Chapter 221 In memory——slander?
Its daybreak.

maybe……

The rain stopped, but the dark clouds remained.

The world is dim and dark.

Caesar opened his eyes, put aside Lu Mingfei's arm that was on his chest, and stood up by supporting himself on the bed.

The wood beneath me creaked.

The small room was depressing.

He opened the wooden door and breathed in the cool air that blew in from the hallway.

The lights on the ceiling were turned off, and the long corridor was even darker than at night.

Caesar was not asleep. He had been awake since yesterday.

But after a night, he didn't hear anything unusual.

It's like...

The warning sign on the wall was just a harmless joke.

But he knew this was impossible.

squeak~

In the distance came the sound of wooden boards being trampled.

Caesar turned his head, and through the hazy black curtain, he saw a frighteningly white face!

It's that woman!
She also looked over and nodded to Caesar, then knocked on the doors of the eleven children's rooms one by one.

The woman was moving very fast.

No more than five seconds after the knock on the door, the children opened the door and came out in neatly dressed, without wasting any time.

Caesar was a little curious about how they slept at night.

soon.

After waking up all the children, the woman came over.

"Good morning, sir. How did you sleep last night?"

His questioning voice came out from his chest.

"not bad."

Caesar smiled politely: "Thank you for your hospitality. But Madam, can you let us stay for a few more days? You know, the weather outside is really..."

"no problem!"

Before he had finished explaining his reasons, the woman nodded in agreement without hesitation, showing no sign of vigilance as she had the night before.

"Oh, right."

The woman turned around and walked a few steps, then suddenly said, "Can you two come over here for a moment? There's something very important that I must have you two witness."

Caesar narrowed his eyes.

He looked at the woman who seemed to be hinting at something and responded calmly.

"Please wait a moment. I will go call my companions."

The woman nodded and left with the children.

Caesar looked at her for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the boy in blue behind her.

——Last night, he had already determined who Su Beixun was by returning to his room.

But I haven't had time to test it yet.

……

ten minutes later.

Lu Mingfei yawned as he went out with Caesar.

"Boss, is there any food..."

He asked, rubbing his eyes.

Caesar looked back at him, speechless.

"You dare to eat the food here? And...are you hungry?"

Lu Mingfei scratched his stomach.

"Well, it's not very obvious... But if I don't eat something, I always feel like I'm missing out on getting up early."

Caesar was speechless and went downstairs with Lu Mingfei with a tense face.

……

First floor.

On the wooden table with a missing corner, the eleven children sat in a circle like they did last night, eating white paste from their bowls.

But they have no mouth.

Every time food is scooped up, it flows down the skin back into the bowl or onto the ground.

And every time this happens.

The woman with her hand nearby would take out a towel and wipe them clean.

[So weird...]

The strange and bizarre behavior in the shadow gave Lu Mingfei goosebumps and he looked at Caesar at a loss.

"lady."

Caesar stepped forward.

"What is it you're talking about?"

"…Tsk, are you in such a hurry?"

The woman's answer to the question was irrelevant.

She put down the towel, with more dissatisfaction in her tone.

After a moment he sighed again.

"……ok, I get it."

She muttered and turned around.

Caesar frowned in confusion.

……

boom! !

A loud bang!
There were no signs...

The woman suddenly grabbed a child's hair!

Throw him hard onto the table!

Ink-black blood flowed from the pale forehead, like melted asphalt, sticky and sticky, dripping down.

All the dishes and chopsticks on the table were knocked over!

Even the last corner of the square wooden table fell off!

"last night……"

"Someone came out..."

The woman's fat hands were stretched to the limit, and her five fingers were pressing tightly on the head below.

He spoke very slowly, and his voice became colder with each word he spoke.

She stood in front of the broken glass window and looked at the expressionless children in front of the table one by one.

"Can anyone tell me..."

"Who the hell is he?!"

There was silence in the room.

……

Lu Mingfei was stunned when he saw this scene!

This overly disjointed beginning and end gave him an inexplicable sense of confusion!

He never expected that the plot would fast forward to this point!
It's like cutting out all the foreplay and conflict...

