46: Chapter 46 The Door-Knocking Ghost, Knock Knock Knock!!! Open the door!!!

The car drove away from Heqiao Town, heading up along the winding mountain road.

The navigation system showed that the destination was a villa area called "Yunlu Estate", built halfway up the mountain, which used to be a famous wealthy area in Qingzhou.

But after the resurgence of demons and monsters, these suburban villas far from the urban area were the first to be abandoned, and housing prices dropped to dirt-cheap prices with no buyers in sight.

The further up it drove, the more dilapidated the buildings on both sides became. The iron gates of some villas were crookedly collapsed in the weeds, and their windows were pitch black.

Passing through a rusty carved iron gate, it stopped in front of a four-story standalone villa.

The exterior of the villa was still relatively intact, but most of the lawn in the yard had withered, and several landscape trees were blown crookedly by the wind.

The only sign indicating that someone still lived here was the faint light emanating from the windows of the third and fourth floors.

Lin Ye turned off the engine and picked up his phone to take a look.

The rich woman's nickname on the bounty app was "Wondrous Beyond Words", and her avatar was a hand-drawn cartoon cat.

The latest message was sent three minutes ago: "Have you arrived? I think I heard the sound of a car."

Just as Lin Ye was about to reply, the other party sent another one.

"Excuse me, can I see your Challenger Badge first? Or anything else that can prove your identity. No offense, I just want to confirm."

Lin Ye patted his pocket.

He really didn't have a Challenger Badge, and the assessment process hadn't even officially completed.

He flipped through his phone album, found the photo of the assessment certificate taken earlier, and sent a screenshot over.

The other side fell silent for a moment.

After a dozen seconds or so, the phone rang.

It was a girl's voice, sounding very young, with a hint of obvious disappointment in her tone: "Sorry, you'd better leave."

"Why?"

"I just saw the photo you sent... That's an assessment certificate."

"So?"

"A first-test newcomer... You can't help me."

The girl's voice dropped, "Sorry, it's my fault for not explaining the situation clearly. Don't worry, I'll give you some compensation for the trouble of making this trip."

The other party added, "The thing I asked you to deal with... is not your average filthy thing, you will die."

Meanwhile.

On the fourth floor of the villa.

A girl was standing by the window, slender and frail, wrapped in a light gray shawl.

Her complexion was pale and haggard, but her features were extremely delicate, resembling a fragile porcelain doll.

Looking through the window at the young figure below, she sighed.

A first-test newcomer.

This person hadn't even become a full member yet.

She felt that anyone capable of taking this order should be at least a three-star, or failing that, a two-star challenger.

But she didn't expect it to be a newcomer.

She couldn't let a newcomer come here to throw away their life.

Downstairs.

Lin Ye leaned against the car door and looked up at the fourth-floor window.

Through the curtains, a slender figure could be faintly seen.

He withdrew his gaze and said into his phone, "Your bounty has been posted for five days, right? Aside from me, has anyone else taken it?"

The other end of the phone fell silent.

"No one took it, because challengers in Qingzhou who can handle this kind of work are either on the front lines or can't even take care of themselves. When are you going to wait until for the next person willing to take the order? Wait until that thing leaves on its own?"

"... I know." The girl's voice trembled slightly, "But I'm afraid of implicating you."

"How about this, tell me what happened first."

Lin Ye thought for a moment, softened his tone a bit, and casually made up an excuse, "To be honest with you, I have a very powerful ghost-repelling divine artifact on me."

The other party was quiet for a long time.

"Really?"

"Really."

A faint sigh came from the other end of the phone, followed by soft footsteps.

"Come on up."

The front door of the villa opened.

Lin Ye walked up the steps and saw the young girl at the doorway clearly.

She looked even thinner than from downstairs.

Her black hair was tied casually behind her head, and a few stray locks hung down the sides of her pale cheeks.

Her eyes were very pretty, with the outer corners slightly upturned, but the dark circles under her eyes revealed an impenetrable exhaustion.

She looked at most eighteen or nineteen years old.

Lin Ye was momentarily stunned.

