BXBX NOVEL Chapter 28，Part 2
Chapter 28，Part 2
It was apparent that it was the man who had died yesterday who left the door open.
A cold, gloomy, and melancholic smell wafted out from the room, mixing in with the scent of old books and ever: present odour of dust.
The light inside was unexpectedly bright, and everyone’s raised hearts couldn’t help but fall down in relief. Watching everyone in front of him walk in a line inside, Mo Yi’s footsteps involuntarily paused.
He turned his head to look at a closed door by his side.
The door header was slightly lower than the other rooms, and the door frame appeared rough and askew. The workmanship was extremely poor. The colour of the door panel was no longer visible. Only, on one side of the door there was crooked and blurred writing in crayon: “Playroom.”
Now was not the time to go inside.
Mo Yi unnoticeably took one last look at the door, then turned around to catch up with the group and walked in.
The room beyond the door was not very large. The room had two spaces. The deepest part was the library where donated books were placed while the outer room was used for classes.
The floor was bare and uncarpeted. There were also a few low benches arranged vertically as well as several empty long tables gathering a thick layer of dust.
Mo Yi stood by the door and took in the whole room at a glance.
He slowly narrowed his eyes.
Now he finally knew where his feeling of unease originated from.
This room, like the dining room, was too small.
In the longest corridor where all the orphans rested were twelve rooms altogether, six on each side.
And a room had six beds. By all accounts, the orphanage should be able to accommodate 72 children, yet … whether it was the dining room or the classroom, these public spaces which were responsible for housing all the people in the orphanage (including the caregivers and children) were built extremely small and could at most accommodate half the number of people.
Even if the orphanage was properly built and later didn’t have sufficient room to take people in, these rooms should not have been planned to be built to be so narrow.
It didn’t make sense.
Mo Yi took a deep breath and kept the question at the bottom of his heart.
He turned his head to look at Song Qi who was next to him, about to tell him about last night’s experience, only to see Song Qi taking the lead to speak first, “Let’s find clues separately, ba.”
His voice was exceptionally clear in the quiet room, and several players raised their heads and one after another nodded in response.
Mo Yi’s eyes darkened, and he swallowed the unspoken words back into his stomach.
Why did he feel that … Song Qi was deliberately avoiding the topic he wanted to talk about?
But yesterday night’s affair, aside from himself, should not be known by anyone else.
Could it be a misconception?
Mo Yi glanced at Song Qi deeply, then turned and walked inside, determined to explore the place during the morning.
He took the initiative to walk towards the library.
Generally speaking, the place with documentation was the most likely place to obtain valuable information.
The library was relatively narrow compared to the classroom. With its unevenly raised floor and crooked walls, one almost couldn’t help but fear that it was in danger of suddenly collapsing.
The whole room was rather dark, making it almost impossible to see anything. The walls and floors were bare, so much so that there weren’t dirty wallpapers or worn carpet. Mo Yi could basically ascertain that this was the simplest room in the entire orphanage.
Crookedly arranged in this small room were two low bookshelves on which some papers and books were piled haphazardly, exuding the smell of pages in old books.
Mo Yi turned on the flashlight and a little circular halo of light instantly illuminated the small area.
He drew close, reached out his hand and picked up a pile of worn-out papers from the top, and gently shook them.
Thick dust instantly rose up, messily dancing about in the air under the beam of the flashlight. Mo Yi was stimulated by the astonishing amount of dust and couldn’t refrain from coughing a few times before gradually calming down.
The dust covering the cover of the pages was swept away, revealing the blurred writing that was mottled and eroded by the passing of years underneath.
A great majority were already damaged, unable to withstand being eaten away by insects, and the handwriting printed on top was extremely illegible due to not being properly preserved. Most of the papers and books here lacked clues.
Mo Yi was not discouraged, and instead grew even more focused.
Generally speaking, these indistinct written materials were of little value, yet contrarily, it proved the value of the written materials that had not been damaged.
Finally, he found something in one of the books.
It was a thin piece of paper, randomly slipped into a book as a bookmark, and had turned yellow and brittle, becoming almost transparent under the light from the flashlight.
