Chapter 0742: You Look Especially Lonely When You’re Desperately Trying to Fit In
Qu Changlin had been working in the haunted house for three years and had never imagined that there would be such a day.
There were only a few centimeters between that face and him, and he could clearly see everything on that face, including the slightly upturned corners of the mouth, the sparse scruff of the beard, and the eyes that emanated a grim coldness all the time.
”My boss wants to see you.”
The other party’s lips opened and closed up and down, seemingly speaking, but Qu Changlin felt that he couldn’t hear the sound, perhaps the nerves transmitting the sound had stopped working, or perhaps his brain had lost all of its functions.
These were no longer important now, Qu Changlin didn’t even bother to think about why there was a person hanging upside down behind him.
His heart only returned to normal two seconds later, blood rushed to his brain in a flash, and as his body gradually regained control, Qu Changlin made a reaction that a normal person would have.
”Who’s there!”
Vocal cords trembling, Qu Changlin slammed his head into the door panel in front of him, the thin mirror was pushed open and he tried to run out, but the door to the fourth compartment was slammed shut.
Trapped in the narrow space, Qu Changlin’s back was pressed against the door of the compartment, his eyes staring at the secret room he was hiding in, there was nothing in the dark and narrow room.
Covering his chest, Qu Changlin was certain that he had just seen a man, who was hanging upside down, head down, behind himself!
”Where did he go?”
The scene that had just happened had become Qu Changlin’s psychological shadow, if he didn’t figure it out, he guessed that he wouldn’t dare to stay alone in a confined and dark space again in his life.
The haunted house was air-conditioned and the temperature was very low, but Qu Changlin’s forehead was constantly sweating.
”The compartment door is closed, that person should still be here.”
Fortunes come in twos, and misfortunes come in twos.
While Qu Changlin was pondering this very serious question, the cubicle door behind him was suddenly knocked on.
The banging sound of the door knocking seemed like a hypnotic note, maintaining a special rhythm, one after the other, one after the other, as if it was knocking directly through his chest and onto Qu Changlin’s heart.
He wanted to move, but his calves were not listening to him, his feet were weak, he could not support his body, he slowly sat down against the cubicle door.
It was too sudden, the situation changed in an instant, and before he could understand what was going on, the man had collapsed.
There was an extra person in the dark room, trying to run outside, the compartment door was still closed, there was no way back, Qu Changlin realized that he had been forced into a desperate situation without realizing it.
His legs stomped on the ground as he struggled to get up, “If the person who is knocking on the door outside the cubicle is a tourist, then who is the person I just saw?”
Qu Changlin used his back to deaden the door of the room, he put his hand into his pocket, wanting to find his cell phone to report the situation here to his boss.
But he had just dialed the phone, and before he even opened his mouth, he heard a completely unfamiliar voice: “It’s useless to hide, he will follow you home, hide in your shadow, lie on your windowsill, and burrow into your quilt ……”
The voice was coming from outside the door, and the knocker was standing on the other side of the door panel.
The other party did not use a very exaggerated tone to intentionally scare Qu Changlin, the man’s voice was very flat, as if he was telling a fact.
Qu Changlin covered his mouth, the call had gone through, but he didn’t dare to speak.
He could feel a cold line of sight watching him, he didn’t dare to turn around, he didn’t dare to move around, it was as if his body was frozen.
”What should I do now?”
……
Chen Ge was lying on the fifth compartment’s baffle and was looking at Qu Changlin, who was curled up in a ball, from above, with admiration in his eyes.
”Not wearing a mask and still being able to stay in an odor-filled toilet for so long, this person is above eighty points regardless of his professional ethics or professional skills.”
Grasping the partition with one hand, Chen Ge grabbed the model of the corpse hanging upside down from the ceiling with his other hand and shook it continuously.
The knocking sound that Qu Changlin heard was actually the sound of the mannequin’s head hitting the door of the room.
The regular banging of the head theory against the door of the room was of course different from the sound emanating from knocking on the door with one’s hand.
With the other party completely unaware of the situation, Chen Ge conducted a one-sided and simple test on him.
”Capable and dedicated, just don’t know how his character is.”
While Chen Ge was pondering, Old Zhou silently appeared behind him, holding a thick manual on human body structure.
”This is?”
Flipping the manual open, inside was a hand-drawn drawing of a human figure in various styles and manners.
”Cue the red desk lamp that was a spare in the haunted house, this manual was found underneath the lamp, he didn’t seem to want anyone to see this.”
Old Zhou and Chen Ge had spent a lot of time together, and he knew his boss very well, so sometimes he would act especially sweet.
Listening to Old Zhou’s words, Chen Ge conjured up a picture in his mind of Qu Changlin painted in a ghostly getup, hiding alone in a toilet where tourists would rarely come in, bored and learning a lot about dolls on his own with the help of the light from a red desk lamp.
The first half of the manual consists of Qu Changlin’s own drawings and notes on the human body, while the second half is more like his own diary.
”September 1, fewer and fewer tourists come to the haunted house every day, I can hear people walking through the door, but no one comes in, so sad.”
”September 3rd, I improved the toilet dolls, each doll only costs another fifty dollars more, and it brings a more realistic feeling to the tourists! People will definitely look at me differently!”
”On September 4th, the cold, icy rain slapped haphazardly on my face, and the boss didn’t agree to my remodeling plan. Never mind, the haunted house is in a slump and he’s pretty sad about it.”
”September 15, today encounter finally a tourist into the toilet to play! Let me think about how to scare him! Ahahahaha!”
”September 30th, Xiaodie said she’s going to focus on her career for the time being and doesn’t want to fall in love, so it looks like I need to work harder to make it work.”
”October 15, why do they always say I’m a boring person? I’ve already done a lot of things I don’t like in order to not seem so special, why do they still think I’m a weirdo?”
”October 30, so it’s him that Die likes.”
”November 1, start of a new month, I’m going to be a fun and agreeable person, come on! You can do it!”
There were many more similar short diary manuals, each one optimistic, but Chen Ge could see a strong bitterness in them.
He put down the manual and swept his gaze to those words on the wall of the fifth compartment.
Unlike the third sick bay, the words in this place were all handwritten on by the employees themselves, the toilet was the scene that Qu Changlin was in charge of, and the walls by those words were all written by his hand.
The weird story in the toilet is about a kid named Kobayashi who is hated by everyone because he likes to play pranks, and finally everyone decides to play a prank on him together.
It’s a very simple plot, but it mirrors Qu Changlin himself.
The Xiao Lin in the story is supposed to be himself.
”Not all fish live in the same ocean, so why try to force it?”
Chen Ge thought about it and didn’t try to tease Qu Changlin anymore, he asked Old Zhou to return the manual, while he himself opened the door to cubicle number four.