Yaruo gave Zhu Ning a deep look. "Don't be afraid. It'll be over soon. It won't hurt."

The helmet hadn't filtered out the smell of blood. Surrounded by blood, Zhu Ning felt this sentence meant she was going to send her to her death.

Huang Yaruo had no intention of conversing with her at all. She took Zhu Ning's Cleanup Backpack and placed it at the foot of the wall by the bathroom door.

The distance between Zhu Ning and the Cleanup Backpack was already over one meter, so the Metal Manipulation skill couldn't be used, but the handcuffs on her wrists and the water pipe behind her were metal products.

With a click, Huang Yaruo walked out of the bathroom and closed the door.

Only after the person left did Zhu Ning start to look at the other victim in the bathroom. His hands were tied, and he was curled up at the edge of the bathtub, covered in blood.

He had probably been hit by a hammer too; the back of his head and shoulders were bloody. Zhu Ning suspected the bones in his body might be shattered.

This person looked so familiar. Was it Ding Chaojie? Wasn't he at the Public Security Bureau? Could the Public Security Bureau not help him?

Ding Chaojie had his back to Zhu Ning and was twitching continuously. The movements were very small, as if he was trying his best to suppress his instincts.

Zhu Ning felt for a moment that this was very bizarre. She and Ding Chaojie seemed like some kind of food reserve.

Huang Yaruo's actions just now were processing the food, like stunning a fish before cooking it. Now she was going to call someone to come and eat.

Ding Chaojie's appearance suddenly broke the eeriness of the house. At least this person was alive, not dead. Zhu Ning could talk to him.

When ignorant, humans are good at scaring themselves. After Zhu Ning saw Huang Yaruo, the face of the matter actually became clearer. At least it wasn't some unknowable event. Zhu Ning began to rethink the situation.

Ding Chaojie lay on the ground, half-dead. Zhu Ning and he were cuffed at opposite ends of the bathroom, but the bathroom itself wasn't very big.

Zhu Ning kicked him with her foot and whispered, "Hey? Ding Chaojie?"

Ding Chaojie's eyes widened. He recognized Zhu Ning's voice. He looked up and indeed saw a woman wearing a black biker suit.

Ding Chaojie wouldn't forget this weirdo even if he died. He glared with red eyes. "Liar! You lied to me!"

Zhu Ning: "..."

No, was this really the time to discuss who lied to whom? Besides, Zhu Ning had sincerely invited him to enter the Green Door with her.

Ding Chaojie was covered in injuries. Zhu Ning noticed that all ten of his fingers were crushed as if someone had forcibly snapped them. Was Huang Yaruo that brutal?

Looking closely at where they were snapped, white bone spurs pierced through the skin. The severed fingers were only connected by skin. When Ding Chaojie moved, the hanging half-fingers dangled loosely.

Zhu Ning lowered her voice and asked, "What happened to you?"

Ding Chaojie's face was covered in blood. Upon being asked by Zhu Ning, it was as if a sore spot had been poked. He pressed his head against the edge of the bathtub. "This is all retribution. Retribution. It found me."

Ding Chaojie's voice sounded very muffled. "This is retribution for me killing her."

What?

When Zhu Ning first met Ding Chaojie, she just thought he was mentally stressed. Now she felt he was somewhat delirious.

"Hahahahahaha," Ding Chaojie muttered to himself. "It chased me to the Public Security Bureau. No one can save me. This is retribution."

Zhu Ning listened, her temples throbbing. She could roughly guess that the Green Door had recaptured Ding Chaojie at the Public Security Bureau. She just hadn't expected the Green Door to be so flexible. After Zhu Ning entered, was this house actually moving? It quietly appeared at the Public Security Bureau and captured Ding Chaojie. It was like... a hunting behavior.

Zhu Ning extracted the key information and asked, "You killed someone?"

Ding Chaojie's voice became even more painful. He slammed his forehead against the bathtub, making thud thud sounds. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted to steal something, but she said she was going to call the police. I-I-I-I, I had no choice..."

Sure enough, the story he told Zhu Ning had concealed part of the truth. Ding Chaojie wasn't a simple thief; he had committed attempted burglary and was discovered by the owner.

Ding Chaojie: "It was an accident. I am guilty. I am guilty."

So Ding Chaojie's story was like this: Ding Chaojie attempted burglary, killed a person, and fled immediately after the murder. He didn't expect that the first to catch up wouldn't be people from the Public Security Bureau, but the Green Door.

