Chapter 378 - Someone Has Been Here
Chapter 378: Someone Has Been Here
“This is the last video my sister sent me before she disappeared. I’ve been searching for this room, paying close attention to any clues in the video. Finally, my hard work was rewarded. I was randomly scrolling through the university forum when I came across a ghost story thread about our school. One of the stories was about a weeping statue.
“According to legend, as long as we can find this statue before midnight, it could help us diagnose the authenticity of any statement. If it is true, it’ll cry tears of blood, and if it’s fake, something scary will happen.”
Ma Yin found the screenshots of said thread on her phone. There was an attached picture of the statue at the end of the thread, and the statue looked similar to the sculpture captured in her sister’s video. It was a western sculpture of a western man. It was larger than a normal person, and he looked ugly. There was a sentence carved into the base—Deceit is the most beautiful, but truths are often the ugliest.
“I private messaged the OP to know how he managed to get the picture, but he didn’t reply. Then, I contacted that person through the teachers. He said that he took the picture at an abandoned warehouse. He thought that the statue matched the story he was telling, so he attached it to the post. Ever since the movement of the campus several years ago, no one has been to this warehouse. If he was telling the truth, then the statue must still be inside that warehouse.”
Ma Yin and Liu Xianxian were close friends who shared everything. Once Ma Yin trusted someone, she would share her every secret.
“Let’s hope we can find it this time. I really want to know the answer.”
The two girls jumped over the blockade and sneaked into the abandoned building.
“Every time we come here, it feels weird, like there’s someone here other than us.” Since they were afraid light might attract the attention of the security, Ma Yin and Liu Xianxian did not switch on the flashlight on their phones. They touched the wall and slowly walked down the corridor.
“It’s quite a waste to keep this building abandoned. I wonder why the school doesn’t rent this place out,” Ma Yin mumbled to herself. She was actually quite scared, but she did not dare show that before Liu Xianxian. She treated Liu Xianxian as her best friend. When they moved forward, she kept Liu Xianxian behind her to protect her.
The physically smaller Liu Xianxian followed behind Ma Yin. After entering the education block, she also started to feel nervous. “Xiao Yin, after we’ve been here several times, I reached out to the graduated seniors to ask about it. They said there’s a reason this place is abandoned, and it’s related to the move of the other courses to a new campus.”
“What kind of reason?” Ma Yin was tall and much stronger than normal girls, but that did not mean she was braver.
“It seems to be related to cadavers. This block was sealed up because it was too close to the laboratory block.” Liu Xianxian looked out the window. There was a strange phenomenon at Jiujiang Medical University at 2 am. If the campus was separated into four directions—north, south, east, west—the north, south, and east sides of the campus had some lights, but the west side was completely dark.
“According to legend, the largest underground morgue in Jiujiang is within the western side of our school. Wasn’t there a tradition to turn off the lights after midnight? It is because, since the cadavers were tired in the morning, they needed to rest at night. Do you believe something like that?” Liu Xianxian’s voice was weird, and she looked extremely pale that night.
“That is rather weird.”
“There are more weird things about this school. Do you remember what the counselling instructor said when we first registered? Do not go to the western part of the campus after midnight. People asked him why, but he stammered a nonsensical reason. After asking the seniors, there was a student who went out at night and saw someone waving at him. He walked into the western part of the campus at night and saw a cadaver that was ruined inside the lab.” The more Liu Xianxian continued, the darker her face became. “There are many similar stories, and I cannot tell which are real and which are fake anymore.”
“Liu Xian, we’ve been searching for several nights already; we cannot give up now.” For Ma Yin, Liu Xianxian was her only partner. If Liu Xianxian retreated, she would need to look for the statue related to her sister’s disappearance alone.
“I know, I just feel dumb for having this insistence.” Liu Xianxian took out her phone and had the urge to delete someone’s number from the contact list. They walked to the corner and down the stairs to first floor underground. They turned on their flashlights after making sure that no one was following them.
“This place suddenly feels so cold.” The cold draft caressed Ma Yin’s hair, and she squeezed to stand beside Liu Xianxian. “There’s no ventilation in this place, so I have no idea where the draft comes from.”
Their shoulders leaned together, and Ma Yin suddenly realized that Liu Xianxian’s body was very cold, like it was frozen.
“Liu Xian, why are you so cold?”
“Nervous.”
“Don’t worry, I’m here with you. No matter what happens, I’ll stay by your side.”
They moved down the corridor and did not stop to turn into the rooms on the side but headed straight for the stairs to go down to second floor underground. There were some stains on the stairs. It looked dirty, like someone had dragged something up or down the stairs.
“Seems like someone has been here before us.” Ma Yin looked at the water stain on the ground and sniffed at the residual scent in the air. As a medical student, she was familiar with this smell. “It’s formalin.”
“Formalin is not allowed to be taken out of the lab. How can it be here?” Liu Xianxian knew the usage of formalin—it was to preserve the cadavers. “The underground here is connected to the western side of the campus. Did someone really sneak into the underground morgue? Earlier this year, I heard that someone has been stealing the cadavers to sell on the black market.”
“That shouldn’t be the case. Even if the person can move the cadavers out of the morgue, how would they transport them out of the school? There is surveillance everywhere.” Ma Yin tried to console Liu Xianxian. “Don’t read too much into this. There are people who come to maintain the underground morgue once in a while; this is probably their doing.”
“In that case, they wouldn’t have come through this building but used the front door. I still think something is wrong.” Even though she said so, Liu Xianxian went down the stairs faster than Ma Yin. She held onto the wall and raised the flashlight when she reached the bottom of the stairs.
The path split in two. There was a sign on the wall. The right path led to a normal storeroom while the left led to the underground morgue. The water stains on the ground became more obvious, and they were all on the left path.
“Looks like someone really has entered the underground morgue.” Ma Yin looked down the left corridor and raised her phone to shine the light down the dark corridor.