It was a middle-class residential area. There were 3 units in total, each one of them was 33-stories tall. Each one of these units housed two households on each floor, where each household came with two bedrooms and a living room area. At the present, Chen Chen had stepped into the tenth floor of one of the units.
The entrance to the apartment was effortlessly cut down using the GS Blade. Upon entering, Chen Chen saw countless food packaging littered across the living room floors. They were sprinkled with many scrap papers, pieces of cloth, and various waste.
A sofa that had been broken down into an almost unrecognizable form was set behind the door. All of the fabric had been cut off from it and pasted on to the windows.
Yes, all of the windows were obscured using pieces of fabric and newspaper. There was hardly any source of light in the room. Sparse glimpse of rays slipped through the gaps on the window and cast a depressing and strange aura into the room.
“Windows again?”
Chen Chen squinted his eyes upon witnessing this scene.
After that, Chen Chen proceeded to head inside. Very quickly, he saw the figure of a person through the open bedroom door.
It was a figure with its head drooped in an unnatural angle, drooped over its withered body was a set of pajamas that were so dirty that its color was indistinguishable.
It was a lady hanging from the ceiling.
The lady’s appearance had long become unrecognizable. The only thing about her that left a strong impression on Chen Chen was her hair that had become this bizarre clump of substance like wool felt, probably caused by it having gone unwashed for some time.
This lady had killed herself.
Chen Chen only had several peeks at it before he went into the other room. Just like the living room and the other bedroom, the windows were blocked out with pieces of fabric and newspaper as well, there was hardly any gap to be seen. The floor was littered with plastic packaging of all sorts of junk food.
Sure enough, this lady had lived in this place for quite some time.
Taking note of this fact, Chen Chen went to the toilet. When he pulled open the toilet door, he saw the floor covered in excrement. Even the toilet bowl was filled to the brim with excrement.
Chen Chen seemed completely unbothered by the excrement in the toilet as he went to the faucet to turn it on. Not a single drop of water came out.
These sorts of apartments usually came with a water storage tank. Since no water came out, that meant it had all been used up.
The foul toilet, empty faucet, and a floor littered with empty food packaging. Everything he saw here seemed to point toward the lady having lived here for a significant period.
Chen Chen had the Black Knights search for anything that may resemble a diary to see if he could find anything worthwhile, but the results of the search would disappoint him.
It seemed that this lady had just been scraping by a day at a time and did not keep a habit of writing a diary.
Just as Chen Chen figured that there were no clues to be found in this place and prepared to leave, a section of the wall beside the corpse suddenly caught his attention.
There were marks on the walls on the other side of the bedroom which suggested they may have been beaten in.
Chen Chen slowly approached and touched it delicately. The tips of his fingers grazed against several pits formed by hard objects bashing against the wall. Even some of the debris in the wall was cracked.
After that, Chen Chen shuffled his feet around the layer of trash piled up around his feet. Very soon after, he felt the soles of his boots knocking against a hard object which produced a rhythmical rolling sound upon being kicked.
It was a dark yellow hardwood baseball bat.
It was apparent that the caved-in pits on the wall were left behind by this baseball bat.
With this in mind, Chen Chen went to the other bedroom and saw the same marks left behind on the wall of the bedroom as well…
“Interesting…”
Chen Chen muttered to himself. Upon closer inspection, he realized that following the floorplan layout, these two bedrooms were located on the west side of the east wing. This meant that the bedroom walls were shared between the two adjacent apartment units…
“Was she trying to smash through the wall to enter the adjacent unit?”
Chen Chen knitted his brows curiously. There was no doubt in his mind that this method would lead to nowhere. No matter how strong a person was, there was simply no way to penetrate a wall without the proper tools, especially if the subject at hand was a lady wielding nothing but a baseball bat.
Only a fool would even attempt to ram through a wall using a mere baseball bat.
However, if not to penetrate the wall, what else could the hanged lady’s intentions be?
While Chen Chen stood motionlessly before the wall, he suddenly noticed patches of black marks on the wall in addition to the caved-in pits.
Since he was wearing the PK Armor, the marks were only around Chen Chen’s chest height. They were pitch-black textures. Based on the location, they appeared to be located around the deceased’s height.
“Perhaps she frequently put her face against the wall while she was still alive?”
An idea suddenly came to Chen Chen as he put his head down slightly. With both hands placed against the wall, he turned his head sideways and put his face against the black marks on the wall.
Although he was wearing the PK Armor, there was no mistaking this position. This position implied…
Eavesdropping?
Chen Chen suddenly made the connection. The deceased was regularly trying to spy on movements coming from the adjacent unit.
Could there be some sort of clues in the adjacent unit?
With this in mind, Chen Chen quickly took the Black Knights with him as they exited the unit and went to the adjacent unit on the west wing.
Previously, the Black Knights had inspected the west wing and failed to find any object of interest. When Chen Chen stepped into the unit, he saw that this was a regular apartment no different from the common household.
There was not a soul in the unit. The furnishing was normal, so were the bedrooms and the layout. There was nothing peculiar about it whatsoever.
Chen Chen stepped right into the bedroom of the west wing unit.
The layout of the east wing and west wing unit were completely identical. The only notable distinction was that the two were symmetrical. The living room in the east wing unit was on the east side and its two bedrooms were on the west side. It was the other way round for the west wing unit, with the living room placed on the west side and the two bedrooms on the east side.
As Chen Chen stepped into the bedroom, his pupils abruptly shrunk into a tiny circle!
What he saw was a gigantic mark left behind by a sizable impact. The surface of the wall was nearly completely shattered, even exposing the red bricks underneath the wall!
It appeared that something had been repeatedly smashing against the wall which left it in such a state.
What was the deal with this?
Chen Chen approached it and reached forward to touch it. There were no other remains left behind apart from the smashed wall.
Once again, Chen Chen went to the other bedroom and saw the same image as he saw in the previous bedroom. There was nothing else notable apart from a shallow hole formed on the bedroom wall.
Chen Chen frowned. While his mind was occupied by this bizarre observation, a message suddenly came from X-112. “Sir Commander, the drones had detected signs of life while patrolling along the edges of the city!”
Upon hearing this, Chen Chen immediately jolted to his senses. “Where is it?”
“8720m northeast of your current position. The target seems to be scavenging for resources on the edge of the city. Should we track him?”
“Stay close to him but don’t let him notice you, I’ll be right there!”
Chen Chen responded immediately. He had no time for these bizarre rooms. With a quick gesture of his hands, three Black Knights immediately trailed after him as they left the area together.
Following Chen Chen’s sudden departure, the strange rooms had once again fallen into an eerie silence.
Only moments after Chen Chen had left, the corpse of the hanged lady suspended on the ceiling suddenly began to sway lightly, seemingly blown by a gentle breeze.
It swayed from one side to the other as if following a set of rhythm…