He killed the original owner of the house, and he became the house's new owner. This Green Door bound him; he could escape the Public Security Bureau's arrest, but he couldn't escape the Green Door's capture.

The Green Door would continue to hunt him to the ends of the earth. Over time, even he suspected this was retribution. Because he killed someone, the victim turned into a door to hunt him down.

No wonder. When Zhu Ning first met him, he was desperate to enter the Public Security Bureau to confess.

Having done something guilty, he feared ghosts knocking at the door. It really was retribution. He deserved it.

Zhu Ning speculated that this house might have existed for a long time. The Green Door walked the human world continuously, looking for the next owner who moved in by mistake.

Once the owner was bound, they would be hunted to death. It would only be undone after entering the Green Door. But once a person entered, they were trapped in the other-dimensional space and couldn't leave until they were assimilated into a snail.

Then what was going on with Huang Yaruo? She didn't look like she was forced. Had she been taking care of this house all along?

The house could hunt, but it seemed to lack active attack skills. If one were to use an analogy, its existence was more like a Venus flytrap.

Huang Yaruo's act of knocking out Zhu Ning and Ding Chaojie was very much like a mother preparing food for her cub.

The cub hadn't grown fangs yet; the Snail-Humans moved slowly. Just like the older generation would chew food before feeding it to a child, Huang Yaruo also needed to stun the prey to feed the house.

Zhu Ning asked, "How did you get in?"

She wanted to hear the specific process of Ding Chaojie entering the Green Door; maybe she could find new clues.

But Ding Chaojie seemed unable to understand Zhu Ning. He suddenly convulsed rapidly, like a fish lying on the cold bathroom floor.

Ding Chaojie's movements were too bizarre; they didn't look like something a human could do.

Zhu Ning's heart skipped a beat. She was too familiar with this conditioned reflex and had seen it countless times. It was like the precursor to a human turning into a zombie.

Zhu Ning was silent for a moment, then asked, "What's wrong with you?"

"I-I-I, I'm so cold."

Cold? It was indeed quite cold in the house. The helmet panel showed the temperature was only eighteen degrees. Ding Chaojie didn't have a protective suit and only wore a denim jacket, so it was normal to feel cold.

Ding Chaojie made strange noises while squirming his body, but since his hands were cuffed, he could only make clinking sounds as he struggled.

"You, y-y-you—" Ding Chaojie's eyes widened. Two streams of liquid flowed from his eyes. It wasn't tears; it was somewhat like yellow secretion.

Ding Chaojie shook his neck like a zombie, muttering "you you you" while crawling toward Zhu Ning.

If it were any other time, Zhu Ning would have kicked him away, but today she didn't move.

"Can you help me look?" Ding Chaojie said.

"I, my back hurts so much." Ding Chaojie: "It's a bit itchy. Scratch it for me."

Zhu Ning was stunned. Something was growing on Ding Chaojie's back, breaking through the soil from his spine, stretching the jacket into an exaggerated bulge, like those severe hunchback patients in the village.

Before Zhu Ning could speak, she heard a rip.

The bulge burst open, and a soft, brand-new snail shell appeared on his back.

The snail shell was orange-yellow with a black swirl line on it. Because it had just grown, it was a bit transparent; one could even see the soft flesh inside.

He had mutated.

"What happened to me?" Ding Chaojie tried hard to turn his head to look at his own back, his voice starting to sound very strange.

Ding Chaojie struggled to turn around, but he couldn't see. Zhu Ning suddenly didn't know how to tell him the truth.

Ding-dong.

A tooth fell out of his mouth.

Both Zhu Ning and he were stunned. The tooth that fell out was particularly conspicuous on the tile, with blood still sticking to the root.

Immediately after, Ding Chaojie's teeth loosened one by one, and dozens of teeth actually fell out with a crackling sound.

"Ah— Ah—"

It was unclear if Ding Chaojie intended to speak or do something else, but he could only utter single syllables.

Ah— Ah—

Ding Chaojie lost his language function. Zhu Ning's first thought was that he had become a Contaminant without consciousness.

Ding Chaojie opened his mouth wide. Zhu Ning was close enough to clearly see the entire process of his mutation; it bore some similarities to zombie mutation.

