Chapter 642: Chapter 520: Warning_2
Five apartment buildings were constructed around a central garden, but the distances between them were irregular. Fortunately, the building where Yang Xiao lived, Building 3, was relatively close to Building 2. By the time he raced into the lobby of Building 2, his body hadn’t gotten too wet.
The rain was chillingly cold, feeling as though it could drain all the warmth from one’s body with each drop. Yang Xiao did not want to get rained on for another moment.
Just like in his own Building 3, the interior of Building 2 was eerily quiet. Since entering, he had been careful to tread lightly, especially considering the three Patrol Defense Office investigators might still be around. It would be difficult to explain his presence if they chanced upon him.
According to Yang Xiao’s judgment, the fact that the team, including the captain, decided to stay at the apartments indicated that a severe supernatural event had occurred here. From previous interactions, he knew this captain had an exceptionally sharp sense of smell and made highly accurate judgments, clearly no ordinary leader.
When passing by the old elevator shaft, Yang Xiao unexpectedly noticed that the elevator was stationed on the fifth floor. He immediately turned back and chose a stairwell on the opposite side of the corridor to go upstairs, hoping to avoid the investigators who might still be near room 5029.
But his worries were unnecessary. After reaching the fifth floor and observing for several minutes, he found no trace of the investigative team; they must have left.
He exited the stairwell, counting the room numbers on both sides of the corridor until he reached room 5029. To his slight surprise, the door wasn’t locked but ajar, leaving a gap approximately three to four fingers wide, and the room inside was silent.
This looked unsafe and could very well be a trap, so Yang Xiao slowly backed away, planning to scout around to avoid getting trapped in the room. A few steps further along the corridor was the elevator shaft, next to it, the stairwell. He had intended to explore the stairwell, but as he neared the elevator doors, he suddenly stopped, sniffing the air forcefully. He detected a strong smell of blood.
After a brief assessment, he was sure that the bloody scent was emanating from inside the elevator. Clenching the Human Bone Staff in his hand, he sensed cautiously; there were no malevolent spirits inside. Thus, he approached, pressed the elevator button, and quickly stepped back, readying himself for a confrontation. The next second, the aged elevator doors shakily opened, revealing a body covered with a white cloth, piled in the corner.
What made Yang Xiao frown, however, was that the corpse was only half a body, to be exact, the lower half. The deceased’s shoes, a pair of trendy sneakers with a smoothly curved logo, protruded from under the cloth, and from the trouser legs, Yang Xiao could tell they were matching branded black sports pants.
From these two items, Yang Xiao could determine that the person who died in the elevator wasn’t from this era, but like him, had entered this place to participate in a competition. However, due to the upper half of the body being missing, Yang Xiao couldn’t identify the man’s mask number.
Wary of accidents, Yang Xiao didn’t pull back the cloth or rashly enter the elevator to touch the body. Instead, he turned around and headed for room 5029. Based on the words transmitted earlier through the man’s walkie-talkie and combining his own judgment now, Yang Xiao suspected that the walkie-talkie’s mention of trouble referred precisely to this man’s death, and the investigation team had likely assumed that the dead person was a resident of room 5029, just as they had done with him.
Having previously used the Human Bone Staff for detection, he knew there were no evil spirits inside the room. Yang Xiao slowly pushed the door open. The decor inside forced a frown on his face; the room’s setups were even more garish than his own. He could confirm that the original tenant of this room was a fellow practitioner, and one who indulged in even more flamboyant activities, possessing items that were long, thick, and utterly indescribable.
After confirming the room was entirely safe, he turned back to close the door and began a thorough search, hoping to find something like notes or work records, which could help him analyze the current situation. Unfortunately, he found nothing.
This was frustrating, yet not unexpected, since the investigation team had gotten there first. Even if there had been any important items, they probably would have taken them.
Regarding the capabilities of the team leader, Yang Xiao had no doubts. From just one probing move, the man had directly suspected his identity.
Nevertheless, it wasn’t all for naught, as at least he discovered a body, and by examining its condition, he could infer the ghost’s method of murder; cutting people in half at the waist.
