“Bang, bang, bang!”
"Hey, buddy, what are you doing in there? Why don't you come out?"
"If you don't come out, I'm leaving!"
"I'm really leaving!"
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
When Qiao Qiao and her colleague turned the corner and went up to the fourth floor, they heard a series of angry shouts and banging on the door. She trotted over, her white skirt brushing against her slender white legs: "What's wrong? Didn't you get the horoscope book?"
When the tall and thin Aries Wang Hao saw them, he stopped knocking on the door. He handed the pink bag to Qiao Qiao and said that another person had gone in to get his cell phone and had not come out yet.
Qiao Qiao grabbed the male colleague's work ID and swiped it, and the door opened with a ding.
"The power is out, but the automatic door is still working normally." She muttered, turned to look at the two men standing still, and said in a crisp and bright baby voice, "You want me to take the lead?"
"..." Two men raised their cell phones and walked into the office cautiously with flashlights.
Qiao Qiao was the last one walking. Her cell phone was out of battery and she couldn't provide any light. She looked a little creepy in the darkness dressed in all white.
The water vapor was very heavy, and as soon as they entered, they felt suffocated and unable to breathe. It felt like they had entered the bottom of the sea, with soft water all around them.
"There!" Qiao Qiao pointed to a place and exclaimed softly.
The two men also saw the figure in the aisle. The other person was standing there, his short and fat body half turned, with his head twisted back, and no one knew what he was doing.
"Brother, I've been shouting outside the door for a long time, why didn't you say anything?" Wang Hao yelled angrily, shining the flashlight over there.
The next moment his phone fell to the ground.
"No, no nose." Wang Hao pointed in the direction of the man with shaking hands, "He has no nose!"
There was only a flickering beam of light in the huge office, and the surroundings were eerily quiet.
Qiao Qiao pushed his male colleague: "Go and have a look."
"Fairy, I dare not." The male colleague is over 1.80 meters tall and strong. He usually does fitness. But now he curls up into a ball, looking very weak and helpless.
Qiao Qiao took his cell phone, stepped on the garbage on the aisle in his white sandals, and approached the figure step by step.
After seeing what was happening, Qiao Qiao let out a short breath. She clenched her phone tightly and staggered backwards, her body losing its balance and falling.
The male colleague behind her grabbed her in time, and the two of them supported each other and retreated to the door, quickly swiping their cards to go out.
"He has no nose, right?" Wang Hao's teeth chattered as he spoke incoherently, "I'm going crazy. How could he have no nose? His nose was eaten away, and part of his mouth seems to be missing too. He must be dead..."
Qiao Qiao squatted on the ground and said in a tense voice: "I took a picture of his front."
Wang Hao opened his mouth wide and didn't dare to ask further.
"What does the front look like?" The male colleague was both scared and curious.
Qiao Qiao couldn't describe it. The Aries' face looked like it was hit by something, leaving an "S" shaped blood groove.
From the right eye, to the nose, to the right corner of the mouth, and to the chin.
Only bones were left wherever they passed.
If Qiao Qiao saw correctly, the man's left eye was staring at something.
"I guess when he was looking for his cell phone, he found someone behind him, or one of us. He turned around to look at the other person. That person is the murderer." Qiao Qiao and his male colleague looked at Wang Hao at the same time.
"I was outside the door!" Wang Hao clarified himself with rapid breathing.
Qiao Qiao and her male colleagues should stay away from him.
"Think about it, the company's door is automatically locked, and you have to swipe your card to get in." Wang Hao's face turned pale. "I only have one work ID. He swiped the door open and went in to look for his phone. How can I get in with my work ID in his hand?"
Qiao Qiao said: "Then you are not a suspect."
Wang Hao was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he heard her say, "You are a monster. Doors and windows are no match for you."
“Fuck.” Wang Hao said madly, “If I were really a monster, I would have eaten you all by now!”
Qiao Qiao nodded slightly, seemingly believing it, but the next second she ran to the railing, leaned over it with her upper body, and shouted loudly to the people downstairs: "There's a death on the fourth floor—"
A moment later, all the people in half of the A3 building gathered at Jingfeng Group.
Chen Yang picked up the emergency flashlight that the mute had found and pointed the bright light at the mutilated and hideous face of the corpse.
