Chapter 1 The Dog

Seeing Gong Dalong's two-faced attitude, Jia Wenjun didn't bother to look at him. She opened WeChat and contacted Anna, asking how she had slept the night before and if she needed her to come over and check on her.

Anna hadn't dared to return to 601 last night. Fortunately, she had another apartment in the complex. After giving her statement to the police, she went straight to the other apartment.

When Anna received Jia Wenjun's WeChat message, she had just woken up. She immediately made a video call to Jia Wenjun.

"Xiao Jia, I'm fine. That, doesn't your property company have a service for selling second-hand apartments? Can you help me list 601 for sale? I don't want to go back there anymore. It's too creepy."

Jia Wenjun paused and replied, "Okay, Sister Anna, I'll list the apartment information for you later. There's also the matter of the sea fishing this weekend..."

Before she could finish speaking, Anna interrupted, "Right, right, I was just about to mention that. We definitely have to go sea fishing, don't cancel it. But this weekend might not work. The police station might need me to cooperate with them these few days. Tell your manager to postpone it further, and I'll let you know when I'm done here."

After experiencing such a "bloody disaster," Anna couldn't wait to go out to sea to "change her luck," but she was tied up with various matters and couldn't leave even if she wanted to.

Jia Wenjun hung up the phone and saw that Gong Dalong was talking to Lili, so she didn't rush over to tell him about it. Instead, she went to the restroom first.

A roomful of people in the property office were cleaning up the things on the floor. Several female colleagues outside were gathered together, gossiping, "I think that woman surnamed Zhao is quite crazy. I don't know what Jia Wenjun's ex-boyfriend was thinking, how could he cheat on her with such a woman?"

"Men all like young and beautiful women. Jia Wenjun is almost thirty, how can she compare to that young mistress who seems like she's dripping with water?"

"Seriously, Jia Wenjun is really patient. I would have left long ago, out of sight, out of mind."

Jia Wenjun heard everything in the restroom. She washed her face and looked at herself in the mirror. It wasn't that she didn't want to leave, but she was used to planning things out. Next year, as long as she passed the exam, she would leave this place without looking back. Besides, they were the ones who did wrong, why should she sell her apartment and resign to avoid them?

In the blink of an eye, a week passed. This type of one-apartment-per-floor unit like 601, which was originally highly sought after, couldn't be sold even with Anna lowering the price by 300,000 yuan. The overall housing prices in the complex were also affected by the suicide incident.

The homeowners vented their anger on the property management company, cursing and complaining in the group chat. Jia Wenjun was especially tired this week. She had handled several cases of homeowners deliberately finding fault, and only then did she return home exhausted after work.

When she got home, a golden retriever came up to greet her, rubbing its nose on Jia Wenjun's head and knees.

Jia Wenjun reached out and touched the silly and cute golden retriever, "Are you hungry? I'm hungry too, let's eat."

The dog's previous owner was the girl who jumped off the building. The girl's stepmother thought it was bad luck and drove the dog out of the house. The other dog owners in the complex didn't dare to take it in either. The golden retriever was treated like a stray dog in the complex, scavenging for garbage. Jia Wenjun felt sorry for it and fed it a few times in the complex. It started following Jia Wenjun around all day, looking pitiful.

Gong Dalong wanted to call the dog catchers to take the dog away, but Jia Wenjun couldn't bear it in the end. She took the dog, which was already skin and bones from hunger, back to her own home, and even gave it a new name, Dahuang.

After preparing the meal, the human and the dog ate dinner. Jia Wenjun then led it for a walk in the complex.

When passing by the guardhouse, the Bai Ma Shan father and son who lived across the hall happened to be returning and greeted Jia Wenjun.

Dahuang was especially enthusiastic towards the two of them, constantly jumping on them.

Bai Ma Shan's son, Bai Xun, took two steps back. The man stood in front, squatted down to tease the dog, "Sit down, hey, that's right."

"Did I scare you? I was also scared by it when I first saw it, and I'm only slowly getting used to it now," Jia Wenjun said apologetically to the boy.

"I wasn't scared." Bai Xun was almost up to his father's chin in height, thin, and a little shy.

"He's a little allergic to dog fur," Bai Ma Shan explained to Jia Wenjun, while taking out a sausage from the supermarket plastic bag to give to Dahuang, "Here, for you."

"Brother Bai, I already fed it at home just now, don't spoil its appetite," Jia Wenjun said with a smile.

"That's true. Taking it in is also doing a good deed. If the dog has any problems in the future, just send it to me, and I'll treat it for free."

"Then thank you so much, Brother Bai." Jia Wenjun had a good impression of this neighbor surnamed Bai. He ran a pet hospital next to the complex, knew about animals, and had a lot of love for pets. He often rescued stray cats and dogs, and provided free clinics for the pets in the complex. He was a kind person.

After exchanging greetings, they went their separate ways. After walking around, Jia Wenjun went to take a shower, and the dog lay on the floor in the living room.

