CHAPTER 361: CHAPTER 344: FATTY’S BOXED MEAL IS REALLY DELICIOUS_1

A rusty lock held the door to this floor tightly shut; one glance was enough to know it couldn’t be opened. Of course, that wouldn’t necessarily be the case if Gu Mian took out his saw. However, Gu Mian was reluctant to do such a thing openly with everyone watching, fearing it would shift suspicion for Li Wentao’s disappearance onto himself.

Li Yibai and Pan Yue had glanced at his guitar bag more than once, hesitating, seemingly wanting Gu Mian to abandon the thing. But seeing that Gu Mian didn’t seem tired at all, the two swallowed the words they were about to say.

Chu Changge took two steps forward and reached out to touch the rusty lock. Then, he turned back. "It’s been locked for a long time and hasn’t been opened."

007 was right. One of the stairway doors was indeed locked, but Gu Mian and the others didn’t have time to check if the door on the other side of this floor was also locked. Even if both doors were locked, it wouldn’t necessarily prove 007 was telling the truth. She might have just happened to pass by this floor and coincidentally noticed the lock, which is why she said what she did. Of course, these were all just guesses for now.

Just then, Chu Changge spoke again, "I’ve been counting. This is the sixth floor."

The door on the sixth floor was locked.

Gu Mian looked down the staircase. "Let’s keep going down and see if there are any traces at the place Pan Yue and Xu Keke mentioned—the place where Li Wentao was attacked."

The people behind them all looked somewhat nervous; their footsteps even became lighter.

It didn’t take long; they only went down one more floor.

Pan Yue, from the back, suddenly cried out, "It’s this floor! I remember this place."

Gu Mian halted.

This was the fifth floor. If what 007 said was true, then the fifth floor—where Keke and Pan Yue had seen Li Wentao—was only one level below the sixth floor where 007 had been trapped.

Chu Changge glanced at his watch again. "It’s 2:53. Hurry up."

Hearing this, Gu Mian quickened his pace and walked through the door. Pan Yue and Li Yibai seemed apprehensive but still followed closely behind.

"Turn right after entering," Keke, who was close behind Gu Mian, instructed softly.

Likely due to the lack of windows, it was pitch black beyond the door, as if the space had been filled with thick, black water. The moment they stepped through the gloomy doorway, the others behind Gu Mian shivered violently.

The flashlight beam seemed weak, but it still managed to illuminate a small area. Gu Mian, holding the flashlight, led the way, directing the beam to the right. The others huddled close behind him, like a tail that had sprouted from Gu Mian.

Before long, Gu Mian noticed some traces.

A pool of blood appeared within the flashlight beam.

The moment she saw the blood, Pan Yue recoiled.

Gu Mian took a few more steps forward, and the traces ahead were fully exposed in the flashlight beam. A large patch of blood spread along the wall. Under the combined effect of the darkness and the flashlight beam, the bloodstains appeared to turn a deep black.

As a doctor, Gu Mian knew very well that this amount of blood loss was enough to send a person into shock. Yet, there was no one around the bloodstains.

If one looked more closely... Gu Mian shifted the flashlight slightly, and the beam followed, illuminating an adjacent area.

It was a drag mark made of blood.

The terrifying bloodstain stretched continuously, extending into the darkness beyond the flashlight’s reach, its end point unknown.

"We didn’t see this last time!" Pan Yue exclaimed, her mouth agape in surprise.

"It might have appeared after you left." Gu Mian frowned.

He glanced at Chu Changge beside him. Half of Chu Changge’s face was illuminated by the flashlight, giving his expression a somewhat eerie look.

Staring at the bloodstains, 007 asked, "Should we... follow it and see?"

At her words, Pan Yue and Li Yibai both flinched, clearly disliking the suggestion.

Chu Changge raised his hand. "2:55."

Gu Mian immediately started to move. "Let’s go," he said, quickly advancing along the blood trail.

Seeing 007 and the others follow, Pan Yue and Li Yibai, not daring to act alone, also stuck close behind.

The drag mark stretched through the darkness, reaching the stairway door at the other end... but it didn’t stop there. Gu Mian saw the drag mark continue downward, disappearing into the dark staircase.

"Do we... do we keep going down?" Pan Yue asked, tightly gripping Keke who was beside her.

Keke, equally frightened, gripped her hand in return; both seemed just as scared.

Gu Mian remained silent and started down the stairs.

The bloodstains continued downward. Gu Mian silently followed them until there were no more stairs to descend. There, the gruesome trail finally began to lighten and fade, as if nearing its end.

This was already the first floor; they had descended from the fifth. In front of them was a half-open door.

The gradually fading bloodstain extended to the first-floor stairway entrance, turned a corner, and then vanished completely, as if it stopped just behind the door.

Keke stared at where the bloodstain had vanished, looking terrified. "It... it stopped behind the door, didn’t it?" she stammered.

Indeed, it was behind this very door. No one dared to pass through the half-open door, nor did they dare to pull open the closed half.

"What do we do?" Pan Yue asked, still clutching Keke tightly, her body starting to tremble.

Li Yibai, also flustered, blurted out, "Why don’t we go to the second floor first, then cross over to the other side and look from there...?"

But just as he was rambling, he suddenly saw Gu Mian, who was at the front, take a few quick steps forward and violently wrench open the closed half of the door.

"Wait!" Li Yibai hurriedly cried out, trying to stop him.

But it was too late.

Everyone saw what was behind the door.

Screams instantly filled the entire stairwell. Pan Yue clung to Keke tightly, not daring to open her eyes. Li Yibai also grabbed 007 tightly, his face deathly pale, not daring to look up.

There was indeed something behind the door—or rather, it was *on* the door.

It was Fatty.

He was hanging by a steel wire from the doorframe, his face already purple.

Gu Mian looked at the person swinging slightly from the doorframe.

The first casualty of the night was Fatty.

Meanwhile, Pan Yue’s voice erupted. She seemed to have gone slightly mad. "Who did this! Who did this!" she shrieked.

Keke held onto her tightly, biting her lip and saying nothing.

Li Yibai, also tugging at 007, said with a trembling voice, "Don’t... don’t look! Let’s leave this godforsaken place! I don’t want to stay here any longer!"

But just as almost everyone was succumbing to panic, a peculiar sound suddenly reached their ears. It came from below their feet, from beneath the stairs. It sounded as if something was moving in the triangular space between the staircase and the ground.

Upon hearing the sound, those on the stairs instinctively looked down.

There, in the dark space below, a deathly pale face had appeared at some point without them noticing.

It was Li Wentao.