Chapter 2 Primer

Time is like a pair of scissors, which cut life into sections. When people want to recall, when they look back, they realize that there seems to be nothing worth recalling in their more than 20 years of life. night.Open the window, the night breeze is very cool.Opposite the house is the teaching building of a certain middle school, standing still under the dark blue night sky, without stars, only the lights of two offices are still on.In fact, Ting was a little depressed. This house girl who loves to read corrupt articles was very annoyed. Why wasn't the male dormitory opposite? Today is the end of the big exam, and the school is quiet at night.

Thinking back to when she graduated from high school, she was also excited, happy and apprehensive. She always felt that the world was big and the earth was big, and she was about to become the world's elite. But how can it be so easy to get the title of elite?In the blink of an eye, after four years of university, Ting entered the society and worked in a small company from nine to five, often working overtime.Maybe apart from work, she only stays at home. She doesn't have a boyfriend, doesn't like traveling, dinner and socializing.Even this small house with only one bedroom and one living room was bought by her parents for the convenience of her going to work.

The location here is very good, and it belongs to the tallest building in Pigeon City. The 9th floor is separated from Xijing Middle School by a wall, overlooking the playground and teaching buildings of the middle school. Watching the young boys full of youth come and go wasting time, her whole body is full of strength, as if even her rotten heart polluted by society has been redeemed.Although, she is only twenty-four. Speaking of it, Ting has been a little distressed recently, because she encountered a strange thing not long ago. She found a strange bump on the floor of her house. When she first found out, it was a week ago, when she came home, kicked off her high heels and walked to the comfortable sofa.Suddenly, the sole of the foot was stabbed by something sharp.The place where she was stabbed happened to be the sole of the foot. Ting hugged her feet and danced around in pain and tears. A few drops of bright red blood flowed out, which was not serious.

Ting treated the wound with OK bandages, and then lay down on the ground looking for the culprit.Soon, a small bump appeared in sight. Not far from the sofa, the bulge looks like a miniature crater, with a dark hole less than two millimeters in diameter in the center.There was some redness near the hole, which should be stained with his own blood. Ting looked at it for a long time but couldn't figure out why. Girls don't have much ability to deal with this kind of thing. It's just a little strange. What's the matter with this bulge?Judging from the width and the hole at the top, it is not very sharp, but how could it be stabbed when you just stepped on it?

She found a needle and probed into the opening of the hole, but she couldn't pierce it any further after it was less than one centimeter deep. It seemed that the opening of the hole was only so shallow. Ting was a little annoyed. What a broken quality, it also claims a lifetime warranty!Her home uses laminate flooring with a thickness of 1.2 centimeters. It is said that it will not be eaten by moths or deformed, but it has been used for less than a year, and it started to bulge. ! Going to work was really tiring, she looked out the window at night, casually cooked a bowl of tomato noodles, and then forgot about it.

After getting off work the next day, at nine o'clock in the evening, Ting opened the door, and she was surprised to find that there were several bumps on the floor like an infectious disease, each of which was almost the same size and shape. It's disgusting to watch. It's like a tumor growing on a wooden floor, or like the rough surface of the moon, in short, it's very uncomfortable. Be sure to call the flooring company tomorrow. She angrily wrote this matter into the schedule, but the company continued to work overtime in the next few days, so she didn't even have time to make a phone call.

After a week like this, there are so many bumps on the wooden floor that there is nowhere to go. There are almost one or two on every board. The slight bumps and small black holes are really jaw-dropping. . Every time she came home, she felt like she was stepping on the skin of a toad, wondering if those tiny holes would release deadly venom due to squeezing. Today is Saturday, and Ting finally called the flooring company.The customer service was also very puzzled, saying that there had never been such a problem, and promised to send workers to check and replace the damaged parts early the next morning.

The next day was Sunday.At ten o'clock in the morning, the workers came on time, and Ting opened the door after changing her clothes.The floor worker was a man in his forties, with a dark face and an old face. "Hello, Ms. Xie. I am the No. 203 maintenance officer sent by the company." The worker handed her a business card. Ting scratched her head. In this society, even maintenance workers have business cards.Alas, it seems that I am really bad at mixing. The maintenance worker was taken aback when he entered the door, he stammered a little at a loss, "What's going on here?"

The bulges all over the floor are really scary. The repairman climbed to the ground, tapped the wooden floor lightly with his hands, and then frowned: "These bulges seem to be holes drilled by something rotating underneath." "Could it be because of damp?" Ting asked. "Impossible. The wooden floor of our company is durable, and it will not change shape even if it is soaked in water for several years." The maintenance worker advertised his company righteously, "Besides, you are on the ninth floor, where is the humidity?" "Right!" Ting nodded, "Then what do you think is the problem?"

