Huang Yin laid in bed and tiredness claimed his body so much that he found it too difficult to even move a muscle. The temperature around him dropped and he was surrounded by darkness. It was at that moment that a figure strode out from the kitchen.
The scene that unfolded before Huang Yin was similar to the last scene from the video. It was as if the ghost had really gotten out from the video to come after Huang Yin. Terror gripped his mind and dominated each of his nerves. The fear was no different from the one he felt inside the game but Huang Yin knew that he was in real life and he had no option to quit it so to speak.
Huang Yin was so tired that he could barely find the strength to keep his eyelids open. He knew he had to run away to safety but his limbs refused to move. It felt like his brain was no longer under his control. It kept flashing him the most despairing and horrifying images. It fed him an impression, one that was not good for his well-being.
‘It is not safe to stay inside the house!’ The echoing footsteps shot Huang Yin’s body with adrenaline. The images from the video he just watched filled up his mind. In the first video, the neighbour knocked on the man’s door to warn him but the man did not believe his neighbour. The ghost was already inside his home. The ghost hid in some secluded corner of the house and could appear at any moment.
Fear and pressure amounted as the figure approached, the images from the second video infiltrated Huang Yin’s mind. Ah Xing was woken up by some strange sounds. She opened her eyes blurrily and saw her best friend practicing chopping with knives inside the kitchen. When she realized the need to escape, she was already trapped inside the house. The former place of comfort became her prison.
If the ghosts had really exited from the video, then they might be watching him from some corner of his house. Indescribable fear swamped Huang Yin’s mind. Reality overlapped with fiction. Huang Yin was in a very bad state. His nerve was stretched taut like a twine pulled to its maximum elasticity. One more pull and it would snap.
Huang Yin tried his best to crawl up from the bed. There was a voice within him that urged him to leave. For some reason, he was certain that the longer he stayed, the more painful his death would be. Huang Yin gripped the art piece beside his bed for support to pull himself up. The expensive art décor felt so much heavier like usual, like it was stuffed with human meat pieces.
At that moment, everything inside the room felt so unfamiliar to Huang Yin. ‘This place is no longer safe, I cannot stay here any longer.’
Huang Yin croaked out an order but the voice-activated lights did not respond. Huang Yin was like a man drowning in a sea of darkness. His voice slowly abandoned him and he felt extra weight pulling down on his body. The temperature still continued to fall, reaching the freezing point. With nudging footsteps, Huang Yin saw the figure was getting close to him in the dark. She was holding something that she had just retrieved from his kitchen.
Leave! Run! Some bodily instinct within him kicked in. Huang Yin grabbed the art piece and threw it at the moving figure in the dark. Then he rolled out from bed and half-crawled his way through the living room and towards the front door.
The figure was still approaching him from behind when Huang Yin’s hand pressed on the latest anti-theft door. The door had 3 layers of encrypted defence, an outsider would not be able to open it. After Huang Yin’s fingerprint was identified, he had to key in the password. By then, the shadowy figure was only several steps behind him.
Working against trembling fingers and overwhelming fear, Huang Yin had to use everything he had just to make sure the password was correct. He closed his hands around the handle and pushed outwards!
However, just as the door opened a small gap, a gloved hand reached into the room. The hand held the door tightly to prevent Huang Yin from closing it. With a powerful kick, the weakened Huang Yin was knocked to the side. The triple-layer encrypted front door swung open further. A man in black clothes, wearing black gloves and carrying a black box entered the room. There was some kind of paint on his face. It blurred his features enough that it effectively neutralized the facial recognition security.
“Still have one more minute.” From the black box came a small unknown machine which was operating. On its small screen, it showed the control panel to all the AI systems in Huang Yin’s home. The man in black used this to infiltrate into housing systems. This was not his first time doing something like this. A few choice adjustments later, he peeled off the clothes from Huang Yin and the AI butler. Then he modelled the butler in such a way that Huang Yin was caught in a compromising position with her. Finally he controlled the butler to strangle Huang Yin. It would look like self-defence in her part. “This is how you will die. Your name will be ruined and your family will be forever in shame because of you.”
The slender hands tightened. Huang Yin’s eyes rolled upwards. The butler was ultimately a robot, she was much stronger than a normal human despite her appearance. Furthermore, Huang Yin was already too tired to put up much of a fight. He could feel the air cutting off. Huang Yin’s face turned purple. He struggled weaker and weaker. “Your soul will be led by the Butterfly to the shore. Be proud because this is not death but a release.”
The hands continued to press. Huang Yin had stopped the resistance. Light diffused from his eyes, he could see Death arriving for him. Right at that moment, hurried footsteps came from the previously quiet corridor!
This sudden appearance shattered the man’s entire plan. He turned back to look at the front door which was left half a palm wide open. Huang Yin’s home had 3 layer lock, once it was closed, one would have to provide fingerprint, password and voice recognition to open it again. In other words, if the man in black closed the door now, then he would be locked inside the house and would not be able to leave in the foreseeable future.
He only had 2 seconds of hesitation before the unlocked door was pulled open. A young man in normal attire arrived with labored breath. His bloodshot eyes glanced into the room. Once the new arrival saw what was inside the room, the hand that gripped the door pulsed with veins. Without any hesitation, he leaped into a swiping kick aimed at the man in black’s head!
The man who was already half-crouching evaded at the last moment. The pretty AI butler though was not that lucky. Her body slammed heavily into the wall and her shoulder became crooked from impact. Huang Yin was pulled back somewhat to the present from the loud boom. He forced his eye to open. He saw the young man framed at his front door. Just as Death was arriving, this young man held Death at bay!
“Han Fei…” His lips opened but he could barely make a sound. Huang Yin’s neck was bruised and bleeding. He tried to grab at something but nothing took hold.
The man in black instantly had his plan gone up in flames. His painted face shone with viciousness. Ignoring Han Fei, he pulled out a non-metallic knife to stab Huang Yin. It was clear that the man in black had been given some kind of instruction and in his purview, Huang Yin was much more important than Han Fei.
