Liu Xianxian had once seen Liu Zhe enter this room — the man had been talking to the severed head in the glass jar.
"Suspicious." Chen Ge switched on the flashlight built into his phone and shone it on the glass jar. After all these years, the head inside still looked remarkably lifelike.
"Spotting something like this in a lab building late at night is pretty unnerving." Chen Ge stared at the jar for a while. The head inside seemed to be suspended in some kind of gel, perfectly still — no blinking, no floating up and down. That was somewhat different from what Liu Xianxian had described.
To be safe, Chen Ge summoned Old Zhou and the others to inspect the jar. They found nothing out of the ordinary.
"Whatever was attached to it may have already left."
Chen Ge gazed at the glass jar in contemplation. Liu Zhe had spoken to the severed head inside — did that mean there was something in the west campus capable of attaching itself to these specimens, communicating through the things stored in these jars and bottles?
If that was truly the case, things were looking bad. The entire west campus was under surveillance by whatever it was. With so many organ specimens in the laboratories and the underground morgue, it could very well be hiding in one of these jars right now, watching him in silence.
"I need to avoid these things as much as possible."
Chen Ge set the white cat on top of his backpack and stepped out of the room. Outside was a corridor stretching over a dozen meters, every door along it locked, several sealed with strips of yellowed tape.
Peering through the windows in the doors, he could see rows of cold examination tables lined up inside the rooms.
His pupils narrowed. Using his Yin Eye, Chen Ge spotted what looked like water stains on the nearest examination table — it gave the impression that someone had just lain there moments ago.
"The corridor isn't here."
If it weren't for the mission and the time pressure, Chen Ge would have loved to check every single room.
"The lab building would make an excellent set piece. The atmosphere here is great — I could build something similar in the future."
Director Luo had been demolishing the surrounding structures to prepare for the expansion of Chen Ge's haunted house. An underground scene alone wasn't enough to create a true horror theme park.
He made his way to the far end of the corridor, where Chen Ge found an anatomy lab with its door unlocked, the door left half-open, and the seal torn off.
"No dust on the handle. Someone's been in here in the last few days."
Chen Ge crouched down. There were scrape marks on the floor.
He gripped the handle and tried pushing the door. The door panel had warped slightly — pushing it required a bit of upward force on the handle to avoid leaving scrape marks on the floor.
"Whoever came in must have been in a terrible hurry. They overlooked these details."
He pushed the door fully open, and a faint smell of formaldehyde drifted out.
Chen Ge didn't rush inside. He knew full well that every time he caught this scent, it meant those things might have been here.
He placed the white cat on a table and patted its head. "Can you smell where this scent is coming from?"
Chen Ge gestured with his hands, trying his best to make the white cat understand what he meant.
The cat's mismatched eyes reflected Chen Ge's figure. After a long pause, it suddenly leaped off the table and darted into a small side room behind the anatomy lab.
"Found it?"
There was a wooden door inside the side room, and the white cat sat in front of it, meowing nonstop.
The formaldehyde smell was seeping from behind that door. Chen Ge went over and pushed at the door a few times, only to find it locked.
"Stand back." Chen Ge raised his Skull Crushing Hammer, and the white cat, understanding perfectly, hopped aside.
BANG!
The massive, fearsome hammer smashed straight into the lock, sending the lock cylinder clattering to the floor.
By now, Chen Ge had become quite experienced at busting through doors. Concentrating all his force on a single point at the lock was far quieter than any other method.