Joven Primer Ministro, un ermitaño

Capítulo 53

"Tick-tock, tick-tock."

The sound grew closer and closer, as if it were about to pass by the door of Ye Cheng's office.

Xia Chen immediately sat up. He sat on the makeshift "bed" made of chairs in the darkness and listened quietly to the sound.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock."

The sound had already reached the door of Ye Cheng's office!

Suddenly, the sound stopped. Instantly, all was silent.

Xia Chen immediately stood up and carefully walked to the door.

"Thump!" He suddenly flung open the door.

In the darkness, a person stood at the doorway.

In the deep blue air, the person slowly turned their head and looked at Xia Chen with eyes full of confusion.

"Liao Chuan?" Xia Chen couldn't help but say.

The girl standing in front of me was Liao Chuan, dressed in a hospital gown. How did she get out of the hospital? Is she better?

"Liao Chuan, you..." Xia Chen was about to speak when he suddenly sensed something was wrong. Liao Chuan suddenly said to him, "Do you know that story? There was a boy who died for love, and a girl who went mad for love."

"What are you talking about? Are you referring to that story circulating in our school?" Xia Chen asked immediately.

Just then, a voice was heard from afar.

"Liao Chuan, Liao Chuan, do you love me?"

Xia Chen immediately looked into the distance, but he saw nothing in the darkness.

"Liao Chuan, do you love me?" the voice called out again.

Liao Chuan's eyes suddenly lit up, and she shouted impatiently, "I love you."

Liao Chuan stared in one direction, then suddenly rushed towards it. Xia Chen instinctively reached out to grab her, but missed.

"Liao Chuan, do you love me?"

"I love you."

In the darkness, Liao Chuan hurriedly ran in that direction. Xia Chen followed closely behind her, and after rushing out of the police station, Xia Chen saw only an empty night.

The police station was deserted, the moonlight gently caressing the earth. There was no sign of Liao Chuan! Recalling what had just happened, Xia Chen suddenly remembered smelling a strange, fishy odor.

Xia Chen recalled the story Liao Chuan had told him. He remembered that in that story, after the boy died, the girl kept talking to the air. He immediately texted Luo Shimin, who was awakened in the middle of the night, asking her to investigate the inside story of the story.

The next morning, Xia Chen received two pieces of bad news.

The first piece of news was that Liao Chuan had gone missing. She couldn't be found at the entire hospital, her family couldn't be reached, and she hadn't returned to school at all.

The second piece of news was that Luo Shimin stayed up all night, gathering all the gossipy women in the dormitory together, and eventually she found clues from these gossips.

It turns out that the reason the girl was always throwing tantrums at the boy was because she had fallen in love with her senior, a chemistry fanatic, just like Xiaorou. The girl was captivated by his focused demeanor while conducting experiments in the lab. As a result, she began to dislike her boyfriend.

After her boyfriend died, the girl found this senior classmate, but unexpectedly, he also disappeared. From then on, the girl began to talk to herself in a way that no one could explain.

Later, her friends would sometimes hear her talking to her senior, and sometimes to her boyfriend. When she talked to her senior, she was always laughing, and when she talked to her boyfriend, she was always playful. It seemed that she didn't want her boyfriend to cling to her, but she also wanted to be in a relationship with her senior.

Everyone thought she had gone mad, but unexpectedly, she had an accident not long afterward.

Did Liao Chuan see her boyfriend before she disappeared? Or did she see her senior classmate before she disappeared?

Xia Chen was completely baffled, and the case reached a stalemate once again.

004 Door

Several days passed without anyone noticing, and Ye Cheng's case made no progress whatsoever. Li Xiao repeatedly examined the samples collected from the scene: the sap of some kind of green plant, and the bloodstains found at the scene that weren't human blood but snake blood. This snake was a local, non-venomous species. No traces of the snake were found at the scene, and how the snake blood got there remained a mystery, a fact that gave Li Xiao a major headache. As for the strange corpse found at the scene, there were even more unexplained questions. Aside from eating and sleeping, Li Xiao spent the rest of his time in the forensic lab. Ye Cheng wasn't having an easy time either; the chief summoned him to his office every day for a reprimand. Yesterday, he even gave an order: if the case wasn't solved within a week, he could leave the police station with his belongings, and no one would care whether he slept in a hotel or on the street.

