CH 140

Minister Zou’s heart had never beaten so fast before.

The identical metal door extended endlessly along the corridor, and he ran too fast, causing his route counting to go awry.

The repeated cross-shaped corridors flew past his eyes time and time again, and the ground was so clean that it was almost cruel, with nothing that could serve as a landmark.

How many corridors and intersections had he crossed? Nine? Ten?

Did he turn left at the last corner? His mind was in such a mess that he couldn’t trust his memory.

That weird “Zhang Wei” never appeared again. At the end of the corridor, there was only darkness. In the corner of his eye, he saw his clothes and occasionally heard rustling noises from somewhere, causing Minister Zou to jump up and down like a frightened bird.

He was already exhausted from his limited physical strength, and his breath was mixed with a faint smell of blood. Minister Zou swallowed some saliva, and his throat was so dry it hurt.

He was lost in the most dangerous bottom floor of the corpse vault, with unknown monsters lurking in the darkness.

There was no food or water and no external means of communication. The space here was chaotic and disorderly, with no chance of getting lucky and leaving.

The only way out was to find the staircase where he came down.

However, the staircase was hidden behind thousands of metal doors, and all the others were morgues for storing dangerous corpses. If he tried each one by one, who knew what terrifying things he might encounter?

The more he thought, the more panicked he became. Minister Zou couldn’t think clearly and wished to die.

What should he do? What should he do?

Minister Zou’s running steps gradually slowed down, and his entire body was soaked in sweat. He couldn’t run anymore, and silver stars were dancing in his vision. He couldn’t help but lean against the icy wall and take deep breaths.

The lighting next to him suddenly turned on, and Minister Zou’s eyes frantically rolled around, then suddenly froze—

Two steps away from him at the crossroad, there was a pair of neatly placed leather shoes, which were Zhang Wei’s. Upon closer inspection, there was a dark red liquid stain on the shoe surface, like blood.

He had come back.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!” Minister Zou let out a desperate scream, clawing at his scalp with both hands. He seemed to want to scream out his own collapse, and his nails were stained with bright red blood.

Tap, tap, tap.

This time, it was a very light sound.

Minister Zou lifted his head in despair. A black figure stood quietly on the edge of the light and darkness, a dozen steps away from him. That figure looked like an adult man, standing stiff and straight, like a mannequin in a shopping mall.

The person didn’t move at all until the sensor light went off and the shadow was completely covered by darkness.

Minister Zou couldn’t take it anymore. He screamed and stood up, slamming into the wall in front of him. In his last sight, the figure stiffly rushed forward and ran towards him.

……

Minister Zou suddenly hit a wall, startling Zhong Chengshuo.

To ensure the other’s mental health, he politely maintained a safe distance, preparing to approach slowly depending on the situation, just like dealing with wild animals. Who knew that Minister Zou was more violent than wild animals and slammed himself directly into a wall?

Zhong Chengshuo quickly ran and went to Minister Zou’s side. The person had fallen to the floor with his eyes rolled back. In the end, Minister Zou was afraid of death, so the impact wasn’t severe and was more like fainting from fright.

Zhong Chengshuo had no choice. He took off Minister Zou’s coat and made a simple pillow. Then, he went back to his own morgue, following his memory, and took a bottle of distilled water from the workbench—this was what Zhang Wei used to make corpse preservatives, and there was no strange smell, so it could be drunk.

With the water ready to feed the other person, Zhong Chengshuo sat cross-legged beside Minister Zou and fell into contemplation.

Fear.

It was the emotion he was most curious about and had never experienced before.

Not long ago, he finally got a taste of fear. It was like an initial crack that rapidly spread, extending countless tiny lines called “negative emotions”. He still remembered the feeling of being torn and tortured by his inner self. It wasn’t comfortable, but subtly useful.

After wandering for so long, Zhong Chengshuo could vaguely sense the cause of that fear.

Losing his head and most of his senses, his thoughts were chaotic. He had experienced this kind of state of being “blank” before. At that time, he didn’t have any special reaction, but this time, being in this “fragile” situation, he had an extra Yin Ren in his heart.

The unstable desert started to blow, and the rolling, dry grass met an everlasting spark.

In his heart’s desert, a flame was lit for the first time.

A scorching, deadly flame, yet indispensable… This was his entire impression of “fear” for the moment.

Looking through the blurred vision of the dead, Zhong Chengshuo looked at his own hands.

At first, it was only a slight attraction to the sharpness, and he never thought it would start a storm.

A very strange feeling. Zhong Chengshuo had never missed that person like this before. He didn’t know when the idea of “accepting death calmly” had completely disappeared from his heart.

He had to go back.

Zhong Chengshuo touched his poorly connected head and poured half a bottle of water on Minister Zou’s face.

Poor Minister Zou woke up and saw his former colleague with dilated pupils.

He jumped backward like a live shrimp and shrank into the corner of the wall. “Don’t—don’t—don’t kill me… Don’t kill me…”

Zhong Chengshuo sat still, slowly raising his hands, trying to make his voice sound hoarse and innocent. “I won’t kill you… I’m also very scared. I want to go home…”

“You’re dead!” Minister Zou screamed, “And something is wrong with your body! Who are you?”

Zhang Wei’s pupils widened!!!

…And Zhang Wei was only 1.7 meters tall with loose flesh all over. The guy in front of him was definitely 1.8 meters tall, in decent shape, and as sturdy as a beautiful wild beast.

Zhong Chengshuo thought for a moment with solemnity. “My surname is Cheng, and I am Zhang Wei’s fitness instructor. I remembered rushing off from work yesterday, and when I woke up, I was in this state… Where am I? I just want to go home. My lover is still waiting for me.”

