Room 402 bore strange marks of a fire.
The ceiling and walls were blackened by smoke, but the other furniture remained untouched.
The room was dimly lit, and the large window facing the street was blocked by a concrete wall. Most people didn't seem surprised by this, except for Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen, who were clearly horrified and bewildered by the strange concrete wall.
On the large bed in the inner room, two-thirds of the bedding was burned to ashes, while the remaining third was intact.
Wei Dong, pale-faced, stood beside Ke Xun: "How...how did this fire start? Did the bedding spontaneously combust? This is too eerie."
Mu Yiran glanced at the half-burnt candle on the nearby table and also found the situation suspicious.
Everyone quickly noticed the strange phenomenon. Zhishao picked up the half-burnt candle from the small teacup, which was already filled with solidified wax. "This… this candle isn't the source of the fire?"
Qin Ci looked up at the blackened ceiling and walls. "Judging from the walls, the fire last night must have been quite large, even spreading to the outer room."
—"No, these walls have always been black." It was Xinmiao, who had just appeared at the door, with Sha Liu standing beside him.
"Always black?" Qin Ci asked, puzzled.
Xinmiao, however, was certain. "The three of us… the three of us opened the door to look at the house yesterday evening, and it was black. Later, we even went downstairs to find the doorman, but he said the house couldn't be changed, take it or leave it… he wouldn't let us out the door."
"Besides the black walls, is there anything else strange?" Mu Yiran asked.
Xinmiao maintained a forced calm. After Shaliu's persuasion, her instinct for survival finally overcame her fear. Now, she only wanted to cooperate with everyone to find shelter: "We just looked around the house briefly, and then went downstairs to eat at the small restaurant..." Xinmiao looked at the room in front of her again, and when she saw the bed, which was mostly charred black, she couldn't help but shudder. "The two of them are braver than me. They kept thinking that last night we had traveled through time, and they adapted better than me."
"We went back to the room after we turned off the lights and played some mobile games. Later... the two of them went to the toilet, and when they came back, things got bad..." Xinmiao recalled the scene from yesterday.
Sha Liu asked from the side, "What's wrong?"
"They came back and said there was a ghost face outside the public restroom window… Because Tina loves to play pranks and scare people, and she often tells ghost stories, and I'm easily frightened, I thought they were just trying to scare me," Xin Miao said, sobbing again. "They said this place is uninhabitable, they're going to go find you guys to discuss it, and then we'll all go find that old doorman…"
"I was skeptical, and I was really scared. It was dark outside, so I didn't dare go out at all! None of the three of us remembered which room you all lived in, we just vaguely remembered that the other two women seemed to live in 410…"
So last night they knocked on the door of 410, and when they didn't get a response, perhaps out of fear, they had no choice but to leave, planning to spend the night there and leave the apartment the next morning.
Last night everyone heard them knocking on the door, and if the angle of the room was right, some people even saw the candlelight coming from the window of 402.
"What happened after they went back to their rooms?" Ke Xun thought of Tina, who had dyed her hair gray-blue and seemed fearless. He felt that she wouldn't be quiet even back in her room.
Sure enough, Xin Miao continued, "None of us could sleep. We were all restless. Then Tina started packing her bag, planning to leave that night. In fact, we did leave the room again..."
Xin Miao's face turned pale, and her eyes involuntarily glanced in the direction of the public restroom. "That staircase... we came up from there before lights out. The staircase was right next to the public restroom... but when we wanted to leave in the middle of the night, the staircase was gone." "
What?!" Qiu Lu was the first to express surprise. "The staircase is gone?!"
Xin Miao's lips turned pale with fright. "Now it's back... it really was gone last night! The public restroom is still there, but where there should have been a staircase is just flat ground! It's like there was never a staircase there..."
"And then you panicked and went back to your rooms?" Ke Xun asked.
"Yes, we didn't dare go anywhere. Even with the door locked and sealed tightly, we still didn't feel safe. Eventually, we all huddled together to sleep… until the next morning…"
Sha Liu patted Xin Miao's back to comfort her, then looked at Mu Yiran and Ke Xun: "Qiu Lu and I will go check the women's restroom. We don't know if that ghost face is still there."
Qiu Lu, however, was a little scared and hesitated to go forward.
Shou Zhu said from the side, "If there's no one in the women's restroom now, let's go in and check together."
No one else objected, and Xin Miao followed the others, feeling that only crowded places were the safest, even in broad daylight.
Mu Yiran walked behind, not going in, but instead heading towards the stairs. Ke Xun stood behind her: "I believe her. The stairs might really have disappeared last night."
Now the stairs were clearly in front of them, with Saint Seiya stickers on the peeling paint on the handrail.
But who could say what happened in the pictures?
Mu Yiran stood at the top of the stairs, as if deep in thought.
Ke Xun looked around at the four points on the circumference of the apartment building. Each point was an exit: the stairs were a solid exit, and the toilet/washroom was a liquid exit.
"You mean, after the lights were turned off last night, all the stairs disappeared? If that's the case, then the doorman wouldn't have needed to warn us not to go up or down the stairs at will," Ke Xun said, offering his opinion.
Mu Yiran's cool gaze lingered on Ke Xun's face for a moment: "In terms of time, does this kind of disappearance happen every night, or only on specific nights?"