The poster was clearly a wealthy woman in her thirties or forties.

"Hello, I am Chen Miaomiao."

The young girl's voice was very soft.

She turned sideways to clear the passage, and the light from the living room behind her poured out. Curled up on the sofa in the corner of the living room was a small figure, a little girl of five or six years old.

She was hugging a plush toy rabbit.

The little girl had a spiritual and refined look, vaguely resembling Chen Miaomiao by sixty to seventy percent, but was similarly slender and thin, almost to the point of being sickly.

"My sister, Chen Niannian," Chen Miaomiao introduced softly.

Niannian shrank her body and buried her face behind the rabbit's ears, leaving only one eye exposed to secretly size up Lin Ye.

"Please don't mind."

Chen Miaomiao smiled bitterly, "She's been terrified recently, and acts like this towards anyone except me."

Sitting down on the sofa.

Chen Miaomiao poured a cup of water, sat across from him, and held the cup with both hands, as if warming herself.

"At first I thought you were a challenger above three stars, or at worst a two-star official one."

There was still a hint of apology left in her tone, "I didn't expect you to still be in the assessment period..."

"Let's talk about business first, what did you guys encounter?"

Chen Miaomiao said solemnly, "Then I'll tell you what happened first. After you listen, decide for yourself whether to leave."

"A month ago, that night our family was having dinner—my mom, Niannian, me, and our family maid Wu Ma. Suddenly someone knocked on the door."

"Wu Ma went to open the door."

"And then... and then she died. She died right in front of us, taking no more than three seconds from start to finish."

"We were scared out of our wits back then and reported it to the Demon Suppression Division. People from the Challenger Association also came. After investigating, they told us this is a Knocking Ghost."

Lin Ye raised his eyebrows slightly.

Ghosts and monsters in this world were actually divided into two types.

One type was like Hongxiu, formed after people died due to various reasons, retaining intelligence and thoughts.

The other type was purer, more like some kind of "rule".

They had no intelligence and no emotions.

Their actions completely followed a set of fixed killing logic, like a programmed machine.

As long as you triggered its rules, it would kill you.

If you avoided the rules, it couldn't do anything to you.

The problem was that their rules were bizarre and varied.

Some killed upon hearing a sound, some killed upon seeing a face, and some killed upon counting your heartbeats.

No one knew how these rules were generated, nor why they existed.

They only knew that these things were harder to guard against than fierce ghosts.

Fierce ghosts could at least communicate, be deterred, and negotiate, but these things couldn't. Reasoning with them was worse than talking to a wall.

"A Knocking Ghost means opening the door is certain death?"

Chen Miaomiao nodded: "People from the Association said that as long as you hear the knocking and don't open the door, it can't come in. It can only stay outside the door and has no way to break through a closed door."

"So for the next month, we lived in constant fear. Every night we could hear knocking, sometimes once, sometimes three or four times, and we all pretended not to hear it. The curtains were drawn tightly, the doors were locked dead, and we didn't even dare to turn on all the lights."

"My mom posted a bounty about four days ago, hoping someone could come and deal with that thing."

Her voice paused here, as if her throat was choked by something.

"But two days ago..."

She took a deep breath, "The knocking sounded again, just like before, three thumps: thump, thump, thump. Then my dad's voice came from outside the door."

Lin Ye's expression changed slightly.

Chen Miaomiao continued, "My dad went on a business trip to another province last month, after which large-scale Ghost Domains broke out successively in that provincial capital. He has had no news since, and his life or death is unknown."

"My mom waited for news for a month, thinking he was back. In a moment of excitement, she went and opened the door."

"And then she died too."

"Just like our family's former maid. As soon as the door opened, the person was gone."

The living room was so quiet that only the weak breathing of the little girl in the corner remained.

Lin Ye picked up his water cup and took a sip, already calculating in his mind.

The Knocking Ghost itself was just a lowest-tier rule-type ghost and monster, with a fixed behavioral pattern; as long as you didn't open the door, nothing would happen.

But this kind of ghost has started to develop intelligence, learning to use human voices to lure victims into actively opening the door?

