Chapter 7: Who is the murderer?

I took the dagger I'd carried with me from the beginning. Jiang Wang, who hadn't figured out where to get a crowbar, nodded at me. I walked to the door, took a deep breath, and the moment I opened it, my nerves were tense to the extreme. The various dangers I'd anticipated didn't materialize, and the entire building was eerily quiet.

Looking down from the corridor on the second floor, the body of the attacked person was still there in the hall, badly damaged and completely unrecognizable. I felt like vomiting, so I quickly looked away.

I went downstairs carefully. The door of the dormitory where I lived before was open. I took a look inside. Strangely, everyone was sleeping in their original positions as usual, as if the horrific incident last night had never happened.

I didn't dare to go in, but I didn't dare to run around either. I was a little undecided for a moment, but then Jiang Wang touched my arm.

I turned my head to look at him, but saw that he was staring up with a vigilant look on his face. Following his gaze, I saw a man wearing a gas mask standing on the third floor. The man also noticed us, waved at us, and made a "come here" gesture.

"What do you mean, he's asking us to go up?"

"Anyway, going back to the dormitory now is not a good option. Who knows whether they are human or ghosts now? Compared to them, the one upstairs seems much more reliable." Jiang Wang said as he prepared to go up.

How can you tell how reliable it is? I have a lot to say, but Jiang Wang didn't wait for me to complain and walked towards the stairs.

No, brother, are you really going?

I thought about it for a moment and squeezed out a curse word from between my teeth.

"Gan, wait for me!"

Jiang Wang and I walked upstairs carefully. When we reached the third floor stairs, Dabai suddenly appeared. Jiang Wang was so scared that he picked up a crowbar and went up to chop it.

The man narrowly avoided it and when he took off the hood of his protective suit, it turned out to be Mo Junfan.

"Why are you here?" Jiang Wang was still a little wary.

"He escaped without taking off his hood."

Mo Junfan spoke very briefly, as if he would be sentenced if he said one more word. It took me a while to understand what he meant, that he was not wearing a hood and ran away because he heard the noise.

Mo Junfan looked at us and felt that what he said seemed too abstract, so he added: "I fled to the rooftop, what about you?"

"It's similar to your situation. I stayed with her in the utility room on the second floor all night."

Mo Junfan nodded and said nothing more.

He's such a thrifty guy...

Jiang Wang continued, "We're still unclear about the situation right now. Our chances of success would be better if we team up as a three-person team. While everyone else is in the room, let's familiarize ourselves with the building first."

I nodded in agreement. It would be more convenient if I needed to run away if I was familiar with the terrain.

Yes, I don't dare to hope for a head-on confrontation, just surviving is good enough. Thinking of this, I suddenly feel a little worried about An Xiaowei. Yesterday was too chaotic, but I noticed that I haven't seen her since she was awakened by Jiang Wang. I don't know how she is. I guess she fell into a dream because of inhaling that unknown gas.

For a moment, I wanted to go look for her, but after thinking it over, I decided not to. The situation was unclear now, and going to look for her rashly might put everyone in danger.

The three of us looked at each other and walked together to the floors above the third floor.

The entire information building is a relatively old-fashioned office building. The second and third floors have similar structures. The corridor half surrounds the lobby on the first floor, and the central lobby can be seen from the corridors on the second and third floors.

When we got to the fourth floor, the structure was a little different. There was only a fairly spacious corridor with rooms on both sides. It looked like a place for the staff to rest, and most of the room doors were closed.

There were some rustling sounds coming from the room, which seemed particularly creepy in the empty corridor.

None of us had the courage to push the door open to check, but we all quickened our pace at the same time.

Unsure of the situation in the elevator, we all chose to take the stairs. The stairwell was dark and damp, and the "Emergency Exit" sign on the wall glowed a faint green light like a ghost fire.

Judging from the exterior shape of the Information Building that I saw yesterday, I guess the structures of the floors above it won’t be much different.

After exploring the fourth floor, we stopped at the door of the second to last room on the fourth floor. The words "Monitoring Room" were hung on the door.

