"Hopefully, he can survive," Hua Luo said, exhaling.

"Damn it!"

Liu Guo kicked the glass door of the café hard, but to his surprise, the door was much sturdier than it looked.

Through the glass door, the street outside was the same as ever. A woman passed by carrying bags filled with vegetables and cuts of red and white meat.

About seven or eight meters away, several mountain bikes were parked, and four students were gathered, eating fried skewers and chatting, laughing and joking, their backpacks slung over the handlebars.

An old-looking van was parked in front of a bookstore, two men, one smoking and the other unloading goods.

Not far away, two elderly people supported each other, waiting for the light to turn green at the crosswalk.

Everything seemed normal. Liu Guo tried to smash the glass door with a hard object, but failed and only made a loud noise.

The feeling of being watched grew stronger, and he even felt the temperature dropping.

"Hello, can you hear me?" Through the gap between the two glass doors, Liu Guo squatted down and shouted, "I'm locked in here!"

Soon, his calls for help were answered, and several people walked over with puzzled expressions.

An elderly man with glasses, hunched over, adjusted his glasses and asked Liu Guo, "Young man, what's wrong?"

"I came for coffee, but the owner locked me in," Liu Guo explained. "He forgot there was still a customer before closing."

"That's really careless," said one of the students. "Do you have the owner's number? Call him and have him come back."

"Running a business like this is really something," the smoking man chimed in.

"There's no time. I have an emergency. Could you please smash this glass door from the outside?" Liu Guo figured the café was within the ghost's control; if he could leave, he might survive.

Of course, he couldn't actively smash the glass door; he needed outside help.

"Is that really necessary? This door... this door must cost a lot," the old man advised kindly. "Wait a bit longer, or give us the owner's number, and we'll call him for you."

In the eyes of the frugal old man, smashing the glass door would cost a lot of money, which wasn't worth it.

"I'm afraid there's no time," Liu Guo said earnestly. "I smell a very peculiar odor, like gas."

"Gas?" Upon hearing this, the expressions of the passersby changed. If there was a gas leak, it would be a matter of life and death.

The smoking man threw his cigarette on the ground and immediately stomped it out. "Don't worry, let's try to pry the door open a crack so you can squeeze out."

After speaking, several students came forward to help, and together they managed to pry the door open a fairly large crack.

It looked like Liu Guo could squeeze out if he put in a little effort.

"What are you waiting for?" The man, his face red from the effort of holding the door open, shouted, "Hurry up, we can't hold it much longer!"

The old man also urged, "Young man, hurry up. A gas leak is no joke. Any later and..."

But Liu Guo seemed to have noticed something. Looking at the kind people helping him, his eyes gradually turned cold.

The reflection in the glass door beside him was completely different from the people in front of him.

Without exception, the figures in the glass door had pale faces, their eyes looking at him as if they wanted to devour him alive.

These... weren't human.

Damn it...

Liu Guo slowly retreated, then turned around and ran upstairs without looking back.

The ghost's control was more terrifying than he had imagined.

No, perhaps it wasn't a ghost at all.

The problem was the door, this door... had undergone a change!

Thus, those incomprehensible things were born.

"Damn it!" Liu Guo ran frantically up to the second floor, opening door after door, but to his despair, all the windows on the second floor had disappeared.

Where the windows should have been, there was only a white wall.

Finally, he rushed into a very messy room at the end of the hallway, with a sofa, a single bed with unmade sheets, and a black table.

On the table was a red laptop.

Liu Guo recognized it at once as Qiao Yu's computer. He looked around and found a camera and many carefully stored lenses on a shelf.

Several photography magazines were scattered on the floor.

This was Qiao Yu's room.

According to the timeline of this world, Qiao Yu should not be dead yet.

"Tap."

"Tap."

"Tap."

Footsteps sounded from downstairs.

Only then did Liu Guo truly understand the terror Qiao Yu had faced. The footsteps were unusually clear, as if each one was stepping into his heart.

The footsteps quickly ascended the stairs to the second floor and stopped outside the door.

Liu Guo had locked the door.

It was an old door, using the kind of household lock from many years ago that was connected inside and out.

Someone was turning the doorknob outside, and the inside knob turned with it, making a clicking sound.

To Liu Guo, it was like a death knell.

He couldn't escape, but he could still do something for the living.

Almost instantly, Liu Guo rushed to the computer, turned it on, and upon finding it wasn't locked, immediately opened the recording function.

He held the comic close to the camera, quickly displaying each page.

Especially the handwritten letter.

Noticing the doorknob had suddenly stopped turning, Liu Guo clicked save, then opened Qiao Yu's logged-in account and sent the video to all his friends.

Finally, he added a voice message, "Anyone who receives this video, please contact Qiao Yu's brother immediately, or come to Nanmu Bay Café and find the owner, a great reward will be given!"

"This is not a joke, repeat, this is not..." Liu Guo's voice stopped abruptly, the computer lost power, and the screen went black.

Reflected in the screen, Liu Guo saw someone sitting on Qiao Yu's bed behind him.

What terrified Liu Guo even more than the sudden appearance behind him was the pair of scarlet eyes that the person slowly raised.

In the next second, Liu Guo immediately reached for the baseball bat beside him, but the moment he saw the face of the person in black, he knew that the other party would not let him go.

And this confirmed his previous speculation.

This door had indeed undergone a change; otherwise, it would have been impossible to violate the rules.

He knew very little about these incomprehensible things and even less about how to fight them. It was precisely because such things had been born that the rules inside the door had become so bizarre.

He only knew that such a being had the power to rewrite the rules.

Within the door where they were born, it was an existence above all else.

This door... had been completely corrupted.