Chapter Fifteen: A Face Bathed in Blood and Tears

  "Who will go to the door and take a look through the crack?" Xu Peilong suggested.

  Zeng Mingqing's eyes swept across the crowd, trembling as he said, "Don't look at me, I won't go, I won't go."

  I looked at this timid man with disdain and said coldly, "No one wants you to go! I'll go take a look!"

  Actually, I was also quite scared, but in order to figure out if there was someone standing outside the door or if it was Lin Meixin's ghost who had come, I slowly got up from the ground and nervously walked to the front of the door.

  On this old anti-theft door, there was actually a peephole. Looking at the peephole covered with dust, I felt a thump in my heart. I adjusted my breathing and wiped away the dust on the peephole with my fingers, looking outwards.

  I saw a face right in front of me! The face was covered with scars and scratches, two eyes streaming with bloody tears. Was it the ghost of Lin Meixing or who?

  It's really her!

  "Ah......" I was caught off guard and let out a loud cry.

  My cry had barely fallen when the lit candles suddenly went out in an instant, and the surroundings immediately fell into a piece of darkness.

  "Who the hell blew out the candle?" Xu Peilong cursed.

  I was already terrified, and at first I thought someone had knocked over the candle in a panic, but Zeng Mingqing's answer made me even more horrified.

  "No, it wasn't me who turned it off!"

  "Wasn't you who blew it out? Who was it then? A ghost?! Don't try to scare me!"

  It's so dark in the room that I can't see my fingers when I stretch out my hand. I'm leaning against the wall and don't dare to move.

  "Ah yo!" Suddenly, a sharp cry came from Xu Peilong in the darkness, followed by a loud crash of furniture overturning.

  "Pei Long, what's going on?" I was getting anxious.

  "The door...the small bedroom's door seems to be open!"

  The door of the small bedroom opened? I was suddenly stunned!

  The small bedroom door locked by Lin Wei not only had a cabinet, but also three large locks on it. How could it have opened for no reason? Unless the ghost of Lin Mei's heart had entered the house and used supernatural powers to open the small bedroom door!

  "Brother Wei!" I suddenly realized something was off.

  "Monitor? Monitor?"

  I lit up the screen of my phone and led the way in, but inside was empty, with only a few faint candle lights flickering in the darkness.

  Just as we saw in this case, Lin Wei mysteriously disappeared from this small bedroom.

  Xu Peilong shouted loudly, "Lan Tian, I called Lin Wei's phone, but it can't get through!"

  I should have thought of this situation earlier, Lin Mei's ghostly powers are so strong, how can't she make people disappear without knowing it? Without thinking, I know where Chang Linwei is now, it must be in the company building.

  Due to fear, I started coughing violently. Zeng Mingqing was so scared that he couldn't speak, and the state of the other few people wasn't much better than Zeng Mingqing's. Only Xu Peilong was relatively calm. "Lan Tian, what should we do? Can we still save Lin Wei?"

  "If I'm not mistaken, Lin Wei is probably already under the control of Lin Mei's ghost and has returned to the company building. This place is about five or six miles away from the company building, and by the time we get there, he'll probably be dead. We can't stop Lin Mei's ghost from having this supernatural power, once the deadline for death arrives, everyone will be drawn back to the company building." The plan to prevent Lin Wei's death has failed, and I'm left feeling gloomy.

  Xu Peilong's hoarse voice shouted, "Is it... is it that we really have no choice but to wait for death?"

  Silence, deathly silence.

  "After some thought, I said, 'If everyone has no objection, we can go to the company now and take a look.'"

  Everyone gasped in unison, after all, everyone knew that the company's office building was the most dangerous place.

  "Lan Tian, these dead people were all killed after entering the company's office building. Are we not looking for death by going in now?" Xu Peilong looked relatively calm.

  "This isn't necessarily true, according to the death list's recorded order and date of death, you haven't reached your time limit yet, so I think there won't be too much danger. Of course...” I paused for a moment before continuing, “Of course, I'm not sure if it's completely safe either. But we've run out of options, if we can't find another solution, then everyone will really have no choice but to wait for death."

  Everyone fell into silence.

  Xu Peilong's words broke the deadlock, "Lan Tian said something reasonable. Why don't we go to the company building and take a look? What kind of mysterious power is driving Lin Mei's ghost crazy and killing people? If we can find some clues, maybe we can escape death."

  After discussing for half an hour, they finally decided to go back to the company building.

  Actually, I don't know if the decision I made is right or wrong, but if I didn't do this, there would really be no other way to think of.

