A little after five o'clock, Chen Yang was walking around the exhibition hall on the first floor.
The exhibition hall was displaying the achievements of technology companies. There were only energy vehicles and some electronic products, almost everything was visible, nothing unusual.
Chen Yang was holding up his phone to take a video when Chao Jian suddenly came in. He lowered his head slightly and moved closer, looking at Chen Yang through the camera, his breath filled with the sweet and sour taste of plums.
"My teeth are sore." Chao Jian said with a frown.
"Plums are not milk slices. How can they not feel sour if you eat a bag of them at a time?" Chen Yang stopped recording helplessly, put down his phone and said.
Chao Jian looked at him coldly: "Didn't you buy it?"
"It's true that I bought them, but I didn't ask you to eat them all in one go. Really, you finished them before I knew it, and I don't know what to say to you, you ate them so fast, and no one snatched them from you." Chen Yang felt that children should not be spoiled too much, and they should be taught a lesson occasionally to let them know why the flowers are so red. He said seriously, "The fact that your teeth feel sour after eating plums is entirely your own problem, don't try to blame me."
Chao Jian glared at Chen Yang, his eyes and expression were full of hostility, as if he would hit someone at any time, and his ears were red.
The light was dim, and Chen Yang couldn't see Chao Jian's red ears, otherwise he would have laughed out loud.
After leaving the exhibition hall, Chen Yang unscrewed the bottle of spring water and handed it over: "Drink some water to relax."
Chao Jian raised his head to drink water, and his eyes suddenly narrowed: "Someone."
Chen Yang was confused: "Ah?" He followed Chao Jian's gaze to look upstairs, then looked up at other places and adjusted the angle. It seemed vaguely that there was a head lying on the ground.
Chen Yang's first reaction was that another person had violated the taboo. He didn't bother to inform others and quickly pulled Chao Jian to the second floor, where he found that the person was Brother Yu.
"He's not dead, he's just fainted." Chao Jian said.
Chen Yang breathed a sigh of relief. He shone the flashlight and saw Brother Yu lying at the door of Room 203.
203 is Zhang Lan and Xiao Huanyu’s company.
Chen Yang squatted down and was about to slap Brother Yu in the face, but the cane hit him first.
Yu Ge woke up in pain. He covered his whipped shoulder and opened his eyes. A gentle voice came from above his head: "Are you okay?"
"Mr. Chen..." Yu Ge called out slowly.
"It's me." Chen Yang reached out to grab him, but before he could touch him, he heard him screaming in panic, "Xiao Huanyu is a monster. He ate Zhang Lan, and his head stretched... Monster... Monster..."
Brother Yu's tongue was tied and he slapped himself a few times. After calming down, he tried to speak again.
After hearing this, Chen Yang suppressed his shock and asked, "What about Xiao Huanyu? Is he still in the company?"
“I don’t know.” Brother Yu collapsed on the floor of the corridor, his limbs weak and cold. “I fainted from fright. It was too scary. I’m most afraid of things with long necks. He even put his face close to mine. I almost lost my mind at that moment.”
Yu Ge’s condition was extremely bad. This was the closest he had ever been to mental collapse since he started the mission.
Chen Yang gave Brother Yu some time to calm down. He stood up and said to Chao Jian, "Give me a cane and I'll break open the door of Room 203."
As soon as he finished speaking, the door was pushed open by Chao Jian, with almost no force used.
Chen Yang: "...Unlocked?"
Chao Jian pushed him into the door and followed him in.
Chen Yang walked with a flashlight and thought, if all the taskers in a company died, would the door not be locked again? As he was thinking, he heard a whisper in his ear.
"Focus." Chao Jian poked Chen Yang's waist with his crutch, "Follow the smell of instant noodles."
"I don't smell it." Chen Yang's sense of smell is not as good as Chao Jian's, so he can only move based on intuition. After he walked for a while, he smelled the smell of instant noodles into his nostrils.
The source of the instant noodles smell is a conference room.
Chen Yang approached cautiously. There was no one inside. There was only a bucket of pickled cabbage placed alone on the table, with a fork still stuck in the lid.
