The moment he recognized Ouyang, Li Xiu's body suddenly tensed up, as if he had accidentally discovered a snake crawling on the back of his foot while walking.
"Li Xiu, come here for a moment. The teacher has something to tell you."
In the shadows, Ouyang spoke to him in a low voice.
Li Xiu bit his lip unconsciously, took a deep breath, and then reluctantly said, "I...I have to go to class. The next class is about to start."
"Li Xiu, be obedient."
However, in the face of Li Xiu's excuses, Ouyang remained very persistent.
He raised one of his arms straight up and hooked his finger at Li Xiu.
The man's movements seemed subtly inconsistent, but at this moment, his resistance to Ouyang was like a black balloon being inflated, completely occupying Li Xiu's brain. Li Xiu was completely unable to perceive anything.
He just instinctively felt that the air conditioning in the complex building seemed to be turned on too cold, making his body stiff and his head dizzy.
"But..."
Li Xiu pursed his lips and squeezed out two syllables with difficulty. Just as he was about to put up a final fight, he suddenly felt a strong force on his arm.
It was Fang Qianan who grabbed Li Xiu in front of Ouyang.
Just at this moment, there was a "ding" sound from the elevator behind them, and the silver-white metal doors hissed and opened to both sides, revealing an empty cabin.
"Ah, here comes the elevator."
The tall boy raised his voice and shouted disrespectfully in Ouyang's direction.
Then, without giving Li Xiu any chance to react, he simply grabbed the boy's hand and walked briskly into the elevator.
"...Teacher, I'm injured and can't take care of myself. I need Li Xiu to take me there. Teacher, do you mind? Teacher, we're leaving now."
As Fang Qianan spoke, the elevator door slowly closed, completely blocking the figure of the man in the distance behind the door.
From beginning to end, the tall man named Ouyang remained in the shadows, not taking a single step forward. And in the face of Fang Qianan's blatant disrespect and attempt to snatch someone away, he didn't utter a single sound.
But in the flickering of the light, the handsome face that once made many people crazy was revealed with a cold blue color.
At the last moment before closing the door, Fang Qianan met Ouyang's gaze casually and couldn't help but frown.
Perhaps it was because of the lighting, but Ouyang's eyes looked incredibly malicious and hollow, as if he was about to rush over and eat someone. Fang Qianan, a pampered young master, had been at Qiming for so long, and he had never seen a teacher dare to look at him like that.
"Tsk, what's that look in that old man's eyes——"
Fang Qianan couldn't help but complain.
"So, when did you become so injured that you couldn't take care of yourself?"
A faint question came from his ears, and Fang Qianan immediately forgot about Ouyang and turned to look at Li Xiu who had a strange expression on his face beside him.
Li Xiu was caught off guard by Fang Qianan's move. He couldn't tell whether he was in a good or bad mood. After all, unlike a rich young master like Fang Qianan, after offending Ouyang, Li Xiu didn't know whether he could successfully obtain the school scholarship and continue to live a peaceful life.
But it is undeniable that just by daydreaming in front of Ouyang, Li Xiu's mood suddenly relaxed.
As for Fang Qianan, he was stunned at first after hearing Li Xiu's question, and then he raised his finger towards Li Xiu with confidence.
"My hand hurts," he said. "Oh, it hurts so much, I can't press the elevator button."
The 1.9-meter-tall boy spoke to Li Xiu in a weak tone.
Li Xiu: "…"
Okay.
At this time, the elevator had already started to go down on its own. Li Xiu didn't pay much attention to it, thinking that someone downstairs must have pressed the button.
Li Xiu casually pressed the "1" button on the elevator panel and stood quietly, waiting for the elevator to reach the first floor. However, the boy next to him clearly didn't intend to leave him alone. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up: "Hey, that old man seems to be quite popular in school?"
Li Xiu: "...Maybe."
Fang Qianan crossed his arms over his chest and glanced at Li Xiu, who's body had indeed tensed up again.
"Tsk, I don't understand the aesthetic taste of those little girls." After a pause, Fang Qianan looked at Li Xiu intentionally or unintentionally with his peripheral vision, and whispered as if talking to himself, "I don't think that kind of guy is that handsome either."
