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Chapter 107: Babies, Animal Cages, Iron Tools

“What happens if I don’t get a number card?” Xu Zhen asked calmly.

“The number cards are used to group us, and from experiences gained from previous paintings,” Qin Ci said, “people who remained ungrouped would violate the setting of the painting.”

Caught in a dilemma, the newcomers were silent for a long time.

Drawing a number card meant going down into that terrible place. Such an enclosed place, with no sunlight in sight, was already eerie enough, giving people a sense of suffocation and discomfort. But now, they had to experience it in this weird painting. In this world, no one dared to imagine what terrible things or “thing” might await them in those underground test areas.

But if they don’t draw a number card, what awaited them was punishment for breaking the rules of the “painting.”

Wei Dong broke through the girls’ encirclement, squeezed forward, and pressed the button on the number machine. His number was A-185.

After a sigh of relief, Wei Dong looked at Qin Ci. Among the experienced members, he was the only one who had yet to take a number. Qin Ci raised his hand and was about to press down, but Xu Zhen suddenly rushed to the front and took action before he could. A card popped out and the number on it was B-186.

Xu Zhen was taken aback for a moment, then she turned to look at the old members with a complicated expression. “The letter has changed…Only four people are allowed in each test area?”

“The last person to take a card will most likely be allocated to a laboratory by himself,” Ke Xun reminded the rest.

The newcomers were shocked. Ignoring their fear of the terrible things that might await them in the basement, they rushed up to take a number. Qin Ci was the closest, so he took a number first. It was also a B, coming right after Xu Zhen’s number at B-187.

The newcomers tried to crowd past one another, stretching out their hands. But suddenly, several of them fell back with a cry of pain as the gloomy Huang Pi pulled them back by their hair. Throwing them to the ground, he strode forward and took the B-188 card.

Qi Qiang was the next one to take a card, which was also a B. Deng Guang followed him, but his card was a C. After him came the group of three girlfriends. Outnumbered, the helpless Cai Xiaoyan was last.

Looking at the only number D card in her hand, Cai Xiaoyan burst into tears.

The others looked at her in silence, helpless.

“Can cards be exchanged?” Xu Zhen suddenly asked the old members.

Qin Ci hesitated for a moment. “We’ve experienced similar grouping rules before, but exchanging our group signs was prohibited and would be considered as a violation of the rules. But the rules of each painting will also vary based on the content and the meaning of the painting, so I’m not sure whether it can be changed. However, it’s better not to try to challenge the rules on the first night. After all, we still have no understanding of this painting at all.”

“Then what should we do next? Do we just wait for bad things to happen on the first night?” Xu Zhen’s expression was ugly.

“Let’s take advantage of the time we have left to go down and open the other three test areas, so we can quickly try to find clues,” Mu Yiran said indifferently.

By now, everyone had already been pushed to this point, and so they couldn’t not go down.

Once again, Ke Xun used the light of his phone to lead the way, while the others filed in behind him. Huang Pi and Qi Qiang held the rear. After taking just a few steps, he heard a “clang” behind him, and immediately turned his head to see that the iron door was now tightly shut.

Qi Qiang rushed up and shook the door hard. Seeing no sign of it budging, he inserted his number card into the machine. Still, there were no movements. He had no choice but to turn back gloomily and continue down with everyone else.

Qin Ci used his B card to open the door of the Laboratory B, and several of the old members followed in after him.

Laboratory B was divided into four small compartments. The strange thing was that the rooms were empty; there wasn’t anything in there at all.

They turned on their phone’s flashlight and checked the walls, the roof, and the floor. The surfaces of the four rooms were not made of masonry, but were instead inlaid with a soft material. When they stepped on the floor, there were no sounds. Beating hard on the walls also produced no sounds, not even the sounds of their fist making contact with the wall.

Deng Guang opened the door of Laboratory C with his card.

There were two identical machines with four chairs in the room, with each chair on opposite sides of each machine. There was also a desk and several office chairs. Behind the door was a hanger for hanging clothes, as well as a mop, a broom, and a dustpan for cleaning up.

The two machines seemed to be electronic devices, with a wire extending out on each end. Seven after carefully studying it, they couldn’t figure out its purpose at all.

Cai Xiaoyan, who had been crying so hard that she could no longer speak, opened Laboratory D with Qin Ci’s help.

Laboratory D had a special chair, and next to the chair was a scientific instrument full of wires, which were connected to some strange things.

A medical bed was pushed up against the wall and next to the bed were various medical equipment. On the other side of the wall was a desk with a small projector. There were also a lot of office supplies and various documents on the desk.

Out of all the four test areas, only D seemed to be the most complicated. This made Cai Xiaoyan panic even more. She huddled on the ground, shivering.

The experienced members ignored her for the time being and focused on searching the room for useful clues. As Qin Ci searched through the medical equipment, Mu Yiran checked the instruments next to the chair. Ke Xun and Zhu Haowen searched through the desk drawers while Wei Dong tried to locate the power strip connected to the projector.

There were many items inside the desk drawers, but most of them were documents. Ke Xun glanced at the documents with the flashlight on his phone and discovered that they were primarily research journals and documents dense with medical terms. As he was about to start carefully reading through the journals, he heard Zhu Haowen slammed the drawer that he’d just opened shut.