The skin and flesh at the edge of the "S"-shaped bone wound were so white that there was no trace of blood, as if it had been sucked away inch by inch.
Just like a child eating delicious food, he licks it again and again until it is clean.
The sounds of inhaling and vomiting around collided with each other, making people's temples throb.
Chen Yang rushed up from the lobby on the first floor. The puzzle of "22 divided by 22" was still in his mind. Now it became "21 divided by 21". He shone the flashlight downwards.
The body was standing, wearing light grey mesh sneakers with dark marks around the heels.
Chen Yang handed the flashlight to Chao Jian. He squatted down and reached out to touch the mesh of the corpse's shoes. He rubbed it and found it was wet.
"Mr. Chen, have you found anything?" Zheng Zhitan approached without knowing when, and his little tail Pan Lin stuck to him closely.
Chen Yang didn't answer. He hugged one of the corpse's legs, lifted it up and checked closer. Sure enough, the sole of the shoe was wet.
The second person who died had only one thing in common with the first one: the soles of their shoes were soaked in water.
Chen Yang looked at the twisted blood grooves on the dead man's face again. The thing that gnawed the corpse was obviously able to move. A guess popped up in the depths of his mind -
A soft-bodied tentacle monster on the sea floor.
Chen Yang wanted to ask Chao Jian to look around, but before he could finish his words, the other party had already done what he thought.
The ground around was exposed to the light, dirty and emitting a layer of damp water.
"Don't step in the water." Chen Yang stood up and repeated to his confused teammates.
Pan Lin held Zheng Zhiqin's arm and muttered, "How can I not step on it? The moisture here is so heavy, everything is wet."
"Wet ground and a puddle of water are two different things." Someone sneered.
Pan Lin didn't dare to have a serious conflict with anyone. Seeing that Zheng Zhitan had no intention of standing up for him, he acted like an ostrich.
Chen Yang took Qiao Qiao's work certificate from the dead man's hand and returned it to the original owner. He took the one that the dead man had hanging around his neck, rolled it up and put it in his trouser pocket, putting it together with the first person who died.
"Everyone, what do you think?"
No one spoke. This was a very ordinary summer, an ordinary Thursday, an ordinary workday. From thinking it was the end of the world to actually entering a mission world, to now, only a little over an hour had passed, and they had already seen two bodies.
A real-life horror thriller.
According to the plot of a movie, the current progress bar is just beginning...
"I think the task prompt is to divide the number of people by the number of people, and the result is 1." Brother Yu noticed that Chen Yang's reaction was not big, and he knew that the other party had already thought of this. His enthusiasm and confidence suddenly declined, "That means that one person will die after a period of time."
Chen Yang was waiting for the next words. His partner spoke too little and he was the one talking most of the time. He hoped that his teammates could discuss more and use their imagination more, as there is strength in numbers.
"As for what pattern 'after a period of time' refers to, I am not clear at the moment," said Brother Yu.
"My colleague said that dividing the number of people indicates the clearance mode of this task, which is 1v1 mode." Qiao Qiao has a different opinion.
Chen Yang looked at Miss Qiao's niece: "How is the 1v1 method?"
“Hmm…” Qiao Qiao nudged her male colleague with her elbow.
"I'm thinking about it." The male colleague was carrying her pink bag and hung his head in frustration. His shoulders were patted twice and a voice of praise rang in his ears.
"Xiao Li, you're very smart to think of the 1v1 mode." Zheng Zhiqin encouraged in a formal way, "Most people would have a blank mind when they go through this kind of thing."
Zheng Zhiqin's voice was quite loud, but those whose brains seemed hollowed out were as quiet as chickens.
Xiao Li was praised. He scratched the back of his head in embarrassment and said, "Boss Zheng, do you think we can get back alive?"
Zheng Zhitan held a cigarette in his mouth and looked across.
Jingfeng Group has an entire floor-to-ceiling glass wall, through which one can usually see the prosperous commercial development of the southern suburbs, and the night view is even more beautiful. Now all the glass is gone, and the bottomless sea water has blocked the empty window frames.
"It depends on your luck." Zheng Zhitan answered his subordinate's question with a very calm attitude.
Chen Yang's eyes swept over the four people from Jingfeng Group. With the help of more than 20 beams of light, he found Wang Hao and asked, "Who suggested coming up to get the book?"