After Ding Chaojie's teeth fell out, new teeth actually grew inside his mouth, forming the unique radula of a snail.

Zhu Ning very fittingly thought of some random trivia she had read when she was bored in the wasteland world: snails are the animals with the most teeth. A single snail possesses over ten thousand teeth.

Their teeth are different from humans'; they aren't used for chewing food. Instead, the tens of thousands of teeth on the radula grind the food into bits. Now, Ding Chaojie possessed a radula.

Ding Chaojie's neck twitched once. His eyes were bloodshot, but his limbs became softer, and his palms were constantly secreting liquid.

He twisted his neck as if just getting used to his body. His head tilted, and water droplets began to appear on his face. His pale face swelled up rapidly as if soaked in water, and even the look he gave Zhu Ning became very strange.

Food. That was food.

Ding Chaojie opened his mouth wide. Even with his hands cuffed, he still tried to crawl in Zhu Ning's direction.

With a creak, the bathroom door was suddenly opened.

Dozens of Snail-Humans appeared at the doorway. There were twice as many Snail-Humans in this house as Zhu Ning had imagined.

They opened their red eyes and mouths wide, revealing their radulas, and slowly crawled toward Zhu Ning. The house was entering hunting mode.

In Zhu Ning's world, there was a popular question on the internet: If you were given a hundred million, but would be chased by a snail for the rest of your life, and you would die if the snail caught you, would you do it?

More than half of the people chose yes. After all, a snail's speed is so slow; you just need to be five meters faster than the snail to win.

A small portion of people said no. Living the rest of their lives in fear, constantly worrying about being killed by a snail—that life would be too tragic.

When Zhu Ning saw this question, her only point of confusion was that she couldn't imagine how a snail would hunt someone down, so she couldn't answer it at all.

Unfortunately, Zhu Ning seemed to understand this question now.

She had lived in the wasteland world for so many years and had encountered all types of mutated zombies, but she never imagined that one day she would be chased by a room full of snails.

The Snail-Humans had the complete habits of snails. Their bodies were extremely soft, wriggling into the bathroom from the ground, door frames, ceiling, and walls.

Huang Yaruo stood behind this group of snails, looking at Zhu Ning gloomily, as if Zhu Ning was a leaf to feed the snails.

The snails' speed was very slow, but Ding Chaojie was only half a meter away from Zhu Ning to begin with.

The Contaminant began to reveal its true face.

Since entering this bizarre house, Zhu Ning had been oppressed by the atmosphere inside until she was irritable, as if an invisible hand had been choking her neck.

With no Contaminant appearing for so long, the endless void was driving her crazy. Now, she finally found some feeling. There were Contaminants, there was blood, and there were two humans.

Thinking back carefully, the helmet broadcast stated the house was only a C-Level Contaminated Zone.

The House That Hunts People was like the final question of a primary school Math Olympiad; the angle of the question was a bit tricky, and many adults couldn't solve it.

But tearing away all the bluffing camouflage, it was just a primary school question in itself.

Ding Chaojie wriggled his body, his slime-covered feet slowly crawling toward Zhu Ning. Zhu Ning remained motionless, letting Ding Chaojie approach, not even dodging.

Just as Ding Chaojie’s slime-covered foot was about to touch Zhu Ning’s leg, suddenly, Ding Chaojie stopped abruptly. An expression of extreme pain appeared on his face. He opened his mouth wide, but because he had already turned into a snail, he couldn't even scream.

The handcuffs restraining Ding Chaojie suddenly tightened to death. He was now a mollusk; the hard handcuffs severed his hands simultaneously. Zhu Ning had used her Metal Manipulation talent.

With a click, the handcuffs on her wrists snapped in response.

Zhu Ning was extremely fast. As she flipped up, the handcuffs smashed fiercely onto Ding Chaojie's forehead. There was plenty of metal material inside the bathroom, even within Zhu Ning's one-meter range.

The bathroom showerhead rose into the air like a swimming snake. The faucet and the stainless steel handles near the bathtub suddenly tore from the wall. With a crackling sound, without Zhu Ning even touching the Snail-Humans, the metal parts inside the bathroom had already taken out three of them under her control.

Snail-Humans moving this slowly were really nothing in her eyes. It took only a minute to clear the round. It had to be said, the Metal Manipulation talent was quite useful.

Click. Someone cocked a gun.

Zhu Ning looked up. Huang Yaruo had opened Zhu Ning's backpack at some point and taken out a gun.

