Yang Xiao and his companions didn’t mind the hassle, choosing to go upstairs via the safety passage. They lingered on each floor as they ascended, gradually discovering a pattern.
On the relatively lower floors, the utilization rate was high, with nurous small and dium-sized companies moving in. However, as the floors rose, like above the 10th floor, the occupancy rate noticeably decreased, with so floors having barely anyone.
Moreover, the higher the floor, the poorer the quality of these companies. By the 15th floor, it was nearly all storage rooms, filled with goods that had temporarily nowhere to go, so without even a single guard.
The 16th floor was also a storage area, but almost all doors were locked, with no one in sight.
Next was their 17th floor. Thankfully, everything was normal upon returning; the door wasn’t locked, everyone was present, nobody disappeared, and phone calls went through.
After a brief rest, Yang Xiao and the others proceeded upward, but instead of directly going to the 18th floor, they went to the 20th floor first. As expected, not a soul was in sight, doors wide open in each room, filled with abandoned odds and ends. Judging by the environnt, those people left in a hurry.
After all, so tables, chairs, cabinets, and other items remained. These things appeared quite new and probably could fetch a reasonable price. Yang Xiao even found dozens of high heels at a room’s entrance.
These shoes were brand new, still in boxes stacked tightly together; abandoned for unknown reasons, though covered in a thick layer of dust.
Furthermore, the rooms on this floor had new decorations; walls painted stark white, ceilings adorned with elegant European-style chandeliers with crystal pendants below. Evidently, a significant amount of money was spent on renovations.
Yet now, it’s all abandoned. It’s obvious to a discerning eye that there had been an issue.
As expected, Yang Xiao and his companions explored with flashlights and reached a corner where the safety door to another passage was.
Yang Xiao and his friends noticed that the wall here wasn’t painted but covered in large wallpaper; both side walls were pasted, even the ceiling.
It was the kind with scenic views, like island scenery, looking very fake and completely mismatched with the surroundings, like it was a temporary fix.
Seemingly realizing sothing, Yang Xiao took out his small knife, cutting through the wallpaper and tearing a large chunk off. At the next mont, his suspicion was confird; behind the wallpaper wasn’t a white wall but one blackened by soot.
There had been a fire here before; the blaze from the 18th floor had spread up here, suffusing this area with thick smoke and blackening the walls with soot. These wallpapers were ant to cover the unsightly blackened walls.
anwhile, the newly renovated rooms here made sense; it was post-fire renovation. But unexpectedly, shortly after finishing the renovations, it was abandoned again.
Such a significant investnt went down the drain; the bosses weren’t fools, clearly encountering sothing terrifying.
Yang Xiao could probably guess it was the incidents recounted by the shopkeeper: inexplicable disappearances, charred bodies, Ghosts reappearing after "death"... These events caused panic within the building, prompting bosses to close their companies and flee.
Now, there are few companies above the 10th floor, probably to steer clear of the problems, to stay far from the source of the 18th floor incident.
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