Mu Shan folded the recruitment flyer and stuffed it into her backpack. This thing was a quest item. Although it looked like it had no use anymore, it was still best not to throw it away carelessly.
During the few minutes she observed the flyer, the elevator remained silent. The doors stayed open, quietly parked on the 24th Floor.
No one had called the elevator for so long.
It was almost laughable. In a normal residential building, one elevator served at most fifty or so households, but this building had at least 666 households per elevator, and yet it still did not feel crowded.
Mu Shan gripped her laser sword tightly in her right hand, psyched herself up mentally, and stepped into the elevator car.
The leftover trash from the morning resupply had all been cleared by the system. At that moment, the car walls gleamed clean, the stainless steel surfaces shiny enough to serve as mirrors.
The floor buttons offered options from the 2nd Floor to the 666th Floor, but there was no 18th Floor.
She pressed the button for the 23rd Floor.
In fact, Mu Shan had paid attention to the activity on the floors above and below for two days now. There were players living on the three floors starting from the 25th Floor upward, but every time the resupply elevator arrived at the 23rd Floor, it was quiet, suggesting no players were there. So she planned to go down and take a look.
“Ding—” The elevator quickly stopped at the 23rd Floor. The doors opened to dim light outside.
Mu Shan had just taken one step out when the elevator doors behind her suddenly slammed shut with a “bang” and rapidly ascended away.
She glanced back, steadied her breathing lightly, and continued exploring forward.
The 23rd Floor was very quiet. Dust floated in the air, filled with the scent of decay and age. Just as she had imagined, there were no player safe houses here. But in reality, while the floor height was consistent, the space was not the same. This floor had been partitioned by cement walls into many rooms of varying sizes.
The space facing the elevator doors—the first area Mu Shan entered—was the widest, like a classroom. It was littered with abandoned children’s desks and chairs, all askew and tattered.
Mu Shan turned on her flashlight and carefully avoided the debris of broken wood on the floor as she advanced. The cold beam swept over the colorful desks and chairs. She squatted down, found a relatively intact table, and shone the light into the dark cavity underneath.
There was something inside.
Mu Shan reached in and pulled it out: several torn-up children’s drawings.
She could not tell what was special about these drawings. They simply depicted scenes children liked, such as amusement parks and zoos, with lively and natural strokes.
Before they were torn, bold red lines had been drawn across them with a red pen. It was clear the person who did it had used great force, the pen tip tearing through the paper.
Mu Shan patiently continued searching the table cavity for remnants, one sheet after another.
The items inside had no value, akin to “trash”: crudely sewn sandbags made from old clothes, paper airplanes refolded from workbooks, and grotesquely ugly rag dolls.
It was not stuffy here; the temperature was even dropping lower.
But with her face covered by a mask, staying too long in the enclosed room still made breathing difficult for Mu Shan.
After finding a pile of what seemed like garbage with no valuable discoveries at all, Mu Shan disappointedly stopped her actions.
She noticed a worn blackboard hanging on the wall behind the messy desks and chairs, with remnants of chalk writing smeared into a mess by hand.
She could barely make out words like “filial piety, brotherly respect, endurance.”
At this point, the search was about 70% complete. Mu Shan was about to leave the classroom for the next room when her footsteps suddenly halted.
All the children’s desks and chairs were green, but there was a natural wood-colored table in the corner.
She hurried over and checked. Sure enough, she found something different in the table cavity: a intact file of documents.
The file was a children’s roster. From the table of contents, there were a total of 23 children. The first was named Hua Hua, a 7-year-old girl, full-day care, duration three years. The second was Qiang Qiang, a 6-year-old boy, full-day care, duration three years.
And so on, all ordinary children’s information records—this was the roster belonging to the management.
Strangely, all the one-inch photos on the record pages were black-and-white portraits of children, with their facial features completely blacked out. The recorded information only included name, gender, age, home address, parents’ names, and emergency contacts, nothing else.
Mu Shan flipped through a few pages but did not continue further.
Now it was basically confirmed: the 23rd Floor was an abandoned nursery.
Behind the classroom were three rooms—left, center, and right—with no doors, only three ragged red door curtains hanging there. Mu Shan chose to enter the leftmost one first.
The temperature here was slightly higher than outside. Inside was a long T-shaped stainless steel counter with two large stoves.
In the corner, two bulging burlap sacks were casually piled, and the cabinet beside them held a stack of mini stainless steel trays and spoons.
This was the nursery’s kitchen.
Mu Shan walked further in when her foot suddenly stepped on something—a leftover white garment.
It was clearly not a child’s size; the measurements were obviously for an adult.
It looked like a chef’s uniform, reeking horribly, with many maggot-like bugs crawling over it. Mu Shan kicked it farther away.
She checked the cabinets. The trays inside were filthy, with years of grime caked on the edges and interiors, clearly not properly cleaned.
The counter was covered in a thick layer of dust adhered by grease and smoke. In the corner sat a discolored old cutting board, a knife, and a long ladle.
The kitchen’s hygiene was far below standard, but Mu Shan tried the gas stove and was delighted to find it still connected to gas. She opened the cabinet door and indeed discovered a canister of liquefied petroleum gas below.
The gas canister was steel and very heavy. She shook it forcefully, and at least half remained inside. Mu Shan decisively stored it in her virtual backpack.
