Forced into a romantic relationship

Chapter 306 What treasure?
The sudden, heavy footsteps sounded like muffled thunder, bringing the previously lively discussion to an abrupt halt. Everyone stopped in their tracks, their expressions filled with fear.

The footsteps were so heavy, like a massive creature weighing hundreds of pounds slowly dragging a heavy object upstairs, accompanied by a rustling sound—though "murmuring" isn't quite the right word, it certainly didn't sound like a human.

The live stream chat was filled with comments like "Holy crap!", "What is that?", and "Go check it out!"

"Are there other people in this building?" Wang Qingqing asked nervously.

Bai Suya gave a wry smile: "Senior, are you sure a person can make such terrifying footsteps?"

Wang Qingqing's face turned pale, and she couldn't help but shrink her neck.

Zhang Tao looked around at everyone and said, "I'll go up and take a look first."

He had been walking at the front all along, and now that he was only five or six steps away from the third floor, he didn't hesitate any longer and immediately went upstairs, showing no fear on his face.

It has to be said that this person who is "unaware of death" is really brave. I don't know if he is convinced that ghosts cannot exist in this world, or if he is simply fearless.

"Senior, wait for me, I want to come too."

Just then, Han Zhou suddenly called out to Zhang Tao, immediately attracting everyone's attention. However, he didn't care and quickly went upstairs, passing by everyone to come to Zhang Tao's side.

He was very interested in what was upstairs. Regardless of whether the footsteps were related to Xiao Xiaoxiao, it wouldn't hurt to go up and take a look. Maybe it could help them find the truth.

Moreover, Mo Yixia is currently watching a live stream, which is a rare opportunity. He plans to investigate all the unusual locations so that Mo Yixia can analyze more useful information.

Seemingly understanding his thoughts, despite feeling a little apprehensive, Xiao Xiaoxiao still followed with small steps: "I want to go too."

Sun Fei was the one who knew best what the footsteps on the third floor meant, and he immediately expressed his opinion, shrugging and saying, "Then I'll go too. I've never seen a living ghost in my life."

He naturally assumed the thing upstairs was a ghost, then quietly hung up the phone in his pocket, thinking he would have to find a chance to act alone later and put away the speakerphone and cell phone in time.

That's right, the footsteps upstairs were actually arranged by Sun Fei. He had his two roommates hide a cell phone and a speakerphone on the third floor that afternoon, and set the phone's ringtone to a terrifying footstep sound. It would ring as soon as a call was made and stop as soon as the call was disconnected. The rustling sound just now wasn't a murmur, but an unavoidable static sound.

This was naturally prepared for the best effect of tonight's live stream, and it seems to be working quite well, with the number of viewers in the live stream room increasing rapidly.

The four people in front of them decided to continue upstairs. Wang Qingqing and Bai Suya didn't dare to stay behind. The former was timid to begin with, while the latter overestimated her courage. Although they regretted participating in tonight's live broadcast, the two of them still followed the others upstairs.

Han Zhou and Zhang Tao walked side by side at the front.

The layout of the third floor was similar to that of the first and second floors, but there were many more miscellaneous items. Something on the floor was reflecting light, and upon closer inspection, it turned out to be broken glass. There were traces of fire damage along the load-bearing wall, and below it was a pile of tattered clothes.

"It seems that homeless people did live here before, and it looks like they even made a fire to cook things."

Han Zhou seemed to be deep in thought. He held up his flashlight and looked around the third floor, focusing mainly on the gray ground. The footsteps he had just heard were so heavy that they should have left footprints.

To his disappointment, there were no extra footprints on the ground, and he never saw anything that resembled a ghost.

The others didn't find anything either, but Xiao Xiaoxiao pointed to a spot and said, "There seem to be words there."

Everyone looked in the direction she was pointing and indeed saw a line of crooked writing not far away, but it was too far to see clearly, so they all moved closer.

Zhang Tao pointed the camera at the ground so that the viewers in the live stream could also see the words on the ground. After observing them carefully for a moment, he frowned and said, "I'm not very literate, can you tell what these words are?"

As a student of Linyi University, Zhang Tao's cultural level was naturally not low. The reason he said such a thing was because the words on the ground were so ugly that he couldn't recognize them.

"The first word seems to be 'me'..." Bai Suya frowned as well, "The second one is 'you'?"

