Opening the Door

Chapter 3: Opening the Door

This palpitation came quite suddenly, so suddenly that Bai Yanliang didn't even have time to loosen his grip on the key.

Fortunately, after a few breaths, that strange sensation that chilled him to the bone receded as quickly as it had arrived, as if it had never existed at all.

For anyone else, such a brief, bizarre feeling might not have been worth dwelling on, but Bai Yanliang was different.

He understood his own condition better than anyone. Ten years ago, a psychologist diagnosed him with an abnormal personality—a not-so-rare antisocial personality disorder.

This conclusion wasn't entirely correct, but it wasn't entirely wrong either.

In fact, ever since he was old enough to understand, Bai Yanliang's older brother, Bai Yanren, had known that his younger brother had some sort of problem.

After long-term observation, Bai Yanren finally confirmed it: Bai Yanliang suffered from a severe cognitive disorder.

However, Bai Yanliang's cognitive disorder was different from the typical kind.

Generally, cognitive disorder refers to a pathological process where abnormalities occur in the brain's higher-level intelligent processing—related to learning, memory, and logical judgment—leading to severe impairments in learning and memory, often accompanied by aphasia, apraxia, agnosia, or executive dysfunction.

But Bai Yanliang's cognitive disorder was not like that.

His perception of everything was not established from the first-person perspective of "I."

Rather than understanding the world through an "I" perspective, Bai Yanliang's view was more like a dream—or, as Bai Yanren described it, a "bird's-eye view."

In Bai Yanliang's "perspective," he was not the protagonist of his own life, and his way of thinking did not revolve around an "I" at the core.

He was more like... a spectator.

Not only Bai Yanren, but even Bai Yanliang himself sometimes wondered if he was merely another soul living inside the shell of Bai Yanliang.

Because his angle of viewing the world was so peculiar, his emotional fluctuations were almost zero. Joy, anger, sorrow, gratitude, happiness, fear, panic, longing, jealousy, shame... all these emotions were as faint as a drop of water falling into the ocean; although they could create a tiny ripple, they were almost impossible to detect.

He could see emotions, but he couldn't trigger them. Therefore, the label of "antisocial personality disorder with a lack of empathy" fit him in a certain way.

Bai Yanliang did not consider himself a born villain. His emotions were faint, but they were not non-existent. He knew right from wrong, he knew the rules of good and evil, and he knew what should and should not be done.

He knew even better that Bai Yanren was a brother who had treated him exceptionally well, and he would not let Yanren die such a miserable and unexplained death.

And this key was clearly the key to it all.

Because it had actually made Bai Yanliang feel a strange, primal emotion—fear.

"Right, there's also this," Yang Wanlong suddenly said.

He pulled out a bank card and handed it over.

"Your brother's savings. I don't know the password either; it might be your birthdays or something. You'll have to figure it out yourself."

Bai Yanliang took the bank card. As for the password, he already had an idea.

"The room is all cleared out. These three rooms were originally for me and my two daughters, one each. But Zhirong lives in the Polytechnic Affiliated Hospital dormitory now and rarely comes home. She doesn't have many things left, and most of them were taken to the hospital. There's just a pile of miscellaneous books, so you'll have to make do."

"I'll just stay in the living room. Staying in a bedroom at the Polytechnic Affiliated Hospital... that doesn't feel right." Bai Yanliang didn't know what Yang Wanlong was thinking. Could a stranger really stay in his daughter's room? Even if there wasn't much left in there, in ancient times, this would be considered a lady's boudoir.

"Hey, don't be so wishy-washy. What's 'right' or 'not right'? The room is empty anyway. Why let you sleep in the living room when there's a spare room? What kind of person do you take your uncle for? Don't say another word, that's it. I'm going out to buy some side dishes; you tidy up." Yang Wanlong waved his hand, a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he headed for the door.

He was certainly trusting, considering the circumstances.

Bai Yanliang watched Yang Wanlong's retreating back, his gaze flickering.

He was... a little too good to him.

After all, letting someone who was still under suspicion for murder move into his home was already quite incredible.

Bai Yanliang thought for a moment and guessed at a few things, but he didn't dwell on them, because he knew very well that Bai Yanren's case truly had nothing to do with him.

He pushed the matter to the back of his mind and picked up the exquisite, classical key once more, looking at it with a calm gaze.

However, this time, something mind-boggling happened!

His left hand trembled slightly, then actually began to rise slowly, lifting high above his head!

Bai Yanliang was certain that his brain had absolutely not sent a command to his left hand to lift. On the contrary, after his left hand bizarrely gripped the key and raised it, Bai Yanliang immediately tried to regain control of it.

It was useless; he had completely lost control of his left hand.

Then, something even more terrifying happened.

His body, which had been sitting on the sofa, slowly stood up as well.

But... the posture was strange. It didn't look like he had stood up voluntarily; it looked more like he was being pulled up by his left hand, which was held high with the key!

This eerie and terrifying sensation might have made an ordinary person scream, but for Bai Yanliang, it wasn't entirely shocking.

Because in his perspective, his body and his soul had always coexisted in just such a way.

However, even saying that, Bai Yanliang still felt a strange aura spreading that chilled him to the bone.

He knew exactly what he had encountered.

His eyes flickered with suspicion, curiosity, unease, and a trace of subtle excitement.

This world seemed to hide secrets that were unknown to most.

While Bai Yanliang's brain was still frantically thinking, his body began to move on its own again.

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...

Step by step, like a walking corpse, he moved toward a bedroom with a closed door.

Bai Yanliang did not know whose bedroom it was, nor what lay inside, and even less did he know what thing or what purpose was driving him to walk toward that room.

He could only keep his eyes wide open, maintaining enough sanity to avoid the nervous breakdown most people would suffer in such a situation, watching helplessly as his own raised left hand slowly lowered.

Then... he inserted the key into the lock.

How is this possible?

The eerie aura continued to spread, and this time, it left Bai Yanliang even more incredulous.

The classical key did not match the bedroom door's keyhole in either shape or size, yet... it slid inside without the slightest resistance.

His body did not cease its movements; under Bai Yanliang's gaze, his left hand began to slowly turn the key and push the bedroom door open, inch by inch.

The movement did not look easy, as if this flimsy bedroom door weighed a thousand pounds.

However, after the door was pushed open just a crack, Bai Yanliang was already certain that what lay behind it was absolutely not a bedroom!

Chilling, eerie, grotesque, spiteful, hateful... waves of intensely negative energy spilled out from the gap, yet at the same time, his body's movements did not stop.

After opening it a sliver, the movement seemed to become much easier.

Creeeak—

A mundane sound of a door opening rang out, and Bai Yanliang's leg took a step forward, walking inside.