Midnight Bookstore

“Sigh.”

Old Dong was the security guard in the guard room of the residential area. He yawned as he was usually on night duty, so he was already used to it. Because his son’s new house was being renovated recently, and his son and daughter-in-law were busy at work. He naturally had to keep an eye on it during the day. This undoubtedly reduced his original rest time, making him very sleepy when he was on duty at night.

However, he couldn’t fall asleep. The surveillance cameras here were all open. If the higher-ups knew that he fell asleep during the night shift, it would be very difficult for him to keep his job. He forced his eyelids open, Old Dong touched his chin as he saw a girl walking over from the door. As she reached the safety door, it automatically opened.

The safety door required a resident to swipe their access card to enter and exit. If it was an outsider who wanted to enter, they would need to come to Old Dong’s place to register before Old Dong would open the door. Old Dong was surprised as he didn’t seem to have seen that girl take out her card from her pocket to swipe at the security door’s sensor, why did the door open by itself?

Old Dong turned his body sideways and looked over, he felt that… his eyes must have been playing tricks on him just now. After all, he was too sleepy. Suddenly… a cold aura assaulted him as Old Dong subconsciously shivered. It was cold, really cold.

How could it not be cold, one had to know… there were more than a hundred malicious spirits following behind the girl. It was equivalent to more than a hundred malicious spirits lining up to walk past Old Dong.

As he got older, his body naturally became a little weak. In addition, Old Dong hadn’t had enough sleep these days. His spirit was even more dispirited. After such a long period of haunting, he naturally couldn’t bear it. After a while… The cold feeling finally disappeared. Old Dong hurriedly picked up the teacup that he had brewed with goji berries and drank several mouthfuls in a row.

“Have you caught a cold?”

He reached out and touched his forehead, Old Dong was a little worried about his body. As for the girl just now, he had long forgotten.

“Da… Da… Da… Da…”

This was the sound of sandals rubbing against the ground. Zhu Shengnan walked to the front of a building and raised her head slightly, her gaze locked onto the third floor. The hundreds of malicious spirit girls around her also raised their heads and looked over. It was really… neat and orderly.

“Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!!!”

The basement of the apartment building was the garage. Someone must have kept their pet dog in the garage. At this moment, a golden retriever that was locked in a cage behind a garage door began to bark. It had always been docile and rarely barked. Its owner had once thought that his dog was mute. Except for today… it barked crazily. Apart from looking down on people, its dog eyes… it could also see things that ordinary people could not see.

“Be good, don’t be noisy.” Zhu Shengnan looked at the garage door in front and said softly.

She was a little girl and she liked dogs very much. The hundreds of malicious ghost girls around her looked over at the same time. In an instant… The golden retriever that was barking crazily just now suddenly prostrated on the ground, blood seeped out from its eyes, ears, mouth, and nose. Slowly… its body stopped moving. The world was silent again.

“So obedient.”

Zhu Shengnan raised her head again and looked upstairs. At the same time… a malicious spirit girl slowly walked out from the group.

“Go… Sister.” Zhu Shengnan said.

She did not call out the name of the malicious spirit because among all the girls here, apart from her, no one else had a name. Who would name a girl who hadn’t even been born and had been aborted by her parents in her mother’s womb?

“Go up and ask… Ask why.”

The malicious spirit girl silently walked into the corridor, her figure disappearing into the darkness. The rest of them… continued to stand beside Zhu Shengnan whilst looking upstairs. They came today… to ask about some things, things that were easy for outsiders to understand. Except for them, things that were impossible to understand…

“Sigh, I’m so tired.”

A woman who had just finished cleaning her house took off her shoes and laid down on the sofa. She glanced at her son who was squatting and playing with his toys. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She prepared to take a nap. The father of the child was working the night shift today and would only come back at dawn.

Ever since she gave birth to her son, her body had also fallen ill. It was inconvenient for her to go out to work, so she could only take care of the child at home. The family that used to consist of two working adults had now become a family of three. The husband was the sole breadwinner of the family, so the pressure on the husband was naturally very great.

The son was especially troublesome and mischievous. Sometimes, the woman would also think that if she had not aborted her daughter back then, her daughter would have been able to help her take care of her younger brother now, right? As for herself… Would she be able to relax a little? However, who knew that the second child would let go just like that.

The woman changed her lying position and slowly closed her eyes. She was tired, so doing this little housework made her a little breathless. Her waist and back were also sore, she could only take a short nap to rest.