There was a dent on the sofa where someone had walked over it before. Chen Yang looked around the small conference room when his hand touched the instant noodle bucket and it became cold.
"It seems that something happened to Zhang Lan after he finished making instant noodles." Chen Yang said this and left the meeting room. He searched the company with his nerves tense. He did not see Xiao Huanyu who had turned into a monster, but only found a trace of water.
The water stains were in the company's rest area, not only on the ground, but also on the long table.
Chen Yang deduced from the thermos with only a little water left and the bucket of instant noodles that Zhang Lan spilled the water while making the instant noodles.
Several people have died before, and “not treading water” is an obvious taboo.
Zhang Lan was quite mature. She would not waste her life and do something shameless even though she knew the taboos. She must have been distracted. In addition, her heart was completely on her boyfriend. She was afraid that he was hungry, so she hurriedly brought the instant noodles to him and did not notice the water on the ground.
"Having such a willful boyfriend, I can't feel at peace in the mission world. My mental state won't be very good." Chen Yang said to himself, "Finding a younger boyfriend is asking for trouble."
Chao Jian was chewing on a milk slice, and when he heard this, he bit his tongue, and blood came out of his mouth. He took a deep breath to control his emotions, and his cheeks were tense: "It has nothing to do with age, it depends on the person."
"Maybe." Chen Yang suddenly noticed that his partner was abnormal. He looked over curiously, "Why are you sick?"
"What's wrong with me? I'm fine." Chao Jian swallowed the saliva mixed with blood and the milk tablets together.
Chen Yang was still investigating in the office while Brother Yu outside the door was surrounded by his teammates who had rushed over. After they learned about the situation, some of them started crying and some of them started shouting.
Everyone suspected this and that, and the monster's target changed from Wang Hao to Li Zheng, then to Pan Lin, and finally to Xiao Huanyu.
Their deepest impression of Xiao Huanyu was that he and Zhang Lan were willing to fight and be beaten at the same time.
Wang Hao gave Brother Yu a cigarette: "Brother, why did Xiao Huanyu let you go?"
"I didn't break any taboos." Brother Yu took the cigarette and held the butt, "He can't eat me."
Everyone was happy for Brother Yu but also worried about themselves. They had to remember the taboos and not be careless at any time or place.
"Weren't the first few that violated the taboo only eaten a little?" Someone asked, "How come this one…"
"I guess Zhang Lan volunteered." Qiao Qiao leaned against the glass wall, her long hair gathered on one side of her neck, her eyes as bright as if soaked in water, "As long as the tasker is willing, the monster can eat him in one bite."
As soon as she finished speaking, there was an immediate objection from a girl of about her age who looked at her as if she were a fool: "How is this possible? No matter how much Zhang Lan loves Xiao Huanyu, she wouldn't even give up her own life."
Qiao Qiao didn't rush to fight back. She had never been in love and had never liked anyone, so she was in a dilemma and couldn't think of an answer.
"Obviously," Li Zheng, who was standing next to Qiao Qiao, said, "Zhang Lan didn't know that Xiao Huanyu was a monster, so she made the promise to him. She just wanted to make him happy, as long as he was happy."
This answer caused everyone in the corridor to fall silent.
Everyone works in the same building and doesn't pay much attention to the protagonists of the sister-brother relationship. After all, their looks are neither ugly to the center of the earth nor beautiful to the clouds, but just average.
The word “ordinary” comes with a built-in shielding function and can be easily drowned out by the crowd.
After entering the mission world, after a day, they saw Zhang Lan's doting and unlimited indulgence towards Xiao Huanyu.
Zhang Lan is not looking for a little boyfriend, she is looking for a little ancestor. She must have done something bad in her previous life, so she is stuck with shit in this life, and she doesn't even mind the stench.
"Why did Xiao Huanyu sound like Zhang Lan when he spoke?" Wang Hao wondered, "The ones he ate before didn't have any of his characteristics, right? Or did I just not notice it?"
"The previous ones were not eaten completely, but this one was eaten completely, which is different." Li Zheng said, "And when Brother Yu came over, he had just finished eating and hadn't had time to digest it yet."
