FEG | Chapter 19

Chapter 19, The Body in the Elevator

Sun Fangchi looked up at Yueyue’s little face, blocked behind the cloth doll, and could not help but sigh.

He did not have children yet, but he could probably imagine the mood of the owner of the handwriting. Such a small child entered the game alone, her parents would certainly have wished they could take her place.

Sun Fangchi was willing to ensure the child’s safety within what he could do. The premise was that this child was sensible enough.

“Yueyue, do you want to act together with big brother?”

Yueyue nodded.

Sun Fangchi continued, “All right, Yueyue has to promise big brother first, do not touch the things around you, if you run into danger, remind big brother in time, do not run around, okay?”

Yueyue nodded heavily, and her little hand held on even tighter.

Sun Fangchi sighed inwardly, took Yueyue’s hand, and walked toward the apartment.

When he went downstairs, he was very concerned about the strange sound the elevator made, and now he planned to take a look.

The sun was high overhead, and under the daylight the apartment building reflected a warm hue, looking no different from the buildings seen everywhere on ordinary days.

The building’s original residents gradually began moving about. By the time Sun Fangchi reached the elevator, he had already run into two or three residents in home clothes, on their way downstairs for a walk or to take out the trash.

This time was the morning rush hour, yet not a single person in this building was going out to work. It seemed the setting of this apartment was that all the residents would not leave.

Sun Fangchi silently noted the decoration of the apartment’s first-floor lobby and the signboards that might provide information, the safety exit light sign, the fire alarm button, and the building security guard duty roster.

There were 5 people on the duty roster in total, and one person’s photo was covered with white paper.

“Huang Haoyu...” Sun Fangchi softly read his name. Beneath the three black characters, smaller text listed Huang Haoyu’s duty hours, from 5:00 PM to 12:00 AM every day.

It was just as Zhou Xin said, the shop owner’s alarm clock was also set for 5 PM, and it was impossible that there was no connection between the two...

Huang Haoyu began duty at 5 PM, and the shop owner shut his doors and windows tightly from 5 PM. This could almost indirectly confirm that security guard Huang Haoyu was the ghost in this round.

It also easily made people think that Huang Haoyu attacked humans from 5 PM to 12 AM.

Was it only this?

Sun Fangchi still did not want to reach a conclusion lightly, he still needed more clues.

Ding!

The elevator arrived at the first floor. Sun Fangchi took Yueyue into the elevator and casually pressed 4.

His feet sank, and the elevator began to rise. Sun Fangchi tilted his ear and listened carefully.

After a moment, he confirmed that he had not heard wrong.

Besides the elevator’s own sound, there was also a kind of sizzle, a scraping sound, as if someone’s clothes were rubbing across the floor.

Sun Fangchi looked up above him, where the elevator’s ventilation opening was.

The elevator stopped on the 4th floor. A middle-aged fat man stood outside with a cigarette in his mouth, carrying a bag of soupy trash in his hand.

“You’re not getting off?” Seeing that Sun Fangchi had no intention of leaving the elevator, the middle-aged fat man walked into it, pressed the 1st floor button, and asked casually.

Sun Fangchi nodded and smiled, “I personally quite like elevators, so I ride them a few more times.”

The middle-aged fat man choked for a moment, then muttered under his breath, “...There are even people who like elevators. Compared to those freaks, I fucking really am not fit to live here...”

Sun Fangchi focused on examining the ventilation opening above, and casually replied, “Is that so...”

“Of course, think about this whole building, more than twenty or thirty households and over a hundred people, and not a single one can have a job. How damn coincidental is that? It’s gotten to where I don’t even feel like looking for work...” The middle-aged fat man said gloomily.

Sun Fangchi let Yueyue stand in a corner, jumped in place, and pulled down the ventilation opening panel.

“What are you doing? If you’re sick of living, I’m not yet! This apartment really is fucking cursed, how long has it been, and a security guard has already died, and it was fucking scared to death at that. What kind of scary thing would a grown man have to see to be scared to death?” The middle-aged fat man stared as Sun Fangchi leaped up, grabbed the edge of the vent, and poked his upper body inside.

“What bad luck! I never should have bought a house here. When the first construction crew ran off, I should have returned the deposit then. Even if I can live in it now, I’m still on edge. I don’t dare go out at night, and in the early morning I run into a lunatic like you. If you told me that I’d run into a dead body the moment I went out later, I’d even believe it...” The middle-aged fat man kept babbling on and on.

“Uh, look at what you’re saying,” Sun Fangchi dropped back down, still holding something in his hand, “how could I let you wait until you went out to see it? Why don’t you look now.”

As he spoke, Sun Fangchi yanked hard on what he had pulled in his hand, and a human body fell out of the vent.

That body was a young man. The nearly burst eyeballs glinted with a lifeless sheen because they had been exposed to the air for too long, and the skin was a frightening bluish-black color. His identity was easy to identify, though. He was wearing the black suit of the sales office, and his name was written on the name tag on his chest.

He was the staff member who had come forward to calm everyone down the afternoon before.

The middle-aged fat man was startled by the corpse smashing down in front of him and shouted as he tried to flee, but how could the elevator in motion open its door? He desperately slapped at the elevator door, and the trash bag in his hand split open, spilling soupy garbage all over his head and face.

