My Healing Games

Chapter 309 The Child Behind the Door

"Are you sure you want to bring her along? If the residents see her, it might scare them." Hua Ge had already put it very tactfully, but his real thought was, aren't you afraid of causing chaos in the whole building by carrying this thing around?
"It's okay, I'll try my best not to let the residents find out." Han Fei had already folded the red dress: "I can cover it up like this."

"Well, you really do care about the homeowners." Hua Ge gave a helpless smile. "Did your trainer not teach you properly?"

"He has disappeared, and I am looking for him too."

"That's okay."

Hua Ge subconsciously moved to Han Fei's other side, away from the red dress: "You'd better take this carefully, and don't take it into a room where someone is staying."

"Don't worry, I worked in a community before and became friends with many residents. They all think I'm a very nice person." Han Fei was telling the truth, and he quickly rose to the position of building manager.

“You’re a good person, but your ideas are a bit unique.” Hua Ge patted Han Fei on the shoulder: “No matter what, the three of us have to shoulder the responsibility. Strange things are happening frequently in the community, and the residents here are very scared. We have to do our best to give them a sense of security. You two remember, our patrols every night are not to find out the truth, but just to let the residents know that there are still the three of us in this building.”

"Okay." Han Fei nodded repeatedly. He respected ordinary people like Brother Hua. However, he was curious about what kind of memories the butterflies had instilled in them and where the butterfly patterns on their bodies were hidden.
"Pack your things and get ready to go. Hopefully, we can get through tonight safely." Brother Hua glanced at the patrol list, then moved aside the cabinet containing various security items, behind which was a clay statue of Guan Yu.

After bowing three times to the statue of Guan Yu, Brother Hua rearranged the cabinet and strode out of the room.

“It’s been a long time since midnight, and today is April 4th. I have a feeling that something will happen in the building. You two better not stray too far from me, and if you encounter any danger, don’t just focus on running away.” Brother Hua adopted the demeanor of a senior, and his voice became steady.

"Brother Hua, you're wearing a watch, can you tell me what time it is?" Han Fei realized something: it wasn't April 4th in reality. The security guards' memories were likely frozen on April 4th. If Han Fei hadn't shown up, this would have been their last night.

"Why are you asking this at 3:27 a.m.?"

"Any place in this building with the number four seems to be unlucky. Today happens to be April 4th, and I have a feeling that 4:44:04 AM today will be particularly terrifying." Han Fei's words sent chills down the spines of both security guards.

"Then let's try to be back before four o'clock." Hua Ge waved his hand, letting the injured Xiao Fang and Han Fei walk behind, while he led the way with a powerful flashlight.

You could tell he was scared too; he kept turning his head slightly after walking a short distance, as if he was glancing at Han Fei and Xiao Fang out of the corner of his eye to see if they were still behind him.

Perhaps to ease the oppressive atmosphere, Hua Ge coughed and began to impart his "experience" to Han Fei and Xiao Fang: "You two are newbies, so I'll train you both today. We night shift security guards patrol four times a night: 8 PM, midnight, 3 AM, and 8 AM. Each patrol starts from the left stairwell, goes up to the 24th floor, and then comes down the right staircase to the first floor. If you want to deliver the takeout ghost to the red-skirted woman, we'll wait until then and go there on our way. Hopefully, our luck will be a little better."

Hua Ge didn't know if encountering a ghost was considered good luck. He had an innate aversion to that delivery ghost, as if something had happened before.

"No matter what, the patrols must continue as normal. We need to check the fire safety facilities, blind spots in the stairwells, and whether the surveillance cameras are working properly on each floor..."

The three security guards were all worried about 4 a.m., and they left quickly, tacitly understanding each other's situation.

Han Fei also figured out why Hua Ge and Xiao Fang insisted on patrolling. It wasn't just because of their professional mission, but also because they would be punished the next day if they didn't show up on the surveillance footage on time.

Working as a security guard in a haunted neighborhood offers a very high income, but correspondingly, the penalties for not following the rules are also severe.

Xiao Fang didn't go into details about the punishment; he just instinctively felt that it would be better to go on patrol.

