Chapter 148
The two men looked at the thin little boy.
"He used to eat less and get less sun. Maybe he looked small because of malnutrition."
"No matter how malnourished they are, I can still tell the difference between a seven or eight-year-old and a teenager," the old man said. "That's why I thought you were stinging. A few years after something disappeared, you posted a thread to see if anyone else knew about it, so that you can catch everyone who still remembers it. But your disguise doesn't seem to be convincing."
Lu Jiamu said: "You think too much, we don't mean that."
"Then I will temporarily believe you as you said, you are just ordinary citizens." Seeing that there was no hope of escape, the old man could only threaten, "But you can't send me to the police station. Otherwise, if the news gets out, not only will I be in trouble, but none of you will be able to escape either."
The car had driven out for some distance. Lu Jiamu glanced at the driver, but the driver showed no intention of getting off. Instead, he stopped the car and looked back at the old man.
Seeing someone looking at him, the driver said, "I've already been involved in this unfortunate incident today. Even if I leave now and tell people that I didn't hear anything about the key parts, no one will believe me. It's better for me to just listen from the beginning to the end. I want to hear what the big deal is that would scare the police after just one ear."
The old man had a gloomy face and brewed his emotions for a while, then suddenly asked mysteriously: "Do you believe that there are aliens in this world?"
Unexpectedly, the driver was stunned when he heard such a soul-stirring question for the first time: "Is it related to aliens?"
"It doesn't really matter." The old man changed his tone, "It's just that what I'm about to say is as disruptive as the existence of aliens."
"That is, on the surface, we live in a prosperous, modern, and civilized human world, but in fact, this stability is just what others want you to see."
The old man's face turned pale, as if he had thought of something bad. "But the real world is like this. In some dark corners that you can't see, or simply after dark, some very scary inhuman things will appear. They are a bit like ghosts, and those who eat government food call them abnormal. Ordinary people can easily lose their lives when they encounter these things. Many people die from them every year."
"But there is also a very mysterious organization that specializes in handling related incidents, and tries every means to attribute these incidents to other accidents. Moreover, they have great power. Not only can they separate normal people from those evil things through municipal planning, but they also collude with the police to arrest all the living people who already know the truth. I don't know how they deal with them, but they make them speechless, and thus completely hide the truth."
"More than a decade ago, their actions were not as extreme as they are now, and some strange sightings were still passed down by word of mouth among the people. I was still full of energy at the time, and I got together with some capable people to form a ghost-hunting team. But now, some have lost contact and some have been caught, and no one knows whether they are alive or dead. Even those people we visited back then, no one knows where they have gone, and fewer and fewer people know the truth."
"Some people wanted to catch me in the early years, but I ran too fast and they didn't succeed. I wandered around for many years and finally returned here under an assumed name."
"The main reason I came back here is because of this welfare home No. 32. I can't forget it."
Lu Jiamu then asked, "Then where is this welfare home No. 32?"
"You went to my house just now. Did you see the square gray-white building far behind the balcony?"
Lu Jiamu had some impression, but he only saw a corner of the building and did not see the overall appearance of the building.
"That's the old site of Orphanage No. 32. I chose this house specifically for it." The old man said, "It is said that a strange black fire suddenly broke out in this orphanage, burning the entire orphanage overnight, and no one survived. Later, some people always saw the outline of the orphanage at night, and some people wanted to get closer but disappeared. At that time, someone came to investigate, but there was no result. Instead, a brand new building was quickly built on the original site to cover up the traces of the fire. To put it bluntly, it was essentially a cover."
"My friends and I thought there was something fishy going on when we heard about this, so we rushed over to investigate. I was standing guard outside while they went in, and they haven't come out in all these years. I've always been curious about what they encountered in there, so I've been observing them here for many years. I've also been following related forums over the years to get some information."
"The picture you posted has some architectural features that only that old welfare home has, and the dirty parts look like black flames, so I remembered it immediately. I couldn't help but say something when I saw it being brought up again in my lifetime. But as soon as I said it, it was deleted, and I knew someone was going to catch me soon. I was very alert during this period, and I was ready to run away if there was anything wrong."
Thinking of the ugly painting again, Lu Jiamu felt that the black lines on it might represent the fire. The little boy might have seen the orphanage being burned down by the fire.
