Chapter 54: Art and Performance Activity Center
His eyes locked onto the chair in the middle of the corridor, Chen Ge stood sideways, gripping his tool hammer tightly.
He waited for over ten seconds, but the chair in the hallway remained motionless.
"Could it be because I'm watching?" Chen Ge took a few steps forward, opened his phone's video recording function, and placed it on the chain outside the glass door.
After doing this, he retreated to the wasteland outside the apartment building and waited quietly.
The midnight campus was unsettlingly silent, with not even the chirping of insects or birds to be heard.
About three minutes later, Chen Ge approached the apartment building, already prepared for the worst possible outcome. But when he stood again at the entrance of the dormitory, he saw that the chair was still in its original position, one meter away from the ceiling light in the hallway.
"Didn't move? What's going on?" Chen Ge stood by the glass door and retrieved his phone from where he had placed it. He watched the video but found nothing unusual—the chair simply stayed obediently in the middle of the corridor.
"Could it only move when it sees a person?" As soon as this thought crossed his mind, Chen Ge sensed something was wrong. He turned his head to look at the corridor of the female dormitory, only to find that the chair had somehow moved another two meters forward, now very close to the glass door!
"It moved again? What does this thing want? Every time I come near, it gets closer—is it trying to tell me something?" Saying he wasn't scared would be a lie, but Chen Ge's tolerance for fear was far greater than most people's, allowing him to keep a clear head even in such an environment.
"This school has some serious problems. Until I understand what's going on, I'd better not provoke these things." Chen Ge really wanted to smash the glass with his hammer, drag the chair out, and dismantle it. But considering the many blind spots inside the apartment building, he worried that if he went in, he might encounter something else. He didn't want to end up being dragged in instead of dragging the chair out.
"Tonight's key task is to find the red dancing shoes. As long as these strange things don't interfere with me, there's no need to fight them head-on." Chen Ge stepped back with his phone in hand. "I'll check other places first. If I don't find the shoes, I'll come back. As long as I find them before dawn, the mission is a success. There's still plenty of time."
Chen Ge mentally noted the location of the female dormitory's main entrance, then retraced his steps. He turned off his phone's light, crouched near the school's main gate, and gripped his iron hammer.
"By my calculations, the taxi that was following me should have arrived by now. But why is the road outside still pitch black?" In absolute darkness, car headlights would be very noticeable, yet Chen Ge waited a long time without seeing any light approaching the school. "Could something have gone wrong?"
He kept thinking about this. In his view, there was no way such a coincidence could happen. The person who had followed him all the way to Xicheng Private School must have some ulterior motive.
"They might have guessed I'd be lying in ambush by the roadside, so they got off early and are walking here slowly. If that's the case, it's going to be tricky." He would rather be wrong, rather be fighting shadows, than have to deal with a truly troublesome opponent.
"I need to speed up. I have two advantages right now: arriving early lets me familiarize myself with the environment, and second, Zhang Ya is here. She can't just watch me get bullied on her turf, can she?"
Chen Ge's eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. Perhaps because of his Yin Pupils, he could see things in the dark without too much blur.
"Light will expose me. Whoever is in the open becomes the prey." He didn't turn on his phone, just carried his tool hammer and headed toward another building.
The tallest building at Xicheng Private School was the teaching building, five stories high. Behind it was a playground overgrown with weeds, and at the other end of the playground stood a solitary building.
Its walls were a light red, and because of the playground's separation, the building looked out of place.
"The teaching building is for classes, so the dancing shoes probably aren't there. The male dormitory is even less likely. Let's check out that red-walled building first."
Chen Ge hugged the edge of the playground and circled around to the front of the building.
It was four stories high, the same as the female dormitory, but its footprint was only two-thirds the size of the apartment building.
As soon as he got close, Chen Ge noticed something unusual about this building. Right in the middle of the main entrance was a wooden board, with four words painted in striking red paint—"No Entry Allowed!"
"What is this building used for?" Curiosity gnawed at him. The more the school forbade entry, the more he wanted to know. "Something must have happened here a few years ago. Maybe the red dancing shoes I'm looking for are inside."
Chen Ge stepped around the wooden board and approached the door, which had two extra locks added to it.
"The front door won't open. Smashing it with the hammer would make too much noise, and if that person following me gets attracted here, it'll be trouble." Chen Ge didn't touch the wooden door and moved to the other side of the building. There, a window was badly damaged, with a large piece of glass missing.
"I'll go in through here." Chen Ge reached through the window and unlocked the safety latch. To be safe, he waited outside for a few minutes to make sure no one was around before climbing in.
He closed the window again, arranging it as it was before. Chen Ge didn't let his guard down and carefully surveyed his surroundings.
This was an art studio. The walls were covered with students' works, and shelves held plaster models.
"Looks pretty creepy, but it's nothing compared to my haunted house." Chen Ge walked between two rows of plaster models and reached the back door of the studio.
He peered through the glass pane on the door into the hallway. On the wall were the words "Art and Performance Activity Center."
"Looks like I came to the right place." Chen Ge gently pushed the studio door open. It hadn't been used in a long time, so the wooden door let out a harsh creak that made his heart race.
"Stay calm. Find the shoes and get out." Since he was now inside a relatively enclosed building where light wouldn't travel far, he turned on his phone again.
The faint glow didn't bring any sense of security. In fact, using a flashlight in this environment was even more terrifying.
Chen Ge checked the rooms on the first floor one by one. They were all art studios, some still cluttered with easels and student works that hadn't been removed.
"The Art and Performance Activity Center has four floors. The dance studio I'm looking for should be on another floor."
Chen Ge climbed the stairs with his phone and tool hammer. When he reached the second floor, his heart suddenly began to race, and goosebumps rose on his arms.
Following his gaze, in the middle of the second-floor corridor, there was also a wooden chair.
"Why is this thing here again?"
Chen Ge gripped his tool hammer, his muscles slowly tensing.