The speed at which this world was losing control seemed much faster than imagined.

"So..."

Chen Miaomiao raised her head, her eyes red and swollen, "I'm not joking with you. That ghost is no longer an ordinary Knocking Ghost now. You, a newcomer who hasn't even been officially instated, what do you have to deal with it?"

"You really will die."

Lin Ye leaned against the sofa and fell silent for a moment.

The Knocking Ghost, a lowest-tier rule-type ghost and monster, had a fixed mandatory-kill logic upon opening the door.

Even if it had developed intelligence now and learned to mimic human voices, its essence was still that underlying mechanism triggered by opening the door.

No matter how high its priority was, could it be higher than Zhulong?

Could it be higher than Human Emperors Coercion?

Could it be higher than Origin of Houtu?

A low-tier ghost and monster that couldn't even enter the door wasn't even worthy of carrying shoes.

"I can help you solve it."

Chen Miaomiao was holding her cup, and her hand shook upon hearing this, "What did you say?"

She felt that after hearing this, Lin Ye should be shivering with fear.

"I said, I'll help you deal with that thing."

Chen Miaomiao put down the cup, "But you..."

"Is the money ready?"

Chen Miaomiao paused for a moment.

Lin Ye sighed, "Rest assured, driving so far over, I certainly couldn't be joking with you."

After a good few seconds, she stood up, walked to the cabinet in the corner of the living room, squatted down, and punched in a string of passwords.

The cabinet door opened, and she pulled out a small portable safe from inside, placing it on the coffee table.

The lid of the box popped open, neatly stacked inside were fifty bundles of brand-new hundred-yuan bills, the bank's sealing tapes not even removed yet.

"There are 500,000 here."

Chen Miaomiao turned the box toward him, "Whether you succeed or not..."

She paused, as if feeling these words were somewhat inauspicious, and corrected herself, "After it's done, I'll add another 300,000."

800,000.

Looking at the cash in the box, Lin Ye kept a calm exterior while calculating internally.

This sum of money could resolve his urgent needs.

Aside from trial resources, the Demon Suppression Division would definitely give him a bonus.

But it was still the same problem: how long the approval process would be. He had already learned that lesson when running errands for project funding with his mentor in his past life.

By the time that money came down, it would probably be too late.

Before the social system collapsed, money was still a good thing!

"Alright, I'll take this job."

Chen Miaomiao opened her mouth to speak but stopped. She felt that Lin Ye was a somewhat arrogant newcomer, but it wasn't good for her to say anything more.

Moreover, since the bounty was posted until now, Lin Ye was the only person who had taken the order.

Lin Ye glanced at the time: 6:40 PM.

"What time does the knocking usually start?"

"Between eight and twelve o'clock."

Chen Miaomiao sat back down on the sofa, feeling somewhat nervous, "The earliest time was 7:50, and the latest was almost midnight. There's no fixed pattern, but it comes every night."

"There's still time."

Lin Ye stood up and walked to the window. The curtains were tightly drawn, leaving only a finger-wide crack.

Through the gap, he could see the overgrown yard outside and the sporadic lights at the foot of the mountain in the distance.

He pulled the curtains shut, turned around, walked back to the sofa to sit down, and closed his eyes.

Chen Miaomiao thought he was conserving his energy and didn't dare to disturb him.

In reality, Lin Ye was urging that wisp of Temporal Divine Power.

In Heqiao Town, the brief slow-motion effect when the power of time awakened had left a deep impression on him.

If this ability could be stabilized, even a fraction of a second of time deceleration would be enough to turn the tide in battle.

Furthermore, Zhulong's opening and closing of its eyes divides day and night; the upper limit of this authority was far more than just slow-motion.

But the cultivation progress was indeed slow.

That wisp of divine power was like an untamed wild horse. Every time spiritual power was about to pull it back, it would slip away cunningly, leaving only a faint lingering echo of divine power.

Lin Ye patiently honed it over and over again, and finally on the seventh attempt, he successfully made that wisp of divine power stay under his will for a full two seconds.

