Bang!!
A huge noise came from the third floor.
!!!
Lin Fan and the others on the fourth floor all heard the sound.
"Is that coming from the third floor?"
"What the heck is that Saiki guy up to now!"
"Let's go check it out!"
The three hurriedly ran down from the fourth floor. They came to the area next to the elevator entrance, because that was the only place with light, but there was only one.
Yao Yao was standing there in a daze. Only after seeing Lin Fan and the others arrive did she turn her head and ask, "Lin Fan-gege, how did you guys get here so fast? Really so fast!"
"Uh…"
The question Lin Fan originally wanted to ask got stuck in his throat. Somewhat speechlessly, he said, "Listen, Yao Yao, from now on you can't describe boys as 'fast' anymore!"
"Oh, why…" Yao Yao scratched her head. Just as Lin Fan was about to explain, Xiao Chen pushed Lin Fan's head aside and asked,
"That's not important. Yao Yao, how come you're the only one here? Where's Saiki?"
"Saiki-kun asked me to give these things to you guys, then he turned off the light by himself and ran off somewhere. I don't know where."
Yao Yao's expression was a bit complicated as she held the camera, a notebook, and three small brocade pouches, placing them in the three people's hands while explaining.
It turned out that after Saiki finished reading the diary, his face was full of displeasure. What he hated most was reading this kind of diary—the kind that only tells half the story.
It was like reaching the exciting part and then suddenly stopping. Saiki couldn't hold back, so he wanted to go up to the seventh floor to take a look.
But the sixth floor was already the top floor here; there were no stairs leading to the seventh. Saiki had also gone outside before to check, and no matter how you counted, it was only six floors.
So the only way to get there now was this elevator. But no matter how long Saiki stood at the elevator, it showed no sign of lighting up or starting.
Clearly, when Saiki had been far away from this elevator before, he had seen the light. So a strange idea sprouted in Saiki's mind.
He told Yao Yao to wait alone for the elevator while he slowly walked away, getting farther and farther from the elevator to see if it would start.
In the end, when Saiki reached near the end and could barely see Yao Yao's figure as a tiny dot, he finally saw the elevator doors open… and light up.
Once the elevator doors were fully open, Saiki, from a distance, saw the familiar elevator lady. He immediately rushed forward happily at high speed, kicking up a strong wind.
The elevator lady, who had just reopened for business with her usual smile facing Yao Yao,
until her eyebrow twitched when she saw Saiki striding toward her with vigorous steps and a sleazy grin…
The elevator lady's smile instantly collapsed. Her expression gradually turned horrifying—three parts fear, four parts terror, and three parts tension.
The elevator lady used the fastest speed of her life, desperately pressing the close button.
Mm, the elevator doors were very cooperative and closed quickly. Saiki arrived just one second too late.
This left the already very unhappy Saiki inwardly cursing. Then, right in front of Yao Yao, he did something that would shock her for a hundred years.
Saiki directly reached out, placed his hand on the elevator doors (which had a hardness comparable to titanium alloy), and gave Yao Yao a live demonstration of tearing elevator doors apart by hand.
That huge noise just now was the sound of him tearing the elevator doors.
After Saiki tore open the elevator doors and casually tossed them to the ground, what was revealed inside was not any elevator cables connecting up and down, but… stone walls.
Saiki's face was full of speechlessness. But suddenly, as if he had a headache, he lowered his head and clutched his forehead.
After a while, Saiki raised his head, scratched it, and helplessly handed the camera along with the diary earlier to Yao Yao, whose eyes were wide as saucers and who still hadn't recovered from that astonishing scene.
He instructed her to give these things to Lin Fan and the others when they arrived, and also gave them three brocade pouches, telling them that if they hesitated, didn't know what to do, then open them.
Then he added the sentence "I'll be back again," extinguished the candle in his hand, and walked into the darkness.
"…"
"That's what happened."
Yao Yao murmured and looked up, seeing the others wearing shocked expressions. "What's wrong with you guys!"
The blue general finally managed to close his gaping mouth and pointed at the elevator door on the ground. "That guy actually tore the elevator door apart with his hands. Although I already guessed he might have that kind of strength, this is just too…"
Xiao Chen frowned, looked around at the dark surroundings with a strange expression, and muttered softly, "No way, is he serious? He actually extinguished the candle. Won't that really be dangerous? No! It should only be Saiki who did that, so is he going off alone to investigate something? But…"
After Lin Fan came back to his senses, he looked at the three brocade pouches in his hand, his eyes filled with curiosity and the urge to explore. "Should we open them? I really want to know. But Saiki said to open them when we don't know what to do, like when we're in a desperate situation? I already don't know what to do right now. I really want to open them! But…"
Yao Yao stood there watching the three of them each talking about their own thing, not looking worried about Saiki at all.
She suddenly had the feeling that these three people weren't normal, and couldn't help but sigh.
In reality, how could they possibly not be worried? It was just that in their minds, Saiki was already a total freak. Although they felt that Saiki going off alone, turning off the light, and walking into the darkness might be dangerous,
on second thought—could Saiki possibly not make it back?
