Deep in the Living
Chapter 232 - 221 Video Recording

Chapter 232: Chapter 221 Video Recording

[Huo Lai Apartment]

A single apartment isolated in the suburbs, awaiting demolition.

Under the special management mode of Moon City, even basic demolition work is carried out very slowly, with the relevant departments dragging their feet.

The apartment has seven floors, each with ten units.

Luo Di arrived on time at midnight.

The European-style apartment looked tidy from the outside, yet upon entering, one could smell a scent, the odor of insect-infested decay.

Various garbage and debris were discarded in the lobby area, even leaving behind traces of the products of some homeless people’s lives.

Although it was evident that homeless people had lived there, they were no longer present.

Maybe they moved away because of bizarre occurrences,

maybe they were driven away,

or they might have been killed.

He walked up the stairs,

the foul smell accumulating in the lobby area didn’t follow, the scent on the upper floors was much lighter, but there was still a scent of decay and a faint smell of blood.

A sort of fishy smell that only someone as sensitive to blood as Luo Di could detect.

Every light bulb in the stairwell was broken,

but because of the moonlight filtering in, it wasn’t too dark.

Although the post didn’t require video recording, Luo Di kept his button camera on throughout, just for his own record.

So far, he hadn’t perceived any danger, and he didn’t notice anyone in the whole apartment, not even a mouse or cockroach could be seen, it was unnaturally quiet.

The room 710, as required in the post, was located in the innermost part of the top floor.

Click!

Luo Di tried to turn the doorknob but found it locked, though it was a very old lock that could easily be broken with a bit of force, Luo Di didn’t forcibly break it.

He began to search the nearby area,

not limited to the vase standing at the end of the corridor,

the cracks in various walls and doors,

the painting hanging between the corridors,

and eventually found an unmarked key under the carpet at the entrance of the next room.

Click!

It actually opened the door of room 710.

A simple two-bedroom and one-living room structure.

zzz~

An honest television had been turned on in advance, the screen full of dense snowflakes, also the only light source in the room, illuminating the single sofa directly opposite the TV.

The room was very clean, obviously cleaned by someone, far different from the dusty and garbage-filled abandoned apartment.

Both the master bedroom and the secondary bedroom doors were locked, even sealed with multiple layers of wood and iron chains, the windows in the house were also similarly sealed.

Blocking the light source while simultaneously sealing off the exits.

Not even the moonlight spilling into the corridors could penetrate half a foot into this room.

The only two unsealed places were the entrance and exit where Luo Di currently was, and the bathroom inside the house.

[00:17]

Luo Di officially entered the apartment required by the post, simultaneously locking the door behind him.

All the lighting equipment in the room was destroyed, relying only on the television for illumination.

Of course, the post did not specify that Luo Di was not allowed to carry equipment, and this time he came carrying a backpack filled with various emergency items.

He turned on the flashlight to daylight mode.

According to the post, he still needed to find the so-called VHS tape, a type of old-fashioned video tape long obsolete in modern society, presumably only seen in some retro movies.

This type of tape is relatively large and should be easy to find, but Luo Di searched the entire living room area without discovering it.He could only turn around the flashlight, focusing on the only door to the restroom that hadn’t been sealed.

Pushing open the somewhat sticky and heavy wooden door, a fishy stench immediately spread out, irritating Luo Di’s eyes to the extent that they began to bleed.

The door wasn’t even fully opened, when the light rushed in eagerly.

A swollen and rotten male corpse, unidentifiable, was hung in the restroom,

in an upside-down spread-eagle position,

with his legs tied with iron chains,

spread at 120°.

The genital area and abdomen were vertically sliced open and crudely stitched back together afterward.

Having seen plenty of B-movies, Luo Di immediately connected the scene before his eyes with the request of the post, vaguely understanding the [twisted taste] involved.

He walked straight towards the corpse,

put on gloves,

held his breath,and began to undo the stitching in the lower abdomen.

