Chapter 3: The Locked Room

Chapter 3: The Locked Room

His mind felt heavy and muddled. Everything in his vision seemed covered by a thick veil. The sound of traffic coming from the direction of the main road in the distance felt indistinct, drifting nearer and farther, unreal, as though he were dreaming.

After walking in this unpleasantly dazed state for who knew how long, his mind finally recovered enough clarity to think a little. Yu Sheng hesitantly stopped and turned around to look at the road he had come from.

The sky was almost completely dark by now. The streetlights along the route had long since turned on. He was walking along a narrow street near his home. The low, aging apartment buildings lining both sides of the road resembled rows of beasts crouching in the night, while the “shopfronts” illegally converted from ground-floor residences emitted warm light that dispersed a trace of the chill lingering in his heart.

A chill?

Suddenly, Yu Sheng seemed to feel once again that coldness piercing into his lungs, bones, and marrow. He felt the blade-like freezing rain striking his skin. He felt those two icy, slippery gazes.

The frog’s gaze upon him.

He abruptly stopped breathing. More than ten seconds later, it was as though he suddenly remembered how to breathe again. Gasping heavily, he quickly lowered his head to look at his chest.

For an instant, he experienced an illusion. He felt as though there was still a hole in his chest, as though his heart was gone, as though his chest were a cold and silent furnace whose fire had been extinguished. Yet in the next moment, he felt his heartbeat again. He could even hear a particularly distinct thump beside his ears.

Right.

Living people had heartbeats.

He was still alive. His heart had not been eaten by a giant, bizarre frog.

But the fragments of memory surging upward crashed through his mind like a tsunami. No matter how hard he ignored them, they would not be pushed out of his memories. Yu Sheng remembered that rain, remembered the door painted on the wall, and remembered that enormous frog...

He tried to tell himself that it had all been a hallucination, but that thought rapidly wavered as the memories repeatedly surged forth and became increasingly clear.

He had died once.

Yet for some reason, he was alive now, walking home.

He was already almost there. Only two intersections remained.

Since arriving in this sinister city, this was the strangest thing among all the strange things he had encountered.

He sensed people looking at him nearby. Yu Sheng realized that his unusual behavior had apparently attracted the attention of passersby. Someone nearby was hesitating about whether to approach him, perhaps intending to ask if he needed help.

He quickly waved his hand, avoiding further interaction with the stranger, and then accelerated his pace as he left the area.

He had no idea what had happened to him, but clearly standing in the middle of the road and pondering the matter would do nothing to solve his confusion.

He hurried through the side streets, left behind the last road near the old residential district, and headed toward his “home” in this city.

Although he had only crossed two intersections, the surroundings had already become noticeably more desolate and quiet.

It was as though he had entered a forgotten corner of the city. The number of pedestrians gradually dwindled until, in the end, only the cold streetlights remained beside him.

After walking a little farther, he saw the old house standing in the night, somehow maintaining a subtle sense of separation from all the surrounding buildings.

It was an utterly ordinary large house. A three-storey old residence with peeling walls, a sloped roof, old doors, and old windows that, though aged, remained clean and intact.

A house like this looked exactly like one of those privately built structures erected decades ago in urban villages before regulations became strict. Over the passage of time, it had become a historical relic exploiting a loophole in urban planning management...

Yu Sheng did not know much about the urban planning system of this Boundary City, which differed greatly from the city in his memories.

After all, he had only arrived here two months ago. Excluding the time he had wasted staying indoors out of caution at the beginning, he had only just adapted to life here and gained a basic understanding of the surrounding area.

But there was one thing he knew very clearly.

This large house was the only reasonably safe foothold he had in this dangerous and unsettling city.

At least while inside the house, he had never seen any of those sinister shadows.

Though the house itself also possessed many things that seemed bizarre to him.

Yu Sheng took a quiet breath, carried the supermarket shopping bag still hanging from his hand, and stepped through the cold pool of light cast by the streetlamp before arriving at the door and taking out his key.

The old door opened with a creak.

Yu Sheng entered and switched on the lights.

Although this house was almost completely different from the “home” in his memories, the moment the lights came on, he genuinely felt a sense of...

Security.

He turned around and shut the door, sealing the city’s night outside.

Then he casually tossed the groceries he had bought onto the storage shelf beside the kitchen entrance immediately to the right of the doorway. After that, he hurried across the somewhat empty living room, arrived before the bathroom mirror, and yanked open the front of his shirt.

The image in his memory was simply too vivid.