The three of us exchanged a brief eye contact. Mo Junfan put his hand on the door handle, while Jiang Wang and I tightened our grip on our weapons.

Mo Junfan twisted the doorknob a few times, shook his head and said, "It's locked."

After a little thought, we decided not to stay here any longer and to continue exploring elsewhere.

We hadn't taken two steps when a cough erupted from one of the rooms, followed by a continuous, gentle noise. Mo Junfan was the first to react. He turned back, winked at us, and quickly ran towards the corridor. We immediately understood and followed closely behind him.

We ran all the way to the utility room on the second floor, and to avoid making any noise, the three of us closed the door gently.

A few minutes later, there was the sound of someone coming down the stairs, followed by a cry of surprise. Following this cry, the sound of doors opening could be heard from outside.

People came to the hall and everyone gasped.

"What's going on?"

"ah!!!"

“Someone died!”

"Who did it! Did those monsters get in?"

Outside, screams, questions, and anxious discussions echoed one after another, along with the hustle and bustle of people. The three of us crouched in the utility room, afraid to make a single move.

"What's going on?" Jiang Wang listened carefully to the noise outside and frowned in confusion.

"They don't remember what happened yesterday? Are they pretending?"

"If they were pretending, then it would be too strange for everyone to react like this, unless they had colluded. But from my observation yesterday, I don't think this group of people who gathered temporarily are very united." I shook my head and denied Jiang Wang's idea.

After thinking for a moment, I looked up at them and said, "Just hiding here and guessing isn't a good idea. I'll climb up to the skylight and see what's going on outside."

The other two nodded in agreement, and then, just like yesterday, Jiang Wang held me up and leaned over the skylight in the utility room to look out.

The situation outside was in chaos. Everyone gathered in the hall and surrounded the corpse they had eaten last night. When staff members came forward to check, everyone had terrified expressions on their faces, and some even vomited on the spot. These were completely normal reactions, and there was no trace of the crazy and bloodthirsty look from yesterday.

"How is it?" Jiang Wang asked me from below.

I jumped off him and repeated what I had seen.

"You mean... they are all back to normal?" Mo Junfan was a little surprised, and even added a few words involuntarily.

I nodded and continued, "But this is the most unusual part. They seem to have no memory of yesterday at all."

"What should we do now?" Jiang Wang asked.

The three of them fell silent at the same time. Everyone was in the hall, and the hall had a direct view of the corridor on the second floor. Even if they took advantage of the chaos to sneak out, they would be doomed if just one person saw them.

"Wait a little longer and see how things go." I suggested after thinking for a while. This was the only way to deal with the current situation.

Jiang Wang and Mo Junfan looked at each other, and seemed to have no clue. The three of us stayed in the utility room for a while, while also paying attention to the situation outside.

Soon the staff's voice rang out again: "Everyone return to your residence! Don't walk around casually. Roll call will be taken later!"

Then someone directed other staff to deal with the body.

I glanced at the other two and an idea came to my mind.

"While everyone is returning to their residences, the staff will also deal with the bodies first. We can use this opportunity to sneak back to the first floor."

"There's a risk." Mo Junfan frowned, disagreeing.

Jiang Wangze sighed and said, "Brother, with all due respect, we three are currently unable to confirm whether each other is normal."

"You!" Mo Junfan was a little angry and opened his mouth to say something, but Jiang Wang continued, "But we still have to act together. Staying here all the time is not a solution. It's too passive. It's better to rush in." As he said that, he put his hand on his shoulder and patted him.

"Hmph." Mo Junfan snorted coldly, opened his hand, looked at the door handle and said, "Be careful, don't get caught."

As he spoke, he quietly opened the door a crack to observe the situation outside.

Most of the people outside were walking towards the dormitory, with their backs to the grocery room on the second floor. A few of them wanted to see how the staff were dealing with the bodies, but were called back by the staff. The other staff were busy and no one noticed the second floor.

Mo Junfan nodded at us, then opened the door a little wider and walked out first, crouching down. Jiang Wang and I followed closely behind him. While no one was paying attention, we successfully slipped to the first floor and returned to the dormitory at the end of the crowd.

