Late at night.
Room 7088, Dolan Hotel.
Shen Xing, who was sleeping soundly, suddenly felt hot. It was as if he was close to a huge stove in his dream, and it was very hot.
Soon he opened his eyes, and his vision was dim. The street outside the window was brightly lit. Although the curtains had been closed, some light still entered the room.
Lifting the quilt covering his body, Shen Xing sat up and looked down, feeling a faint feeling of heat in his chest.
He pulled the collar lower, and saw that the area on his chest that had been scratched by Yao Tong with a knife had a disproportionate cross pattern glowing reddish, as if this piece of skin had been burned by a soldering iron.
After he woke up, the reddish light was fading, and the burning sensation in his sleep was gradually disappearing.
However, Shen Xing had a bad premonition. He originally thought that the unfinished cross had been gradually healed as Yao Tong's abnormal characteristics were absorbed.
Unexpectedly, although the wound was invisible to the naked eye, it was still on his body. I don't know why tonight, but it suddenly appeared after I fell asleep, and there was a burning sensation.
This is probably a bad sign for you.
Shen Xing got out of bed, put on her slippers and walked to the window, opened the curtains and stood there, looking at the street downstairs.
Although it is already early in the morning, there are still people coming and going on the streets here, but mostly young people. There are also countless food vendors on the street downstairs, which is extremely lively.
There are even young women wearing hot clothes gathering in twos and threes on the street, smoking, and glancing back and forth among the passers-by from time to time. If they meet someone looking at them, they will immediately ogle.
Shen Xing turned around and saw Achai sitting at the edge of the window, silently looking at the night view of the city in the distance, as if the noise downstairs had nothing to do with him.
Shen Xing touched his chest. The slightly raised and red area was now back to normal, as if nothing had happened.
He looked at Achai again and asked, "What are you doing?"
Achai knew that Shen Xing had already gotten up, so he did not look back, but stretched out his hand to write in the void in front of him. It was obvious that he was very familiar with communicating with Shen Xing in this way.
【Thinking of someone. 】
"miss who?"
[I don’t know her name, I only know her breath. She is very beautiful. 】
"You can still like humans?" Shen Xing was a little surprised, "Did you become like this after death?"
Achai shook his head and wrote [I am not the ghost you call me. Ever since I can remember, it has always been what it is now, and it has never changed. 】
"Do you still remember how you appeared in this world?" Shen Xing felt as if he was beginning to explore the secret of the origin of the anomaly at this moment.
But he understood that this matter would not be clarified so easily.
Sure enough, Achai shook his head again and continued to write, "I don't remember how I appeared, but I seem to have a father. When I have memories, I have this father in my memory." But, I only met him once. 】
Shen Xing was stunned and secretly thought that this guy's father might be an anomaly in the sequence chain.
As for the abnormal father, we can only say that Achai may have been created by his abnormal father, not necessarily born. Perhaps his father had many children at the same time, and Achai was just an ordinary one among them.
"What about your father?" Shen Xing asked.
[He has been gone for a long time, but he will take away half of the fear I absorbed. 】
Shen Xing was startled, turned around and looked around, and asked: "He will appear around you at any time? And then take away the fear value you absorbed?"
[No, as long as I absorb the fear values, they will automatically be reduced by half. Well, I know it was taken away by my father. He has always been like this, never communicating with me, only taking it from me. 】
Shen Xing nodded and reminded: "If he comes one day, you have to tell me in advance."
Achai was a little surprised and wrote [Will you kill him? 】
Shen Xing smiled, "Whether we can win or not is still unknown, but..."
He turned to look at Achai sitting on the edge of the window, "Whether I am an enemy of him or not depends on your attitude."
Achai nodded slightly to express his gratitude.
[I only know that I was born with a desire for fear. I like humans who often exude fear, so I will always stay around them. And the girl I kept missing was a coward, so I kept hanging around her at first. 】
Shen Xing looked at the words floating in the air, keeping a smile on his face and saying nothing.
[Later I discovered that she was so cute. For example, if she saw a frog on the road, she would jump in fright and scream louder than the frog. If her fingers suddenly touch something furry, such as a teddy bear, she will wake up suddenly and kick the bear away. Her fear, to me, is different from others. It is not just scary and frightening, but also reveals a gentle and mellow feeling. 】
"Then your fear-absorbing attention was diverted and you started paying attention to this girl's every move?" Shen Xing said with a smile.