The middle-aged man in front of him was dressed in scientific attire, so he shouldn’t be someone who would roll up his sleeves to fight him.

As expected.

“An evil spirit? Does being possessed by an evil spirit change your physique?…It seems…that there are documents abroad about possession changing the body…” Upon hearing that the person in front of him was a fitness instructor, Minister Zou could preliminarily exclude the awakening of a century-old demon and finally catch his breath.

He had encountered evil spirits before, and they were full of lies. To be honest, Minister Zou didn’t believe the “fitness instructor” nonsense.

But the fact that the other party was willing to deceive him meant that he still had some use.

Thinking of this, a faint hope appeared in Minister Zou’s eyes. “You, ahem, ahem, you said you just wanted to go home?”

“Yes,” Zhong Chengshuo said, both truthfully and untruthfully. “I want to leave here.”

Minister Zou vigorously wiped his face twice, stood up tremblingly, and his tone was a bit erratic. “No problem, brother. Hey, the owner of this head is my subordinate. I have long felt unhappy about him!”

He chattered on like a machine gun, afraid that Zhong Chengshuo would change his mind.

“Only now, I’m lost, so I can’t guarantee my own safety… This place is difficult to navigate. It’s not that I don’t want to show you the way…”

“I know where I woke up. It’s a place full of morgue cabinets. I don’t know if that’s useful to you?”

Very good. Zhong Chengshuo stiffly tugged the corners of his mouth.

He watched as Minister Zou’s complexion turned slightly pale, followed by a hint of redness and a slightly brighter expression in his eyes. The man tremblingly grabbed the bottle of distilled water, drank half, and spilled the other half, obviously to recover his strength.

Zhong Chengshuo knew what the other party was thinking—the location of the morgue cabinets was relatively fixed, so if he found the morgue cabinets, he could naturally deduce the way out.

The bait had been set. It was up to the other party to decide how to get rid of him.

……

There was a Corpse Cage in the abandoned waiting room.

In the dim first-floor waiting room, a Corpse Cage was placed in a coffin carved with several preservation spells. The red coffin was facing the gap that ran through the space. The coffin lid was open, and the Corpse Cage was completely exposed, with countless dry branches protruding from its seven orifices.

The sunlight from the window gap illuminated the floating and sinking dust. It was clearly daytime, but the atmosphere was extremely gloomy.

Yin Ren sat casually next to the coffin. His white shirt had many bloodstains, and his black hair fell like a waterfall on the fabric. The scene was beautiful, but the degree of gloominess in the underworld had increased.

Fu Tianyi was trembling while holding a steamed bun, neither eating nor not eating it.

What’s going on with the Haigu Branch?

Lu Xiahe had set up various equipment nearby, and Ge Tingting sat under the sunny window, frantically reviewing metaphysical calligraphy. Even Huang Jin, who was wearing a monitoring ankle bracelet, was frowning and carving tranquility talismans.

No, are their colleagues all abnormal like this? Is it okay?

Fu Tianyi suddenly missed his team’s foul-mouthed cat. Although it was sharp and ruthless, at least it knew how to write the word “danger” better than any human.

“This gap has been proven to lead to an irreversible parallel dimension… Well, according to the latest information, it must lead to the Other Side.” Lu Xiaohe excitedly talked to herself, eagerly absorbing those temporarily opened high-level knowledge like a sponge. “After that, it entered a period of decline, and the connection with the Other Side was probably cut off.”

Fu Tianyi looked at her bewilderedly.

This was once a gap that caused a disaster. Why is this woman so calm?

Are these people really only C-level? Shouldn’t at least an A-level team be involved in this kind of thing? Or is there something wrong with his understanding of the Shian C-level investigation teams?

Lu Xiaohe just looked at Yin Ren. “If the previous gap was like a wound cut into a blood vessel, then the gap here is just a scar. Yin Ren, Shian only has methods to seal the gap, not deepen it…”

“Tearing open old scars is easier,” Yin Ren said. “Now what I want to know is how to tear it open.”

“But I don’t quite understand.” Ge Tingting raised her book, her AI voice was very serious. “Even if we attract the target’s attention, what if the sniper still attacks from a distance? We can’t catch him.”

“Wait until the gap is widened, and I will personally lure him in and fight him. Once I enter the gap, if he really cares about the Other Side, he will come over.”

Yin Ren answered without hesitation, his long fingers rubbing the edge of the coffin.

“If he doesn’t come, I don’t mind continuing to destroy it.”

Ge Tingting made serious notes. “I understand!”

Huang Jin sighed softly, and the strength of the carving knife in his hand increased a few points again. “Be sure to protect yourselves…”

Fu Tianyi dropped the bun in his mouth on the ground.

Tear open the gap? Attract the sniper?… Are all the people in this team crazy?

…It’s really a good opportunity to “prove oneself” but isn’t this going way overboard?! He never thought of confronting the attacker head on—Shian had dispatched all their elites to investigate this case.

Fu Tianyi took a deep breath and stepped back, sweating like rain. However, before his feet landed, Yin Ren’s pair of crimson eyes turned to him. In the shadow of the waiting room, those red eyes made Fu Tianyi feel a chill on the soles of his feet.

“Now that everyone is here, the plan officially commences.” Yin Ren smiled at him.

The person was surrounded by a terrifying murderous intent, and Fu Tianyi froze on the spot.

He still remembered the handsome young man who was clinging to Zhong Chengshuo as they walked into the Fu residence. At this moment, that carefree young man seemed to have completely disappeared.

He didn’t recognize the “thing” in front of him.

The author has something to say:

Two-way travel (physics

Both of them are starring in horror movies, which is great!