Chapter 105
When Lu Liming said the first sentence, Yu Zhi immediately looked toward the soccer shoes.
He hadn’t paid attention to how they were positioned before and couldn’t be sure whether they had moved.
He stared at them for a couple of seconds but saw nothing unusual, so he turned to Doctor Qi instead.
Doctor Qi hesitated. “I don’t remember which way they were facing before.”
The shoes lay quietly on the floor, completely still. The fluorescent surface reflected a faint green glow, which looked rather eerie in the dim light.
Lu Liming licked his dry lips and said slowly, “Maybe it was just my imagination.”
He gave a dry laugh. “Like when you leave the house and suddenly forget whether you locked the door. I used to do that all the time.”
The air still carried an unsettling atmosphere.
The possibly moving shoes were unsettling.
The contaminants that still hadn’t appeared were unsettling.
And the possibility that Meteorite Biotech was hiding in the shadows was even more so.
If Yu Zhi’s guess was right—if Meteorite Biotech had truly mastered a method to turn someone into a contamination source within just a few minutes—
Then in this contamination zone, the real danger wasn’t only the contamination source and contaminants like in previous zones. It was also Meteorite Biotech.
Yu Zhi tightened his grip on his gun. His heartbeat quickened involuntarily as questions surfaced one after another.
Were Meteorite Biotech’s people secretly observing them like in the previous two instances?
What had they done to turn someone into a contamination source?
Was the person chosen at random this time?
Or had they been targeted long ago?
“Gulp—”
Someone swallowed. The sound echoed unusually loudly in the quiet space.
Yu Zhi slowly exhaled, stopping his train of thought, and looked at Lu Liming.
Lu Liming’s lips were pale. He clearly hadn’t recovered. He wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, but his eyes remained fixed on the shoes.
Seeing that his condition seemed worse, Yu Zhi asked, “Do you think they moved?”
Lu Liming nodded, then shook his head. “It’s just… I feel like when I put them down earlier, the toes were facing away from us.”
“Now the toes are facing us, like they—they turned around and are looking at us.”
Yu Zhi frowned almost imperceptibly. He heard the abnormality in that statement.
Xiao Ming’s focus wasn’t that the shoes had moved. It was that he felt the shoes were watching them.
First he thought the peephole was watching people.
Now he thought the shoes were watching people…
He hadn’t been this paranoid before.
Was this the mental contamination of this instance?
Yu Zhi nudged Lu Liming’s arm with his elbow. “Shoot.”
“It’s probably just me overthinking. I even thought there was someone behind the peephole just now,” Lu Liming flexed his fingers hesitantly. “These are limited-edition shoes. I don’t even know if my own pair still exists.”
Yu Zhi looked at him quietly and didn’t mention mental contamination.
Xiao Ming already had an overactive imagination. If he told him it might be mental contamination, he might spiral even more.
After thinking for a moment, Yu Zhi said instead, “Your life is globally limited to one.”
Lu Liming froze briefly, then understood. “Brother Yu, you’re right.”
“These shoes aren’t worth more than me.”
This time he didn’t hesitate. He raised his gun and aimed at the shoes on the ground.
He fired several shots, hitting only one of them.
Two or three charred holes appeared on the surface. No blood flowed out. Nothing crawled out from inside. No strange sounds.
They were just ordinary shoes.
Only then did Lu Liming let out a breath. He strode over confidently and stomped hard on them twice.
Seeing his complexion gradually improve, Doctor Qi glanced at Yu Zhi in surprise. Just a few words had significantly stabilized Lu Liming’s mental state.
Noticing his gaze, Yu Zhi paused and looked back. “What?”
“Nothing,” Doctor Qi said after a moment. “I was just wondering why we’ve been here so long and still haven’t encountered any contaminants.”
“Are post-apocalypse contamination zones like this?”
Yu Zhi answered honestly, “No. This one is strange.”
In previous contamination instances, countless contaminants had appeared shortly after entering.
Here, their continued absence didn’t ease their nerves. Instead, it made them more tense.
The unknown was the most terrifying.
The human brain instinctively speculates and imagines the unknown. The longer contaminants failed to appear, the more they would imagine and suspect.
Among the three of them, Lu Liming’s condition was the worst.
After thinking for a moment, Doctor Qi said slowly, “Is it possible the contaminants have already appeared—we just can’t see them?”
Lu Liming’s face, which had just regained some color, turned pale again at that sentence. “Master Qi, you mean…”
“Ghosts?”
Doctor Qi had meant invisible or hidden contaminants. He hadn’t expected Lu Liming to blurt out “ghosts.”
He fell silent. “N-No… probably not.”
The more Lu Liming thought about it, the more convinced he became. He started rambling nervously, “Xiao Zuo said contamination zones operate based on the rules defined by the contamination source. What if the source believes that once contaminated, you become a ghost? Damn it—what if ghosts are already appearing endlessly and we just can’t see them…”
“The warning downstairs about ‘be careful of eyes’—maybe it meant ghost eyes?”
No one had ever seen a real ghost. But everyone had seen ghost movies.
Listening to him repeat the word “ghost,” Doctor Qi felt a chill creep up his neck.
He opened his mouth to stop him, but before he could speak, his expression suddenly changed. “I think I’m feeling what Xiao Ming described too—the sense of being watched.”