"I..." Wang Hao paused, "I proposed it."
"It's you!" the Aries female colleague whose face was eaten shouted, "You killed Lao Zhou!"
Wang Hao was speechless: "It's not me."
"Why wasn't it you?" The female colleague pointed at Wang Hao and said to the others, "See, he's still pretending!" Then she looked at Wang Hao again, "You deliberately let Lao Zhou come with you to the fourth floor, and then you took the opportunity to do it."
Wang Hao looked at her like an idiot: "If I wanted to kill him, would I have followed him to the fourth floor? Isn't this deliberately making myself a suspect? Such a stupid method would not be used by anyone with a brain and butt."
The female colleague sneered: "You are playing along with my tricks!"
"We are all highly educated people, why are you pretending to be stupid? The rules of this mission are clearly one-on-one, and we have to attack each other." The female colleague's hands were shaking as she held the steel pipe. "Some of you dare not admit this life and death mode, while some of you deliberately pretend not to understand. This hunting game has already begun."
She said to herself with certainty, "The dead man downstairs was my colleague. They were both killed by two of us."
Brother Yu reminded: "The way they both died is not something a human can do."
"Who said we were human?" The female colleague stared at him and laughed weirdly. She was mentally disturbed. "From the very beginning, half of us were monsters."
These words were like thunder coming out of a blue sky. The timid ones were frightened and started crying. They looked at everyone as if they were not human.
The female colleague swung the steel pipe in the air a few times and ran to the wooden door and shouted, "Open the door! I want to get out! Open the door for me!"
Xiao Li quickly went to swipe his card, and the female colleague ran out of the office carrying a steel pipe, leaving the group looking at each other in bewilderment.
Chen Yang was thinking about what the female colleague said when the hem of his T-shirt was grabbed. He shouted to Jian, "Let's go."
When Chen Yang and Chao Jian went downstairs, everyone else followed, and the corpse was dragged to the first floor by Zheng Zhitan. During this time, Pan Lin was gasping and crying in shock.
Zheng Zhiqian threw the two mutilated bodies together. A pinch of ash fell from the cigarette butt at the corner of his mouth. He put away the cigarette and looked at the bodies with his upturned eyes behind his lenses.
Pan Lin's heart was pounding.
The corpse is incomplete and ugly, and Zheng Zhitan has a fetish for ugliness. When these points are combined...
Pan Lin had a bold but unsettling thought. He was afraid that he would be uglier than a corpse: "Husband, what are you looking at? Stop looking. Dead people are scary."
"Then it's up to you." Zheng Zhiqin laughed. The injury on his cheekbone from being hit by the crutch was still getting worse, and his smile looked a little ferocious. "You are beautiful."
Pan Lin blushed.
Zheng Zhiqin glanced at Chen Yang vaguely, then he sat down on the bench next to him and looked up at the deep sea.
Chen Yang was not feeling well. The T-shirt he was wearing was made of pure cotton and was very absorbent. It started to get damp after he came in here and now it looked like it had just been taken out of a washing machine. The dampness clogged his pores and made him feel uncomfortable.
"Two." Chen Yang turned his head to look at Chao Jian, breathing in the orange scent in his breath.
Chao Jian said nothing.
"Too fast." Chen Yang rubbed his face, his hand on his chin in a daze. The frequency of death was so fast that he had no time to search for clues. At present, he only knew that "stepping on water" might be a taboo, and he knew nothing else.
Chen Yang looked up. The building was in the shape of a "well". Normally, one could see the railings and corridors of the three floors above from the first floor. However, now it was surrounded by dark sea water, and almost nothing could be seen on the 234th floor.
There are backup lights on the first floor, so the lighting is decent. From any angle in the upstairs corridor, you can see part of the hall.
Chen Yang had the illusion that he was being looked down upon.
The mute sat over, wrote her guess on a sticky note and showed it to Chen Yang.
Brother, I don’t think there are too many monsters.
It's among us.
Right from the beginning.
More than one.
Chen Yang didn't respond for a moment. He returned the sticky note pad to the mute and fell into an unspeakable silence.
The mute did not disturb Chen Yang. She bit the tip of her pen to organize her thoughts and occasionally glanced at Chen Yang. Every time she found that Chao Jian was staring at Chen Yang.
