“Mingyue, there are some things I wanted to ask you about.”
As the male lead of the comic, Lu Liangting’s looks were naturally not lacking. He wasn’t the effeminate type like some male celebrities on TV, but was full of sunshine and confidence. His starry eyes and sharp brows brimmed with vitality. He possessed a very contradictory temperament—both the youthful, cheerful innocence of a boy, and a mature reliability that defied his age.
His hair was neither long nor short, neatly styled. He had no tattoos or ear piercings. He wore a casual outfit and spotless white sneakers.
“Huh, this doll…” Sensing something was watching him, Lu Liangting looked down and noticed the rabbit doll stained with patches of blood on the table.
Its dark red button eyes gleamed. One ear drooped down while the other stood straight up.
The doll was somewhat cute, but it gave off an inexplicable sense of horror. Before Lu Liangting could reach out to take it, Zhao Mingyue swiftly scooped the doll into her arms.
“This doll was a toy from my childhood. I happened to find it and brought it along. So… you said you wanted to ask me something?”
Zhao Mingyue’s smile was somewhat awkward. She absolutely could not let Lu Liangting touch this doll.
Lu Liangting’s movement paused. The moment he looked up, his gaze met Zhao Mingyue’s. That slightly awkward smile of hers translated completely differently in his eyes: the young girl’s eyes held a smile, her cherry lips curved into a gentle arc, tinged with a touch of playful cuteness.
“Ah, right, about that. I heard that you live at Sunshine Apartment.”
Not staring at Zhao Mingyue for too long, he took out his mobile phone and pulled up the information he had found, opening a picture. It was precisely the Sunshine Apartment where Zhao Mingyue lived.
Holding it before Zhao Mingyue’s eyes, Lu Liangting’s tone was very serious. “I have some business there tonight, to find someone. So I wanted to ask you about some things concerning that apartment.”
“Uh, I do live there, but I haven’t been there very long.”
“That’s okay. But what I’m about to say might be a bit terrifying. If you don’t know, then never mind, but it’s a good warning for you anyway.”
His finger gently swiped across the phone screen, revealing another picture. It was the fourth floor of the apartment. It was basically the same as Zhao Mingyue remembered, the difference being that in this photo, it looked like a fire had just occurred; even the walls were charred black.
The next picture was the same: blackened walls, some places showing walls yellowed by smoke, with irregular burn marks everywhere. Only this time, it was the fifth floor instead of the fourth.
The building only had five floors. The next picture was a news photo, with words like “fire incident” faintly visible.
“Mingyue, do you know about the fire at Sunshine Apartment seven years ago?”
“Fire incident?” Zhao Mingyue frowned and shook her head.
Seeing Zhao Mingyue’s completely baffled expression, Lu Liangting hesitated. From the looks of it, she truly knew nothing. Telling her now might frighten her, especially since she lived there alone.
Seeing his hesitation, Bai Yu spoke directly into Zhao Mingyue’s mind: “Mingyue, let him continue. This is very important to you.”
Zhao Mingyue silently replied ‘okay’ in her mind, conveniently stuffing Miss Rabbit into her pocket. “I don’t know. Can you tell me?”
“If you don’t know, then let’s just leave it.” Lu Liangting put away his phone, his face grave. “If you don’t know about this, take my advice and don’t try to find out.”
“But I live there. I can’t just move out on short notice, not until next year at the earliest.” Zhao Mingyue put on a pretense of sighing. “A fire is a big deal. The landlord didn’t tell me anything about it. Maybe he deliberately hid it from me. You don’t have to worry about scaring me; I’m quite brave, you know. It’ll also satisfy my curiosity.”
Looking at Zhao Mingyue’s expectant little eyes, Lu Liangting sighed helplessly. “This matter is indeed quite terrifying. Since you’re renting a place there, that landlord definitely hid this from you. Alright, I’ll tell you what happened. During this time, if you get the chance, move out as soon as possible. I can help you pay for the new place.”
“No, no, no, there’s no need.”
“It’s necessary. You’ll understand once you hear me out.” Lu Liangting organized his words in his mind. The usually sunny and confident man was now tightly frowning.
“These past few days, I’ve been looking into the Sunshine Apartment records, including the fire from seven years ago. Here’s what happened: On the fifth floor of that building, there once lived a woman with her two children. This woman had some mental issues; she’d just been released from a psychiatric hospital.”
“Her husband was the owner of that apartment building. After bringing the woman back, he locked her on the fifth floor, and even gave the two children to her.”
“I don’t know what happened in between, but that fire… she started it. She burned herself and her two children to death on the fifth floor.”
“The fire itself wasn’t that large at the time, yet it burned through the entire fifth floor, and even scorched the fourth floor. Even the firefighters couldn’t figure out why that happened.”
“In that fire, besides the woman and her two children, the husband living on the fourth floor and four other tenants were also burned to death. Judging by the scene, they clearly had more than enough time to escape.”
“It wasn’t until the third year after that, that the apartment found people to renovate the fourth and fifth floors. Because the children were gone too, the one who took over the apartment was the original owner’s father.”
“There’s another detail. This apartment wasn’t called Sunshine Apartment before. It was only after this elderly man took over that he renamed it ‘Sunshine’.”
“In the fifth year, they started renting it out again. And that year, two tenants died on the fourth floor, and three on the fifth floor. All of them were suicides.”
“How could five tenants, one after another, all possibly commit suicide in a single year?”
Just as his words fell, a hand painted with blue nail polish suddenly landed on Lu Liangting’s shoulder. His body visibly stiffened.
While he was telling such a terrifying story, a hand suddenly appearing on his shoulder… anyone would be scared.
“I caught you~”
A sickly sweet voice sounded from behind him, and a young girl in a black jacket and pleated skirt jumped out. She had a red hairpin clipped in her loosely tied hair. She wore no other makeup, though she had applied lipstick, albeit crookedly.
Aside from her somewhat bizarre getup, one could see the girl had a very good foundation—definitely a beauty. It was just that Zhao Mingyue found the way she spoke incredibly strange, as if she was suppressing her voice or speaking through gritted teeth.
The red hairpin girl stood next to Lu Liangting, pressing her body against his with great effort. At the same time, she didn’t forget to glance at Zhao Mingyue, her phoenix eyes narrowing as her tongue licked a circle around her lips.
The already crooked lipstick became even more smeared from that lick.
“Oh, who’s this old hag? What are you looking at? Do you even deserve to talk to Liangting?”
