This palpitation came very suddenly, so suddenly that Bai Yanliang didn't even have time to release his grip on the key.
Fortunately, after a few breaths, that chilling strange sensation quickly receded as if it had never appeared.
Such a brief sense of abnormality, others might not take it to heart, but Bai Yanliang would.
He knew his own situation better than anyone else; ten years ago, the psychologist's diagnosis was that his personality was abnormal, a not uncommon antisocial personality disorder.
This conclusion is not accurate, but it's not entirely wrong either.
In fact, ever since he could understand things, Bai Yanren, Bai Yanliang's brother, knew that something was wrong with his younger brother in certain aspects.
After a long period of observation, Bai Yanren finally confirmed this, Bai Yanliang suffered from severe cognitive impairment.
But Bai Yanliang's cognitive impairment was different from ordinary cognitive impairment.
Typically, cognitive impairment refers to abnormalities in the high-level intelligence processing of the brain related to learning, memory, and thinking, which causes severe learning and memory disabilities, along with aphasia, apraxia, agnosia, or ataxia.
But Bai Yanliang's cognitive impairment was not .
His understanding of everything was not built from the first-person perspective of "I".
Rather than understanding the world from an "I" perspective, Bai Yanliang's perspective was more like dreaming, what Bai Yanren described as "overlooking".
In Bai Yanliang's "perspective", he was not the protagonist of his own life, and his way of thinking was not centered on "I".
He was more like... a spectator.
Not only Bai Yanren, but even Bai Yanliang himself felt that perhaps he was just another soul residing in the shell of Bai Yanliang?
Because of his bizarre perspective on the world, his emotional fluctuations were almost zero: joy, anger, sorrow, gratitude, happiness, fear, panic, longing, jealousy, shame... all emotions were as faint as a drop of water in the ocean, capable of creating a small ripple but hardly noticeable.
He could see the emotions, but couldn't activate them, so... the antisocial personality disorder also known as emotionless personality disorder coincidentally matched in some aspects.
Bai Yanliang didn't think of himself as a natural villain; his emotions were faint, but not absent. He knew right from wrong, knew the rules of good and evil, knew what should be done and what should not be done.
He also knew that Bai Yanren was a very good brother to him, and he wouldn't let Yanren die miserably and inexplicably.
And this key was obviously crucial.
Because it unexpectedly allowed Bai Yanliang to feel a sense of unfamiliar, primitive emotion—fear.
"Oh, there's this too," Yang Wanlong suddenly said.
He took out a bank card and handed it over.
"Your brother's savings. I don't know the password either; perhaps it's one of your birthdays or something. You figure it out yourself."
Bai Yanliang accepted the bank card, and he had some idea about the password.
"The house is already tidied up. Originally, these three rooms were one for me and one for each of my daughters. But now, Zhirong lives in the university dormitory and seldom comes back, her things are fewer and mostly taken to school, leaving just a pile of miscellaneous books. You can make do with it."
"I can stay in the living room; staying in a girl's bedroom... doesn't seem right." Bai Yanliang wondered what Yang Wanlong was thinking. Could a stranger really stay in his daughter's room? Even if there's not much stuff, in ancient times it was called a boudoir.
"Hey, don't be so wishy-washy; the house is empty anyway. Should I let you sleep in the living room with an empty room available? What kind of person do you take your uncle to be? Enough said, just do it, I'm going out to buy some groceries, you tidy up yourself," Yang Wanlong waved his hand, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he was about to leave.
He truly trusted him.
Bai Yanliang watched Yang Wanlong's departing silhouette, his gaze flickering.
He was kind to him... a bit excessively so.
After all, letting a minor who bears the accusation of murder and dismemberment live in the house was already incredible.
Bai Yanliang speculated some things after thinking it over, but he didn't dwell on them because he was sure that Bai Yanren's case had nothing to do with him.
He cast the matter aside and picked up the delicate antique key again, looking at it with calm eyes.
However, this time, something unimaginable happened!
His left hand trembled slightly, then slowly rose and was lifted high above his head!
Bai Yanliang was sure his brain had absolutely not given the command for his left hand to rise. On the contrary, the moment his left hand bizarrely gripped the key and lifted, Bai Yanliang tried to control it.
It was to no avail; he had completely lost control of his left hand.
Then, a more terrifying thing happened.
His body, sitting on the sofa, slowly stood up.
But... the posture was strange, not like he stood up voluntarily, more like... being pulled up by the left hand holding the key high!
This eerie, terrifying feeling might have caused an ordinary person to scream in fear, but for Bai Yanliang, it wasn't too horrifying.
Because, in his perspective, body and soul always coexisted in this manner.
However, despite saying so, Bai Yanliang still felt a chilling eerie aura spreading within him.
He clearly knew what he had encountered.
His eyes flickered with suspicion, curiosity, unease, and a slight trace of excitement. Google seaʀᴄh NoveI[F]ire.net
This world seemed to hide some unknown secrets.
As Bai Yanliang's mind was still spinning with thoughts, his body began to move again on its own.
Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...
Step by step, like a living corpse, he moved towards a door to a bedroom.
Bai Yanliang didn't know whose bedroom it was, nor what was inside, or what was driving him to walk towards it.
He could only widen his eyes, maintaining enough reason in a situation where most people would probably panic and collapse, watching helplessly as his left hand, raised high, slowly lowered.
Then... inserted the key into the door lock.
The eerie atmosphere continued to spread, making it even harder for Bai Yanliang to believe.
This antique key didn't match the shape or size of the bedroom door's keyhole at all, but... it just slid in smoothly without any obstacle.
His body's movements didn't stop; under Bai Yanliang's watchful eyes, his left hand began to turn the key slowly and gradually pushed the bedroom door open.
It looked like a simple action, but it seemed as if the thin bedroom door weighed a thousand pounds.
However, after slightly opening a crack, Bai Yanliang was already sure that behind the door was definitely not a bedroom!
Cold, eerie, grotesque, venomous, hateful... Extremely negative energies spilled out from the crack, but at the same time, Bai Yanliang's body's movements didn't stop.
After opening a crack, it seemed to have become much easier.
A normal door creak sounded, and Bai Yanliang's leg stepped inside.