The old man showed a ferocious look on his face: "I thought that when I was alive, I must go in once before being caught. But I never dared to go alone, and always wanted to wait until I was older before setting off. As a result, I watched helplessly from the sidelines for so many years."
“So what is the new building used for?”
"It's just a shabby warehouse. Hardly anyone comes here, and the things that are occasionally put in there are mysterious."
After listening to him, Yu Leng helped him untie the cloth bag that bound his hands: "If you had spoken so nicely earlier, wouldn't there be so many problems?"
"It's too early. I don't know what you are here for." The old man rubbed his wrist. "In my experience, most people who want to find out others' intentions before running away have lost contact. I was arrested before I figured out what happened to my friends. I don't accept it."
The driver was stunned after hearing such a long speech: "If there really are ghosts in the world, people around us would have heard of them, right? It's impossible to keep it absolutely secret."
The old man looked at him sharply. "When you were walking alone at night, or living alone, have you ever encountered something that you couldn't explain subconsciously? For example, when you were driving to a remote place at night, did you ever suddenly see a ghost face on the car window? Or did you receive an order that made no sense?"
The driver suddenly became quiet. He had encountered this situation many times.
"Someone will explain the principle of illusion to you, right? If you don't even believe it yourself, how can you expect others to tell you these things?" The old man had an expression of expectedness on his face, "You should be thankful that the people you met were minor characters, otherwise you would have died in them. I advise you to stay away from places where you have encountered abnormalities when you walk next time."
The little boy started to daydream since he heard that the orphanage had been burned down.
The old man looked at the little boy and asked, "Did he really draw this picture?"
“I guess so.”
"Logically speaking, even if he was stunted, he at least had no memory when the fire happened."
Yu Leng coughed lightly: "This child was actually brought out from the mysterious organization you mentioned. He might be a survivor of the orphanage."
The old man slowly widened his eyes, and looked at Yu Leng with a new respect: "You mean, you successfully snatched a child from them?"
"That's not necessary. It wasn't stolen." Yu Leng was a little embarrassed. "And for him, we also have plans to explore the welfare home."
"After so many years, is this chance to fight finally here?" The old man looked a little dazed, and murmured, "Let's find a place to talk it over. But don't come back to my house, I'm afraid someone is waiting for me."
A few people found a hotel nearby with a good view and could see the building the old man mentioned, and booked a room to stay in.
After figuring out that they were here to seek cooperation, the old man no longer tried to escape, but instead became very proactive.
"Over the years, I did think that there were no survivors after the accident at Orphanage No. 32. But if it is related to a mysterious organization, then anything is possible." He sat cross-legged on the bed. "According to my observations over the years, the only door in that building has strong anti-theft protection. I can't unlock it without anyone noticing. But every afternoon at six o'clock, someone would come, go in for a round of inspection, and then leave quickly. This pattern has not changed in recent years."
"So I think we should stay here for the night. Let me prepare during the day tomorrow, and then we can go in this afternoon. It should be safe at six o'clock. I guess the dangerous situation happened at night. My friends also went in at midnight."
Lu Jiamu nodded and looked at Yu Leng: "Someone has lost contact in there, which means that the danger level of this place may be higher than we initially thought. Let me go in with this old man, and you can take care of other issues outside."
Yu Leng did not refuse at all and directly accepted the good intention: "Okay. I will help you invade at various levels, and I will leave if you succeed. If you don't come out later, I will not go in to take care of you."
"no problem."
They quickly finalized some details of the next day's expedition plan.
With the natural light from outside, the outline of a square building in the distance can be seen through the hotel window. The little boy leaned on the window, staring into the distance anxiously.
When they finished discussing this, the little boy suddenly turned around nervously and said, "Ayi, I want to go too."
Yu looked at him coldly: "Little boy, don't make trouble."
The little boy lowered his head with some sadness: "Ayi just suddenly remembered that he had very fierce friends and parents with very bad tempers, and they all lived in an orphanage. Ayi can't let his brother go alone."
Yu Leng waved him over: "Don't you realize the seriousness of the matter?"
