Chapter 22

Jiang Luo almost laughed.

What thing could possibly be more terrifying than you?

Beside him was a vicious ghost wearing a human skin; outside the door was another filthy thing. Honestly, Jiang Luo would rather go deal with the ghost out there than hide in the Storage Room with Bai Ye Feng.

Jiang Luo didn't expose the ghost's clumsy little performance just yet—he keenly caught the malice woven into that tone instead.

That malice pulled his nerves taut.

Inside the enclosed Storage Room, the air was damp and cloying, with barely enough floor space for a person to stand.

Jiang Luo slapped Bai Ye Feng's hand away, stepped back, and put some distance between them.

The light overhead flickered as if it would burst any second. The stench seeped in through the door crack, and a thin layer of frost gathered on the stall door.

Outside the Toilet, a sudden burst of chaotic footsteps rang out.

A rough male voice spat viciously: "Where's she! Can't let her get away!"

"Hurry up, she's hiding in the Toilet—find her fast, or we'll be the ones caught!"

Jiang Luo focused. From the footsteps, there were three men outside, but only two were speaking. They argued loudly, as if they didn't care who overheard. Judging by their voices, they were all around thirty.

How could thirty-somethings have gotten into a dorm full of contestants?

Jiang Luo understood in an instant. Just like the Madam Owner's memories he'd touched at Hotel 129, he'd likely fallen into the scene of an event that had already happened.

The three men outside grew more sinister. "Search every stall."

Jiang Luo listened intently, but Bai Ye Feng looked bored, idly winding a strand of Jiang Luo's black hair around his finger.

With a bang, the first stall door was kicked hard open. The man who'd kicked it spat. "Shit, the slut's not in the first one."

Another door was kicked open.

The Storage Room Jiang Luo was in was the sixth stall.

Each kick landed like muffled, terrifying thunder. Soon the three men had kicked open four doors.

Only the fifth stall remained.

Jiang Luo couldn't help but break a cold sweat for the fleeing girl. Even knowing this had already happened, the tense, terrifying atmosphere was still enough to make a person's heart pound.

The three men outside clearly thought the same as him—that the girl was in the fifth stall. They let out two lecherous laughs, and horrifying words spilled from their mouths as casually as anything.

"You filthy slut, what are you still hiding for?"

"I'm beat, the bitch can really run. Lucky it's vacation and nobody's here—before I kill her, gotta get my rocks off first."

"Hahaha, you haven't had enough? Don't you fucking die on a woman."

"This slut ain't as pretty as her bestie, but she's still alive, right? Gotta make use of her more."

Amid the filth, someone kicked open the fifth stall door.

Jiang Luo's brow furrowed. He could already guess what would come next.

But unexpectedly, outside went dead silent.

Someone said in surprise: "How's the fifth one empty too?"

The fifth one empty too?

Then where could she be?

Jiang Luo frowned. His face suddenly stiffened, and a chill crept up his back.

He suddenly remembered—there was still a Storage Room here.

Right where they were now.

Jiang Luo slowly turned his head. On the ground, a hand suddenly seized his leg.

In the corner of the Storage Room, where there had been nothing a moment ago, a female ghost in tattered clothes suddenly appeared. She lifted her head from her tangled hair, revealing a deathly pale face.

On a face crisscrossed with greenish-purple bruises, two trails of bloody tears ran from her eyes. Covered in blood, she grinned at Jiang Luo with a horrifying, ghastly smile.

Jiang Luo's breath caught.

A violent kick slammed the door outside. Jiang Luo turned to look—in the next instant, the stall door was kicked open and three fierce, vicious-looking men strode in, grinning cruelly. As if they couldn't see Jiang Luo or Bai Ye Feng at all, they dragged the shrieking female ghost out.

The lights flickered rapidly again.

Jiang Luo steadied himself. Suddenly feeling the female ghost looked familiar, he focused through the unsteady light and recognized her—Wang Xin Hui, the girl from Fu Yuaner's class who had gone missing.

The lights suddenly went out.

In the darkness, those shadowy figures outside vanished. But the sounds didn't—doors opening and closing kept coming, followed by the continuous rush of toilet water.

Bai Ye Feng murmured in his ear: "Mm? Sounds like they chopped her up and flushed her down The Sewer."

Yes. Jiang Luo had heard it too.

More than that—he also thought of the stench he'd smelled upon entering the dorm, and the staff's words about The Sewer getting clogged often.

After what felt like an eternity, the flushing sounds gradually stopped.

The Toilet returned to silence.

Bai Ye Feng asked, concern on the surface, a faint smile underneath: "Were you scared?"

Jiang Luo understood in an instant the malice behind his earlier words.

