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Chapter 104: The Institute’s Research Lab

They checked from west to east.

As they pushed open the door of the first room, a cloud of dust moved toward their faces. Fortunately, Ke Xun and Mu Yiran were prepared. They covered their mouths and noses, and waving away the dust in front of them, they fixed their gaze on the room.

The room was old-fashioned, with the upper part painted a powdery white and the lower part green. The wall was peeling due to age, exposing the brick and cement inside.

There were wooden tables and chairs stored inside, all scattered and jumbled haphazardly, covered with a thick layer of cobwebs. The window was an old-fashioned open-sash window with a wooden frame. The glass was covered in dust, making it nearly impossible to see outside.

Seeing this, the three girls refused to enter the room and stood by the door instead. Meanwhile, Ke Xun and Mu Yiran walked in and carefully searched through the room.

.

Ke Xun opened wooden desk drawers and saw scattered office supplies. He searched for a while, but found nothing useful.

They searched each room one by one. There were 20 rooms on each floor, basically very similar in that they all looked like offices. At the end of the corridor, facing the stairs, were two bathrooms. The male bathroom was on the east side, while the female bathroom was on the east west.

There are no notable clues in the bathrooms either.

The other two groups returned to the first floor lobby one after another. Xu Zhen told everyone what she and her group found.

“The first floor had a meeting room, a warehouse, a library, an archive room, offices, and a small canteen,” Qin Ci said. “There’s nothing in the meeting rooms, offices, and the small canteen, but there are a lot of things in the warehouse, library, and archives. We didn’t have time to search through them so we’ll need help.”

Xu Zhen said, “The second floor seems to be a staff dormitory. All rooms have single beds and wash racks. No suspicious objects or signatures were found. What about the third floor?”

“The entire third floor is an office area, and we found nothing useful,” Ke Xun said.

“Then we might as well go to the warehouse, the library and the archives room on the first floor together,” Xu Zhen said.

The warehouse wasn’t very big, and it housed various things, such as office supplies, various instruments, daily necessities, and even food.

“That’s right, what are we going to eat here?” Zhang Hanrui asked suddenly. “The food in this refrigerator is too old and can’t be eaten.”

“Yes, we’re going to be staying here for seven days. But this is an abandoned building, so where do we go to get food?” The two girlfriends also asked quickly.

Everyone seemed to realize this problem only now, and they couldn’t help but look at each other.

“The refrigerator isn’t powered off,” Mu Yiran’s voice sounded calmly. “The food inside is edible.”

“But this is obviously an old facility,” Xu Zhen disagreed. “Even if the refrigerator still has power, the food in it should have already pass its shelf life.”

Mu Yiran glanced at her briefly. “I just saw that there are white rice and beans in intact vacuum packages. At a below 4.4° Celsius temperature, the shelf life of white rice grain and beans can reach 30 years. Another edible thing are those jars of natural, pure honey on the shelf. As long as they are properly sealed, pure honey is the only food that can be preserved forever.”

Xu Zhen had nothing to say.

“Little brother is so good and knowledgeable!” the three girls praised again and again.

“Stop talking nonsense and look around.” Xu Zhen’s expression was calm.

The things in the warehouse were scattered in a jumbled mess. By the time they managed to finish rummaging through them, the sky outside was already dark.

Cai Xiaoyan went to pull the rope to the light that was hanging by the door, but the light wouldn’t turn on. It seemed that all the electrical equipment had failed except for the refrigerator.

“Obviously, the reason why the refrigerator is still working is so that it can provide us with food. This is something the painting had deliberately set up,” Zhu Haowen said expressionlessly. “The reason the other things couldn’t be used is also something the painting had set up for what would happen at night.”

“What will happen at night?” the girls asked with some anxiety.

Zhu Haowen’s face was still expressionless, with no signs of pitying and cherishing jade. “There will be deaths in line with the institute’s settings and background.”

The girls hugged each other in fright.

Qi Qiang couldn’t bear it, and slammed a thermos bottle to the ground, smashing it to pieces. He said angrily, “I don’t care! I’m leaving this damn place! Fuck you!”

He rushed out of the warehouse. From the sounds of his footsteps, he seemed to have ran directly across the hall toward the entrance of the institute.

This was soon followed by the sound of him banging on the door. After a while, they saw him rush back angrily, surprise on his face. “What’s going on?! Why won’t the doors open?!”

“This is the will of the painting,” Qin Ci told him quietly. “We have to stay inside the research institute until we find the signature.”

“What kind of fucking bullshit is this!” Qi Qiang was so angry that he picked up several washbasins and threw them at the things on the warehouse shelf.

Several of the girls shrank back into a ball, screaming in fright. The screams seemed to have annoyed Qi Qiang even more. He grabbed Cai Xiaoyan, who was the closest to him, and slapped her hard in the face.

But before the slap could land, someone abruptly grabbed his hand. Qi Qiang turned his head and saw that it was the tall youngster with the extremely handsome face. The rage in his stomach burned hotter, and he pushed away the frightened Cai Xiaoyan, turned, and threw at fist at Ke Xun’s face, yelling, “You fucking want to die?!”

Ke Xun lifted his palm to block the fist, raised his knee, and slammed it hard into Qi Qiang’s stomach. Qi Qiang kneeled over with a cry of pain and retched dryly with his mouth open.

Ke Xun loosened his hands and patted Qi Qiang on the shoulder, his face cold. “Calm down a little. You’re scaring the girls.”

For a while, Qi Qiang could not make a sound. He could only squat on the ground, clutching his stomach.

