Wan Jie Hospice Care Company

"Thump, thump, thump."

The knocking sounded, neither too loud nor too soft, exactly three times, which surprised An Ling and Xiang Yu.

Xiang Yu suddenly realized that he had been so focused on the subtle clues in the diary that he had completely forgotten the most important thing: the diary itself had a main text.

After hiding for half a day, someone knocked on my door that evening, saying he was my neighbor.

Indeed, if the diary is truly a script for the future, then the person outside the door right now should be the "neighbor".

After learning more about that man, I trusted him even more. He told me not to open the door, so I didn't.

According to the diary, he would not have let Anling open the door at that time.

In fact, Xiang Yu's subconscious thought was that she shouldn't open the door, since she didn't know whether the person outside was a human or a ghost.

"..." Xiang Yu didn't speak, but slowly rubbed his chin with his fingertips.

So should we listen to the diary, or not?

To play it safe, he should follow the diary. The diary should be kept up until December 31st. As long as there is no mention of anything happening to him and Anling, it means he can live to the end of the year.

After all, the diary had to be kept until December 31st; if he died prematurely, there would be no way to continue the story.

But Xiangyu is also a little itchy. What will happen if he deviates from this established path?

It's a bit like the idea of ​​a teammate in a horror movie who's courting death...

"Thump, thump, thump."

"I'm your neighbor. We're having a power outage where I am. Is yours too?" The voice was urgent. "If yours isn't, then the fuse must have blown..."

An Ling and Xiang Yu exchanged a glance.

Xiang Yu raised an eyebrow almost imperceptibly, then reached out and pressed down, signaling her not to move.

It's possible that some interesting things might happen if the diary entries are broken, but not now.

It would be more worthwhile to challenge this script once he has all his cards on the table and everything is in place.

So the two of them held their breath and waited quietly for the knocking to gradually fade away.

It finally became completely quiet outside the door.

An Ling let out a long sigh of relief, her chest heaving: "I was so nervous, my heart was about to jump out of my chest."

Xiang Yu didn't respond.

He slowly stood up, his steps extremely light, and approached the cat's eyes on the iron gate.

The building has a very simple structure. The doors of the two households on the same floor are built opposite each other, so you can see the door of the neighbor's house on the opposite floor through the peephole.

After testing his speed, when he returned to Anling's house, he secretly peeled off a large piece of wall plaster, crushed it, and sprinkled a layer of plaster on the neighbor's door.

If the person who knocked on the door just now was indeed a neighbor, then there must be a pair of footprints in the dust at the door leading to their own door.

If it were a resident from another apartment in this building knocking on their way, the footprints would most likely point towards the corner of the stairs, and would never be directly facing the neighbor's door.

As for the property management, the property management of this kind of old and dilapidated building has always been lazy and complacent, and would never be diligent enough to sweep the stairs once a day.

Xiang Yu peered through the peephole. The motion-activated lights outside were still stubbornly lit because of the earlier noise, allowing Xiang Yu to see clearly what was happening outside.

There are only three possibilities now.

Firstly, there are footprints on the ash indicating that someone went upstairs.

Secondly, there are footprints on the gray cloth indicating that neighbors went out and returned home.

Thirdly, there were no footprints at the door, but there were obvious signs of cleaning.

And the fourth type...

Xiang Yu stared out through the cat's eye and smacked his teeth with a tsk.

The scene outside, unfortunately, turned out to be the fourth type he didn't want to encounter.

The plaster was still quietly spread on the ground, without even a trace of being swept.

But no footprints were left on the ground.

"Damn, this is really weird." Xiang Yu shook his head after leaving the peephole. "Now that you mention it, we've been targeted by a ghost again."

The situation is really not optimistic. There is a strange creature in the room that can be seen, but Xiang Yu and An Ling can't find it no matter how hard they look.

Outside the room, there was an unknown entity posing as a neighbor, eyeing Xiang Yu and An Ling with predatory intent.

With forces working together from both inside and outside, they are surrounded by enemies.

Seeing Xiang Yu's somewhat melancholy expression, An Ling asked softly, "A neighbor...is he really a neighbor?"

"That's a good question. Indeed, what we can be sure of now is that the neighbor is definitely not the neighbor you remember." Xiang Yu paused for a moment. "As for whether it's a ghost... we'll have to think about it some more."

As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly yawned, a few tears welling up in the corner of his eyes. "After a whole day of running around, I'm really a bit sleepy."

"Ah..." An Ling rubbed her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sleepy too. It's so late, why don't we go to sleep first?"

"Yes, sleep..."

"..."

"??????"

Xiang Yu's drowsiness vanished instantly, and then his eyes widened.

"damn it."

"Huh?" An Ling was puzzled when she saw Xiang Yu suddenly swearing. "What, what's wrong, Brother Xiang?"

"...Tonight." Xiang Yu quickly turned her head and pressed her hand on An Ling's shoulder, so hard that An Ling flinched in pain. "Quickly try to remember what happened today?!"

"What happened today?" An Ling hesitated for a moment. "I woke up first, went to the morning market to buy groceries, and then when I got home to prepare to cook, you woke up, Brother Xiang."

"Then what!"

"Then you told me you were going for a morning run, so I made breakfast at home. After I finished making breakfast, you knocked on the door and asked if I could hear the neighbors..."

"Then what!"

"Then we ate breakfast. You ate a lot, Brother Xiang... After breakfast, I studied in my bedroom for a while. After that, you came to my bedroom and said there was a ghost in the house."

"Then!"

"And then it's like this now... Suddenly someone knocked on the door..." An Ling said, her eyes widening slowly.

"Yeah, how could it be such a small matter?"

One day, a whole day.

After this incident, it was evening.

Xiangyu started to trace back.

Just now, when I told Anling that there was a ghost in the room, it was already getting dark outside, which means it was almost evening.

When I went to check the peephole, the motion-activated lights in the corridor had already turned on, which meant that it was past dusk and night had arrived.

Xiang Yu felt that, including the time he spent studying his diary and searching for strange things in the room, only three or four hours of the day had passed.

Before I knew it, it was already evening.

What on earth happened?!

Why is that?!

Xiang Yu took two steps back, looked around at everything, and a chill rose from his heart.

The eerie thing inside the house was indeed there.

Moreover, it was by no means without hostility; it just didn't confront the two directly.

Its attack methods were so cunning that they completely exceeded Xiang Yu's expectations.

Could it be...?

It stole my time!