The ghost had known all along that the female ghost would hide in this stall—that was why he'd brought him here.

Just to scare him?

Jiang Luo laughed instead of getting angry, his tone bright, as if he'd just received a pleasant surprise. "Not scared. I should thank you, Bai—it's given me another lead."

Jiang Luo patted Bai Ye Feng's shoulder affectionately, saying with heartfelt relief: "Bai, good thing you acted fast and pulled me into the Storage Room. I'm really, truly grateful."

The black-haired youth's gaze was utterly sincere: "I thought you were targeting me before, but now I see I was overthinking. A petty heart judging a gentleman's belly—Bai Ye Feng, Bai, you're really a good person."

Good person Bai Ye Feng: "..."

His smile faded slightly.

Jiang Luo flashed him another brilliant smile and stepped out of the Storage Room first.

Zhuo Zhongqiu was still waiting outside, oblivious. Seeing them come out, she couldn't help but say: "You were just using the Toilet—how could you possibly be this slow?"

Jiang Luo asked: "How long were we in there?"

Zhuo Zhongqiu crossed her arms: "Fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes," Jiang Luo murmured thoughtfully. "I thought an hour had passed."

This little episode didn't affect their plan. On the way to Liu Zhi's Office, Jiang Luo was still mulling over what he'd just witnessed in the Toilet.

The three men had looked like workers. Jiang Luo memorized their faces and didn't overlook an easily missed detail.

Among the three workers, one had never spoken from beginning to end.

Coincidentally, during the 2012 expansion work, two workers had also died.

These two events had to be connected in no ordinary way.

The three workers' words replayed in Jiang Luo's mind over and over—"This slut ain't as pretty as her bestie, but she's still alive, right." Could Wang Xin Hui's bestie be Fu Yuaner?

When the three workers saw Fu Yuaner, was she already dead?

Jiang Luo already had a vague framework in mind, but some key points still needed investigation to be understood.

The Academic Zone was empty at midnight. The three walked down the silent Corridor to the locked Office and climbed in through the window.

Jiang Luo headed straight for Liu Zhi's desk. The drawer had a small lock, but a small lock was nothing to them. Zhuo Zhongqiu pried it open, set it aside, and pulled the drawer out.

The drawer was full of workbooks and files. Jiang Luo and Zhuo Zhongqiu went through them one by one, and at the very bottom found a folded newspaper.

Jiang Luo picked up the newspaper; it felt heavier than it should. He unfolded it layer by layer and found a pile of women's jewelry wrapped inside.

As a designer—though a landscape designer—he'd had to learn design styles across industries at the basics level. Jiang Luo could tell at a glance that the jewelry came from five different brands.

The welding techniques and design patterns also bore temporal distinctions. If Liu Zhi had bought these as gifts, each set had been purchased at least one to two years apart.

Though the small details differed, the overall aesthetic direction was consistent—leaning toward a mature, feminine style.

One pair of earrings matched the necklace Fu Yuaner wore around her neck, forming a set.

Jiang Luo pulled out his Mobile Phone and carefully photographed each piece of jewelry. "From 2012 to now, how many girls have gone missing in total?"

Bai Ye Feng said casually: "Five."

Jiang Luo was thoughtful.

After photographing everything, they restored the Office and climbed back out the window to the dorm. Jiang Luo could now confirm that Liu Zhi and Fu Yuaner had once been in a romantic relationship, but the connection between Fu Yuaner, Wang Xin Hui, and the workers still eluded him.

And Liu Zhi wasn't among those three workers.

Back at the dorm, it was already 3 a.m. Even the most seasoned night owl would have felt tired by now.

After tidying up, Jiang Luo lay in bed. Just as he was about to fall asleep, his Mobile Phone rang again.

This time he was instantly alert. He picked up the phone and saw the same unknown number from last night.

But this time, the unknown number had a name attached.

[Liu Zhi].

The female ghost was using Liu Zhi's Mobile Phone to call Jiang Luo.

Jiang Luo pressed record, answered, and said calmly: "Hello?"

"Crackle... crackle..."

The same broken-signal sound. Jiang Luo waited patiently for the female voice.

"I... crackle..." the indistinct female voice said, "you and I, back to back."

"Is it you and I back to back, or you and Liu Zhi back to back?" Jiang Luo countered.

Something in his words seemed to hit the female ghost's wound. Her voice quickened: "You and I back to back, you and I back to back, you and I back to back..."

The voice grew sharper.

So it wasn't just humans who were repeaters by nature—ghosts were too?

Important things said three times?

Jiang Luo held his phone and looked down beneath the bed.

—Nothing was there.