Chapter 103
Chapter 103
Cheng Miao did not want more than a dozen people swarming the same place in search of clues. They would alert their enemies and make it impossible to settle down and think.
There had to be other secrets waiting for them in the building. She had already told everyone about the Landlord’s series of strange actions, so the players split up to search for clues on their own.
Cheng Miao noticed that because Gu Jian kept targeting her, Su Yang, who looked too honest and good-natured to confront anyone openly, had begun avoiding Gu Jian.
When the teams divided, he paired up with Mohawk and took the elevator away.
Gu Jian watched with a half smile as Su Yang avoided him like the plague. Once the man was gone, he stretched and muttered, “I’m exhausted. Think I’ll find somewhere to sleep.”
Baili Qianqiu said nothing. No one knew where he planned to go, and he headed toward the stairs alone.
Sun Jiao was still distraught over Fan Tiantian’s death. Old Zhao’s group could not bear to leave her like that, so they brought her along to look after her.
Cheng Miao also planned to walk the stairs and inspect every floor.
The moment she rose, however, Little Red dragged Little Green over. The pair stuck close to Lin Zhu like two stubborn pieces of gum and followed them.
Lin Zhu looked back at the two women in confusion. “Why are you following us?”
Little Green gave an awkward smile but said nothing. Little Red shook off her hand in exasperation, then cast Cheng Miao a pointed look. “Are we not allowed to go to the same place? We want to search the stairwell for clues too!”
Cheng Miao ignored her barbed tone. Lin Zhu followed her lead and said nothing more as the group entered the stairwell.
The apartment building was old. The walls were mottled and stained with water that trickled down from above in thin, scattered trails.
Unlike the bright motion-activated lights in the residential hallways, the bulbs in the stairwell gave off a dim yellow glow. Each was coated in a thick layer of dead insects, reducing visibility even further.
The lights went out every few steps. Little Red and Little Green kept shrieking at the slightest thing, so they never stayed dark for long.
They found nothing unusual in the stairwell. Cheng Miao and the others slowly climbed upward. When they reached the fifth floor, Qi Jiajia sniffed the air.
“I smell blood.”
Cheng Miao and the others stopped at once, and she drew the Fishbone Dagger.
Standing in the middle of the group, Lin Zhu sniffed around too. “Really? Why can’t I smell anything?”
Qi Jiajia gave him a disdainful look. “Of course you can’t. How many times have you smelled blood before?”
Lin Zhu thought about it and realized she had a point. He gave her an ingratiating smile.
Neither Cheng Miao nor Qin Musong could smell it, but no one among them was more sensitive to blood than Qi Jiajia. Cheng Miao did not doubt her judgment. Lowering her voice as though afraid of alerting something, she said, “Let’s keep going up.”
By the time they reached the sixth floor, Qi Jiajia was frowning even more deeply. “The smell is stronger here.”
Cheng Miao looked around in the dim light. “Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
Qi Jiajia turned in a circle. “It’s on the floor and the walls. The scent on the floor is fainter.”
Cheng Miao fell silent. She crouched to examine the wall. Starting on the fifth floor, the walls had been cleaner than those below. By the sixth floor, there were obvious signs that they had been repainted.
Something bloody had happened in the stairwell on the upper floors, and someone had tried to cover it up.
Cheng Miao immediately thought of the woman from the Pregnant Woman’s question the night before, Shen Xin.
But hadn’t Shen Xin drowned? Could there have been more than one victim in this building?
They continued toward the seventh floor. Qin Musong led the way, with Cheng Miao directly behind him. The voltage in the stairwell between the sixth and seventh floors seemed unstable, and the lights flickered violently.
Cheng Miao climbed while trying to work out what could have happened there. Then, without warning, a jolt of alarm shot through her.
Something was wrong. Why hadn’t they reached the next floor yet?
Cold sweat broke out across Cheng Miao’s body as she looked up. Qin Musong was still walking with his head down. She could not tell whether he had noticed anything, and she did not dare speak rashly. All she could do was count the stairs in silence.
By the time she reached one hundred, she was still in the stairwell. The stairs between the sixth and seventh floors seemed to stretch endlessly upward, with no landing in sight.
No. She could not keep going.
Cheng Miao made a swift decision and reached for Qin Musong’s hand. At the last possible instant, her fingers stopped less than an inch away.
The person ahead of her… might not be Qin Musong.
The figure was much too slender. More importantly, at some point, long hair had appeared down its back.
Cheng Miao’s heart pounded. She bit the tip of her tongue and forced herself to remain calm. She had the lantern. She would be fine.
After steadying herself, she continued following the figure, which looked more and more like a woman with every step. She pursed her lips and called in a hoarse voice, “Shen Xin?”
The woman stopped.
Cheng Miao focused every ounce of attention on her. One hand gripped the Fishbone Dagger, while the other stayed ready to pull out the lantern at any moment.
The figure slowly turned. They were so close that Cheng Miao immediately saw a corpse-white face, swollen from soaking in water. Bruises and blood stained the flesh.
The woman’s pale lips moved. She said something.
Cheng Miao could not make it out. It sounded something like “xian… sheng.”
Before she could ask, the female ghost disappeared. Qin Musong’s anxious face replaced it.
“Miaomiao? Miaomiao!”
“Huh?” Cheng Miao came back to herself. She was not in a pitch-black stairwell, nor was she following a horribly deformed corpse. She was still in the sixth-floor stairwell.
“I said we can’t reach the seventh floor. Something is blocking the way.” Qin Musong relaxed when he saw her recover.
Cheng Miao stepped forward and tested it. Just as outside Room 601, something invisible stood between them and the way forward.
There was unquestionably something wrong with this stairwell. Cheng Miao did not linger. She wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and briefly told the others what she had experienced.
Little Red and Little Green were terrified. They clung to Lin Zhu’s clothes and refused to let go no matter what anyone said.
Qi Jiajia narrowed her eyes at the pair, a murderous glint flashing through them every so often.
Afraid Qi Jiajia might chop off their hands if they stayed any longer, Cheng Miao hurriedly led everyone out of the stairwell and into the sixth-floor hallway.
The moment they emerged, they saw Gu Jian curled up inside a niche carved into the wall beside the sixth-floor elevator.
The recess had probably been intended as a shelf for flowers or other decorations. Instead, Gu Jian, who was not particularly tall, had crammed himself into it and was sleeping like the dead.
Cheng Miao pressed her fingers to her aching brow and woke him. When Gu Jian heard about her experience, his eyes lit up. “Wow, you found so much! You must be one lucky girl.”
Cheng Miao stared at him without expression, her voice colder than ice. “My damn buff activated, that’s all.”
“What are you doing here?” Cheng Miao found it rather strange. Gu Jian never followed any recognizable logic, yet moved through instances as though he were in his element. Not once had he displayed fear or anything like it.
“No one wanted to play with me. I saw Brother Su and Big Brother Mohawk heading off to search the Landlord’s room, so I decided to wait for them outside.” Gu Jian put on a pitiful face.
“Help… help!” While they were speaking, Su Yang came tumbling toward them from the direction of Room 602. His face was tight with fear and panic.
“That guy got locked inside Room 602 somehow. The door won’t open. He… he’s screaming so horribly!”