Lan Jin didn't keep texting. Instead, she called immediately.
"What did you mean just now? Why'd it sound like something bad was about to happen?"
Huang Jinghe replied, "That noise in the stairwell was just way too weird. We just fought someone and tossed him down the stairs, then the alarm goes off. What if something happened down there after we came back up?"
Lan Jin said, "Then something did happen. Makes sense. You lock everyone in a building together, of course stuff's going to happen. But whatever it is, it's not our business. If we get asked, we just tell the truth. Oh, and yeah... about tossing that guy down the stairs, that part wasn't exactly the right move. I mean, he was still breathing when we left, so we—"
Before she could finish, Huang Jinghe quickly said, "I know, Sister Lan. We can talk about what happened before that, but once I hit him with the bat, we don't go into details. Oh right, what if he says you stepped on him? Did you leave a footprint?"
Lan Jin genuinely couldn't remember. "Then you say that after you hit him, I went up and stomped him once. We chased him off together, that's all. And it might not even have anything to do with him."
Huang Jinghe nodded. "Yeah, I got it. I'm just worried that if something really did happen and the police get involved, that guy might say something and drag us into it. I want to be ready with an explanation."
"Relax. So what if he talks? We didn't kill him. At most, we beat him up—and it's not like he didn't start it. We acted in self-defense. What's wrong with that?"
There was nothing wrong, really. Huang Jinghe had just been thinking too much lately, especially after reading all those apocalyptic novels. But if he really thought about it, the man had still been alive when they went home, and the poisonous fog hadn't gotten in yet. And after they got home—
The sound of the stairwell door slowly being pushed open.
That part, Huang Jinghe decided, he'd never bring up.
Whatever had happened in the stairwell couldn't be left unresolved until morning. That same night, the community staff organized a team and headed straight to Building 12.
After passing through two layers of protective barriers and reaching the first floor, what greeted them was a dense, choking wall of poisonous fog. From the concentration alone, there was no way this came from just a tiny leak.
The leader of the team gave instructions. "Split into two groups. One starts from the top down, the other from the bottom up. Search for the breach. If you find it, report immediately."
The group split efficiently. One team took the elevator straight to the 30th floor, planning to check 33 first and work their way down. The other group started on the first floor and began searching upward, one level at a time.
But when the upstairs group reached the 28th floor, someone stumbled over something large on the ground.
"Ugh!"
"Ow, what the hell?"
"What's this? Something hit my leg."
"You're lucky. I nearly tripped and fell down the stairs."
As the two grumbled and looked down, they suddenly froze. That big, lumpy thing on the floor—it was a person. And judging by the thickness of the fog, there was no way he was still alive.
They stared at each other, stunned.
One of them pulled out his phone and called the team leader.
"Hello? We're on the 28th floor. There's a dead body here."
While he was on the phone, the other noticed an open window nearby. He tapped the first guy's arm and pointed toward it.
The first man immediately relayed the update into the phone. "I think we found the source of the breach. There's an open window next to the body."
"Got it. Close the window and stay put. I'm on my way up. The downstairs team should keep checking, just in case there are other leaks."
"Understood."
He hung up. Not long after, the team leader arrived on the 28th floor. Once all three gathered, one of them raised a question.
"Wait a second... what was this guy even doing here in the middle of the night? Shouldn't he have been asleep? What was he doing in the emergency stairwell?"
"What else? Up to no good," the leader said, then called the police.
It was the same team as last time. Soon, they arrived at Building 12 again.
But the man's body had already been badly damaged by the poisonous fog. Though his skin hadn't started rotting, it was severely swollen and inflamed. Just looking at him wouldn't tell them anything. The police had the body sent back for examination, then split up to begin interviewing residents.
As soon as word spread that another murder had happened in the building, the residents grew even more anxious and fearful. With the poisonous fog still lingering outside, they couldn't leave—but the killer might still be living among them. Who would be next?
The building's group chat immediately exploded with messages.
But no useful information came from the interviews. The victim had once again targeted residents living alone. It was unlikely his only targets had been Lan Jin and Huang Jinghe. Compared to the number of people he had harassed, those two didn't stand out much at all.
Still, one of the police officers couldn't shake a gut feeling.
"Why do I feel like everyone who ends up dead always seems to have messed with someone on the 32nd or 33rd floors? That man and woman from last time too. And now this guy. What if the killer really is someone from those floors, and we're just missing something important?"
But another officer disagreed.
"Sure, the people on 32 and 33 are suspicious. But so are others. The girl living alone on the 12th floor, that middle-aged man from the 23rd, and the elderly couple on the 5th. They were all targets too. Why do you think only the 32nd and 33rd floors are worth suspecting?"
"It's just a feeling."
"Come on, we work with evidence. Your gut doesn't count. What, you planning to arrest them based on vibes?"
"Well, no, of course not. But I just think they're connected somehow."
"I know why you think that. It's because every time something happens, those two households end up in conflicts with someone. So you naturally assume they've got a temper and probably lashed out and killed someone, right?"
The officer went quiet for a moment, then admitted, "Yes. But also no. I can't explain it. Like you said, I've got no proof."
"Exactly. And from what I've seen, their statements hold up. Everyone's got their own personality. Some people are just more fiery. Doesn't mean they're murderers. Honestly, the woman from 701 seems more suspicious to me."
701 was the unit where the first male victim had lived, along with his wife.
That sparked another memory.
"Wait, didn't they have surveillance at their place? Did you pull the footage?"
"No. The woman shut off the cameras. I checked her phone. The moment her husband died, she turned the system off and never turned it back on. To be honest, that feels like a guilty move. If she had nothing to hide, why turn it off?"
"Evidence first. All this guessing doesn't help. For now, keep those suspicions in mind and keep digging."
The police kept investigating for the next two weeks, running up and down the building every day collecting evidence.
Because of that, the small spark of chaos that had started brewing quickly died down. Even the wave of mass layoffs that followed didn't cause much of a stir among the residents.