The gas problem in this instance was solved.
The kitchen was only this big, and now only the two burlap sacks remained unchecked.
Mu Shan initially thought they contained flour and rice, but when she untied the ropes, she saw they were filled with wheat-colored granules.
She rubbed some in her hand; it had the aroma of wheat, but the grains were coarse, not fine.
This was wheat bran, the husks of wheat kernels—low in nutrition and hard to digest. It could be mixed with refined flour to make coarse bread.
But Mu Shan found no refined rice or flour; the other sack held identical wheat bran.
A nursery for six- or seven-year-old children, yet the kitchen had absolutely no proper food. The only thing that could be considered “food” was these two sacks of bran.
Did the chef feed the children this?
Mu Shan’s grandparents fed the village dogs by mixing bran with water just like this.
She quickly rummaged through the remaining cabinets, finding only some salt, sugar, and bottled vitamins.
Mu Shan pocketed all these items. In just a few minutes, sweat had already beaded on her forehead.
Mist began to form on the glass cabinet doors; the originally cool stainless steel cabinet doors now felt hot to the touch.
After the high-temperature ordeal of the previous instance, she was extremely sensitive to temperature changes.
At this moment, the kitchen heated up rapidly as if set ablaze.
Mu Shan lingered no longer and rushed out in two strides instead of three.
She returned once more to the classroom at the entrance. Strangely, the outside temperature was normal.
But looking back, the red curtain separating the kitchen had turned black and dripped with petroleum-like black liquid.
Mu Shan knew the kitchen could not be reentered.
Next, she chose the middle room.
The same red door curtain. As she lifted it, something humanoid suddenly dropped down, half-hanging, spreading its limbs on the ceiling and swaying left and right.
A childish singing voice echoed in her ears.
“You clap one, I clap one, a little doll flies on a plane; You clap two, I clap two…”
Mu Shan was badly startled. She yanked out her machine gun shooter and unleashed a “rat-a-tat-tat” barrage of peas, hitting the eerie humanoid.
The nursery rhyme’s voice distorted like a malfunctioning machine, stretching and warping.
“You… clap three, I clap…”
With a “crack,” the sound vanished completely.
Mu Shan slowly moved her arm to shine the flashlight over. The cold, pale beam illuminated the humanoid: it was a doll made by rolling up a towel and quilt.
The maker had put effort into it. Though the head, body, and limbs were simply tied with rope, the “head” had an A4 paper meticulously drawn with facial features, glasses, and a mustache.
The male doll’s neck and limbs were bound with rope, hanging from the ceiling light. Mu Shan’s shots had burst the player inside its belly, exposing some cotton stuffing.
She scanned left and right, confirmed no other dangers, and only then slowly lowered her machine gun shooter.
This seemed to be the director’s or teacher’s office, with an iron bunk bed for on-duty use, a desk, and a chair.
Mu Shan discovered a yellowed notice on the office wall:
【Closure Notice】
To all parents: Due to poor management and chronic losses, this nursery is now closing for reorganization. We deeply apologize to all parents.
Besides the closure notice, the four walls of the office were covered in large and small award certificates, all darkened and yellowed, clearly quite old.
【Top Ten Civilized Nursery】
【Gold Medal Orderly Nursery】
【Parent-Voted Most Regulated Nursery】
…
Mu Shan glanced over them. She set the flashlight on the desk, pulled at the desk drawer—it was locked.
No problem. With a jab of the laser sword, any lock had to open.
The drawer did not contain anything important: fee receipts, purchase vouchers, invoices, payroll stubs.
Mu Shan specifically looked for the kitchen procurement records: 80% were bran, with occasional rice or flour.
There was an old ruler in the drawer, stained with some unknown color, looking pitch black and filthy. Nothing else of value.
Mu Shan left disappointed. Now only the last room remained unsearched.
Behind the red door curtain was a space not much larger than the office, but it was densely packed with wooden cubicles. She counted: one wall had six layers of wooden cubicles stacked up and down.
The cubicles were sealed on the front, back, left, and right sides, with one side open and the top also sealed. The only opening had a ladder for access. By the dimensions, adults could not crawl inside.
Mu Shan wondered what this was when she spotted an old bedsheet in the nearest cubicle to her.
…This turned out to be the nursery’s dormitory.
The moment this realization hit, she felt the room temperature plummet.
Those things that did not resemble beds at all were stacked in rows, occupying the entire indoor space.
No air conditioning, no toys, no plants, no view.
Lying in one felt like lying in a coffin.
Even so, this was the only remaining place in the nursery to hide things. Mu Shan’s heart pounded like a drum, “thump thump thump,” the only sound leaping in the silent room.
She took a deep breath, gripped her flashlight, and carefully squatted to check the nearest cubicle.
Most of the “beds” were empty, only lined with filthy old sheets. Occasionally, there were messy scratches, paper wads, or trash.
Mu Shan did not give up. She held her breath almost entirely and climbed the ladder to search the upper cubicles.
The top layer had no sheet. She found adhesive traces on the side wall.
Prying it open, she saw an electric card!
Mu Shan lit up with joy. She quickly tucked the electric card into her waist pouch and prepared to climb down the ladder.
The flashlight beam flashed, illuminating in the cubicle below a pair of pale little feet protruding out.