Three seconds later, the elevator's ceiling light began to twitch as if it was short-circuited. It made a "stinging" noise like a female ghost scratching the steel plate with her long fingernails. After several flashes, the light suddenly went out.

The elevator was filled with a thick burning smell, no, it was more like a rancid smell.

Xie Xingyin frowned and covered his mouth and nose with his sleeves. The smell was so bad that he made him vomit.

No one spoke, but Xie Xingyin could feel someone trembling around him. Without the overhead light, the closed and forbidden elevator car fell into terrible darkness.

"...Ghost, ghost blowing out the lamp?" The stuttering boy shrank his neck.

"Blow, blow, blow your fucking lamp!" Brother Biao was particularly irritable, "How can you fucking blow a lamp!"

Even if you don't have claustrophobia, a dark and enclosed environment can make people feel uncomfortable.

There was a power outage in the elevator, and the door-opening key didn't work. They were completely locked.

In the darkness, Xie Xingyin felt something tugging at the corner of his clothes, and his back suddenly stiffened.

After a moment, something warm grabbed his hand, and Xie Xingyin's tense heart suddenly relaxed. It was the black-haired boy.

He pulled the young man behind him and looked up at the extinguished lamp.

In normal times, a power outage in the elevator would definitely be a disaster, but now for them, a pure power outage is the best situation.

Because if not, it might be difficult for them to get out safely.

Xie Xingyin grabbed the little boy's hand and pulled him closer to comfort him. The little boy was also very quiet, and his palms were slightly cool and dry.

In the darkness, changes happened in an instant.

Accompanied by the terrifying sound of a blunt object hitting the skull, a heart-rending scream suddenly burst out from the elevator box, almost a roar, like a trapped animal struggling to its death.

Xie Xingyin was also startled. The high-decibel screams of fear that humans erupt before death are very contagious.

In panic, others also screamed.

In the pitch-black darkness, Xie Xingyin could not clearly see the situation and could only try his best to protect the young boy behind him.

After a moment, the sound stopped suddenly, and its owner seemed to be strangled by the throat, unable to even utter unnecessary words.

When the blood-curdling screams subsided, everything fell silent.

The overhead light came back on, dazzling a little, and then the elevator fell into deathly silence.

Xie Xingyin squinted his eyes and before he could fully adapt to the light, he heard several frightened shouts erupting at the same time.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh-!"

Li Wei didn't know when she stood in front. Xie Xingyin looked over her shoulder and saw a person slumped limply in the corner.

It was the cockscombed man, staring up in horror, his face covered in blood, and the metal lampshade that fell at his feet was stained red with blood.

Xie Xingyin immediately looked up and saw that the ceiling light in the elevator car indeed had no lampshade.

"I'm out of breath." The elite man came forward to sniff him, then stood up, "He was hit to death by a falling lampshade."

The light bulb without the lampshade flickered like a ghost, and soon the power was turned on again, glowing steadily and continuously. The elevator also made a "ding" sound and slowly moved up.

Brother Biao was so frightened that he retched, desperately pressed the door open button, and held the elevator door open.

The elevator resumed normal operation and he stopped it on the second floor. As soon as the door opened, he jumped out in a panic and refused to come in again.

Brother Biao could no longer care about Cockscomb Head's body, and called to his only remaining brother in a panic: "Let's take the stairs, you can't take this broken elevator."

It was really unpleasant to be in an elevator with a corpse whose face was covered in blood. Others hesitated and wanted to go down, but the elite man pressed the door button first.

"It's not necessarily safer to take the stairs," he said.

Xie Xingyin glanced at him and said nothing.

I'm afraid that the elite man himself may not be able to determine which side is safer. But the more people stay in the elevator, the smaller the chance of his own death.

The abacus is good.

The elevator started running again, and everyone stayed as far away from Cockscomb Head's body as possible, leaving that corner of the elevator free, and fell into a long silence.

Cockscomb Head's death was definitely not an accident. He was clearly standing in the outermost corner before the lights went out. How come the lampshade of the ceiling lamp in the center hit him squarely on the head and hit him directly?

died?

Xie Xingyin knew that that kind of lampshade didn't weigh much at all.

His doubtful eyes fell on the elevator nameplate, and his heart suddenly tightened.

The nameplate was stained with black and red blood. The blood quickly faded away as if it had been absorbed, and then a line of small words was gradually revealed.

"The elevator carries twelve people."

It was clear that this line of writing didn't exist when they entered the elevator just now.

Li Wei was timid, so she covered her eyes with her hands, glanced at the cock-combed head through her fingers, said "Yeah" and quickly turned away, pulling on Xie Xingyin's sleeves in fear.

