Yang Tianhao hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly spoke, “Alright, take care on your way, dear. If you run into any trouble, give me a call, and I’ll come to pick you up immediately.”
Yang Tianhao gently caressed Ruan Qing’s face with tenderness
and affection evident in his actions and expression, showing increasing
familiarity. “I’ll wait for you and the child to come back and have dinner
together.”
Ruan Qing obediently nodded and then took the phone and
wallet handed to him by Yang Tianhao, preparing to leave the room.
However, Yang Tianhao pulled him back once again. He produced
a mask from somewhere and gently helped Ruan Qing put it on, patiently
advising, “There’s more dust outside, so it’s better to wear the mask for
cleanliness.”
Ruan Qing didn’t refuse. After Yang Tianhao helped him put on
the mask, he walked out of the room. The sound of the door closing echoed behind
him. The hallway was now only filled with the sound of his footsteps.
However, Ruan Qing’s anxiety didn’t ease because... it was
highly likely that the man didn’t stay at home but followed him out. He might
be trailing not far behind, possibly just outside the door.
Ruan Qing had heard the faint rustling of fabric the moment
the door closed. Since he would not have heard it if the source was inside the
door, the sound seemed to be coming from outside.
The friction of clothing wasn’t loud, and Ruan Qing couldn’t
be sure if he was imagining it, but he didn’t believe in coincidences. In
uncertain situations, he always assumed the worst. If the murderer was indeed
following him, what could he be planning?
With too few clues, Ruan Qing couldn’t figure it out. He
pretended as though he hadn’t noticed anything and walked slowly towards the
direction of the elevator.
“Ding!“ The elevator arrived.
It was already the end of the workday, and the residents of
the building were starting to return. After a few people exited the elevator,
Ruan Qing cautiously entered when he felt that no one else was coming out. He
then pressed the button for the first floor as if he could see it.
He had memorized the location of the elevator buttons after
feeling them once.
There were still people in the elevator. Some looked
surprised when Ruan Qing walked in, but didn’t say anything. Since he couldn’t
see, Ruan Qing didn’t know if the elevator would go up or down.
When the elevator started moving, Ruan Qing realized that it
was still going upward. It seemed that the people inside the elevator were
going up as well.
After entering the elevator, Ruan Qing didn’t notice anyone
following him. As far as he could perceive, the number of people inside the
elevator remained the same.
The murderer probably hadn’t entered the elevator with him.
Ruan Qing let out a small sigh of relief. He didn’t know what
the murderer was up to, but as long as he wasn’t following him, he felt better.
Ruan Qing had no intention of going back, but he still needed
to pick up the original owner’s child. Otherwise, he could easily guess what
fate awaited the child in the hands of the murderer.
After reaching the top floor, the elevator began to descend.
It stopped several times along the way, and about ten people entered.
The building had thirty-two floors, and since it was already
the time to leave work and have meals, the elevator was filled with people
going up and down. The crowd inside the elevator grew larger, and Ruan Qing
found himself squeezed into a corner.
Ruan Qing calculated the time and elevator speed in his mind,
paying attention to the floors where the elevator stopped. He wanted to see if
the elevator would stop at the fourth floor or any nearby floors.
After all, if it stopped at the fourth floor, it could mean
that the murderer was among the passengers.
The elevator continued to open and close, descending at a
moderate pace. It had only reached about the twentieth floor.
Ruan Qing stood quietly in the corner, silently counting the
current floor number.
However, he soon found it difficult to concentrate because he
felt something touch his lower back.
At first, Ruan Qing thought it was an accidental bump,
considering the crowded elevator. People were holding things and jostling
against each other, so accidental contact was common.
Ruan Qing shifted to the side to make space, but the next
moment, that something touched him again. Given Ruan Qing’s position, it was
impossible it was accidentally touched again.
Ruan Qing’s body tensed. Clearly, it wasn’t an accident.
Someone was intentionally touching him.
The object was somewhat hard, not a hand. It seemed to be...
an umbrella.