There was a hint of coldness in Li Xiu's eyes: "What does it have to do with you?"
"It's okay." Fang Qianan shrugged and said, "I simply don't like him. Old men like him who are still pretentious at their age are generally not good people. Well, next time if you don't want to bother with him, just say I have something to talk to you about. Anyway, no old guy in the school dares to bother me."
There was silence in the elevator car for two seconds.
Li Xiu: "Oh."
He dropped his eyes and stared at the ground, as if there was some ingenious mathematical problem on the fake marble elevator floor beneath his feet.
In fact, it was precisely because he didn't know what expression to use that Li Xiucai continued to choose to remain expressionless.
He was a little confused about Fang Qianan.
Generally speaking, people who engage in school bullying are usually a group of idiots with empty brains who can only show their empty hearts by bullying the weak.
But Fang Qianan didn't seem as clueless as he thought.
Li Xiu thought that his ability to control his emotions was pretty good, but Fang Qianan seemed to see through his resistance to Ouyang at a glance... and Fang Qianan seemed to be the first person he met in this school who clearly showed disgust towards Ouyang.
I feel complicated.
Fang Qian'an narrowed his eyes during the brief moment of Li Xiu's silence. He hadn't missed the slight change in Li Xiu's body from tensing up to relaxing unconsciously. Recalling how Li Xiu had stiffened and paled when she saw Ouyang, a strange, inexplicable emotion suddenly surged in his chest.
"Well, you can actually come to me for other things."
Fang Qianan put his hands in his pockets and said a little abruptly.
He could feel that Li Xiu seemed to look in his direction.
"I don't have anything to ask you."
Li Xiu's tone was cold.
Fang Qianan raised his eyebrows: "Hey, you——"
"Fang Qian'an." Li Xiu interrupted Fang Qian'an. The young man pointed to the numbers jumping on the elevator panel, his expression becoming serious. "...Is the elevator malfunctioning? Why haven't we reached the first floor yet?"
Fang Qianan finally came to his senses after being reminded by Li Xiuyi.
Yes, they had been standing in the elevator chatting for so long, and the elevator had been moving steadily downward. Although the complex building was a high-rise building with more than ten floors, it shouldn't have taken so long to reach the first floor without people going up and down frequently.
Fang Qianan and Li Xiu looked at the floor number on the elevator and soon found something wrong.
13th floor, 12th floor, 13th floor...
10th floor, 9th floor, 8th floor...
12th floor, 7th floor, 3rd floor...
Negative 2nd floor, 5th floor, negative 12th floor...
…
"The floors kept jumping around."
Li Xiu pointed this out.
"But doesn't the elevator keep going down?"
Fang Qianan frowned and spoke.
Yes, although the floors on the panel were messed up, from a physical sense, the elevator he and Li Xiu were in had been descending smoothly, without any of the inertia caused by the elevator getting stuck when it malfunctioned.
"Yeah." Li Xiu was pressing the elevator's emergency button.
However, no matter how he pressed the button, there was always silence on the other end of the emergency channel and no one answered.
Several minutes had passed, and the numbers on the elevator panel had long since changed to floors that a normal elevator would never reach, such as "negative 18th floor" and "negative 27th floor", but their elevator... was still descending.
"Are you kidding me?"
Li Xiu muttered, a look of panic on his face. He raised his hand and pressed all the buttons on the panel to light up - then, he saw that the originally orange-yellow button lights turned blood red at the same time.
"What's going on?"
"Wait, I'm calling—Fuck, no signal?"
Fang Qianan looked solemn, with a hint of disbelief in his eyes.
You know, in order to prevent kidnapping or other dangers, his mobile phone has been specially modified. Not to mention in the elevator, the signal should be full even in the deep mountains and forests.
But now, the expensive mobile phone in Fang Qianan's hand turned into a brick in such a small scene.
Moreover, it is very unreasonable for an elevator to have been descending for such a long time without stopping.
Fang Qianan is not a fool, he also realizes that things seem to be...weird beyond the scope of science.
"Anyway, Li Xiu, you go to the corner first. If the elevator crashes, people in the corner are more likely to survive." Fang Qianan said in a tense voice, and shuddered involuntarily as he spoke.