Achai shook his head.
[No, I don’t just pay attention to her every move, I pay attention to everything related to her, everything she touches, everyone she comes into contact with, and everything she likes. And, I haven’t fed on her fears since. 】
"Then what should you do? It's impossible not to smoke, right?" Shen Xing said.
[So I changed my goal and decided to leave her. Because if you absorb someone's fear value for a long time, that person's energy and spirit will disappear bit by bit until he becomes insane. In all this time, I've never caused a single person to lose their mind. 】
"You are a good... anomaly." Shen Xing nodded.
[But I must absorb a certain amount of fear regularly, otherwise I can feel that my father may kill me. ] Achai quickly wrote these words at this time.
Shen Xing thought for a moment and nodded, "Every once in a while, you can go out and absorb the fear of those people in their dreams, but the scope is only limited to evil people. For example, you can choose to start from prison, or people I designate."
Achai nodded slowly again, which was his way of expressing his gratitude.
[Master, I can feel that although you control me. But this sense of control is gradually decreasing every day, and I can see that you are not a heartless person, and controlling me is not just to use me to serve you. 】
Shen Xing is very clear about the decrease in control. Every time he flashes back Achai, the total number of flashbacks decreases, so naturally his sense of control over him decreases.
I just didn't expect that Achai's senses were so sensitive.
Shen Xing smiled, "Actually, in the beginning, when I controlled you, I just wanted you to do things for me."
[I thought so at first, but after experiencing Yao Tong’s incident, I changed my mind. Because I found that you are really helping her, instead of just thinking about destroying and destroying everything. 】
"Everyone is different. They are all independent individuals. I am different from those people." Shen Xing said.
[You mean the people who invited you to join them? 】
Just when these words appeared in the air in front of Shen Xing, a car slowly drove downstairs and parked on the street.
This area is mostly full of pedestrians at night. It is rare to drive a car onto this narrow road at this time, and you cannot park here for a long time because it will block pedestrians.
So when the car parked on the street but did not move, it immediately attracted the attention and dissatisfaction of some passers-by. They all said something, and the voices gradually began to increase.
Shen Xing looked down and saw that no one came out after the car stopped, and the car didn't turn off. It just kept the lights on, as if it was waiting for someone.
After a while, the pedestrians began to circle around the car and point, and some even came forward and slapped the car windows.
Looking from the roof of the car, Shen Xing felt that the body of the car seemed a bit long and it should be a commercial vehicle. He turned to Achai and said, "Why don't you go down and see what's going on?"
If you are a normal person, even if you park your car here and don't get out of the car, you still can't stand so many pedestrians pointing fingers. If someone slaps the car window in front of you, he or she would have driven away or rolled down the car. Window scolded him, and it was rare for him to have such a silent reaction.
Achai got directly into the window crack and quickly went down the outer wall. After a while, he came to the window crack on the first floor.
But he didn't show up, just observing and listening to everyone's discussion.
Shen Xing was already a little bored after staying in the hotel, but now he no longer felt sleepy. He just lay on the window and looked at the noisy crowd below.
The commercial vehicle itself was very large, and parking it on this narrow and crowded road really affected the business of some vendors. With the encouragement of the people next to it, things tended to get worse.
Someone went to pull the car door. Unexpectedly, the door was not locked from the inside. It opened as soon as it was pulled. More and more people crowded to the driver's door, talking excitedly to the inside.
But Shen Xing couldn't hear clearly, but soon the voices of these people began to become quieter. Suddenly, the few people surrounding the driver's seat dispersed with a crash, and each of them stared at the cab, terrified.
There were sounds of surprise in the crowd, and this place suddenly attracted more people's attention.
Shen Xing was upstairs and couldn't see what was going on in the car, but seeing the reactions of these people, he expected that the situation was definitely not simple.
He couldn't see Achai's shadow when he stuck his head out.
Just like this, another two minutes passed. During this period, some onlookers took out their phones and started making calls. Several people with loud voices were talking, and the words "ambulance" and "sheriff" were faintly heard.
At this point, Shen Xing was even more curious. She didn't know what happened below. Could it be that the people in the car were injured, or... were wanted criminals, and were recognized by the onlookers?