The viewers in the live stream were also helping to figure it out. Sun Fei looked at the comments and was suddenly overjoyed. He said, "Someone figured it out. This line of text means 'I curse you, I will make you never be reincarnated!'"

Everyone was stunned for a moment, then quickly looked down at the ground. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to be true, and then they felt a chill run down their spines.

Such a curse, brimming with resentment, coupled with the terrifying footsteps just heard, makes it hard not to associate it with something else.

Only Han Zhou looked strange. He recognized Mo Yixia's ID; the sentence he had just received was posted by Mo Yixia.

I have no idea how this guy could recognize such ugly handwriting...

Sun Fei secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He had asked his two roommates to leave the message on the ground. He wanted the message to be eerie and crazy to increase the atmosphere of terror, so he specifically told them to write the message as distorted as possible.

Who knew that these two characters could be so distorted that they were almost unrecognizable? And he couldn't actively try to read them, lest he be caught out. Fortunately, some sharp-eyed viewers pointed it out, otherwise the horror effect would have been greatly diminished.

Sun Fei took a deep breath, and taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention to him, he quietly took out the glass bottle that he had hidden in his pocket beforehand, threw it hard behind him, and dialed a number at the same time.

"Snapped!"

The sound of shattering glass was drowned out by heavy, terrifying footsteps. The huge commotion made the hairs stand on end for everyone who was studying the writing on the ground. They quickly turned around to look, but they couldn't see even a shadow.

Sun Fei was one of those whose hair stood on end. His face turned pale, and he pointed with trembling arms at the ground covered in broken glass not far away, exclaiming in horror, "Blood! There's blood on the ground!"

Without him saying anything, the sudden appearance of the scarlet liquid immediately attracted the attention of everyone else. The live stream was filled with "Holy crap" and question marks, clearly frightened by this bizarre scene.

Han Zhou raised an eyebrow slightly, rushed over in one stride, and shone his powerful flashlight on the ground to examine the "bloodstains".

Zhang Tao followed closely behind, his nose twitching as he said uncertainly, "It really does look like blood."

Han Zhou also smelled the blood. His gaze lingered on the broken glass on the ground for a moment, and he grunted in response without saying anything more.

"Why...why is there...blood?"

The others moved a little slower. Wang Qingqing was so scared that she couldn't speak. So much blood appeared on the ground as soon as the footsteps sounded. What would happen if the footsteps sounded again?
Xiao Xiaoxiao was also a little scared, but she still pretended to be calm and looked at the blood on the ground. However, the more she looked, the more she felt something was wrong. Just as she was about to speak, Han Zhou pushed her and whispered, "Come here, I have something to tell you."

Regardless of whether the other person heard him or not, he looked at the others with lingering fear and said apologetically, "I'm sorry, she's a little afraid of blood. I'll take her over there to calm down." Who's afraid of blood?

Xiao Xiaoxiao looked curious, wanting to see who was so useless, when Han Zhou pulled her to a spot away from the crowd.

"What are you doing?"

Once she regained her footing, she realized that it was she who was useless, and said angrily, "I don't faint at the sight of blood, and that's not blood at all, at least not human blood. Human blood doesn't look like this!"

She was just about to tell everyone her discovery when this guy pulled her over and started throwing mud at her.

"What should it be like?" Han Zhou asked curiously.

He also noticed something was wrong with the bloodstain. As someone with a photographic memory, although he couldn't tell from a glance that the number of glass shards was different from the beginning—it would require careful recall and comparison—he was still more sensitive than the average person and immediately sensed that something was amiss.

In addition, he keenly noticed that the distribution of these "blood" was problematic. Most of the glass fragments had only a small amount of "blood" remaining, while only a small portion of the fragments had a large amount of "blood" attached to them, and it was mainly concentrated on a single surface, with less remaining on the other surface.

It gave him the feeling that this "blood" was originally contained in a glass bottle, and that the glass bottle was broken before creating this scene.

In other words, this is more like a staged scene. It's not hard to guess when it happened; it was most likely when the footsteps were heard.

The footsteps were so loud that they drowned out the sound of breaking glass. Unless Han Zhou activated his hearing enhancement, he wouldn't have been able to detect the masked sound.

If we assume this, then the footsteps are obviously problematic and are most likely the result of being deliberately created, otherwise there would be no need to cover them up.