“Damn it, calm down, calm down!” Sun Fangchi felt he had miscalculated badly. A corpse was nothing major, but getting covered in disgusting garbage was really no joke.

Ding!

The elevator happened to arrive at the first floor. As soon as the door opened a crack, the middle-aged fat man used agility that did not match his build and darted out.

Sun Fangchi looked outside and met Old Du’s group head-on.

The corpse Sun Fangchi found caused an uproar in the apartment. The residents were frightened and panicked, all of them closing their doors tightly and not coming out.

The corpse was handed over to the sales office people to handle themselves. Old Du’s group and Sun Fangchi gathered together to exchange information.

“Little brother isn’t simple. You make a big splash without a sound.” Old Du said meaningfully.

“It was just luck, completely luck.” Sun Fangchi spread his hands, “I just heard the sound in the elevator was strange when I was going upstairs, opened it to take a look, and happened to find the body. I wonder what major gains you had over at the shop?”

Old Du laughed it off, “What gains could we have? We just confirmed with that the owner that from 5 o’clock onward, strange things really do happen in the apartment, so most of the residents in the apartment close their doors and stay in after 5.”

Sun Fangchi knew he must be hiding something, and he was not angry either. In a game like this, you simply could not trust anyone.

Neither side had any sincerity about being honest, so this transaction ended hastily.

Sun Fangchi took Yueyue and walked through the apartment from top to bottom, but did not discover any other abnormalities.

The sky quickly grew dark.

Sun Fangchi timed it precisely, and before 5 o’clock, he returned with Yueyue to his room 414.

On the other side, Jin Qiao and Zhang Xu moved into one room, Bureau Chief Chen actually lowered his face and moved into one room with Old Du, and Zhou Xin refused to stay alone no matter what, insisting on making do for the night with the two men.

As for Wei Tao, no one knew what his situation was.

Sun Fangchi had already stayed up all night last night, and today he did not plan to keep going. From his experience yesterday, at the very least, staying in the middle of the room and not moving around meant there was no danger.

The sofa in the center of the apartment was less than 1.5 meters long. Sun Fangchi let Yueyue sleep on it, while he spread bedding on the floor beside the sofa, and the two of them made do and slept like that.

As they slept, Sun Fangchi was awakened by a series of knocking sounds.

Sitting up, Sun Fangchi stared solemnly at the wall making the sound.

This sound had appeared last night, but afterward nothing strange had happened, and no one mentioned it this morning either. Sun Fangchi had thought it was noise made by the neighbor next door.

Now, however, the knocking sound appeared again, confirming that last night’s sound was not an accident.

Thud, thud, thud

Rhythmic, dull knocks, continuous, as if someone were persistently striking inside the wall.

Sun Fangchi got up and was about to move closer to take a look, but was stopped by a weak force.

He turned back. Yueyue was gripping his collar.

“Don’t be afraid, I’m just going over to look.” Sun Fangchi comforted her.

Yueyue pulled harder, shaking her head the whole time.

Seeing this, Sun Fangchi guessed, “Can’t get close, there’s danger?”

Yueyue nodded, and fear showed on her little face.

Sun Fangchi understood.

This morning everyone had been guessing Ma Daobin’s whereabouts, and Yueyue had only been making the motion of pulling someone, unable to explain clearly. Combined with the situation right now, Sun Fangchi was not hard-pressed to guess Ma Daobin’s fate.

That being the case, the one hearing the knocking sound was not just him. Then this morning, why had everyone not mentioned the knocking sound?

Sun Fangchi lay back down, resting his arm as he thought.

Some people were not as lucky as Sun Fangchi, with Yueyue reminding them.

For example, Jin Qiao and Zhang Xu.

Zhang Xu had tangled with Jin Qiao for an entire day, and his purpose was obvious. Jin Qiao was hedonistic and did not reject it. The two of them stayed in one room, and naturally did the joys of life.

After one round, Zhang Xu panted heavily and rolled over to lie flat on the bed.

“Useless thing, good for looking at but not for use!” Jin Qiao evaluated contemptuously, wrapped in a bedsheet as she went to the bathroom to shower.

The hot water washed away the stickiness on her body. Jin Qiao reached out to touch the shelf, only then realizing there was no bath towel.

“Hey, bring me a bath towel.” Jin Qiao ordered Zhang Xu around.

Zhang Xu was so drowsy he could hardly keep his eyes open. Hearing Jin Qiao’s request, he still got up to find a bath towel and deliver it to the bathroom.

Thud, thud, thud

In a daze, Zhang Xu heard the wall making noise and subconsciously moved closer to listen.

The moment his ear leaned against the wall, the knocking sound vanished.

“You still haven’t found it after so long, you’re so stupid!” Jin Qiao complained unhappily.

Outside the bathroom, Zhang Xu’s entire head had already been buried into the wall, and only his body remained struggling uselessly.

Jin Qiao waited impatiently, and simply walked naked out of the bathroom. As soon as she came out, she stepped on something soft.

Looking down, it was a bath towel.

Where was Zhang Xu? Jin Qiao swept her eyes across the room and did not see Zhang Xu. Her gaze moved to the wall beside her, where there were two naked feet, and under Jin Qiao’s gaze, they slowly sank into the wall.