Fifteenth Floor's Basement 3

The person most shocked to see the wooden cover in the center of the Magic Circle wasn't me, but Chang'an.

Before I had time to comment, he let out an involuntary cry. His eyes were glued to the wooden cover.

A moment later, he shouted excitedly, "It appeared... It appeared! I knew I wasn't imagining it... Acheng, you saw it too, right? You saw it, didn't you?"

"I saw it." I gave him a simple reply.

"...You don't seem very excited." Seeing my reaction, he calmed down a little and asked in confusion, "Aren't you the one who's most interested in this sort of thing?"

"I am interested, but all I'm seeing right now is a wooden board."

I wasn't going to "pop the champagne" until I saw the basement Chang'an had mentioned with my own eyes. That said, my calmness was only verbal. Based on my basic trust in my friend, I was indeed itching to investigate. It felt as though my blood was flowing faster.

I didn't recklessly lift the wooden cover. Instead, I crouched down and began examining the Magic Circle on the floor.

The Magic Circle consisted of countless twisted lines and symbols, yet it contained an obvious sense of order, so it was impossible to mistake it for messy graffiti. As for Western mysticism, I possessed only a jumble of unsystematic knowledge, and I knew even less about analyzing this Magic Circle. But there was one thing I could make out.

I reached out and lightly brushed the lines along the edge of the Magic Circle, getting a tiny bit of the black pigment used to draw them on my finger. After rubbing my fingertip slightly, I was completely certain. The pigment was blood that had oxidized and dried.

Considering the clue about "the bizarre murder that once took place in this house," could the person who drew the Magic Circle have been the murderer, with the pigment being the victim's blood?

Assuming that was the truth, what had the murderer been trying to accomplish? And why had he left the Magic Circle in this house?

Was the murderer still keeping an eye on this house?

"Should we open the cover and take a look?" Chang'an asked tentatively from beside me, but he didn't dare step forward and lift it himself.

"Mm." I nodded and stood up, then stepped forward and directly into the center of the Magic Circle.

The wooden cover had neither a handle nor a groove. I bent down and slipped my fingers into the gap between the cover and the floor.

The next moment, I lifted the wooden cover high, and what lay beneath came into view.

At that moment, I instinctively held my breath.

Just as Chang'an had said, there was a pitch-black entrance beneath the wooden cover. Below it was a seemingly bottomless staircase leading to a basement!

But this was the Fifteenth Floor!

Chang'an seemed to hold his breath as well. Then, as though afraid of startling something, he said, "You see it, right? I wasn't lying to you..."

I stared fixedly at the staircase before me.

The material making up the staircase was gray-white concrete, its surface completely unfinished. Part of it lay bare before my eyes, while the rest sank deep into the darkness, as though leading to some unknown and terrifying netherworld. Just looking at it made my entire body turn cold.

For a moment, I felt countless chaotic images flash through my mind.

This bizarre sight was like a meteor crashing heavily into a lake of thought, sending wave after wave across its surface. Every effort I had made in the past to explore the strange resurfaced one after another.

Even Maza's earlier words rose to the surface of my mind.

--Compared to the world as it is now, the world after the apocalypse differs most in time and space. Time and space in the apocalyptic world are both distorted, and survivors may encounter strange and bizarre phenomena at any moment.

--The apocalypse won't descend all at once. It has signs and preludes, but people today simply haven't given them enough attention.

--Inexplicable phenomena, or grotesque monsters... Things of this sort must already have appeared openly in this era.

Could this be the sign and prelude to the apocalypse that Maza had mentioned?

But judging from the Magic Circle at the scene, this seemed to be a man-made anomaly rather than a natural disaster... No, wait. I was making assumptions. Who said that what brought about the apocalypse had to be a natural disaster rather than a human one?

Could this anomalous phenomenon be connected to the apocalyptic signs Maza had mentioned?

Wait, wait, my thoughts were getting ahead of themselves. I shouldn't start linking this to matters far away and unsupported by evidence. What should I be doing right now?

"Chang'an, wait here. I'm going downstairs to confirm something."

After saying that, I walked out into the corridor and left a "Firefly" inside the house.

At this critical juncture, I realized that I was still plagued by hesitation, afraid that this bizarre event would turn out to be an elaborate hoax after all. So I didn't immediately control the "Firefly" to investigate the space beneath the hole. Instead, I had the "Firefly" monitor Chang'an there first.

As for me, I leaned against the corridor railing and looked at the scenery, calming my runaway thoughts. Then I went downstairs and pretended to be a visitor who had knocked on the wrong door, knocking on the door of one of the residents.

When the resident opened the door, I secretly sent a "Firefly" inside and had it investigate the place.

Just as Chang'an had described, there was no descending staircase visible from there, and there was no hole in the ceiling either.