Wang Hao: "Just like when we eat, there is a taste in our mouth after eating?"
Others: “…”
There are five more slots, and it seems to make sense.
The corridor became quiet. After all, there is a difference between monsters and ghosts. No one felt the cold wind in the building, but only felt tired and weak.
In the real world, some people play a real-life version of escape room with their friends to relieve stress. They feel that they are pretty useless, but after entering the room, they realize that they can be even more useless.
Qiao Qiao took out her ID number and looked at it for a while, then put it into the horoscope book. She moved closer to the little mute and touched him lightly with her slender arm: "Are you scared?" The mute nodded.
"I'm afraid too." Qiao Qiao pointed at the sea water above her head. "I'm always worried that it will collapse and drown us." She muttered, "I'm afraid of water. I can't swim."
The mute uttered "ah" a few times, then hesitantly patted the back of Qiao Qiao's hand. His movements were a little awkward and a little shy.
I hope we can all go home, she said silently.
The corridor smells a bit like cigarettes.
Wang Hao and Li Zheng were smoking shoulder to shoulder. In the morning, Li Zheng suspected that Wang Hao was a monster. In the afternoon, Wang Hao thought that Li Zheng was using him to divert attention. Now he realized that they were both used by Xiao Huanyu and were both wanderers in the world.
"Xiao Huanyu is actually a monster. He doesn't seem to have much presence." Wang Hao said hesitantly.
"Are you sure?" Qiao Qiao said, "His presence is very strong, you just ignored it."
The mission started with Xiao Huanyu's sarcastic scolding. He scolded Zhang Lan in front of everyone and made trouble unreasonably.
When the video appeared at the service desk, Xiao Huanyu asked Wang Hao in a sarcastic tone how he recognized the back of his head, and said that ordinary people could not recognize it. The subtext was very obvious.
When the incident of Li Zheng's leave application came out, Xiao Huanyu pushed Pan Lin into the sight of everyone, mocking him whether he wanted to confuse the public with the leave application.
In fact, Xiao Huanyu has always been setting the pace.
After listening to what Qiao Qiao said, everyone felt like vomiting blood. Why didn’t they notice these details
Everyone looked at each other. The reason they did not suspect Xiao Huanyu was because of the role Zhang Lan played in this.
Zhang Lan is Xiao Huanyu's biggest barrier. Her presence can help him interfere and blur his vision.
Every time Zhang Lan coaxed Xiao Huanyu, everyone's attention turned to the fact that sister-brother relationships are really not easy.
The reason Xiao Huanyu was able to hide until now was entirely thanks to Zhang Lan’s assistance.
A female office worker discovered something and couldn't help but think about it: "I remember when the first person died, Mr. Chen analyzed and asked if anyone had left the hall during that time period..."
Li Zheng was stunned: "I pointed at Xiao Huanyu on the spot."
The memories of other people were awakened one after another. They picked out that fragment one by one and spread it out. A cold wind and snow blew through their hearts and they shivered all over.
At that time, Xiao Huanyu said that he went to the coffee shop, and it was Zhang Lan who said that for him.
Later, Brother Yu raised another question, saying that there was no smell of coffee in their breath when they spoke.
It was Zhang Lan who came forward to explain again.
Zhang Lan has been in the industry for many years and has a stable temper. She is gentle in her dealings with people and her words will not offend people, so the incident at that time was put behind us and no one mentioned it again.
Everyone looked at each other. They all felt that they had been thinking about this matter for a long time, and the clearer it became, the more ironic it seemed.
The two of them were a two-person team, and there were only the two of them in the company. Only Zhang Lan knew how many times Xiao Huanyu had left during the day, but Zhang Lan would not tell anyone else.
For Zhang Lan, her boyfriend was just being willful and throwing a tantrum at her by not telling her where he was going. She didn't want him to be misunderstood by his teammates or to make their relationship worse, so she tried not to tell her.
"You deserve it." A mocking voice came from the crowd, and some people echoed it. The atmosphere was heavy, like the night before a storm.
"If she hadn't testified for him, he would have been suspected. Who can he blame?"