Jia Wenjun had just lathered up in the bathroom when she heard rustling sounds outside the bathroom.

This sound had never been heard in Jia Wenjun's house before. She, who was used to living alone, panicked for a moment. After calming down, she quickly wrapped herself in a towel and quickly picked up the phone beside her.

Because she lived alone, her phone was always with her, even when she took a shower, so she could make an emergency call immediately if anything happened.

"Oh, wait, there's a dog in the house. That sound must be coming from the dog," Jia Wenjun thought, instantly relieved. Although she had been raising it for a while, she still hadn't gotten used to having another living creature in the house.

If someone really came in, the dog would definitely bark.

Since the dog wasn't barking, the sound must be coming from the dog itself.

After analyzing it herself, Jia Wenjun felt it was a false alarm. She quickly rinsed off the foam on her body, put on her clothes, and came out. Sure enough, she saw Dahuang scratching hard at the front door, its paws making a creaking sound.

"What are you doing?"

Seeing Dahuang supporting itself on the floor with its hind legs, its front legs resting on the door, and scratching the handle on the door with its paws, Jia Wenjun shouted at the dog.

Seeing Jia Wenjun come out, the dog stopped moving.

"I'm asking you, what are you doing!" Jia Wenjun quickly went over and gave the dog a head slap.

Dahuang squinted and backed away, spitting out Jia Wenjun's set of keys from its mouth.

"You've gotten skilled, you want to take the keys and open the door yourself to go out, and then open the door yourself to come in?" Jia Wenjun was both angry and amused. She scolded the dog a few times and quickly picked up the keys from the ground to let it go back to its kennel.

The dog turned its face towards the door in grievance. For some reason, it suddenly jumped up again and pounced on the door again, its strong front hooves frantically pressing on the doorknob. If Jia Wenjun hadn't locked the door from the inside, it would have been opened long ago.

"Give me a break." Jia Wenjun pulled the dog back by its collar. When the dog's paws left the door panel, Jia Wenjun clearly heard movement outside the door.

Given the sensitivity of a woman living alone, she lightened her movements and slowly turned the peephole, seeing a patch of darkness outside.

The corridor light outside didn't know when it had broken. Wenjun thought to herself that she had to get an electrician to come and fix it tomorrow. As she was thinking while looking at the dark peephole, she suddenly felt something blinking in the darkness at the end of the peephole.

It took Jia Wenjun two seconds to realize that the darkness she had been seeing was actually the other person's eyes. The flash just now was the other person blinking.

Her scalp went numb, and she immediately closed the peephole.

At this time, the person outside was standing just one door away from her. The two of them were confronting each other through the door.

Wenjun didn't dare to breathe loudly. She didn't know how to describe her mood at the moment, and the hand holding the phone was shaking. She hurriedly called the security captain on duty tonight, asking them to immediately patrol her building, saying that there were suspicious people here.

She deliberately spoke loudly, afraid that the other person wouldn't hear her.

After making the call, she went to drag the cabinet next to the door to block the door, then went to close the small window in the bathroom facing the corridor, rushed to the kitchen to take a kitchen knife in her hand, and then calmed herself down.

Ten minutes later, the security guard called her and said that they had patrolled her building and found no suspicious people.

Jia Wenjun was still not at ease, "When you go back, please help me check the surveillance of this building to see who has entered and exited during this time."

"Okay, Sister Jia, don't worry, we'll send more people to patrol this building tonight."

After hanging up the phone, Jia Wenjun instantly softened and fell onto the sofa, but she didn't really relax. After all, the fright just now was too frightening, and this shadow couldn't be dispelled for a while.

She thought of the scene just now and looked at Dahuang, "No wonder it was so anxious, it turned out it knew there was something going on outside."

After she finished speaking, she suddenly thought of something, and her brows furrowed, "That's not right, the dog was holding my keys in its mouth at the time, it... couldn't be trying to hand the keys to the person at the door, right?"

This idea gave Jia Wenjun goosebumps. She sat blankly on the sofa, looking at the dog, which had already quieted down and was staring at her intently. The more she looked at the dog, the creepier she felt.

She had a blank mind all night, her hands and feet were cold, and she couldn't sleep at all.

Lying in bed, tossing and turning, Jia Wenjun felt more and more that something was wrong.

She remembered when she went to 1501 before the explosion. There was clearly no one in the house, so who opened the door for the golden retriever? Could it be that the dog opened it himself?

But the dog had been here for a while, and she hadn't seen it do this before? Why was it so abnormal last night? Could it be because of the person outside the door?

It knew the person outside the door, so it wanted to take the keys out to give to him?

Jia Wenjun shuddered, wanting to drive the dog out but not having the heart to, after all, this was just her own speculation. A dog's thinking is different from a person's. It was ridiculous to use human thinking to speculate about a dog's behavior.

It seemed that she had to go buy a dog cage tomorrow. She would lock Dahuang in when she wasn't in the living room, and that should be fine.