Just like outside, the ground here was covered with a thick layer of dust.
There were some messy footprints, animal claw marks, and even some strange drag marks on it, and it was impossible to tell what had left them.
The walls here are rough cement surfaces, unpainted, but most of the cement has peeled off, revealing the red bricks underneath.
"A lot of money must have been invested in this area. It's a real shame that they ran away halfway through. Most people need to work their whole lives to buy a house."
Looking at the somewhat dilapidated scene, Li Huai couldn't help but sigh.
After all, if he hadn't met us, he would have been a complete pauper, and owning a house was his biggest dream.
However, housing prices in our city are relatively high, and I estimate that even if he works his whole life, he could only afford to buy a toilet.
Upon hearing this, Luo Tianhe glanced at him and said, "They're the ones who drove up housing prices. Look at me, I don't lack money, but I'm not buying a house."
"Alright, alright, we're here to catch ghosts, not to discuss this. Look over there," I interrupted them, pointing to a wall in the distance.
The walls there were covered in graffiti and profanities.
"It was probably drawn casually by some kids from the neighborhood when they came to play," Li Huai said casually after glancing at it.
After all, although the graffiti was somewhat dirty, it was only about waist height for an adult. If an adult had drawn or written it, they would have had to bend over.
"No, are you sure this drawing was done by an elementary school student?" Luo Tianhe pointed at the graffiti on the wall, his face full of disbelief.
"Hehe, today's elementary school students are different from those before, influenced by the internet. They know much more than we did." Li Huai shrugged, looking completely matter-of-fact.
I ignored them, but a symbol drawn in red chalk among the graffiti caught my attention.
That thing... I feel like I've seen it somewhere before, like on the stains on the back seat of the middle car.
At the time, I thought it was just the shape of a stain, but now that I see this clear symbol on the wall, I immediately feel something is wrong.
This symbol looks simple, yet it exudes an indescribable sinister aura.
Moreover, it wasn't just on one wall; it appeared repeatedly on several walls, varying in size.
Luo Tianhe noticed that I was staring at those symbols, and leaned closer to mutter:
"What is this drawing? Is it just a kid's scribbles? But it's much better than those previous ones that were cursing people, saying things like 'So-and-so is a bastard,' or 'So-and-so deserves to die a horrible death.' Is it really necessary to curse people like that?!"
"Don't touch it!" I panicked when I saw Luo Tianhe still trying to touch the pattern and stopped him. "Let's go upstairs and take a look."
The compass needle was now slightly tilted upwards, pointing towards the second floor.
"Brother Yan, your compass is amazing! It can even point in 3D. I thought it was only 2D." Li Huai said with a look of surprise.
"What do you know, you bumpkin? Stop dawdling and go upstairs," I said, then took the lead and went upstairs.
The stairs are made of concrete, and because they are unfinished, there are no handrails. You could easily fall down if you're not careful.
"You two be careful, watch where you're going, falling down is no joke!" I warned nervously.
The two of them nodded, and the three of us went up the stairs at a slow pace, but the sound of our footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell, amplified and made exceptionally clear.
When they reached the landing at the top of the stairs, Luo Tianhe, who was at the front, suddenly stopped and shone his flashlight on the four walls.
"Chen Yan, Li Huai, look here, there are words on it!"
I looked in the direction of his flashlight and saw that there were indeed words written in red paint on the wall.
"Turn left on the 3rd floor and take the second room."
The handwriting is somewhat messy, even a little ugly.
Moreover, the position is not high either, only at waist height, as if written by a child, or someone who is not in a good mental state, sitting on the ground.
"What is this?" Li Huai gasped. "Who is this thing meant to guide? It's not for us, is it!"
Seeing this thing in the middle of the night is enough to make anyone feel a little scared.
Besides, that's exactly what we came here to find.
It seems it knew we were coming, which is why it left us these guiding words.
But how did it know we were coming?
The handwriting looks very clear, so it shouldn't have been long ago, unlike the faded handwriting downstairs.
I suddenly felt like I was being watched in the dark, guided by an invisible hand, and my scalp tingled.
After a pause, I composed myself. "Whatever, let's go up and take a look. We'll know once we see!"
The second floor is more dilapidated than the first floor.
Many rooms don't even have door frames, just dark, empty doorways.
We were just about to continue up to the third floor, to the place indicated on the wall, when we suddenly froze.
On the second layer, amidst the thick layer of dust, a pair of footprints were clearly imprinted!
It was a woman's footprint, a small shoe, the style of an old man's round-toed leather shoes, extending from the staircase where we were all the way into the hall, and then disappearing.
The footprints didn't disappear as they went in; rather, they stopped abruptly in the center of the room!
It was as if that person vanished into thin air or sank into the ground the moment they arrived there.
The dust around the footprints showed no other traces.
The three of us focused our flashlight beams on the pair of suddenly vanished footprints. It felt as if the air in the room had frozen, and a chill ran down our spines to our scalps.
"Brother Yan, what, what's going on?" Li Huai's voice trembled noticeably.
I ignored him and instead squatted down to examine the footprints carefully.
The footprints were nothing special; they looked like the tracks of an ordinary person. If they hadn't suddenly stopped, we probably wouldn't have paid any attention to them.
What really gave me the creeps was that there were no footprints on the first floor, nor on the stairs.
Suddenly, it appeared on the second floor and started walking forward from where we were standing.
It was as if someone was following us, suddenly going down here, walking for a while, and then suddenly disappearing again.
"Don't touch these footprints." I stood up and scanned the room. Apart from the strange footprints and the ashes in the corner, there was nothing else there.
The ashes in the corner were of unknown origin. I shone a flashlight on them, and they seemed to be just ordinary ashes, nothing special.
"Never mind that for now, let's go to the triangular prism," I said. The sign on the wall indicated the third floor; perhaps the key was up there.
Instead of going up to the second floor, we continued up the stairs, which became even narrower and steeper on the way to the third floor.
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