Yu Leng tried to read the boy's thoughts and sort out what he was thinking. However, the boy's thoughts were even more confused than before. Various thoughts came and went in disorder in his mind, making it difficult for him to sort out the clues.
He could only say: "Even if you go, you won't be able to help much, and your brother and uncle won't have time to take care of you."
Lu Jiamu looked at them for a while, and seeing that the little boy was uncharacteristically persistent in wanting to join in the fun, he suddenly asked, "Ayi, do you really want to go with your brother? If you go together, what can Ayi do to help your brother?"
"Very much." The little boy thought hard for a while, "I can protect my brother."
"How can you protect your brother?"
"It's to protect my brother."
"Children may speak without restraint, but you can't say this to him." Yu Leng knew that Lu Jiamu had started to have bad thoughts by asking this, so he interrupted him in shock, "What are you asking?"
Lu Jiamu touched the little boy's head and said, "I'm just asking what you think."
"What do you think? He just said a few words casually. Do you really want to take him in?"
Yu Leng didn't want to let outsiders know about the internal conflict at this time, fearing that revealing his secret would cause unnecessary trouble, so he glanced at the old man and the driver.
Seeing that there seemed to be signs of a dispute on their side, the two men very tactfully said they would go downstairs to buy a midnight snack.
When the door was closed, Yu Leng asked, "If I can't go, how can he go?"
"You don't want to go, but Ayi wants to go."
"Are you sick? Or do you want to use him as a cannon fodder to block the knife at the critical moment?" Yu Leng asked in disbelief, "Lu Jiamu, I know you are immoral, but I am not so immoral. He is just a child."
"I'm not a bad person." Lu Jiamu pulled the little boy into his arms. "Ayi said there are friends and parents inside, and he said they can protect me. I believe him."
The stupid nonsense of the two people, one big and one small, made Yu Leng think for a moment: "Is it because the old man said that the welfare home was burned down more than ten years ago?"
"Yeah." Lu Jiamu nodded. "I thought about it carefully for a while. The old man is right. There is a big difference between an eight or nine-year-old and a teenager. It's not that you can't tell the difference. The time is indeed wrong. Why do you think this is?"
"Maybe those people have some method to inhibit growth. After all, a child like this will be quite troublesome when he grows up."
"I don't think so. What he said and what he thought were inconsistent with the actual situation are not the only ones." Lu Jiamu looked out the window, "There is another situation. If you stay in a ghost area for a long time, time will also be messed up."
A large area that might be related to the ghost realm was right in front of us, and even a fool would know which area he was talking about.
Yu Leng understood what he really wanted to say. He felt that the little boy had the special ability to survive alone in the ghost realm for several years. So taking him with him now might be helpful for the investigation.
"Are you serious?" Yu Leng asked, "Then you are just gambling. If you guess wrong, the child will be gone."
"Ayi is also a superpower. Although he is still young, he can definitely do a lot of things. If Ayi feels like going, he should go. Maybe it will be better for him." Lu Jiamu picked up the little boy and began to coax him, "When we were children, no one cared about us, so we could do a lot of things, right?"
The little boy hugged Lu Jiamu's neck and seemed quite happy: "Ayi can do a lot of things."
At that moment, Yu Leng felt that this little brat was extremely stupid and didn't know what was good for him.
"How can that be the same? Ours is..." He knew what Lu Jiamu was talking about, and couldn't help but feel particularly annoyed, "What can he do? It seems that he can do nothing except being unlucky, right?"
Intellectually, Yu Leng knew that this little boy who could not be taken away was far less important to him than his teammate Lu Jiamu. As long as there was any possibility to reduce the damage to the other party, he should support it unconditionally.
But emotionally, he really didn't want to cheat such an innocent little boy.
He knew better than anyone else that Lu Jiamu was ruthless, but he was also born to be his enemy, so he couldn't fully understand his thinking.
Letting a little boy follow such an uncertain person to enter a dungeon with uncertain conditions is most likely to be a waste of effort.
Yu Leng's mouth twitched, as if he wanted to say something, but after opening his mouth, he held it back: "Forget it. I just saw that you were so nice to him, and I thought you liked him very much."
The little boy was put down by Lu Jiamu, and he trotted back to the window, leaning on the windowsill to look at the square building in the distance.