Did anyone go out last night?
How did she know?
Saw?
But why ask if you have seen it?
and also……

What will happen if you get caught?
Lu Mingfei looked at the woman's increasingly violent movements, his cheeks twitching, and he felt a faint phantom pain in his scalp.

……

"I hate disobedient children."

The woman's voice was ferocious.

With a click!
Her cervical vertebrae were twisted, her neck was stretched, and her faceless head slid over the children's faces like a snake.

"I promise……"

"I promise!"

"I will definitely...find that disobedient little scoundrel!"

##
Half an hour later.

The drama at the dinner table is over.

The woman returned to her original form.

The next second, he immediately and kindly helped the child to wash his hands and went to class.

Lu Mingfei was a little scared.

After all, everyone is afraid of crazy people.

Through the open door he could see—

In another room on the first floor, children sat on stools, quietly watching a woman writing and drawing on half a blackboard.

And in the first row, the head that was smashed on the table by the woman was still bleeding black blood...

"Boss, boss."

Lu Mingfei dragged Caesar, who had remained silent until now, and asked indecisively: "What should we do?"

"Search the house first."

Caesar said.

He stared at the woman writing equations on the blackboard, and suddenly recalled what she had said at the door in the morning.

witness?

Caesar drummed his fingers on his arm.

Why does it feel like... this woman seems to pay special attention to their opinions?
##
The women's room is on the first floor, connected to the kitchen, and has a distinct appearance.

It was not difficult to find Caesar and Lu Mingfei.

It was a large space, at least four times the size of the room on the second floor. In addition to the single bed against the wall, there was also a small desk under the window.

Also, it has a more modern feel.

——On the desk, a paint-chipped radio was broadcasting news.

[Today's weather is cloudy and then sunny. The rain brought by the cold front is gradually receding. Dear listeners, please... zizi... zizi]

[Zi... Implement the instructions of the Party Central Committee and strengthen cultural and economic construction... Zi] [Yesterday... Zi, a murder case occurred in our city...]

[The Black Prince Group has begun to acquire the Shengding Group...]

[…Enjoy Jay Chou’s single…]

This radio has bad contact and always jumps to another channel halfway through a message.

Caesar noticed the news of the Black Prince Group's acquisition.

He once made a special effort to find out about the city where Chu Zihang was located. If he remembered correctly, this incident should have happened in 1999.

Did anything happen in the welfare home at this time?

Caesar once again recalled the information he had collected, but he really had no impression of it.

Think no more.

He began to search the room.

Under the bed, in drawers, and between bedding or clothes...

Sudden.

While flipping through a copy of Oliver Twist on the desk, a folded piece of paper floated out.

Caesar reached out and took it, unfolding it.

There was only one line of words written on the white paper:

【It is freezing cold today. 】

Kai frowned.

He held up the paper and looked at it from different angles, and found that there was indeed only this line of font, without even the indentations of other notes left through the paper.

"what is this?"

Lu Mingfei raised his head and asked from behind.

"It could be a code, or it could just be meaningless random writing."

Caesar explained.

After memorizing the style and stroke details of the font, he folded the papers and stuffed them back into the book.

After finding nothing else, the two left the room.

Then there is the kitchen next to it.

Corner toilet.

A room full of broken dolls.

There is also a deserted courtyard.

"Boss, it looks like it's going to rain again...Shouldn't today's weather be cloudy and then sunny?"

While Lu Mingfei was digging in the ground, he looked up at the thicker clouds in the sky.

The smell of earth began to float in the air.

"Obviously, that announcer lied to you."

Caesar moved the scrap wood piled in the corner and shrugged when he heard this.

"You might consider calling the complaint hotline...if the broadcaster hasn't retired this year."

"Complain..."

Lu Mingfei squatted on the ground and pulled up a blade of grass with melancholy: "I don't know if this day will come again."

"Don't worry, it's no problem."

Caesar heard the pessimistic tone in his voice and smiled.

“Although I don’t know the details yet, I now have a direction.”

"direction?"

Lu Mingfei was stunned, and looked up in surprise: "Boss, do you know what to do?!"

"That's it."

Caesar threw the splinter of wood in his hand aside and slapped the debris away.

"Our goal is to break this outer shell, so we can't follow the original trajectory."