After returning to the dormitory, everyone was whispering to each other, discussing the body in the hall and speculating about what happened last night. I couldn't help but feel a little nervous. These people seemed normal now, but last night they were like the walking dead...

I'm still thinking about what happened last night and a little distracted.

The surroundings suddenly became eerily quiet. I came to my senses and found that everyone was looking at me with strange eyes.

Faced with the crowd looking at me with strange eyes, I subconsciously had the urge to run away, but reason told me that this choice was not wise.

"What's wrong?" I tried to make my voice sound calm.

"Why are you wearing a gas mask?" a woman in the crowd suddenly asked.

Oh no! How could I have forgotten about this?

"Yeah, when did she bring it? I didn't see anyone else wearing a gas mask except the staff just now."

"I didn't bring it just now. I put it on before entering the house." I said calmly. Although my hands were a little stiff due to nervousness, I was wearing protective clothing now, so it shouldn't be too obvious.

"I just seemed to see her and two other people on the second floor." Then another person pointed at me and said.

With one of them taking the lead, others immediately chimed in: "Yes, yes, I think I saw it too."

"That's right, she was sneaky and 80% likely the one who killed him."

"I thought I saw her hiding a knife on her body yesterday."

Some even started making up stories: "More than that! As soon as she came in yesterday, I felt she wasn't a good person."

"Does she look like a zombie?"

"Now that you mention it, they do look alike!"

"She must have killed him!"

In an instant, I became the target of everyone's criticism. Looking at the group of people in front of me pointing at me, some of them still had bloodstains on their bodies from sharing the person they had eaten yesterday.

It was like opening a long-forgotten book, and a long-lost memory reappeared in my mind.

"Little bastard with no parents!" A group of children surrounded a little girl and laughed wantonly, pushing her from time to time.

"I'm not! I have a father and a mother!" The little girl raised her head stubbornly and glared at the children in front of her who were laughing at her.

"You're talking nonsense! I've never seen your parents come to a parent-teacher conference!"

"Your parents definitely don't want you anymore!"

"Maybe he's dead."

The malice of young children is sometimes purer than that of adults, and they will not be responsible for their actions.

The little girl suddenly fell silent for a moment, then looked up at them, and then took out a stone from somewhere and smashed it hard at the leading child.

The leading child, his face covered in blood, looked at the little girl in front of him in fear. Perhaps he had not expected her to resist, so he froze in his place for a moment without reacting. The other children saw this and ran away crying in fear.

I gave a barely perceptible smile, scanning the group through my gas mask. Oh, they looked so alike... Exactly like those clueless scoundrels back then.

"You accuse me of murder? Do you have any evidence?" I heard my voice was unexpectedly calm.

"What evidence do you need? The body was just lying outside!"

"Really? That man died so tragically, didn't you hear anything last night? Whoever questions it must provide evidence! Stop biting here like a mad dog." I said coldly.

"I...I heard it yesterday, but I was too scared to say anything. I could only pretend to be asleep."

"Yes! I heard it too!"

"I think I heard that, too."

I couldn't help but laugh out loud, as if I'd just heard a ridiculous joke. Even with no evidence, even with someone else's blood stained on their bodies, people still felt free to point fingers at others.

People don't care about the truth, they just need someone to take the blame. It doesn't matter whether this person is guilty or not.

I couldn't help but take off my hood and took a step closer to the crowd. "Really? Then you better be careful. One of you might be the next one."

At this time, people were scared and stepped back, afraid that I would get close to them. But I found it even more ironic and took another step forward with a sneer.

I glanced at everyone and said, "There must be surveillance cameras in the Information Building, right? Should we ask those staff members to play the surveillance cameras and have a look? Can't so many people put together a usable brain? Or..." Having said that, I leaned forward and stared at everyone with a grin.

"You see the blood on your body and are afraid that you are the murderer."

I know what they are afraid of. I directly point out the idea that no one wants to admit in their hearts. Suddenly, I am looking forward to what expressions these people will have when they see the surveillance footage.

At this moment, a familiar voice rang out from the crowd: "I believe her."

It’s An Xiaowei.