Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
“Zheng, look at these two parts.”
I slowly climbed up the stairs. The light of the torch was a dim yellow…
Lao Zhang nodded and took a few steps down the stairs. I could still see the dim yellow light of his torch in the distance…
“Have you seen through Lao Mao’s little trick? The torch was dim because it was running out of power. Lao Mao knew that the power of the torch he was using was almost exhausted, so he secretly swapped his own torch with Lao Zhang’s.” Lu Xia’s tone was firm.
“As a result the battery ran out when Lao Zhang was patrolling and he couldn’t see anything on the second floor…” Sun Zheng added. He was starting to be persuaded by Lu Xia’s deduction.
“As for Lao Zhang… as shown in this record, he is timid, so he didn’t dare to go down to the first floor. He immediately ran back up in a panic when he reached the second floor—this fits with the pattern of the footsteps we just heard—and this also explains why the nurses on the first floor didn’t see him. He just made up an excuse to hide his cowardice.”
“By then, Mao Zhonggui had already taken the elevator back to the fourth floor and was pretending to be waiting for Lao Zhang?” Sun Zheng finished the rest of Lu Xia’s sentence.
So when Sun Zheng heard the “ding” sound coming from the depths of the darkness—
“Yes! Although his plan seemed simple and seamless, but… Lao Mao is someone who is greedy for money and never cautious enough. There were a lot of unexplained loopholes left in the record. His original intention of penning this record was to cover up his theft with a supernatural mystery, but—”
Lu Xia laughed mid-sentence. “He shouldn’t have kept a certain something.”
“What?” Sun Zheng questioned.
“He took the pure gold out from the mouth of the corpse, but there was still a ball of hair wrapped around it. Because he was afraid that others would find it on him, he tossed the hair into the elevator shaft under the crack of the elevator. Unfortunately for him, that same ball of hair jammed up in the elevator doors the next day.”
“But where did Lao Zhang disappear to then? And what about the marks on Lao Mao’s eyes?”
“Because Lao Mao touched the corpse and might have triggered something ominous, Lao Zhang might have been implicated and was dragged into the chasm as a result. Of course, Lao Mao didn’t know about the existence of the chasm, but he might have also been afflicted with some kind of curse in return.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
No one knew where Lao Zhang disappeared to.
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The corpse had no hair. His eyes were covered with a black cloth, his face pale and stern.
The night watchman pried open the corpse’s mouth, and the already rigid and cold jaw seemingly rattled under the force.
His fingers brushed against the corpse’s dry tongue and brittle teeth, and he pulled out the lump in his mouth.
A mass of hair wrapped around a lump of pure gold.
He squeezed it tightly in his hand and left the morgue.
Behind him, the corpse lay silent in the darkness with its mouth gaping open.
And under the black cloth, lay an unknown secret…
*
“What should we do next?” Sun Zheng finally asked after a long moment of silence.
Lu Xia scratched his head. “I don’t know. Do you think Lao Mao and Lao Zhang will come back?”
Sun Zheng nodded subconsciously first, then quickly shook his head, before directing a displeased glare at Lu Xia. “Regardless, we still have to go downstairs. At least for now, we can still ‘follow Lao Zhang down’.”
Lu Xia shot him a look of agreement while making a gesture of fanning the wind by his ear.
Sun Zheng stared at Lu Xia’s gesture and continued speaking. “Let’s go down to the third floor. If,” he paused reluctantly. “If we don’t want to ‘run into Lao Zhang and Lao Mao’, we can detour around the elevator and go to the stairwell on the other end of the corridor… And over there, there’s also…”
“Also what?” Seeing his hesitant expression, Lu Xia leaned over and peered at Sun Zheng curiously.
“Over there…there is a men’s washroom…”
“Hahahaha!” Lu Xia clapped his hands together in amusement.
Sun Zheng glared menacingly at him. “All humans have three urgencies. Is needing to use the toilet very funny?”
Lu Xia fanned himself again, shaking his head vigorously. “No no no. I’m just thinking about how you still want to go to the toilet under such circumstances; your courage is commendable, your courage is really commendable!”
Sun Zheng squinted at him. “Why not? What is there to be afraid of?”
“Toilets, well, they are dark and damp, and usually located at the end of each floor. That is the sort of place where yin energy gathers, and is most likely to attract all sorts of things. This is especially so for the women’s washroom, but even if it’s the gents, we cannot afford to take the risk.”
“Nice joke.” Sun Zheng pursed his lips. “Stop spouting nonsense.”
Lu Xia raised his eyebrows. “Can’t you just relieve yourself here? It must be pretty urgent, right?”
“It’s not urgent.” Sun Zheng averted his gaze and replied as calmly as he could.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We’re both men. Unless, you’re afraid of me? Besides, it’s impossible for anyone else to come into this dimension, so no one will mind.” Lu Xia’s expression and tone appeared concerned and sincere.
Sun Zheng didn’t turn around, nor did he answer. Lu Xia was unable to read the expression on his face, but he could see his friend’s back steadily stiffening.
Lu Xia then added with a smile in his voice, “It’s not good to hold it in for a long time, Zheng.”
Sun Zheng sprung up from his seat. He directed a glare at Lu Xia before reluctantly striding off to the far corner of the room.
“Who said I’m embarrassed,” he mumbled in the corner while unzipping his trousers.
Lu Xia grinned at Sun Zheng as he walked over, subconsciously wiped the sweat from his forehead.
After finishing his business, Sun Zheng turned around with a constipated expression. He was about to speak, but was so surprised by Lu Xia that he inadvertently yelled instead, “Why did you take off your clothes?!”
Raising the coat in his hand, Lu Xia cried aggrievedly, “I feel very hot!”
Having heard this, Sun Zheng also started feeling that the surrounding temperature was a little unusual. He realised belatedly that fine beads of sweat had already soaked his temples.
Lu Xia seemed to have noticed something too. He hurriedly pointed at the area where Sun Zheng had relieved himself and asked with a frown, “What’s that?”
Sun Zheng thought Lu Xia was making fun of him and was about to retort, but he froze in place the very moment he turned over his shoulder.
The paper pasted on the spot was soaked. One of the corners had fallen off, exposing the dark wall behind it.
Lu Xia quickly aimed the flashlight at the wall. The two glanced at each other.
Why is the wall black?
Blackened, as if burned.
Lu Xia immediately sprung to his feet and hastily tore off the papers on the wall behind him, revealing a soot-covered wall.
“It’s over.” He sat down as if paralyzed. “There must have been a mistake somewhere.”
“What?” Sun Zheng was puzzled.
“This is not the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine we are looking for. This is… This is the room where the fire broke out in 2000… It has been abandoned for many years, and all these drawings were pinned up just to cover up the traces of the fire…”
Sun Zheng: Why did you take off your clothes?!
Lu Xia: I feel very hot!
Random ghost outside the room: ………………am I interrupting something………..
Oh my! Thank you👻
Let’s hope they can run away fast enough 😱
Thank you for the update!
I mean… In front of my salad?
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