To find the key, you must find the remaining right half of the key before midnight.
“All the digital humans have disappeared. If the key is with them…” Xiao Cheng thought about it more and more and it seemed more and more likely, after all, the key was given to him by Number 7.
"Calm down, don't panic," Fang He reassured her. "This is the worst-case scenario. Let's start by searching each room. The situation is still unknown, so let's work together."
Xiao Cheng's own room was empty; their focus was on the bedside table that had been moved there. The table had been badly damaged during the digital humans' breach of the door, and they had even searched for any possible hidden compartments, but found nothing.
"What's under the bed?" Xiao Cheng still remembered the severed hand that had given her such a huge shock. After preparing herself mentally, she yanked back the covers.
There's still nothing there.
Fang He searched through the quilt, pillowcase, and sheets several times, but found nothing.
"It seems this place is clean. Let's go next door." Xiao Cheng hadn't had much hope to begin with, so she wasn't too disappointed. She followed Fang He out the door and headed towards room 607.
As soon as they opened the door, they were hit in the face with the pungent smell of formaldehyde.
"What the heck? This wasn't here when I came before." Xiao Cheng covered her mouth and nose.
"It's coming from the other side of the bed." Fang He walked over quickly, lifted the draped sheet, and leaned down to look under the bed. "...You don't need to come over." His tone was a little strange.
Xiao Cheng suppressed her curiosity, her mind racing with all sorts of thoughts, before finally managing to mentally prepare herself: "What is it?"
Fang He didn't speak, but leaned even lower and reached under the bed, slowly pulling out a transparent jar.
The jar was uncovered and filled with formalin. A severed foot floated inside, its cross-section slightly rotten and covered with reddish-pink blood foam.
Xiao Cheng: "..." It's alright, as expected.
"It seems the severed hand found in 201 wasn't an isolated case." Fang He sighed. "At least we have a direction now, let's continue."
From the sixth floor down, there was nothing but Xiao Cheng and Fang He's room. They had a total of two hands and feet, as well as a complete leg and arm.
"What kind of twisted sense of humor is this... dismembering someone and stuffing them under your own bed?" Xiao Cheng felt incredibly exhausted. The mental shock she experienced in this one day was more than she had in the previous twenty-odd years combined.
"Don't use normal human thinking to judge the copy. What's missing now? The head and the body, right?" Fang He turned his gaze to the guardhouse.
Based on his experience, Xiao Cheng went straight to the wooden bed as soon as he entered the room, and sure enough, he found a head that had rotted into a skeleton under the bed.
There was still a bit of skin and flesh left on its head. Fang He stared at it for a while, then suddenly said, "It's that gatekeeper."
Xiao Cheng looked puzzled: "The skeleton started talking?"
"Look at the bone structure."
Xiao Cheng carefully recalled the scene when Fang He met the security guard, and suddenly felt even more confused: "When the gecko-man was smashing your window, you still had the mind to observe his bone structure?!"
Fang He paused for a moment: "I didn't observe, but I did beat him up."
Xiao Cheng: "..." Is this what they mean by "practice makes perfect"?
Regardless of whether this is the gatekeeper's remains or not, as of now, they are still missing a complete body, and there is not a single clue about the right half of the key.
"It's already noon." Xiao Cheng looked at the digital clock; she was a little hungry.
Fang He took out two small bread rolls from his pocket and handed them to her: "Hang in there a little longer. Whether we can get out or not, by tomorrow, we won't have to eat bread here anymore."
Xiao Cheng: "Your way of comforting people is truly unique."
"If we can find the rest of the body during the day..."
"How about it?"
"Not so great. Relatively speaking, the psychological pressure of piecing together corpses during the day is less."
Xiao Cheng's bread suddenly lost its flavor: "Piecing together corpses? Are you crazy?"
"What else can we do? Give him a proper burial?" Fang He said calmly. "Look on the bright side, finding clues is like squeezing toothpaste. Once we've pieced together the body, maybe he'll give us a clue about the key."
Xiao Cheng thought about it and felt it made a lot of sense: "I hope so." She stared at the skull, after all, the doorman knew where the key was, which made perfect sense.
However, they still hadn't found the rest of the body by 3 p.m.
Xiao Cheng collapsed to the ground, exhausted: "With this much effort, we could have torn down half a wall, let alone find a corpse."
"Tearing down the wall and moving out, that's a good idea." Fang He's tone was very calm, making it impossible to tell whether he was being sincere or just insulting her.
Xiao Cheng completely ignored him: "Is there anywhere else we haven't looked?"
"wall."
Xiao Cheng: "...Actually, I was just saying it offhand."
“Indeed, the walls here are very old, not like they were pried open and a corpse was put in.” Fang He nodded seriously, his gaze sweeping back and forth in the lobby, finally settling on the ruins of the elevator, “And over there.”
"Where?" Xiao Cheng sat up straight and followed his gaze. "The elevator? It's shattered like that, what could possibly be inside?"
"Look, we've been searching for so long, one more place won't make a difference." Fang He got up, dusted himself off, and walked over there.
Xiao Cheng quickly followed, saying, "That steel plate is quite heavy, let me help..."
Then Fang He had already lifted it up.
Xiao Cheng: "..." The boss is indeed a boss.
Number 5 has already climbed out; under the deformed steel plate, there was nothing but a pool of blood.
“No, this elevator didn’t go all the way down; there’s a pit below.” Fang He squatted down next to the elevator and looked at it for a while. “Come and lend a hand; I’ll go down and take a look.”
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