Now Chu Ping seemed to have no choice. He tightened his tight backpack and followed the rickety uncle into the corridor.
The rickety uncle had bad legs and feet and was walking with a limp. Chu Ping had noticed this before, but he was far away just now and didn't notice what was going on.
Now the rickety uncle was walking in front of Chu Ping, and Chu Ping had the opportunity to carefully observe the rickety uncle's legs.
It turned out to be a wooden leg. Every time he stepped up the steps, it would make a "clicking" sound, like a clock that kept turning in the dark.
"Click, click-"
Chu Ping looked at the stairs spreading into darkness, always feeling that there seemed to be danger hidden at the end of the darkness.
The further you go up, the more damp you can feel in the corridor.
The smell of rot, mold, and deterioration hit your nose with the flowing air.
Frowning his brows, Chu Ping carefully looked at the rickety uncle walking in front.
The rickety uncle seemed to be used to this unpleasant smell and was not affected at all.
"Is this uncle losing his sense of smell? Or is the smell here gone?"
Chu Ping relaxed his body, then twitched his nostrils, and an unpleasant smell penetrated into his nostrils.
"vomit--"
Chu Ping almost spit out the dumplings he ate.
"You really can't be curious."
Chu Ping covered his nose again, but the smell here was too strong, and kept creeping into his nasal cavity along the gaps between his fingers.
Just when Chu Ping could hardly bear it any longer, the rickety old man walking in front suddenly stopped.
Chu Ping did not expect that the rickety uncle would stop so suddenly. When he reacted, his body almost hit the uncle.
Chu Ping took a breath subconsciously. In addition to the moldy and rotten smell that made him nauseous, there was also a faint stench.
This smell is different from the smell of mold and spoilage. It is the smell of salted fish after being exposed to the sun mixed with a trace of sour smell.
The moment Chu Ping smelled this smell, his brain seemed to explode because he was so familiar with this smell.
"Corpse odor?"
Chu Ping was surprised and glanced at the rickety old man standing in front of him. He found that the ricketched old man's head was looking at him at a strange angle.
"Young man? What's wrong?"
The rickety uncle's voice was as cold as a machine without emotion.
Chu Ping was so frightened by the rickety uncle that he directly touched the black stick stuck behind his back. As long as the rickety uncle did something slightly wrong, Chu Ping believed that he could make his brains burst out in one fell swoop.
"Young man, what are you doing standing still? We are here."
The rickety uncle moved his body, and Chu Ping saw clearly that he had reached the end of the stairs, and there was a door standing there not far away.
"My house is on the second floor. I am old and my legs and feet are not good."
Chu Ping felt ashamed when he thought of the way the rickety old man was walking like flying just now.
"Is there no elevator in this community?"
Chu Ping frowned. He remembered that the rickety uncle had just said that each building in the community had thirty floors. If there was no elevator... how would he find the Weird Tales Association?
"You can't climb up."
According to Chu Ping's understanding of the Weird Tales Association, maybe the thirty-first floor of Building C mentioned by the grim-faced interviewer is really on the rooftop.
But whether it was on the rooftop or not, there was no elevator, it would really kill him.
Chu Ping looked up at the stairs leading to the third floor. There seemed to be something inexplicable there, attracting him to go there.
"You'd better not be curious about the other residents in this building, be careful if they leave you here."
After the rickety old man said this, he raised his hand and knocked on the door.
"Dong dong dong——"
The sound of knocking on the door broke the silence in the corridor, like a broken mirror, shattered into pieces and scattered in all directions.
After a while, there was a dull sound from the door.
"Creak——"
The door was opened a crack, and a cloudy eye emerged from the crack.
The people inside seemed to recognize the rickety uncle, but the door was not fully opened, but only opened a gap that was only as large as one person.
"I saw the one who was lost, so I brought him back. If those people outside saw him, we probably wouldn't have anything to do with him."
The rickety uncle entered the house as he spoke, but Chu Ping did not move for a long time.
He heard clearly what the rickety uncle just said.
"How many are outside?"
Chu Ping narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the rickety old man who had just walked in, as if he wanted to see something from him.
"Come in, it's almost nine o'clock, and the people upstairs will be coming down."
Only then did Chu Ping notice that the person who opened the door for him was actually a gray-haired grandma.
Grandma's right eye was tightly closed, and the other eye was so cloudy that it seemed that the pupil inside could not be seen clearly.
Chu Ping's eyes did not stay on Grandma, but he said thank you to her and entered the room.
Different from the unpleasant smell in the corridor, the rickety uncle obviously used a lot of air freshener in his home, but Chu Ping could still smell a faint odor hidden inside.
"Is there someone dead in this room? That's why so much air freshener is used?"
Chu Ping didn't dare to be careless at all. He slowed down slightly and his right hand had already touched his lower back.
The cold touch of the stick made Chu Ping feel a sense of security in his heart.
After the rickety uncle entered the house, he got into a room in the corner. Chu Ping felt strange and wanted to go and have a look.
But just as Chu Ping took a step there, the grandmother's voice sounded behind him.
"You'd better not go there. My old man doesn't like anyone approaching there, not even me."
Grandma's face was kind, but her closed eye made her look a little out of place.
"I heard from the uncle that after nine o'clock, the community is completely swallowed up by darkness and no one can come out. What is going on?"
Chu Ping couldn't get the answer from the rickety uncle, so he had to start with his grandma.
"Hey, who knows, maybe too many people died and there was great resentment."
Grandma's casual words made Chu Ping take a breath.
"Too many people died? What's going on?"
"About ten years ago, there was a fire here, which killed many people. The black mist you see is actually the ashes left by the fire. Since then, at nine o'clock every day, the outside will become
It was pitch dark. At first, people would go out, but they found that those who went out never came back. No one went out after nine o'clock. Later, there were fewer and fewer people here, and they didn't know why.
I moved out and ran out secretly after nine o'clock in the evening."
