"What's going on?"
Ling An was puzzled: "They made an appointment, right? Why are they ignoring us?"
Song Yecheng hung up the communicator, not sure what had happened for a moment.
"So what should we do now?" Tang Yao seemed a little anxious. "How about we go back upstairs?"
Song Yecheng glanced at her, hesitated for a moment, and did not rush to confirm or deny. Instead, he stood up from the sofa, turned around and walked towards the door.
The door of the dormitory on the second floor is different from that of the office on the third floor. It is not the kind of access control that requires swiping a card to open the door from both inside and outside. Instead, you only need to swipe the communicator when opening the door from the outside, but you can just turn the door handle when leaving from the inside.
Song Yecheng stepped forward and tried to turn the knob. The door opened with a click. He then stuck his head out through the gap and looked around.
"Hey, hey, hey," Ling An and Tang Yao had already followed him. Seeing his actions, they quickly whispered a warning, "Be careful, don't let anyone see you."
Song Yecheng quickly retreated, closing the door behind him. He then turned around and said, "I'm going to go out and take a look. I think the instructor might have encountered something special."
"Ah?" Ling An didn't expect him to be so blunt. "But what if you run into someone outside?"
Song Yecheng said, "I just saw an abandoned old staircase at the end of this corridor on the floor plan upstairs. I can try my luck there. You guys just wait here and keep talking on the communicator. If you hear me meeting someone on the way, immediately return to the upstairs through the secret passage. I'll tell them that I needed to go to the bathroom and couldn't contact the instructor, so I desperately hit the door lock and somehow opened the door and got out."
"..." Tang Yao was at a loss for words, "Is this even possible?"
"Never mind," Song Yecheng said indifferently, "Anyway, you guys should restore the entrance to the secret passage as soon as you go back. Even if they send me back, they won't find out that we opened the secret passage. So they can only reluctantly believe it, right?"
Although this was a bit risky, it sounded feasible. After thinking about it, Ling An took out the communicator as he said and called him immediately.
Song Yecheng pressed the answer button, looked up and nodded to the two of them, then without further delay, he opened the door and walked out cautiously.
Jiang Que's dormitory was already located very close to the edge of the floor, only a few meters away from the end of the corridor. Song Yecheng took a few quick steps and slipped into the inconspicuous security door.
The light inside the door was dim, and there was indeed a staircase inside. The upward part was normal, but the downward part was blocked by a rusty iron door. Through the rusty fence, you could see a simple small window at the corner of the lower floor. There were a lot of old and miscellaneous items piled under the window, which showed that it had been abandoned for a long time.
The way down was blocked, which saved Song Yecheng the trouble of making another choice. He walked upstairs with almost no hesitation, lightening his steps and listening to the movements above as he walked.
The stairs were not long, and Song Yecheng quickly reached the third floor.
After stepping onto the flat ground, he moved a few steps sideways along the wall and gently pushed open the security door leading to the outside a crack, confirming that this was the corridor that ran east-west outside the lobby on the third floor.
The corridor was empty at this time. Song Yecheng stared patiently for several minutes, but still did not see a single person.
This was not what he expected, because whether he came to start the revocation procedure or passed by when coming down from upstairs, the third floor was very "lively" - in addition to the lobby and office area full of experimenters, there were always those NPC-like people in white coats walking back and forth in the corridor, instead of being as deserted as it is now.
Could it be that everyone goes inside to work seriously and doesn't come out to run around?
Song Yecheng was a little confused, then he slowly pushed the door open, slipped out quickly and lightly, and leaned his back against the opposite wall.
This wall is on the same side as the entrance to the hall. There is a depression in the middle of the wall with a simple door embedded in it. It is probably a storage room or something like that. The depth of the depression in the door frame is almost the same as the thickness of a human body, which is just right for hiding.
Song Yecheng quickly reached the door frame by sticking to the wall. He tilted his head and carefully observed for a while, but still didn't see anyone. He had no choice but to step out again, stick to the wall, and continue to move slowly towards the hall.
The closer he got to the entrance of the hall, the more suspicious he became, because even now he was so close, he still couldn't hear a single footstep or conversation.
When he finally reached the entrance, he leaned over and looked inside, and was stunned.
The entire hall, office area and the entrances to the two experimental areas were all empty, there was no one here at all!
What's going on?
Where are the people?
Song Yecheng was unbelievable.
But since there was no one around, he certainly didn't need to hide anymore. Even his previous cautious behavior seemed unnecessary, so he simply walked into the hall and raised the communicator he had been holding in his hand: "Ling An?"
"Yes, yes, yes," Ling An, who had not dared to disturb him before, immediately replied, "How is it?"
"Come up," Song Yecheng said, "There's no one upstairs."
"Huh?" Ling An was obviously surprised, but he didn't ask any further questions. He just quickly greeted Tang Yao and said, "Okay, we'll go up right away."