"When you discover someone around you is suspicious, instead of informing your teammates, you help to conceal and cover up for them. This is hurting others and yourself."
"Love blinds the eyes."
"You can't fall in love in this kind of mission world. You'll die quickly."
"… "
After a brief grumble, everyone fell silent. There must be something pathetic about pitiful people.
If Zhang Lan had been able to put herself in the right position earlier and not die in the trap of her young boyfriend, they would have been able to put Xiao Huanyu at the top of the list of suspicious persons earlier.
It’s not known whether the people in front will die, but she will most likely escape this disaster.
It's too late to say anything now.
Two figures came from the other end of the corridor, approaching from far away. The two sets of footsteps had different rhythms, one steady and the other soft.
Everyone became nervous in an instant.
"It's Mr. Zheng and Xiao Pan." Qiao Qiao said.
Zheng Zhitan approached in a neat and tidy manner. He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses and asked about the situation in a hoarse and casual voice.
Brother Yu gave a brief summary.
Pan Lin grabbed Zheng Zhiqin's arm, his face pale as he whispered, "He called me a freak, but in fact, he is..."
"Stay here and don't make trouble." Zheng Zhiqin pushed open the door and walked into the office.
Wang Hao turned around and asked Brother Yu in a low voice: "How did he know that the automatic door lock was no longer working?"
Yu Ge said: "You have experience, so you are different from newcomers."
Wang Hao's eyes widened in shock: "Isn't he a newcomer too?"
Brother Yu didn't say anything.
Pan Lin heard the conversation between Wang Hao and Brother Yu. He stared at the door in a daze, and the next moment he pushed it open, staring straight at the blurry figure in the office.
Zheng Zhitan is an old tasker? He is actually an old tasker!
Zheng Zhiqin must know a lot of things. It will be safe to follow him and I can go back alive. That's great. Pan Lin shivered and bit his lips, crying with joy.
Chen Yang noticed Zheng Zhitan when he came in.
At this moment Chen Yang noticed an amazing phenomenon. Zheng Zhiqin's night vision was very strong and he could see clearly without turning on the flashlight.
Chen Yang winked at Chao Jian, asking him to pay attention to Zheng Zhitan's condition.
Chao Jian looked at him without moving his eyes.
"Mr. Chen." Zheng Zhitan walked up to Chen Yang with the pace of a leader inspecting. "How is the investigation going?"
Chen Yang remained calm: "The monster is not here."
"Then where will he be?" Zheng Zhitan pulled out a chair and sat down.
"Somewhere in the building." Chen Yang pressed his phone. It was past five and half an hour later, and it was less than half an hour before the office workers would get off work... The monster was nowhere to be seen...
Something was about to emerge from Chen Yang's mind.
Zheng Zhiqin just wanted to move the chair, but Chao Jian, who had approached him at some point, grabbed his neck. He had no doubt that if he really made a noise, the other party would break his neck.
Zheng Zhitan made eye contact with Chao Jian in the dark: Don’t want me to interrupt his thoughts
Chao Jian had a blank expression on his face.
Zheng Zhiqin: Indeed, sometimes thoughts are very subtle things. Once you reach that point, it is difficult to reconnect once you are interrupted.
The force on his neck suddenly increased, carrying a sinister warning. Zheng Zhitan sat there calmly. Apart from his breathing becoming disordered due to the obstruction, there was nothing unusual.
After an unknown amount of time, Chen Yang's fingers on the table moved twice.
It was just such a subtle movement, but Chao Jian seemed to have received some kind of signal. He withdrew his threat to Zheng Zhiqin, retreated to his original position, and met Chen Yang's excited gaze.
As bright as fire.
"I thought of a possibility!" Chen Yang grabbed Chao Jian.
Chao Jian avoided him and said, "Just grab my arm, don't grab my hand."
Chen Yang was stunned: "What's wrong with your hand?"
He sneered at Jian: "I touched shit."
Zheng Zhitan: “…”
Chen Yang's gaze moved back and forth between Chao Jian and Zheng Zhitan. He didn't know how many moves the two had made while he was lost in thought, but it didn't have much impact at all.
One coveted the private property of the other, and the two became enemies.
