Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

"!?"

This sudden action startled Xingge, who immediately reached out to stop Hongxia, but Hongxia bent down and dodged her.

Fujiwara Manho and Fujiwara Toyomi both looked over with some surprise, not quite understanding what Nijika wanted to do. Fujiwara Toyomi also thought of standing up to see what was going on, but stopped after exchanging glances with her mother, Fujiwara Manho, and remained where she was.

Xingge had already moved and stood directly in front of Hongxia.

No one spoke. Everyone sensed something was amiss in the room, and each person was afraid that speaking out might elicit a response from something else. Therefore, even as Hongxia acted strangely, Xingge didn't directly question her; she simply stopped her and questioned her with her eyes.

Even though you're looking at me like this, I don't know how to explain it to you, sister, that some strange creature has locked onto you in this house and you have to try to leave the safe house temporarily to see if you can take it with you.

Having made her decision, Hongxia glanced at Xingge with a hint of helplessness. She shook her head firmly at Xingge, walked around her, and headed back towards the door.

"..."

Seeing her younger sister's resolute attitude, Xingge realized that something might be wrong. She subconsciously stopped her attempt to stop her, thought for a moment, and then looked at Fujiwara Manho, exchanging glances with another sober adult present.

wow-

At this moment, Hongxia had already opened the movable wooden board.

Xingge followed and reached out to help Hongxia pull open the clothes hanging in the wardrobe behind the movable wooden board. The two sisters' eyes met once again.

Neither of them spoke, but this time they quickly understood each other's meaning. Hongxia's expression turned helpless, while Xingge's expression showed a hint of smugness. She then rushed out of the wardrobe, opened the outer wardrobe door, and entered the room.

I could have easily gone out for the test by myself, but my sister insisted on coming with me... What if something goes wrong? Won't we both be in trouble?

Thinking this, Nijika really wanted to speak up and stop Hoshika's actions, but before she could open her mouth, she knew that no matter what reason she gave to stop her, or what she said, it would only strengthen Hoshika's resolve to face the situation with her. So she could only continue forward, following Hoshika out of the wardrobe and into the outer room. Before leaving, she made a final eye contact with the Fujiwara family inside and gestured that if anything went wrong when they returned, they shouldn't open the door for her and Hoshika. To be honest, Nijika wasn't sure if she had made herself clear, but Fujiwara Manho and Fujiwara Toyomi both nodded. Moeha, on the other hand, had been covering her ears and closing her eyes, hiding in Fujiwara Manho's arms the whole time, so she had no idea what Nijika and Hoshika were doing.

The chill is fading.

Hongxia frowned slightly. She could feel that as she left the safe house, the invisible gaze also left the safe house area and quickly shifted its focus after she came out into the outside world, no longer paying attention to her actions.

Very strange.

Hongxia had a strange feeling that she had released something out of the safe house.

Considering what she had seen in the surveillance footage, she still had some doubts about whether new survivors had actually entered the Sheep Apartment. Even though she knew she wasn't capable of helping others and wouldn't act recklessly after being warned by Fujiwara Manho, the strange feeling she had just experienced made Nijika worry that the invisible monster she had seemingly released might find other people and harm those who were trying to survive there.

However, she soon stopped worrying about such issues.

"Is this the room we came into earlier?"

The girl stood there, hesitated for a moment, and then couldn't help but ask in a low voice.

"...I don't think so, do I?"

Xingge, who also sensed the problem, hesitated briefly before whispering.

This is the end of a long, narrow corridor.

At this moment, the two, Hongxia and Xingge, who had just emerged from the closet, were standing in a corridor resembling an apartment building, but it was carpeted and decorated with various paintings and photographs on both sides. At the end of the corridor, it seemed to lead to a living room.

This is definitely not the place that should lead to when the wardrobe door is opened.

Even Xingge, who is usually a bit absent-minded and prone to getting lost, is quite certain that the wardrobe containing the entrance to the safe house is definitely not located in a corridor.

And it is clear that when abnormal changes occur, they do not appear as isolated, standalone events.

"...The wardrobe...disappeared?"

Hongxia turned around and looked back at the place where the two of them had come out, but all she saw was a long corridor and a closed room door at the end of the corridor.

Without a sound, the wardrobe they came out of disappeared.