Lu Mingfei performed the supporting role very well: "The original trajectory?"

"Yes."

Caesar said thoughtfully.

"I don't know what this incident looks like in reality, but since he left such a deep impression, it's conceivable that he must have been in a bad state after being discovered. So from the result, it can be inferred that the person caught in this incident is most likely not Su Beixun."

"Yes!"

Lu Mingfei slammed his palm, "He was able to go to school safely afterwards, which means it wasn't him who got his head crushed!"

Caesar did not correct him on the difference between reality and fantasy, but simply continued.

"Although I don't know why, that woman seems to pay special attention to our opinions... I'm going to tell her that Su Beixun was the one who went out last night."

Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded: "Slander? Boss, you actually know this trick?!"

"Slander? ... That's not necessarily true."

Caesar looked at him and recited Lu Xun's famous words meaningfully:

"I have never hesitated to use the worst of malice to speculate about human beings..."

##
Sure enough, the rain started falling again.

This seemed to be a sign of the darkness of the night in this part of the world.

As the drizzle fell, the dim light of the chandelier lit up on time.

They spent the whole day exploring the entire house.

There is no attic, no basement, and no hidden secret house. This is just a normal two-story building.

They even knocked on the walls and ceilings of every room to make sure there were no cavities.

……

late at night.

Caesar leaned his head over and put his ear against the door, listening carefully to the sounds outside.

I don’t know what time it is now.

But after the children closed the door, there was silence for a long time.

"Boss, do you really want to go?"

Lu Mingfei stood there timidly, backing down out of habit.

"of course."

Caesar opened the door a little and peeked out with squinted eyes.

"Before reporting it, we'd better find out what will happen if we go out after 8:30."

The corridor was pitch black and I couldn't see a thing, and the overhead lights wouldn't turn on after 8:30.

He slowly widened the opening angle to avoid the friction sound of the teeth, and then squeezed it out carefully.

Lu Mingfei followed on tiptoe.

There was nothing different outside at night. The imagined monsters and ghosts did not appear, and the damp walls were shrouded in peaceful silence.

Every step was crisp and loud.

But Caesar knew it was just a psychological effect.

He looked towards the room with the wooden sign "Su Beixun" on it, hesitated for a moment, but still did not push the door open and go in.

I walked carefully to the other end of the corridor, and everything was still calm.

Caesar prepared to go downstairs to take a look.

He pressed against the edge of the staircase to prevent his moans from being too piercing.

But when he reached the corner platform where two stairs connected, his steps suddenly stopped.

--bright!
There is a glimmer of light in the turbid darkness!

This is all too obvious in today’s environment.

Caesar easily discovered its source -

It's a woman's room!

What is she doing?
Caesar was curious.

But before he could figure it out, the empty night was suddenly filled with a sharp "clang" sound!

Caesar subconsciously turned his head and looked at the direction of the door through the wall.

He heard the sound of the big iron doors being pushed and pulled!

Pong! !

The door of the woman's room hit the wall instantly.

The short and fat figure crossed the intersection of light and shadow with great momentum, but she turned back suddenly after taking two steps, her gray face facing the stairs.

"Who?! Who's there?!"

The piercing roar brought Caesar back to his senses quickly.

He didn't have time to see what was happening outside, and pulled Lu Mingfei back to the second floor in a few steps.

There was no sound of pursuit!
The woman seemed to take the lead in dealing with things outside.

Return to the room and close the door.

Caesar put up green glass, trying to see the scene in the courtyard clearly.
But it's really hard on the eyes in this environment!
——He couldn’t see anything clearly.

"What's wrong, boss?"

Lu Mingfei behind him was feeling uneasy.

But Caesar had no answer.

He could only stay in this small room for the time being, imagining what might happen and guessing the possible impact of their actions.

……

at last.

In anxious waiting...

The next day is here!
Caesar couldn't wait to push the door open.

The faceless woman walked up the stairs at this moment again.

She nodded from Caesar as yesterday, knocking the children's room.

But this time.

Caesar discovered...

The number of children following the woman became ten.

From her, Caesar got a message -

Last night, a child tried to escape.

And then got caught...

(End of this chapter)