Mingwang City, Chinese Street, Xiuhu Park
This is the largest park in the Chinese Street region, built around the lake, very suitable for people of different ages to engage in activities.
Wearing his sports gear and carrying a cross-country backpack, Luo Di was jogging along the inner ring of the park where fewer people gather, at a slightly slower pace than his usual night runs, mainly to conserve energy.
Luo Di also observed his surroundings carefully, but whether by the lake or behind the trees, there was no sign of anyone’s presence, no one was secretly watching him, nor did he sense any danger.
His tongue didn’t click even once,
After an hour and a half of morning jogging,
Luo Di approached the park’s self-service water station, and after making sure the water was clean, began to drink deeply and took the chance to wash his face.
"Not being targeted, at least I didn’t notice anyone targeting me... Is it not an issue with the morning jog?"
Luo Di planned to rest for a while before running for another hour. His gaze happened to catch a public restroom not far away. Having had breakfast and now drinking a lot of water, it was time to alleviate some of the burden.
The public restroom was as old as the park itself, probably built about twenty years ago, and hadn’t been renovated.
Many of the wall tiles and mirrors were cracked,
There was burning sandalwood on the washstand to dispel odors,
Cigarette butts in the urinal clung like bugs,
Most of the doors in the squat toilet area couldn’t close properly,
And the oval ceiling lights had become a graveyard for flies,
After losing a little more than a pound, Luo Di hitched up his pants and returned to the washstand.
He was about to turn on the tap when something in the corner of his eye caught his attention, an impossible-to-miss object.
Upon looking over, he saw a bright red packet under the sandalwood at the corner of the washstand,
It was so conspicuous that Luo Di couldn’t have possibly missed it when he entered earlier; it had definitely just appeared out of nowhere.
Moreover, Luo Di was certain of one thing,
During the time he was relieving himself, no one had entered the restroom.
This object must have appeared out of thin air and could very well be directly related to the "Disappearance Case." Wanting to dive into the case himself, he had to pretend to be an ordinary person.
After making sure there was no one around, Luo Di slowly extended his right hand to pick up the red packet from under the sandalwood.
The moment his fingers touched the red packet,
A markedly different chill, like the prick of a needle, shot into the tip of Luo Di’s fingers, bringing an instant pain.
Luo Di could have ignored such pain,
But considering he was currently playing the role of an ordinary young man, he pretended as if his finger had been poked, and the red packet also slipped from his hand, falling onto the washstand.
Once the pain in his finger had subsided, Luo Di bent down to search for the dropped red packet.
But there was nothing under the washstand—the red packet had disappeared without a trace.
Luo Di, squatting on the ground with confusion, looked towards the other areas of the restroom while pressing against the cold tiles,
The door of the furthest stall slowly opened,
As he was bending down, he could only see the lower half of that door,
Behind that slightly ajar plastic door stood a pair of embroidered shoes.
"Hey! Did something fall down?"
A questing nearly bald jogger arrived at the restroom at that moment, interrupting Luo Di’s observation with his words.
Since his attention was thoroughly disrupted, Luo Di stood up and looked back at the furthest stall again, but there was only the open plastic door; nothing was behind it.
Luo Di continued his morning jog while contemplating the incidents that had just occurred.
"There are no cameras in the restroom, so the footage of me picking up the red packet cannot be recorded. Perhaps the other four who went missing had experienced something similar.
So when will I disappear? From the footage, it seems like the missing four never went out after returning home that night, and they appeared to vanish from their homes.
A Special Type Pseudo-Person? Like Mr. Guo.
Or is there some kind of Spiritual Body Pseudo-Person that cameras can’t capture and the eyes can’t see, following them all the time? Starting from when they picked up the red packet and following them home?"
With this thought, Luo Di suddenly turned his head back.
But there was nothing behind him.
He had never encountered such a situation before, and with his current experience, he couldn’t even guess the methods or abilities of his opponent.
But Luo Di was not the least bit nervous, and even a flicker of excitement flashed through his pupils.
"The more special, the better..."
Luo Di hadn’t informed the Investigation Bureau that he was "on the field," and continued with his normal outdoor activities, just like the youths in the video, until he returned home after dinner.
The lock was undone, and he entered the house.
Although he had stayed here for a day yesterday, Luo Di still carefully checked every corner of the house and did not find any anomalies.
However, tonight, he didn’t take out the "squad leader" and instead kept his backpack within easy reach.
Luo Di watched TV while lying on the sofa, biding his time, and again, nothing happened in the process. Read full story at novel⚑fire.net
Leisure time flies by, and almost time to wash up and sleep.
After all, he had been running around outside for the whole day, and taking a shower was indeed necessary.
Luo Di also took his backpack into the bathroom with him, hanging it on the wall mount next to the shower.
His clothes were taken off completely and neatly stacked on the toilet seat cover outside.
Hot water drenched his entire body, and the warmth close to his skin made him more sleepy; Luo Di yawned and tried to finish his shower as quickly as possible.
Shampoo squeezed onto his head, the dense foam slowly blocking his vision.
His hands did not rub too long on his hair; Luo Di really disliked the darkness with eyes closed and quickly turned on the faucet to wash off the foam on his head.
Just as the foam was about to be rinsed off and his vision was blurry,
Luo Di, looking downwards, vaguely caught sight of a pair of embroidered shoes unexpectedly appearing in the shower area, less than half a meter away from himself.
And at the same time he saw the embroidered shoes, in his hair, his hands felt something else.
A hand... a slender and ice-cold hand.
Luo Di violently shook his head, quickly shaking off the excess water and used his five fingers to comb up from the bottom of his hair, clearing his vision.
At the same time, he slid open the glass door to the shower, took the backpack hanging outside,
And after making sure there was nothing wrong with the backpack, he looked back into the bathroom, only to see that there was nothing there anymore.
Luo Di had never encountered such a situation before.
He dried off his body, changed into his regular clothes.
Because of the bizarre incident that had just occurred, he didn’t choose to sleep in his bed, but turned on all the lights in the house, laid facing the backpack hung up, and slept on the sofa.
As soon as Luo Di lay down, a fatigue many times greater than before immediately overcame him, and he quickly fell into darkness and sleep.
Only this time, his sleep was different from before;
Luo Di clearly felt that he had fallen asleep, but his consciousness still lingered. A sinking sensation enveloped his thoughts as if continually descending within the sofa space.
As if falling into the depths of a pitch-black swamp, not knowing where it would take him.
During this sinking, the darkness seemed to want to strip off his clothes.
At first, he couldn’t resist the feeling of being undressed,
But when this external force stripping away the clothing acted upon the backpack on his body, it was like touching upon a danger zone deep within Luo Di’s consciousness,
A powerful thought accompanied by killing intent surged wildly, tearing apart the darkness engulfing his consciousness.
He suddenly woke up from the sofa, immediately reaching for the backpack on his body.
After touching the raised surface of the backpack, Luo Di’s thoughts gradually calmed down, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
But when he turned his head, looking towards the other side of the sofa,
The usual spot for placing the "squad leader" on the sofa now hosted another head, and atop the skull there was still a red bridal veil.
All sleepiness was gone!
Luo Di also abruptly left the sofa, but when he looked again at the position where the head had been, there was nothing there anymore.
The lights in the house started flickering, the overall brightness dropped below safety levels, and the surrounding environment seemed to become somewhat wrong.