At the same time, the "Firefly" monitoring Chang'an completed a crucial confirmation--Chang'an hadn't closed the wooden cover during that time, and I was still able to continuously observe the existence of the hole.

Now I could finally confirm it with absolute certainty.

That hole truly led to a "space that didn't exist in reality."

-

The anomalous phenomenon I had dreamed of and searched for all this time, something I had previously only been able to glimpse in fantasy stories, truly existed!

I had imagined countless times what it would feel like to finally prove this. And now that I had verified the existence of the anomalous with my own eyes, I wasn't as ecstatic as I had imagined.

It wasn't because I was afraid, nor because my enthusiasm for the inexplicable had suddenly ebbed at this crucial moment. I thought the emotion I was experiencing was probably fairly universal.

It was said that when many people encountered sudden, drastic changes, they didn't react as exaggeratedly as people in movies. For example, someone who suddenly learned they had won the lottery jackpot, or someone who received the devastating news that a family member had died in an accident... They wouldn't instantly become overjoyed or overwhelmed with grief. Instead, they needed a long time to digest such an enormous fact.

As if I were in a dream--perhaps that was the best way to describe my current state of mind.

I couldn't even tell whether my feet were properly planted on the ground.

Today was an extraordinarily important day in my life. Even this feeling of floating with both feet off the ground was precious. If I could, I wanted to immerse myself in this dreamlike experience a little longer.

But I had to regain my ability to think normally as soon as possible. The stranger and more bizarre the event, the more necessary it was to keep a clear head. Quite a few characters in horror stories died while they were carried away, and I didn't want to become that pathetic.

Besides, I had to seriously face an important question next.

Since what Chang'an had said was true, the credibility of Maza's claim that she was a "jinx" had risen along with it. And if Maza really did bring calamity upon those around her, would that malign influence spread to the "people around those people"?

In other words, could Chang'an have encountered the anomalous event because he was my friend?

I had met Maza last night, while Chang'an had encountered the anomalous event the night before that. Judging from the order of events, Chang'an's experience and Maza's disaster-attracting constitution did not form a normal causal relationship. But when anomalies were involved, ordinary common sense couldn't be applied. I also had to consider the possibility that the effect had preceded the cause.

That was to say: because I met Maza last night, Chang'an encountered the anomalous event the night before, with the purpose of responding to Maza's disaster-attracting constitution today and dragging me into the anomalous event--in the world of anomalies, such an absurd causal relationship might actually exist.

If that was the case, how should I handle my relationship with Maza?-

I returned to the house where the hole was. Chang'an was standing outside the entrance, holding a flashlight and cautiously shining it inside, seemingly afraid that some monster might suddenly crawl out. When he saw me return, he finally let out a sigh of relief. By then, I had more or less sorted out my thoughts as well.

"I'm sorry, Chang'an." I sighed. "Maybe I dragged you into this."

"What's wrong? Why are you suddenly saying that?" he asked in bewilderment.

"I'll explain later." I already had some ideas about how to deal with that matter. "For now, let's focus on the problem in front of us."

Hearing that, he didn't ask any further and shifted his attention back to the hole with me.

By the light of the flashlight, I saw the scene beneath the staircase clearly. The space below was only a little over three meters deep, with a gray concrete floor at the bottom. It really did look like a basement.

I silently observed the hole.

Once I realized the supernatural nature of this hole, it became irresistibly alluring to me. It was like pulling the plug from a bathtub full of water and silently watching the water swirl as it was sucked into the dark hole. It seemed that even my heart was about to flow down into the space beneath it.

While savoring that bewitching sensation, I stepped forward two more paces, wanting to get a closer look.

Suddenly, someone grabbed my arm from the side. I turned and saw Chang'an. He had seized me and was wearing a rare expression of seriousness.

"You want to go down?"

"Of course I do."

There was absolutely no way I wouldn't want to go down and take a look.

He stared at me in shock. "What kind of nonsense are you talking about? I didn't bring you here so you could go down!"

"You called me all the way here. How could I not investigate it personally?" I asked in return, then suddenly realized something.

Right. From my perspective, if I encountered an anomalous event, it was impossible not to investigate it personally from top to bottom. I assumed other people would see me the same way. And needless to say, as my friend, Chang'an knew my habits all too well.

But this time was different. Chang'an had probably experienced the anomalous event himself first, so he had formed the preconception that "no one should enter this hole." When he told me about it, he had unconsciously transferred that judgment to me--it had never occurred to him that someone might want to go down and take a look.

"Don't worry. I'm not as reckless as you think. Even if I want to go down, I won't do it right away."

As I said that, I used my body to block his view and controlled the "Firefly" to fly beneath the hole.

But just then, something incredible happened.

When the "Firefly" entered the space beneath the hole--when it entered that "space that didn't exist in reality"--the spiritual connection between it and me was severed. The "Firefly" itself vanished into thin air, like a candle flame blown out by the wind.