Volume 1: Days Moving Bricks at the Construction Site
Search
Looking up to the big shot
“Sister Lou, look!” Shen Maomao shouted loudly to Xiaolou, raising a pair of glasses she found in the pile of bricks.
Everyone around focused their attention on her hand; they all saw the pair of glasses with broken lenses and then indifferently looked away.
It was just a pair of glasses, at most proving that the owner came here last night, but it explained nothing else.
Xiaolou took the glasses, glanced at them casually, stood up, climbed over the wall they had piled up, jumped into the pond, and placed the glasses on the ground at the center of the pond.
——This is where Ding Hou is also buried.
With a simple action, the death of Glasses was completely declared.
When she returned, Shen Maomao couldn’t help but ask her, “Is there no saving him?”
Xiaolou replied, “No.”
The person with the glasses vanished into thin air, leaving only the broken glasses behind; they still didn’t know his name… even if he wasn’t a good person, Shen Maomao couldn’t help but feel a sense of shared fate.
In such an unknown and terrifying environment, who can guarantee survival until tomorrow? They are all like ants at the mercy of others, with their fate forever in someone else’s hands.
Shen Maomao was pessimistically moving bricks when her ears suddenly caught the sound of whistling. The melody was so familiar; she had listened to its heartfelt performance just the night before last…
Come on, it’s daytime now! What’s all the fuss in broad daylight?!
She quickly turned her head, and instead of seeing a ghost, she saw Xiaolou pouting. —The whistling sound was coming from her.
Shen Maomao was irritated: “Sister Lou, why are you scaring people?!”
Xiaolou stacked her bricks neatly and looked at her innocently: “Ah? What’s the matter?”
Shen Maomao: “Why are you whistling for no reason?”
Xiaolou: “My mouth is on my body, isn’t it?”
Shen Maomao: “…” So frustrating, but what she said makes sense.
Luo Xingbang, not far away, eyes lit up and leaned over to ask Xiaolou: “Hey, Xiaolou, are you from Jinshan too?”
Xiaolou: “Jinshan?”
Luo Xingbang: “Yes, what you were just whistling is a folk song from Jinshan.” After speaking, he whistled a section of it impromptu.
Upon hearing it, Shen Maomao realized it was indeed the tune they had heard the night before last.
Xiaolou replied: “I’m not from Jinshan; I just occasionally heard someone whistle this song, and I don’t know the lyrics.”
Luo Xingbang was somewhat disappointed: “This song is called 《The Long Work Song》, and it’s used to curse landlords. There are no fixed lyrics; you just sing whatever comes to mind.”
“So that’s how it is.”
Luo Xingbang could also see that Yun Shengjin’s group and Xiaolou with Shen Maomao didn’t get along, so after failing to connect as fellow countrymen, he sensibly returned to Yan Nan and Beidou’s side, no longer communicating with them.
Xiaolou said in a low voice to Shen Maomao: “At first, I thought the ‘ghost’ in the game was the foreman, but if Luo Xingbang wasn’t lying, then the foreman is actually normal.”
After all, the foreman has no reason to sing a song cursing himself.
(If you're not reading on littlepandatranslations.com, it means this has been stolen)
Everyone understands the logic, but what use is it? Anyone can guess that the strange phenomena at the construction site are related to the previous group of workers. So, where have all the workers gone?
Shen Maomao recalled when Yan Nan inquired with the foreman about the previous group of workers, and the foreman’s evasive expression. She quietly told everything to Xiaolou, who appeared confident: “I think I know…”
Certainly! Here’s the revised translation with “Golden Retriever” instead of “Golden Hair”:
Xiaolou did not reveal exactly what she knew.
It was another busy day; today the foreman didn’t catch an unlucky child, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. They gathered to eat a meal together, then each dispersed to search for clues.
The construction site is very large, and exploring randomly would just waste time, so Xiaolou didn’t wander aimlessly like the others. She took Shen Maomao and purposefully headed straight to a building that was already completed.
Golden Retriever followed behind them and asked: “Sister Lou, how do you know there are clues here?”
This was exactly what Shen Maomao wanted to ask.
“In the morning, I followed the foreman; he lives here,” Xiaolou said casually, as if following the foreman was as simple as eating or drinking water.
Golden Retriever and Shen Maomao looked at her with admiration as if gazing up at a big shot.
This building has twelve floors, with a built-in elevator, two units on each floor, totaling twenty-four units.
Downstairs, Xiaolou reminded them: “In a moment, we’ll split up. If you see anything possibly related to this scenario, take it all. I’m not sure which floor the foreman is on, and I’m not sure what dangers we might encounter, so be careful.”
Golden Retriever said with a tearful face: “Can we not go?”
Xiaolou smiled: “You can.”
Golden Retriever: “Then I’ll leave?”
Xiaolou: “Goodbye.”
Golden Retriever walked back and said righteously: “I think we need to properly investigate this building.”
So cowardly.
Shen Maomao looked at Xiaolou with concern: “You must take good care of yourself…”
Protecting yourself is protecting me!!
The Golden Retriever was deeply moved by their profound friendship: “Sisters, stop being sentimental, hurry up, it will be dark soon.”
Xiaolou arranged: “Each person takes four floors. Rabbit, being a girl, you take floors one, two, three, four. Golden Retriever, you take five, six, seven, eight. I’ll take the last four floors.”
Golden Retriever: “I already said I’m not called Golden Retriever???”