Xia Chen's life wasn't easy either; the two were practically brothers in misfortune.

Liao Chuan's accident and the strange occurrences in the laboratory building have all become mysteries. Xia Chen's life is thrown into chaos by these two events, especially since he was the last witness to Liao Chuan's disappearance. Strangely enough, why did Liao Chuan, who was unconscious that night, suddenly appear at the police station? What was she looking for? And what were those "drip, drip" sounds of water?

Xia Chen was utterly perplexed. He lay in his dorm room, meticulously recalling every detail. That night, Liao Chuan smiled at him, a strange smile. She walked away quickly, disappearing almost instantly. Where did she go? And why did a voice say "I love you" to her that night? Whose voice was that? Just as he was pondering this, the phone rang. "Xia Chen, we've found Liao Chuan," came Ye Cheng's calm voice from the other end. Xia Chen was startled and quickly said, "Really? Where? I'm coming right now." "In the lab," Ye Cheng said. Xia Chen immediately replied, "Okay, I understand, I'll be right there. By the way, how is she?" "She's dead." When those three words reached Xia Chen's ears, his heart skipped a beat.

There's usually an inexplicable chill in the laboratory buildings, especially in the biology labs. Perhaps it's because so many lives have been taken, making the biology labs particularly heavy with yin energy. The ground beneath the Yishi Academy's laboratory building was originally a Japanese military human experimentation base, and coupled with the fact that all the buildings here are south-facing, yin-heavy structures, the laboratory building is filled with an immeasurable amount of yin energy.

Xia Chen always felt uneasy whenever he came to the laboratory building. He was naturally most sensitive to secrets, and he always felt that there was a huge secret hidden in the laboratory building.

Perhaps he was being too sensitive. There are indeed many secrets in this world, but they can't all happen around him. Xia Chen comforted himself inwardly.

Upon entering the laboratory building, a chilling aura greeted Xia Chen. He couldn't help but shiver; it was already May, yet this place felt as cold as late autumn.

The police officer at the door said Ye Cheng was waiting for him in the chemistry lab on the fourth floor, so Xia Chen headed straight for the fourth floor. When he reached the corner between the third and fourth floors, Xia Chen suddenly noticed that there was a large door there that had appeared out of nowhere.

Xia Chen, who was about to walk to the fourth floor, paused, and his leg, which had already taken a step, suddenly hung in mid-air.

This should have been a wall, so how did a door suddenly appear?

The door was a double door, very large, spanning an entire wall. The dark brown door exuded an eerie atmosphere, and two cobra-shaped door handles hung on it. Each handle was about a meter long, and the snakes' eyes were red, seemingly inlaid with rubies.

There was no door here!

This should be a wall!

Xia Chen immediately recalled the overall design of the experimental building. The stairwell was located on the outermost side of the building, meaning that this white wall should be a cold wall! In other words, from the outside, it just looks like a wall.

Although the laboratory building's design is aesthetically unappealing, resembling a doorway with two buildings on the east and west sides, the space in between is empty. The stairwell is built within the cold wall between the two buildings. In other words, there's no way a single room could exist there! Because behind that cold wall is utter emptiness!

Perhaps, of course, pushing open this door would mean falling from the third floor; perhaps there's nothing behind it, and he's just overthinking things. But one thing is certain: why did the once pristine white walls here become a large door?

Xia Chen's heart sank. He immediately thought of the room between the third and fourth floors mentioned in the diary.

How is that possible? How could there be a room here?

Xia Chen immediately took out the diary, but after opening it, he did not explain anything about the house.

Looking at the strange door that had appeared before him, and then glancing down at the strange notebook, Xia Chen's palms were sweaty. He turned to the next page of the diary, where it read: "Perhaps leaving is the best ending. He was always curious. The person he saw in that room will influence his entire life. Mirror, mirror, mirror."

