Zhu Jie's explanation did nothing to ease Tang Qisheng's worries. On the contrary, it made him even more wary. Just as he was hesitating, Zhu Jie finally relented. "All right. I know what you're worried about. I'll take you to see."
Looking at Zhu Jie's injured face, Tang Qisheng's heart softened. He could abandon a teammate, but he couldn't leave Zhu Jie behind. "You go first. I'll follow."
Before long, they arrived outside a room. The sign on the door, with blue characters on a white background, read Director's Office. "This is it. There's no light inside, so you..."
Before Zhu Jie could finish, Tang Qisheng stepped forward, slowly pushed the door open, then quickly backed away. He had never intended to go inside.
By the corridor's feeble light, he could see that it was a modest-sized office. Directly opposite the door was a workstation with its own desk, and along the two walls were six cubicles with partitions.
Unlike a normal office, there were no chairs at the workstations. In their place stood a row of pitch-black vats.
A pungent smell hung in the air—the smell of formalin. Tang Qisheng rose slightly onto his toes and saw something white bobbing in each of the six nearest vats: doctors' white coats.
Just as Zhu Jie had described, there was a body in each of the six vats—all of them medical staff. Only the vat at the very back was empty, and the floor was covered in puddles.
Gripping the doorknob, he gently closed the door. Zhu Jie pulled Tang Qisheng along, and they hurried away from the Director's Office. "Did you see? The body in the vat at the back is gone."
"Something else came out before I got there, too—a cloth doll. And a giant monster followed it. Did