The little boy continued to squat on the carpet and play with the toy in front of him, suddenly… The little boy raised his head in a daze and looked at the door. He seemed to have seen someone standing at the door, but he could not see who it was.

The eyes of a child could see some special things. Except as they grew older, they would not be able to see them anymore. Perhaps it was because he had eaten too many grains and was polluted by the world of mortals, his eyes were no longer as pure as when he was born.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

The boy held his toy in his hand and shouted repeatedly as if he was calling for that person to come over and play with him. The girl slowly approached him. She saw the boy who was playing with the toy without any worries, this is… her younger brother, right?

The girl looked at the sofa again, lying there… was her mother. Yes, it was her mother. She could feel it. After all, she was the “flesh” that fell from her body. The girl looked at the little boy in front of her again.

“Are you… very happy?”

The girl slowly squatted down and stared at her younger brother, this was… her own younger brother. The little boy continued to play with his wooden blocks as if he did not care much about the person standing beside him.

Other than when he first saw her… slowly… he could no longer see her. The boundary between Yin and Yang was too difficult to break with the naked eye of an ordinary person.

“How can you live happily like this… but I… can’t?” The girl frowned and muttered to herself.

In her eyes, hatred was constantly raging. Like a flood that was about to burst out of the dam and engulf everything. Not worrying about the shortage but worrying about the imbalance. When the girl stood there… and saw her little brother living such a carefree and happy life in a warm home. Under the care of his parents… the hatred and injustice in her heart were immediately amplified.

“Why?”

“Why?”

The little boy put down the blocks in his hand and stole a glance at his mother on the sofa as if to make sure that his mother had fallen asleep. Seeing that his mother had already made a slight snore, the little boy immediately ran to the kitchen and opened the door above the refrigerator.

Inside, there was a cold can of coke. He liked to drink coke, but his parents did not allow him to drink too much. He did not drink enough each time. While his mother was asleep, he wanted to drink secretly. Except he was too short, he could barely open the refrigerator door, but he could not reach it.

The refrigerator was placed against the kitchen counter, so he ran to the chair first. He climbed up the chair, and then prepared to climb up the counter. Only then he could stand on the counter to get the can of coke.

Climbing up the chair was already very difficult. When he climbed up the counter again, he did not realize that there was a cutting board and a kitchen knife on the counter in front of him that his mother had just used to cut vegetables.

The little boy’s hand groped on the counter, trying to grab something to let him climb up. He tried very hard, but he was too small. He accidentally touched the cutting board and unknowingly began to drag it down.

The cutting board and the kitchen knife were sliding towards him. The girl stood at the kitchen door as she watched her brother’s every move. She saw the cutting board and the kitchen knife as well. She could also imagine her brother being stabbed by the kitchen knife. For a moment… she felt a strong sense of pleasure from the bottom of her heart.

“Deserve, deserve, deserve!”

The little boy continued to fumble around, most of the cutting board had already reached out of the counter, finally… the cutting board fell. The kitchen knife also fell straight toward the little boy’s face.

“Clang…”

The chair under the little boy’s feet suddenly swayed, and the little boy fell from the chair.

“Pa…”

The kitchen knife landed very far away from the little boy and hit the tiles, making a loud noise. The little boy did not know that he was moments away from walking through the Gates of Hell, and he did not know what kind of suffering he was about to experience. He certainly did not know… that the girl who was standing at the kitchen door… suddenly appeared beside him and pushed him the moment the chopping board fell.

The girl looked at her hands in confusion, she didn’t know why she did this. She hated him, her parents didn’t want her and they wouldn’t abandon him. Then just now, why did she save him?

“Why?”

The woman who was sleeping on the sofa heard the crisp sound of the kitchen knife falling to the ground. She immediately jumped up from the sofa and rushed to the kitchen. She saw the kitchen knife that had fallen to the side and her son who had also fallen to the ground. She immediately rushed over to check the boy. She found that there were no cuts on her son’s body, only then did she embrace her son in fear.

“Why are you so naughty? You scared mommy to death! Do you know…”

“Mommy…”

The girl stood beside the woman. She watched as the woman hugged her little brother, slowly… she also squatted down. She put her face on her mother’s shoulder. It was as if her mother was hugging her and her little brother at the same time.

It was as if… she also lived in this family and was also a part of it. She closed her eyes in satisfaction, she did not see that the black smoke on her body was slowly dissipating. This time, it was completely dissipating…