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
They could already imagine Saiki yawning in the morning as he walked out of his room door, completely unharmed.
"…"
…
Back to the main topic. Although they had wasted some time earlier, it was still half an hour until 1 a.m.
That is, thirty minutes until the security guard started patrolling the hospital. So they planned to keep searching.
But before continuing, they first went to a corner to watch Saiki's footage and read the director's diary.
After finishing, they checked the time—five minutes until 1 a.m. Holding the holy water, they went down to the first basement floor on their own initiative to find the security guard.
Clearly, the holy water was very effective. The security guard was no match for them at all. With no security guard interfering, they headed to the fourth floor, fifth floor, and sixth floor.
They triggered a lot of strange tasks and encountered many ghosts. Perhaps because Saiki wasn't there, the group became exceptionally ruthless. They handled the ghosts with ease and quickly completed several tasks.
Even Yao Yao accompanied them. It wasn't until the sky was about to brighten that they finally returned to their rooms.
They had collected quite a lot of holy water by then. Only Yao Yao didn't have any—Lin Fan and the others had originally planned to share some with her.
But Yao Yao waved her hand in refusal, saying she just wanted to lie down quietly and win without effort, happy to be a tag-along. Seeing that, they didn't insist and said they'd keep carrying her tomorrow.
After returning to their own rooms, they started catching up on sleep. It was now 5:30—half an hour until 6 a.m.
With the mindset that if they could sleep half an hour, they would sleep half an hour, and any extra sleep was good, they fell into a deep slumber.
6 a.m.
In the morning, the blue general rubbed his eyes, got up, opened the door, and saw Xiao Chen knocking on Lin Fan's door. "Get up! Time to go look for Saiki!"
What answered Xiao Chen was Lin Fan's: Z ～Z～Z sound.
(So in real life, there really are people who make that kind of sleeping noise.)
"Looks like he's still not awake," the blue general walked over and said.
Xiao Chen's eyes darkened. With a cold expression, he opened the door, walked up to Lin Fan—who was still hugging his pillow and blanket—and said, "Get up!"
Lin Fan wanted to open his eyes, but his upper and lower eyelids were on extremely good terms and kept wanting to stick together, making it very hard to separate.
After trying for a while, Lin Fan murmured lazily in a low voice, "Five more minutes… just five more minutes…"
"Heh." A half-smile that wasn't quite a smile appeared in Xiao Chen's deep eyes. Then he pulled out something wrapped in yellow packaging from his pocket.
"Holy crap!" The blue general saw it, covered his nose, and quickly backed away. "Why the heck do you have durian soil prepared!"
Durian soil: a product of the bizarre world. It's durian cultivated using human bodily waste and foul-smelling substances, then processed. It's the nemesis of ghosts and monsters (except for those with certain special fetishes, of course).
Xiao Chen's mouth curved into a cold smirk. He stuffed the durian soil into Lin Fan's blanket, covered it tightly, and held it down firmly. Soon the blanket began surging violently with intense struggling.
"Mmph! Mmph…"
"…"
"Mmph～ urk～"
Lin Fan, now fully dressed, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and glared resentfully at Xiao Chen. "How could you use that kind of thing on me? You trying to kill me!"
"That's the nemesis of ghosts and monsters, not humans. It won't cause you any real harm," Xiao Chen replied calmly.
"It causes huge harm to humans too!"
The group came to Saiki's door and knocked. No response came from inside.
"Saiki, where are you? Did he already go out?" Lin Fan scratched his head, turned to the two behind him, and said, "Let's check downstairs. Maybe he's eating down there."
"Okay."
"Sure."
The three left. Inside the room, it was completely quiet. The pillow and blanket were neatly arranged, perfectly flat, as if no one had used them yesterday.
"…"
Down at the restaurant below, they still didn't find him. They didn't pay too much attention at first. It wasn't until the afternoon passed, 6 p.m. rolled around after work, and they gathered without seeing Saiki,
that they finally realized something was wrong. The nurse, as usual, gave them the same bundle and prepared to leave, without caring that one person was missing or listening to their situation.
"This is really weird. Why hasn't Saiki come back yet."
"Let's go check his room."
"Okay."
"Wait for me, I'm coming too," Yao Yao suddenly popped out and said. "I'm worried too…"
They arrived at Saiki's room and knocked. Still no movement inside. Lin Fan opened the door and walked in, only to see a woman dressed entirely in black, wearing sunglasses and a mask that covered her completely, just turning her head to meet his gaze.
Lin Fan narrowed his eyes. "You're…"
The heavily covered woman saw someone had come and was about to say something when Yao Yao spoke up. "Akiyuki-neesan!"
Akiyuki also took off her sunglasses. "You can even recognize me like this!"
After chatting, they learned that Akiyuki had come looking for Saiki, but she hadn't found him either.
However, upon hearing that Saiki was missing, Akiyuki said he definitely wasn't missing—he was just hiding somewhere and would definitely come out again.
Even though they couldn't find him, tonight was the fifth day since Saiki's group had come to the hospital. After finishing work tomorrow, they would have to leave.
At the group's invitation, Akiyuki decided to join them tonight to take a look. She still insisted that Saiki was definitely still here.