The driver didn’t dare defy his orders, though he was worried, he could only nod, "Yes, Mr. Qin, be careful." Thıs content belongs to 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝•𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾•𝘯𝘦𝘵
Qin Jun seemed to find it funny when someone told him to be careful, let out a laugh, curled his lips, and strode towards the mottled Tube Building.
The driver saw him chatting with a few elderly men playing cards at the entrance, idly picking up a chess piece from the simple table and taking a couple of steps with it. The elderly men started to talk with him, chatting and chatting, then turning back to point in a certain direction of the Tube Building. The driver, being far away, couldn’t hear what they said, he just saw a trace of a smile hanging on Qin Jun’s lips, chatting with them for a while longer before waving goodbye and striding back towards the Tube Building...
The man’s slender figure soon disappeared from his sight.
The driver couldn’t understand why he came to such a dilapidated Tube Building. After pacing back and forth a couple of times, he opened the car door and sat inside to wait.
The Tube Building had six floors in total, with twelve rooms on each floor laid out in a row, making the corridor narrow and long. Perhaps it’s because each apartment here was too small, many like to pile up household items that don’t fit inside their homes into the corridor. The one-meter-wide corridor was crammed with various things, like unused shoes, toolboxes, washing machines, and unused buckets. Besides these, at the windward balcony among the columns, iron nails were used to pin a line, from which many washed clothes were hung fluttering in the wind. Red, yellow, green, were colorful from below, but when standing up close at the narrow corridor, looking at these soap-scented clothes didn’t seem so beautiful anymore.
That sort of cramped living aroma was as unappealing as the mottled exterior of the Tube Building.
Qin Jun walked through the narrow corridor and stopped in front of door number 3303.
Unlike other doors that had living items scattered in front, number 3303’s entrance was bare, not even a simple shoe rack, and the tightly closed vermilion wooden door seemed as if no one lived there.
He raised his hand and knocked on the door with the back of his hand, producing a ’knock knock’ sound.
There was no response from inside for a while.
He was patient and knocked a few more times.
Finally, there were soft shuffling sounds inside, and a woman’s voice came out, "Who is it!"
Hearing a voice, Qin Jun curled up his lips, his eyes deep, yet he didn’t reply, just continued knocking on the door.
With the ’knock knock’ sound, the woman inside seemed more puzzled and asked loudly again, "Who is it, why aren’t you speaking?"
The sound insulation in the Tube Building wasn’t good, he heard the thumping footsteps walk to the back of the door and stop warily; it became quiet inside as if the person was holding their breath, listening to his movements at the door.
Perhaps because there were no sounds, she couldn’t hold back and threatened with a facade of toughness, "I know you’re outside, sneaking around to knock on my door! Are you leaving or not? If not, I’m calling the police!"
Listening to her shaky threat, Qin Jun tucked his hands into his coat pockets and spoke, "Mrs. Rong."
The three words ’Mrs. Rong’ seemed to freeze everything, the woman inside first remained silent for a long time, then after some time, the tightly shut wooden door made a tentative clicking sound. The woman inside slightly opened the door into a crack, peered at him through the dark gap, and with sharp eyes realized the value of the sweater he wore and the watch on his wrist; only then did the halfway shut door crack fully open.