A gust of wind blew past outside the window.

He could perceive the trajectory of the wind:

First it hit the iron gate in the yard, whipped up withered leaves on the ground, bypassed the trash can at the corner of the wall, and then rushed onto the villa's window, causing the glass to ring softly.

This feeling was wonderful, as if the world had slowed its pace before him, even if only for a fleeting moment.

He opened his eyes, poured another glass of water, and sat back down, noticing a pair of small eyes peering out from the opposite sofa.

Niannian was hugging her plush toy rabbit, lying on the armrest of the sofa and peeking at him, like a kitten hiding in its nest observing a stranger.

"What's your name?" The voice was soft, timid, and carried a nasal tone from just waking up.

"Lin Ye."

"Brother Lin."

Niannian recited it once, blinked her eyes, and asked, "Are you here to fight the monster?"

Lin Ye glanced at Chen Miaomiao, who gently shook her head, signaling that she hadn't told her.

"How do you know it's a monster?"

"Because sister's hands tremble every time she talks about the knocking."

Niannian thought about it, raised the plush toy rabbit in front of her to block half her face, leaving only two round eyes exposed, "Niannian doesn't like monsters. The monster took Mommy away."

The air in the living room stagnated for a moment.

Lin Ye squatted down to look at the little girl at eye level, "Is Niannian afraid?"

Niannian thought about it seriously and handed that plush toy rabbit to him, "I'll give it to you. Daddy said brave people can protect Niannian. The rabbit will protect you too."

The ears of the plush toy rabbit were still stained with the child's saliva, and the threads on its belly had loosened, revealing a small tuft of yellowed cotton stuffing inside.

This was her most precious treasure.

Lin Ye took the plush toy rabbit, gently touched her nose tip with the rabbit's ears, "Then Niannian take a nap first. When you wake up, the monster will be gone."

Niannian's eyes lit up, she nodded heavily, and snuggled back into the sofa. Before long, she was breathing evenly.

Chen Miaomiao covered her with a blanket and sat back down opposite Lin Ye, "Thank you. Niannian hasn't spoken to an outsider for a month."

"She is very cute."

Chen Miaomiao lowered her eyes, "Before the accident, Niannian loved to smile the most, and greeted everyone she saw. Now..."

She didn't finish.

Lin Ye didn't reply, closed his eyes again, and continued honing that wisp of Temporal Divine Power.

During this time, he succeeded twice more, with each duration extending from two seconds to two and a half seconds.

Although the progress wasn't big, it at least proved that this path was viable.

The sky outside the window had completely darkened.

Not long passed.

The minute hand of the wall clock passed twelve, and the hour hand pointed to eight o'clock.

The spring gave a soft click.

Right after...

Thump!

Thump!

Thump!

Three knocks on the door.

It was like a polite guest visiting.

The sound wasn't loud, but in the extremely quiet environment, it felt like it was being knocked right against the eardrum.

All color instantly drained from Chen Miaomiao's face.

Niannian woke up at some unknown point, curled up in the corner of the sofa, covering her mouth with both hands, tears streaming down in large drops.

Chen Miaomiao pulled Niannian into her arms, covering her ears, her own lips terrifyingly pale.

Just at this moment.

The knocking stopped.

Two seconds passed.

Across a door, a man's voice rang out, carrying anxiety and the exhaustion after a long journey:

"Miaomiao, Niannian, open the door. It's Dad."

Chen Miaomiao shook violently all over, as if struck by lightning.

She bit her lips fiercely, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms, using all her strength to keep herself from making a sound.

Niannian struggled in her arms, her little face turning toward the door, her eyes widened into round circles, her lips moving, silently mouthing...

Dad.

"Niannian, it's Daddy."

The gentle murmur sounded again outside the door, the voice carrying a bit of exhaustion and a smile, "Will you open the door? Daddy traveled a very long way to come back."

Niannian couldn't hold back anymore, burst out crying with a wail, and suddenly stepped forward.

Chen Miaomiao's expression changed drastically, and she grabbed her in a tight hug.