Chapter 212: Why Do I Miss You

Clang—

The moment she met the gaze of those bloodshot eyes, a pair of blood-stained hands grabbed the ventilation grille fiercely. Ten fingers without nails poked out from the grid, clutching the cold metal that sealed the ventilation duct.

Drip, drip. Fresh red blood fell onto the tiles.

Bai Zhi opened her eyes wide, instinctively wanting to escape, but her tied hands and feet left her unable to move at all, with nowhere to run.

At this moment, the eyes behind the ventilation grille suddenly became gentle. He shook the grille lightly, making a clicking sound, and a hoarse male voice came from inside: "Help me..."

Help me...

The voice was hoarse and weak, the drooping corners of his eyes filled with pleading, as if he was afraid of scaring Bai Zhi on the hospital bed. He whispered, "Help me, please."

Was he the patient downstairs who broke free from control? So he was hiding in the ventilation duct, no wonder the hospital staff couldn't find him. Bai Zhi thought to herself.

She was a newcomer and didn't know anything, but she didn't have any good feelings for the nurse who tied her to the bed.

Looking at the red eyes behind the ventilation grille and the full pleading in those eyes, Bai Zhi was moved: "He was able to break free from the mental hospital's control and hide in the ventilation duct, so can he help me regain my freedom and escape from here?"

The moment this thought arose, Bai Zhi felt a chill all over, and a strong sense of crisis welled up in her heart.

In the dark, it was as if an irresistible will was telling her: No, you cannot believe this person, you cannot help him, and you cannot seek his help...

Bai Zhi came back to her senses. Behind the ventilation grille, that pair of bloodshot eyes was still looking at her, the eyes of the weak filled with deep pleading.

"The rule of the mental hospital is: you cannot believe the patients here."

Watching Bai Zhi's reaction in the dream, Ning Zhe slowly let out a breath.

She hadn't lied to him. Bai Zhi would indeed experience strange events in her dreams and receive corresponding rule hints under the prompt of "inspiration" or "sixth sense," thereby surviving in the strange events.

After the mental hospital came hotels, hospitals, and vacant villas with "For Sale" signs in wealthy areas. Since she dreamed of the mental hospital at the age of 14, Bai Zhi's life was no longer peaceful. She began to frequently shuttle between reality and dreams, and her entire mental state began to deteriorate continuously.

It was also from then on that Feng Yushu became increasingly worried about her daughter's mental state, to the point that she later did the thing of peeking at her diary.

Ning Zhe lay in the spacious seat of the first-class cabin, letting Bai Zhi's memories flow through his brain, one nightmare after another.

Appearing along with the nightmares was her father.

In the same year Bai Zhi dreamed of the mental hospital, Bai Fugui began to appear in her life. The frequency was not high, but he did appear. Because of his busy work, Bai Fugui had never fulfilled the duties of Bai Zhi's father; she had grown up by her mother's side from childhood to adulthood.

In Bai Zhi's life, her father was like a passerby supporting role in a TV series who would show up from time to time to brush his presence. Seeing him wasn't a surprise, and his absence didn't make her feel it was a pity.

"Strange..." Ning Zhe felt some doubt in his heart.

During her childhood, Bai Zhi's father disappeared completely, like a banned celebrity, with all film and television materials and works he appeared in deleted cleanly, leaving no trace.

During her adolescence, Bai Zhi's father appeared and disappeared, his irregular appearances making people a bit confused.

Sometimes Bai Zhi would clearly remember what he said and did, and sometimes, even knowing "the tea on the table was made by father," she simply couldn't find where her father, who was drinking tea, was. It was a very strange situation.

Another morning, Bai Zhi and her mother were eating breakfast at the same table. The tableware used by her father was placed across from her, but she couldn't see where her father, who should have been sitting there, had gone.

Ning Zhe looked at the empty seat across the table, clouds of doubt filling his heart.

"From the current point of view, Bai Zhi's father, Bai Fugui, is indeed likely to have a connection with strange events, but... he doesn't seem to be 'Fenwu'?"

Remember Lan Shiwen told him that Fenwu was a person with very bad luck. It wasn't just that he was unlucky; everyone close to him would be dragged along to have bad luck. This was an uncontrollable, large-range automatic AOE, indiscriminately lowering the luck of everyone centered on him.

But Bai Fugui in Bai Zhi's memory didn't seem very unlucky, and the mother and daughter living under the same roof as him didn't seem to have particularly bad luck either. Feng Yushu even bought a "Buy One Get One Free" green tea for her daughter.

Did Lan Shiwen lie? Was Fenwu's luck not bad at all?

Or was his judgment wrong? Was Bai Fugui not Fenwu at all?

Ning Zhe didn't know the answer. He quietly watched 14-year-old Bai Zhi chewing the peeled chestnut her mother handed her, silent.

"I'm full, Mom."

Bai Zhi stood up, drank the remaining milk in the glass, and went out to school.

Walking out the door, a silver-painted sedan was parked in the yard. Bai Zhi pulled open the car door, sat in the back seat, and her father, Bai Fugui, gripped the steering wheel and stepped on the gas pedal lightly.

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It was like this again. Bai Fugui's appearance in Bai Zhi's memory had no pattern at all and didn't conform to logic.

Ning Zhe clicked his tongue and looked up at the rearview mirror above.

In the rearview mirror, a pair of smiling eyes were looking at him with a smile.

For some reason, looking at these eyes, Ning Zhe suddenly had a strange feeling, as if the Bai Fugui sitting in front wasn't looking at his daughter through the rearview mirror, but... at himself.

"Is it an illusion?" Ning Zhe frowned, meeting Bai Fugui's eyes in the rearview mirror.

The unexpected little episode passed quickly, and Bai Zhi's life continued.

Going to school, coming home, eating, and resting—her life had always been very plain. In the days like water, only the nightmares that appeared from time to time provided some not-so-tasty seasoning for Bai Zhi's monotonous life.

Later, Bai Zhi began to come into contact with some horror works, supernatural-themed video games, and searched online for the manifestations of frequent nightmares, trying to find the reason for her nightmares, but none of them were effective. Only her increasingly deteriorating mental state was reflected in her diary, making her mother, who cared about her, particularly heartbroken.

Time came to 2017. This year, Bai Zhi began to have the same nightmare repeatedly.

This year, she would always dream of the same scene: it was an isolated town, between blue bricks and gray tiles, covered in a fog that would never dissipate. The ancestral hall in the town worshipped a large snake with curved long horns, and the people in the town all had a yellow paper with a name written on it stuck to their faces.

The name of this town was He Family Village.

Her name in this town was He Nianjun.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 213 =====