Chen Yang didn't even notice the kind of stare that made it difficult to breathe.
The mute thought that maybe Chen Yang was not unaware of it, but he had adapted to it and become immune to it.
This phenomenon reminded the mute of a saying - boiling a frog in warm water.
She felt it was not very appropriate.
The mute shook her head, trying to stop herself from thinking about it. She had been a solo since birth and didn't understand what obsession was. She just wanted to eat dog food.
The twenty-one people in the hall did not make any noise. Wang Hao sat alone in front of the service desk. He no longer tried desperately to explain, trying to gain everyone's trust.
It seemed that he had seen through the reality that there was no such thing as trust in this team.
Qiao Qiao was holding a horoscope book and flipping through it. There were about ten people around him, praying and reading nervously, hoping that their horoscopes could give them some help.
When the Aries page appeared in everyone's field of vision, their expressions changed.
"An Aries has died. He's the only one left." Someone couldn't help looking towards the service desk. "He will die today."
Qiao Qiao lifted a strand of hair that had fallen on the book behind her shoulder and said, "The credibility of astrology books varies from person to person. We can't completely ignore it, nor can we take it too seriously. We should be natural and treat it scientifically."
Everyone: “…” Bullshit science.
Their presence here is the greatest unscientific thing.
A girl who was about the same age as Qiao Qiao shuddered as she thought of something: "Do you think that the dead Aries..."
Her voice was deliberately low, with a tone like that of a ghost story, and it sounded a bit neurotic to others.
"You can scare people to death if you scare them, okay? If you have something to say, say it quickly!"
"Some of his face is missing," the girl trembled even more violently, her voice lowered. She hugged herself tightly and said tremblingly, "I feel like it's... deformed."
The moment the last two words came out, the air froze and everyone looked at Pan Lin in unison.
Pan Lin was suddenly surrounded by multiple gazes. There was suspicion and fear in those people's eyes, mixed with instinctive disgust. He puffed out his chest in anger and defended himself: "It wasn't me, I didn't kill anyone!"
The chin, which was originally a little crooked, was tense now, giving off an indescribable sense of humor.
Among Qiao Qiao's group, a few brave ones felt less afraid and couldn't help but laugh at him.
"We didn't say anything, why are you so excited?"
"That's right, this is a case of trying to cover up one's own guilt."
"… "
Pan Lin's eyes turned red with anger. His lips trembled as he held Zheng Zhiqin's hand tightly: "Hubby, I've always been with you."
Zheng Zhiqin blew a mouthful of smoke into his face: "Why are you panicking?"
"I'm not panicking. I don't want to be misunderstood." Pan Lin bit his lip angrily, "They think of me as a monster in their hearts."
Zheng Zhitan said, "Is it you?"
Pan Lin kept shaking his head, tears in his eyes, looking very pitiful.
"That's it." Zheng Zhiqin rubbed his ear with the hand holding the cigarette, and looked at Chen Yang. Suddenly, his eyes met Chao Jian's. He smiled and returned a look: Keep a close eye on your baby, don't give me any chance, otherwise I will bite the scar on his left ear and lick it inch by inch.
Chao Jian's breathing became heavier.
Chen Yang immediately noticed that Chao Jian was in a bad mood. He unconsciously pulled himself out of his own world and asked nervously, "What's wrong?"
Chao Jian's eyes were red, and his throat was moving as if he wanted to say something. The next moment, he just turned his head and looked in one direction with a frown.
Chen Yang followed his gaze and his pupils suddenly shrank.
The female white-collar worker who wanted to commit suicide by cutting her wrists stood by the window, her back to everyone, the broken glass in her hand against the sea water outside the window.
She seemed to want to poke a hole in the membrane that blocked the sea water.
Others in the hall noticed her actions and immediately panicked.
"What the fuck do you want to do?"
“Come back soon!”
"Wuwuwu, sister, I beg you, don't do anything stupid. If you let seawater in, we will all die. I don't want to die. I have no grudge against you, please don't hurt me."
Some roared, some screamed, and some begged for mercy.
The female white-collar worker did not cry or tremble. She turned around and looked at everyone with a calm expression, and her eyes were dim without any light.
