Are You a Squeaky Toy?

Yu Xing, oblivious to this, put away his wire, feeling that the person behind him wasn't quite right.

A chill suddenly crept up his back.

Was Zhao Yijiu raised on popsicles?

A walking, talking personal air conditioner!

Before he could turn his head, a voice suddenly came from afar, "Great! You're here! Zhang Shuya is missing, can you help me look for her?"

Yu Xing turned his head and saw Fang Rui running over, looking like he had finally found a savior. The other party stopped when he got closer, holding his knees and panting.

"It's almost one o'clock, Zhang Shuya is missing, I can't find her no matter how hard I look!" After catching his breath, Fang Rui, with his messy brown hair, looked at the two of them expectantly.

"Missing?"

Zhao Yijiu put away his curiosity about Yu Xing and looked coldly at Fang Rui.

"Yes!" Seeing that one of them looked indifferent and the other bewildered, Fang Rui couldn't help but twitch his temple—why weren't these two laid-back masters concerned about the missing beauty?

Moreover, this place was incredibly creepy!

He could only scratch his head and explain, "At 00:35, my stomach hurt so I went to the toilet for a while. I decided to search the men's room while I was at it, and I found a battery in the last stall."

"Ah... did you see anything scary?" Yu Xing asked curiously.

"Ah, well... After I got the battery, I thought I couldn't let Zhang Shuya, a girl, wait outside for too long, so I rushed back immediately. But before I left, I think I vaguely heard footsteps."

Yu Xing drew out his tone and said "Oh~", quickly deducing a possibility.

Getting attacked by ghostly creatures after picking up a battery was a pattern he and Zhao Yijiu had figured out. If they were right, Fang Rui picking up the battery would definitely attract the attention of ghostly creatures. If the ghostly creatures hadn't encountered Fang Rui...

Then it should have been Zhang Shuya, who was closest, who was attacked, just like when Zhao Yijiu picked up a battery and he, the innocent bystander, was attacked.

Of course, there was another possibility: Fang Rui was one of the six applicants, a ghostly creature himself, and was just putting on a show.

Zhao Yijiu urged, "Go on, what happened after you went back?"

"Oh, after I came back, I didn't see her, so I searched nearby for a long time, and then I ran into you two. You guys, why are you two at the main entrance... " Fang Rui trailed off, suddenly realizing something was wrong, and looked at them suspiciously, "You're not thinking of leaving, are you?"

Yu Xing was heartbroken when he heard that, "You're leaving too? The door won't open, and we can't send any messages. We're trapped here."

He thought for a moment and then said loudly, "Hey, I'll tell you a secret, there are really ghosts here, do you believe it or not?"

"I believe it, I believe it!" Fang Rui nodded vigorously. To tell the truth, when he and Zhang Shuya found the two batteries in the hall, a human head had popped out of a machine. Zhang Shuya thought it was a prop, but he saw that what was connected to the bottom of the human head wasn't some mechanical device, but was empty!

He told Zhang Shuya, and she just laughed at him for seeing things wrong.

After nodding, he asked, "What about the windows? Can the windows be opened?"

"..."

"..."

Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu suddenly fell silent.

They had forgotten.

There were still windows.

The nearest window was right beside them. They went over and pushed it, but as expected, the window frame seemed to be rusted shut. No matter how hard they pushed, it was useless.

They could only see the heavy rain outside beating mercilessly against the dirty glass, and occasionally a flash of lightning illuminated the sky, followed by a muffled rumble of thunder.

They followed the wall and pushed several more windows, but the result was the same.

Zhao Yijiu pursed his lips. He had forgotten about the windows because he already knew that neither the windows nor the doors could be opened, so he hadn't paid attention to them.

How could Yu Xing, who was so eager to leave, have forgotten too? There must be something wrong.

Could the other party be like him...

"Ah!!"

Just then, from several walls away, a sharp scream could be faintly heard, interrupting Zhao Yijiu's speculation.

"A woman's scream." Yu Xing shifted his gaze from the desolate scenery outside.

Fang Rui was startled, "It's Zhang Shuya, over by the toilet! Let's go quickly!"

He took the lead and ran over, leaving Zhao Yijiu and Yu Xing looking at each other.