  In my heart, there is a bold conjecture that this series of deaths has a fixed order and timing. If the people who are still alive now were to suddenly die in an order and time that is not predetermined, would it be possible to change this rule of death?

  I'm somewhat thrilled by this bold conjecture, but it's just a thought after all. Because nobody is willing to die, and no one would be willing to sacrifice their life to break the cycle of life and death.

  "Hurry up, let's go!" I gave the order. Since finding out that my name wasn't on that death list, not only did I become their lifesaver, but also their leader.

  As I ran with them to the entrance of the company building, I was surprised to find that there was no body of Lin Wei on the street in front of the company building.

  "What's going on? Could it be that Lin Wei wasn't taken away by the ghost of Lin Meixin, but went somewhere else instead? Could he still be alive?"

  "This thought occurred to me, and I immediately shouted, 'Don't panic everyone, Lin Wei may still be alive, he might be wandering around somewhere in the company building right now, let's hurry up and go find him!'"

  Everyone followed me, with a last glimmer of hope in their hearts, and walked into the company building with trepidation. At this moment, the surroundings were silent, and the entire building looked eerie and terrifying.

  The hall was bathed in the dim glow of voice-controlled lights, and seemed to be shrouded in an aura of death. But at this moment, I couldn't care about that anymore, and led them into the elevator, rushing towards the office.

  Lin Wei, will he still be alive?

  The office is on the 22nd floor. When a large group of us rushed out of the elevator in a flurry, we found that what was in front of us was not the familiar corridor, but another space.

  The space was pitch black, and nothing could be seen at all. Everyone was more shocked than if they had seen a ghost. The timid Zeng Mingqing had already let out a sharp cry of fright!

  I forced myself to calm down and said loudly, "Don't panic, everyone! This must be an illusion, it's just an illusion! Everyone stay together and don't move, let's figure out the situation before we do anything!"

  Everyone stood up in a hurry, huddled together, and heavy breathing sounds rose and fell.

  My eyes quickly adapted to the darkness in front of me, and I found that the place where I was located seemed to be an abandoned factory, with rusty screws and discarded steel everywhere, gloomy.

  What's going on? It was clearly the company's office building, so why did it turn into an abandoned factory? And inside, apart from us few people, not a single person can be seen.

  Not to mention Lin Wei, I didn't even see the ghost of Lin Meixin. However, I always feel that there seems to be a pair of eyes staring at me from some corner in the dark, and when I look closely, I still can't see anything.

  How outrageous!

  I made myself calm and clear, saying, "Everyone follow me forward, encounter any situation to take care of each other, must not get lost. I don't believe that we will be trapped here tonight and annihilated!"

  At this moment, my words are no different from military orders on the battlefield. Everyone carefully follows me forward. After walking for about 100 meters, a cave entrance suddenly appeared in front of us.

  The cave entrance suddenly appeared in front of us, and we were all startled, involuntarily stopping our footsteps. After careful observation for a while, there was nothing unusual.

  I plucked up the courage to take a peek at the entrance of the cave and found that there was a spiral staircase leading down, but I had no idea where it led.

  This staircase won't be the way out of this abandoned factory, will it?

  Xu Peilong also saw the situation clearly, muttered a sentence "I'll go down and take a look at what's going on!", raised his leg and wanted to go down, but was stopped by me.

  "Wait," I said to him, "you can't go down. If you encounter something inside and are slightly careless, it will be dangerous. Nobody knows what's down there now. Let's do this: you stay up here, I'll go down. If there's any danger, at least someone can respond."

  Xu Peilong immediately opposed, "No way! I won't let you go down alone. What do you take me for? Am I such a timid and cowardly person? I consider you as my friend, today either we go down together or you stay up here and I'll go down!"

  Who would have thought that Xu Peilong was so stubborn!

  "I thought for a moment and replied, 'Alright, let's split up into two groups. You and I will go down, while the rest of you stay up here to keep an eye on each other.'"

  Everyone thinks I'm right and agrees with me.

  I stepped into the opening and walked down step by step along the iron ladder.

  Under the ladder is a narrow alley, only one person can pass through, about five or six meters long, and the end of the alley turns left. I used the small flashlight on my mobile phone to shine around, and found that it was like being underground, but not too stuffy, just a bit damp. I walked to the end of the alley and looked inside, and it was a long corridor.

  Xu Peilong also came down, pinching his nose and saying, "What's that smell in here?"

  "Weird taste, I don't know what kind of taste it is." I replied.

  Xu Peilong walked forward, leaning towards me and said, "Lan Tian, we came out of the elevator, it should be the floor where our company's office is located, but how did we end up in a place like this? And, will Captain Lin Wei be in this ghostly place?"

  ———————————————————————————————