Mo Yi held his breath, extended his hand, held the edge of the paper with long, slender, even somewhat thin fingers, and lifted it up.
On the piece of paper was a clumsily drawn figure of a little man hanging.
And at the bottom of the note, written in colorful crayon, were several letters strewn about in random, causing one to feel puzzled.
All of the handwriting on it was old, dirty, and smudged, and there were even a few small greasy handprints. It was completely different from the note each of them had in their possession — All the crayon marks on those notes were brand new, as if they had just been written.
Mo Yi’s eyes were overflowing with light and colour, and his slightly pale face was flushed with excitement.
Now, this game had taken on an appearance he was familiar with.
And all he needed to do was find the other note that corresponded to it, the slip of paper that had the gallows drawn on it.
Mo Yi carefully put the paper back into the book, closed it, and then picked up the book and clamped it under his armpit, and continued to flip through the dusty pile of old papers in search of more clues.
He didn’t find the corresponding slip of paper of the gallows; however, he discovered another interesting clue.
It was an old newspaper, already worn-out and yellow, which had fallen between two dusty bookshelves. Perhaps by the hands of a mischievous child in the orphanage, it was folded into the shape of a thousand paper cranes, and lay downcast on the cold, dirty ground.
Mo Yi knelt down to pick it up, and then carefully opened it.
However, no matter how cautious his actions were, this thousand paper crane made of newspaper would not be able to endure the passing of countless years and would inevitably break into pieces in the process of opening it.
Mo Yi knit his brows, somewhat annoyed, and tried to follow the creases of the old newspaper to piece it back to its original shape.
To be precise, this was not a newspaper in the complete sense, but rather a section cut from a newspaper. The edges weren’t very neat, and some of the cut pictures and printed characters were not intact.
On the most complete section, there was a bolded and enlarged black heading: “The Dean of Iris Municipal Orphanage was Put to Death by Hanging.”
Below was a picture the size of a block of tofu.
In the blurry black and white picture, a tall woman wearing a black dress had her hands folded by the recently established orphanage. Several black ink blots formed her blurred facial features, staring vacantly at the people staring at her beyond the newspaper.
Mo Yi’s back involuntarily broke out into a cold sweat.
— Not knowing if it stemmed from fear or the excitement of gradually getting closer to the truth.
His breathing became short, and he squinted his eyes, trying hard to identify the remaining characters — but it was to no avail possibly due to the moisture underground. The newspaper which had been kept here for an unknown number of years, aside from the header, was blurred by moisture. The printing ink were joined together, and the original shape of the characters couldn’t be distinguished.
Mo Yi was more or less at a loss. He thought about it, and nevertheless placed the tattered newspaper in the same book, and then put it in the outer-bag of the backpack.
He stood up and looked around the entire room again, making sure that he had basically examined all the big and small, obvious and hidden corners, then turned and left the library.
As soon as he walked out, Mo Yi had a face-to-face encounter with Song Qi.
Mo Yi’s gaze darted across the room: Presently, the other players were mainly divided and scattered about, and no one was paying attention to what was going on here.
It was a good opportunity to talk about last night’s experience.
Mo Yi’s thoughts circled about like electricity. A second later, he raised his eyes and gave Song Qi a polite smile — then he turned his body to the side, making way for the path towards the library.
The two passed by one another, close enough for them to almost touch.
Mo Yi turned his back to Song Qi, and the curved corners of his mouth gradually vanished.
There were no emotions in his pair of pitch-black eyes, unexpectedly appearing somewhat indifferent for a short while.
He had always been stingy with his trust.
And in this copy where danger lurked on every side, it was even more important to keep one’s wits.
Mo Yi kept his mind in check, lifted his eyes and surveyed the simple classroom.
The surface area was larger than the library, and it wasn’t as run-down. The same dark green wallpaper as in the corridor was pasted on the wall with careless abandon. The edges were tattered, and the colour was dark with dirt. Only a few hard to reach corners retained its original colour.
