Chapter 456: BanShan Apartment

The ride was silent.

The driver uncle had no interest in chatting, and Lu Yibei sensibly kept his mouth shut. After checking BanShan Apartment on his phone, he gazed out the window, quietly sorting through information in his mind.

The information about BanShan Apartment available online was pretty much the same as the rumors he’d heard.

That residential area was located in the Hua City Suburbs. The original site was an elementary school, converted into apartment buildings forty years ago. It was right next to the Hua City Cement Factory mining area and served as staff apartments for the cement factory.

The reason Lu Yibei remembered BanShan Apartment was because, eighteen years ago, a serious accident happened there, turning the apartments into dangerous buildings and resulting in deaths.

After that, the entire apartment complex was abandoned. Over time, some terrifying haunting legends began to spread about the place. When he was a child, the old men in the compound often used those ghostly stories to scare Lu Yibei.

According to the rumors, some people passing by the foot of the mountain late at night heard the sounds of arguing coming from the mountain.

Some drivers, after picking up passengers heading to BanShan Apartment at two in the morning, saw a faint, ghostly light shining from inside the buildings.

Some even claimed to have seen a group of oddly dressed, suspicious-looking people carrying sacrificial items, heading up the mountain together at dusk, silhouetted against the setting sun, looking just like a funeral procession.

Thinking about it carefully, those strange events were probably the work of the Truth-Seeking Fellowship.

Perhaps they used to gather there, holding all sorts of bizarre rituals.

Besides that, Lu Yibei also had some other information about BanShan Apartment, coming from his dream memories.

From those dream memories, he vaguely knew that, for some unknown purpose, he had been to the place where BanShan Apartment was located. But the elementary school hadn’t been demolished, so naturally there were no apartment buildings-only an abandoned elementary school.

In the Hua City of his dream memories, there was also a place called BanShan Community, but it was about five kilometers away from the foot of the cement factory’s mining area, near Hua City’s Xicheng District.

—

About forty minutes later.

Uncle Zhang Shan dropped Lu Yibei off a few hundred meters from BanShan Apartment and pulled over.

No one had come here for years. The road was badly damaged from long neglect, with cracks everywhere. Coupled with those spine-chilling legends, Uncle Zhang Shan clearly didn’t want to go any further.

Unless he got paid extra.

But how could Lu Yibei, who wanted to ride for free, possibly pay more?

Helpless, he paid the fare, got out of the car, and before he could say goodbye to Uncle Zhang Shan, the man made a clean, sharp turn, floored the gas, and sped away.

“Hey-! Uncle Zhang Shan from my dream memories was so much friendlier!” Lu Yibei sighed. “Even though he always left quickly too, at least he never charged me.”

After a couple of complaints, he followed the broken, battered path, and a few minutes later, found the long-abandoned apartment complex.

There was more than one building; all were either about to be demolished or half-demolished. On the crumbling walls, the scarlet word “demolish” could often be seen.

Everywhere he looked, it was devastation-overgrown with weeds, a scene of utter ruin and decay.

These dilapidated old apartments always gave people a vague, inexplicable sense of fear.

Maybe it was because of the way old apartments were built: every hallway was dimly lit, long and wide, and some old buildings even had winding, twisting corridors.

The doors in the hallways were almost all identical, and the corridor walls looked the same everywhere. If nothing was placed in the hallway, you couldn’t tell one spot from another.

It was as if they were deliberately built that way, to trap people-or something else-inside.

Lu Yibei kept moving forward.

A dark cloud drifted across the sky, and dusk fell quickly, casting a grayish haze over the ruined BanShan Apartment. Without the wild grass growing everywhere, it would have looked completely lifeless.

At the rusted iron gate at the entrance to the complex, Lu Yibei paused for a moment, took a toilet plunger from his backpack, and hung a talismanic jade pendant around his neck.

After a few steps, he turned back, picked up a steel pipe that had fallen from the gate, swung it twice in the air, and gripped it tightly in his other hand.

Uh, it’s not that I don’t trust the ancestral “sword,” the Pure Lotus Sword!

This is dual wielding!

Dual wielding with a crit bonus, get it? Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly.

Entering the complex, Lu Yibei stood under one of the apartment buildings, surveying his surroundings.

Traces of life were still etched into the remains of the houses-pots, pans, and broken furniture scattered everywhere. Many windows were shattered, and on some balconies, clothes that hadn’t been taken away still hung.

All were old-fashioned styles, thick with dust and stains.

After looking around for a while at the six scattered, chaotic buildings, Lu Yibei suddenly felt a bit hopeless. He had no idea which one was Gu Qianqian’s home.

The information Su Mi gave only said that Gu Qianqian’s family lived on the top floor of Apartment 6.

But after more than ten, nearly twenty years, these apartments were already dangerous buildings. Two of them were half-demolished, and with no one living or managing them for so long, the remaining buildings were badly damaged.

There was no way to tell which one was Apartment 6.

Did he have to search them one by one?

Could he really find it?

Maybe Gu Qianqian’s home was in one of those half-demolished buildings, already torn down long ago.

