Chapter 11

Seeing Xu Ming take the lead in climbing over the warning strip, the other two looked at each other, and finally made up their minds to climb over.

Surprisingly, the stairs from the sixth floor to the fifth floor were unexpectedly smooth - Xu Ming thought that Hongqiang would set up some more obstacles, such as hallucinations, but in fact there was nothing. They walked to the fifth floor easily, and even found the "fifteenth floor stairs" mentioned in the letter with just one chance.

The subsequent process was relatively troublesome. The fire door on the fifth floor could not be pushed open, so Xu Ming and his friends had to walk down two more floors, and tried all the way to the third floor with the sound of their heartbeats, and finally found a fire door that could be opened.

The moment the heavy door was pushed open, the three of them were stunned.

There was light behind the door.

Behind the fire door was a wide corridor, with a corner at the end and neatly arranged doors on the right. The light bulbs on the top flickered, casting a light that was not stable but bright enough.

For the three people who had just walked down several floors in the dark, it was like holy light. For a moment, they were even a little blind.

Regardless of the shock, Xu Ming quickly adjusted himself and took the lead to continue walking forward. When they approached the corner, they clearly heard footsteps that did not belong to the three of them; then, the three of them were stunned again.

Someone walked out from behind the corner-leather shoes, hat, security uniform.

He was also wearing sunglasses and a mask on his face. Covering his face tightly. Even so, the three could still feel each other's surprise the moment their eyes met.

"Stop, wait a minute." The other party made a stopping gesture to them, looking somewhat alert, "Where did you come from?"

The three looked at each other, and Yuan Jiayi tentatively said, "Upstairs. Hongqiang."

"..." The security guard seemed to be even more alert, took out the walkie-talkie, and communicated quickly with the other side. He spoke with an accent, and when he spoke on the walkie-talkie, he directly used dialect. Xu Ming and the others didn't understand what he said. They only knew that after a while, they saw the man put down the walkie-talkie and looked at them.

"Hongqiang, right?" He came forward. "Please follow me. Don't run around. Don't panic. You are safe now."

After saying that, he looked behind them, as if he was worried that something would catch up with them, and then turned around to lead the way.

Xu Ming and the other two exchanged glances, and tacitly did not ask any more questions, but followed together.

"Hey, are you there?" Xu Ming asked in his mind as he walked forward, "Can you tell who this person is?"

A slow "tsk" sounded in his mind, followed by a listless voice:

"I told you, don't count on me for this kind of thing."

"But the aura of this guy is different from Hongqiang, I can be sure of that."

That's fine. At least it's good news.

Xu Ming's eyes turned slightly, and he asked in his mind: "By the way, didn't you say that I have the 'idiot' trait? I can see him, what does this prove?"

"It proves that you have come to a new 'map', and this man is a character that existed when the 'map' was first loaded." The voice was uninterested, "Other than that, it proves nothing."

- The idiot trait is immune to the abnormal effects brought about by the change, not the abnormality itself. For example, if Xu Ming enters a haunted house, there are seven ghosts in the house, six of them appear at the beginning, and the last one will not appear until the evening. No matter whether the one that appears at night is strong or weak, Xu Ming can only see the six that existed at the beginning.

For example, if Xu Ming encounters a ghost in a haunted house, and the ghost's initial appearance is a sunny and cheerful boy, and then the ghost becomes depressed and wants to change into a chaste appearance, then in Xu Ming's eyes, she still sees the sunny and cheerful boy.

It is not very realistic to use this ability to directly judge the nature of what you see.

"..." Xu Ming looked thoughtful, and the security guard suddenly turned his head and said in a deep voice: "Did you see the prompt? Then the date you are in..."

Xu Ming and Yuan Jiayi looked at each other and asked tentatively: "Monday?"

Security guard: "All?"

"My phone shows Monday too." Yuan Jiayi hurriedly said, and looked to the side, "Where is Lao Li?"

"Me too." Lao Li nodded immediately.

"..." The security guard's eyes wandered over them, as if he was thinking about whether to ask them to show proof. After a pause, he said, "Okay, it's Monday,

right?" "This is very important, don't lie. If you don't know, just say you don't know."

"..." No one changed their answer, so the security guard didn't ask any more questions.

Xu Ming suddenly thought of something and quickened his pace: "Wait sir, where are we going? Hongqiang and our companions..."

"I'm sorry, we can't go upstairs, we can only wait for them to come down by themselves." The security guard said, stopping in front of a door, "Please come in."

Behind the door was a room similar to a reception room, decorated with simple cabinets and chairs, with unopened mineral water and bagged food on the table, and there was another door next to it, which looked like a bathroom according to the sign.

Xu Ming glanced inside but did not go in. Instead, he continued, "May I ask who you are? We are not actually sure... If we can get help from you, we would like to go back and pick up the other companions."

"Go back?" The security guard hesitated, as if he was a little embarrassed, and said after a pause, "It should be possible to go back, but you still need to stay here for a while."

He pointed to the room next to him: "Our identity is not important. What's important is how to help you completely get rid of Hongqiang..."

"Well, in a quarter of an hour, we will come to pick you up for 'cleaning'. After the cleaning is completed, we can send you away according to the process. If you want to go back, you can wait until the cleaning is completed, and our people will help arrange it."

"Cleaning?" Xu Ming frowned, "What does it mean?"

"Clearing the pollution in your body and consciousness." The security guard said, "Similar to letting shellfish spit out sand."

