Chapter 34: The Game Instance Called "Escape"

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[It’s a man! Definitely a man! He can even disguise his voice! His aura is so sinister and brooding. He looks terrifying.]

[Sob, sob, has Sister Sang figured it out?]

[This is so frightening! It feels like danger is everywhere. Why would he kill the victim? I don’t understand. The victim was just an ordinary blind girl.]

Ye Sangsang raised her head and asked the man a question, but he showed no intention of answering.

“Can’t you answer? Height isn’t exactly a private question, is it?” Ye Sangsang asked with a smile.

Everything before her was dim and indistinct. She could not see who was standing in front of her, and the entire situation was unknown. Yet no wariness or fear appeared on her face.

That would have been a sign of cowardice, and would only have made anyone harboring ulterior motives more excited.

Besides, what did she have to be afraid of?

The man across from her was silent for a moment before replying, “One hundred and seventy-two centimeters. That is indeed fairly tall.”

“You’re very well-rounded, but I need to interview more people before deciding whom to choose. So, I’m sorry.” Ye Sangsang stared straight ahead with vacant eyes as she spoke.

The sound of clothing rubbing together came from in front of her. Then the man said, “All right. I hope you’ll consider me. I’ll work hard. Goodbye.”

Footsteps followed as he walked away. Ye Sangsang slowly rose and followed behind him.

“You don’t have to see me out. I can leave on my own.”

When they reached the doorway, the man spoke in a low voice.

Ye Sangsang stood in the entryway. Hearing the door close, she stepped forward and reached for the handle, pulling the door inward slightly.

Then she turned around and felt her way along the surrounding area. She unfolded her white cane and began probing the path ahead.

Two taps to the left. Two taps to the right.

Perhaps sensing something, she stretched out a hand and felt around in front of her.

After confirming that nothing was amiss, she turned and made her way toward the sofa according to her estimate.

She felt her way down onto the seat. Once she had registered the softness of the expensive sofa, she reached out to search for her water glass. But her estimate was wrong. Her fingers slid back and forth across the frosted tabletop for quite some time without touching the glass that had been there moments earlier.

Just as a puzzled expression appeared on her face, she shifted again and touched the side of the glass.

Glug.

She tilted her head back and drank the water.

[Ahhhhh! This is terrifying! He never left!]

[Sister Sang, use your head! He’s still inside the house!]

[My heart is in my throat. What a devious man. Don’t even think about hurting Sister Sang.]

The livestream chat exploded. Ye Sangsang could not see, but they could.

The man had not left. Ye Sangsang had come within a hair’s breadth of touching him as he stood hidden in the corner of the entryway. Their hearts pounded like high-speed engines.

Even so, no one blamed Ye Sangsang for failing to notice him.

She was completely blind, with no vision at all. They felt that even if a hundred people were standing right in front of them, they would not be able to see them—

Not if those people made no sound.

So it was perfectly normal that Ye Sangsang had not noticed him. Who could have imagined that an ordinary job applicant was actually someone skilled at disguising his voice?

While the livestream chat was in a heated discussion, Ye Sangsang took out her phone. Feeling her way around, she placed a call.

“Is this the Essence Pavilion? I’d like to order a meal.”

The person on the other end began asking what kind of food she wanted.

After thinking it over, Ye Sangsang ordered a simple Western-style meal for one, delivered to her home.

As a restaurant charging an average of a thousand yuan per customer, its delivery service included bringing the meal to the door and staying until she had finished eating.

She had asked the super-intelligence about it. Although Wen Yanxin was not favored by her parents, they had never shortchanged her financially.

She received fifty thousand yuan in spending money every month, while all household expenses were divided equally between her parents. She was their only legitimate child.

The two of them had continued dragging things out without divorcing because neither wanted to benefit the other by allowing them to marry the lover they kept outside the marriage.

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For that reason, Ye Sangsang suspected that someone might have hired a killer.

She felt her way to the remote control, located the voice-control button, and turned on the television.

In an environment she could not see, having no sound at all would have been terrifying.

Fortunately, Wen Yanxin’s hearing and sense of smell were exceptionally sharp in this scenario. She simply did not know how the real case had ended.

When people could not see, their thoughts began to surface, and they started thinking about more and more things.

Every scent, every sound from the television beside her, drew her attention.

Before long, the people from the catering service arrived, and Ye Sangsang got up to open the door.

They knew Wen Yanxin, so they showed no surprise upon entering. They put the food away, arranged everything neatly, helped her sit down, and watched her eat.

That was part of the service. After all, the food alone could not justify a bill of fifteen hundred yuan.

Ye Sangsang breathed in the pure aroma of meat—the fragrance of rosemary and beef—and savored the fresh, juicy taste of the meat as it entered her mouth.

This game was perfect for people trying to lose weight, since eating here did not make anyone gain weight.

Still, one could never be sure. Perhaps eating in the game would only make a person crave food more intensely in reality, causing them to eat even more and grow fatter in the end.

Steak, cream of mushroom soup, dessert, and red wine. Once she had finished, the staff cleared everything away and left.

When the door closed, Ye Sangsang stood in the entryway and reached around for her phone.