Following this line of thought, he surmised that since the deceased had died not far from his home, he likely encountered the same situation as himself; the ghost knocking at the door. This person, having survived to the third round, was naturally no fool and, like Yang Xiao, had seen through the scheme. However, what he hadn’t anticipated was that the ghost hadn’t truly left but was hiding nearby, waiting for him to leave home.
The man, thinking the ghost’s footsteps were fading away, waited a while and then decided to go out to look for clues. He chose the stairwell, just like Yang Xiao. But unexpectedly, just as he approached the elevator door, it opened unexplainably, and the ghost was inside waiting for him. Caught off guard, the man was seized by the ghost, dragged into the elevator, and brutally killed, which is precisely why his body ended up in the elevator.
Yang Xiao was fairly confident in his own speculation, for if it was a ghost that knocked and someone had opened the door, that person should have died inside the house, not in the elevator.
Since there were no additional clues, lingering was useless. Yang Xiao decided to leave and tried to restore any moved items to their original place. As he approached the door, he found a cloth bag hanging behind it, stuffed with newspapers.
It seemed the person had a habit of reading newspapers. Curious, Yang Xiao pulled out the newspapers and inadvertently discovered an odd scene—a few of the newspapers had been cut, missing several sections.
No, not cut, more accurately ripped by hand. This didn’t seem like something the original householder would do, but rather something that the teammate who died in the elevator might have done.
As for why he did this, it must have been because there was very important information in the newspapers.
Yang Xiao took out the newspapers with missing sections and carefully examined each one. He noticed that the missing parts were all located on the lesser-known sides of the pages and because they were ripped by hand, they were not cleanly torn. From the crumpled edges, Yang Xiao found some leftover words which, due to the missing context, could only provide fragmented information.
Extracting value from this information, there are only a few relevant pieces: East Asia Mansion, red light district, cruel methods, disappearance.
The next second, a rolling thunderclap sounded, and Yang Xiao put the newspapers back in their place and immediately left. He had a very bad premonition, constantly recalling the words written on the blackboard in the security room of his building: go home immediately!
He had been outside long enough; he needed to return immediately. The corridor was silent as Yang Xiao hurried towards the elevator. Indeed, before leaving, he planned to check the corpse once more, even if it meant taking some risks, as the important torn parts might be on the body.
Pressing the elevator button, Yang Xiao anxiously waited. Accompanied by a "squeak" of friction, the elevator doors slowly opened, but the next second, Yang Xiao was stunned. A chill rushed from his feet up to the crown of his head and a bloody white cloth fell to the ground, and that half of a body... was gone!
It was gone!!
Almost instantly, Yang Xiao pulled out the Human Bone Staff and another hand lifted the Ghost Lantern, cautiously looking around. His chest heaved dramatically and his breathing was rapid. He didn’t feel any malicious spirits nearby, but under the green light of the Ghost Lantern, he noticed a line of shallow footprints on the ground.
It wasn’t blood, more like corpse oil dripping from the decomposing body. Holding the lantern over the ground, he followed the corpse oil footprints all the way back to the corridor, returning to room 5029. Upon seeing the suddenly disordered footprints in front of the door, Yang Xiao felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over him. He could never have guessed that just as he was collecting clues inside room 5029, just a door away, stood a ghost.
That ghost was pacing in front of the door, looking for an opportunity to enter.
Fortunately... fortunately, he had locked the door!
Just imagining that scene was enough to cause someone to break down, a half-bodied corpse standing up on its own, quietly making its way to his door, standing there for a long time before leaving.
Soon, Yang Xiao found the direction of the footprints. They meandered toward the other side of the corridor and disappeared into the darkness. At this moment, holding the lantern, Yang Xiao’s fingers trembled involuntarily as he suddenly realized something; the ghost was following his own scent and had taken up an ambush on the path he was most likely to take to leave, waiting for him.
The ghost hadn’t left; it was just following his scent and was waiting for him ahead, on the path he was most likely to take.