Zhao Yijiu said with a half-smile, "Dare to go?"

Yu Xing decisively shook his head, "I don't dare, I'll pass... Hey, what the heck, I didn't notice, the camera's out of battery!"

"Okay, you said you'll go." Zhao Yijiu displayed his 'enterprise-level understanding' and then took out the only battery they had, which he had found in the sink in the toilet, and held it out to Yu Xing, "The battery. I'll give it to you if you go."

Yu Xing, holding his dead camera, looked pitifully at Zhao Yijiu, then glanced at the battery.

At this stage, he felt that not fulfilling Assistant Hao's 'rules' was not a good thing. If some death condition was triggered, it would be over for him.

But Zhao Yijiu only had this one battery. If he gave it to him...

Yu Xing asked, "What about you then? Your camera will be out of battery in about two minutes too."

Because they had turned on night vision at different times, the time they ran out of battery would also have slight differences.

Zhao Yijiu subconsciously touched his pocket. His fingertips brushed against cold metal. He said coldly, "I'm safer than you."

"I'll go then!" Yu Xing, full of survival instinct, quickly took the battery and started changing it as he walked. "Let's go."

The two of them finished discussing very quickly, and Fang Rui had just reached the corridor.

When they caught up, they saw Fang Rui knocking on the door of a room. "The sound seems to be coming from inside. What should we do? What if something happened to her?"

Yu Xing glanced at the door.

A white sign read [Women's Changing Room].

"Damn it, it's locked!" Fang Rui's voice was filled with urgency. No one wanted something to have actually happened, which would mean things were developing in the worst possible direction.

The banging on the door broke the silence. Yu Xing's spirits lifted:

"It's locked? Then I..."

"No time," Zhao Yijiu interrupted him, easily pushing the seemingly sturdy Fang Rui aside and kicking the door.

The door burst open with a violent shudder.

Yu Xing: Is this friend addicted to kicking down doors...

They rushed in and looked around.

"Ah!!" Another scream, this one from Yu Xing.

A corpse with no eyes was leaning against the doorframe, its long, curly hair messily falling over its face. Blood seeped from the empty sockets, trickling down its cheeks and pooling on the floor.

As Yu Xing cried out, he had already hidden behind Zhao Yijiu. Zhao Yijiu could feel the trembling in the fingers gripping his back.

This...

He couldn't help but doubt himself. If the other party was faking it, would it be this realistic?

Glancing at the corpse, he pulled Yu Xing out from behind him and pushed him towards Zhang Shuya. "Aren't you familiar with corpses? Go up and see how she died."

"Ah, no!" Yu Xing, with remarkable agility, dodged Zhao Yijiu's action, his face a mask of terror as he frantically refused. "No, no, I'm scared. Please don't!!!"

"Are you a screaming chicken?" Zhao Yijiu's head hurt. He had never seen such an uncomposed man before. Although the other's screams were more pleasant than a screaming chicken's, they were still noisy.

"I'm a screaming chicken? I'm doing pretty well," Yu Xing retorted indignantly, retreating to a safe distance and pointing at Fang Rui. "You think he's calm? In reality, he's scared stiff."

Zhao Yijiu froze and turned to look at Fang Rui.

Fang Rui's face was deathly pale, and he stood frozen, staring blankly at the corpse of the girl who had been chatting and laughing with him less than twenty minutes ago. The world felt surreal.

Dead people weren't scary. What was scary was the brutal death of having one's eyes gouged out.

Even more terrifying was that the killer was nearby.

He finally regained his senses, realizing he was too scared to move. He weakly said, "Yeah... stop with the chicken talk, pay attention to me..."

"Alright, I'm such a kind person, I'm the best at caring for others." Yu Xing immediately went to support Fang Rui. But for some reason, a thought popped into Fang Rui's mind: Didn't he say at the beginning that he wouldn't know how to take care of girls? Now he's the best at caring?

"..." Zhao Yijiu stared at them for two seconds, his gaze lingering on Yu Xing's hand on Fang Rui's arm. He couldn't be bothered to say more and walked over to the corpse to squat down and examine it.