After saying that, Song Yecheng soon heard the sound of a door opening from the other end of the phone, followed by the sound of two people jogging. In a short while, the footsteps appeared in the corridor on the third floor.
Song Yecheng turned around and happened to meet two people running towards him.
Ling An seemed unconvinced. After entering the hall, he looked around for a long time before confirming that there was really no one there. "Where are the people? Where did they go?"
Tang Yao was also looking around. Perhaps because girls are more sensitive, she guessed, "Could it be a group meeting or something? And during meetings, phones need to be muted, so that's why the instructor didn't answer the call?"
This idea is not impossible if you insist on saying it, but it is too specific and accidental, and the logic is relatively weak, so it seems a bit far-fetched.
However, Song Yecheng did not deny it. After all, he had no better explanation at the moment. He just said, "Maybe."
After saying that, he suddenly seemed to remember something: "By the way, you guys come with me first."
As he spoke, he walked around the two of them out of the hall and headed towards the corridor they came from. He led them to the middle of the corridor and came to the door that was recessed in the wall.
"Where is this?" Ling An asked, glancing at the door panel.
Song Yecheng had noticed this door before and had thought of some possibilities. However, at that time he was more concerned about not being discovered, so he only used it to temporarily hide his body and did not go in to explore.
Now that he was sure that no one was on the third floor, he had nothing to worry about. He simply reached out and turned the doorknob.
With a light "click", the door opened, and Ling An's question was answered:
This is a medical room filled with the smell of disinfectant and various medical drugs in the cabinets.
And the moment its full appearance was revealed, Ling An and Tang Yao suddenly understood the reason why Song Yecheng brought them here -
In the middle of the cabinets filled with medicines, there was a snow-white mobile stretcher that looked very familiar to them. The white cloth on the bed was still there, but it had been lifted up, and the human figure under the cloth had long disappeared.
"Is this the one with Duan Jingming?" Ling An asked immediately.
"That should be it," Song Yecheng explained. "When I saw the experimenter pushing the bed away, I was wondering where he was going. This building doesn't have an elevator, and it's inconvenient to push the bed up the stairs, so the most likely place is on the third floor."
Tang Yao nodded and glanced at the bed again: "Does this mean he is indeed not dead?"
"Yeah." Song Yecheng nodded.
If his previous judgment that Duan Jingming was not dead was based on logic, then now it can be considered as empirical evidence.
Although if we are more rigorous, there is also the possibility that "the body was moved away artificially", but again, this is a reasoning program after all. If the stretcher bed was not there as a clue, the program team could have directly removed it from the scene instead of leaving it there to become a misleading item.
Thinking about it, Song Yecheng silently ticked the line about Duan Jingming on the "list of doubts" in his mind, then turned around and said, "Let's go upstairs and take a look."
The three of them left the infirmary and quickly went up the stairs to the fourth floor.
The fourth floor, serving as the archive management area and central control room, was not as busy as the office area on the third floor. The previous few times they had gone there, it had only been them and the instructor. Now it seemed even more empty, and a quick glance revealed that there was not even a ghost in sight.
Ling An retracted his gaze: "Then... let's go take a look on the first floor?"
Song Yecheng nodded, turned around and followed the two of them downstairs. He took out his communicator, found Jiang Que's number, and tried to dial it again.
A long beep soon came from the receiver, but just like before, no one answered for a long time.
At this moment, Tang Yao in front suddenly stopped in her tracks alertly: "What's that sound?"
Song Yecheng braked suddenly and almost stepped on her foot. Thinking she heard the prompt tone in the receiver, he hurriedly said, "I'm calling Teacher Bai."
"No," Tang Yao tilted her ear and frowned, "It's not that voice, do you listen?"
Ling An immediately pricked up his ears and listened carefully. Song Yecheng also held the communicator farther away to avoid being disturbed by the prompt tone. So the two of them soon heard a faint, musical sound.
Song Yecheng quickly hung up the communicator and was about to concentrate and listen more carefully, but the next second after he hung up the call, the faint music suddenly stopped.
Song Yecheng was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized something. He immediately took the communicator back and pressed the redial button.
Sure enough, the moment the "beep" sound rang out again in the receiver, the vague music sounded as well!
"It's the phone ringing," Song Yecheng concluded, "downstairs!"
The three of them said nothing more and immediately rushed downstairs together. As expected, the further down they went, the clearer the ringing became.
Finally, the three of them turned the corner leading from the second floor to the first floor.
And just as they rushed down the last flight of stairs and took in the scene in the lobby on the first floor, they couldn't help but stop at the same time -
In the middle of the hall, at the long table where they had eaten together last night and this morning, Jiang Que, He Jingsheng and Lin Yan were lying unconscious on the edge of the table!
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