"That's not clear. I've never encountered such a situation. I'm afraid I need to pry it open to find out." Ting thought for a while, "Then, is it possible that it is a pest problem? It's not like termites are often troubled recently!" "Miss Xie, this is absolutely impossible!" The maintenance worker smiled and murmured softly, "The laminate flooring is made of processed wood chips and industrial glue. I have never heard of any kind of bugs that would like to eat it." "Well, I'm already tired from work, and I don't feel relieved to buy a floor decoration. Your company should take care of it for me."

Ting gave up guessing the reason, she was too lazy to waste brain cells. "Of course. But your house is a bit damaged, and it is estimated that 70% of it will be replaced." The maintenance worker pointed out, "If it is damaged naturally, our company will charge it for free. But if there are signs of man-made damage after prying it open, Ms. Xie may have to pay more." "You mean that Miss Ben deliberately made fun of you?" Ting got angry, "Excuse me, how can I make the floor like this?" "That was not what I meant." The maintenance worker quickly waved his hand.After all, the situation on the floor was really weird. He had been working for more than 20 years, and he had never seen such a weird scene of destruction. "It's better not to mean that, or be careful that I sue you." Ting raised the business card in her hand, put on her shoes and bag, and was ready to go out for a walk.Being in the same room with strangers, as a standard home girl, she is really not used to it, "When can I fix it?" "Five in the afternoon." The mechanic looked at his watch. "Then I'll come back after five o'clock, and I hope to see a clean floor then." Ting shook her head and left. The maintenance worker curled his lips, the character of this aunt is really not flattering, how will she get married in the future.He took tools out of his bag and was about to pry open the damaged floor near the door to see what was going on. After the laminate flooring was pried open, the plastic layer was exposed. The plastic layer that should have been white was now dark and very damp.Maintenance workers cut it off, and the ground was exposed. He took a closer look and gasped suddenly.I saw that the concrete floor was full of small potholes, as if it had been eaten by thousands of moths, which made people shudder. How is this going?Got termites!That's not right, I've never heard of termites biting cement. The maintenance worker couldn't figure it out, so he tapped the ground with a tool.Suddenly, he seemed to see something scurrying around in the seven-arched hole. Then, something popped out.He wailed, and covered his eyes forcefully, the blood continuously flowed out from the gaps in his fingers, dripped on the ground, and was finally absorbed by the countless holes on the floor. The wailing began to increase, and then weakened immediately after reaching a peak.It didn't take long for the maintenance worker in the house to disappear without a trace. The floor of the house is clean, except for those countless weird bumps, everything seems to be tending to normal. At half past five in the afternoon, Ting went home. The door was well shut, the house was empty, and the maintenance man seemed to have gone home. Xie Ting threw the bag on the sofa and nodded in satisfaction. The bumps on the surface of the floor disappeared completely, making it smooth and pleasing to the eye. She didn't care, and she didn't notice that the floor was flat, but the dense black holes on the boards didn't disappear, it was just the dark wooden floor, it was really hard to see the clues. But the happy mood didn't last long, and when he walked around the sofa, a big hole protruding from the ground suddenly appeared.The pried wooden boards were piled in a mess around. "What an irresponsible guy, I must complain to him tomorrow!" After talking to herself, she casually made a bowl of cup noodles to fill her stomach, and then nestled on the bed with the computer in her arms to watch gossip.At 10:30, drowsiness welled up, and then he casually dropped the computer and fell asleep. I don't know how long it took, but Ting was harassed by her urination and woke up.She got out of bed and went to the bathroom in sleepy embarrassment, but as soon as the soles of her bare feet touched the floor, her skin was pierced by several sharp objects. It took her several seconds to feel the pain until her nerves were numb from sleep, she couldn't help screaming, and jumped around on the spot with her feet hugged.But this jump made her situation even more miserable. Countless sharp things pierced her uninjured left foot, and she could even feel warm liquid flowing out of her body. It must be blood, her own blood ! Ting seemed to be standing on the mountain of needles. She cried and turned on the light at a loss. Suddenly, as the light came on, a breath-taking and weird scene was reflected on her retina. I saw that the floor of the room was densely packed with bulges. In the central position of the bulge, from the small black hole, a section of black sharp things emerged, blood stained on it, and was immediately absorbed instantly, as if those sharp things were drinking water, even greedy. Shaking, squeezed out of the small black hole, and quickly extended to her position. Ting's eyes widened. She seemed to hear a rumbling sound coming from under the floor. Her vision was filled with black objects protruding from countless black holes, only hair thin. Before she could scream, she was already tightly entangled and could no longer make a sound.She felt that the power was moving away from her, her flesh and blood and even her internal organs were being invaded by something while numb.Her body dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye, until her life completely fell... Night, still a quiet night.Except for the people downstairs who felt a little weird sound from the ceiling, no one noticed that a girl had died strangely on the ninth floor of this building.