“What’s the matter?” Ke Xun tilted his head to look at him.

Zhu Haowen paused, and said calmly, “Nothing, just some inappropriate things.”

“Such things should be even more suspicious.” Ke Xun glanced at him curiously and stretched out his hand to pull open the drawer he’d just closed.

Zhu Haowen didn’t stop him, and simply looked at the hair sticking up at the back of his head. Then he turned his head to check the things on the table.

“…Woah.” He heard Ke Xun blurted out in a low voice.

Mu Yiran was walking over, his gaze on Ke Xun. He asked, “What’s wrong?”

Ke Xun stuffed the things back into the drawer and closed the drawer with a bang. “Nothing, just some inappropriate things.”

Zhu Haowen: “….”

Mu Yiran carefully gazed at him. “You should know that such things are even more suspicious.”

Zhu Haowen: “…”

“That’s right,” Ke Xun opened the drawer again and picked the documents back up. “I’ll check it again. You go on.”

Mu Yiran gazed at him with a look of “What’s up with you?,” walked over, and stretched out his hand. “Let me see.”

‘What about trust?” Ke Xun had no choice but to hand the contents over. “We need to agree first that, if you took offense, you can’t get mad at me. This has nothing to do with me.”

Mu Yiran didn’t pay any attention to him and glanced at the contents he’d handed over. Then his body visibly stiffened.

“Hai, you’re still looking?” Ke Xun studied Mu Yiran’s expressionless face. “Why don’t you put them back. I think that it would be too nonsensical for the signature to be on something like these.”

Mu Yiran continued to ignore him. He only froze for a moment before resuming his movements, continuing to flip through the contents expressionlessly.

“What’s that?” Wei Dong quietly nudged Ke Xun with his elbow, pointing his chin to the things in Mu Yiran’s hands.

“A stack of photos,” Ke Xun replied.

“What’s in the pictures?” Wei Dong was surprised.

“Uh, something that we all have,” Ke Xun said.

“Why are there pictures in the test area?” Wei Dong said, thinking it strange.

“…Maybe it was a personal hobby?” Ke Xun said ambiguously.

Wei Dong glanced at him even more strangely, but did not ask any more questions and continued to check the mess on the table.

Everyone was busy searching when, suddenly, they heard a low-pitched cue from an electronic device. They looked around and finally saw a flat square-shaped timer on the wall.

The timer displayed fluorescent red numbers. Starting from 60, it had begun counting down.

Ke Xun thought of something and quickly glanced at the time on his phone. There was less than a minute left before the usual 11 o’clock restriction in the painting.

“It’s almost restriction time. Everyone, go back to the test area where you belong!” Ke Xun reacted, shouting at the newcomers. He grabbed Mu Yiran and began walking out, saying, “Dongzi, Hao Wen’er, follow us.”

“No—don’t—please—” Seeing that everyone was rushing out the door, Cai Xiaoyan burst into tears. She grabbed Deng Guang, knelt on the floor, and pleaded, “Please don’t leave me alone. Please, Deng Guang. Save me, save me—”

Deng Guang became anxious. He couldn’t yank himself out from Cai Xiaoyan’s grasp, and after multiple tries, he simply kicked her chest in anger, knocking her to the ground. Cursing “Fuck you,” he hurried out of Laboratory D.

Regarding Cai Xiaoyan’s situation, the old members couldn’t do anything. After all, the power behind the painting wasn’t human, and so it wasn’t something that could be solved just by helping others.

Everyone entered their own test area and closed the door.

Although Laboratory A had a few baby cots, no one wanted to sit on them, so they found a fairly clean corner and sat down on the floor.

The room was completely dark, leaving only the red timer on the wall still counting down. Once the number reached 0, the timer emitted a few beeps before plunging into darkness.

Ke Xun, Mu Yiran, Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen sat side by side against the wall, silent for a long time. The only sound that could be heard in the darkness was the slight sound of their breathing. Ke Xun’s was light and strong, and Mu Yiran’s was long and relaxed. Naturally, Wei Dong’s was short and urgent, while Zhu Haowen’s was shallow and calm.

After a period of silence, Wei Dong said in a low voice, “What kind of research institute do you think this is? These four experimental laboratories are different from one another. Especially Laboratory B, which has nothing in it. What are they researching?”

“Since there are different areas, they must study different things,” Zhu Haowen said, “The only thing I’m certain of is that this Laboratory A studied babies.”

“How do you know?” Wei Dong asked hurriedly, “Are the cribs here the reason why you think babies are being studied? There are also small cages too. Aren’t mice usually used as test subjects? Maybe what they’re studying are mices instead.”

“In fact, there is a way to know the focus of each laboratory,” Zhu Haowen said.

“What’s the method?” Wei Dong asked.

“Turn on your phone camera,” Zhu Haowen responded lightly.

Wei Dong shivered. “Forget it…”

“This method,” Mu Yiran suddenly said, “I’ve tried it before when I was in the other three areas earlier.”

“What did you see?” Ke Xun asked.