Is the elevator really broken? Why is it so cold here?
This thought flashed through Fang Qianan's mind quickly, but it did not stay for long.
"bite--"
Because at this moment, the elevator stopped.
*
[B13]
Negative thirteenth floor.
Before the elevators slowly opened, Li Xiu subconsciously looked up at the display screen.
The flickering red electronic light showed which floor they were on at the moment.
…of course it was the wrong floor.
After all, it's not the Chongqing subway. Their school's comprehensive building has at most three underground floors. How could they possibly dig down to minus 13?
Li Xiu felt that his mind was in a mess, with countless thoughts running through his mind.
Especially when the elevator door opened, Li Xiu's heart almost jumped out of his throat.
When the elevator door opened, all that appeared before his eyes was pitch black.
A biting chill instantly enveloped Li Xiu the moment he opened the door. He shivered and a white mist rose from his mouth and nose.
"Hey, Xiu'er."
A hand, with a hot palm, reached out and grabbed Li Xiu.
"You...you should just stay behind me. You skinny guy, you think you're the door god standing in the way of the door?"
Fang Qianan took a step forward and pulled Li Xiu to his side intentionally or unintentionally.
Because of this little gesture that was almost protective, Li Xiu's lips moved slightly, and she didn't dare to open her mouth to complain about the inexplicable name "Xiu'er".
"Where the hell is this crappy elevator parked?"
Fang Qianan raised his phone, turned on the light, and shone it into the darkness. From what the light could see, there seemed to be a corridor outside the elevator—a very dark layout similar to other floors. However, it looked like this floor was not currently in use, with no lights and no emergency exit.
Most importantly, it was as cold as a morgue.
Li Xiu raised her hand and found that the hairs on her arm stood up due to the cold.
Just as Li Xiu and Fang Qianan were standing in the elevator looking at the completely unfamiliar floor outside and looking at each other in surprise, the elevator suddenly made a sharp "creak" sound and the entire elevator car shook violently.
It felt like the entire elevator was going to collapse in the next second.
"Fuck, fuck—"
Fang Qianan cursed and dragged Li Xiu out of the elevator.
As a result, as soon as he and Li Xiu stepped out of the elevator, the elevator closed right on their heels.
"Ding-zizi-zizi-elevator-down-down-down-down-going-"
I don't know if there's something wrong with the electronic sound that reminds me to close the door, but the sound is so long that it sounds like something is wailing.
And most importantly, this elevator is still moving downwards?
But at this time, Li Xiu and Fang Qianan could not complain about such trivial matters, because once the elevator door closed, the only source of lighting they had was the mobile phones in their hands.
"What kind of crappy elevator is this?! Where does all the money donated to this shitty school every year go? It's such garbage..."
Fang Qianan stared at the lifeless elevator door and complained several times in a rough voice.
Then he turned around and said to Li Xiu, who remained silent, "Okay, let's go. Let's find the emergency exit and take the fire escape."
"...good."
Li Xiu said softly.
He felt very uncomfortable, his head and shoulders feeling heavy, as if he had been carrying a corpse without knowing it. A chill spread, making his hands and feet cold. Li Xiu always felt unwell when entering a dark, damp, and rarely visited place, and today his low-grade fever made the situation even worse.
The darkness was filled with a stale smell, the peculiar smell of a building that had been vacant for a long time, a mixture of dust and damp.
It's a bit like the smell in the Xiao family villa.
Li Xiu thought as she followed Fang Qianan and walked slowly forward.
Along the way, Fang Qian'an was trying hard to shake his phone, trying to find the emergency exit quickly. However, the long and narrow corridor seemed like an infinitely extending maze. After searching for a long time, apart from one locked door after another, they still couldn't find the fire escape stairs or the iconic green light sign near the emergency exit.
After walking for a while, perhaps the rustling footsteps in the passage were too oppressive, Fang Qianan finally couldn't hold it in any longer, coughed lightly, and spoke first.
"This place is so poorly designed."
"Um."
"They say they hired such a famous designer, but actually the building is ugly from the outside."
"Um."
"Oh, by the way, you should know, right?"
"Know what?"
