They were pink children's shoes, an old-fashioned style from many years ago.
Under the beam of the flashlight, the sequins on them sparkled.
Even though he shone the light directly on them, the shoes remained completely motionless.
"What is that?"
Ai Shiping instantly held his breath.
Fear exploded down his spine. A freezing chill shot up from his tailbone like lightning, instantly drenching his back in a cold sweat.
If he were an animal, his fur would have stood on end by now.
"Hehehehe..."
Right at that mont, the ethereal laughter of a little girl drifted from behind him.
It sounded as if a prank had just succeeded.
Ai Shiping distinctly caught a whiff of sothing cold behind him. He spun around in a flash, his body subconsciously lowering its center of gravity, like a sneaking thief.
But he saw absolutely nothing.
No matter where he swept the flashlight, it only revealed an empty space.
Realizing sothing, Ai Shiping abruptly whipped around again, looking back toward the stall in the won's restroom.
The little pink shoes underneath the door had disappeared.
He swallowed hard.
"Family..."
Ai Shiping hesitated. "Do you guys think... I should go take a look?"
He was torn between terror and curiosity.
Reason told him it was best to run away imdiately; emotion told him it was best to listen to reason.
But he couldn't actually just run away.
If he dumped everything on Ming Po to solve, he would feel incredibly uneasy.
He glanced left and right for a few seconds, then finally gritted his teeth and walked over.
Recalling the previous anomaly at the sink, he pulled the stall door open from a distance and imdiately hopped backward.
However, no black snakes slithered out of the stall this ti.
The toilet lid was securely closed, and sitting on top of it was a sowhat old rag doll. Other than that, there was nothing else.
It was a blonde doll wearing a red dress and red shoes.
"Hey, look at this, friends..."
Ai Shiping spoke in a hushed voice, carefully scooping the doll into his arms.
He brought the cara close, filming it in ticulous detail. "I don't really know much about these things. What are they called again? I think I've seen a Hatsune Miku version before. It's soft inside. Is it stuffed with cotton?"
[Fufu?]
[Fufu usually refers specifically to the Hatsune Miku one. This is just a plush toy.]
[I think this is a Nui?]
"You guys really know your stuff..."
Ai Shiping grumbled, "You lot are much braver than I am. I'm practically scared to death, and you guys don't have any reaction at all..."
[It's not like I'm the one exploring.]
[Yeah, yeah.]
[Strear, strear, the caraman on the other side has already reached the second floor. When are you going up?]
[In case you didn't know, the security room has a room card.]
[Charge! Charge!]
Seeing the chat eager for action, a stark contrast to earlier when they were urging him to run away, Ai Shiping gnashed his teeth. "Don't go too far, you guys! If I die, who are you going to watch?"
He didn't know what use this doll had, but he didn't dare leave it behind. All he could do was carry it out of the first-floor restaurant's restroom.
He looked exactly as if he were carrying a baby, making for a rather comical sight.
"Cough... cough, cough, cough..."
But right at that mont, the "doll" in his arms suddenly seed to co alive, breaking into a violent fit of coughing.
It sounded as if a foreign object was lodged in its throat. It coughed while seemingly trying to vomit, yet it could neither cough it up nor throw it up.
The doll looked as if it were suffocating.
Startled, Ai Shiping was thrown into a panic and hastily asked, "Hey, what do I do, brothers? Should I pat its back?"
If he had to solve a puzzle, he would be perfectly fine. Whether it was a math problem, a logic puzzle, or a psychological ga, he could handle it. He was even a master at the Tower of Hanoi, able to solve a four-tier tower in under ten seconds.
But taking care of a child... that was truly a blind spot in Ai Shiping's knowledge.
After all, Ai Shiping had never looked after a child before.
He wasn't married and didn't even have a girlfriend. His entire family was gone, leaving him with nowhere to return to for the New Year, let alone any opportunities to care for relatives' children. He rarely contacted his classmates after graduation, and none of his friends who had children ever ca to hang out with him...
Even the way he was holding the doll was sothing he had learned from a video ga.
Ai Shiping was frantic, and the answers provided by the chat were all over the place:
[Just pat its back and rub its chest to smooth the breathing.]
[It's choking! You need to use the Heimlich maneuver!]
[How about reaching in and digging it out?]
[Just punch it in the stomach, it's just a rag doll anyway.]
"What's the Heimlich maneuver?"
Ai Shiping asked hurriedly, spinning in anxious circles.
The other thods seed a bit unreliable. More importantly, he rembered seeing this exact term in the newspaper just earlier.
The girl who had choked to death on her food had received the "Heimlich maneuver" from a waiter. However, the rescue attempt had failed, resulting in her showing no vital signs by the ti dical personnel arrived.
Ai Shiping felt this had to be a hint!
Fortunately, the chat quickly provided instructions:
[Hug it from behind and sharply squeeze the stomach!]
[Make a fist with one hand and thrust into the diaphragm area.]
[Or you can do it like CPR, lay it flat and press hard on the stomach.]
[You have to keep doing it. Keep a rhythm!]
[Just like picking soone up from behind.]
The chat was quite enthusiastic, although their directions were incredibly chaotic.
However, Ai Shiping generally understood what to do.
He gripped his phone between the fingers of his left hand and held the doll against his chest with both hands.
"Don't be nervous..."
He spoke softly to the doll, not caring whether it could actually hear him or not.
He abruptly contracted his arms, feeling the cotton doll's body suddenly deflate. As he let go, it rapidly inflated again. The coughing seed to pause for a split second, so Ai Shiping imdiately squeezed hard again!
He repeated this three tis until the doll let out a blergh, forcefully spitting sothing out.
With a sharp clink, the object hit the ground, making a tallic sound.
Seeing that the doll was no longer coughing and had returned to its previous quiet state, Ai Shiping heaved a sigh of relief.
He didn't care if the doll was still useful or not; he just continued holding it in his arms.
"Thanks, brothers..."
He murmured his gratitude, pointing the flashlight and the cara lens at the floor.
Once the ground was illuminated, the object the doll had spat out finally beca visible.
It was a severed finger.
Ai Shiping picked it up. He felt like he didn't have enough hands for all this.
He gave the finger a squeeze. Slender, fair, and even faintly elastic, with a hint of pinkish-white visible on the nail bed. It didn't look like it belonged to soone who had been dead for long.
It was a woman's finger, likely from soone not too old. In her early twenties at most—or perhaps soone who took very good care of her hands.
"No manicure, but the nail is very long... it belongs to a beautiful swimming crab lady."
Ai Shiping frowned deeply. "How could she choke on sothing like this..."
A thought popped into his head.
'Could the little girl in the news have choked on this exact sa thing?'
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