Global Collapse

Chapter 113 of the novel [Thanks to Maciwell for the patronage]

"902..."

Although the phone keypad was blurry, Gu Mian was still quite adept at using the nine-key keyboard. He quickly pressed the buttons for the "9", "0", and "2" positions.

But the phone didn't respond.

"Isn't that how it's used?" Gu Mian fell into deep thought.

Just then, the fat man's slightly louder voice came from behind: "Hey, doctor, look at this."

Gu Mian turned around and saw that the fat man was holding a CD. The CD was reflecting light, which made Gu Mian's eyes hurt.

The fat man looked somewhat pleased: "I found this next to the pen holder. I remember that the computer tower in my room could play CDs."

The fat man's room corresponds to Zhao Lei's middle school days, and his room has a very old desktop computer.

The computer didn't even have a keyboard; it only had a small screen and a bulky main unit, on which CDs could be inserted.

Gu Mian circled the broken computer several times but couldn't find the power plug. However, since this was a supernatural instance, it was normal for the computer to start without power.

The fat man, clutching the CD in his hand, said, "This should be the one plugged into the computer in my room. Doctor, shall we go upstairs and plug in the CD?"

Gu Mian paused for a moment: "I remember that Mobile Bro's erasure pen also left from this room, right?"

The fat man paused for a moment, then nodded as if he understood something: "The clues in our house seem to be encrypted, but the password to all the clues can be found in Zhao Lei's house?"

There's a stained piece of paper in Brother Mobile's room, and the stain can be removed with the eraser pen in Zhao Lei's room.

The computer in Fatty's room can't be turned on, but it might be able to play the discs in Zhao Lei's room.

Thinking about this, Gu Mian fell into deep thought. By analogy, the black phone she found in her room should also be able to be opened, as long as she found clues about the black phone in the room.

The alarm clock that had stopped spinning by the bedside seemed to hint at something.

Gu Mian glanced at the stopped alarm clock again; it was stopped at 9:02.

Gu Mian tried the number 902, but it didn't work.

Therefore, the password to unlock the phone may be related to the three numbers 902.

"Doctor," the fat man called out again, "Shall we go upstairs first?"

Standing here in the dark isn't a good idea, so Gu Mian nodded and walked towards the door.

The fat man followed closely behind with a flashlight, saying, "Doctor, there must be a ghost in this house, otherwise Mingliang wouldn't have been so scared just now."

Although they didn't see Mingliang's reaction before he disappeared, they heard his screams clearly.

Fatty is nothing special, except that he has done a lot of odd jobs and has worked in many different trades over the years.

He worked as a food deliveryman, repairman, and salesman; he also worked at a slaughterhouse in his earlier years.

Mingliang's screams before he disappeared were no different from those of pigs being slaughtered in a slaughterhouse. If you had to find a difference, it would be that Mingliang's screams were slightly more unpleasant.

That was exactly the cry made before death.

After thinking about this for a few seconds, the fat man paused and said, "But doctor, who do you think the ghost in this house is?"

It's highly likely that the ghost was originally Zhao Lei.

But Zhao Lei was with them when Mingliang died, so he couldn't kill him.

And there was also a father who had disappeared in the house.

To this day, Gu Mian still doesn't know what Zhao Lei's father looks like; she only knows that he is a fierce-looking old man.

He's an alcoholic, stingy, hates his son, and is always unreachable and doesn't know what he's doing all day.

At this moment, Xiao Zhang, who was following behind the two, suddenly spoke up: "If there is a ghost in this house, I think it might be Zhao Lei's father."

The fat man nodded in agreement, indicating that he thought so too.

The three were already on the stairs. When they came out, they saw Zhao Lei still squatting by the restroom door, seemingly lost in thought. Xiao Zhang glanced guiltily behind him before whispering, "Zhao Lei came back this time to talk to his dad about his girlfriend."

"But his father clearly doesn't like his girlfriend. I guess they probably had a fight. Zhao Lei has been suffocated by his father for so many years. Once that kind of person explodes, he should be especially terrifying..."

Zhao Lei's father frequently beat and scolded him, never caring about his son's life or death, and often drank heavily, sometimes getting drunk and unable to get out of bed on the street.

