At half-past two in the morning, a dull thud echoed through the silent demolition building.
Most of the residents simply rolled over and went back to sleep.
Only the scavengers, who were keeping a close eye on their respective tenants, knew something was wrong. Chi Yu told Yin Qian to stay in the room and rushed to the first floor, where Jiang Siyan was already waiting.
A moment later, Gu Xiang Kai followed them down.
A figure lay in the pit, their limbs mangled from the fall, a bloody mess of flesh and bone.
Gu Xiang Kai looked up, but the demolition building was shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to tell which window the body had been thrown from.
He sighed inwardly; the body belonged to Shi Xiaojie.
Bodies that fall from such heights suffer the most gruesome deaths, their frames shattered into pieces, to say nothing of their faces.
Jiang Siyan squatted down and shone his flashlight. "The brain is still there."
As for the face... it was impossible to tell if the damage was caused by the fall or if it had been intentional.
Unless there was another serial killer in this building, Shi Xiaojie must have been taken by the face-slasher.
"What should we do with the body?"
Gu Xiang Kai felt exhausted; he had barely managed to wake up when he heard the noise.
Running up and down the stairs in the middle of the night was taking its toll on him.
Jiang Siyan watched as Gu Xiang Kai let out one yawn after another. "Leave it."
Neither Chi Yu nor Gu Xiang Kai said anything. Chi Yu felt a bit somber; seeing a dead person at night always dampened her mood.
Lately, Yin Qian had been nagging her every day, making her feel like everything was pointless.
As for Gu Xiang Kai, he was truly tired. Hearing Jiang Siyan's suggestion, he didn't give it a second thought, and the three of them headed back inside.
Since Shi Xiaojie's body had been disposed of like this, there was no need to watch him anymore. It was time to go back to sleep.
It was already three o'clock by the time Nan Yue returned to her room. Her search had taken quite a while. The man who had appeared was just like the woman she had seen in the hallway before; he hadn't attacked her.
But their behavior was extremely bizarre.
Even for a pollution world, it was strange.
The woman in the hallway had likely been murdered there by the face-slasher.
And Shi Xiaojie had indeed gone missing in the hallway as well.
But the man in Wu's Clinic...
He should have died at the hands of Old Wu, but what did his actions mean?
His brains...
Eating them...
So Old Wu is the brain-scooper?
Does he dig out people's brains just to... eat them?
It seemed plausible.
Rather than eating them, Nan Yue suspected they were being used in medicine.
It wouldn't be surprising for a man like Old Wu to do something like that.
But why use brains for medicine? Was he eating it himself, or was it for someone else?
Only by figuring this out would Old Wu's thread become clear, allowing Jiang Haoyu to finally start writing about it.
Zhu Xi Ning was still asleep in the room. Nan Yue checked her phone and saw messages from Jiang Siyan and the others about Shi Xiaojie.
So Shi Xiaojie had been found. What about Wu Gang?
Did Wu Gang's disappearance have anything to do with the people in this building?
Why was Wu Ming demanding his return from the mute?
Nan Yue's head began to throb. She decided to get some sleep and deal with everything tomorrow.
The next day, Nan Yue was jolted awake by a knock on the door. She checked the time; it was already nine o'clock.
As she sat up, she realized something was wrong. She felt incredibly weak, and her head was heavy and groggy.
She opened the door to find Jiang Siyan standing there.
His expression darkened the moment he saw her, and white mist poured out, enveloping Nan Yue.
Nan Yue stood still, but she didn't feel any better.
She patted Jiang Siyan's arm. "Don't waste your energy. Come in."
With a grim face, Jiang Siyan entered and glanced at Zhu Xi Ning. She was still sleeping, but she clearly wasn't doing well.
Zhu Xi Ning had lost a significant amount of weight, and her brow was furrowed even in sleep. Because her skin was so pale, her blood vessels and veins had become painfully visible.
Nan Yue and Jiang Siyan sat side by side on the sofa. As Nan Yue rubbed her temples, Jiang Siyan naturally took over for her.
Jiang Siyan truly lived up to his reputation as a doctor; his pressure was just right, and Nan Yue began to feel a bit of relief.
"When were you planning to tell me that you're recreating the states of the people who died in these rooms?"
Jiang Siyan's tone was gentle, but even without looking back, Nan Yue could feel his sticky, damp gaze lingering on her.
"I only figured it out this morning."
Nan Yue had indeed only confirmed it today; once her own symptoms appeared, many things clicked into place.
Of course, part of it was due to the man she had seen in Wu's Clinic last night, eating his own brains.
She remembered why that man had looked so familiar.
Sister Deng had mentioned a former tenant of the demolition building—a tall, thin man with depression who never greeted anyone and always looked deathly.
That man last night was exactly like that. That kind of gaze couldn't be faked, and there were no such things as coincidences.
"You suspect he's the former tenant who had depression?"
Jiang Siyan frowned. He remembered that the depressed man had committed suicide by jumping off the building. Why would he be eating brains?
Nan Yue looked at him. Her head hurt too much to say anything more.
Strangely, Jiang Siyan seemed to understand exactly what she wanted to say just from her eyes. He suddenly let out a somewhat pleased smile.
"Right. I forgot. That scoundrel was in the same situation."
Their deaths might not have been caused by humans, but their brains might have ended up missing in the end.
So Old Wu didn't necessarily have to kill; all he wanted was the brains.
Dead ones would do just fine.
"You think Old Wu didn't kill them? That he just took the brains?"
Jiang Siyan watched Nan Yue as she spoke to herself. "No, Old Wu definitely killed that female tenant. Besides, there was so much blood in that room; it's hard to say it was caused by taking a brain from a corpse. Old Wu has a lot of blood on his hands."
"So, the brain-scooper is confirmed to be Old Wu. Using brains for medicine... he's just a quack, probably gone mad."
"That just leaves the face-slasher. Once we find them, the mission will be cleared."
Nan Yue gave him a look of approval.
Jiang Siyan continued to massage Nan Yue's temples. His arms were suspended in the air, repeating the same motion until his hands went slightly numb, but he acted as if he couldn't feel it.
"So, the two of you were influenced by the tenant who died in this room and started exhibiting her symptoms?"
Jiang Siyan's gaze turned cold. No wonder his ability hadn't worked; this was a rule of the pollution world, something that couldn't be changed.
As time passed, Nan Yue would...
Bloodshot veins crept into Jiang Siyan's eyes, giving him a somewhat ghoulish appearance.
"No, it's not just me."
Nan Yue opened her phone and told everyone to come up.
Normally, since she hadn't woken up, Gu Xiang Kai should have stormed in long ago, but he hadn't.
Furthermore, after Nan Yue sent the message, it took half an hour for everyone to finally trickle in.
Nan Yue looked weak, and Zhu Xi Ning didn't even get out of bed, yet no one questioned the bizarre scene.
Nan Yue silently observed her teammates.
Yin Qian and Chi Yu both had their heads hanging low, their eyes vacant.
Jiang Haoyu wasn't as irritable or short-tempered as before, but he was coughing incessantly.
Rate on N.U.
