“Beep… beep…”
“Beep… beep…”
Zhang Xiangyi put it on speaker, and Xiao Xingzhi, sitting beside her, could hear everything clearly. The call rang until it auto-disconnected, with no one answering the whole time. She tried again three times, each time the same result.
“What does it mean, not picking up?” Xiao Xingzhi leaned in, staring at the “not connected” status, eyes practically rolling to the ceiling. “Who exactly is this landlord? I’m getting more and more curious. By our deductions, the only one connected to that long-haired monster is Fugui, but the first person to jump was also linked to Fugui. His name keeps coming up among the NPCs, yet we’ve never actually seen him.”
That corpse didn’t count, of course.
“But this apartment clearly can’t be judged by normal logic. A new landlord… tsk…”
He leaned back against the sofa, elbows resting casually on the backrest behind Zhang Xiangyi. Pleased with himself, he smiled, but when she glanced over, he immediately pulled his expression back to serious.
“Anyway, whenever someone dies here, they handle it internally. What if we just take out everyone—”
He made a throat-slitting gesture.
“How many do you plan to take on at once?” Zhang Xiangyi asked.
Xiao Xingzhi: “I think what you said makes sense.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“Everything you say makes sense.”
Zhang Xiangyi: “……”
She took a deep breath, reminding herself that this was just how Xiao Xingzhi was. If his personality ever actually changed, that would be when things got dangerous.
“My initial guess was right. This is essentially a scam.” Her fingers moved quickly across her phone as she typed a message to the new landlord.
「Hello, landlord. I’m the tenant in 404, Zhang Xiangyi. The bedroom door in our unit is damaged. When would you have time to come inspect it so we can discuss compensation?」
“What they’re trying to conceal is nothing more than crimes. And if so many people are concealing it together, then it can only be a few things.” She raised her fingers, counting seriously. “Drug trafficking, organs, human trafficking, weapons smuggling…”
“These are all major criminal operations. Organ harvesting needs all kinds of instruments and equipment, unless there are areas here we haven’t found, we can rule that out. As for weapons smuggling, given real-world conditions, it’s completely impossible in our country. This instance world is still fairly realistic, so we can set that aside too. That leaves drug trafficking and human trafficking.”
Zhang Xiangyi frowned, then looked at the man whose eyes were curved in a faint smile. She tilted her head, puzzled.
“What are you so happy about?”
This was such a serious topic.
“Ah, no, I was just thinking about the list we saw last night. Aside from the four of us, everyone else had a red X by their name, right? Doesn’t that basically mean they’re already gone? Wouldn’t that make human trafficking more likely?” Xiao Xingzhi said. Noticing that Zhang Xiangyi’s mood had dipped even if she didn’t show it, he quickly shifted into analysis mode. “Also, about what Doctor Xi checked last night, we still don’t know the results. Should we consolidate everything first?”
At the mention of the examination, the gut-churning scene from the night before resurfaced in Zhang Xiangyi’s mind, and a wave of nausea rose again.
“Let’s go check 4-3.”
The two of them didn’t hesitate and went straight to knock on 4-3. It opened quickly.
Doctor Xi raised an eyebrow and stepped aside to let them in. “I’m starting to think you two planned this.”
The moment she entered, Zhang Xiangyi noticed someone sitting on the sofa with their legs crossed, in a long dress, completely at ease as if in their own home.
“I was just about to come find you,” said Zhong Ziqian, putting his leg down and straightening his dress. “We all want the same thing, so let’s skip the nonsense.”
Doctor Xi took out three sheets of A4 paper and handed one to each before sitting down with a cup of tea. “Take a look. I pulled an all-nighter on this. I’m not a professional forensic pathologist, so it’s not comprehensive, but it should work as a reference.”
Zhang Xiangyi looked at him with admiration. Their return times had been about the same, she’d been exhausted and asleep, while he’d stayed up all night writing a report. As expected of a corporate workhorse who’d been grinding away in society, especially an emergency-room doctor.
“You didn’t sleep?” Zhong Ziqian asked, after glancing at the report and putting it down. He couldn’t really follow the technical terms, even though Doctor Xi had tried to simplify as much as possible. There were too many words, it gave him a headache. He’d been “allergic to reading” since childhood.
“When that woman came to inspect last night, how did you get through it?”
Thinking back to those nerve-wracking minutes, Zhong Ziqian had been clutching his game console, playing while panicking so hard he kept losing. Fortunately, the woman saw he wasn’t asleep and left.
Doctor Xi set down his teacup. “I was writing this report. My in-game identity is a corporate worker. When I first arrived, I’d already asked my supervisor for a week off. I didn’t say what for, but that woman didn’t know that. It’s normal for office workers to be up late working overtime.”
Zhong Ziqian: “……”
That was not what he’d expected.
Zhang Xiangyi read every word carefully. Although she couldn’t follow the technical terms, she could still grasp the plain-language explanations.