He never cared about Zhao Lei's affairs at school, valued money immensely, and was unwilling to give others even a penny more than necessary. He was even unwilling to pay for Zhao Lei's tuition, causing Zhao Lei to suffer endless scorn from childhood to adulthood.

Even if his son was bullied at school, he would turn a blind eye and even beat and scold Zhao Lei.

Later, Zhao Lei finally managed to get rid of his father and got a girlfriend, but his father thought that dating was a waste of money and made a fuss to make them break up.

This was all described by Zhao Lei himself.

A normal person would probably go crazy if they had a father like that, but Zhao Lei seems to be relatively normal.

The fat man clearly thought the same thing as Xiao Zhang. He muttered to himself, "Zhao Lei seems so normal, probably because he's already had his outburst..."

It is very likely that they had an argument, and Zhao Lei suddenly snapped and killed his father.

But afterwards he regretted it and was afraid to face it, so he forced himself to forget.

It is indeed possible to force amnesia; the scientific name for this is selective amnesia.

You can find this information on Baidu: if a person encounters a powerful stimulus that they cannot accept, their subconscious will choose to forget the event, resulting in "selective amnesia."

However, although it may seem that the matter has been forgotten on the surface, its shadow still exists.

When doing things, you may unconsciously be influenced by that thing, and you may not even be aware of it. Gradually, it will become a knot in your heart.

Zhao Lei's actions perfectly fit the above conditions.

His memory is somewhat distorted; he sometimes thinks of things that are influenced by his memories, but he doesn't acknowledge those memories.

The fat man had previously asked him if anyone had died in the house, and Zhao Lei's answer was very uncertain, indicating that he subconsciously remembered that someone had died in the house.

Thinking of this, the fat man looked at Gu Mian: "Doctor, do you think it's possible that Zhao Lei's father is actually dead, and that Zhao Lei killed him, but Zhao Lei doesn't want to admit it, so he selectively forgets about it?"

“But Zhao Lei’s father still harbors resentment. You know, he was such a bad person before, so even after he died, he would become a ghost to take revenge. So I think the ghost in this house should be Zhao Lei’s father.”

Gu Mian stroked her chin: "Zhao Lei's father is most likely dead, but I'm curious, if that's true, where is his body?"

They can't just disappear into thin air.

Of course, given how big this hill is, they could have just dug a hole and buried him anywhere.

But also, Yidong and Chu Changge vanished into thin air. Where did they go?
Surely it can't have been swallowed up by this house, right?
The fat man was clearly confused as well: "Yeah, his father's body isn't here, and Brother Chu and the others have vanished into thin air. We can't find either the bodies or the missing people..."

At this point, he suddenly realized something and his eyes widened: "Doctor, could it be that Brother Chu and the others are with Zhao Lei's father's body right now?"

In a place we can't find.

Gu Mian nodded slightly: "Possibly, and this place that can't be found may very well be the key to escaping from here."

Simply entering and leaving this place does not count as escaping the haunted manor.

Even if they escaped the chase, it might not count as escaping the terrifying manor, because they all heard the bright screams of those who ran out, which were definitely not the joyful cries of those who had completed their mission.

"Considering the current situation, I think there are two possibilities," Gu Mian said, holding up two fingers:
"The first possibility is that the mission is to get us out of the Horror Manor, but the place we are in now is not the manor mentioned in the mission. So no matter how we go in or out, the mission will not be completed. The real Horror Manor is most likely the place where Zhao Lei's father's corpse is located."

"The second possibility is that the world we are in now is contained within the 'Haunted Mansion,' so whether you escape through the gate or climb over the mountain, it doesn't count as escaping, because the entire world is inside the Haunted Mansion... You might not understand this clearly, so let me give you an example."

"If we were currently inside a novel, and that novel were sitting on the shelf of 'The Horror Manor,' then no matter how hard we tried to escape within the novel, we could never escape the real Horror Manor."

"Because we are always in this novel, and this novel is always on the bookshelf of 'Terror Manor'."

The fat man suddenly realized: "So, if we want to escape, we have to get out of this novel first?"

The author isn't sure if they've made it too complicated; will everyone be able to understand it? o(╥﹏╥)o
Thank you to Maciwell for being the patron.

Thank you Xia Shuiliu for the generous donation. (づ￣3￣)づ╭～
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(End of this chapter)