Although the boy had pushed
In the eyes of the people in the World Behind the Door, Chen Ge was a strange man who always kept his eyes shut.
"Maybe I'm not blind—I just never opened my eyes."
Leaning against the wall, Chen Ge reached up and touched his eyes. He was absolutely certain that both eyes were open.
"Why would this be happening?"
There was nothing blocking his vision. He dug his fingernails into the flesh at the corners of his eyes and slid them slowly, but the world remained pitch-black. He couldn't even see the blood seeping into his eyelids.
"Pitch-black. It seems like this world has only one color."
The stairwell returned to silence. The group of children had already run off.
"Maybe from other people's perspective, Ying Tong always appears with his eyes closed. So in his World Behind the Door, every blind person is depicted with closed eyes?"
"Could there be a situation where Ying Tong kept his eyes shut but wasn't actually completely blind? He knew what his brother was doing, and to stay alive, he pretended to see nothing?"
"His world could have color, but he couldn't open his eyes?"
"If Ying Chen really killed someone in the real world, then once Ying Chen found out his brother wasn't blind, he would definitely engineer an 'accident' to kill Ying Tong!"
"That pervert is capable of anything. I can't use the standards of a good person to analyze a bad person's logic. To Ying Chen, a biological brother might not mean family—he could also represent some kind of plaything."
Chen Ge recalled something. He had once opened the refrigerator in Ying Chen's home in the real world and found it packed with chopped-up meat.
The bones had been removed and the meat had been processed, so from its appearance alone, it was impossible to tell what kind of meat it was.
"It would be one thing if that meat was from animals, but I'm afraid it might not be." Chen Ge had encountered many psychotic killers, and in his mind, they fell into different tiers. The ability to debone, process, and disguise non-animal meat, then store it in the bottom of one's own refrigerator—that was not something an ordinary pervert would do.
"When drinking with me, Ying Chen behaved completely like a normal person—even more sociable than most people. If all my conjectures are true, then this guy is truly terrifying."
"Ying Chen wears a mask in front of every living person. Only when he's with his younger brother Ying Tong does he drop the disguise. And that child has been witnessing such horrifying scenes since he was very young. Even without the Nether Fetus, Ying Tong might have eventually become a Door Opener."
The terror and perversion of the World Behind the Door were directly proportional to the despair the Door Opener experienced in the real world.
Although Chen Ge hadn't found anything particularly unusual in this world through touch and smell so far, perhaps the moment he opened his eyes, he would see this world's true, horrifying form.
"Thinking about it this much won't help. I should find a safe place to hide first. Among those kids just now, only one pushed me—meaning the others might still be approachable. If I really have nowhere to go, I could try to convince them."
Chen Ge wasn't confident about this, either. He had actually been carefully monitoring his surroundings the entire time, ready to take immediate measures in case of an emergency.
The reason he had been pushed down the stairs by that child from behind was, first, because he genuinely hadn't expected one of them to linger. At the time, the footsteps had all blended together.
Second, the child's strength had been far too great—not at all like a child's.
Losing his sight and trying to identify someone based on sound alone was extremely risky. So unless it was absolutely necessary, Chen Ge wouldn't trust anyone.
"If this place corresponds to reality, Ying Chen's apartment is on the seventh floor. I can try to figure out which floor I'm on by the sound of the elevator, then attempt to take it."
Old-fashioned elevators were loud and dangerous when operating, but an elevator also represented a third option. If Ying Chen knew that Chen Ge could only use the stairwell, the elevator would become his only means of escape.
Of course, Chen Ge didn't want that scenario to play out. He wasn't ready to face Ying Chen just yet.
"Let's assume this place is exactly the same as reality. Ying Chen's apartment is on the seventh floor. I'm currently at the corner between the third and fourth floors. Ying Chen should be on the first floor."
"He could be guarding the first-floor stairwell entrance, or he may have already left and run out of the building."
With no vision whatsoever, Chen Ge could only rely on guesswork to choose his path.
"Ying Chen doesn't know I'm blind. He previously came up the right-side stairwell. If he's realized something is off, he'll likely enter the left-side stairwell to investigate. After all, in his mind, the person who snuck into his apartment left through the left-side stairwell—there might be clues left behind there."
With that thought, Chen Ge decisively left the left-side stairwell, entered the corridor, and headed toward the right-side stairwell.
"I hope I'm overthinking it, but being cautious is always better."
Chen Ge had imagined the best-case scenario: Ying Chen reaches the first floor, hears movement in the left-side stairwell, rushes into it, while Chen Ge hides in the right-side stairwell—a perfect miss, allowing him to slip out of the building smoothly.
Once he was out, there should be plenty of places to hide.
The plan was beautiful, but reality was always cold and cruel.
The moment Chen Ge entered the third-floor corridor, he heard a door open. The sound was very close—only two or three meters away.
Gripping the wall, Chen Ge froze in place.
Cold wind whistled past. A foul stench poured out of that room.
Standing in the corridor was extremely dangerous for Chen Ge. After a moment's hesitation, he took a step forward.
Under his shoe, it felt like he had stepped on something brittle—like some kind of insect being crushed.
The sensation was deeply unpleasant. Chen Ge didn't dare linger. Just as he was about to take his second step, a hand suddenly clamped down on his shoulder.
"You just moved in?" A middle-aged man's voice reached Chen Ge's ears. This was the person who had opened the door moments ago.
"Yes." Chen Ge's mind raced. The stench in the air carried the smell of moldy food, accumulated unwashed clothing, and body odor. The man beside him seemed extremely slovenly—someone who hadn't tidied his room in a long time.
"If you just moved in, why is your body so hot? I thought you were someone from outside delivering things." The middle-aged man said something baffling.
Hot? Chen Ge felt his body temperature was already quite low. This was the first time anyone had told him he was hot.
He didn't argue. From a living person's perspective, his temperature wasn't just unremarkable—it was actually on the low side.
But from a dead person's perspective, he really was different from the other "people"—an anomaly.