"We were told to survive here for four days, but it's only been a short while and two of us have already died. There are only 21 of us left in our 23-man team, and the number will drop soon. We won't be able to survive."
"You can't survive." The female office worker repeated, her face as pale as a ghost. "It's too painful to watch people die one by one, not knowing when it will be your turn. Why don't I help you get rid of it? I will get rid of it with you."
Chen Yang approached the female white-collar worker: "This is my sixth mission. Come to me and I will share my experience with you."
"Share it with me?" The female white-collar worker looked at him.
"Yes." Chen Yang said, "I also started as a rookie and got to where I am today. Not only me, but also my brother and my friend, the dumb one, can't speak and relies on sticky notes to communicate, but she didn't give up."
The mute gestured with his hands at appropriate times to attract the attention of the female white-collar worker, and she cooperated with Chen Yang as much as possible.
"Look at my friend, she is much thinner than you..." Chen Yang said as he got closer and closer to the female white-collar worker. Just as he was about to extend his hand to greet her, a man who was extremely nervous cursed.
The female white-collar worker was so frightened that she trembled violently. She wanted to put down the broken glass, but ended up scratching it in a confused state.
At that moment, the female white-collar worker's hand and the glass sank into the sea water.
Chen Yang's heart stopped suddenly and his muscles reflexively made him run towards Chao Jian.
Chao Jian threw away his crutches and caught Chen Yang: "It's okay." Then he whispered in his ear, "It's okay."
Chen Yang looked back in a daze and found that the sea water outside the window did not pour in. Instead, the female white-collar worker was sucked in by something invisible.
Everyone in the hall was stunned. They thought they were dead. This strange reversal made them unable to react.
By the time they reacted, what swept over them was a shocking collapse.
"Another one died..."
"What the hell!"
"Isn't it okay to live well?"
"It's better for her to die. She's free now. She doesn't have to rub her wrists with broken glass from time to time. It scares me to see her like that."
"We all work in Building A3 after all. She actually wanted us to take the blame for her. How immoral! Did we do anything wrong? Who gives her the right to decide our life or death?"
"Stop talking, stop talking."
After the noise comes the speechless silence.
White-collar workers have at least graduated from college, but neither the knowledge they learned in school nor the experience they gained at work taught them how to face this ghost.
This is not the time to test your ability to withstand stress, as your psychological defenses are at risk.
Some people can't bear it and collapse.
Qiao Qiao looked at the sea water outside the building and asked: "Why was that sister sucked away?"
"That's a violation." Xiao Li was still frightened.
Qiao Qiao said: "In this way, the idea of some individuals that if someone bullies me, I will push the other person into the sea will not work."
Xiao Li was shocked: "Will there be such a thing?"
"Yes." Qiao Qiao walked up to Chen Yang holding her skirt, "Mr. Chen, we didn't find anything on the third floor before."
Chen Yang was still immersed in the scene where his opponent committed suicide but the seawater did not rush in. He exhaled deeply: "Check again, the rules are hidden in the details."
"Go to your own company and your own desk first, then look for the colleague next to you, the colleague opposite you, your boss's office..." He thought for a moment and said, "Checking office supplies. You are all familiar with this part, right?"
Chen Yang glanced at the two corpses. According to the rules of the previous missions, the first corpse should have disappeared long ago, but it was still there.
The smell of blood mixed with water vapor drifted into his mouth and nose. His senses were only slightly sharper than those of ordinary people, but he couldn't stand it. Chao Jian's senses were different from ordinary people. He had smelled the blood in the hall when he was in the bathroom before. He didn't know how much torment he would feel now.
Chen Yang looked at the corpse for a long time, which attracted the attention of others. Zhang Lan took off her plaid shawl and walked over to cover the corpse with it.
It’s much better not to see.
Chen Yang saw Zhang Lan return to her boyfriend Xiao Huanyu, who scolded her, "Are you crazy?", "Why are you caring about corpses?", "Are you looking for death?" Zhang Lan tried to coax her again.
Chen Yang learned a lesson from this sister-brother relationship: the older one will always accommodate the younger one.
Everyone walked slowly towards the stairs.
