Chapter 32: The House That Hunts (V)

The alarm clock read 6:30 AM. It was dawn.

Did Zhu Ning really sleep in this room for a whole night? How could it feel so unreal?

The system’s voice chimed: [Side quest: The Hunting House. Current purification progress: 10%.]

So, did that count as completing the task of sleeping in the house?

This was the first system notification she had heard since entering the house, and she had never found the system’s mechanical voice so endearing before.

Zhu Ning tilted her head. Instead of feeling refreshed, she felt exhausted—more so than after a combat training session. Anyone who didn't know better would think she’d been in a fight the night before.

The furniture in the bedroom stood silently by her bed, looking as if it were alive, gathered around to watch her corpse.

Zhu Ning’s first instinct was to check her helmet, which had a video recording function. It was her first time watching a video of herself falling asleep, from a first-person perspective.

However, the helmet’s field of view was limited. Since she had slept on her back, the footage showed nothing but the chandelier on the ceiling.

Zhu Ning sped through the footage. In the night-vision mode, the screen was tinted green. At first, there was only the chandelier, dull and boring, like a still image.

Suddenly, *shhh-clack*—

After a faint rustling sound, the Zhu Ning of last night turned over, and that was when something suddenly appeared in the frame.

It was pressed tightly against her face.

Watching the video from inside the helmet, Zhu Ning felt as if she were there, right in the moment.

That was... a potted pothos?

The pothos from the nightstand had come over to watch her in the middle of the night? And it had to press itself against her face to do it?

The plant was so close it blocked most of the screen. Half an hour later, the sleeping Zhu Ning turned over again.

She rolled from her left side to her right. From that point on, other pieces of furniture suddenly appeared in the frame.

The timestamp in the bottom right corner showed 4:00 AM.

Zhu Ning processed the information. Based on the helmet’s playback, she confirmed two facts: First, she had actually fallen asleep. Second, the furniture really did move in the middle of the night.

The technology used by the Cleaning Center was far superior to standard surveillance, yet she, like Huang Yaruo, had failed to capture the moment the furniture actually moved.

In the blink of an eye, it was already right before her eyes.

Generally, moving furniture would make a lot of noise. As a survivor of a zombie apocalypse, how could Zhu Ning not have heard a single sound?

It was completely irrational.

Mental pollution—it had to be. It was a form of psychological breakdown induced by repeating illogical events.

But Zhu Ning’s sanity meter hadn’t dropped at all. Was she just that resilient? Or was the pattern of this contaminated area like boiling a frog in water, where you only realize you’ve gone mad once it’s too late?

She had to act normally in an abnormal place. What was one supposed to do after waking up?

Logically, one should wash up. Zhu Ning got out of bed and headed to the bathroom.

However, Zhu Ning had no desire to use the toilet, and she couldn't take off her helmet to brush her teeth, so she just went through the motions of washing her hands and her helmet—the work uniform was waterproof, anyway.

If anyone were home right now, they would surely find Zhu Ning strange; she splashed water on her helmet with practiced ease and then carefully wiped it dry with a towel.

The house was abnormal, and Zhu Ning wasn't exactly normal herself.

Get up, wash up, eat breakfast. The last task was breakfast.

She headed for the kitchen, but froze as she opened the bedroom door.

A row of furniture was lined up outside: the refrigerator, the washing machine, the TV cabinet, and the sofa. They had all changed positions, standing in an orderly line outside her bedroom door.

It looked as if… they had been eavesdropping outside her door all night.

She could almost imagine it: while she slept, the furniture slowly crept over, holding its breath, observing the Zhu Ning inside.

Was this furniture… watching her?

With the furniture moved, the once-cozy little home felt bizarre, as if the furniture were the masters of the house, walking about freely.

"Is anyone there?" Zhu Ning asked.

Silence. The surroundings were deathly quiet. It was still that eerie, extreme kind of silence.

No one answered.

In this world, besides Zhu Ning, nothing made a sound. She felt clearly that she had stepped into a void.

She regretted coming in alone; otherwise, she could have at least talked to someone.

She realized that the greatest fear in life was boredom. It was so boring.

The sun outside shone like a fluorescent bulb; the light was fake, carrying no warmth when it hit her.

Zhu Ning sat on the sofa, which had been placed by her bedroom door next to the double-door refrigerator. She had never sat on the sofa from this angle before. She rested her chin on her hand and stared at the fridge, studying it meticulously for a while.

Her "Danger Prediction" didn't trigger.

But that didn’t mean there was no danger; her talent could only predict events thirty seconds into the future.

If a giant blade were to suddenly swing at her back, it would trigger only when she was on the verge of bloodshed. But for this—a slow, silent death—her talent was useless.

This horror was completely different from anything Zhu Ning had experienced before.

No monsters, no pollutants, no blood or severed limbs—just a strange house.

She didn't even know where to begin.

She turned on the TV. It actually worked. Televisions were usually mediums for information; perhaps she could find a clue.