In situations where sight was limited, perception became
heightened, and the body became more sensitive. The force of the umbrella
wasn’t strong enough to hurt Ruan Qing, and it was pressing against his
clothes.
But Ruan Qing straightened his body and moved back, squeezing
further into the corner. However, the owner of the umbrella didn’t intend to
let him go. The umbrella was lightly pressed against Ruan Qing’s slender waist,
then slowly slid downward, carrying a hint of ambiguity.
If someone in the elevator turned around, they would see a
black umbrella pressed against the waist of a casually dressed young man,
sliding downward. The scene appeared incredibly suggestive.
The young man was already pressed into the farthest corner,
with nowhere to escape. He could only stand rigidly in place, the corners of
his eyes reddened, his fingers clenched tightly, turning pale from his tight
grip.
He seemed to be quite timid. Even when treated maliciously,
he didn’t dare to get angry or even speak up. He could only silently endure it
all.
The young man’s face was covered by a black mask concealing a
large part of his face, but one could still vaguely perceive a touch of the
young man’s extraordinary beauty from his picturesque brows, eyes, and figure.
At this moment, his pretty yet lifeless eyes carried a hint
of panic and fear. He looked pitiful, as if he’s about to burst into tears any
second.
The young man wanted to refuse, but he couldn’t see who was
toying with him at all. He could only stand there stiffly.
Weak and helpless.
As if obediently allowing others to do as they pleased.
The owner of the umbrella seemed to enjoy the young man’s posture
more and more. Going beyond the limit, after checking that no one around
noticed, the owner of the umbrella even lightly lifted the young man’s clothes
with the umbrella.
The young man’s body trembled slightly. His clothes were
unexpectedly lifted, revealing fair and delicate skin and a slender waist that
fit in a grasp.
The top of the umbrella was something resembling metal,
somewhat chilly. Accidentally touching the young man’s skin, it made him
involuntarily shiver. His whole body tensed up, becoming even stiffer. Misty
eyes fogged up, and the rims of his eyes turn redder.
Originally, Ruan Qing didn’t want to pay attention. After
all, he was just poked by the umbrella a couple of times. But he didn’t expect
this person to be so audacious.
After realizing this, Ruan Qing grabbed onto his own clothes
with one hand to prevent them from being lifted and reached for the umbrella
with the other hand, wanting to follow the umbrella and find its owner.
Unfortunately, the owner of the umbrella acted quickly and
retrieved it before Ruan Qing could grab it, making it impossible for Ruan Qing
to figure out who the owner of the umbrella really was.
The elevator was too crowded, making it impossible to differentiate
based on scent or feeling.
Ruan Qing lowered his gaze, concealing the expression in his
eyes. Being blind was even more troublesome than he thought.
Being alone and unable to see, he could only be at the mercy
of others. In this situation, he still had to maintain the original owner’s
insecure and sensitive personality.
Not to mention his peculiar physique, which only made the
difficulty of this instance increase.
He could only hope to regain his vision soon, or this
instance might be quite challenging.
“Ding!“ The elevator stopped, but it hadn’t reached
the first floor.
Ruan Qing, however, didn’t want to stay in the elevator any
longer. He fumbled around, wanting to exit the elevator, but there were quite a
few people inside, and he couldn’t squeeze out. He could only softly utter with
teary eyes, “Please make way.”
Perhaps his voice was too quiet, as no one heard him. So,
Ruan Qing raised his voice a bit, “Please make way.”
This time, the others in the elevator heard him and
immediately made a path for him. Someone even pressed the door open button as
the elevator began to close, preventing it from shutting.
After quietly saying “thank you,” Ruan Qing managed to
squeeze out.
Fortunately, the current floor wasn’t too high. After not
hearing anyone following him, Ruan Qing felt his way towards the stairs at the
end of the corridor.
Due to the presence of the elevator, the stairs were rarely
used, making the stairwell very quiet. Ruan Qing’s footsteps echoed in the
stairwell, the sound quite spacious.
