Chapter 13 People Three (Even Teenagers In Their Second Year Should Fall in Love Ahhh Leader)
“Not a staff member? Don’t joke, if you help me find the exit, I’ll give you two thousand!” the woman raised her offer.
“How did you come in?” Rather than responding to her request, Li Chengyi asked her instead.
“I don’t know.” The agitation was clear in the woman’s eyes, “I just finished shopping, took the elevator down to the parking garage to drive home, and then realized this isn’t the mall’s garage.”
“The elevator? Is the elevator still there?” Li Chengyi’s eyes lit up, quickly asking. If he could follow the route the woman had taken in, maybe they could…
“I don’t know!” The woman tightened her grip on her coat, her expression somewhat panicked. “I turned around, and it was gone. I took a service elevator, it had a big door; logically, it should be very visible and easy to find.”
“Didn’t you have any premonitions?” Seeing this, Li Chengyi could already sort of deduce her situation.
“What premonitions? You mean the dream I had before?” The woman asked with slight confusion.
“Dream” Li Chengyi was at a loss for words, as it was clear the woman hadn’t taken her previous premonitions seriously, thinking it was just a dream.
He thought about it and decided to slowly share what he knew about the Dead End.
As he explained continuously, the woman’s expression became more and more impatient.
Until Li Chengyi mentioned the appearance of a two-meter-tall humanoid monster, she could no longer hold her patience.
“Sorry, I’m serious. Has anyone ever told you that your story is interesting, but now is not the right time to talk about it.”
“I know the rumors about the Dead End, but those are all fictional tales. In my view, the so-called Dead End is more like an underground survival experiment game. Alright, now’s not the time to discuss this.”
She stretched out her palm, opening five fingers.
“Five thousand, take me out, how about that?”
—Li Chengyi didn’t say anything further. He thought for a bit and made a please-go-ahead gesture.
There was nothing much to say to this person. Without witnessing it firsthand, she probably wouldn’t believe in the existence of the Dead End.
“Ten thousand!” The woman spoke again, seriously. “Don’t be too greedy. This place is just a bit large, if I find my own way, you won’t earn any of this money!”
“You can try.” Li Chengyi glanced again at the maintenance room door from where the monster had appeared.
“Also, that monster came out of these small doors. Here’s a piece of advice, do not touch these maintenance room doors. If you see the door open, run immediately.”
He knew he couldn’t waste any more time. He didn’t know when his power would wear off, and once it did, stabilizing the situation like before would become very difficult.
Immediately, he picked up his stuff and headed in the direction the woman had come from.
Since the woman said she had come from above, then they might as well keep going up!
“Hey!” The woman in black didn’t expect him to take off running, and after chasing him for a couple of steps, her heavy platform shoes hindered her running, and after a few moments, all she could see was Li Chengyi disappearing around the corner.
“Has he gone mad? Running so fast!?” She stood there, leaning against a pillar, panting heavily.
Looking around, the area became deserted again, quiet and dead silent.
The woman stood alone next to the pillar, her heartbeat starting to drum once again.
But she didn’t have to wait long before, at the corner not far away, Li Chengyi’s figure came back into view.
He had gone up one more level to check the situation above but hadn’t found the elevator the woman had mentioned, instead discovering even higher levels.
He didn’t dare to continue upwards; who knew how many levels this place actually had.
So, he quickly returned, at least here there was another living person around, which could have a somewhat reassuring effect.
From a distance, seeing the woman leaning against the pillar, mumbling to herself, not knowing what she was saying, he quickened his pace and approached her.
“Let’s do it together, and find a way out.” Li Chengyi spoke straightforwardly.
“You really don’t know the exit?” The woman asked incredulously. She just then seemed to notice the man’s appearance for the first time.
Black hair, black eyes, with faint traces of blood flowing from the corners of his eyes, appearing somewhat frightening.
He was slightly slender, but gave off a considerably steady impression, holding a bag of items that, through the semi-transparent bag, appeared to contain food and drink.
This man seemed well-prepared! The woman’s eyes flickered with a hint of speculation. But soon, that spec of speculation turned into slight horror.
Because she noticed the knife in the man’s hand!
In the dead of night, an empty underground parking lot, a young man with bloodstained eyes, calm demeanor, holding a bag in one hand and a knife in the other, stood in front of her, looking at her.
Almost all elements of horror thrillers were combined!
The woman took several steps back, her expression becoming increasingly tense.
“Let’s cooperate, find the exit as soon as possible and then leave.” Li Chengyi was still speaking, not noticing the scare his appearance had caused her.
“Stay there, don’t move! Assuming… assuming what you said is true, then how can you prove yourself??” At that moment, the woman’s wariness had reached its limit.
Prove?
Li Chengyi noticed her retreating movements, then looked down at himself and realized the woman had misunderstood.
He thought for a moment, took out his mobile phone, turned it on, and checked the time.
