Global Collapse

Chapter 108 I understand
Gu Mian pushed open the door and looked inside, but there was no one there.

The fat man timidly peeked out from behind Gu Mian with a lewd expression: "Doctor, tell me, did something go in... or did something come out?"

Gu Mian closed the door again: "Only ghosts would know about this."

The two didn't linger there and headed straight for the study, which was next to the room of the young couple, Mingliang and Xiao Zhang.

The fat man glanced at the door as he passed by.

Their door was half open, and from the outside, you could see a cheap crib with what looked like some toys inside.

The sound of two people talking could still be heard from inside the room. The couple probably felt it was dangerous to close the door, since in some horror movies, once a door is closed, it can never be opened again.

With the door half-open, at least you can push it open and run away in case of danger.

Mingliang seemed to have heard footsteps outside, and even went to the door to take a look.

Gu Mian had no intention of stopping to chat with him. She skipped their room and went straight to the door not far away, which was the study that Zhao Lei had mentioned.

The door to the room was closed, but not locked, so the two of them could easily enter.

Gu Mian reached out and grasped the doorknob, pushing the door open a crack.

The study was dark because the lights were off; you could only vaguely see a few bookshelves when you opened the door.

The fat man pulled out a flashlight: "Let me turn it on and find where the light switch is in this room..."

Meanwhile, Mobile Guy was staring at the clock that was ticking backwards in the lobby on the first floor.

He was holding the piece of paper he had found in his room. The contents of the paper were mostly covered by something like black ink, leaving only a distorted character for "king".

"This clock that's running backwards, and the paper in my hand, should both be important clues, but first I need to know what's on this paper..."

The mobile operator stared at the clock in front of him, lost in thought.

"Perhaps there's some connection between this piece of paper and this form?"

This clock face, which runs backwards, has a very retro feel. It doesn't have numbers on it, but there are twelve black bars around it, which is how you tell the time.

The second hand is ticking away, and apart from the direction of the ticking, the watch looks perfectly normal.

Because the hands are moving backward, the time on the dial is incorrect.

Although it is already night, it is clearly not yet midnight; the time shown on the watch is 2:30 AM.

The mobile guy stared at the clock, which was as tall as him: "Does a clock that runs backwards mean that time in this instance flows backwards?"

So I will get younger and younger, and my lifespan will increase?
This was Mobile Bro's first thought.

But he immediately dismissed the thought; now was not the time to think about such things.

As he pondered this, Mobile Guy glanced around nervously, wanting to take the watch apart to examine it.

At this moment, Chu Changge had already returned to his room, the door of which was tightly closed.

Zhao Lei also kept the door closed, and it was unclear what he was doing inside.

This is the perfect time to dismantle the watch.

Thinking of this, he boldly reached out his hand, but as if deliberately targeting him, just as he stretched out his hand, there was a sudden noise coming from Zhao Lei's door.

The mobile operator recoiled as if electrocuted, looking stiffly in Zhao Lei's direction.

Zhao Lei's door was open, and the furnishings inside could be vaguely seen; his room was extremely simple.

From this angle, you can see the corner of a broken table with a pen holder on it containing two pens. One of the pens looks somewhat familiar...

There seemed to be some CDs or something similar next to the pen holder.

At that moment, Zhao Lei was standing at the doorway, looking at him with some confusion: "What are you doing?"

The mobile phone operator awkwardly fumbled with his hands: "I just wanted to look at this watch, to see why it's going backwards."

He noticed that Zhao Lei's suspicion level had risen to 20.

Mobile Bro was on the verge of tears. He figured if he did it a few more times, he'd forget about getting the side quest reward. The Financial Management Guide was obviously related to money, and right now, money was what players in this game lacked the most.

Fortunately, Zhao Lei didn't seem to intend to pursue the matter further. Instead, he continued, echoing what the mobile operator had said: "I'm also puzzled. The table was already like this when I came back. I don't know if it's because the table was rotated backwards, but I still feel something's off here."

"But I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with it." Zhao Lei seemed quite troubled.

He took two steps out of the room and walked towards the coffee table, seemingly wanting to pour himself a glass of water.

But as he passed the sofa, seemingly distracted, he didn't notice and bumped his knee on the corner. He immediately bent over in pain, wanting to clutch his knee, but as he bent over, it suddenly dawned on him: "Wait... this sofa wasn't originally here..."