"Her eyes were gouged out, very deeply, straight into the brain," he said, his voice as cold as a machine without emotions. He reached out and turned the corpse over. "No other injuries."

Yu Xing imagined Zhao Yijiu saying with a blank face, "I am a shrimp, I have no feelings," and felt his heart, which had been startled by the corpse, start beating again.

He then had the energy to think: "Eyes... the ghosts here really like eyes. First, there were notes telling people to gouge out their own eyes, then they chased me, babbling about poking out eyes, and now this..."

Fang Rui listened, utterly bewildered: "Wait, after we split up, what exactly did you guys go through!"

"Ah, that's Zhang Shuya's camera," Yu Xing said, tilting his head and spotting the camera lying on the ground beneath the long bench.

Fang Rui had also recovered. The two of them walked over together. As Yu Xing picked up the camera, he was afraid a hand would suddenly reach out from under the bench and pull him in. Fortunately, this time, he was safe. He stood up and fiddled with the item he had picked up.

"It's out of battery," Yu Xing called out to Zhao Yijiu, who was by the corpse. "Search her to see if she has a spare battery!"

Zhao Yijiu understood immediately and muttered under his breath, "He's quite bossy."

"Hey!" Fang Rui's eyes widened in disbelief. "You need a battery, and you're looking for it on a dead person? She just died, isn't that disrespectful to the deceased!?"

"Hmm," Yu Xing said, surprised. "Is that what you think?"

"Am I wrong?" Fang Rui's pallor had not yet faded, making his skin tone close to Yu Xing's. "We should be respectful to the dead..."

"Friend," Yu Xing patted Fang Rui's shoulder and retorted, "Respect for the dead is important, but it's not like this. Not touching her, letting her remain as she is until she rots, is that respect?"

He gave a strange smile. "Getting clues, uncovering the cause of her death, and not letting her die in obscurity – that's respect."

Fang Rui listened blankly and suddenly realized that this timid young man in front of him was over 1.8 meters tall, at least a bit taller than his own 1.82 meters. It was rare for him to be so serious, and it actually gave him a sense of pressure.

"Oh, oh..." His mind was a little slow to catch up.

"No battery," Zhao Yijiu said from the other side, having quickly searched the corpse. He had naturally heard Yu Xing's words and thought to himself: Tsk, I wouldn't have thought it, but he's quite something when he's serious.

"No battery..." Yu Xing frowned slightly. "We concluded before that the battery would attract ghostly creatures. But the camera is out of battery, and she doesn't have one on her. This means her death wasn't caused by touching the battery, which implies—"

"It implies there's another condition for triggering the ghostly creatures," Zhao Yijiu finished, recalling Assistant Hao's instructions. A grim conclusion could be drawn. "If the camera is out of battery for more than five minutes, you will be killed by a ghost."

"Ah?" Fang Rui couldn't help but feel fortunate. "Before I found you guys, I replaced the battery. Thank goodness."

He was fine, but Zhao Yijiu was not.

This was bad.

Because just a moment ago, his camera had also run out of battery.

Yu Xing also thought of this. Zhao Yijiu had given the battery to him, so he asked, "What should we do? Go back and get the battery?"

"Go back" referred to the office, as they had already mapped out the locations of the batteries in Offices 02 and 03.

"Yeah, I'll go now. Five minutes should be enough," Zhao Yijiu said, already running outside.

"You go ahead, I'll catch up with you later!" Yu Xing was a step behind. It wasn't because he was afraid that he let Zhao Yijiu go first, but because his stamina was poor. Waiting for Zhao Yijiu during these five minutes would only delay things.

Moreover, judging from the current situation, it was much easier for Zhao Yijiu to escape alone if they encountered a ghostly creature than if he had to bring Yu Xing along.

After Zhao Yijiu disappeared from view, Fang Rui sighed, "He's so brave, and skilled too. What do you think he did before?"

"I don't know." Yu Xing's peripheral vision caught sight of Zhang Shuya's corpse lying on the ground. He stepped forward to straighten it, taking the opportunity to get a closer look.

She was indeed very beautiful.

A vibrant life... gone just like that, so confusedly.

Fang Rui stared blankly at his actions. "Aren't you scared!?"