He turned his head and glanced behind him.
At first, Yu Zhi hadn’t felt anything. But since both Lu Liming and Doctor Qi said they did, he instinctively scanned the apartment again.
Nothing unusual.
Then suddenly—
He felt it too.
The sensation of being watched.
It was faint—so faint he almost suspected it was his imagination.
Was it because Xiao Ming and Doctor Qi kept talking about it that he started feeling it too?
Yu Zhi frowned and cut off the topic. “Let’s check the one across the hall.”
“Okay.”
Lu Liming responded and walked out quickly. Doctor Qi followed.
Both of them kept turning back every step—not to look at Yu Zhi, who was walking behind—but to confirm whether 601 showed any abnormalities. Whether some kind of ghost really was staring at them.
Doctor Qi was more restrained. Lu Liming’s movements were exaggerated—glancing at the damaged shoes, then at the peephole on the door.
Watching them, Yu Zhi felt the gaze behind him grow stronger.
Strong enough that he was now certain—
It wasn’t imagination.
Something was watching him.
His eyelid twitched. His first thought wasn’t a contaminant—but the man in black robes.
Could that bastard not be dead?
Lowering his lashes, he quickly shone his flashlight at his shadow.
The shadow was normal. Under the light, it dispersed. Nothing like when the black-robed man had hidden there.
He scanned the surroundings again.
Nothing seemed wrong.
The livestream viewers noticed the change and gleefully flooded the screen.
[User “Strongest King” reminds you to watch your back.]
[User “Electronic Wooden Fish” informs you that you are indeed being stared at and knocks a wooden fish for you.]
[User “Pure of Heart and Few Desires” wonders whether you enjoy being peeped at.]
[User “momo” thinks you’re very entertaining in contamination instances and tips you 20 universal coins.]
Knowing they meant no good, Yu Zhi ignored them and strode to Apartment 602 across the hall.
602’s door was locked. Doctor Qi fired two shots at the lock, and they entered.
Two bedrooms and one living room. The three split up efficiently.
Doctor Qi and Lu Liming each took a bedroom. Yu Zhi checked the living room.
The situation was similar to 601. Blood and fragments of flesh were splattered everywhere.
But in 602, most of the blood was concentrated near the window in the living room.
The glass was covered in blood—mixed with bits of flesh. It hadn’t completely dried and was slowly sliding downward. On the windowsill, lumps of fat and meat had piled up.
It seemed the person who lived here had walked to the window—and then something happened, leaving no remains behind.
Yu Zhi forced himself not to focus on the greasy bits sliding down the sill and looked at the window.
The glass was intact. Not a single crack.
Through a relatively clean corner, he could see part of the residential compound.
At a glance, he noticed the old banyan tree in front.
It was almost completely dyed red with blood. The branches, the leaves—everything was soaked. Even the nearby exercise equipment was covered in blood. A sea of crimson.
Only blood.
No bodies.
Just like the people who died in 601 and 602.
“Brother Yu, nothing in the bedroom,” Lu Liming came out quickly.
“Nothing here either,” Doctor Qi said.
Yu Zhi pointed outside. “Something must have happened over there.”
Lu Liming glanced at the window, saw the yellowish chunks of fat, and gagged.
Doctor Qi fared slightly better. Pale-faced, he stepped closer and looked outside in the direction Yu Zhi indicated.
“No bodies. Same as here.”
Yu Zhi hummed, about to suggest going over to check—
When he heard it.
A faint sound.
Something rolling on the floor.
Or maybe scraping.
At first he thought it was Lu Liming walking over. But when he turned his head, Lu Liming was standing still, gagging.
Doctor Qi wasn’t moving either.
Then who made that sound?
Goosebumps crawled up Yu Zhi’s arms. His heart jolted.
He said nothing. Quietly, he tugged at Doctor Qi’s sleeve.
Doctor Qi looked at him, confused.
Yu Zhi mouthed one word silently: “Listen.”
Doctor Qi’s expression turned serious. He focused.
“Ugh—”
Lu Liming’s loud gagging.
Doctor Qi: “…”
Then he heard it too.
A faint scraping sound.
Like something dragging itself across the floor.
“Sha—”
“Sha—”
The sound grew clearer.
Closer.
Doctor Qi’s face changed instantly. He looked at Yu Zhi.
Yu Zhi tightened his grip on his gun and silently asked: “Door?”
Doctor Qi nodded stiffly, his face pale.
The security door hadn’t been closed. They didn’t need to step out. From inside, they could see whatever was outside.
Yu Zhi held his breath and took two light steps forward.
He lifted his eyes toward the doorway—
And his hair stood on end.
Outside the door was a single soccer shoe.
The fluorescent green one Lu Liming had shot.
The charred holes on its surface were now filled with white bulging shapes—like miniature white ping-pong balls wedged into the holes.
The next second, those white “ping-pong balls” rotated slightly, squeezing out a bit of clear, moist fluid, revealing the other side.
In the center of each white sphere was a round black dot.
Three black dots.
Staring straight at Yu Zhi.
Exactly like the earlier sensation of being watched.
A chill shot up his spine.
Those weren’t ping-pong balls.
They were eyeballs.
And they were staring at them.