"Don't come over. Don't you come over." Huang Yaruo's voice was shaking, but the gun muzzle was pointed at Zhu Ning.

Zhu Ning walked forward expressionlessly.

Huang Yaruo's face was pale as she shouted, "Back off! If you come closer, I'll shoot!"

Zhu Ning didn't speak; she took another step forward.

Bang!

Huang Yaruo pulled the trigger. People who didn't handle weapons often liked to fire randomly when in a panic.

Huang Yaruo closed her eyes and fired five shots in a row. They were only five meters apart. Even for a non-professional shooter, at such a short range, Zhu Ning would undoubtedly die.

After Huang Yaruo fired, she didn't hear the sound of bullets entering a body.

She lifted her head tremblingly, only to see an invisible barrier seemingly one meter in front of Zhu Ning. Five bullets had stopped abruptly, as if controlled by some force.

Zhu Ning hadn't moved at all; she just stood quietly behind the bullets.

Pitter-patter. The bullets suspended in the air fell to the ground like raindrops.

"Still shooting?" Zhu Ning asked.

"W-who exactly are you?" Huang Yaruo panicked. She had never seen such a person. How did she do that? Why could she control bullets?

Huang Yaruo backed away repeatedly until she realized she had nowhere left to retreat. If this house was like a Venus flytrap, then this time it had caught an anomaly that was very difficult to digest.

Zhu Ning was that anomaly.

"Are you a mutant?" Just as Huang Yaruo spoke, Zhu Ning had already walked within one meter of her.

Huang Yaruo felt her hands lighten; the gun was easily snatched away. Throughout the process, Zhu Ning hadn't even lifted a hand.

That gun floated above her shoulder like a small pet Zhu Ning kept, the dark muzzle staring at Huang Yaruo like a cold eye.

The positions were swapped. Zhu Ning held the initiative. As long as Huang Yaruo made any strange move, she would be the one to die.

Zhu Ning had already hooked one hand onto her Cleanup Backpack. This bag was full of weapons, and she could manipulate them at will.

The snails in the room couldn't react. Snails weren't dogs; they couldn't protect their master.

Zhu Ning might not be able to get out, but she could drag Huang Yaruo and this group of Snail-Humans to die together.

Zhu Ning checked the Cleanup Backpack; everything was there. Only then did Zhu Ning ask, "You are Huang Yaruo?"

Huang Yaruo didn't answer but asked back, "Who are you?"

"Ah," Zhu Ning said, "I'm here to save you."

She could tell that aside from appearing a bit bizarre living in this house, Huang Yaruo's other behaviors seemed to be those of an ordinary person.

Sometimes the difference between an ordinary person and a soldier was as big as the difference between a human and an animal. Zhu Ning didn't even need to use her talent to kill her.

"Save me?" Huang Yaruo's face was deathly pale.

Zhu Ning: "Didn't you post a request for help?"

Huang Yaruo had recorded many videos, all themed around calling for help. She hoped someone would come to save her.

"Post?" Huang Yaruo seemed shocked, her speech stuttering a bit. "The post is still there?"

Hearing that Zhu Ning was here to save her, she wasn't happy at all; instead, she was terrified.

"Are you afraid of me?" Zhu Ning asked.

"N-no." Huang Yaruo forced a smile, but she couldn't smile.

Zhu Ning looked around. There were still snails in this room, but it might take half an hour for them to crawl over.

She had many questions inside her. She believed Huang Yaruo could answer them for her next. Zhu Ning sat on the sofa, acting like the real owner of this house, temporarily unconcerned that the Snail-Humans could kill her.

"Are you raising them?" Zhu Ning asked.

"I, I..." Huang Yaruo took a breath, then suddenly couldn't go on.

"You deliberately filmed videos and uploaded them online to attract people here," Zhu Ning finished for her. "To feed this house?"

"No," Huang Yaruo denied immediately. She raised her head quickly, probably wanting to say something to explain, but the words got stuck. It took a long time before she said one sentence: "E-e-everything I encountered was true. I didn't lie."

She really encountered supernatural events. After waking up, the furniture in the room would face the wall, turning their backs to her. The furniture seemed to be looking at another space through a wall.

Huang Yaruo thought it would be fine after moving, but unexpectedly, after moving, she couldn't shake off the house no matter what. This house was hunting her.