Soon, Chen Yang and his group were all standing on the second floor, looking down at the hall downstairs.
Brother Yu was pushed by several people to walk up to Chen Yang and asked everyone's question: "Mr. Chen, what are we waiting for?"
"Wait for a result." Chen Yang said, "There are still thirteen minutes."
Time passed by in the slowly flowing air, thirteen, twelve... ten, nine... five...
At the moment of five fifty-five, a figure appeared in everyone's sight.
It’s Xiao Huanyu!
He was in human form, with his neck not stretched out and his mouth not open.
"Fortunately, there was no visual shock..." When Li Zheng said this, he saw Xiao Huanyu stop in front of a corpse with half of its head missing in the middle of the hall. He did not move, but stretched his neck downwards.
"Pah"
A bag of slime hit the ground.
Even though they were one floor apart, everyone seemed to hear the slurping sound of saliva and the sound of food being swallowed whole without having time to chew.
Brother Yu closed his eyes and fainted again. Wang Hao and Li Zheng held him up, not daring to breathe.
The others were all dumbfounded and forgot to scream or run away.
Chen Yang stared at the time on his mobile phone, and a thin layer of sweat seeped out of his palms.
At five fifty-nine, Xiao Huanyu suddenly stopped eating. He seemed to have lost his bones, and his whole body shrunk into a ball, with no way to tell his head or tail. Countless tentacles extended from his body.
He looked like a giant octopus, crawling on the ground using his tentacles.
The picture on the second floor seemed to be still. This scene was beyond the cognition of normal people. Their brains didn't know how to react and were blank.
The monster in the hall crawled all the way to the door and then suddenly jumped into the sea.
Chen Yang looked at his phone. It was exactly six o'clock.
"Into...into the sea..." Pan Lin hid in Zheng Zhiqin's arms and said tremblingly, "Why did he leave like that? He didn't even finish his meal, as if he was in a hurry."
Zheng Zhitan stroked his slender back.
Pan Lin pretended to be a pet and dared not move. He couldn't tell whether Zheng Zhiqin disliked him for talking too much or was praising him for using his brain.
"Do you think it looks familiar?" Chen looked up towards the gate.
No one understands.
"Does it look like it's time to get off work?" Chen Yang said.
Yu Ge and the others looked at Chen Yang in shock, their eyeballs almost falling out of their sockets.
Then my whole body was covered with goose bumps.
Chen Yang's verification result came out, and it was exactly as he guessed. The monster was about to get off work, so it didn't need to hide anymore, so it exploded, which led to what happened just now.
If the rules set targets for it, then it would have met the target if it killed four people who violated the taboo during its work.
Chen Yang took off his backpack and found cigarettes and a lighter. He tore off the gold thread on the outside of the cigarette box, opened the cigarette box and said to Chao Jian: "Do you want one?"
I promised not to smoke in front of him, and I have endured it for a long time without breaking the rule, but this time I couldn't help it.
"No." Chao Jian paused, "Leave two for me."
"Okay." Chen Yang agreed readily, as long as his partner didn't blame him for going back on his word.
Chen Yang took out a cigarette and held it between his teeth. He lit it with a new lighter and took a light puff.
"There's get off work to go after work," Brother Yu looked at Chen Yang who was smoking quietly, "So will he come again at nine o'clock tomorrow morning?"
Someone in the team rushed to Chen Yang and said, "We have discovered his identity. He won't come again."
"Then we will be safe for the next three days..."
"Half of them are monsters—" A sharp cry suddenly came from the opposite corridor, "Half!"
The already frightened group of people were almost paralyzed.
Several flashlights shone over there, and on the opposite corridor was the female white-collar worker who insisted that half of the team were monsters.
Everyone started cursing with ugly faces.
"madman."
"What are you doing, you psycho!"
"Damn it, who will help me knock her out and tie her up? Otherwise, we will be scared to death by her sooner or later."
"… "
The cursing didn't last long and then stopped because the woman left the opposite corridor.
"Let's see tomorrow." Chen Yang replied to Yu Ge's question.
"It's time to get off work now. I suggest you don't go to the office. Just stay on the first floor and go to the company to check for clues after nine o'clock tomorrow morning."
