At this time, Ma En also felt somewhat hungry and didn't plan to continue researching this strange book and those strange characters. Until the job situation was settled, he didn't feel there were any urgent things he had to force himself to do, besides adapting to life in Japan. Before news about the school arrived, these few days could be completely treated as a vacation. The new job would certainly require considerable effort; it wouldn't be as relaxed as now. Although he had achieved some results at the post office in his home country, he didn't think this alone would allow him smooth sailing in a new job in a foreign land.
So, rest was still necessary.
Ma En drank all the cold water, then drank a glass of warm water, but somehow, his body didn't feel the slightest warmth; it wasn't that he was cold, just that he couldn't feel warmth. Before associating these details with wonderful encounters, he actively interrupted such associations. He hadn't given up imagination, just felt that in his current psychological state, being overly suspicious wasn't a good thing. He clearly knew he must rebuild a stronger mental defense line to avoid being unable to bear the foreseeable load on the mental level when a real crisis descended.
Regarding this, he was long prepared, although initially he didn't think he would need to rebuild his psychological defense line so quickly. But facts proved that when past preparations needed to be applied, it came far earlier than he thought.
Those preparations from the past, which seemed like the actions of a lunatic, were truly done right. Ma En calmly thought this.
Since graduating from elementary school, he had begun testing and researching his own psychological growth and mental state. Popular science readers he read in his youth mentioned some evolutions in psychological research and application. In his spare time after class, he himself researched related extended readings, materials, and literature mentioned in those popular science readers. Although not professional, nor having any specific teacher imparting knowledge, the learning of those professionals was mostly oriented towards the universality of ordinary people, whereas the psychological learning he conducted purely served himself better.
The experimental subject was himself, the research subject was himself, the application subject was himself, and the theoretical subject was also himself.
Ma En didn't dare say how many mistakes he had made along this path, how much professional expertise he possessed; compared to those figures emerging from psychology majors, he had no intention of comparing himself with them either. Even so, over these ten-plus years of accumulation, using himself as the subject, he compiled ten sets of psychological questionnaires for testing the state of his own psychology, spirit, and personality levels, as well as ten sets of questionnaires for targeted correction after obtaining test results – self-examination, self-correction, completely self-reliantly ensuring his psychological defense line was above the standard value he determined.
For Ma En, now was the time to use this set. In his view, having just woken up startled from a dream, stomach rumbling, this time when subjective consciousness and physiological functions were relatively weak, the subconscious manifestations were clearer, the testing was more accurate, and correction was also easier.
Ma En took out the questionnaire papers from the file bag at the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Like drawing lots, he drew one copy from the detection-type papers. These ten sets of papers, during his compilation process, didn't consider sequence issues, nor did they need to be completed entirely; the reactions adopted during selection and answering were already included in the specific questions of each paper.
One set of papers had at least two hundred questions, at most four hundred. The huge volume of questions was itself a test for the spirit; completing them or being unable to complete them, which questions were done, all held meaning.
The judgment process of detection and the specific correction process were very complex, not something that could be completed in a few hours. However, making some rough preliminary adjustments, approximate results could be obtained within an hour – this was Ma En's anticipation during compilation, but it was the first time applying it specifically; the outcome needed this personal experience to be confirmed.
Ma En spent half an hour completing the detection questionnaire, spent half an hour making self-judgments and selecting the self-correction questionnaire paper, then spent another hour completing this set of self-correction papers. Then, he stopped writing.
The process of correcting psychology and constructing the defense line didn't end there. Next, he still needed to solve several difficult math problems to ensure his own logical thinking ability was in its most active state, in order to complete the remaining work. But at this time, he felt incomparably clearly that he must eat before he could complete that final, highly consuming work.
In Ma En's research, from detection to correction to construction, the corresponding physiological state of the body for each stage was inconsistent. If it could be achieved, no amount of scrutiny into details would be enough, but limited by the environment, it was certainly impossible to achieve perfection.
Ma En did not demand perfection. If the body sent strong signals, ignoring them would only make him suffer more hardships.
Thus, he tidied his clothes in front of the mirror, pulled out the large black umbrella, preparing to go out. Just at this moment, a knocking sound came from outside the door. This sound seemed so sudden to his ears, revealing strangeness; the sound seemed to slither like a snake, rather than spreading out, not muffled like usual through a door. The slender and strange sound drilled into the house through the cracks, scurrying on the walls, seemingly having a clear and vivid trajectory. He followed this trajectory backwards with his gaze, only to see something seemingly outside the side window – like a mass of shadow, but unable to discern the outline of what object it was. That shadow was also floating, making one feel it was a living thing.
As Ma En watched, the shadow quietly seeped in through the glass, crawling on the floor. At this time, the sound that should have been knocking on the door instead seemed to be emitted by this shadow crawling on the floor – in Ma En's view, this didn't seem like an actual situation, but more like an illusion, a psychological effect. He didn't feel the slightest hint of "panic" in his calm emotions.
He just watched over there, standing still like this, watching, and then, that patch of shadow and sound seemed to fade from its strange colors, becoming commonplace things, just the reflections of the room's furnishings. Light flickered on the glass; that too was the city lights. The knocking sound came again, normal this time.
Why not ring the doorbell? Ma En thought.
He transferred the large black umbrella in his left hand to his right, tightened his grip, and disengaged the safety valve. Although wondering if his reaction was a bit excessive, the situations experienced these days were all like a warning, forcing him to be somewhat careful. His spirit suddenly tensed up; he only felt a cold current rise from his tailbone, somewhat different from the state where he could calmly watch the scene resembling hallucination and illusion earlier. However, he couldn't specify exactly what was different. This feeling was somewhat similar to the atmosphere he felt after obtaining "Seven Revolutions Cave Profound Secret Record," on the streets at night, on the hazy, pitch-black stairs.