The phone that had been lying on the table was gone.

A puzzled look crossed Ye Sangsang’s face. She searched the sofa, then the dining table.

“Perhaps I left it somewhere. I’ll ask the property manager when I go out later.”

Apartments on this scale all had professional property attendants, each assigned to one or two, at most three, residences to help with various tasks.

After sitting for a while, she thought it over, sighed as if resigning herself to her fate, and stood up again.

She eventually found the phone wedged between the cushions of the sofa. Holding it in her hand, Ye Sangsang scratched her head and turned back toward the bedroom.

A soft click sounded as the lock engaged. Ye Sangsang let out a sigh of relief, took out her phone, and used voice control to dial the police.

If she had not realized that something was wrong and taken precautions, she might have thought everything that had happened was perfectly normal.

But the moment the man spoke, he had exposed himself.

Her assistant had never told her that the labor agency would send someone to work as a housekeeper, nor that the housekeeper would not be coming alone.

By the time she sensed that something was wrong, the man had already entered the house. All she could do was remain silent.

When he left, she had deliberately made those movements to test him. She thought he had gone. It was not until she sat down on the sofa that she caught the scent of osmanthus clinging to him. He must have gotten osmanthus petals on his clothes.

Then came the test during dinner. The man had hidden her phone and left while she was eating.

She realized the phone was missing and searched for it, claiming that she would contact someone. Once she found it, she deliberately did not make the call.

Her only oversight was that she had not realized she could simply use her voice to summon the phone. It would respond to her instead of forcing her to search blindly as she had just done.

The moment she found it, she went straight into the bedroom.

Once she was certain that he had not followed her, she hurried inside, locked the door, and called the police.

She could only hope that after she reported him, the authorities would catch him and drive him away.

But the call she had been counting on would not go through. The voice assistant announced that there was no signal.

The next second, a message arrived.

She instinctively activated the voice function.

“Sweetheart, did you realize I was here? You’re so clever!”

“But now I’m unhappy…”

A faint voice came through the earpiece, carrying a strange hint of laughter that made every hair on the body stand on end.

[Her online boyfriend is a psychopath!]

[Terrifying. The man outside is actually the one sending the messages.]

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[How can he still send messages if she can’t call the police?]

[He probably installed a signal jammer. He turned it off to send the messages, which is why the phone call wouldn’t go through before she received them. Sister Sang can’t make a call now. The moment he finished sending the message, he probably turned the jammer back on. He came prepared!]

The livestream chat was in uproar. Meanwhile, Ye Sangsang felt someone grip the door handle and twist it slightly.

She instinctively backed away, then realized she had been overthinking it. The door was already locked from the inside.

At that moment, her phone vibrated.

Two messages had arrived. She did not know where they had come from, only that they were from a social media app.

She felt that the messages were important because the other person had switched off the jammer at that very moment.

Yet she still could not place a call.

Helpless, she forced herself to remain calm and activated the voice assistant.

“Sweetheart, I’m coming to catch you.”

After the voice finished speaking, the phone played another message, apparently a text message.

“Dear resident of Linhua Mansion, the police have informed us that a murderer has fled into the community. Everyone is asked to remain indoors. Do not open your door to strangers. Please secure your windows and lock your doors. We will continue monitoring the situation. Please remain calm. The police will apprehend the suspect as soon as possible…”

The rest of the message was rather long. Ye Sangsang listened carefully to the end, and a complicated expression appeared on her face.

Was the person outside the murderer, or the one who had sent the messages?

Were they two people, or one?

Everything before her was shrouded in confusion, yet she was still trapped in danger. She had to think of a way to escape her predicament.

[I’m scared for Sister Sang!]

[Is this scenario really so dangerous? It just keeps going!]

[Could that be the murderer who escaped into the community? Ahhhhh!]

Clack, clack, clack, clack…

The person outside had lost patience. The lock rattled as someone frantically twisted the handle, trying to force the door open.

The rapid shaking was accompanied by the clanging of the mechanical lock, as though the door would be violently torn apart or smashed through the very next second.

In absolute darkness, sounds like these magnified fear.

Ye Sangsang stood where she was, calculating how long the lock might hold and considering whether there was anywhere else in the room where she could hide.

Before she could finish thinking, pounding sounded against the door.

The person slammed into it several times in succession. If the door had not been made of such sturdy material, it might already have splintered under the brutal assault.

Time suddenly became unbearably tight.

She did not have much of it left.

[This is so tense, so tense, so tense!]

[What a lunatic! What does he want?]

[Putting myself in Sister Sang’s place, I’m already losing it.]

And then Ye Sangsang suddenly remembered a problem she had overlooked.

Just as suddenly, the lock stopped rattling. The frantic attempt to force the door open ceased.

The air filled with tension, because both sides were racing for the same thing.

Ye Sangsang spun around and looked toward the glass partition separating the room’s balcony from the sitting room.

She had entered the house’s reception tea room to evade the intruder as quickly as possible. The balcony of this expansive apartment was a huge rectangle nearly twelve meters long.

Most importantly, the balcony connected directly to the balcony outside the sitting room.

In other words, the intruder could simply go around and enter the sitting room.