Bengtie: My death fueled their madness.

It was just a casual remark, but now it seems to have come true?

The equipment room is on the 26th floor.

Pushing open the fire door, the corridor was half the width of the office floor.

Qi Zhimu listened intently to make sure no one was inside, then led Hei Ta inside.

After turning two corners, a gray iron gate without a sign came into view.

"I'm not good at decryption." Qi Zhimu crossed his arms, not forgetting to be wary of the uninvited guest approaching.

They've been in this building for a while now, and the ghosts haven't made a move on them, which is quite intriguing.

Black Tower stepped forward and pressed different number keys in succession.

The lock is open.

"No? This building used to belong to your family?" Qi Zhimu asked with a strange expression.

He did not recall missing any crucial information about the computer room's combination lock.

"As I mentioned before, this building was used as a filming location before it belonged to the coalition government."

"That's alright then, hurry up."

Pushing open the door, in a room of less than ten square meters, two rows of server racks hummed, and indicator lights flickered on and off.

Several boxes of unopened network cables were piled up in the corner, and the data stream on the monitor was scrolling densely.

Black Tower walked to the console and began to operate it.

Qi Zhimu leaned against the door, releasing his senses and focusing his attention.

"How long will it take?"

"Three minutes."

Black Tower types on the keyboard at an extremely fast pace; his ten fingers are almost invisible.

2 minutes 47 seconds.

"Alright, we've got the common keyword."

She accessed the real-time monitoring of the internal communication software and set up keyword filtering.

"Come on, let me see." Qi Zhimu leaned closer.

"Missing, gone, police report, bathroom, mirror... and some chat logs."

"Little Black Tower, don't you think some of the keywords are too coincidental, like they're hinting at something?"

"Yes, it's very likely." Black Tower understood the implication in his words.

Chat logs related to missing persons only used two terms to describe a person's disappearance: missing, gone.

With so many synonyms, it's highly unlikely that a common word like "disappear" would not appear.

As for the remaining alarm keywords... it's hard to say at the moment.

Call the police?

That would require permission from the ghost, or rather, the screenwriter.

In someone else's worldview, you have to follow their rules.

"How much longer? I don't want to stay here too long; there's a risk of being blocked at the door."

"Soon, you'll see these."

Messages popped up one after another.

Still haven't found Xiao Liu? Have you checked the CCTV footage?

[I heard that not long ago, someone also failed to leave the men's restroom on the fifteenth floor. Is that true?]

Don't spread rumors; we're not allowed to discuss this.

My sister lives on the twelfth floor, and this morning someone was missing from their restroom too.

Which restroom? Number three?

Yes, it's the one with three mirrors.

What's going on? Is it haunted?

Black Tower highlighted a certain chat record in red.

"Three mirrors? Other missing locations only have one mirror, but here there are three?" Qi Zhimu's gaze fell on the record marked in red.

The Black Tower remained silent and continued scrolling down.

A moment later, she listed twenty-seven missing persons cases, distributed across different floors and rooms.

Without exception, the locations of all missing persons share a common characteristic—

Mirror.

Not just restrooms.

There are makeup mirrors in the tea room, full-length mirrors in the changing room, and some decorative or hanging mirrors to prevent people from bumping into each other at corners.

"Have you memorized the locations of these mirrors?" Qi Zhimu asked.

Black Tower nodded, the screen displaying a dense array of coordinates.

"That's not enough. We need more data to see..."

Before he could finish speaking, a piercing scream suddenly came from afar.

Then came the second tone, and then the third tone.

The commotion spread like a tide, with noise coming from all directions.

Qi Zhimu tensed up instantly and pulled Hei Ta into his arms.

"What happened?" Black Tower asked in a low voice.

Qi Zhimu listened intently, his expression gradually darkening.

"More people are missing, and it's not just one."

"several?"

He recounted the noisy information he had captured.

"Two on the fourth floor, one on the seventh floor, three on the fifteenth floor, and nine on the twenty-first floor... all disappeared at the same time."

A guess flashed through Black Tower's mind, and he said solemnly:

"Perhaps we've come across crucial information, and the demons' killing spree is accelerating; it might be our turn soon."

When they came out of the server room, the floor was in complete chaos.

People were running around, some were trembling as they called the police, some were hugging each other and crying, and others were frozen in place, at a loss.

It seems that some lucky person witnessed the disappearance firsthand?

"Manager, I can't get through on the phone!"

"How is that possible? Try again!"

"I really can't get through; there's no signal on either the landline or mobile!"

Qi Zhimu and Heita exchanged a glance, then walked through the chaotic crowd and headed straight for their destination.

……

The twelfth floor.

Pushing open the door to restroom number three, Qi Zhimu's first thought was that it was much more spacious than downstairs.

Not only the space, but also the mirrors.

Black Tower's gaze fell on the bottom of the mirror on the left.

There was a very thin, dark mark at the seam between the frame and the wall; it didn't look like a crack, but more like a stitching mark.

Qi Zhimu followed her gaze and reached out to touch her.

It is cool and smooth, but clearly not molded from a single piece.

"It's not a single piece; it's embedded in."

Black Tower stood up and walked to the mirror in the middle.

Similarly, there are splicing marks at the bottom, and also on the right side.

Each mirror in the three-sided mirror is pieced together, but the edges are so fine that they are not noticeable unless you look very closely.

"The shape is very irregular." Black Tower fell into thought.

"Designers love this kind of artistic expression; everything is so boring when it's all neat and orderly," Qi Zhimu scoffed.

He joked, but the previous nonchalance was gone from his eyes.

Something just doesn't feel right.

Among all the identical restrooms, only this one uses a mosaic mirror.

And coincidentally, he inadvertently obtained information about the missing persons here.

Black Tower's gaze slowly moved across the surface of the three mirrors, and he spoke in a low voice.

"I'm wondering if the reason the movie was filmed here isn't just because the layout could be used to foreshadow events."

"Are you saying the screenwriter deliberately chose this location because the mirror itself is suitable for hiding foreshadowing?"

"Um."

Black Tower approached the mirror on the right, lightly tapped it with his finger, and the sound was muffled.

She tapped the wall around the edge of the picture frame again, and the response was the same.

"You can't hide anything; there's a solid wall behind the mirror."

"Since the mirror is pieced together, if a ghost emerges from it like in the first level, won't its body be split into several pieces by the edges of the pieces?"

Qi Zhimu said half-jokingly, but his expression quickly changed.

Suddenly, I felt that something was wrong.

In the mirror, he and Black Tower stood side by side, one nonchalant, the other lost in thought.

But his shadow, his shoulders seemed to be half an inch wider than in the right mirror.

I turned my head to look at the mirror on the left, and the person in the mirror also turned their head in sync, but the extra half inch was still there.

As for the strange thing about the black tower in the mirror.

"Kid, look at yourself in the mirror..."

……

Happy New Year! Wishing everyone success in the coming year, abundant wealth, and academic achievements.

Hagi Fantasy is hoping for a free little gift to start the new year~~~