The elevator doors slowly closed, and the car began its ascent.
He Gu noticed that since entering the delivery passage earlier that evening, the radio in his pocket had remained silent, not emitting a single sound.
Even now, inside the elevator, the radio maintained its silence.
Perhaps it wouldn’t repeat the messages for paths already taken?
He Gu speculated in his mind.
Like the previous night, the elevator intermittently stopped at certain floors during its climb.
The floors where the elevator halted weren’t exactly the same as last night, seeming entirely random.
Some floors were deathly quiet after the elevator stopped, while others revealed stiff, decaying corpses in purple clothing as soon as the doors opened. On some floors, there were even purple-clad figures, half-rotted like zombies, shuffling about.
There was even one floor where, as soon as the elevator doors opened, a sign reading “Core this way” was visible, and faint voices could be heard speaking.
Throughout the process, He Gu kept his back firmly against the inner wall of the elevator car, unmoved by the stops at any floor.
At the same time, He Gu was inwardly alarmed; the entire building exuded a bizarre and oppressive atmosphere. Without knowing the ins and outs, it was hard to say which floor to exit on!
Had He Gu not visited the previous night and learned from the radio that the correct floor was the 44th, he might have exited on another floor.
Soon, the elevator reached the 44th floor once again.
Just like last night, it stopped at the 44th floor, but the doors didn’t open immediately.
Although there was no guidance from the radio this time, He Gu still remembered the procedure.
Leaning against the inner wall of the elevator, he calmly took out the empty bottle he had previously used in the sorting workshop.
Before long, the top of the elevator car began spraying a blue liquid again.
He Gu calmly covered his mouth and nose with his sleeves and used the bottle in his right hand to collect the blue liquid.
He had already verified the lethality of this liquid against shadows; it was quite effective!
Although He Gu was in a cooperative relationship with the shadow, in the world of strange tales, it was necessary to be extra cautious.
In no time, He Gu had filled another bottle with the blue liquid.
The spraying from the top of the elevator ceased, and the drying program started.
A few minutes later, the elevator doors finally opened slowly.
He Gu stepped out of the elevator, first into the narrow buffer zone.
After passing through the buffer zone and pushing open the heavy iron door, He Gu arrived at the same final location he had reached the night before.
Everything was the same as last night; it was a bizarre workshop about half the size of a basketball court.
On the left side of the workshop, various experimental instruments and equipment were neatly arranged, resembling a scientific laboratory.
On the right side, there were messy and dirty workbenches with hooks, electric saws, and bone-scraping knives hanging above them. The cutting boards were covered in blackened, coagulated bloodstains, looking like a slaughterhouse with extremely poor sanitary conditions.
Including the door He Gu had entered through, there were four doors in the room, each located on one side of the workshop, and all were heavy solid iron doors.
Strangely, He Gu clearly remembered that when he arrived last night, there was a life-sized puppet standing in a corner of the workshop, dressed in an orange work uniform.
Now, looking into that corner, the puppet was gone.
Had someone moved it?
He Gu stood at the entrance and carefully surveyed the room, waiting until the shadow on his back woke up from its dormant state before he cautiously stepped inside.
At the same time, a sharp and unpleasant voice rang in He Gu’s ear: “Move quickly through this workshop, leave through the door directly opposite you, do not linger, do not touch anything here.”
He Gu nodded slightly and quickened his pace.
Just as He Gu had reached the halfway point, the radio in his pocket, silent for half the night, suddenly crackled to life.
“Crackle… Hiss…”
“Hurry up, hurry up! We’re running out of samples! Bring me more samples!”
It was a man’s voice, sounding very irritable.
“What the hell are you rushing for! Don’t I need time to work!?”
Another voice, deep and gruff, retorted.
In the background, there were faint sounds of crying, wailing, and the rumble of machinery.
As He Gu moved, the volume of different sounds from the radio changed accordingly.
For instance, when He Gu approached a blood-stained workbench, he could distinctly hear a woman’s sobbing become much clearer, as if she were right beside him.
Meanwhile, the man’s voice continued the conversation.
“I heard the contaminant leaked on the lower levels, and many have become its prey. It’s only a matter of time before we’re in trouble here!”
“Didn’t the security department come up with a liquid that can effectively kill the contaminant? They’ve even installed a disinfection system in the elevator, what are you afraid of?”
“Give me a break! That liquid is produced in such small quantities, there’s hardly enough to go around!”
“Besides, I’ve heard that stuff can only kill the contaminated carriers, it’s not much use against the contaminant itself, and it’s completely ineffective against those two in red!”
…
“Crackle… Hiss…”
By the time He Gu reached the door on the opposite side, the voices from the radio had abruptly stopped.
He Gu frowned slightly, feeling that if he continued listening to the conversation, he might uncover the whole truth about the pharmaceutical factory!
Based on past experience, although such content might not directly help with completing the instance, it certainly could add to the exploration of the story.
However, remembering the shadow’s warning not to linger, He Gu didn’t dare to tempt fate and briskly pulled open the heavy iron door to leave.
Yet, as soon as the door was opened, He Gu saw a man in a white hazmat suit, without a mask on his face, expressionless, carrying a blood-stained person in purple clothing, walking towards the door.
Before He Gu could make sense of the situation, the shadow’s urgent voice rang in his ear: “Don’t move! Hold your breath, quick!”
Hearing this, He Gu’s heart tightened. Without asking any questions, he quickly held his breath and leaned against the door, not daring to move an inch.
At the same time, the man in the white hazmat suit suddenly stopped, sniffed the air a few times as if he had detected a scent.
After sniffing, the man in white continued forward.
It was then that He Gu saw clearly that the exposed skin on the man’s cheeks and neck was covered in a layer of blue-gray scales, looking incredibly eerie.
His face was stiff, his gaze vacant, and he seemed to carry the person on his shoulder effortlessly.
The man in white appeared not to see He Gu, passing by him as if he wasn’t there.
That’s when He Gu noticed that the person on his shoulder was alive.
The man was dressed in a purple uniform that clearly didn’t fit well, with several tears in his clothing and a hook hanging from his shoulder, blood streaming down.
The man in purple had a pale complexion and a vacant look in his eyes, appearing to be on the brink of death.
As he passed by He Gu, he caught sight of He Gu leaning against the door, his eyes suddenly brightened, and he struggled as if he had been given a shot of adrenaline.
“Save me! Save me!”
“I know the way forward, if you don’t save me, you won’t be able to get out either, you’ll end up just like me!”
“Save me!”
…