Chapter 135: Prison Escapee

She suddenly had a bold idea.

The protagonist in that inexplicable peeping memory, wouldn't it be the murderer upstairs?

In the memory, the balcony she observed seemed to be the highest floor, and her residence was also on the seventh floor opposite.

After the man choked the debt collector to death, he turned back keenly. Even at such a distance, he could notice something. Su Mian felt that she was doomed.

She could only pray that he just happened to turn back and didn't find anything.

With a restless mood, she knocked on the door.

Once.

Twice.

No response.

Su Mian's heartbeat, however, lost its rhythm first.

She was about to knock again when a very light sound suddenly came from inside the room, like someone moving a chair to get up.

The door was pulled open a crack.

The dim indoor light spilled out from the crack, revealing a slender hand, with distinct knuckles, thin calluses on the web of the hand, and a cigarette between the fingertips.

The person behind the door didn't appear immediately, just standing in the shadows, as if sizing her up.

"Something?"

The man's voice was low and flat, without extra emotion, but it made people instinctively tense their nerves.

Su Mian looked up.

He was taller than the blurred figure in her memory, his shoulder lines sharp, his physique superior.

The light fell on half of his face, his contours cold and hard, his brow bone pressed very low.

"I am the landlord, here to collect rent."

Su Mian blinked, staring at the man's face buried in the shadows, lost in thought.

"Heh." He opened his mouth, exhaling smoke rings, his tone flat, "The debt collectors have already greeted me on your behalf in advance."

"Is that so."

She pretended to be puzzled, her brain running fast, thinking of countermeasures.

This rent, collect? Or not collect?

Just as Su Mian hesitated whether to save her life or continue the task, he suddenly reached out and pushed the door open.

Su Mian subconsciously took a step back.

The door panel scraped against the wall, making a harsh creaking sound.

The entire interior was completely exposed to her eyes, clean, empty, without any extra furnishings, like a temporary residence where one could leave at any time.

There were no bloodstains either.

No corpses.

But that dangerous aura hadn't disappeared; instead, it became thicker because of the cramped space.

The man turned sideways, making way, but his gaze was firmly locked on her.

"Want to come in, Landlord Miss?"

He paused, his tone ambiguous.

"Standing outside the door, you look more like you are confirming whether I will kill you."

In an instant, Su Mian broke out in cold sweat, and the thought of turning and running wildly surged in her brain.

Her footsteps already had the idea of moving, but her legs went soft. Intuition told her that if she ran away now, she might die even worse.

She held the notebook to her chest, silent, and stepped into the room.

Si Shi looked down at her little insecure movements, inexplicably feeling it was very interesting, and the intention to scare the little cat rose again.

Didn't recognize him, so what could he do?

Experienced hands check the DM information of the instance first thing upon entering the game; understanding the habits of the Arbiters gives a greater chance of survival.

But the little cat hadn't developed this habit yet; it was time to learn a lesson.

The "prison escapee" leaned against the door, tapping his fingertips, ash shaking off, sparks flickering and dying, lazily raising his eyes.

Bang–

The door closed.

Su Mian stood with her back to him. Hearing this closing sound, she immediately stopped her footsteps. Her fingertips tightened, and her gaze stared ahead without a fixed point.

A shadow pressed down, accompanied by a faint smell of tobacco.

The man bent down, exhaling on her shoulder, "As you can see, nothing."

"I don't have a penny on me."

When he said this sentence, he didn't seem ashamed at all, even somewhat happy and willful, as if he were just chatting about daily meals, but it contained a threat.

He didn't have a penny on him, and you couldn't drive him away, even if you were the landlord. If you were ignorant of what was good for you again, you would die silently like some debt collectors.

But her character setting required her to collect rent. Continuing to insist might bring a fatal disaster; taking a step back, the DM might come looking for her.

She thought about countermeasures, her face tense.

"If you don't have money, you have hands and feet, you can always work."

Changing the concept, collecting rent in another way.

The system didn't say that the rent collected must be money, just didn't know if this person would agree.

The person behind her was silent for a long time, so long that Su Mian's heart was in her throat. He suddenly spoke softly.

"What work does Landlord Miss want me to do?"

"I don't know how to do anything, it wouldn't be good if I dirtied your territory."

"Sweeping, mopping, washing dishes... anything is fine."

Su Mian felt that the man's breath was suffocating her, and her speaking speed accelerated a bit, just wanting to escape quickly.

"Oh."

"Okay."

He spoke nonchalantly, seemingly a little disappointed, and turned sideways to open the door. Su Mian bent down and rushed out, breathing in fresh air in big gulps.

"Then that's it, I'm leaving first."

Then she kicked her legs very fast, rushing downstairs like a rabbit.

Si Shi:...

He rubbed his chin, thinking about whether he acted too scary. But how amiable could someone who came out of prison be? He shook his head and pressed the cigarette butt into the glass ashtray.

Well, he didn't like smoking, but he had no choice for the character setting.

Su Mian had just rushed down from the seventh floor and didn't notice anyone in the corridor, slamming into the shoulder of the person coming.

The boy screamed in pain. Su Mian apologized in a low voice and found that he was a player.

So there were five players in total in this instance.

The boy was wearing a blue windbreaker, hiding his face timidly in his hat, holding a notebook in his hand, his handwriting messy.

Su Mian searched in her memory; his identity was Xiao Li, who checked the water meter in this building.

"Landlord Miss, I... I still have a few households to register, I'll go up first."

As he said that, he ran away quickly. Su Mian didn't even have time to speak, feeling a little strange. She blinked, didn't think deeply, and returned to her residence in the building opposite.

The moment she pushed open the door, Su Mian was stunned.

The room was even smaller than she imagined. As soon as the door opened, it almost reached the wall opposite, and even turning around seemed cramped.

The living room could barely be considered to exist. An old sofa with peeling leather was placed against the wall, the sponge collapsed, and a piece in the middle of the cushion was concave, as if someone had been sitting in the same position for a long time.

The coffee table was made of pieced-together wooden boards, and two more steps inside was the bedroom, not even needing a door to separate it.

Honestly, was this a place a landlord should live? In any case, she was a "capitalist" who collected rent, how could she live so poorly???

Excluding the old house, the decoration was also very strange.

The kind of calendar from decades ago had strange-smiling Fu dolls printed on it, a pile of dusty black bowls was placed in the low wooden cabinet, and a string of copper coins was also placed on the coffee table.

The more she looked, the more she felt something was wrong. She lifted her feet and hadn't walked a few steps before she reached the bedroom.

A full-length mirror was embedded in the old-fashioned wardrobe in the bedroom, facing the bed. The bed board was hollowed out, and the slippers placed by the bed were facing the door. ===== CHAPTER 136 =====