"It may be troublesome, but please understand. Hongqiang is a very tricky existence, we must treat him with caution."

He pointed to the room again: "The specific rules are written in it. You can take a closer look and decide on the order first."

"Order?"

Security guard: "The order of cleaning. We can only clean one person at a time. After cleaning, it is up to you to leave or go back. Before the cleaning begins, I will always be guarding nearby, call me if you have any problems." After

the security guard finished speaking, he closed the door and left the room.

The remaining three people stayed in the empty room, looking at each other.

After a while, Lao Li asked hesitantly: "So, are we saved?"

Although the security guard looked mysterious, he seemed to be quite reliable in both his behavior and attitude.

And the development so far is consistent with the description in the letter... He was only half-believing and half-doubting the content of the letter at first, but now that both parties have confirmed it, the credibility has increased a lot.

"Should... be considered?" Yuan Jiayi was also a little uncertain, "Xiao Xu, what do you think... Xiao Xu?"

She called out but didn't hear a reply. She turned around and found that Xu Ming had already strolled around the room by himself, looking around.

"What?" Yuan Jiayi tensed up instantly, "Did you see anything again?" "

...To be honest, nothing." Xu Ming pursed his lips and straightened up.

Really not. Just like what Lao Li said, everything matched up with the letter.

...But for some reason, a part of her heart still felt weird. She couldn't tell what was weird.

She had no idea for a moment, so she could only turn her attention away again, her eyes falling on a piece of paper not far away - it was a notice posted on the wall, with black print on it, and the content was similar to what the security guard said.

[Hello, I'm glad you're here. Don't worry, you are safe. In order to prevent the pollution from Hongqiang from continuing to spread, we must first clean you and remove the effects it left behind. After the removal, we will arrange for you to leave, please trust us.

[The cleaning process requires some preparation time, please be patient. Because only one person can be cleaned at a time, you need to determine the order of going first. Those who have not yet arrived, please continue to wait in the room.

[Please do not run around while waiting. Please do not use any items brought out from Hongqiang.

[Thank you for your cooperation. I wish you all peace. Best of luck in business. ]

...

"Best of luck in business?" Xu Ming couldn't help but read it out loud.

"What chess?" Yuan Jiayi walked over curiously, and said "Huh" after seeing it.

"Best of luck in business. This is a written term, which probably means I wish you good business..."

"I know." Xu Ming glanced at her, "But is this kind of word usually used in notifications?"

Yuan Jiayi: ...

That's right. It's usually used in business emails. It's weird to use it in this place.

...Could it be a typo?

Yuan Jiayi was grumbling in her heart, while Xu Ming beside her frowned.

Then she took out her cell phone to check the time, looked back at Lao Li, pondered for a moment, and suddenly said that she was going to the bathroom, and pulled Yuan Jiayi into the bathroom.

——After a while, the bathroom door opened, Xu Ming came out with wet hands, and began to look around the room again, with no expression on his face.

Yuan Jiayi looked hesitant. After coming out, she touched the door, pushed it open, looked around, and quickly retracted it.

"Sister Jiayi?" Old Li looked over worriedly, "What's wrong? Did you find anything when you hid in the bathroom just now?"

"Nothing, I just accompanied her to the bathroom." Yuan Jiayi waved her hand, "I was a little worried, so I took a look. Fortunately, the security guard is still guarding outside, everything is fine."

"Oh...oh." Old Li nodded in confusion and sat back in his seat.

"By the way, since it's safe, let's talk about business quickly and decide the order that the gentleman just said - I can be the last one in line, why don't you two discuss it yourselves?"

Old Li said, glanced at Yuan Jiayi who sat back in her seat, and turned to look for Xu Ming. But he saw that the other party had already scanned the entire cabinet and was now lying on the ground looking at the bottom of other people's cabinets.

"No, you're trying too hard..." Not only Lao Li, but Yuan Jiayi was also dumbfounded, "Don't tell me you really found something."

Xu Ming didn't say anything, just rummaging under the table. After a while, he pulled out a torn rubber glove and picked it up with a complicated expression: "No, I just found some garbage."

"I told you." Lao Li shook his head, "It's not a secret room escape, how could the clue be placed under the table."

"Who said it's impossible." Xu Ming casually put the glove into his bag, took the opportunity to take out his mobile phone to check the time, then sat down at the table and said lightly:

"I also picked up the previous notice from under the table."

Lao Li was squeezing mineral water, and paused when he heard it: "What?"

"It was a notice for fire drill. Oh yes, you and Hei Zai were not there at the time." Xu Ming smiled, "It was under a table in the work area, and the whole piece of paper was crumpled into a ball. In addition to the paper, there were a bunch of things, such as candy, lip balm, rings..."

"I talked about this with Sister Jiayi, right?"

"Ah... yes." Jiayi was stunned for a moment, then nodded, "But I don't understand why there are so many things under the table."

"Really? That's not strange." Old Li seemed to be thinking of something, and froze for a moment, but soon raised the corner of his lips again, put down the mineral water that he had not squeezed out with one hand, and put the other hand into his coat pocket as if nothing had happened.

"Under the table, under the bed, isn't it like this? There are a lot of things piled up in a mess..."

"That's true." Xu Ming took out his mobile phone again to check the time, but his eyes soon fell on Old Li again, "But I think there may be another explanation for this."

"Speaking of which, in the field of the supernatural, there is a very strange saying, I don't know if you have heard of it-

"It is said that the dead are very likely to lose things. And the things they lose tend to gather in one place. "