This actor is full of tricks.

At 11:30 p.m., Lin Jue carefully opened the door. It was quiet outside, and there was no one there.

"Dr. Zhao." Lin Jue called out into the room. Zhao Yin hesitated, "Are we really going? Since the ninth floor is hidden so well, it must be the most dangerous place. Should we wait until your spider appears in this world before going?"

"It's just to see if that method is reliable, it's not like we're really going in," Lin Jue replied. "Why are you as timid as Xiao Qiu? I can't let the two of you have any more contact with each other."

"Why would Director Dong tell you this information?" Zhao Yin leaned closer, sticking his head out to look outside, just like Lin Jue.

"He and I are best buddies, we've been through a lot together." Seeing that no one was outside, Lin Jue cautiously stuck one foot out.

"Who in this world isn't your buddy? You weren't even familiar with Director Dong at first." Zhao Yin didn't really want to respond to that question. He felt like he'd asked for nothing, knowing full well that Lin Jue wouldn't tell the truth.

"Let's go, there's no danger."

Lin Jue stepped out of the room first, followed closely by Zhao Yin. The two arrived at the stairwell. Lin Jue first looked up at the stairs, then slowly stepped up.

After reaching the second floor, he glanced at the time on his phone. There were still twenty minutes until midnight, so he simply sat down on the step and looked at Zhao Yin standing behind him: "Dr. Zhao, what are your thoughts on what I told you yesterday?"

"What thoughts could there be? Since we're living in this world, let's just live peacefully, even if it's just a fleeting moment." Zhao Yin said calmly. Although his words sounded very composed, Lin Jue could still hear a hint of resentment in his voice.

That makes sense; who would willingly accept being a bubble that could vanish at any moment?
"If, oh, if, I were to meet Dr. Zhao in real life, would there be anything you would like me to convey?" Lin Jue asked again.

Zhao Yin's expression was subtle; this feeling was a bit strange. What message could he send to his real-world self?

“There really is one,” Zhao Yin said thoughtfully.

Lin Jue immediately perked up: "What do you want to say? I will relay it word for word."

"Tell him to stay away from that guy named Lin Jue, and don't believe his nonsense." Zhao Yin said with a serious expression.

Lin Jue finally felt embarrassed. Was his image in Zhao Yin's eyes really that bad?
Zhao Yin seemed to have seen through Lin Jue's thoughts and added, "Not just bad, it's extremely bad."

"Alright, that's enough, time's almost up." Lin Jue coughed lightly, changing the subject.

As the score on his phone jumped from 59 to 00, Lin Jue stood up and said, "Let's go down. Remember to walk backwards."

"Hmm." Zhao Yin's expression turned serious. He and the ghost stood by the stairs, then turned halfway around and moved backward step by step down the stairs.

"One step, two steps..."

Lin Jue silently counted his steps. When he reached the eighth step, he clearly felt the temperature around him turn cold. Waves of cold air penetrated his clothes and seeped into his body through his pores.

"Nine steps, ten steps..."

The tenth step was at the corner. Lin Jue felt as if he had bumped into something stiff on his back. A pale hand brushed past his arm and climbed onto his shoulder.

It seems that walking backwards has summoned something extraordinary.

“Don’t worry about the earthbound spirit, keep going.”

Zhao Yin's voice sounded from behind. Lin Jue calmly grabbed the hand, then lunged forward, pulled hard, and executed a standard over-the-shoulder throw.

boom.

He slammed a disheveled female ghost to the ground. The ghost glared at Lin Jue with resentment before disappearing into the floor.

"Forehead……"

Zhao Yin was at a loss for words. Lin Jue's thought process was simply impossible to judge by common sense.

"I hate being attacked from behind the most. If I hadn't lost my strength, I would have done it again with a body slam."

Lin Jue clapped his hands and adjusted the direction slightly: "Let's continue."

The two, one human and one ghost, walked past the corner and continued downwards. Lin Jue continued to silently count his steps. "Nineteen, twenty..."

"twenty one!"

"Ten steps make up one staircase, which means there are twenty steps in total for one floor. Where did the twenty-one steps come from?"

"Dr. Zhao, what did you see?"

Lin Jue did not turn around, but asked Zhao Yin behind him.

But there was no sound behind him.

Lin Jue was taken aback: "Dr. Zhao?"

There was still no response. He didn't know if he could turn back at this point, but he roughly knew that Zhao Yin had probably disappeared.

Why did it disappear? Did it switch back to the desolate timeline? Or was there some other reason?
Lin Jue took a deep breath and continued walking backwards.

Twenty-two steps.

Twenty-three steps.

Tomorrow I feel like I'm going downstairs, but everything around me hasn't changed, and the perceived height hasn't changed either. It's as if I'm just standing still.

This feeling was very contradictory. He couldn't help but look down at his feet. He was indeed going down the stairs, but he was also indeed standing still.

"Thirty-nine..."

"seventy……"

"Two hundred and one..."

"How many steps have we taken so far?"

Lin Jue had already counted nearly three hundred steps in his mind, which was equivalent to going down fifteen flights of stairs, a height of nearly forty-five meters.

"The ninth floor is that deep? If the knocking sound I heard last time was at such a depth, I could never have heard it so clearly."

"Could it be a ghost wall? Or is it the ability of that female ghost from earlier?"

"It shouldn't be. If I really had that ability, I wouldn't have been able to easily throw that female ghost over my shoulder."

As Lin Jue pondered, he continued to back away. When he reached 380 steps in his mind, his foot stopped, and he no longer felt like he was going downstairs.

Is it over yet?

"Three hundred and eighty steps? If we subtract the twenty steps between the first and second floors, that's three hundred and sixty steps..."

"Three hundred and sixty steps, leading down eighteen levels? What is the meaning of the eighteen levels of hell?"

"For those patients on the ninth floor, this place is truly hell."

"But is this really the ninth level? Is the ninth level really that deep? Where have I ended up?"

Countless questions flashed through Lin Jue's mind as he slowly turned his head.

Behind me was no longer the scene of the first floor of the main building, but a deep and narrow brick passageway. The passageway stretched endlessly into the darkness, its depth unknown.

The staircase had completely disappeared, leaving Lin Jue somewhat dumbfounded. He seemed unsure how to get back. (End of Chapter)