Every day it made noises. No matter where she moved, the house followed her there.

Huang Yaruo cried as she spoke up to here. Her face was covered in tear streaks, appearing to have difficulty understanding the relationship between them.

"Everything I encountered was true. I really didn't lie. But, but."

"It calls me Mama."

Mama—

In the video, that door had once called out to her, luring Huang Yaruo to go there in the dead of night. Huang Yaruo had no children; this house was like her child.

Huang Yaruo used all her savings to buy this apartment when she was thirty-five. She chose her favorite wallpaper out of hundreds of sheets.

She ran around the furniture market for a month just to select these pieces of furniture. She compared the size, pattern, and material of the sofa one by one, and selected the color temperature of the indoor lights again and again. It took her two weeks to decide on a single piece of furniture.

Because money was tight, she was very cautious with every decision she made. Because she loved her house so much, she was willing to redo the work and redecorate.

Finally, she got her most satisfactory house. It was simply perfect; every inch of the house was realized according to Huang Yaruo's inner thoughts.

She had worked for others all her life. She had no lover and no children. This house was very much like her child.

But it slowly revealed its imperfect side. In the middle of the night, these pieces of furniture would move; they would weirdly change formation, as if they were alive.

Alive. Huang Yaruo always felt this house was alive.

From that day on, Huang Yaruo nearly went crazy. She tried every possible way to restore the furniture to its original position, but every day she woke up, these pieces of furniture had their own will.

They didn't change because of Huang Yaruo.

Finally, she moved. She abandoned this house, spending the savings of half her life, spending immeasurable effort. It once embodied all her beautiful imagination of life.

She didn't want it anymore.

But she abandoned the house, yet the house didn't let her go. After she moved, the house followed her again. It made noises like boxing in the middle of the night to attract Huang Yaruo's attention.

It was angry, like an abandoned child. In the middle of the night, it called to her deeply.

Mama—

Mama Mama Mama—

It was simply like a nightmare.

Huang Yaruo had no choice. She could only walk back to her own home. Then, inside the house, she found another space—there was a house inside the house.

She was just like a snail. From the moment she bought the house, she carried a heavy shell. No matter where she went, this house would follow.

Mama, I'm hungry.

The house said it was hungry; it wanted to eat.

Huang Yaruo had never given birth to a child, but this "Mama" was absolutely a punishment. She became the mother of a house. The relationship between them wasn't that of a house and a person; it became a relationship between mother and child.

"What could I do?" Huang Yaruo said. "It was begging me. It was so hungry."

So Huang Yaruo could only go help deal with every victim. After the house was full, it wouldn't make noise. It would be quiet for several days, docile like an ordinary house.

House Slave.

Zhu Ning only had these two words in her mind. She had never felt the term "house slave" was so apt.

Snails carried their houses wherever they went, so they moved slowly and couldn't go far. People exhausted half a lifetime's savings to buy a house of their own, only to be imprisoned by the house from then on, becoming slaves to the house.

In Zhu Ning's era, the relationship between a house slave and a house was a loan relationship. In the wasteland era, it became a deformed mother-child relationship.

The house was like a child forever making demands.

"Did you post the video?" Zhu Ning asked.

"No," Huang Yaruo shook her head violently. "It, it was imitating me."

In infancy, the first person a child learns from is often their mother.

Huang Yaruo once posted her experience online, attracting many so-called exorcists and internet celebrities who wanted to sponge off the popularity to come and check in.

The people who entered the Green Door were already dead. In this process, the house found some patterns.

Zhu Ning heard it; this house had learning capabilities.

The contaminated zones Zhu Ning had contacted before usually possessed a Source of Contamination. Most of them used to be humans, like the Fishman who missed the last bus and Wang Ming from the hotpot restaurant.

They naturally possessed human thinking patterns. Zhu Ning only needed to think along their patterns to find the Source of Contamination.

But this Source of Contamination was a house. It was formed by Contamination Spores parasitizing a lifeless object.

Initially, this house was like a baby, only knowing how to cry at night, calling its mother to come and feed it.

As time went on, it seemed to have grown up.

It possessed some human wisdom, even imitating Huang Yaruo's actions, posting videos online to attract more food to come in.

Zhu Ning asked, "When did you come in?"

It looked like the parent-child relationship between this house and Huang Yaruo had been going on for a long time.

Huang Yaruo: "New Calendar Year 65."

