I stared at the new line of words that appeared on the phone screen, and my fingertips felt a little cold.
[Hidden Rule Fragment 04: Sound will attract "them". Staying quiet is the first layer of armor at night.
This is the fourth time.
Three days have passed since the last time the woman in red appeared. During the past three days, like a patient with obsessive-compulsive disorder, I looked at the door exactly at three o'clock in the morning every day, my heart beating painfully in my chest. But she didn't come.
I read the cloud log that Shen Mo gave me over and over again no less than twenty times. It records some fragmentary "events" spanning as long as five years. Most of the entries were unclear, as if they were written in some kind of password: "Area C, Shelf Three, Whispering, No Response." "The cash register reported an error at midnight, and the amount displayed abnormally, but it was normal after restarting." "Night shift worker Li, on the seventh day, did not hand over, marked as 'lost contact'."
Li should be the person before Brother Zhao.
The diary does not mention any specific rules, nor is there a direct description of the woman in red. But there is a cold, procedural observation between the lines. Shen Mo is recording these, just like recording experimental data.
I put my phone back in my pocket, picked up the rag and started wiping the cashier. The movement is very light. Ever since I saw the "keep quiet" rule, I subconsciously tiptoed even when I walked. I had turned off the background music in the store a long time ago, and now there was only the intermittent hum of the refrigerator compressor and my breathing.
It was so quiet, so quiet that you could hear your own heartbeat.