Swishing~ All kinds of rotten organs swiftly spilled out, along with a videotape swarmed by maggots hidden among the organs.

Throughout the process, Luo Di showed little change in expression.

He quickly left the bathroom and closed the door, trying his best to keep the odor from escaping.

After all, Luo Di was quite interested in the content of the videotape and did not want the smell or any other factors to affect his viewing.

After wiping the surface of the videotape with a tissue.

[00:25]

The videotape began to play,

Luo Di entered the viewing mode, sitting on a soft single-seat sofa, just one meter away from the TV.

The TV, full of snow, entered a black screen state, and as the [4hs]website name appeared, the screen displayed.

The footage corresponds to the Huo Lai Apartment where Luo Di is currently residing, showing the recorder standing at the other end of the street.

Subsequently, the image started to move.

The recorder began to walk across the street towards the apartment’s main door.

There was no editing, more like a first-person video... even a real-time event.

Pushing open the main door,

The hallway stuffed with household trash and excrements displayed was exactly the same as what Luo Di had seen downstairs, even the brightness of the Moon’s light was nearly identical.

Thud~ Thud~ Thud.

Heavy leather shoe sounds ascended the stairs.

Even though the sounds came from the TV, Luo Di felt a sense of overlapping auditory perception, hearing someone climbing up the stairs of the apartment.

The climbing process shown by the TV had no interruptions, reaching all the way up to the [seventh floor], which also was Luo Di’s floor.

The scene turned, shifting to the hallway.

The vase at the end, the paintings hanging on the wall – these were all places Luo Di had searched for the key before.

Thud~ Thud~ Thud~

Heavy leather shoes continued to make crisp sounds on the wooden floor of the hallway.

The TV footage was completely synchronized with the area outside the door.

As it stepped onto a less sturdy wooden plank... creak! An anomaly loud sound made Luo Di tilt his head looking towards the door, the sound indeed came from outside.

But he still shifted his gaze back to the TV, as the post had specific rules, neither closing eyes nor shifting gaze was allowed for more than 5 seconds.

The house number [710] displayed on the videotape.

A large hand wearing black leather gloves appeared for the first time, gripping the doorknob.

Click!

As the sound of the door lock emitted from the TV,

Luo Di also heard someone twisting the real-life doorknob, his peripheral vision faintly catching the slight turning of the handle.

Since it was locked,

The door could not be opened directly.

The TV footage immediately shifted towards a red carpet on the side, and as the camera descended, the black hand lifted the carpet to retrieve a key hidden underneath.

Luo Di looked at his own palm in surprise, he had already taken the key earlier, why was there another key in the videotape’s footage?

In the video, the mysterious person finding the key returned to the door.

Click~ At the same time the key was inserted, Luo Di also heard the sound from the side, the real-world door lock was turning simultaneously with the one in the videotape.

Seeing this,

Luo Di’s face turned grim as he prepared himself for slaughter.

Click!

The door lock in the video was unlocked, and the black hand violently pushed open the door.

Luo Di turned his gaze towards the door at the same moment.

However,

The real-world door lock did not open, and the door was not pushed open. Only the door lock was seen gently turning, but it did not unlock.

This confirmed for Luo Di that the video was not synchronized with reality.

The key had been taken by him in reality, someone outside could not get in.

He breathed a slight sigh of relief,

and turned his head back to watch the video footage on the TV.

The door opened, and a brown-haired young man was crouching next to the sofa, looking toward the door in panic, facing the recorder.

Luo Di immediately recognized that the brown-haired young man in the footage corresponded to the body hung in the bathroom.

Then came the slaughter segment,

which Luo Di enjoyed the most.

The slaughter shown in the footage was even more real because it was indeed actually occurring, Luo Di witnessed the whole process of the previous respondent being hanged, killed, Videotape being sewn, and the scene being cleaned.

Everything ended.

Luo Di showed no expression of fear, instead, he could no longer suppress it and slightly curled the corners of his mouth.

"It turns out... it’s the same type."