Forbidden Land – CH 013

The two of them stood on the fifth floor, silently listening to the intermittent “thumping” sounds coming from above. Zhang Chao and Chen Rong both subtly changed color.

Zhang Chao gritted his teeth and complained in a low voice, “It’s all your fault for being a woman. If Lin Yi’ang were here, we would have already run up to the north and south to block whoever was up there.”

Chen Rong smiled. “How do you know there’s definitely someone up there?”

Zhang Chao said, “If it isn’t someone, who would be knocking?”

Chen Rong said, “Maybe it’s something making the noise. Or maybe it isn’t even up there, maybe somewhere else. The sound is so faint, we wouldn’t be able to understand it. Besides, if you really dare to run up to the south and north with Lin Yi’ang to block them, then you should go up the south staircase now. I’ll just stay here and wait, okay?”

“I…” Zhang Chao thought about going up the other staircase alone to block them; he really didn’t have the guts. Although Chen Rong was a woman and wouldn’t be much of a help in real danger, having someone by his side was a great source of courage. Letting him go up alone was out of the question; he might as well just wash up and go to sleep. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Let’s go up together.”

Chen Rong became smug: “Are you begging me?”

Zhang Chao refused to admit it, saying, “Stop talking nonsense; let’s go up and see.”

The two of them immediately and cautiously continued upwards, but the sound stopped abruptly when they were halfway up from the fifth floor. Zhang Chao hesitated for a few seconds, then said, “Hurry up!”

He ran up the last few steps in one breath, but instead of running directly into the corridor, he ducked behind the wall and gestured for Chen Rong to come quickly.

Chen Rong smiled and followed him up.

With someone beside him, he felt much more at ease. Gripping the flashlight switch tightly, he suddenly jumped out, stood in the middle of the corridor, turned on the switch, and shone the light down the corridor.

The corridor was empty. He let out a long sigh.

Suddenly, at the far end of the flashlight beam, on the white wall at the other end of the corridor, a figure turned and walked downstairs. Quietly, without making a sound. And since the figure was already pressed against the wall at the very end of the corridor, when it turned, Zhang Chao only saw a flash of white; the only thing he could make out was the foot the figure lifted behind it.

Black shoes!

Zhang Chao took two steps back in a panic.

“What’s wrong?” Chen Rong walked over curiously, looking around the empty corridor.

Zhang Chao stammered, “You…you saw it?”

“Saw what?” Chen Rong looked puzzled.

Zhang Chao, panting, said, “White clothes, black shoes. A woman. She walked past.”

“White clothes, black shoes, a woman?” Chen Rong looked again, then looked down, but there was no one there. She turned and said, “You must have seen wrong.”

Zhang Chao said, “Impossible, absolutely impossible!” He hadn’t seen the person clearly, but the foot that was lifted was clearly wearing a black shoe. He was a science student; he didn’t believe in visual illusions. It was real, his mind clear.

Chen Rong expressed her incomprehension of what he was saying.

Zhang Chao pondered for a moment, then said, “Should we… go and take a look?”

Chen Rong said, “Whatever you say, I’m not afraid. I don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that.”

Zhang Chao really wanted to look up to the heavens and thank them. It turned out, ignorant girls were even more adorable!

He and Chen Rong walked together down the long, empty corridor. The corridor was a full 60 meters long, with three of the largest classrooms in the middle, but all the classrooms were locked with iron doors and windows. Zhang Chao couldn’t help but ask, “By the way, haven’t you had many classes here? What are these three rooms for?”

Chen Rong smiled. “I’m afraid I’ll scare you if I tell you.”

Zhang Chao thought for a moment and immediately understood: “The School of Medicine stores corpses?”

Chen Rong nodded, then added, “But I don’t know about the one on the far end. I heard classmates joke that since the School of Medicine moved from the Hubin campus to Zijingang, and the School of Medicine building was completed, the morgue was moved here too. However, for general experiments, specimens are taken from these two rooms. Someone joked that they’ve never seen the door to that classroom on the far end open, and that you can hear women singing from that room at night. Hehe, if it were girls from other departments, they’d probably be terrified, but medical girls dare to eat in front of corpses, so why would they care about such ghost stories?”

But after hearing this, Zhang Chao’s face darkened. “Women singing?”

Chen Rong looked at him and laughed, “You’re even more useless than a girl.”

Zhang Chao shook his head. “No, you don’t know; that day, Li Weihao… he kept saying he heard a woman singing.”

Chen Rong looked at him, seemingly unable to comprehend such a mysterious thing.

Zhang Chao slowly continued, “Actually, the next night, I… I also heard a woman singing.”

Chen Rong still shook her head, puzzled. “Sigh, it seems I need to strengthen my psychological counseling for you in the future.”

Zhang Chao knew she hadn’t experienced it and couldn’t understand, just as he hadn’t experienced a woman singing and couldn’t understand it when Weihao mentioned it. Only by truly experiencing something could one understand that emotion.

Chen Rong smiled and said, “You said you saw a figure just now. Are you going to continue chasing after it or go back?”

Zhang Chao glanced downstairs but didn’t see any woman in white. Looking at the corridor, brightly lit by flashlight, he clearly saw no one there anymore. Somewhat disappointed, yet also relieved, he glanced at the end of the stairwell and said, “Let’s go back first. I’ll come back to check later. But what was that knocking sound just now?”

Chen Rong laughed. “I said, it must have been a sound from somewhere else. It sounded like it was coming from upstairs because it was far away. It was just a coincidence. Let’s go.”

Zhang Chao nodded and went downstairs with her.

On the way, they didn’t cross the road in the middle of Qizhen Lake but instead took the westernmost road in the western district. He rode his bicycle, absentmindedly gazing at the dappled shadows of the marshy fields to the west, trying to find the figure of the woman in ancient costume, but ultimately found nothing.

He also felt that he was just being a hypocrite, wanting to know who the woman in ancient costume really was and what her connection was to Li Weihao’s death. Because he simply couldn’t believe that Li Weihao had ‘committed suicide.’ But the surveillance footage only showed Li Weihao, except for the pair of feet behind him. Could it be that something mysterious was buried beneath this land?