At this moment, Achai emerged from the gap in the window on the seventh floor. Achai's black shadow floated directly outside the window. He held the window edge outside with one hand and wrote with the other hand "The driver of the car below is dead." . 】
Shen Xing probably guessed these results and asked: "How did you die?"
He just saw this commercial vehicle driving over and parked steadily on the side of the road. How could he know that the driver died so quickly and how long it took before he could no longer hold on?
Unexpectedly, Achai shook his head quickly and continued to write: "He has been dead for a long time. Among the people who opened the cab door just now, someone touched the driver's hand and said that it was cold and had no warmth at all." 】
Shen Xing was stunned, and his eyebrows suddenly wrinkled.
"Are you sure that's what that person said? Did anyone else say anything?"
[Yes, the second person also touched the driver's forehead and said that the skin was indeed cold, and then they started calling the sheriff and ambulance. 】
"Come in! Close the window!" Shen Xing's expression suddenly became stern and he continued to ask: "Have you seen the driver's appearance before?"
Achai recalled carefully, then shook his head, quickly got into the house, and never went out again.
Shen Xing closed the window and drew the curtains. The room fell into darkness, but the noisy sounds downstairs could still be heard faintly.
Shen Xing pondered for a moment and then ordered: "Now go outside the corridor and hide near the stairwell and elevator. If you find anything wrong, brother Ang, think of a way to come over and notify me immediately."
Seeing that his expression suddenly became very serious, Achai felt a little in his heart. He stopped asking any more questions and immediately walked towards the door of the room. Just as he was about to slip out through the crack in the door, he heard Shen Xing say from behind: "Be careful!"
Achai turned around, nodded, and quickly disappeared from the crack of the door.
Shen Xing immediately took off his pajamas and changed into casual clothes that were easy to move around. He put on socks and sneakers, organized his things and put them into his backpack. He inserted the telescopic stick on his waist and put two pens into his trouser pockets.
After the commercial vehicle stopped on the street just now, although no one got out of the car, it turned out that the driver had been dead for a long time.
It is impossible for a dead person to still be able to drive and drive so steadily.
And now that person appears to have been dead for a while, that is, the anomaly that controlled him has left.
Although I didn't see anything get off, this anomaly is obviously very powerful, and there must be some means of action that ordinary people don't know about.
Just now, my chest has been feeling hot, which was left by Yao Tong. Yao Tong is the last one in the sequence chain and has been eliminated by himself.
If what she left behind is still functioning, it may be related to this entire sequence chain.
Shen Xing guessed that the pattern left by the blackened Yao Tong on his chest might be a way to attract or remind other abnormalities in the sequence chain. The pattern that appeared just now and the feeling of heat on his chest might be a hint.
And in this stone city, there is only one wall-facer who is in the same sequence chain as Yao Tong and can feel the anomaly.
So if something abnormal comes, the highest probability may be the wall-facer himself.
This speculation seems to make sense. Unexpectedly, if I didn't look for it, this guy would come to my door first.
It's just that Shen Xing is not completely ready yet and seems a little passive.
Taking advantage of the fact that he had discovered something strange earlier and Achai was watching outside, he immediately called up the information about the wall-facer again and read it carefully.
[Name: Wall-Facing Man
Sequence level: medium to high sequence
Sequence Analogy: Category II
Sequence Source: Fear
Trigger: Extreme shame
Description of this category: It is a complex of contradictions, longing for people's approval and afraid of meeting anyone. Its appearance is different every time. Once someone sees the current back, it will follow it until the target changes to the appearance it likes. Remember, don’t try to turn it around, or you will do so at your own risk! 】
"Don't try to make it turn around!" Shen Xing repeated.
He thinks this point is very crucial, and the metaphor behind it is that once the Wallfacer turns around, it will be extremely difficult to deal with it.
If you don't want it to turn around, the only possible way is to try not to attract its attention and avoid any possibility of making noises, touching or alarming it behind it.
Thinking of this, Shen Xing naturally thought of ways to deal with the wall-facer. The most effective one was to activate the black domain and hide himself in another space.
It's just that the black domain cannot be activated successfully every time. It also depends on chance. Otherwise, if he uses this method to hide himself every time before approaching an abnormality, this skill will be his most heaven-defying skill.
Of course, there was one more thing he had to consider, and that was whether the Black Domain Messenger would appear.
