Translator: CinderTL
"It's... water," Jiang Cheng said, raising an eyebrow slightly.
"No, it's a footprint!"
A wet footprint!
As Shen Mengyun saw the footprint, her eyes widened. A moment later, cold sweat instantly soaked her back.
The footprint's toes pointed toward the door, which was ajar. The padlock was missing, and most terrifyingly, there were only footprints leading into the room, none leading out!
Her throat involuntarily bobbed. Looking at the ajar dormitory door, everyone's faces turned pale.
The Heart-Corroding Demon was inside.
They were separated by only a single door.
Thinking further, Shen Mengyun's chest heaved violently, her breathing quickening. If... if Jiang Cheng hadn't taken her upstairs, she would have been left alone in the dormitory. What would have happened to her then? No, not then—just moments ago?
She would have been silently replaced by the Heart-Corroding Demon.
Jiang Cheng pinched her arm, jolting Shen Mengyun out of her terror. Everyone subtly retreated, moving away from the door.
Next, they hurried down the corridor toward the exit.
The discovery at Shen Mengyun's dorm had made them even more cautious about the ground. Soon, they found more wet footprints hugging the wall.
The footprints were intermittent, leading all the way to the dorm's main gate, where they abruptly ended in front of the gatekeeper's room.
It was clear the footprints had originated from the gatekeeper's room before leading to Shen Mengyun's dorm.
The gatekeeper's door was closed, and the room was silent and dark.
Huai Yi swallowed hard, his eyes filled with unease. He whispered, "We... haven't seen the gatekeeper in a long time, have we?"
Those simple words seemed to stir the air around them, intensifying their unease. He was right—it had been a long time since anyone had seen the old man.
When had it started? Jiang Cheng recalled.
It seemed like yesterday, or perhaps the day before. They were always in a rush, and the gatekeeper had left them with such a strange impression that no one had bothered to seek him out. They'd avoided him whenever possible.
"Do you want to?" Shen Mengyun whispered, glancing at Jiang Cheng. She had an almost comical level of trust in this man.
Wang Qi, perhaps thinking of something, reached out and grasped the rusty doorknob. But before he could apply any pressure, Jiang Cheng stopped him.
Jiang Cheng looked at Wang Qi, his expression clearly conveying, "Don't make trouble."
Wang Qi slowly retracted his hand, then turned his palm upward. Everyone saw that several of his fingers were wet. It seemed he'd only been testing the door, not intending to open it.
Now, it seemed the gatekeeper's fate was likely sealed.
Leaving the dormitory, they kept their footsteps as light as possible, just as they had before.
At midnight, as Yuan Xiaoyi had instructed, they successfully entered the art center building. Judging by the interior decor, the art center was far more impressive than the university's Activity Center.
Fatty muttered under his breath, "Figures. Art students are loaded and know how to have fun."
Jiang Cheng immediately corrected him, explaining that he, too, was an art student—a genuine artist who had even sacrificed himself for art.
Fatty knew the Doctor's old habit had resurfaced, so he retorted with a look of disdain: "Doctor, shut up! The things you know would have gotten you drowned in a pig cage in feudal society. You should be grateful for the harmonious society that saved you."
Shen Mengyun, standing nearby, was completely bewildered. What kind of art required self-sacrifice? And what did pig cages have to do with it?
Wang Qi, standing at the back of the line, seemed to understand. His lips curled into an awkward smile.
"Can you guys be serious for once?" Huai Yi turned around, his face contorted in a grimace. "We're already inside the art center. This is a place of Urban Legends. Can't you show them some respect?"
Jiang Cheng corrected him with a straight face: "Don't forget, we're here to smash their heads."
Huai Yi froze for a moment, wanting to argue, but realized Jiang Cheng wasn't wrong. This wasn't an escape mission; they were here to confront the Urban Legends head-on.
As Brother Jiang said, they were here to smash their heads without showing any mercy.
Of course, there was also the possibility of getting their own heads smashed.
Shen Mengyun stopped walking and pointed at the wall. "Look, isn't that a map?"
Looking up, they saw a sheet of paper posted on a wall not far from the Gate, listing the locations of the art center's various classrooms.
One prominent spot had been specially marked in red ink. Fatty squinted and leaned closer to read, "It's the Exhibition Hall!"
The Exhibition Hall was the Sculpture Hall, as Yuan Xiaoyi had mentioned, just under a different name.
"Let's go to the duty room first," Jiang Cheng said, turning around.
The duty room was nearby, just around the corner. As Yuan Xiaoyi had said, the lights were on inside, but there was no one there.
However, this wasn't visible from the outside.
The glass window of the duty room was covered by a large white cloth, hung inside like a curtain.
Stepping inside, they found the room surprisingly well-organized. A leather coat was draped over the back of a chair, a registration form lay on the desk, along with a red rotary phone and numerous newspapers.
The white cloth used to block the view wasn't hung in the way they'd initially imagined. Instead, it was held in place by two wooden clips, one on each side.
The setup looked crude and unstable, likely a clandestine arrangement made without the school's permission.
It wasn't even a white sheet, just a faded old bedsheet.
On the right side of the table sat a large enamel mug.
The style was rare these days, and it still held half a cup of tea, with a thick layer of tea stains coating the inside.
Overall, the room felt as if someone had just been sitting there.
But when Jiang Cheng touched the mug, he found it cold.
"Done," Huai Yi said, standing up from the table and nodding to Jiang Cheng.
As Jiang Cheng had instructed, he had found the red alarm switch under the table and turned it off.
After leaving the guard room, the group followed the map to the sculpture studio, where Yuan Xiaoyi said they could find tools they needed.
But shortly after they left, a sudden gust of wind swept through the empty guard room.
The wind grew stronger, rustling the newspapers on the table.
One by one, the newspapers were lifted and flipped over, as if someone were turning the pages, until the bottom sheet was revealed, where the movement stopped.
This was a newspaper that looked incredibly old. Its pages were yellowed, and its corners were severely torn, as if it had been frequently pulled out and read.
A cursory glance revealed that the content consisted mostly of gossip columns, tales of oddities, and sensationalized headlines designed to grab readers' attention.
Such writing was typical of local tabloids with poor circulation.
In a small box at the corner of the newspaper, a separate introduction was printed in bold black letters:
University Art Teacher Found Dead in Exhibition Hall at Midnight. The Only Suspect, Mentally Unstable, Was Run Over and Killed by a Truck Immediately After Being Released. Was This a Case of Karmic Retribution, or a Fierce Ghost Seeking Vengeance? Our Special Correspondent will analyze the details in the following report.
Snap!
In the next moment, the wooden clip on the right side of the bed fell off, and the sheet, pulled down by gravity, draped halfway over the chair.
On the chair, which had been empty just moments before, a humanoid figure suddenly materialized with an eerie stillness.
(End of the Chapter)
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