By Doctor Xi’s preliminary, experience-based assessment, the remains in the cabinet did not come from a single individual. The earliest could be traced back about a month. But judging from the marks in the cabinet, there were signs of much older “materials”, those earlier ones had already been disposed of, leaving only traces. Without proper equipment, the conclusions they could draw were limited.
The items currently in the cabinet all belonged to relatively young individuals, roughly 20 to 35 years old. Both male and female.
From the most obvious skin condition, it looked a lot like drug use. There were widespread acne-like lesions, some even ulcerated, and their teeth were blackened…
After reading it, Zhang Xiangyi frowned. Could what the apartment was hiding be drug trafficking?
Were the large numbers of missing people, the ones marked with red Xs, taken away for drug testing, used as test subjects?
With a rough direction in mind, Zhang Xiangyi nudged Xiao Xingzhi. He immediately relayed their earlier deductions and gathered intel to the other two, acting as her spokesperson.
He looked quite pleased with himself.
“You people really don’t stop, do you…” Zhong Ziqian yawned, his eyes unfocused. He’d gone to sleep after the woman left, but hadn’t slept well, constantly waking and dozing off again.
When morning came, he was afraid they’d do something without him and leave him behind. Even though he wasn’t as smart as them, he didn’t want to be the one just freeloading. So he’d forced himself up and come to knock on the door. Finding everyone else already working made him feel oddly guilty.
Especially since even two college students were putting in the effort, he felt even more ashamed.
After reflecting on himself, he sat up straight at once. “So what are we doing now? Just give me instructions. I’m not good at much else, but I can fight!”
He looked so excited it was as if he were about to take on the final boss.
“In fact, we can already leave this instance,” Doctor Xi said calmly, cutting in. “From the opening question when we entered, ‘why did someone jump from the building’, we already know what this apartment is trying to conceal. We can make an educated guess and clear it.”
Zhong Ziqian froze. “Huh??”
We can already leave?
He hadn’t even started trying yet!
Zhang Xiangyi rested her chin on her hand. “If you want to leave, you can go first. I won’t force anyone.”
Zhong Ziqian tilted his head. “You’re not leaving?”
Zhang Xiangyi shook her head. “I want to make a big move.”
Zhong Ziqian: “???”
He turned a questioning look at the person beside Zhang Xiangyi, then silently shifted his attention back to Doctor Xi. Xiao Xingzhi’s decision didn’t even need asking.
Whatever Zhang Xiangyi did, he would do.
Doctor Xi smiled faintly. “I believe that as a citizen of Huaxia [1] 华夏, an ancient, poetic name for China jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2691974_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2691974_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, faced with something like this and able to act, one would naturally step in.”
He despised it. He’d operated on anti-narcotics officers before, and most of them couldn’t be saved. That sense of powerlessness had always stayed with him. Of course he knew this was an instance, not reality, but he still wanted to contribute. No matter where people came from, he wanted a world free of drugs.
Zhong Ziqian fell silent: “……”
It wasn’t that he didn’t care about his country, he’d just never really thought about it before.
Now that things had been said this far, it didn’t seem right to back out.
“Fine. Tell me what you need me to do.”
Zhang Xiangyi smiled faintly.
At exactly 19:00, night fell.
Zhang Xiangyi and Xiao Xingzhi packed their weapons and went downstairs, entering 1-1 once again.
Drug trafficking, such a serious crime, couldn’t possibly be exposed out in the open. And since it wasn’t on floors 1–7, those would be too easy to search.
So there was only one place left.
Underground.
After confirming no one was inside the room, the two split up to search.
Where was the mechanism?
They’d nearly turned all of 1-1 upside down, but still hadn’t found it.
Xiao Xingzhi shook his head. “That’s not right. The passage is definitely in 1-1. I swear on my character.”
Zhang Xiangyi pushed the person blocking her way aside and walked to the door. “You don’t have much character to swear on, but I support your conclusion this time.”
“I’m not without character! I—”
“All right, come look at this. There shouldn’t be any surveillance in the other rooms, right?”
She had deliberately avoided the cameras, just in case they could pick up something inside. Only a second after stepping aside did she realize that if the interior really was monitored, their earlier sneaking around wouldn’t have mattered at all.
“There really isn’t.”
As soon as he stepped closer and touched it, a faint “beep” sounded.
Very soft, but clear enough for both to hear.
“Any changes?”
“Let’s look.”
The two started searching again. Before long she lowered her voice. “Here! Under the coffee table.”
Bending down, she called him over, and together they moved the coffee table aside.
Beneath it was a passage just wide enough for one person. It was pitch black, nothing below could be made out as a staircase descended into the dark.
She reached into her small backpack, about to go down the steps, when he grabbed her.
“You’re still injured. I’ll go in front.”
She glanced at the completely dark passage, then looked seriously into his nervous eyes and stated a fact: “It’s dark.”
“I… I’m not scared of the dark!”
With that, as if he’d made some enormous decision, he pulled out a kitchen knife, held his breath, and stepped in first. “Stay close behind me, all right…”
“Don’t misunderstand, I’m just worried that if you stay too far back and something happens, I won’t be able to reach you in time.”
“Really!”
References[+]