Apart from his footsteps, there were some very faint sounds,
almost inaudible unless you were paying close attention.
And those sounds weren’t coming from Ruan Qing.
Someone... was following him.
Was it one of the elevator’s occupants? Or perhaps the
murderer?
Or... could it be the same person from the beginning?
The elevator had been too crowded, and there were various
smells. Unable to see, Ruan Qing couldn’t determine whether the person with the
umbrella was the murderer.
But whether they were the murderer or not, they undoubtedly
harbored ill intentions towards him.
In the elevator, there were enough people that things
couldn’t escalate too far. However, here, on the staircase that was seldom
used, anything could happen.
Ruan Qing’s scalp started to tingle. His nerves were on edge.
Yet, he didn’t show a hint of abnormality on his face, as if he hadn’t noticed
anyone following him.
Carefully, he walked to the handrail of the stairs. Then, he
reached out and held onto the handrail, counting the steps in his mind while
gauging the width of each step as he descended.
One flight of stairs consisted of twelve steps, and each step
was 0.28 meters wide.
After measuring carefully, Ruan Qing began to run swiftly,
without a moment’s pause or error, as if he could see perfectly, completely
unlike a blind person.
The person behind him probably didn’t expect that Ruan Qing
would run. He hesitated for a moment, then when he realized it, Ruan Qing had
already dashed around the corner on the next floor.
Seeing this, the person hesitated for a moment and then
accelerated to catch up.
Although the person was still trying to suppress the sound of
his movements, due to the acceleration, no matter how much they tried, a faint
sound would still escape. In this empty staircase, that sound was magnified a
bit. Even an average person with normal perception could hear it.
Furthermore, the young man had started running, clearly
noticing someone was tailing him.
Since they had been discovered, there was no point in hiding
anymore.
The person chasing Ruan Qing no longer bothered to keep
quiet, and they began to chase openly without any concern.
The staircase echoed with the urgent footsteps of two people,
a sound that sent shivers down the spine. Ruan Qing’s heart sank, and he picked
up his pace again, feeling his heartbeat quicken.
But no matter how much he sped up, he was still quite slow.
How could he possibly outrun the person behind him?
Moreover, they were probably still on the seventh or eighth
floor, and there was no way to instantly reach the first floor. There were
hardly any people on the staircase. If he was caught...
Ruan Qing didn’t intend to just keep running downward. He
planned to reach the corridor on the next floor, and if he was lucky enough to
encounter someone, he would be saved.
Just as Ruan Qing was about to turn into the corridor and the
person behind him was only about twelve steps away, just one corner left to go,
a female voice echoed from the staircase, “Hey? Mr. Zhou? What are you doing
here?”
The woman hadn’t noticed anyone chasing Ruan Qing. She looked
at his state with some confusion. “Why are you running so fast? Mr. Zhou, are
you also exercising here?”
As the female voice sounded, the footsteps behind him
disappeared.
Ruan Qing breathed a sigh of relief, his breath and heartbeat
gradually calming. After swallowing a mouthful of saliva, he looked up in the
direction of the woman and softly said, “Good afternoon, Mrs. Ning. I’m about
to pick up my child.”
The woman was familiar to the original owner. She was a
resident of Apartment 314 on the third floor. Her husband’s surname was Ning,
so the original owner always called her Mrs. Ning.
Mrs. Ning’s child and the original owner’s child both
attended the same kindergarten. They had picked up their children together
before and even went grocery shopping together.
She was pretty much the only person the original owner knew
in this Xishan Residential Area.
Mrs. Ning looked at the person who had raised his head to her
and was directly stunned. After a few seconds, she finally snapped out of it,
cleared her throat, and looked concerned at Ruan Qing’s condition. She asked,
“Are you okay? How about I accompany you?”
“Well, the kindergarten is just ten minutes away. I don’t
have much else to do next, so I’ll consider it as some form of post-meal
exercise.”
