Chapter 84: Face-to-Face Encounter
The sixth stall had eyes painted only on the partition, not on the walls, which struck Chen Ge as odd.
He circled back to the fourth stall. There were no graffiti at all inside it.
"Could it be a student prank? But why specifically pick the fifth stall to paint? It's neither the last nor the first."
Determined to get to the bottom of things, Chen Ge returned to the entrance of the sixth stall. After a moment's hesitation, he raised his tool hammer and stepped inside.
The drainage pipes were concentrated in the sixth stall, making it feel more cramped compared to the others.
"Nothing out of the ordinary here either? Do I really have to go into the fifth stall to find something?" Chen Ge looked at the eyes on the partition, raised his hand, and gently touched one.
"They're definitely painted on, just looks creepy." He locked eyes with the painted eyes on the partition, staring for a long time. "The fourth stall is normal. Only the fifth and sixth have graffiti. Between these two stalls is a wooden board, and both sides of this partition are painted with eyes..."
He vaguely felt he'd caught a clue. Reaching out again, he ran his fingers over each eye pattern on the partition. When his fingertip touched an eye at knee level, Chen Ge's expression shifted.
"Just as I thought!"
He crouched down, shining his flashlight beam onto the partition.
At the spot his finger had touched, there was a hole exactly the size and shape of an eye.
The partition had been drilled with a small hole. Because its size and shape matched the eyes, and it was tucked in a corner, it was nearly impossible to spot.
"All those eye graffiti are just to hide this one little hole." Chen Ge stared at the hole in the middle of the partition, the more he thought about it, the more unsettling it became. "Mixed in with the painted eyes is a real hole, and that hole connects the fifth and sixth stalls. That means someone used this hole to peek into the fifth stall from the sixth!"
Who, while using the toilet, would ever think that among the eye patterns around them, one might be a real eye?
"The drainage pipes are all in the sixth stall. As long as you stand on the pipes, no one outside can see you through the gap under the stall door. This person thought it through thoroughly." Being spied on without knowing it—that was what terrified Chen Ge the most.
Thinking back to the side mission description, the person hiding in the fifth stall waiting for the red shadow to come—he'd probably been watched by the red shadow for a long time already.
"Now the secret of the fifth stall is cracked, but how do I complete the side mission? Am I supposed to stay in the fifth stall, wait for the red shadow to show up, and let it peep through the little hole?" Chen Ge swung his tool hammer. If that was how it played out, he wouldn't mind giving that eye a good whack.
As Chen Ge pondered how to finish the side mission, the sound of footsteps walking in unison from the hallway rang out again. This time, they were heading straight for the third floor—and moving fast!
"What's going on? They seem more anxious than I am. Is it because I opened the fifth stall? But that doesn't add up—I opened it a while ago. Why are they only rushing over now?"
Before he could figure it out, the footsteps had already reached the third floor. Chen Ge was standing in the sixth stall. He only had time to pull the stall door most of the way shut before the footsteps entered the third-floor restroom.
"Finally, a face-to-face encounter."
Chen Ge turned off his flashlight and raised his tool hammer high. But then, things took a turn he hadn't expected at all. After entering the restroom, the footsteps didn't open each stall door to check. Instead, they went straight into the fifth stall.
As the fifth stall door slowly closed, the restroom fell silent.
"They're right next to me, but isn't the order wrong? According to the side mission flow, I should be the one in the fifth stall!"
The third-floor restroom was dead quiet. After the owner of the footsteps entered the fifth stall, there was no sound at all.
After waiting for over ten minutes, Chen Ge grew more and more curious about the "person" hiding in the fifth stall.
He looked at the only small hole on the partition, crouched down, and slowly leaned in.
That black little hole seemed to have a strange pull. Chen Ge brought his eye close to the opening and peered inside. His pupils contracted slightly.
On the other side of the hole, there was no bloodshot eyeball, no red ghostly figure. Instead, there were two children who looked about three or four years old.
A boy and a girl were huddled on either side of the toilet pit, clutching each other, their faces tense.
"Shouldn't it be a red shadow? Where did these two kids come from?" Chen Ge pulled back. In terms of appearance, those two children in the stall were anything but frightening.
"Another side mission, 'Deep Well,' mentioned a younger brother and sister. The deep well is connected to Fan Yu. Could these two kids be Fan Yu's aunt's son and daughter? But why are they here? It feels like they're being chased by something?"
A string of questions flooded his mind. Chen Ge swung his tool hammer. If his only opponents were these two kids, he figured he could hold his own.
"Better wait a bit longer. I feel like something else is coming."
The night grew thicker. At some point, the silence in the third-floor restroom was broken. New footsteps came from the hallway.
Chen Ge gently pushed the stall door open a crack and looked outside. When the footsteps stopped at the restroom entrance, a faint red shadow was reflected on the wall tiles.
"Here it comes!"
This time, Chen Ge had found his mission target. He barely dared to breathe, his eyes locked on that direction.
The footsteps were clear and distinct. The red shadow entered the third-floor restroom.
"Creak..."
The first stall door was pulled open. Through the crack in his own door, Chen Ge could vaguely see the red shadow lean into the stall. There was a long pause, then the red shadow moved to the second stall.
For the first time, Chen Ge found the sound of a door being pulled open so grating. Soon, the doors of the second, third, and fourth stalls were all opened. The red figure stopped in front of the fifth stall.
Having witnessed all this, Chen Ge's muscles tensed, his body like a spring compressed to its limit. He had already stopped breathing.
If he had followed the side mission's instructions, he would have been the one in the fifth stall. Whatever the red figure was about to do to the fifth stall was what he would have faced.
In the silent, dark restroom, the red shadow grabbed the handle of the fifth stall and slowly pulled the door open.
The room seemed to grow even darker. The sounds of a child crying and laughing came from the stall at the same time. The red shadow stood at the entrance, not going in. It looked left and right, then headed for the last stall.
Thanks to the ally leader, Yimu Qiuse de Guang丿!