Lu Yibei stared at the windows crawling with shadows. It felt like someone was standing at every one, watching him from afar, sending a chill down his spine.

For a moment, two voices popped up in his mind.

One was a timid, cowardly voice: “This place is off. It might’ve been a cult gathering spot. Let’s get out of here! Your life’s more important!”

The other was a soft, girlish voice, tinged with urgency: “If you leave now, you’ll probably never come back. Don’t you want to know who Jiang Li is?”

After hesitating for a moment, Lu Yibei decided to listen to the girl!

Driven by the fine tradition of “since I’m already here” and his intense curiosity, he gritted his teeth and forced himself to enter the nearest apartment building.

Maybe it was just psychological, but the moment he stepped inside, he suddenly felt something very strange.

He felt that the truth was waiting for him up ahead.

—

As he entered the building, the light dimmed, and a faint musty smell mixed with dust swept over him.

Just stepping into the apartment building, he felt something strange, as if the whole place was a massive living organism, and the chilling draft was its breath.

Lu Yibei frowned slightly, didn’t linger on the first floor, and went straight to the stairs, heading up.

“Cough, cough, cough-!”

He had just set foot on the second floor when, in the next second, he heard a fit of harsh coughing, so violent it sounded as if the person might cough up a lung.

The sound was unnaturally clear, coming from right behind him. For a moment, he wondered if he’d run into some haunting, his muscles tensing, gripping the toilet plunger and rebar tightly, eyes alert to his surroundings.

Then…

Through a gap in the stairwell, he spotted a strange old man near the third-floor landing.

The old man’s skin was dark, he wore a tattered undershirt, and slung over his shoulder was a bulging woven sack. He leaned on the rickety handrail, half his body poking out as he peered down, staring straight at Lu Yibei, clutching an L-shaped iron rod-probably for poking through trash.

In the dimly lit corridor, their sudden eye contact made Lu Yibei’s heart jolt, and he frowned.

Someone actually lived here? He looked like a homeless man…

He’s not going to attack me, is he? A lot of homeless people seem mentally unstable.

Isn’t that how it goes in the movies? In some remote or abandoned old building, there’s always a deeply twisted homeless man who spends his days hunting passing “little lambs” for fun, and then a bunch of clueless college or high school students, as if begging for trouble, show up in a group.

Thinking this, Lu Yibei forced a stiff smile at the old man, but once he opened his mouth, he couldn’t stop-the words just tumbled out as if they had legs of their own.

“Hey there, sir! Have you eaten? What did you have? Was it good? This place you live in is pretty nice, you know? Syrian war-damaged style, retro decor, backed by mountains, green hills nurture people, really great for your health! Honestly, I’m just wandering around, nothing special, you don’t have to mind me. Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll just…”

His gaze suddenly landed on the shadow behind the old man, and Lu Yibei’s pupils contracted, his words cutting off abruptly.

The light outside was dim, and the corridor was dim, so there shouldn’t have been any obvious shadows.

Yet the old man’s figure cast a darkness on the wall so thick it seemed ready to swallow someone whole.

Even stranger, the old man’s shadow wasn’t a normal human shape.

Two heads, four arms, flickering in the darkness, twisted and bizarre, as if something invisible to the naked eye was parasitizing the old man.

The shadow moved like liquid, constantly writhing, contorting into unnatural poses no ordinary person could make, and faintly, the air carried the brittle sound of bones twisting.

The distorted shadow, combined with the old man’s own limbs, made him look like a giant spider with a human face.

“Gulp-!” Lu Yibei’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed, a sheen of sweat appearing on his forehead.

This was no simple case of a mentally ill homeless man.

He might be some kind of haunting!

Lu Yibei thought, instinctively taking two steps back.

“Shhh-shhh-!”

The soles of his shoes scraped against the concrete debris on the floor, making soft noises.

Noticing Lu Yibei’s movement, the old man suddenly cocked his head, his expression as if he’d discovered something novel and amusing. He grinned, revealing a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth.

“Heh heh-!” The laugh was thin and eerie, his wrinkled face scrunched up, and his pale eyes darted wildly in their sockets, as if they might pop out at any moment.

With that strange laugh, the old man suddenly charged down.

His movements were swift, nothing like an elderly man at death’s door.

“Thud thud-!”

Rapid footsteps echoed in the stairwell.

Lu Yibei’s heart tightened, and he instinctively called out, “Jacket, Alchemical Bomb!”

But…

His clothes didn’t writhe or transform, and there was no way a nonexistent Alchemical Bomb could appear in his hand.

“Damn!”

That last-minute power-up stuff really only happens in stories!

“Thud thud-!”

The footsteps kept coming closer.

Lu Yibei snapped back to his senses-there was no time to think. His body moved on its own, turning and running down the stairs.

Whether it was a person or a haunting, the old man vanished from sight, but was closing in on his direction, and Lu Yibei panicked.

Even though in his dream memories he had superhuman strength and a toilet plunger that might be a legendary sword, he still couldn’t be sure if that was real or just a dream.

You only get one life-if you can still run when danger comes, why gamble?