The benches and long tables were roughly made and were arranged in an extremely messy way.
Just then, Sun Xiaoyan, who was standing at the end of the room, suddenly said, “I…I seem to have found something here.”
Mo Yi’s countenance slightly became serious, raising his legs to walk over.
The other players in the room also turned towards Sun Xiaoyan and gathered together, and not long after, they were all huddled around one of the long tables.
Sun Xiaoyan stretched out her finger, pointed to the corner of the table, and said, “You see here. Although these scratches are very old, they are still very clear.”
Surprisingly, at the edge of the long table, there appeared to be a few lines of crooked writing carved with a knife:
“under your bones
beneath your skin
I’m here with thee
forever and ever”
This short straightforward poem was obviously the work of a child, and it could be easily understood even by people with poor English.
The clumsy writing and rough carving unexpectedly exuded a terrifying and eerie paranoia from between the words and lines, causing a chill to run down the backs of everyone present.
Mo Yi’s brows wrinkled, examining the few lines of small words, and was suddenly startled.
If the morbid content of the poem was ignored —
under……
beneath……
These poem verses were obviously a clue for them which pointed towards a location!
Then what direction was it hinting at?
The answer was on the verge of coming out into the open.
Mo Yi’s heart skipped, throbbing, and blood almost instantly rushed to his face. He took an extremely shallow breath, and then his feet energetically sprang out.
The people around him couldn’t help but be taken aback by him, and then watched as he dashed towards the table with dumbfounded expressions.
Mo Yi’s body was low, practically laying on the ground, fingers meticulously feeling about the rough surface of the back of the table. It wasn’t enough to feel around the entire table. He even poked his hand underneath the bench searching intently for something.
Then, his hand paused, and very carefully stopped moving, and then slowly and gently pried something off.
Everyone held their breath and watched as Mo Yi used both hands to peel off a piece of yellow and brittle paper, and then slowly stand up.
He put the note on the table.
On the paper was a crude drawing of a gallows, and under the gallows was a string of varying spaced letters placed haphazardly.
Mo Yi’s gaze brightened. He reached down and opened his backpack, took out the book, and then carefully pulled out the nearly identical sized slip of paper that was wedged in the book,
Immediately afterwards, he lay the two slips of paper on top of one another.
“Kada.” The flashlight was turned on, and the bright beam of light struck from the bottom up, illuminating the two equally thin, brittle papers.
Mo Yi carefully moved the relative positions of the two pieces of paper so that the gallows and the little man hanging slowly overlapped.
The seemingly disordered English letters underneath the two pictures were superimposed and combined to form a complete sentence:
“Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’entrate.”
Mo Yi pursed his lips and stared blankly at the two pieces of paper in a daze. His eyes were lowered, his thoughts unknown.
All those standing by Mo Yi were shocked by his series of movements, natural and smooth like floating clouds and flowing water. Seeing him suddenly stop at this moment, they couldn’t refrain from rushing to eagerly ask, “What’s wrong? What did you find?”
Mo Yi appeared to be alarmed for a moment, lifted his somewhat bewildered eyes, and paused for a long time before retrieving his voice, “The meaning of this phrase is, abandon all hope, all those who enter.”
He paused, a myriad of colours flashing in his pitch-black eyes. “From Dante Alighieri’s, “Divine Comedy” INFERNO II. It was what he saw written on the gates of hell before entering hell.”
The entire library and classroom were almost turned upside down by the players.
However, other than finding only a few eerie little lines of poetry, and a line of meaningless words, nothing else was found.
The whole morning passed just like that, but at least there weren’t any injuries or deaths.
This proved that Mo Yi’s deduction was correct.
The total length of time in the copy was long, the number of people was small, and the difficulty itself was not great. The only difficulties were discovering the timetable and the relationship between the timetable and the injuries and deaths.
Therefore, on the whole, it could be said that the way to survive this copy had become especially simple — that was to act in accordance with the stipulated rules and bear through the required time.
After the fixed lunch break, it was time for free activities. Mo Yi walked out of the room on the dot on time, heading towards the corridor.