Huang Yaruo was actually a person from nearly 15 years ago. Logically, Huang Yaruo should be in her fifties now, but she didn't look any different from the video.

Huang Yaruo was supporting the house, and the house was also feeding back to Huang Yaruo. Zhu Ning guessed Huang Yaruo was either a Contaminant or a part of this house.

Zhu Ning asked, "Where did you get the money to buy the house?"

She still had many questions unexplained. For example, why did Huang Yaruo want to buy a three-bedroom apartment back then?

This question was too old. Huang Yaruo hadn't thought about it herself, causing her to think for a long time without answering. Zhu Ning asked a question she rarely recalled.

Zhu Ning sat on the sofa waiting patiently.

After a long time, Huang Yaruo said, "I went to the property development to look at apartments. I could only afford the smallest unit, but when I toured this house, I thought it was very beautiful. I liked it too much."

As she spoke, she seemed to recall more details, her tone becoming more certain. "But I couldn't afford it. It exceeded my budget by three times. I went home after the first viewing."

Huang Yaruo said, "Later, the sales lady contacted me, saying because she saw I liked it so much, she was willing to sell it to me at the lowest price."

"It's strange to say, the price they quoted was exactly my account balance. I only had eight hundred thousand, and they said they'd sell it to me for exactly eight hundred thousand."

At that time, Huang Yaruo's budget for buying a house was a down payment of six hundred thousand, with the remaining two hundred thousand for renovation.

But this house cost eight hundred thousand. However, it was the total price; after paying in one lump sum, she wouldn't have to carry a loan. Huang Yaruo thought about it all night, feeling this was a huge bargain, and she would regret it for life if she missed it.

Many years later, Huang Yaruo could clearly recall her mood when buying the house.

Huang Yaruo thought of something and suddenly asked, "Were, were they intentional?"

Huang Yaruo had never thought in this direction.

Later, when abnormal phenomena appeared in the house, Huang Yaruo once went back to find the sales office, but the salesperson who sold the house had resigned. The new employees played tai chi with her.

Every time she asked, they would smile and say, "Sorry, we can't be responsible for this kind of thing."

But thinking about it this way, the entire process of buying the house was too strange.

Zhu Ning didn't know how to say it. In her view, the house was a Contaminant, and they were finding a mother for the house.

And it wasn't given for free. If a house was given for free, the person who got it might not cherish it.

They needed to find someone like Huang Yaruo, who exhausted her whole life just wanting to buy a house of her own. She would cherish it, take care of it, and love it as she loved life.

If it were free, it might have been okay. But they drained Huang Yaruo's last sum of money, even if they didn't care about this money at all.

This way, Huang Yaruo wouldn't easily abandon it. Even when she suspected something in her heart, she would convince herself. The sunk cost was too great; she didn't even dare to think something would go wrong.

"I," Huang Yaruo figured it out herself, "I even borrowed the money for renovation from my parents."

The more she invested, the harder it was for Huang Yaruo to give up. Her feelings for this house would deepen, and she would try every possible way to convince herself to love the house like a child.

Huang Yaruo breathed heavily. Facing the Snail-Humans crawling all over the home, only now did she realize how ridiculous this matter was.

She had supported a house for fifteen years, giving everything for it, while the people behind it watched her struggle as if teasing a cat or dog.

Zhu Ning saw Huang Yaruo smile, then immediately shed tears. She was crying and laughing. Understanding her own experience, a normal person would find it hard to accept for a while, let alone her being trapped here for fifteen years.

But Zhu Ning didn't have time to let her process her emotions. Soon, she asked the next question: "Do you still remember the company's name?"

Huang Yaruo was a bit dazed; she couldn't even answer Zhu Ning.

Zhu Ning repeated, "Do you still remember the company's name? This is important."

She looked at Huang Yaruo firmly. Although wearing a helmet, Huang Yaruo couldn't see Zhu Ning's expression or even know what Zhu Ning looked like.

But Zhu Ning said she was here to save her.

"Will you save me?" Huang Yaruo asked.

"Yes." Zhu Ning didn't hesitate. "I can take you out."

"I, I am a murderer." Huang Yaruo took two steps back. She didn't trust Zhu Ning.

Zhu Ning: "That is a matter for the Public Security Bureau to consider, not something I should consider."