Sure, he was a “mental patient” with a combat buff, but who doesn’t have a little madness?

And that old man had something strange and bizarre on him.

As for whether the old man was charging down to attack or do something else, Lu Yibei didn’t want to know, nor was he interested.

In a place like this, if you run into a creepy homeless guy wielding a bloody iron rod and charging at you, and you’re not even a little scared, trying to figure out his real intentions, Lu Yibei would have to salute you as a “warrior!”

“Thud thud-!”

The footsteps behind grew closer, and a thick stench invaded Lu Yibei’s nose, letting him know without turning that the old man was right behind him.

It was a strange odor-a mix of sour sweat and rotting garbage, with a faint hint of blood.

The suffocating stench drilled into his nose, striking his soul and nerves.

“Faster, faster!”

Lu Yibei was frantic, muttering to himself to urge his body forward.

People always manage to tap into hidden potential in moments of crisis.

With that self-hypnotic push, he cleared the four-meter staircase in just three giant strides, then dashed down the first-floor corridor, bursting out of the apartment building.

Then, fresh air tinged with mountain grass swept in with the cool breeze.

Even after leaving the building, Lu Yibei didn’t dare stop for a second.

The stench from the crazy old man still lingered, meaning he was still hot on his heels.

Fleeing wildly, changing direction again and again to shake off the mad old man, in his panic, Lu Yibei darted into another apartment building, and the light dimmed instantly.

Once his eyes adjusted to the gloom and he saw what was ahead, Lu Yibei’s heart tightened.

He didn’t follow?

Did he give up halfway, or was he never after me in the first place?

Lu Yibei thought, glancing back at the building he’d just left, deep in thought.

He wondered if that old man was a member of the Truth-Seeking Fellowship…

If all the Truth-Seeking Fellowship members were as crazy as him, even if he found them, he probably wouldn’t get any answers. Better to just head back, Lu Yibei thought.

Lu Yibei hid in the shadows, hesitating for a long time before finally deciding to grit his teeth and keep exploring.

Although that crazy old man hadn’t chased him into the apartment building, he was still wandering outside. Every now and then, Yibei could hear his footsteps crunching over rubble and debris.

If he went out now, he might just run right into him.

Should he call the police? Say he came to BanShan Apartment looking for members of the Truth-Seeking Fellowship and ran into a crazy old man with a haunting in his shadow?

Give me a break! He already had a suspected mental illness record at the hospital. If the police came, they’d probably take him away before they even caught that crazy old man.

Might as well go upstairs and explore for a bit. Best case, he’d find something; worst case, he could just wait for the old man to leave on his own. That’s what Lu Yibei thought.

Besides, after encountering such strange things, his curiosity about the people from his dream memories only grew stronger.

His intuition told him that if he didn’t figure all this out, he might regret it for the rest of his life.

But he was here to look for clues about the Truth-Seeking Fellowship.

And in the eyes of ordinary people, the Truth-Seeking Fellowship was just a bunch of lunatics. If he asked anyone for help, they’d probably think he was crazy too.

So, if he wanted answers, he’d have to find them himself.

Still, just to be safe before setting out, Lu Yibei took out his phone and sent a message to Su Mi.

Lu Yibei: “Xiao Mi, I’m at BanShan Apartment. Something’s not right here.”

You always have to leave yourself a way out!

Su Mi: “??? Are you crazy, bro? What are you doing there? That kind of haunted place, it’d be weird if it was normal.”

Lu Yibei: “I’m just really curious!”

Su Mi: “Curious my ass! Get your butt back here right now, you hear me?”

Lu Yibei: “Well, I’m already here…[aggrieved]”

Su Mi: “Then go on, I’ll just stay home and wait to attend your funeral. [picking nose]”

Lu Yibei: “Damn! Are you even my best bro anymore? Weren’t we supposed to be each other’s angels? [angry.jpg]”

Su Mi: “But this is way too dangerous!”

Lu Yibei: “Relax, I know what I’m doing. Worst case, I’ll text you every ten minutes to let you know I’m safe! That’s actually why I messaged you in the first place.”

Su Mi didn’t reply for a long time, as if hesitating.

Three minutes later.

Su Mi: “You said it! Every ten minutes, and the reply has to be a full sentence. If you don’t text me, I’m calling the cops!”

Lu Yibei: “Love you, mwah!”

Su Mi: “Lu Yibei, you’re getting more and more girly lately…”

Lu Yibei: “Get lost! By the way, did you get your driver’s license yet?”

Su Mi: “What are you getting at?”

Lu Yibei: “If it’s convenient, could you drive over and wait near BanShan Apartment for me? I remember your dad gave you his old car to practice with, right? [sly grin]”

If things went south, he’d just bail out of BanShan Apartment and leave in Su Mi’s car.

That crazy old man or whoever else might be hiding here-even if they could outrun him, there’s no way they could outrun a car, right? Lu Yibei thought.

Su Mi: “Having a childhood friend like you is the worst luck I’ve had in eight lifetimes! Just wait, I’ll go get the keys from my dad. I’ll be there in two hours at the latest.”