Shen Maomao grabbed Xiaolou’s hand: “Aren’t you a girl?”
The higher floors are harder to escape from, and there’s no need for Xiaolou to leave the most dangerous place for herself.
Golden Retriever also realized this and immediately felt a bit embarrassed: “Sister Xiaolou, let’s switch…”
Xiaolou tapped his head directly: “Do what you’re told and don’t argue.” She instructed: “Regardless of whether you find anything, once the streetlights come on, gather downstairs immediately. I will wait for you downstairs for ten minutes, whether you arrive or not, I will leave.”
“Got it!”
The three quickly entered the building.
(If you're not reading on littlepandatranslations.com, it means this has been stolen)
This is a rare, fully equipped building on the construction site. Inside, doors and windows are installed, and as soon as you enter, you can smell the pungent paint odor.
All the doors are wide open, and because there is no furniture, it appears especially empty. With each step they take, they can hear the echo of their footsteps.
The elevator is not powered, so to go upstairs, they must climb the stairs.
Just as they entered the stairwell, Xiaolou suddenly said: “Wait a moment, Rabbit, switch with me.”
Shen Maomao: “Ah?”
Xiaolou said: “You start checking from the twelfth floor downwards, I’ll check the first four floors.”
“Why?”
Xiaolou said: “With no elevator, the foreman is very likely on the first four floors.”
Shen Maomao: “After you, big brother.”
She climbed the stairs first, with Golden Retriever closely following, while Xiaolou started checking from the first floor.
Shen Maomao and Golden Retriever both wore serious expressions. After reaching the fifth floor, Golden Retriever entered the unit on the left to start investigating, while Shen Maomao continued upwards.
Climbing stairs was too painful for a delicate and weak little girl like her. Afraid of wasting time, she didn’t dare to slow her steps, and by the time she reached the tenth floor, her legs could barely move. Shen Maomao gasped for breath, struggling to continue climbing upwards, her heart pounding chaotically, with the artery in her neck throbbing in sync.
—Half of it was due to exhaustion, the other half due to extreme nervousness.
Finally, she reached the twelfth floor and began checking from the left side.
The sky was already somewhat dark, with overcast clouds densely packed outside, obscuring the sun. Inside the house, there were no lights, but there was still some light near the windows, allowing her to see the layout of the room.
Looking around, the room had no furniture, no doors, and no floor, glaringly white, just a completely bare room. But when she looked into the room on the left side, she saw a double bed quilt. The quilt was directly thrown on the floor, not folded, and two sets of bowls and chopsticks were piled on the windowsill, as if someone had been living there.
Shen Maomao thought to herself, could she be so unlucky to have immediately found the foreman’s room?
The foreman looks quite fat; wouldn’t he be tired climbing twelve floors daily?
She turned to look at the doorway, confirmed no one was coming up, then walked to the quilt and flipped it over. The quilt felt unexpectedly cold to the touch, so cold that it made her shiver.
There was nothing inside the quilt. She carefully observed the room, only to discover four letters carved on the wall using some unknown tool — SXSB.
Although she didn’t understand the meaning, she felt it might be useful, perhaps the answer to a password lock, as escape room games often work this way! Shen Maomao silently memorized these four letters, looked around again, and seeing nothing else strange, left this room and turned to enter the opposite door.
Upon entering, she saw a large bamboo mat placed on the ground, with a set of poker cards on top. Inside a small room, she found two single quilts. The quilts were not far apart, with two data cables in between.
It seemed that these two rooms did not belong to the foreman, but to the previous batch of workers.
Shen Maomao, mentally highly tense, quickly finished checking the top three floors.
Each time she entered a new room, it was a kind of torture, because she wasn’t sure if a big boss might appear inside.
The sun had completely disappeared, and the sky had turned a deep, dark blue. The streetlights hadn’t come on yet, making the inside of the house very dim.
Because it wasn’t yet the agreed time, Shen Maomao did not leave. She stood at the doorway of the unit on the left side of the ninth floor, just about to enter, when she heard a man’s voice coming from inside.
“Should we really tell the higher-ups about this? That Shi really is something else.”
Shen Maomao was so scared she nearly jumped. She slowed her breathing, cautiously squatted down, and peered through the crack in the door to look inside.
She saw two vague black shadows standing by the window, with two scarlet points flickering in the darkness.
(If you're not reading on littlepandatranslations.com, it means this has been stolen)
—They were smoking.
Another shadow said: “We must tell. But where do we have connections? Before we find the higher-ups, that Shi guy could kill us.”
The person on the left threw the cigarette butt to the ground and stamped it out, angrily saying: “F*ck it, I can’t tolerate this anymore, he can put—”
He had only spoken halfway when suddenly a burst of chaotic footsteps came from downstairs, accompanied by the foreman’s loud shout: “Who?!”
Shen Maomao glanced toward the stairs, then when she turned back, she discovered that the two black shadows by the window had silently disappeared.
She had thought those two were NPCs! But f*ck, they were actually ghosts?!!
She had actually eavesdropped on a conversation between two ghosts!
Just now she hadn’t felt it, but now it was somewhat creepy.
She didn’t dare to stay there any longer and quietly walked downstairs.
At that moment, all the streetlights lit up, and Shen Maomao looked down through the stairway window to see a slender shadow quickly rushing out of the corridor, followed closely by another slightly fat figure.
It was Xiaolou and the foreman!
