Chapter 3

Chapter 3

During the day, the West Staircase indeed had only ten steps.

During my lunch break, I pretended to take a call and slipped away to the fire escape between the fifteenth and fourteenth floors. I walked the flight three times. The height of each step was consistent, the width of the landing was normal, the walls were freshly painted, and there wasn’t so much as an extra crack.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes last night, I would have suspected I was hallucinating.

But as I stood by the landing, I finally noticed something off.

The metal nosing on the bottom step was newer than the others. There was a very thin, curved scratch on the baseboard near the wall, as if something frequently opened and closed against it, rubbing it raw.

I took a photo and went to find Pan Linchuan from the Property Engineering Department. He had helped us fix the printer before, so we were on familiar terms.

I handed him the photo and asked if it looked like normal wear and tear.

Pan Linchuan took one look, his expression shifting subtly. “Why were you taking pictures of the West Staircase?”

“I suspect something’s loose there. I’m afraid someone might fall.”

He fell silent for two seconds before pulling up an old blueprint on his computer for me to see. “Before this building was renovated, there was a low-voltage maintenance cavity beneath the West Staircase landing. Later, to pass fire safety inspections, the entrance to the cavity was sealed off, leaving only a flip-down step so the engineering department could get inside.”

“A flip-down step?”

“It’s usually tucked away, so you can’t see it. When it’s lowered, it looks like an extra step.” He pointed to a thin line on the blueprint. “But the keys are all held by property management now. Ordinary people can’t touch it.”

I stared at the blueprint, my fingertips turning cold.

Han Zeqian’s position last night was exactly where he could have reached that flip-down step.

“Was this maintenance cavity here five years ago?” I asked.

Pan Linchuan looked up at me, his eyes clearly darting away. “Why are you asking?”

“I want to know about that old case in the building.”

The office went dead silent.

After a moment, he pulled the blueprint back and said in a low voice, “The person who died five years ago was a janitor named Chen Wanhe. The official report said she fell to her death at night. The West Staircase surveillance happened to be broken that night, so nothing was captured. Later, to attract tenants, no one mentioned it again.”

“Why was the surveillance broken?”

“The maintenance log says it was a circuit failure.” He paused. “The person who signed off on it was Han Zeqian.”

It felt as if something heavy had slammed into my chest.

Five years ago, I had just started my internship at this company. That day, I had also been revising a proposal until midnight. When I rushed out of the building with my laptop bag, I had indeed heard a woman’s voice at the entrance to the West Staircase.

“Give me back my phone!”

At the time, I thought it was a couple’s quarrel. I didn’t dare look back, and I didn’t stop.

The next day, the company group chat sent out a notice saying there had been a construction accident during the night, instructing all employees not to spread rumors or externalize the news.

I had signed the confidentiality agreement.

At four in the afternoon, I received a text message from an unknown number.

“If you count to eleven again tonight, do not look back.”

There was no signature.

But I knew that someone else in this building was also watching those stairs.