He subconsciously glanced at the rooms on both sides of the corridor: most people were still in the room and seemed to have completely given up on exploring during the free period. That was understandable, after all —
If someone could sit idle and enjoy the fruits of other’s work, why bother to trouble themselves over it.
What’s more, wandering around in the copy was a very dangerous thing to do.
Mo Yi withdrew his gaze and walked forward without any distractions.
His destination was clear: the closed playroom.
After passing through the empty circular hall and the long, dark, and deep corridor, Mo Yi stopped in front of the door.
He searched through the set of keys, but there was none for the playroom, so he could only experiment now.
Mo Yi lowered his eyes, his eyelashes trembled imperceptibly, hiding his deep pool like black eyes.
He took a deep breath, placed his palm on the doorknob, and the hard ice-cold sensation passed through to his palm.
Mo Yi applied a little force, and the door noiselessly opened, smoothly and silently opening inwards, as if inviting him inside —
It was dark inside.
A large swatch of dense darkness spread, devouring and eroding the faint light in the corridor, serene and hidden in the shadows like an abyss, quietly waiting for the arrival of its next victim.
Mo Yi’s complexion was heavy, and he turned on the flashlight.
Then walked inside.
There was barely any light inside. It was so dark that one’s hand couldn’t be seen even if it was in front of them, and only the flashlight in Mo Yi’s hand could dispel some of the darkness.
He turned around and aimlessly roamed the room with the flashlight.
It was a pity that the flashlight’s beam was too narrow and could only illuminate a small limited circular arc, barely dispelling the deep, solid, suffocating darkness in the room.
Mo Yi took a deep breath and took a few steps inwards.
From under the foot, something soft was stepped on.
The bottom of his heart palpitated. He shone the flashlight downwards and saw a dirty dusty rabbit laying by the soles of his feet. It was damaged, its belly torn open, revealing its gray cotton stuffing. A pair of dusty black eyes looked straight at him.
Mo Yi’s heart clenched inexplicably. He moved his foot away, but his other foot kicked something and there was a sharp clatter in the darkness.
The circular light was shone over.
It was a few badly damaged toy building blocks arranged in a small pile, messily strewn across the uneven ground, looking somewhat pitiful.
A deep uneasiness was brewing Mo Yi’s heart.
He walked around the rabbit and toy building blocks on the ground and continued to walk inwards.? In the end, the light from the flashlight struck the wall, illuminating a corner of snow-white paper that was curled up.
Mo Yi took a few steps closer, slightly confused.
The light from the flashlight seemed a little dim in the darkness, but it still managed to barely serve its role with some difficulty as a source of light.
There was a picture on the wall.
Red and black crayon marks were carelessly intertwined on the surface of the paper. The lines were clumsy and simple. Upon a more careful look, there were several stickmen standing together. Among them was one who was near the door, while the rest were together.
Mo Yi’s mind was somewhat at a loss. The flashlight illuminating the area to the side, once again showing another half corner of a piece of paper.
He took a step to the side, and another picture was revealed.
One stickman was hanging from the beam of the room.? Another stickman was standing on a crooked chair, reaching out his hand to encircle the hanging man’s neck. It surprisingly slightly gave off the appearance of a strange embrace.
Mo Yi was horrified from the bottom of his heart.
He knew what these drawings were of.
This was … what he had experience since the start of the copy.
Mo Yi’s heart was pounding, clamouring with sounds of unease. His dry and rough Adam’s apple moved as he continued to step to the side.
The third painting showed a group of people sitting in a dining room eating.
The fourth painting was of the second person who got hanged.
The fifth painting showed a person laying on a bed while a small child crouched next to him, holding his dangling hand.
—This was him from last night.
Mo Yi’s fingers clutching the flashlight tightened. His knuckles looked a little white from the amount of force he was subconsciously exerting. He calmed down and continued to move to the side.
The sixth painting showed a person.
He was seen standing staying by the wall of a small room, holding a flashlight and carefully examining the six paintings taped to one side of the wall.
And behind that person, stood a short and small child, staring at him in silence.