The associations triggered by these feelings only flashed through Ma En's mind. He paused by the door for a second, then looked through the peephole. Outside the peephole was an empty corridor; the curved mirror image seemed to transform the scenery into a foreign land. He had looked outside through the peephole many times in the past, but absolutely never had the hair-raising feeling like this time. Of course, Ma En still couldn't be certain if something really existed outside; he would also think, could it be just him scaring himself.
On the empty corridor, there really wasn't a single figure, not a single living thing, nor could he sense the aura of anyone approaching or having passed by.
Precisely because there was nothing, it appeared even more eerie. Who was knocking on the door earlier? Ma En didn't hear the footsteps of anyone fleeing after knocking. Could a person silently hide from the peephole's viewing range in one second? He still had confidence in the acuity of his own senses, and had also done prior investigation of the environmental details inside and outside the door. The most likely situation now: one, that person was truly highly skilled; two, that really wasn't human.
Ma En felt either answer was enough to give him a shock, but at the same time, he actually hoped more for the second possibility.
The door was knocked on again. Ma En kept staring through the peephole, still unable to see anything approaching the door. He was also very certain it was definitely his own door being knocked on.
He waited a moment longer. Suddenly, the view outside the peephole turned pitch black. Ma En only felt his vision blur for a moment, then felt something was blocking the peephole. He didn't even blink, just stared intently. In the next instant, the outline of something flashed into view.
It met Ma En's gaze.
It was another eye, filled with bloodshot veins. The whites of the eye were so extensive they seemed abnormal, and the faintly glowing pupil made Ma En feel it reflected his own back – him, separated by a door, peeping outside through the peephole – as if this eye was currently peeping at him from behind his own back.
Ma En didn't flinch, nor did he turn his head. He could still feel that the eye was not behind him, but just outside the door. If he turned his head, something else bad would happen. Although just intuition, the current situation couldn't be explained temporarily, nor could he rashly say this truly wasn't his own hallucination. In the absence of any evidence, the only thing he could trust was his own intuition.
The intuition endowed by his innate sensitivity and years of acquired training.
This intuition didn't demonstrate outstanding accuracy when judging actual people and events, but for things that could be explained by logic and knowledge, proceeding directly through logic was the proper course. Ma En's training in intuition was fundamentally for facing those peculiar things beyond his imagination and understanding.
Now was the time to test whether so many years of supposition and training had borne fruit.
Ma En didn't yield an inch, meeting the gaze of the eye outside the peephole. His slightly turbulent inner heart was forcibly cooled down, subsequently, more joy emerged from the chilling fear.
Catch it!
This thought exploded in Ma En's mind like a bomb. He abruptly reached out his left hand, with movements as covert and swift as possible, grabbing the doorknob. However, the change in that eye made Ma En feel even more that this thing – whatever it was – was more sensitive: in the pupil, his own reflection disappeared; immediately after, the pupil also disappeared, leaving only the bloodshot white of the eye; the next instant, the white of the eye also vanished, leaving only pitch blackness and emptiness.
Ma En abandoned using his hand, kicking the door open with one foot, intending to strike that thing with the door panel. However, he felt absolutely no abnormal impact force, as if after the door was kicked open, it only hit a mass of air.
Outside the wide-open door, there was nothing abnormal, just an empty corridor.
— Disappeared?
Ma En slightly lowered his eyelids, stepped slowly out the door, examining the surrounding things. The lighting was normal, colors were normal, materials were normal. The elevator not far away hadn't closed its doors yet; someone in a skirt was leaning against the doorframe, body somewhat limp and sliding down, seemingly frightened. When Ma En cast his gaze over, this person let out a thin, but not loud, scream – as if the sound was suppressed in the throat, only letting out a tiny bit.
Ma En recognized her; it was the neighbor from unit number six, the office lady named Hirota Masami. She was badly frightened, however, Ma En didn't think she saw the thing he saw earlier – he had already figured, perhaps she was frightened by the sudden commotion he made.
The fact was indeed so.
One minute ago, Hirota Masami dragged her tired body and pressed the elevator floor button. When the elevator doors opened at her destination, she still had vacant eyes, walking out like sleepwalking. But the next moment, a door in the corridor slammed open with a "dong" sound. There had never been such a loud situation here before, nor had she ever seen anyone open a door like this. Hirota Masami only felt her head go blank for a moment, the nerves throughout her body stiffening. By the time she realized it, she was already weakly leaning against the elevator doorframe.
She had been frightened more than once in the past, but absolutely never like this time.
Hirota Masami shivered, and when she snapped back to awareness, she saw a figure "drifting" out from behind that wide-open door – compared to "walking," she felt "drifting" better matched her feeling. That figure was like a ghost; after the abrupt sound, on the corridor that seemed exceptionally silent, the figure drifted out without any mundane aura (煙火色 - smoke and fire color, i.e., signs of ordinary life).
Dark gray coat, dark red tie; these two clashing colors occupied most of the first impression, the remainder being a large black umbrella. Although she felt it should be the outline of a person, let alone the person themselves, seeing it so suddenly like this, it fundamentally looked like only clothes and a black umbrella floating in mid-air.
Pausing again, Hirota Masami realized the other party had already turned their head towards her. When that sharp gaze glanced her way, she only felt the blood vessels throughout her body cool down. She absolutely couldn't describe her feeling; it definitely couldn't be entirely summarized by mere trepidation or fear. That silhouette: hair, face shape, straight body outline... all parts belonging to a human body, plus that attire, clearly all lines were normal, but the light and shadow seemed to be highlighting an inhuman temperament.
"Hirota-san?" She heard a voice addressing her. This voice was clearly human, yet also seemed to have a faint abnormality, making her afraid to answer.