This is the second time.
When she wasn’t asleep, a sudden fragment of an image appeared in her mind.
The last time, it was the man in the black jacket who had wanted to stab someone.
Zhou Huaixia stared intently at Lü Jin.
They had been living together for more than a month, and she still hadn’t noticed any signs of psychological abnormalities in her.
In fact, Lü Jin was a bit too idealistic.
But at this moment, Lü Jin was the only one playing with the calico cat.
Apart from her, who else was here?
“What are you looking at?”
Lü Jin was scratching the calico cat’s chin when she looked up and saw Zhou Huaixia frowning, glancing around cautiously.
Zhou Huaixia said coldly, “If you’re going to get your notebook, hurry up and go upstairs.”
Lü Jin reluctantly released the cat and stood up.
“Okay, okay, what’s with the sudden coldness? It’s kind of creepy.”
The staff dormitory had some books and notes that Lü Zhihua used, and Lü Jin often took them out for reference.
She did the same this time, carefully putting a few books into her bag.
As she was leaving the study, she saw Zhou Huaixia circling back from the balcony.
“Finished looking?” By now, Lü Jin was used to Zhou Huaixia’s authoritative checkups.
“I’ve got everything.
Let’s go back to the dorm.”
As they were heading downstairs, Lü Jin casually glanced at Zhou Huaixia’s phone screen and was immediately stunned.
“Why are you looking at this?”
Zhou Huaixia was browsing rental listings.
She hadn’t even complained about the inconvenience of living together, but why was she planning to move out of the dorm?
“Shut up.”
Zhou Huaixia didn’t want to hear Lü Jin speaking right now; it would affect her judgment.
Lü Jin pushed her glasses up and glanced at Zhou Huaixia as she exited one page and clicked into another, her words flowing uncontrollably: “Why are you looking at the staff dormitories?”
As they walked toward Dormitory Building 23, Zhou Huaixia continued scrolling through rental photos.
S University had several staff dormitories, some even off-campus.
The on-campus staff dormitories consisted of seven buildings two old apartments, each with six floors and no elevators.
The others were newer constructions with more than ten floors and elevators.
Zhou Huaixia was flipping through the rental photos of the newer buildings, confirming that the bathrooms in the staff dorms built later were different from those assigned to Lü Jin’s mother.
If she could perceive the intense thoughts of others, the images she had seen earlier outside the staff dormitory definitely came from Lü Jin’s mind.
Zhou Huaixia stopped and asked, “Are you wearing medical gloves?”
Lü Jin immediately nodded.
“Yes, do you need them?”
She took off one shoulder strap of her bag and pulled out a pair of white medical gloves, handing them to her puzzled roommate.
“Here.”
Zhou Huaixia didn’t take them.
“Put them on.”
Lü Jin: “Huh?”
Zhou Huaixia stared at her hands and repeated, “Put them on.”
In her previous two dreams, she hadn’t paid much attention to the hand wearing white medical gloves.
After all, most people’s hands look similar when they’re wearing gloves.
Lü Jin looked at her with a strange expression.
“What are you trying to do?”
Is she going to play some dominant-submissive game? This seems a bit too advanced.
Unable to stand her roommate’s unblinking gaze, Lü Jin reluctantly complied, expertly putting on the gloves and showing her hands.
“Done.”
Zhou Huaixia: “…”
To be honest, she couldn’t tell the difference between Lü Jin’s hands and the one she had “seen” earlier.
Lü Jin was still asking, “What do you want me to do?”
Zhou Huaixia: “Forget it, never mind…”
Just as she was about to turn around, another image flashed in front of her eyes: the calico cat she had just seen being suddenly thrown into the bathroom by a hand wearing medical gloves.
“Ssss”
Zhou Huaixia raised her left hand and pressed it against her stinging eyes, unable to suppress a sharp intake of breath.
Lü Jin put her hand down.
“What’s wrong with you? There’s no wind or dust around here.”
Zhou Huaixia endured the discomfort in her eyes and asked, “How familiar are you with the staff dormitories in Buildings 2 and 3? Do you know which ones are for the medical staff?”
She had seen it.
When the hand threw the calico cat, a men’s facial cleanser had flashed briefly on the sink.
It wasn’t Lü Jin.
Zhou Huaixia couldn’t tell if this was someone’s fantasy or if it was actually happening, but she had to confirm it.
Lü Jin was confused.
“Buildings 2 and 3 are assigned to medical teachers, but some of them don’t live there, so the rooms are rented out to students.
Why?”
Since meeting Zhou Huaixia, she had been hearing “Why?” from her almost every day.
“The men, in the medical field, living alone.”
Zhou Huaixia asked Lü Jin, “Who are they, and where do they live?”
The old apartments had only one bathroom.
The sink earlier had been empty, with no signs of anyone else.
There was only a cup with a toothbrush and a men’s facial cleanser.
“I don’t know…” Lü Jin was puzzled but thought carefully.