Mobile Brother swallowed hard and watched Zhao Lei from the side.

Zhao Lei straightened up and looked around, his expression even more bewildered: "That's right, I remember it was placed like this before, but why does it feel like the position is wrong..."

Zhao Lei's sofa was also very old and worn out, grayish-brown, or to put it bluntly, a yellowish-brown.

It was old and worn out, with a slightly longer one placed in the middle, facing the main entrance.

It can be seen that there should be two more single sofas placed on both sides, but one of the single sofas is probably no longer usable, so there is only a small sofa on one side.

Zhao Lei's knee hit this small sofa.

At this point, the mobile operator finally spoke up: "Are you injured? Do you want to put some medicine on?"

He was trying his best to appear as a normal person, hoping to prevent his suspicions from escalating.

"No," Zhao Lei shook his head absently, "I'd better go back to my room."

As he spoke, he started walking back to his room.

Zhao Lei isn't short, but for some reason he always looks like he hasn't had enough rest, and he walks as if he's floating.

"Wait, wait..." Just as he returned to the door and was about to close it, Mobile Brother suddenly stepped forward and spoke.

"What's wrong?" Zhao Lei asked, looking puzzled.

The mobile phone guy stood at the door and glanced at Zhao Lei's room: "Um... could I borrow a pen?"

"A pen?" Zhao Lei glanced at the pen holder on the table subconsciously.

There were two pencils in the pencil holder, both very old-fashioned pencils, the kind that needed to be sharpened with a knife, completely black without any patterns or anything like that.

The other one was a rather thick eraser pen, but it had been unwrapped and looked rather plain.

Zhao Lei saw this thing often when he was in elementary school. It was once very popular and could erase handwriting written with a fountain pen.

He wanted to try and see if he could use the eraser pen to remove the dark stuff from the paper in his hand.

Although he didn't know what Zhao Lei wanted to do with the pen, he still lent it to him.

As soon as he got the pen, he went back to his room. Then he took out the stained paper, uncapped the pen, and started smearing the stain.

Fortunately, there was no dramatic scene where the pen ink ran out.

To his surprise, he discovered that the black ink stains on the paper could indeed be removed with an eraser pen. Having obtained this result, Mobile Bro began to scribble down the character "王" (Wang).

When he wiped away the second character, a strange expression appeared on his face.

The handwriting on this paper looks like it was written by a primary school student with poor handwriting; it's crooked and twisted like an earthworm.

"This is... a character?"

Mobile Brother frowned as he looked at the second character that appeared.

He clearly couldn't recognize what the characters were.

But Mobile Bro didn't give up, and continued to scribble downwards with his pen.

As more and more writing appeared, the confusion on his face lessened, and was replaced by a look of surprise.

Fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, as if he were eager to find the answer, and he picked up his pen again, wanting to quickly scribble something down.

But just as he finished erasing the next line of text and was about to take a closer look, the light above his head suddenly went out.

To be precise, all the lights in the house went out, and all the rooms were plunged into darkness.

He heard a woman screaming from upstairs, but he ignored it and instead hurriedly took out his flashlight and shone it on the piece of paper in his hand.

It was as if they were afraid that what was on the paper would disappear in the next second.

The flashlight beam illuminated the slightly crumpled piece of paper in front of him, and he stared at its contents in shock: "I understand!"

But just as he shouted those words, he suddenly saw a white thing next to him out of the corner of his eye.

The mobile guy stiffly turned his head to look, only to see a pale face that had somehow gotten right in front of him.

As we all know, the author is a nocturnal creature, so please don't worry, you can read it after you wake up (coocoo.jpg)

感谢啦啦啦刘斩仙、栗花花、笑笑以后、清明十月、二逗小鸭、尾号为3353的书友、陌上幽月、是泼猫丫、诚轨车辆、灼好、血色繁華、爱无弦、我为催更进了群、方天画戟ted、prprprPro 、zxt小老弟、清茶入梦、幻灵韵紫、琴瑟笙筱、尾号为8670的书友、尾号为2606的书友、柒玖7979、萝莉盟盟主、英俊的自己、好厨师一把盐、一曲悲歌葬故城、尾号为2724的书友、林契、Bilobili、的打赏。（づ￣3￣）づ╭～
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(End of this chapter)