Zhu Ning moved the sofa in front of the TV and sat down to watch it with a serious expression. An advertisement was playing.

"Are you suffering from insomnia lately? Are you troubled by the inability to fall asleep? Try the Wanning Cervical Pillow for a peaceful, good night's sleep."

Selling pillows.

The next ad: "Tossing and turning? Can’t sleep? Waking up feeling drained? Super Moon Sleeping Pills are here to help."

Sleeping pills were allowed to run TV ads?

The next one: "White Tea Fragrance, returning you to a gentle dreamland."

The next...

Zhu Ning felt the sound of the ads growing weaker, the image before her blurring. Her head nodded.

Wait.

Zhu Ning suddenly lifted her head. What was she doing? Had she fallen asleep?

The TV was still looping commercials.

Zhu Ning looked up. The sky outside had turned dark. She checked the time: 9:36 PM.

Had she slept for a whole day? Impossible—she would have known if she’d slept that long.

The room was unlit, save for the faint glow of streetlights filtering in, leaving her feeling as if she had been abandoned by the world upon waking.

And the furniture in the room had changed again. Except for the sofa Zhu Ning was sitting on, all the furniture was facing the wall, backs turned to her. It looked like rows of furniture standing in a corner as punishment.

Here it came again—that sense of terror.

It stripped away one’s control over their own body, leaving one unsure if they were asleep or awake, or how time was passing. It shattered all her senses, plunging her into total confusion.

What was even more terrifying was that her system panel hadn't sent a single warning about her sanity dropping.

The system couldn't be broken; other items in the panel worked fine. So, this wasn't mental pollution in the traditional sense, yet it could gradually strip away one’s instincts.

It was more terrifying than mental pollution.

After sleeping twice in this house, Zhu Ning found she had lost her coordinates and reference points. Nothing was trustworthy; the time on the clock wasn't necessarily time.

Being asleep didn't necessarily mean she was asleep.

The TV had a sedative effect, and every piece of furniture seemed alive.

She wasn't even sure if there was a source of pollution in this area. Was this truly a contaminated zone? But when she first entered, her helmet had clearly warned her that this was a C-level pollution zone.

The system’s mission was to find Huang Yaruo. The house wasn't large; there was nowhere to hide a person.

If she was still in the house, where could she be hiding?

Both Huang Yaruo and Ding Chaojie had heard the noises in the middle of the night. They said someone was making strange sounds inside, as if they were boxing.

There were no punching bags in this house, and Huang Yaruo didn't look like a fitness fanatic. Where did the boxing sounds come from?

Suddenly, *Thump!*

A muffled sound erupted from the dark room, and the entire floor vibrated.

*Thump! Thump! Thump!*

There it was. That was the sound.

The noise Ding Chaojie described really sounded like someone boxing, punch after punch hitting a heavy bag.

In an apartment building with poor soundproofing, if you had a neighbor hitting a punching bag at night, the floor of the entire room would shake.

It was 10:01 PM.

The sound of punches echoed through the house. The noise was maddening after a while; Ding Chaojie had been driven nearly insane by it for years. But where was the sound coming from?

The neighbors?

Zhu Ning searched for the source, pressing her ear against the living room wall. She listened to every wall, including the floor.

She couldn't find the source.

Zhu Ning’s hearing was already exceptionally sharp, yet she couldn't pinpoint the origin. It seemed to come from everywhere, emanating from the gaps in the walls and every pore of the room.

It was as if a little boxer lived inside the walls.

Zhu Ning stopped.

Wearing her helmet, she stood in the room with the bizarrely arranged furniture, listening intently to the boxing noise.

She began to think.

1. This is an isolated space; Zhu Ning cannot accurately perceive the passage of time or space.
2. There is sound here, but it is transmitted from somewhere else.
3. The system wants her to find the missing Huang Yaruo, proving a living person is still hiding here.
4. The furniture likes to face the walls, backs turned to people.

Question: Where could Huang Yaruo be?

Zhu Ning suddenly moved. Like someone possessed, she turned around abruptly, facing away from the wall.

Then, she began to walk backward.

She walked very slowly, step by step, backing away. If a security camera were watching, she would look like a sleepwalker.

One step, two steps, three steps...

Huang Yaruo’s apartment wasn't big; ten steps would cross the living room.

*Thump.* A soft sound.

Zhu Ning’s back hit the wall. She had reached the end. She could feel the solid wall behind her, and her heel was pressed against the baseboard. There was nowhere left to retreat.

Zhu Ning lifted her foot and took another step backward.

If there were a real wall behind her, her foot should have bumped into it. But her foot landed on empty space.

Her foot sank into the floor.

Theoretically, there was no space behind her, yet she had stepped into another dimension.

As expected, the time and space here were bizarre; the house’s interior could extend.

Every time Huang Yaruo woke up to find all the furniture facing the walls, it was because the furniture was watching the "real" house.

The furniture wanted to get inside, and Huang Yaruo might be inside there too.

Zhu Ning had guessed it right—the time and space were different—but she didn't dare turn around.