“The male medical teachers who live alone are in Building 3, Room 602 and 101.
Though I don’t know the rental details, I do know which rooms are rented out.”
The old apartments had once been assigned to medical professors, and Lü Jin had grown up around them, so she knew a lot about their situations.
Zhou Huaixia grabbed Lü Jin’s arm.
“Let’s go back!”
Lü Jin, still confused, followed her toward the staff dormitory.
“Can you tell me why we’re going back?”
Zhou Huaixia said, “You’re taking me to confirm who’s living in Buildings 2 and 3.”
“Why are we confirming this?” Lü Jin said, starting to comment, “But Zhou Huaixia, you’re really slow.”
She was carrying a bag full of things and suddenly sped up, pulling her roommate along toward the staff dormitory, her naturally curly short hair flying in the wind like an excited wild dog.
Zhou Huaixia, who was being dragged along and stumbling, thought to herself: “……”
They hadn’t walked very far, so they quickly ran back to the staff dormitory.
The moment Zhou Huaixia stopped, her vision blurred, and her chest felt as if the air had a rusty taste.
“Building 2, floors 1 and 6 are all rented to students.
Building 3, floor 5 is also long-term rented to students,” Lü Jin stood between Building 2 and 3, pushed her glasses, and asked, “Now, can you tell me why we came back?”
Including two male teachers living alone, there were a total of eight units.
Zhou Huaixia took the lead and walked toward Building 3.
“To use the bathroom.”
Lü Jin: “?”
Zhou Huaixia knocked on the door of Room 101.
Soon, someone opened the door.
A man in his forties stood there and saw Zhou Huaixia.
“Student, how can I help you?”
“Hello, my stomach hurts, and I need to borrow a bathroom,” Zhou Huaixia said, and without giving the professor a chance to react, she swiftly entered the apartment and headed straight to the bathroom.
Lü Jin stood outside, her face frozen in a smile.
“Professor Yang, hello.”
Was Zhou Huaixia crazy? Again with the stomach pain why didn’t she just go home? She was boldly barging into someone else’s apartment like this!
Professor Yang didn’t mind too much.
“Xiao Lü, is this your classmate?”
Lü Jin wanted to say she didn’t know her, but bravely took responsibility.
“She’s my roommate.
She often gets stomach pains.”
Zhou Huaixia glanced around inside quickly, then immediately turned around and came back out.
The two hadn’t even finished their pleasantries at the door.
Lü Jin: “Are you okay?”
“Thanks, Professor.”
Zhou Huaixia thanked Professor Yang and immediately ran upstairs.
“Wait for me!” Lü Jin said goodbye to Professor Yang and quickly chased after her.
Zhou Huaixia stood in front of Room 501, panting and knocking on the door.
After a moment, a girl opened the door.
“Sorry, I knocked on the wrong door.”
Lü Jin stood at the stairwell, watching as Zhou Huaixia immediately turned to knock on the door of Room 502.
She walked over to the still-open door, leaned in, and whispered, “What exactly are you doing?”
Looking at Zhou Huaixia now, Lü Jin was reminded of that day when she suddenly asked the medical student senior about the possibility of hanging oneself.
Her eyes were filled with an indescribable complexity, completely different from her usual slow-paced demeanor.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
“I’m confirming something.”
Zhou Huaixia knocked again.
No one answered, so she turned to the girl next door.
“Hello, do you know if this apartment is for boys or girls?”
The girl half-opened the door.
“It’s a male.
Are you looking for someone?”
Zhou Huaixia: “Is he here?”
“He should be,” the girl replied.
“I heard the door close a while ago.”
“Bang, bang, bang!”
Zhou Huaixia knocked fiercely on the door, her sense of foreboding growing stronger.
Lü Jin stood beside her, wanting to stop her obsessive actions but didn’t intervene.
A full minute later, the door finally opened, revealing a slight gap.
The sound of a television was heard from inside.
A man in his mid-twenties stood in the doorway, wearing black-framed glasses, with a few days’ worth of stubble above his lips.
He impatiently looked at Zhou Huaixia through the gap.
“Who are you?”
“Where’s that smell of blood coming from?” Lü Jin suddenly asked.
Zhou Huaixia immediately pushed the door open with all her strength and headed straight for the bathroom.
The young man hadn’t expected her to push the door so suddenly.
He staggered back a few steps.
By the time he regained his footing, Zhou Huaixia had already entered.
“What are you doing?!”
The man’s eyebrows shot up, and he shouted angrily, taking large strides to grab Zhou Huaixia.
“Hey, don’t touch her!” Lü Jin hurried in and grabbed the man.
Distracted by her interference, Zhou Huaixia quickly ran to the bathroom door and forcefully pushed it open.
“Bang!”
The aluminum-framed glass door of the bathroom slammed hard against the wall.
Zhou Huaixia paused, looking inside.
She turned to face the rushing man, her gaze cold.
“It’s you.”