Ke Xun felt as if he had been splashed with mints, feeling refreshed and his mind clearing up: "In other words, the disappearance of the stairs might be closely related to the deaths that night. Last night's death was designed as a fire. If the two girls who were burned woke up in time, they would likely have pushed their way out the door, and the stairs, as an emergency exit, would have been the first choice."
The mint-like light in Mu Yiran's eyes returned, and he nodded almost imperceptibly: "By extension, the entire apartment building was involved in the death design, and adjustments were made for each death. This time, only the building's hardware facilities were changed. In the future, perhaps others will be involved."
Mu Yiran's tone was calm, but the content of his words sent chills down one's spine.
The others had already come out of the public restroom, and the result was that there was indeed a ghostly face outside the women's restroom window
. It was graffiti painted on the cement wall outside, and the entire face was almost as big as the window. At first glance, it was indeed quite creepy. "Ke'er, why is there a cement wall outside the window?" Wei Dong came to Ke Xun's side. "Is it like this on all the fourth floors?"
Ke Xun nodded: "Is everything alright on the sixth floor?"
Everyone talked as they went downstairs. It was time to meet at Fifth Sister's Restaurant.
"The windows on the sixth floor are quite bright, but it feels suffocating," Wei Dong said, glancing at Zhu Haowen walking ahead. "Last night, my roommate kept complaining of a headache, and I felt chest tightness, like I couldn't breathe. Luckily, I had the octane pump you gave me, otherwise I would have had to go to the hospital for oxygen."
As he spoke, Wei Dong took out the octane pump, unscrewed it, and took a deep breath. "No wonder the doorman said living on the sixth floor felt suffocating; I understand that feeling now."
Mu Yiran suddenly asked, "Besides the physical discomfort, was there anything else unusual in your room last night?"
Wei Dong scratched his head. "We were practically dead asleep last night. When we woke up this morning, we still had headaches and chest tightness, so we quickly left the room."
"Are you still feeling unwell?" Ke Xun asked.
"Strange, it got better as soon as we left the sixth floor." Wei Dong couldn't explain why himself.
When Qin Ci passed by the third floor, he went to room 307 and helped the elderly Li Taiyong out. Given the old man's advanced age, no one told him about the dead man yet.
The doorman was already waiting for everyone at the entrance of Wu Mei's restaurant: "Before we eat, let me tell you about 402."
Was the NPC going to confess to last night's crime?
The doorman swung his large keychain: "Ever since Liao Xinchuan cut off the power at night, everyone's been living in the dark. Xiao Bai, the student who used to live in 402, had to study by candlelight every night. One day he was so tired from studying that he fell asleep, and the candle ignited his books, causing a fire. —Of course, that happened last year."
While everyone was analyzing the NPC's purpose in revealing this, the doorman said, "So we need to be careful with fire and have fire safety knowledge! Okay, that's enough for now, let's go eat."
Wei Dong couldn't help but ask, "What tasks do we have during the day?"
"You tenants can do whatever you want, it's not my responsibility!"
"Can we leave through the main gate?" Qiu Lu asked hurriedly.
The gatekeeper's face turned cold: "The developer's people have blocked the main gate, even built a cement wall. Anyone who goes out is a traitor to Chunshui Dormitory!"
Everyone hurriedly laughed and went into the restaurant. Sha Liu reminded Qiu Lu, "Our goal is to find the seal. Only by finding the seal can we leave this world!"
Qiu Lu had also been forced to believe this eerie thing: "But so many people live here, are we going to search every house?"
"The seal can't be in someone else's house. We must connect these deaths and find the main thread or trigger point. The seal can only be hidden in places related to these events." Sha Liu's voice gradually rose so that those who were entering the painting for the first time could hear.
The proprietress, Wu Mei, led everyone into the restaurant's only standard room. There was a large round table inside, on which a simple breakfast had already been laid out—millet porridge, steamed buns, and cold side dishes.
After experiencing the "bitter food" of the previous two paintings, Ke Xunwei and Dong felt that the treatment here was quite good.
Fifth Sister added, "If you want to order à la carte, it'll cost extra. We also have eggs, fried cakes, steamed buns, and congee with preserved egg and lean pork."
No one had an appetite, let alone the desire to order.
Ke Xun glanced at Fifth Sister and said, "How about another boiled egg for everyone? How much?"
At a time like this, they should eat their fill; finding the seal was exhausting.
"Eggs are fifty cents each, so for eleven people, it'll be five dollars!" Fifth Sister was quite straightforward.
Ke Xun paid Fifth Sister and then asked with a smile, "Who is this Liao Xinchuan that the old man mentioned?"
Fifth Sister, while writing down the bill, replied, "He's the former factory manager, Liao!"
This answer surprised everyone. They had assumed Liao Xinchuan was the so-called Hong Kong developer, but now this factory manager had appeared.
This time, it was the usually taciturn old man, Li Taiyong, who spoke up: "Young lady, is our factory still there?"
"Yes, it is, but it's not the same as before. I don't understand all that about shareholding systems. After all the twists and turns, the whole factory now belongs to those few shareholders! Even the land and our Chunshun dormitory belong to them! Director Liao takes the lion's share!"
Li Taiyong fell silent again.