He could not resist checking repeatedly.

There were no wounds on his chest.

No bloodstains either.

It was as though the event of his “death” had never happened at all.

Yu Sheng frowned. He checked the condition of his clothes, pressed against the spot where the frog had supposedly ripped out his heart according to his memory, and finally confirmed that he was not currently an open-hearted man.

“That’s messed up...”

he muttered softly before leaving the bathroom and returning to the living room.

Behind him, the mirror above the sink silently split into countless cracks before rapidly and noiselessly sealing itself again...

Sitting on the sofa in the living room, Yu Sheng sorted through the chaotic mess of thoughts in his head.

He did not know how much time passed before his exhausted mind finally settled into a hazy calm.

Sleep enveloped him.

The drowsiness lasted for a very, very long time.

Then a sudden thud exploded inside his mind.

The sound resembled someone striking a rock atop his head with a shovel, instantly jolting Yu Sheng awake from his slumber.

He opened his eyes in the darkness.

After a moment of confusion, he finally realized something.

The living room lights had somehow been turned off.

He clearly remembered leaving them on before falling asleep!

Alarm bells instantly rang in his mind.

Almost instinctively, Yu Sheng reached for the telescopic baton beside him.

After arriving in this strange and eerie city, the very first thing he had done was acquire this self-defense tool. Although it had not proven particularly useful so far, holding a stick at least provided some psychological comfort for a terror-prone upright ape.

Only then did he cautiously rise to his feet while paying close attention to every movement in the darkness.

In a desolate and remote place like this, a burglar breaking into the house was hardly unimaginable.

In fact, at this moment, Yu Sheng would much rather discover that a thief had broken in.

At least thieves could be beaten to death with a baton.

Frogs over a metre tall (~3.3 ft) could not.

But the living room was silent.

There were no visible signs of an intruder, nor could he hear any sounds made by a burglar.

The good news was that he could not hear any frog sounds either.

Using the faint glow of the streetlights filtering through the windows, Yu Sheng crouched low and moved carefully while identifying his surroundings. He slowly felt his way to the light switch on the wall and reached out to turn on the lights.

His eyes instantly emitted bright beams of light, sweeping across the living room in the darkness.

Yu Sheng blinked.

Something about what he was seeing felt strange, yet he could not identify exactly what was wrong.

Still, regardless of that, the room was illuminated now.

At least he could clearly see the living room.

Slightly hunched over and carrying the baton, he began inspecting every part of the house.

The first floor contained only the living room, kitchen, dining room, and an unused empty room.

Everything appeared normal.

Standing at the foot of the staircase leading to the second floor, he hesitated briefly before heading upstairs.

There were three rooms on the second floor.

One was his current bedroom.

One was used for storage.

The last room, located at the far end of the corridor, was locked.

When Yu Sheng had first arrived here, that room had already been locked.

He had searched the entire house and never managed to find the key.

He first checked his bedroom and the storage room opposite it before arriving at the locked door.

As always, it remained tightly shut.

In fact, Yu Sheng had not refrained from trying technical solutions to deal with the lock.

These technical solutions included, but were not limited to, impact drills and handheld chainsaws.

Yet every attempt had failed.

Back then, sparks had flown everywhere as the drill and saw met the seemingly fragile wooden door. The drill bits and saw teeth had worn themselves smooth without leaving even the slightest mark.

Naturally, he had also sought more advanced technical solutions.

For example, hiring locksmiths.

He had hired three of them.

The first two got lost after entering the old district. They wandered around for half a day without finding 66 Wutong Road.

The third had barely crossed the intersection before being struck by a motorcycle.

He had only been discharged from hospital last week...

It was as though some mysterious force was preventing Yu Sheng from opening this locked room inside his own home.

Yes.

Although this large house was his only reasonably safe foothold in the city, the house itself contained many things that were...

Not quite right.

Yu Sheng reached out and grasped the doorknob before attempting to turn it.

As expected, it did not budge at all.

Nothing unexpected happened.

It was still locked.

Yet perhaps it was only his imagination.

As he futilely twisted the handle...

He seemed to hear a faint laugh.

The laughter came from beyond the door.

It sounded like the voice of a young woman, as though she were mocking his helplessness before a mere door.

Every hair on Yu Sheng’s body instantly stood on end.

Inside the only safe refuge he had in this city.

Inside the house where he had already lived for two months.

Inside this room that had remained locked the entire time...

There was someone hiding in there!

...How the hell hadn’t she starved to death?