The room? The mirror? That person?

What does this mean? Is someone waiting for him in the room?

Xia Chen stuffed the diary into his pocket, then reached for the cobra doorknob. A cold glint flashed in the ruby embedded in the cobra's eye. Xia Chen pushed hard, and with a creak, the door opened.

Darkness, endless darkness, swept over Xia Chen.

Suddenly, a hand appeared on Xia Chen's shoulder, and with a sudden force, Xia Chen was thrown into the doorway with a "whoosh".

Immediately afterwards, there was a loud "bang" as the door slammed shut.

Xia Chen fell to the ground, and when he got up, he found himself trapped in endless darkness. This darkness seemed to come from hell, and it was exceptionally terrifying.

Suddenly, Xia Chen noticed a small window not far away, through which a dim light shone.

This sliver of light, far from bringing peace of mind, actually intensified the atmosphere of terror. It seemed to guide people into hell, its eeriness tinged with a sinister and unsettling quality.

The light bathed the air near the window in a deep blue hue, and through this rich, dark blue air, Xia Chen turned his head and saw that the door was right behind him.

Turning around, I surveyed the room in the dim light. It seemed quite large. The empty room was filled with an eerie atmosphere; the air was a dark blue, growing darker the further away you looked, eventually coalescing into a single black dot in the far distance.

Where exactly is this room?

Could it be that everything recorded in that diary is the truth?

What is the purpose of this room? You should never find a place like this in the experimental building! But there is such a large room in the cold wall behind the stairwell of the experimental building.

And who was the person who just pushed him in? Only someone who knew this room existed would have pushed him in; otherwise, that person would be just as confused as he was about why this room had appeared there.

What exactly happened?

"Damn it," Xia Chen muttered under his breath, clenching his fist.

Looking around at the empty room, Xia Chen decisively walked towards the window. Since he was already there, he might as well make the best of it; he wanted to find out exactly what connection this room had with the horror files.

Xia Chen walked to the window and stuck his head out to look.

In an instant, cold sweat broke out on Xia Chen's forehead.

Outside the window, everything was a white blur! Like a broken television, the entire outside the window was filled with white, noisy specks.

Where exactly is this place?

Is this really the entrance to hell?

In an instant, Xia Chen had many thoughts, such as second-dimensional space. Perhaps this door was a gateway to another world, a world filled with white, noisy specks.

Could it be that this is the gateway to another world's experimental building?

We only see one world, the world right before our eyes. Many scientists have speculated that there may be another world exactly like this one in the space system.

However, that world was full of white noise, just like what he was seeing now.

Is he already in that world?

Just as Xia Chen stood up, suddenly, a "ding..." sound came from behind Xia Chen's head. Xia Chen froze instantly, his palms sweating profusely.

"Ding..." Another sound rang out, and Xia Chen immediately turned around.

A flash of cold light, and Xia Chen stopped in his tracks.

Behind me, a mirror had appeared out of nowhere!

The mirror is about one meter wide and two meters high.

Xia Chen had a vague feeling that something was wrong with the mirror. Suddenly, he realized that mirrors usually reflect the opposite of what is reflected, but in this mirror, apart from the person who looked exactly like him, everything else was facing the same direction!

That is, the outside window is on the left, and the window that was originally on the right in the mirror is also on the left!

The world in the mirror is a parallel world that is exactly the same as this world, not a normal, reversed world!

Xia Chen finally realized the most important thing: there were windows and reflections in the mirror, but there was no reflection of him, Xia Chen!

Xia Chen was completely dumbfounded. How could he have encountered such a strange thing today?

Xia Chen felt his palms sweating. He took two steps forward and reached out to touch the mirror. Suddenly, a cold light flashed, and something appeared in the mirror.

The extra mirror contained Xia Chen.

However, Xia Chen in the mirror was completely different from himself.

The Xia Chen in the mirror was wearing a pure white coat, while Xia Chen himself was wearing a dark purple short-sleeved T-shirt! The person in the mirror had long hair, while Xia Chen's hair was neither long nor short.