At this moment, it was as if the two of them had passed through some kind of time tunnel. From the moment they stepped out of the passage and their feet touched the ground, there was no turning back. They could only try to find a way out in a completely unknown world, a way that was not even certain to exist.

Why has the surrounding area become like this? Is this the change that the earthquake brought to the apartment?

Out of caution, neither Hongxia nor Xingge acted immediately, but instead remained in place, intending to scout out the surroundings further. Xingge had brought her laptop with her when she left with Hongxia for safety reasons, so both of them were now protected by the Bloodlight buff and didn't need to be too afraid.

Is this still an apartment?

Xingge couldn't hold back any longer.

At first, she didn't notice much that was unusual, but when she realized she couldn't go back and had to carefully observe her surroundings, Xingge realized that this corridor was completely different from any corridor she had seen before, and it didn't look like what should be in the Zhenyang Apartment at all.

“I remember this place… Mr. Gao and I should have been there once, in the basement? Hmm, why are we here? Shouldn’t the safe house be on the third floor?”

Hongxia quickly recognized where she should have been in the corridor and became increasingly puzzled.

What on earth is going on? Why is the exhibition hall corridor on the basement level connected to the safe house passage? And where did the exhibition area doors go? Why does the corridor end in a room that looks like a living room? This is completely out of the question! Could this bizarre place have some kind of magical automatic assembly, disassembly, and reassembly function, capable of transforming into all sorts of shapes?!

The girl, completely bewildered by the actions of the survivors who had broken into the apartment, and unaware of the changes their behavior had brought to the building, was filled with confusion. Her older sister, standing beside her, had already turned her gaze back to the other end of the corridor, to the slowly opening door to the room.

crunch--

From the darkness behind the door, a swollen, large hand slowly reached out.

Then, Xingge saw eyeballs of completely irregular size and location, looking down from the darkness at her and Hongxia in the corridor.

The temperature, which had just begun to recover, turned cold again. Unlike the previous atmosphere where the source of the malice was unclear, this time Hongxia and Xingge were able to pinpoint the source of the malice very clearly. In fact, the other party had no intention of hiding and openly revealed itself, heading directly towards the two people not far away.

"Hongxia...does your plan include this?"

Completely unprepared for this situation, Xingge turned around blankly and looked at Hongxia, asking her a question.

"How could there be such a plan? I just wanted to try and lure the thing out of the safe house! Sister, run! Don't stand still, that thing will catch up with you!"

Then Hongxia grabbed Xingge's sleeve and pulled him quickly towards the front of the corridor, towards the living room that looked relatively normal.

The pungent smell of blood, accompanied by the sound of crying, drew closer. The suddenly appearing monster gave the two people in front of them no time to react. Hongxia didn't even have time to look back at what the thing looked like. She could only run forward with all her might.

What's going on with this apartment?

Hongxia, who embarked on her escape without warning, cried out in silent despair.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Twisted and Chaotic Sheep Apartment and the New Rules

This place is no longer what I remember the Zhenyang Apartment should be like.

A chaotic mix of rooms and corridors unfolds, creating a world that defies all logic and reality. Some of the building structures and furniture even appear partially fused together, resembling a bugged game scene.

Not only that, Hongxia and Xingge even discovered some strange structures that were clearly not what an old apartment building like Zhenyang Apartment should have in the last century. For example, there was a Western restaurant that was obviously modern in style, a swimming pool, and even a strange area that looked too familiar no matter how they looked at it. It was as if a certain area of ​​the stars had been torn apart and pieced together.

It was like a dream.

A shared dream shared by all those trapped in this bizarre world.

This bizarre dream connects everyone's thoughts, brutally merging familiar places from everyone's memories in ways that are unimaginable and immeasurable by common sense, making this strange scene a reality before the eyes of the two girls.

To be honest, if that were all, Nijika would probably feel like she was just visiting a weird exhibition or something.

If it weren't for that thing chasing after us... that would probably be the case, right?

"Sister, don't stop, hurry up!"

As she ran, the girl turned and shouted loudly to her older sister.

"I...I know, huff...huff...why is that bastard chasing me so closely!"

