Seeing the gun, Yang Xiao’s legs went weak, and he collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed, "I... I’m just a seller, earning so hard-earned money, scared of the police. Who have I provoked? Twice a day, the police co to check on , and now they want to shoot too. You have the guts to catch bad guys, don’t you? Picking on soone like doesn’t show any real skill, wuwuwu..."
Yang Xiao’s crying actually fooled the man outside the door, who looked at the arrangent inside the room and thought about it. If he were the type of guy he suspected, why would he need to rely on flesh trading to make a living? Even the least successful Angel Envoy could find a job as a bodyguard if he wanted to.
As the man was contemplating, suddenly two beeps ca from the walkie-talkie at his waist, followed by an urgent female voice: "Captain, there’s a situation in building 2, room 5029!"
Upon hearing this, the man dropped Yang Xiao and ran towards the staircase. At the sa ti, his urgent voice ca through: "Don’t approach, be careful. I repeat, don’t approach, I’m on my way!"
As the sound of footsteps faded away, and once he was certain that the man had left, Yang Xiao climbed up, wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand. Although the crying act was fake, an improvisation by Yang Xiao, the performance was sincere and convincing. However, the man was not easy to deal with, and Yang Xiao could clearly feel that the man had his doubts. Fortunately, the call at the end saved him.
There was a situation in room 5029 of building 2. After a mont of thought, Yang Xiao decided to go out and take a look. It was unrealistic to stay in his room and barely survive until the end. To be prepared in case the encounter with the captain was an act, Yang Xiao deliberately waited half an hour before he quietly left the room. Before leaving, he found a copper key in a bamboo basket hanging behind the door.
After experinting, he found that the key opened the outermost iron door, but he didn’t find a key for the inner door.
Listening at the door for a minute and then using the Human Bone Staff to probe around, Yang Xiao didn’t find any signs of an ambush, so he cautiously opened the door and went out.
The corridor was eerily silent; the commotion earlier hadn’t drawn any attention from the neighboring residents. Up to now, Yang Xiao hadn’t heard any sounds of activity from the nearby rooms, leading him to suspect he was the only living person on this floor.
Putting the Human Bone Staff in his waistband, Yang Xiao slowly and quietly closed the inner door ajar, then locked the outer iron door and quickly walked toward the staircase.
The apartnt was even older than Yang Xiao had imagined. The corridor floor was made of pitch-black cent, and every so often, there was a light bulb overhead giving off a dim, sickly light.
The whole floor had dozens of rooms, with the lights continuing along the corridor, and occasionally, so were extinguished, leaving an impenetrable darkness nearby.
Descending the worn stairs, the handrails, still made of wood, felt slippery like they were coated with a layer of grease. Yang Xiao tried to step lightly, careful not to disturb anything that might lurk in the shadows.
Carefully reaching the first floor, he stepped out of the stairwell and faced a rather majestic hall, which, although now decrepit, still showed signs of past splendor. There were remnants of oil paintings on the entire wall, and to the right of the main door, there was a security office with large glass windows, which was empty by now.
A notice was stuck on the glass of the security office, written with a thick brush: "Dangerous building! All residents must move out within seven days or bear the consequences!!!"
The brief ssage was emphasized with three bold exclamation marks, which instinctively made Yang Xiao feel a trace of eeriness. But then again, the other residents must have left because of this notice, which seed overly harsh and... too simplistic. It lacked details regarding resettlent after moving and what issues had caused the building to beco dangerous.
Through the glass window, Yang Xiao saw a blackboard on the wall inside the security office with chalk writing. It seed to be six characters, but the first two were violently erased, leaving only the last four: "Go ho imdiately!"
What, what, "go ho imdiately," paired with the last heavy exclamation mark, confird to Yang Xiao that this was indeed a warning.
Ghost at the door, an empty apartnt, vague notices, and a warning with key words rubbed off... All these instinctively unsettled Yang Xiao. He subconsciously played a word-filling ga: "Hear a noise and go ho imdiately"? No, that’s not it—it’s four characters. "Weird noise, go ho imdiately"? That didn’t sound quite right either; it didn’t fit normal linguistic logic.
A voice at the back of his mind kept urging him to go back, but Yang Xiao suppressed it deeply. He knew from experience in previous missions that having just encountered a ghost not long ago, he should still be relatively safe as long as he didn’t make any mistakes.
He was in building 3. Stepping out of the wide-open main door, he saw a garden-like area with a small square, not small in size. Looking up, the rain seed to have lessened a bit but showed no signs of stopping, still falling sparsely. The sky was covered with dark clouds, like stirred ink, and in the gloomy light, Yang Xiao could barely make out four other massive buildings standing in the drizzle.
As Yang Xiao hesitated, a flash of lightning split the darkness, and using the montary light, he discerned the numbers on the four buildings. No longer hesitating, he dashed in the rain toward building 2, aiming for room 5029.
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