The old man and the driver walked around outside for a while and came back with some midnight snacks. Seeing that the two of them seemed to have reached an agreement, he pulled them to have a midnight snack together.
Five people squeezed into a small shabby room for a whole night. The next morning, the old man said he wanted to go home to get some things, and left the hotel covered himself tightly.
Lu Jiamu went to the hospital to remove the plaster and replaced it with a lighter fixation device.
Yu Leng rented a laptop, secretly ran to the side of the square building, found a secluded place to squat, and began to hack into the building's network.
In the afternoon, the old man came back wearing work clothes. His pockets looked bulging, as if they were stuffed with a lot of small gadgets.
When Lu Jiamu came back to find Yu Leng, he saw that Yu Leng had successfully obtained a lot of surveillance views and was looking through the historical records.
Seeing that both of them had returned, Yu Leng began to explain: "I have reviewed the surveillance footage from the past few days. They are just ordinary warehouse surveillance footage, nothing special. They all have portrait tracking and alarm functions, and some even have thermal imaging functions.
When you are about to go in, I will make them pause for a while, but not for too long, otherwise they will be easily detected. You can take advantage of this time to hide in the blind spot of the surveillance and wait. "
When it was almost six o'clock in the afternoon, just as the old man said, a staff member drove to the outside of the building in advance.
He waited outside the gate for a while, and at six o'clock he swiped his ID. As the indicator light turned green, the gate slowly slid open.
The man stood outside with a flashlight and carefully shone it inside. He observed for a moment before walking into the building.
Soon, the man finished his inspection inside and quickly walked out.
Although he swiped the card this time and the indicator light turned red again, the process of closing the door suddenly got stuck and slowed down a lot.
But this person didn't seem to notice that the door was still open. He just made a quick check and drove away.
Yu Leng stared at the situation over there and said, "Let's go."
The little old man jumped out first, slid sideways into the door, and blocked the door from the inside.
Lu Jiamu followed closely, holding the little boy, and entered the building.
There were many surveillance cameras installed at high places, but none of them detected any human figures and no alarm was sounded, so they must have been stuck.
The two men did not stay at the door for long, but immediately ran into the narrow surveillance blind spot according to the pre-planned route and squatted down.
There were tall shelves on both sides, filled to the brim with a mess of sealed bags.
The old man squatted there for two minutes, and seeing that everything around him was quiet and nothing had changed, his bad habits kicked in again. He began to touch the sealed bag with dirty hands and feet, and opened it to take a look.
There were densely packed archive records inside. The old man opened several copies and glanced at them twice, but he still felt confused and began to complain quietly: "It was sealed so carefully, I thought it was something precious. In the end, it's just a pile of rubbish reports."
Lu Jiamu glanced at the records and saw that they were all old and of unknown use, so he didn't say anything to him. The old man put the file back intact.
After squatting for a few more minutes, the old man looked back at the little boy and asked, "Why did you bring this little burden in here? I can't take care of him. I can only run away when in danger."
Lu Jiamu hugged the little boy, touched his head, and gave a fake smile: "I will take good care of him myself, don't worry."
The old man nodded and said "hmm".
I don’t know if it was because he was nervous, but after a few minutes, the old man wanted to turn around and talk to them again.
The watch showed 6:10. Lu Jiamu put his index finger to his lips, made a "hush" gesture, and pointed to the shelf.
"Huh?" The old man turned his gaze to the shelf in confusion.
Through a large area of shelves, one could see some gray smoke spreading out for no reason in the center of the square building.
The smoke was creeping along the ground at a very fast speed, getting higher and higher, and everywhere it passed was filled with a burnt and unpleasant smell. The smoke was so thick that it even covered the original shelves and floor tiles.
Soon, the area where they were hiding was also covered. In an instant, it was pitch dark, and they couldn't even see the shelves in front of them. But no fire protection equipment was activated.
Along with the thick smoke, there was also a strange burst of "hehehe" cheerful laughter.
The anomaly finally appeared.
The three of them immediately covered their mouths and noses with their clothes. After a while, the old man was still choking and started coughing. He estimated that the camera wouldn't be able to capture anything with such low visibility, so he stood up unable to bear it.
The old man staggered a few times, but did not bump into the nearby shelves as expected.