Except for Zheng Zhiqin, Pan Lin, Qiao Qiao and Xiao Li from Jingfeng Group, Chen Yang and Chao Jian from Changxiang Technology, Xiao Huanyu and Zhang Lan from Feiteng, the others are almost all scattered in different companies, which means they have to separate.
As Chen Yang walked, he recalled what the female white-collar worker holding the steel pipe said when he was in Jingfeng Group. If half of their group of people were really monsters...
A chill bound Chen Yang's hands and feet. He froze in place, his eyes swept over the figures, and whispered to Chao Jian: "Will there be half?"
Chen Yang's question was abrupt, but he was not worried that Chao Jian might not understand.
Chao Jian did not remain silent this time. He gave Chen Yang an extremely concise answer: "I am not."
Chen Yang: "... What would you do if you found yourself turned into a monster later on?"
"I won't eat you." He pulled Chao Jian's lips.
"Lost consciousness?"
"No." Chao Jian's answer was shorter and his tone was lighter.
Chen Yang was stunned. Does "won't" mean that he won't lose consciousness, or does it mean that even if he loses consciousness, he won't be attacked
"If I turn into a monster," Chen Yang grabbed Chao Jian, "knock me out."
Chao Jian said: "You can't knock out the monster, you can only kill it."
Chen Yang stopped and heard his own voice saying, "Then you kill me."
"Didn't you say that you would go to the end?" Chao Jian lowered his eyes and glanced at him.
"That's a wish." Chen Yang sighed, "Most wishes can't be fulfilled."
"Bullshit." Chao Jian suddenly became furious without any warning. He let out a heavy gasp as if his throat was stabbed by a chicken, and glared at Chen Yang like a ghost.
Chen Yang immediately said: "I was wrong, I was wrong, we can all realize our wishes."
As luck would have it, Zheng Zhiqin came over to make trouble: "Mr. Chen, which company do you and your brother work for?"
"Changxiang Technology." Chen Yang was busy coaxing Chao Jian, his tone a little aggressive. Since there were seats for him and Chao Jian in the office, it meant that there would be no flaws.
Unexpectedly, Zheng Zhitan said in amazement: "That company? I have a childhood friend who is the director of the R&D department. I have been there several times, but why haven't I seen you guys?"
Chen Yang remained calm: "We are relatively inconspicuous."
Zheng Zhitan: “…”
"Husband!" Pan Lin rushed over and hugged Zheng Zhiqin tightly.
Chen Yang breathed a sigh of relief, thanks to the vine-like Pan Lin, otherwise he didn't know how many brain cells he would have to spend to get rid of Zheng Zhiqin. He gave the milk tablet in his hand to Chao Jian.
"Zheng Zhitan can't cooperate." Chen Yang said, "We don't know his background. For safety reasons, during this mission, we will neither befriend him nor be his enemy. We will investigate our own affairs."
After Chen Yang finished speaking, he remembered that his partner had already fought with Zheng Zhiqin.
"Don't bother with him." Chao Jian said with disgust.
"Well, whatever." Chen Yang said with emotion, "Compared to him, Wen Qing is much cuter."
Chao Jian's expression became uneasy again: "Is the literary youth cute?"
"Relatively speaking." Chen Yang said.
As the group passed by the elevator, whispers began to be heard.
"Luckily there was no electricity and the elevator couldn't be used, otherwise it would have been horrible."
"It suddenly opens and suddenly closes, it's scary."
"It's so annoying, can you please say less? If anyone makes a fuss, don't blame me for swearing."
"… "
Wang Hao, who was standing at the service desk, saw that everyone was going upstairs, and he was about to get up and go to his company. The moment he stood up, the black display screen suddenly lit up.
Wang Hao stepped back in fear. He was about to call for help from his teammates—
A close-up of the back of the head appeared on the screen!
Wang Hao wanted to run, but his feet seemed to be nailed to the ground and he couldn't move. He stared blankly with his eyes wide open.
The hair at the back of her head was a little messy and a little long, and was tied inside the collar at the back.
A little familiar.
I seem to have seen it somewhere...
Where have I seen this before? Where have I seen this before? Wang Hao's whole body went cold, a drop of sweat slid down his forehead, his stiff eyelids twitched, and the back of the head on the screen suddenly turned around.
A face was pasted onto the screen.
Wang Hao opened his mouth in horror, and no sound came out of his throat. That was his own face!