Chapter 51 : Chapter 51
Chapter 51: Room 404
From the spy’s laughter to the unfinished cry for mercy and finally the agonized wail, no more than two seconds had passed. Zhao Mingyue took a step back before she finally reacted.
That little ghost had asked her to come closer in order to kill her.
Whether she reached out to take the lollipop or leaned in to look at the number on it, the result would have been death.
“Thank you, Sister Yu. That little ghost just now—was he one of the students who burned to death in that class?” Zhao Mingyue asked quietly.
Only the dead become ghosts. In this school, it seemed that only the old dean and the unfortunate students from the orphan class had died.
Because of that, she truly had not been very wary just now. Instinctively, she had assumed that even if the old dean and those children had turned into ghosts, they should still be kind. The only thing she thought she needed to watch out for was the Fierce Ghost who had killed them.
Reality proved that she was still too inexperienced. She did not know whether these children had only become so hateful after turning into ghosts, or whether their nature had already been like this in life and had only grown worse after death.
“Yes.”
“Alright. I will be careful.”
Zhao Mingyue did not want to remain here any longer. She planned to go upstairs and take a look.
If there were already ghosts here, there was no need to mention the upper floors.
Room 404, where the fire had occurred, was definitely the hardest-hit area. But she had no choice. The task was here. If she wanted to complete it with a high Completion Rate and obtain the rewards, she had to go.
Besides that, she had finally realized what was strange about this school.
From the moment she entered, she had felt uncomfortable all over but could not pinpoint the problem. Now that she thought about it carefully, she understood—it was the sound.
It was far too quiet here. There was not even the faintest noise.
It was a summer night, and the school was basically located in a rural area. How could there not be even a single chirping insect?
Both inside and outside the school, the weeds grew densely. When she was outside, she had heard insects everywhere, and there had been countless mosquitoes.
Yet now, separated by nothing more than a single wall, there was not the slightest sound.
It could not even be described as peaceful.
It was absolute silence.
In such circumstances, a silent environment combined with darkness would make anyone uneasy, because every tiny movement you made would be infinitely magnified. Zhao Mingyue did not even realize that she had begun moving with extremely small motions, trying to keep her noise as low as possible.
Even that little ghost earlier had spoken in a deliberately hushed voice, as though afraid that something might hear him.
She remembered that the task description had said not to make any noise, or it would attract “her.”
It had been fine when she had not noticed it, but once Zhao Mingyue realized this, she grew even more nervous. She adjusted her breathing and walked lightly to the stairwell, shining her flashlight upward.
Once she reached the stairs, she constantly felt as though something was staring at her.
The steps were covered in dust. Zhao Mingyue was already wearing a mask to keep out the dust, and she carefully stepped onto the staircase, placing every step with caution.
This building—no, this entire school—was hiding dozens of mischievous and ill-natured little ghosts.
They hid in different places, lurking in the darkness without making any sound. Yet when you approached them, they would use all kinds of methods to kill you.
She needed to reach the fourth floor.
Along the way, she could not make any noise and also had to be wary of the little ghosts hiding in the shadows.
One careless mistake, and they might push her down the stairs.
Inside the teaching building, traces of student activity were still visible—graffiti on the walls and stair railings worn smooth with use.
“Bai Yu, if we keep making noise like this, will we attract the big boss here? Can you deal with her?”
“Oh right, we still need to find Xiaolian’s child. Only then can we resolve her resentment.”
“This task feels much harder than Sunshine Apartments. I thought Sunshine Apartments was already difficult, but it turns out that was just the lowest difficulty.”
Zhao Mingyue kept chattering in her mind to Bai Yu. It was not really her fault. In an environment like this, she felt that if she did not talk to someone, she might suffocate.
The psychological pressure was enormous, and the fear of the unknown weighed heavily on her. Yet at the same time, she had to restrict herself—she could not make large movements or produce any sound.
She had no idea what was on the second floor of the dormitory building or what awaited on the third floor. In the darkness, any kind of ghost might be lurking.
Zhao Mingyue naturally knew that the one living in her shadow was extremely powerful.
But fear could not simply be erased by that fact alone—unless she could reach the same level as Bai Sisi.
Although she could not reach that level, there was still a shortcut.
When she arrived on the second floor, Zhao Mingyue took the rabbit doll out of her pocket.
The courage she needed was here.
Sure enough, once she held the rabbit doll in her arms, she did not feel nearly as afraid. Zhao Mingyue quickly made her way to the fourth floor in one go.
The fourth floor was different from the first.
On the first floor, Zhao Mingyue had not felt any gusts of Yin Wind. On the fourth floor, however, the Yin Wind blew intermittently. A very distinct scorched odor mixed with the smell of decay filled the air.
All four dormitory rooms on the fourth floor had their doors open, and those mixed smells were drifting out from inside them.
Room 404 was easy to find. It was located along the outer wall.
Another point—the walls of Room 404 were black, completely different from the other dormitories.
Now that Zhao Mingyue had the rabbit doll with her, she was not particularly afraid. She ignored the situation inside Room 403 and walked straight to the entrance of Room 404.
Room 404’s pitch-black wooden door stood open. There was no window on the corridor-facing side. Zhao Mingyue had assumed the window would be on the opposite wall, but when she reached the doorway, she discovered that this dormitory had no windows at all.
Or rather, the two windows had been deliberately sealed shut.
Room 404 was very clean.
There were fifteen beds in total—bunk beds that could accommodate thirty people.
However, the walls had been burned black, and the beds were the same. Even the bed boards had been burned through.
Judging from the traces at the scene, the fire back then had been extremely fierce. No wonder it had burned so many students to death all at once.
The moment Zhao Mingyue entered the room, she instinctively covered her nose.
In the corridor, the smell had not been so strong, but inside the room it was completely different. The scent of burning mixed with rot filled the air. The stench here was even worse than the fifth floor of Sunshine Apartments.
It felt as though a fire had just happened, yet the corpses had been left here for over a month without anyone coming to clean them up.
The three-bladed ceiling fan above her head swayed gently.
It was unclear whether it was the wind or something inside the room using this method to welcome Zhao Mingyue’s arrival.
From Zhao Mingyue’s perspective, the room was empty, containing only the burned bed frames.
But from Bai Yu’s perspective, the entire room was bathed in a blood-red hue.
Children of twelve or thirteen, burned beyond recognition, either stood or sat throughout the room, staring at Zhao Mingyue’s body with vicious and malicious eyes.
These children looked far more terrifying than the ghosts in Sunshine Apartments. In this single room alone, there were at least twenty ghosts.
Even more interestingly, these ghosts had not originally been here.
They had been hiding in different corners throughout the school. Only after seeing Zhao Mingyue did they rush back here.