After Chen Yang finished speaking, he did not wait for anyone to ask, "I have discovered some secret information and deduced the taboos. I am just trying to be safe. You can make your own decisions."
His life motto is just two words: safety.
That was why Chen Yang felt strange that Chao Jian always said he was dishonest. His cautiousness had almost become an instinct, and Chao Jian, who had been following him all the way, should not have been unaware of it.
There is no difference between day and night in the building.
Chen Yang's suggestion was adopted by everyone. They occupied the coffee shop and did not dare to go to the lobby.
Only Chen Yang, Chao Jian, Zheng Zhitan and Pan Lin were divided into two groups and sat on the two sofas in the hall, forming two completely different little worlds.
One is the natural warmth and tranquility, the other is the false affection.
Chen Yang smoked his cigarette one puff at a time, while Chao Jian ate milk tablets with his eyes closed. There were crisp crunching sounds floating in the smoke.
Not long after, the three mutilated bodies disappeared.
Chen Yangyi said: "I was wondering why the body didn't disappear, so this is what happened..."
Are they food for the monsters while they work, or rather, working meals
Now that the monster is off work, there is no need for the corpse to exist.
Chen Yang gave half of the cigarette to Chao Jian. Chao Jian didn't even reach out his hand. He just ate the milk slice and opened his mouth.
Somehow, Chen Yang thought of Zhang Lan, who raised Xiao Huanyu as his son. He paused as he put the cigarette into Chao Jian's mouth.
"You have hands, take it yourself." Chen Yang was like a stern brother.
Chao Jian lifted her eyelids and glanced at him: "What are you angry about?"
"No." Chen Yang changed the subject, "The taboo in the first round is not to step on water. I don't know what the second round will be."
The mission requires them to survive here for four days, and this is only a quarter of the way through. The remaining three quarters will not be easy for them, and it is very likely that things will get worse and worse.
Chao Jian leaned back on the sofa with his head tilted back, his tongue brushing over the wet cigarette butt: "That's for sure." He seemed to be able to touch Chen Yang's heart without even looking, "Taboos will become more and more complicated, but also easier and easier."
"The more smoke bombs there are, the simpler the answer is. The answer is the easiest thing to overlook," Chao Jian said.
Chen Yang sighed. He understood the principle, but what was the easiest to overlook
"Why haven't you finished your two puffs of cigarette?" Chen Yang glanced at Chao Jian who was holding the cigarette, "If you don't want to smoke, give it to me."
Chao Jian's protruding Adam's apple moved and he frowned impatiently, and Chen Yang followed him.
An ambiguous sound came from the sofa not far away.
The corner of Chen Yang's mouth twitched: "Let's go to another place."
Chao Jian didn't move. He stared at Chen Yang and asked, "Do you think the sex between two men is disgusting?"
There was a loud bang in Chen Yang's head.
Although he knew that his partner was an adult and his brother was very strong, he never thought that the word "sex" would come out of his mouth. This day came quickly and suddenly.
Chen Yang saw his own confused look in Chao Jian's dark pupils. He was stunned and said subconsciously: "It's not disgusting."
A few seconds later, Chen Yang seemed to have just woken up from a dream. Fearing that Chao Jian might have misunderstood something, he quickly added: "It's okay... It's okay, I'm not very..."
Chao Jian interrupted Chen Yang: "Then what should we change? It's right here."
Chen Yang held his forehead with his hand: "Are you sure you want to watch the live broadcast?"
"Sure." Chao Jian closed his eyes, put earphones in his ears, and refused to give one to Chen Yang.
Chen Yang: “…”
Zheng Zhitan was not so beastly as to broadcast live in the hall. He threw the lewd Pan Lin aside, crossed his arms in front of his body, and soon began to snore.
Pan Lin took out a small mirror to look at his face dejectedly, wondering if he was not ugly enough.
Half of the A3 building was calm at night.
It wasn't until around nine o'clock the next morning that another person died.
It was a young girl, her body hanging upside down in the corridor with her feet on the ceiling, and no head.
There is also a bloody figure on the wall next to it.
hexagon.