The three of them quickly entered the stairwell and arrived at the fifth floor.

The motion-activated lights came on, and the oppressive feeling disappeared. Only the odd-numbered floors in the dead-end building had lights on, and the coldness seemed to be dispelled wherever there were lights.

"How about we stay here a little longer?"

The three of them didn't exchange any more words, and all of them consciously slowed down their pace. Sometimes, tacit understanding between people is just that simple.

After hesitating for a while, Brother Hua finally turned on his flashlight and prepared to go to the sixth floor.

Patrolling a haunted apartment building at 3:30 a.m. is terrifying enough. If something else goes wrong, you might start having all sorts of wild thoughts and scare yourself sick.

The even-numbered floors of the dead building did not have motion-activated lights, and the sixth floor was also completely dark, making it feel as if no one lived there.

After Han Fei and Xiao Fang arrived on the sixth floor, they were eager to go to the seventh floor, but Hua Ge stopped them: "Wait a moment, there is a divorced mother living on the sixth floor. Her son has a habit of sleepwalking. He likes to find the key to open the door in the middle of the night and then squat in the corner of the corridor."

"Looking for the key to open the door?"

“Yes, no matter where the mother hid the key, her son always found it. The mother found it very strange. She later locked the key in a safe, but when she checked the surveillance footage the next day, she could still see her son taking the key and leaving her house in the middle of the night.” Hua Ge’s voice was very low as he held a flashlight and moved his feet slowly. “Later, the mother asked us to help watch over her child every time we patrolled.”

Although Hua Ge wasn't very brave, he was quite responsible. He pushed open the safety door on the sixth floor and looked inside, but there was nothing in the dark floor.

"Looks like the kid wasn't sleepwalking today." Hua Ge had just breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the sound of marbles rolling on the floor in the hallway.

The three huddled together and looked in the direction of the sound. Behind the safety door, they saw a pale-skinned child crouching.

He was only five or six years old, with his eyes open and a somewhat blank expression, muttering something repeatedly. He pushed the marbles behind the door, and then the marbles would roll back by themselves, as if someone was playing a game with him.

Xiao Fang was startled by the child, and just as he was about to teach the strange kid a lesson, Hua Ge stopped him.

“You can’t wake a sleepwalking child up directly, the older generation says that doing so will cause them to lose their soul.”

It seemed that this wasn't the first time Brother Hua had done something like this; he was very experienced. He simply squatted down behind the child and gently picked him up.

“I’m sending this child to her mother.”

As Hua Ge carried the child past Han Fei, Han Fei vaguely heard the child muttering repeatedly—"Looking back will kill you, looking back will kill you, looking back will kill you!"
A tingling sensation ran down Han Fei's neck. He unconsciously glanced back and discovered that a hand had grabbed a marble and hidden it behind the safety gate where the child had been crouching.

"Is someone playing with him?"

Han Fei took a deep breath. He had just looked back and saw that the person was alright and still alive.

Knowing that looking back wasn't the condition for his death, Han Fei frantically looked back several times: "I don't know if my death curse has been triggered. If it has, what will it be?"

The door to room 1064 was ajar. Hua Ge didn't go in; instead, he knocked on the door from the outside.

Not long after, a woman with long black hair walked to the door. She thanked Brother Hua repeatedly and then took the child back to the room.

After closing the door, Brother Hua seemed to be in a good mood, and even his inner fear had dissipated somewhat: "People should do more good deeds, and their mindset will improve."

He and Xiao Fang were about to go to the seventh floor. As they walked out of the building, Han Fei looked back and was surprised to find a child standing behind the safety door!
The child looked exactly like the one from before, except that his skin was even paler.

He held a marble in his hand, his eyes fixed on Brother Hua.

"Was that woman's child just brought into the room? If not, what is it that Brother Hua brings into room 1064 every night? And where did the woman's child go?"

A chill ran down Han Fei's spine. When he turned around again, the child was gone.

"Every floor of this dead building is dangerous; it will be difficult to survive tonight."

(End of this chapter)