Chapter 69: Wang Family Funeral Home
When the two arrived at the duty room, they saw Meng Ning sitting inside, looking nervous and gaunt, having not slept a wink all night.
She was the only one in the duty room.
When the two pushed open the door, Meng Ning’s body jolted sharply. She stood up tensely from the chair, looking as if she would jump out the window and escape at the slightest sign of trouble.
She had completely become a scared bird.
“Don’t be afraid, it’s us.”
Lu Jinzhao spoke first to comfort her, then carefully looked her over and glanced around the duty room. Guessing what she had gone through last night, she asked, “Where is Chen Hai?”
Hearing this question, Meng Ning, who had relaxed upon seeing her teammates, tensed up again: “He”
“He’s gone missing.”
Meng Ning answered like this.
“What do you mean he’s gone missing?” Xiao Ping was somewhat doubtful and pressed.
So Meng Ning, her tone somewhat disjointed, told the two about what happened last night.
“.”
After hearing it, Lu Jinzhao fell silent. She was thinking, why?
Chen Hai had not returned for so long; in that situation, he had most likely died.
What taboo had he violated, leading to death descending upon him?
Seeing how terrified Meng Ning really was, although Xiao Ping himself felt a bit scared after hearing her description, he still mustered the courage to comfort her a few times.
“You go back and rest first. It’s daytime now, nothing will happen.”
He said this, though he himself couldn’t be sure if anything would happen during the day.
“No.” Meng Ning shook her head: “Let me stay with you. Wherever you are, I’ll be there.”
She didn’t want to be alone anymore.
No one knew how she had managed to stay alone until dawn after her teammate was killed by the ghost.
Torment was no longer enough to describe her experience over these past few hours.
Before Xiao Ping could say anything more, the sound of the door being pushed open suddenly rang out.
With teammates by her side this time, Meng Ning didn’t show any extreme reaction, but Lu Jinzhao unexpectedly looked toward the door with extremely vigilant eyes.
She hadn’t heard any approaching footsteps.
The door was pushed open, and the young man who had informed them of the rules in the service hall yesterday stood outside.
He didn’t enter the duty room, just stood at the door and said to the three: “I’m here to tell you that the duty shift is changing today.”
“There was a little accident last night. The person responsible for the day shift today, go collect his corpse properly.”
“Remember what I said.”
After saying that, he left.
Lu Jinzhao listened very carefully; his footsteps now sounded normal again.
But just before, before the door-pushing sound, she really hadn’t heard any noise.
“Chen Hai… he really died, didn’t he?”
Meng Ning murmured, but after saying it, she realized that she had been switched to the day shift, and the one who had to go collect Chen Hai’s corpse was her.
Her hands trembled slightly as she looked at Lu Jinzhao and Xiao Ping somewhat pleadingly: “Can you come with me?”
Even though she knew she probably shouldn’t make such a request, she really had no other way and didn’t want to face it alone.
Xiao Ping hesitated a bit; he was a little scared, but Lu Jinzhao by his side had already nodded: “I can go with you.”
“Then I’ll go too.” Xiao Ping quickly followed up.
Unlike Xiao Ping’s hesitation, when Lu Jinzhao heard the staff member say this, she had already decided she wanted to go take a look too.
Her understanding of what happened last night all came from Meng Ning’s mouth; she needed more clues and details.
“Great, thank you.” A grateful expression appeared on Meng Ning’s face.
With the company of the other two teammates, Meng Ning mustered her courage and followed the two to get the necessary items: the bell, and the body bag.
Afterward, the three arrived at the first floor entrance leading to the morgue.
“Last night, it was this elevator that suddenly made a sound.” Meng Ning was clearly still shaken; her steps were slow. She didn’t want to enter the elevator.
“How about we don’t open the elevator?” she suggested.
“But according to you, Chen Hai was following behind you last night, so he was most likely killed on the stairs.”
Lu Jinzhao didn’t think avoiding the elevator meant everything would be fine.
There was probably really something in the elevator last night, but that thing had most likely come out already—otherwise, how could it have killed Chen Hai?
“.” Meng Ning was silent for a moment, realizing it was indeed so.
“But now, we still have to take the stairs, after all, we need to collect the corpse.” Seeing her two teammates hesitating, Lu Jinzhao had no choice but to state the next step.
She had already figured out that her teammates probably didn’t have much mission experience, likely about the same number of times as she had entered the platform.
Was this allocation putting several “Class C rookies” together?
Then this mission shouldn’t be that difficult.
But Chen Hai had died on the first night, and his teammates didn’t even know what taboo he had violated.
So where would this mission be “simple”?
Was it the way to survive?
Several thoughts flashed through Lu Jinzhao’s mind, but she couldn’t be sure.
She led the way into the stairs, and the two teammates behind her followed.
Even during the day, the light in the stairwell was still not sufficient.
After going down a full flight of stairs and turning the corner, on the continuing downward stairs, Lu Jinzhao saw Chen Hai’s corpse.
Gasps came from the teammates behind her, simply because Chen Hai’s death was really not a good sight.
He wasn’t lying on the ground.
He was still standing, his body maintaining the posture of frantically climbing upward.
One of his hands stretched forward, as if trying to grab something ahead, and his expression was terrified and ferocious, his mouth wide open, like he was calling for help or screaming, but at this moment, he was utterly silent.
If it were just that, it wouldn’t be terrifying, but what made even Lu Jinzhao’s heart chill was that every inch of Chen Hai’s exposed skin had already begun to rot.
As if a layer of corpse oil enveloped him, his skin was ulcerating, unnatural purple-black colors emerged on his body, large chunks of skin tissue fell to the ground, revealing the darkening flesh inside.
He was like a sculpture in a sewer, emitting a stench, the smell of rot, and blood water all over his filthy body.
Yet from his death until now, less than five hours had passed.
Chen Hai’s state of death reminded Lu Jinzhao of one person.
Or rather, one corpse.
The corpse that she and Xiao Ping had collected together yesterday during the day.
That corpse’s surface had been just like Chen Hai’s now, and it had disgusted Xiao Ping plenty at the time.
Did all corpses that died here end up like this?
Or was it that corpse that killed Chen Hai, making his corpse like this?
“We… have to collect him?” Xiao Ping asked a pointless question.
Simply because Chen Hai had died in a bad spot; if they wanted to handle the corpse, it meant they had to touch Chen Hai’s body.
Just looking at it was disgusting enough, let alone that he had been killed by a ghost.