Han Zhou suspected that someone had arranged some scary scenes in advance for tonight's live broadcast. The reason he didn't say it out loud was because he didn't want to ruin Zhang Tao's live broadcast. Sometimes viewers can tolerate you faking it, after all, many people are just watching for fun. But if you fake it and it is exposed in public, then they won't be polite to you. That's also why he took Xiao Xiaoxiao away.

Xiao Xiaoxiao, of course, had no idea what Han Zhou was thinking. She crossed her arms and gave him a disgruntled look: "Anyway, that's not how it is."

She paused, then said with disdain, "Look at how frail you are. You've clearly never bled much, and you don't even know what human blood should look like."

"Then tell me, what exactly does human blood look like?"

Han Zhou casually replied and took out his phone to check if there were any messages from Mo Yixia.

As expected, Mo Yixia also realized that someone was sabotaging tonight's live stream.

"That guy is suspicious. His acting is terrible. He clearly knew to hold back from saying those words on the ground, but he didn't realize that others would notice the red liquid first."

Han Zhou seemed to suddenly understand something, and said with a strange expression, "You didn't know what those words on the ground meant just by looking at his expression, did you?"

"Not entirely. If I really had that ability, I wouldn't expect you to write me love letters."

Mo Yixia replied, "But the fact that you can ask such a question shows that you've also noticed something's wrong with this guy."

Han Zhou pretended not to see Mo Yixia's hint and replied, "Yes, but I think the incident of the electronic devices malfunctioning on the first floor has nothing to do with him."

Unfortunately, Mo Yixia hadn't started watching the live stream yet and couldn't assess the situation at the time.

Mo Yixia considered for a moment: "According to your speculation, assuming that the appearance of the 'ghost' is really related to Xiao Xiaoxiao's drowsiness, then you can try to make her even more sleepy. After being frightened a few times, she should no longer be sleepy."

Without sufficient information, even she would find it difficult to make an effective judgment.

Han Zhou put away his phone, looked down at Xiao Xiaoxiao who was glaring at him, and said before she could speak, "Xiaoxiao, how about I sing you a song?"

Xiao Xiaoxiao was taken aback for a moment, then asked suspiciously, "What are you up to now?"

Han Zhou told Mo Yixia what she had said, including that the "ghost" incident was all man-made.

"Oh, I see. No wonder you were so calm..." Xiao Xiaoxiao suddenly realized, then asked in bewilderment, "But why do you think I'd get sleepy just from your singing?"

Han Zhou revealed a confident expression: "Because this song is called 'Lullaby'."

This lullaby is a song that I was very familiar with in my previous life. The melody is simple and the rhythm is soothing. Han Zhou just happens to be able to sing it. He himself is not good at singing, so this kind of simple song is very suitable for him.

Of course, his confidence doesn't stem from the lullaby, nor from his confidence in his singing voice, but rather from a recently revised professional mindset—

[University Student (modified) → Celestial Student: Listen to the teachings of the heavens, become learned and versatile. Consume 10 points to designate a subject you have previously explored. For the next 30 minutes, your understanding of that subject will receive a slightly interesting boost.]

Han Zhou himself did not have a state related to singing or hypnosis, so he could only pin his hopes on his professional state. Among these, only college students had more possibilities, so he changed it to "Tian Xuesheng" (天学生), trying to move closer to music, and ultimately achieved this result.

The description is not bad. The "interesting increase" reminds Han Zhou of the "interesting upper, middle and lower draws". The "interesting" in the status bar may represent a more special ability, which is also more in line with the description of "Tian Xuesheng".

Ten points is a bit expensive.

Han Zhou had taken music classes when he was a child, so it can be said that he had some knowledge of music. He tried to enhance his understanding of music and found that the songs he hummed were more infectious.

Although it was a roundabout way of not directly granting hypnotic abilities, this effect should be enough to make Xiao Xiaoxiao sleepy.

This is where Han Zhou's confidence comes from.

Of course, he didn't necessarily want Xiao Xiaoxiao to be sleepy right now, but he had already used up all ten points, and if he didn't try to see the effect in the next half hour, he would feel like he was losing out.

So, under Xiao Xiaoxiao's confused gaze, he softly sang the first line of the lyrics.

"Sleep well, sleep well, my dear baby..."

Xiao Xiaoxiao was dumbfounded.

What treasure?
(End of this chapter)