At the same time.
Fu Hongli had just returned to her apartment and was getting ready to take a shower when a sudden knock sounded at the door.
This abrupt ringing made Fu Hongli instantly on edge.
Her apartment was a private unit with its own elevator, and the elevator required a key card to access her floor directly.
In other words, without her permission, no ordinary person could possibly reach her floor.
Yet now, someone was knocking at her door. This forced Fu Hongli to be extremely vigilant.
She walked quickly to the door, intending to look through the peephole to see what was happening outside.
The moment Fu Hongli placed her eye against the peephole, she was greeted by a crimson eye staring right back.
Caught entirely off guard, this face-to-face encounter gave Fu Hongli a severe jolt.
It drained the color from her pretty face and made her stumble back several paces.
The person outside clearly heard the movement inside, as the knocking suddenly grew more aggressive.
Fu Hongli wasn't a timid person, but in that moment, panic gripped her heart. She quickly messaged the apartment's concierge.
While waiting for the concierge to arrive, Fu Hongli grabbed a baseball bat from nearby.
She tried to look composed, but her slightly trembling hands betrayed her nervous state.
The concierge responded very quickly, arriving shortly after with two security guards in tow.
As expected of a luxury apartment complex, the six-yuan-per-square-meter property management fee was truly money well spent.
The sounds of a scuffle echoed from outside the door.
A moment later, all was completely silent.
Fu Hongli peeked through the peephole and saw the bulky man being escorted into the elevator by the concierge and the security guards.
The matter seemed to have been smoothly resolved.
Yet Fu Hongli's heart was still pounding from the shock.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have expected to encounter something like this.
After resting on the sofa for a while, Fu Hongli received a call from the concierge.
"Miss Fu, the man said he went to the wrong floor!" the concierge said respectfully.
The wrong floor?
Fu Hongli asked coldly, "Did you check his identity?"
"We did. He's a resident on the floor above you, and an owner as well. He had been drinking, and when he came back, for some reason he ended up on your floor. But he's mostly sober now and said he wants to apologize to you in person and compensate you for any losses!"
"There's no need, thank you!"
Fu Hongli hung up the phone.
She let out a heavy sigh of relief.
So it was just a mistake.
A false alarm.
Although her apartment had its own elevator and required a key card, people occasionally ended up on the wrong floor for inexplicable reasons.
An owner living downstairs had once swiped their card and the elevator had brought them straight to her floor.
However, she hadn't been home at the time, and the concierge had simply informed her about it afterward.
Fu Hongli gathered her thoughts and prepared to take her shower once more.
Suddenly, she remembered that she had installed a surveillance camera in the hallway.
Under normal circumstances, Fu Hongli rarely checked the footage.
For some unknown reason today, however, she suddenly felt like taking a look.
Fu Hongli opened the app on her phone.
To her dismay, the camera feed indicated that the device was broken.
Fortunately, the camera had captured some footage before malfunctioning.
Fu Hongli skimmed through it briefly. Thankfully, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Just as she was about to close the app, a scene appeared on screen that made her blood run cold and her entire body stiffen.
The video had been recorded around two o'clock in the morning last night.
In the footage, the fire door in her hallway suddenly swung open.
A bulky man sneaked onto her floor.
He was wearing a hat, obscuring his face.
That wasn't what mattered, though. What mattered was that he crept stealthily right under the surveillance camera.
The spot was in a blind spot of the camera, and God knows what he did, but the surveillance feed went completely black.
This sight filled Fu Hongli with a deep sense of dread.
A woman's intuition told her that what had happened earlier was definitely not a simple mistake.
The moment this realization hit her, Fu Hongli's heart began to race.
Just then, the ringtone of a phone suddenly broke the silence of the living room.
The abrupt sound made Fu Hongli let out a startled scream.
Instinctively, she hurled her phone away as if it were a bomb rather than a mobile device.
The phone continued to ring incessantly.
Instinctively, Fu Hongli glanced at the caller ID and saw an unfamiliar number.
Naturally, she had no intention of answering calls from strangers, so she quickly hung up.
The world fell quiet once more.
The very next second, however, her phone chimed with a text message notification.
"Hey beauty, you're so gorgeous. I really like you. I want to sleep with you. Open the door for me tonight, okay? Hehe!"
The message made Fu Hongli's skin crawl and her heart hammer against her ribs.
She quickly blocked the number and deleted the message.
Even after doing all this, however, a profound sense of panic lingered in her chest.
To be honest, the thought of fleeing this apartment began to take root in her mind.
It wasn't as though Fu Hongli had never been harassed before, but she had never encountered a pervert quite like this.
Even through the screen, Fu Hongli could vividly imagine the man's sinister and terrifying grin at that very moment.
Soon, however, Fu Hongli dismissed the idea of moving.
First of all, this apartment complex was the highest-end and most secure one near the university. Second, moving required a tremendous amount of time, and it would place her far away from campus. Finally, Fu Hongli knew that some problems couldn't be solved simply by running away.
So what should she do? Should she just let that pervert lurk in the dark shadows, constantly spying on her and harassing her?
At that moment, a wave of grievance washed over Fu Hongli.
She thought of the person far away overseas, longing to call them and pour out her present panic and helplessness.
Yet Fu Hongli knew very well that at this hour, that person was at their busiest.
Never had Fu Hongli felt so utterly alone as she did now, and she felt aggrieved enough to cry.
Suddenly, Lin Yang's face flashed across her mind.
For some inexplicable reason, Fu Hongli wanted to call Lin Yang and have him protect her.
Moreover, this urge grew stronger and stronger.
Still, Fu Hongli hesitated to send Lin Yang a message because she felt she didn't know him well enough to tell whether he was a good person or a bad one.
Although she felt Lin Yang was merely a bit greedy and fond of money, and didn't seem like a bad guy at heart, the world was full of wolves in sheep's clothing.
Besides, if Lin Yang came over, he would inevitably end up staying with her, which would certainly cause all sorts of inconveniences.
As she was pondering this, Fu Hongli's phone chimed with another message.
It was still sent from an unfamiliar number.
"Beauty, why did you block me? Hehe, I'm out buying something. Care to guess what I'm buying? You're so wild, I'm sure you can guess!"
Disgusted to her core by the message, Fu Hongli's lingering hesitation vanished instantly.
She immediately opened WeChat and began messaging Lin Yang.
The message was very simple, containing only an address and a single sentence.
"Come here!"