"This building actually has a history," Fang Qianan said, as if forgetting the bad temper caused by the previous elevator malfunction, and a hint of excitement appeared in his tone, "Don't many people think that this building looks very strange? In fact, this is a deliberate design - from a high altitude, this building looks like a concave mirror, doesn't it? And the concave side just faces the Xiao Family Haunted House. In fact, this design is to continuously suck the wronged souls in the Xiao Family Haunted House into this building. The reason why the corridors here are designed to look so spooky is also intentional, so that once the ghosts enter here, they will never find a way out, and will wander in these corridors forever..."
Li Xiu: "Oh, then how do we dispel the evil spirit?"
Fang Qianan: "Ah? Transform, transform into what?"
The young man's faint questions in the darkness made the tall and young school bully stutter inexplicably.
Only Li Xiu's voice remained as calm as ever, without the slightest fluctuation. "According to this theory, the complex absorbs the evil spirits and ghosts from the haunted house into its own structure. So, right? For example, large fountains, waterfalls, or spiral decorations. But the complex has none of these. If it only absorbs the evil spirits and ghosts without finding a way to dissipate them, over time, the entire building will become a dangerous place. Furthermore, the ghosts that linger in this dangerous place will gradually turn into extremely fierce and fierce ghosts."
"Um... they say that this design can suppress the resentment in the Xiao family haunted house..."
There was a hint of embarrassment in Fang Qianan's dry response.
"The recent floor price for a property near the school is 97,000 yuan per square meter. While the land within the school can't be considered commercial, why would someone build a building on this kind of land, specifically to turn it into a dangerous place, right in the heart of the city?" A hint of genuine bewilderment pierced the young man's clear voice. "So, if someone really did this deliberately... what was their intention?"
Fang Qianan was completely stuck now.
After a long while, he finally heard him speak to Li Xiu in an extremely stiff voice: "You...you are not afraid of these at all?"
Li Xiu sighed helplessly.
"Fang Qianan, you bullied me so badly in school before, wasn't it because my family was a 'fraudulent shaman'?"
Fang Qianan suddenly heard Li Xiu's reminder and was not careful for a moment, so he was choked by saliva and started coughing.
"I forgot."
After a long time, I heard him speak awkwardly.
Li Xiu was behind him, lowering his eyes.
The corridor was very quiet, with only the sound of Li Xiu and Fang Qianan's footsteps. They were heard from afar, and in the empty corridor, they actually aroused a response. When it overlapped with the original footsteps, it was like...
It's like there are actually a lot of people walking here.
Gradually, Li Xiu's pace unconsciously slowed down. A sharp pain pierced her underdeveloped right ankle, a silent reminder of the humiliation she had endured due to her disability during repeated bullying.
Because of his leg problem, he couldn't even run away.
"You're actually afraid of ghosts, right?"
Li Xiu's voice suddenly became cold and indifferent rang out in the dark corridor.
In the dim light of the mobile phone, Fang Qianan seemed to stagger.
"Huh? I'm afraid of ghosts?"
The boy's voice suddenly rose high, and he asked loudly, as if Li Xiu had said something particularly funny.
However, Li Xiu ignored the boy's bluffing.
"You were nervous from the moment you walked through the elevator door," Li Xiu said calmly. "That's why you were so noisy... Every time you allowed those people to bully me in school, you'd rather play with your phone than talk."
"Hey, that's no fun—"
"You were trying to scare me just now, but when I mentioned the evil spirits, you became even more scared."
Fang Qianan felt very bad after Li Xiu completely pointed out all his thoughts.
"I'm afraid of ghosts. How could I possibly be afraid of ghosts?" Unconsciously, Fang Qianan put on the arrogant and rude mask of the Fang family's eldest son again. "Xiu'er, let's be honest. You're the one who's afraid of ghosts, right? You almost broke my hand."
Hearing this, Li Xiu's pupils shrank slightly.
Because it was too cold, Li Xiu kept his arms crossed over his chest the entire way.
He...has never touched Fang Qianan at all.
The author has something to say:
Fang Qianan: Come on, let's hurt each other hahahahaha, we have to face our fears (and then tell horror rumors desperately)
A moment later.
It's still Fang Qianan—scared like a dog.