Qin Ci ignored the chaos and continued the discussion with Mu Yiran. “So far, we have very little clues. According to past rules, once night falls, we should have been divided into groups. But we still haven’t gotten any tips about how this should be done. I think there’s something we must have overlooked.”

According to past rules, death would come at night. Under normal circumstances, it would be unwise for everyone to remain in the same enclosed space together.

Mu Yiran pondered out loud, “Since the background of the painting is set in the research institute, the focus may be related to the projects studied here. Through our search in the three-story building just now, we have found that there is one very obvious BUG in this research institute.”

“What’s the bug?” Wei Dong asked.

“Since this is a research institute,” Mu Yiran lifted his gaze and looked at everyone, “then where are the research labs?”

Everyone was surprised. Indeed, in these three floors, there were offices, dormitories, conference rooms, warehouses and even canteens, but there were no research labs! Wasn’t this too weird?

“Did we miss something?” Xu Zhen frowned and recalled, “No, this building obviously has flat floors. There shouldn’t be any corner rooms.”

“Maybe there’s a hidden room or something like that?” Wei Dong said.

Mu Yiran shook his head. “No. Ke Xun and I specifically studied the distance between the walls, and the thickness of the walls in each room is equal to the length of the corridor outside. There is no secret room hidden between.”

“What about a basement?” Ke Xun pointed to his feet.

Everyone looked at each other, then they turned and walked out.

When they came to the stairs at the end of the corridor, they saw cartons, tables, chairs and other debris piled up between the stairs and the wall. “We haven’t had time to search there yet,” Qin Ci said.

The older members didn’t say much and immediately moved their hands in tacit understanding. As they moved the pile of debris aside, a dark red iron door slowly appeared on that corner of the dark staircase.

“Frick, it has a code lock.” Ke Xun glanced at the door handle, which had something similar to a safe combination lock. He tried to slide the door open, but it refused to budge.

“Is there a passcode written next to it?” Zhu Haowen asked.

Ke Xun pushed his face in for a closer look, getting spider webs on his face. “I can’t see it clearly. It’s too dark.”

He took his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flashlight.

The light from the mobile phone was supposed to be a bright white, but now, it was a dim yellow, similar to the light emitted from old-fashioned flashlights, so that the door still looked dark and gloomy.

Next to him, Zhu Haowen pulled out his mobile phone and turned on its flashlight. Seeing that his light beam was also dim, he merged it with the light from Ke Xun’s phone so that they could barely make out the door.

They searched carefully with their phones, but unfortunately, there was nothing to be found. The pointer on the combination lock remained at the 0 position.

“Let’s go to the desks in the offices and look for the passcode,” Xu Zhen said. “Usually, the passcode would be recorded in some notebooks or pressed under the glass plate of the desk. Sometimes, it would even be written on the desk calendar.”

Qin Ci turned his head and looked at the sky outside. Then he looked at the newcomers in front of him and said, “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

“Move out of the way!” Qi Qiang, stills clutching his stomach, had walked to the stairs without them realizing it. He violently pulled away Deng Guang, who was in front of him, and pushed over Wei Dong, who was standing beside the door. Moving close to the door, he crouched down, pressed his ear to the door, and began to turn the combination lock with one hand.

“So powerful. A skilled person,” Wei Dong whispered to Ke Xun.

“I could see it.” Ke Xun wasn’t surprised at all. “When this person looks at others, he is always very sneaky. And he habitually looks at other people’s pockets. It’s clear he’s a habitual thief.”

Wei Dong subconsciously checked his pants pockets and was relieved to find that his phone was still there. He took it open, pressed it on, and looked at the time. It was already 8:20 in the evening.

Seeing that Wei Dong had taken out his mobile phone, Zhang Hanrui, who was next to him, also hurriedly took out her mobile phone. Seeing that there was still no signal, she couldn’t help but sigh. While clicking on the apps on her phone one by one, she whispered to her girlfriends, “This terrible place doesn’t even have a cell tower? I can’t make calls and get Wechat messages. All other functions, except for the time and the flashlight, are disabled…Okay, fortunately, the camera can still be turned on for selfies–Ahhhh–!”

Her sudden scream startled everyone. Qi Qiang, who was in the middle of turning the combination lock, jerked. Then he jumped up and kicked at Zhang Hanrui, shouting, “What are you screaming about!”

The others were standing a little further away, and before they could stop it, his foot had already slammed into Zhang Hanrui’s waist. She directly fell over and landed hard on the ground in a sitting position.

However, this kick didn’t stop Zhang Hanrui from screaming. She sat on the ground, tossed her phone away from her, grabbed her head, and continued to scream desperately, her voice filled with endless panic and horror.

Her two girlfriends, Li Yaqing and Zhao Youyi, were frightened by her screams, and so they hugged each other, not daring to approach her.

Ke Xun walked to the place where Zhang Hanrui had tossed her phone, bent over to pick it up, pressed the screen, and saw that a code was needed. So he walked over to Zhang Hanrui, bent down in front of her, and patted her shoulder. “Little sister, stop. Don’t scream so much. I’m afraid it’ll draw something strange over.”

Zhang Hanrui stopped abruptly and plunged frantically into Ke Xun’s arms, her body trembling.

He held her shoulder and asked as gently as possible, “Little sister, tell me, what did you see on your phone just now?”

Zhang Hanrui shrank in on herself, her long hair blocking half of her face, making her eyes look particularly dark. With trembling lips that appeared gray in the dim light, she pointed a shaky finger at the phone in Ke Xun’s hand. “You…you turn the camera on…Take a look.”