Zhu Ning was just a Cleaner sweeping trash. She wasn't a vigilante; arresting criminals and punishing evil wasn't within her scope of business. Moreover, whether Huang Yaruo was a victim or a perpetrator needed to be judged in court.

Zhu Ning, an ordinary person, had no qualification to judge whether anyone was guilty.

Huang Yaruo fell silent.

"Documents," Zhu Ning reminded her. "You signed documents, or left something behind."

Huang Yaruo realized. Zhu Ning could save her, but there were conditions. Huang Yaruo had to prove she had value to be saved.

"I didn't keep the documents, but I saw their company profile," Huang Yaruo said. "I thought they were scammers at the time. They showed me the company profile, saying it was a charity project under Eternal Pharma, specifically to realize dreams for people like me, which was why they sold it to me so cheaply. I thought they were scammers then and specifically checked; the charity foundation was compliant and legal."

Eternal Pharma. This company again. Wasn't its appearance rate too high?

This was the second contaminated zone Zhu Ning found related to Eternal Pharma. But this time it was different from the hotpot restaurant. The hotpot restaurant owner was a victim of Eternal Pharma, strictly speaking, a medical accident.

But this house was obviously very much like a premeditated... experiment.

They seemed to be monitoring this place, seeing if Huang Yaruo could become the house's mother. They were watching what would happen when a normal person lived in an abnormal house.

Or rather, were they researching the parent-child relationship between humans and Contaminants? Do humans and Contaminants really have parent-child relationships?

If this really was an experimental subject, it was impossible for it not to be supervised. Theoretically speaking, Zhu Ning had already been monitored the moment she entered. Things were a bit troublesome.

Even if she luckily escaped from the contaminated zone, there was a high probability she would face Eternal Pharma's pursuit immediately.

Prometheus. Zhu Ning gritted her teeth. Good job. It really pushed her into the fire pit with one shove.

Zhu Ning asked, "How do we get out?"

Huang Yaruo closed her eyes. "You can't get out. No one can get out after entering the internal space."

As the house's mother, Huang Yaruo couldn't get out. For so many years, she had never seen a living person walk out.

"It will slowly wear you down to death. You can't get out." Huang Yaruo covered her face.

It was precisely because she understood this house too well that she was even more despairing. Over fifteen years, Huang Yaruo had tried every method to no avail.

In the end, she could only submit to her fate and become the house's mother.

Zhu Ning had experienced the house's style. It would make you lose the concept of time and space, and wouldn't extend fangs at you.

It simply acted as a house trapping you, constantly inflicting Mental Pollution on you, letting a room full of snails hunt you.

Even if Zhu Ning was powerful, could she kill the Snail-Humans every time?

Could she not sleep? Could she not eat or drink?

How many years could she last here? Ten years or twenty years?

As long as she relaxed for an instant, revealing any flaw, her defense line could be easily breached.

This was a contaminated zone, yet the Source of Contamination couldn't be found. Zhu Ning had entered contaminated zones twice, once with the Fishman and once with the Pigman.

She could trace the Source of Contamination through clues. Once the Source of Contamination was found, the contaminated zone would automatically collapse. But the house had no Source of Contamination, or perhaps the house itself was the Source of Contamination.

This was the first time Zhu Ning saw Contamination Spores attaching to a lifeless object and coming alive, even having its own operational logic.

"What do we do?" Huang Yaruo looked at Zhu Ning helplessly. Fifteen years had passed; she couldn't withstand the torment anymore.

Zhu Ning was wearing a helmet, so Huang Yaruo couldn't see her expression. Zhu Ning walked to the wall.

"You can't walk the path back," Huang Yaruo reminded her, thinking Zhu Ning wanted to return the way she came.

The rule of this house was that people in the outer layer could walk into the inner space by walking backward, but people inside couldn't walk back.

But Zhu Ning didn't try to walk back again. One of her hands was pressed against the wall, her forehead lightly resting against the wall. There were two ways to deal with Contaminants.

The first way: find the Source of Contamination, then kill the Source of Contamination.

The second way: brute force bulldozing.

Fortunately, this house was made of reinforced concrete.

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Author's Note: Snails are the animals with the most teeth, but their teeth are not "stereoscopic teeth." Although they possess tens of thousands of teeth, they cannot chew food. This is because they use a radula—a ribbon-like structure covered in teeth—to grind food for digestion. —From a certain encyclopedia. Thanks for the support!

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