There was no way to escape in the narrow elevator. Everyone tried to stick to the corner and stay away from the body lying on the ground.

Xie Xingyin stood in front of the girls and watched Lao Liang squat down to look at Cockscomb Tou's body.

As soon as Lao Liang lowered his head, his sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose, and a pair of eyes were exposed from behind the sunglasses.

One eye is black and translucent, but the other blind eye is gray-white, which looks a bit scary.

"How did this blind man know there was something wrong with the elevator? Could it be that this guy really has yin and yang eyes?" Li Wei whispered.

Xie Xingyin shook his head. He had never been too interested in such nonsense.

"Uncle, can you see clearly with sunglasses on like this?" The young boy who had been silent suddenly spoke up.

"Of course I can see clearly." Lao Liang, whose glasses were very precious, tried wiping them with his sleeves.

"I'm a little scared." Li Wei moved a little closer to Xie Xingyin and whispered, "It's so strange that Cockscomb Head died. How could a broken lampshade kill someone?"

Xie Xingyin looked at the "Twelve people in load" on the nameplate and whispered: "Thirteen people, if one dies, there will be twelve."

Speaking of which, he was still a little scared. If the black-haired boy hadn't suddenly pulled him into the elevator, he might have been the last one to enter the elevator.

Fortunately, this also means that they are safe now.

"Ding——" The elevator reached the 11th floor.

Xie Xingyin and the elite man pulled a broken curtain from the corridor, wrapped the cockscomb's body, and carried it to a corner outside.

Lao Liang stood at the entrance of the corridor and took out a delicate compass from his cloth bag and looked at it. The pointer of the compass was rotating crazily, as if there was some sealed evil spirit inside that wanted to break free.

"Hey," Lao Liang smiled, "It's really evil."

Just as he glanced twice, there was a sudden light on the bridge of his nose. His glasses were gone.

When he looked up, the sickly and beautiful young man was standing in front of him, holding his precious glasses in his hand. He unceremoniously removed a round lens with a "click" and tossed it in his hand.

"Lend it to me for fun."

When Lao Liang saw it was him, he immediately shouted: "Where did you come from, little brat? My glasses are so precious. If they are broken, I can't even call your mother to pay for them! Why don't you give them to me quickly?"

As he said this, Lao Liang stretched out his hand to grab it, but suddenly became mute.

He felt something hard against his waist. He swallowed and slowly lowered his eyes to see that the Rubik's Cube in the young boy's hand was gone, replaced by an assembled hand/gun.

The shiny black gun didn't look like a toy gun at all, it was a heavy real thing. The young man still looked so sickly and pale, but Liang Xin saw something in those eyes that made his back shiver.

s things.

Lao Liang, who was clamoring to find his mother just now, was frightened out of his wits. He said "fuck it" and sat down on the ground.

He watched helplessly as the little boy removed one of his lenses, threw the remaining one lens to him, and walked away leisurely, throwing his lens away.

When he was far away, Lao Liang, who had fallen to the ground, came to his senses and spat, cursing: "Hey, this damn kid..."

Instead of being taken care of by a ghost, I was almost taken care of by a child.

Because of what happened in the elevator just now, Brother Biao refused to take the elevator. He climbed the stairs all the way up and it took several minutes before he arrived out of breath.

Cockscomb Head's body had been taken out of the elevator, covered with clothes and placed on the side of the corridor. A small pool of black blood flowed out, staining the floor.

Brother Biao was still cursing and using foul language to embolden himself: "Grandma, it's almost dark. I climbed all the way up and didn't see any lights on on the floor. It was so dark that it scared grandpa to death."

The elite man counted the number of people. "Are you all here? Let's allocate the rooms first."

"Okay. So what are the conditions that the strange old man just said?"

The key given by the old detective was 1101-1106. Xie Xingyin noticed that these house numbers were all for rooms facing north, in a row. The doors of other rooms were tightly locked.

"There are six rooms, with a maximum of two people per room. No room can be left empty." Xie Xingyin recounted the allocation conditions.

The remaining people were a little lucky. If Cockscomb Head hadn't died just now, there would have been another big problem with the room allocation.

No one wants to be kicked out.

"There are exactly six rooms for twelve people, so let's allocate them freely."

Xie Xingyin felt his hand being held by someone. He lowered his eyes and saw that it was the young boy.

The young man looked up at his delicate little face, slightly twitching the corners of his mouth, and showed a nice smile.

Xie Xingyin was stunned for a moment, and then realized that he was showing his kindness to him.

"You want to share a room with me?"
To be continued...