“It’s 9:12 now, about half an hour ago, I was pulled into this eerie place. I was walking in a small park at the time. I bought a lot of snacks, preparing to stock up.
You don’t have to be afraid. My eyes got injured because of encountering a monster just now. It’s just an external injury, should be okay?”
Seeing the woman forcing a smile on her face but still retreating, maintaining a distance of over ten meters before stopping, she watched Li Chengyi warily.
“Listen, with two people here, we can take turns resting to guard against any possible monster appearances,” Li Chengyi said with a deep voice.
He genuinely hoped to persuade this woman. Keeping a constant watch on the surroundings alone was truly exhausting.
He was already feeling somewhat unable to hold on, his eyes dry, waves of fatigue and drowsiness surging up.
If someone could assist in watching the surroundings, giving himself just ten minutes, no, five minutes!
Even just five minutes of rest would allow him to recover a lot!
And what made him puzzled was, didn’t this woman encounter anything unusual when she had premonitions of coming here? He encountered a humanoid monster on his second time.
Seeing that she maintained such a distance from him, he knew she hadn’t believed him yet.
“That shopping bag in your hand is from the Cainmina Mall in the city center, right? I remember that place. It’s the most upscale mall in Suoyang City. I used to play in the Blue Rhythm Silk Park nearby when I was a kid. Standing on top of the park’s highest man-made hill, I could see Colonel Corn inside Cainmina,” he said, recalling his previous life’s memories, trying to soften his expression as much as possible.
Colonel Corn was a character from a childhood cartoon that many people of their age had watched. The comically shaped Colonel Corn represented many people’s fond childhood memories.
Indeed, hearing such detailed descriptions, the woman’s face gradually relaxed a bit.
Obviously, her fears of him loosened.
“Are you a local born and raised here too? What’s your name? You don’t have to tell me your real name, just something to call you would be fine,” she asked after thinking it over.
“Chengyi, just call me Chengyi,” Li Chengyi responded, “And you?”
“Meng Dongdong.” The woman replied. “Okay, I believe you wouldn’t lie to me for no reason. But, can you please put down the knife in your hand?”
Li Chengyi then noticed he was still holding onto a fruit knife.
He was too nervous, to the extent that his attention hadn’t been on these details.
After putting down the knife, he took a deep breath, then took out a wet wipe from his pocket and carefully wiped away the bloodstains on his face.
After cleaning up, he looked up, appearing much more normal.
“Now better?”
“Mm,” Meng Dongdong nodded, her expression somewhat relaxed. “Let’s confirm the situation first. You said you’ve been here for over half an hour and haven’t found an exit, right?”
“Yes.”
“Which floor did you come up from?” she continued to ask.
“The bottom level. It’s about two to three levels down from here, but I’m not sure if there will be any changes,” Li Chengyi answered.
“Okay, let’s not talk about monsters or not for now. Let’s focus on finding the exit,” Meng Dongdong took a deep breath, showing a hand gesture, indicating Li Chengyi listen to her first.
“Normally, the entrance to an underground parking garage is on the top level, so you were also heading upwards.
But what I want to tell you is, there’s no way to find an exit by going up,” she said grimly.
“I went up five stories in one go before meeting you, and all I saw were identical garage environments. That’s why I chose to go down, to see if I could find a new breakthrough.”
“So why did you think I was a staff member here?” Li Chengyi asked.
“I thought I had been kidnapped.” Meng Dongdong replied, looking somewhat tired.
“Kidnapped?”
“Yeah, some weirdos always like to capture people for experiments, just like in that movie Elevator Horror, isn’t it that plot?” she responded. “Gather people together, observe and record what they do to survive.”
Li Chengyi was at a loss for words.
If he hadn’t actually encountered the monster, perhaps he would also have speculated in a similar manner as her.
Seeing that Meng Dongdong’s mood had stabilized, he began to slowly talk about some of Suoyang’s landscapes, local news, etc.
This exchange of real, everyday information made Meng Dongdong’s mood stabilize even more, and she no longer felt fear or terror towards him.
But in reality, while Li Chengyi appeared stable on the surface, his eyes would still occasionally glance over at the maintenance room door.
Behind that door lay an unknown monster that he had managed to stabilize with his power.
Once his power wore off, the monster could rush out of the door at any moment, attacking living beings.
So at this moment, he was only outwardly stable, but inwardly he remained tightly wound.
After chatting for a while and feeling Meng Dongdong’s mood stabilize, his own mental state became worse.
Finally, he requested.
“Could you do me a favor? I need to find a place to rest for a bit. Can you help watch our surroundings to guard against any possible monsters approaching?”
“You do look pretty bad,” Meng Dongdong frowned, noticing that this young man named Chengyi seemed very tired, very wearied.
“How long do you need to rest?” Her words were an implicit agreement to help keep watch.
(End of Chapter)