He didn't react for a moment, and reached out his hand to feel around a few times, but he didn't touch anything. Suddenly, there was nothing around him.
He coughed and said, "Little guy, you're no longer arrogant."
Lu Jiamu also stood up holding the little boy: "Because we have now entered the abnormal range."
Although the old man couldn't see him, he felt relieved to hear him talking. When he heard him say that he had entered an abnormal state, he became nervous and his heart began to beat faster.
"Little guy, if we stay here, won't we be suffocated to death?"
The strange "Hehehe" laughter was still floating in the air, coming from the direction where the smoke first spread.
Lu Jiamu began to walk in that direction in the thick smoke: "Then let's go."
Although the old man had just discovered that the shelf was gone, the last scene in his vision still remained in his mind, making him always feel that he would bump into something or be tripped by something, and he would not be able to walk as carefree as Lu Jiamu.
Afraid that his companion would suddenly disappear, the old man called Lu Jiamu in a panic: "Little boy, little boy, walk slowly, don't trip."
Because the strange laughter continued to guide them, they didn't go around in circles without any vision.
The little boy seemed to be frightened when he heard the laughter, and he grabbed Lu Jiamu's collar in a daze.
After the two men walked in the thick fog for a few minutes, the situation began to improve and the smoke diluted to the point where they could breathe freely.
In front of them, there appeared a European-style building with a pointed roof. However, this building was not the same as the one in daily life. Many of its details were crooked, twisted and wriggling, and a little abstract.
Surrounded by black smoke, it was almost identical to the eerie and unsightly painting that Yu Leng had drawn before.
Lu Jiamu suddenly felt that he had misunderstood him before. It turned out that he was actually a realist.
This pointed building is much taller than the square building. Although it is abstract and gray, you can see that there is a piece of bare sky above the pointed building.
This was the first time the old man had seen such an abnormality. He stared blankly at the scene in front of him, exclaiming in disbelief: "3...32nd Welfare House? How did they do that?"
They were clearly in the square building just now, so why were they suddenly in the open air?
Lu Jiamu looked around as if he was not surprised.
In front of the constantly twisting spire building, a group of children were holding hands and forming a circle. They were jumping and dancing as if they were playing games and singing an English song with a strange tune.
Noticing the arrival of outsiders, the group of children stopped.
One of the little boys let go of his companion's hand, trotted to Lu Jiamu, hugged Lu Jiamu's thighs tightly, and took a deep breath.
He raised his head to look at Lu Jiamu, rested his chin on his legs, and said in a strange tone: "You have a very familiar smell~"
His eyes were just two empty holes, and his face had no normal facial features. He looked like a monster no matter how you looked at him.
Its illusory mouth also tore open a large arc, as if it was grinning: "Uncle, you smell so good~ You are here, I like you so much~"
Seeing such a strange monster suddenly sticking to Lu Jiamu without saying a word, the old man was so scared that he took several steps back.
Seeing it just laughing strangely, Lu Jiamu said nothing more and asked it in a good-tempered manner, "What smells so good?"
The little monster smiled and said, "Yes, the smell of food. You smell delicious."
Lu Jiamu pointed at the old man and asked him, "Why do you think so? Doesn't he smell delicious?"
The little monster tilted his head back and said nothing.
Lu Jiamu asked again: "Is it because his flesh is old? Or is it because of some other reason?"
It suddenly rushed over and grabbed Lu Jiamu. The little boy was so scared that his face turned pale. Because of fear, he subconsciously tried to climb up and climb onto Lu Jiamu's head.
But the little boy still said tremblingly: "You...you don't want to hurt my brother."
The silent little monster tilted his head greatly, and his twisted eyes seemed to be looking at the little boy.
After a while, its grinning mouth narrowed slightly, and it actually let go of Lu Jiamu's legs as if in compromise, and said a little dazedly: "Okay, I won't hurt my brother."
"But in the orphanage, adults must play games with children." The little monster added, "Brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, all have to play with me like mom and dad. If I don't play well or lose, I have to stay here with me."
The group of children behind it circled around and began to jump happily. In the distorted background, they sang the song "Clay Doll" in unison in a cult tune:
"You do it, Dad. You do it, Mom will always be with it~"
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