Exhausted from running, Xingge struggled to keep up with her younger sister. Though reluctant to admit it, Xingge had to say that she, nearing thirty and about to enter middle age, simply didn't have the stamina of her seventeen or eighteen-year-old sister. In just this short distance of less than two kilometers, she felt like she was going to expel her lungs from her mouth, while Hongxia, though also sweating, seemed to be having a much easier time.

[Ah... Waaah... Ah waaah...]

The distorted sound continued to approach from behind, like the crying of a baby, or like the viscous breathing of many people, a distorted and unpleasant noise.

Neither Hongxia nor Xingge looked back at that thing.

It wasn't that the two lacked curiosity, but rather that the monster's pursuit was simply too fast. Even a moment's lapse in attention, a slight slowing down, would allow it to rapidly close the distance. During their escape, they tried various methods to slow it down, such as closing doors, knocking over glasses and sofas, but none of them were successful. In fact, these attempts only led to the monster closing the distance further; if it weren't for the protection of their crimson domain, they would have been caught.

However, thanks to the fragment of the Crimson Domain in Xingge's laptop, the crimson light it released seemed to have real lethality against the monster, slowing it down considerably with a single strike. But Xingge and Hongxia had no time to confirm the outcome; having already noticed the distance between them had increased again, they quickly sped away to prevent the creature from catching up with them once it recovered.

Where have I gone now?

Hongxia really wanted to stop and carefully observe her surroundings to avoid accidentally running into any dangerous places or dead ends. But she really didn't have that time right now. The thing chasing her was gradually catching up again, and her stamina was rapidly depleting. Moreover, her older sister beside her was clearly in worse shape and was already struggling to run.

[Waaah... Waaah... Hehehehe...]

It felt as if the cries and laughter of children were getting closer and closer.

The chilling, eerie feeling was enough to give Hongxia goosebumps all over her body.

No, we can't give up like this!

The girl gritted her teeth, staring straight ahead at a half-open door at the end of the road.

She could vaguely smell a bloody odor emanating from the crack in the door, which gave Hongxia a very bad feeling. But looking around, she couldn't find any other way to go; only the path in front of her was passable.

There was no other way. At least the fragments of the Crimson Domain could protect my sister and me. If something really went wrong inside, it could at least hold out for a while!

Having quickly made up her mind, Hongxia suddenly accelerated, slammed forward, and used her shoulder to forcefully push open the door.

The next second, a slightly blinding white light entered Hongxia's vision. She blinked, somewhat surprised to find herself in a small office. At this moment, the small office was filled with an extremely strong smell of coffee, and a faint, sour smell, like the kind of smell that comes from clothes that haven't been washed for several days.

"Hey?"

Hongxia was a little stunned.

She wasn't stunned because she had arrived at a new scene. After all, she had encountered all sorts of normal and abnormal scenes during the chase, and an office was nothing out of the ordinary.

However, the pursuers behind them disappeared.

Turning around, behind the open door was an empty corridor, with no trace of the monster that had made the baby's cries and laughter, as if it had never existed at all.

But that wasn't the part that surprised Hongxia the most.

Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle

On one side of this cramped office, in front of a large desk, amidst piles of documents, someone is engrossed in writing and processing them.

From the man's disheveled appearance, his bloodshot and dark-circled eyes that looked utterly exhausted, and the cold black coffee on the table, one could easily tell that he was overworked and mentally drained.

It can be said that what appears before Hongxia and Xingge now is a typical corporate slave, the kind of corporate slave who works overtime until the early hours of the morning at the slightest word from the boss, stumbles out of the company like a corpse in the middle of the night, and then has to arrive early the next day.

If she were to see someone so tired and overworked under normal circumstances, Hongxia, with her kind nature, might have taken the initiative to go up and show her some concern.

But at this moment, witnessing such a scene in this abnormal instance world, Hongxia simply couldn't face the person before her with a calm mind. Especially since the other person had a face she recognized, a face she had actually seen just a few hours ago.

The bird's tail is so beautiful.

A few hours earlier, when they first arrived at the Sheep House, among the three survivors who received Hongxia and the others in room 109, there was a timid, cowardly, and taciturn young woman named Torio Mami. Although she probably didn't exchange more than five words with Hongxia from beginning to end, Hongxia still remembered her very clearly, both what she looked like when she was alive and what she looked like after she became a monster.

So, what's going on here?

The girl opened her mouth, but dared not speak immediately.