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"Not a staff member? Stop joking. If you help me find the exit, I'll give you two thousand!" the woman raised the price.
"How did you get in here?" Li Chengyi didn't respond to her request but instead asked her.
"I don't know." The woman's eyebrows were filled with irritability and unease, "I had just finished shopping and was going to drive home from the parking garage after taking the elevator down, but when I got out, I realized this wasn't the mall's parking garage."
"The elevator? Is your elevator still there?" Li Chengyi's eyes lit up, and he asked quickly. If they could retrace the woman's path in the opposite direction, maybe they could...
"I don't know!" The woman tightened her grip on her coat, looking somewhat panicked. "When I turned around, I couldn't see it anymore. I took the service lift, which has a big door. Normally, it should be very visible, very easy to find..."
"You didn't have any premonitions?" Li Chengyi, having heard this, was starting to piece together her situation.
"What premonitions? Are you talking about the dream I had before?" The woman asked, slightly puzzled.
"Dreams..." Li Chengyi was at a loss for words. It was clear that she had completely disregarded the previous premonitions and thought they were just dreams.
He thought about it and decided to slowly spill what he knew about the Blind Spot.
As he continued to explain, the impatience on the woman's face grew.
Only when Li Chengyi mentioned a two-meter-tall face monster did she finally lose her patience.
"Sorry, I'm being totally serious. Has nobody ever told you, you've got a great imagination, but this really isn't the time for such stories?"
"I'm aware of the Blind Spot rumors, but those are all fabricated tales. From what I see, these so-called Blind Spots seem more like a covert survival experiment game. Enough of that, now isn't the time for these stories."
She extended her palm and spread her fingers.
"Five thousand, to help me get out, how about that?"
"..." Li Chengyi didn't speak further. He thought for a moment and then made a 'suit yourself' gesture.
There wasn't much point in talking with this person. Without witnessing it herself, she probably wouldn't believe in the existence of the Blind Spot.
"Ten thousand!" The woman spoke seriously again. "Don't be too greedy, this place is just a bit big. If I look for the exit myself, you won't earn any money!"
"You can try." Li Chengyi's gaze swept over the maintenance door from which the creature had emerged once more.
"Also, that monster came out of these small doors. Here's a piece of advice, don't touch these maintenance doors. If you see one open, run immediately."
He was very aware that he couldn't afford to waste time, as the Flower Language Ability could fail at any moment. Once it did, stabilizing the situation as he had before would be difficult.
Immediately, he picked up his things and walked towards the direction the woman had come from without another word.
If the woman said she came down from above, then it's worth continuing upward!
"Hey!" The woman in black didn't expect him to run off and chased after him for a couple of steps. However, her chunky platform shoes hindered her running, and after just a few tries, she could only watch as Li Chengyi turned the corner and disappeared.
"Has he gone mad? Why run so fast!?" She stood in place, gasping for air and leaning on a pillar.
Looking around, the place once again turned silent and desolate, without another soul in sight.
Standing alone by the pillar, the woman's heart began to race once more.
But she didn't have to wait long. Li Chengyi's figure soon returned from around the corner.
He had gone up another level to check but didn't find the elevator the woman mentioned. Instead, he discovered even higher levels of winding paths above.
He didn't dare go any further; who knew how many levels this place really had.
So he quickly came back. At least there was a living person here; being in a group gave a little peace of mind.
From a distance, he saw the woman cursing under her breath by the pillar, not knowing what she was saying. He quickened his pace to approach her.
"Let's do it together, together we'll find a way out," Li Chengyi said without any preamble.
"You really don't know the exit?" The woman asked incredulously. Only now did she notice the outward appearance of the man in front of her.
With black hair and eyes, bloodstains could faintly be seen trailing from the corners of his eyes, giving him a somewhat frightening appearance.
He was slightly slim but exuded a sense of solidity. In his hand was a transparent bag filled with food and water—it looked like this man had come prepared!
A speculation flickered in the woman's eyes. But immediately, the speculation was replaced with a hint of horror.
Because she saw the knife that he was holding in a reverse grip!
In the silent, empty underground parking lot at night, a young man with bloodstains around his eyes calmly stood before her, holding a bag in one hand and a knife in the other, looking at her.
It was as if all the elements of a horror thriller had come together!
The woman stepped back, her expression growing more tense.
"Let's cooperate, find the exit as soon as possible, and then leave," Li Chengyi was still talking, oblivious to the fright his appearance was causing the woman.
"Stay right there! Assuming... assuming everything you said is true, then how can you prove yourself??" At this point, the woman's sense of alarm had reached its peak.
Prove himself?
Li Chengyi, noticing her retreat and then looking down at himself, suddenly realized the woman had misunderstood.
After thinking it through, he took out his phone, turned it on, and checked the time.
"It's 9:12 now. I was pulled into this damn place about half an hour ago while I was taking a walk in the park. I bought quite a few snacks to stock up."
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"You don't have to be afraid, my eyes were just injured by the monster we encountered earlier, it's just an external injury, it should be, no big problem...."
By the end, even he was somewhat uncertain.
"Is that so?" The woman squeezed out a smile on her face but kept backing away until she had put more than ten meters between them. Only then did she stop and stare at Li Chengyi warily.
"Listen, with two people here, we can take turns resting to guard against monsters appearing around us." Li Chengyi spoke firmly.
He genuinely hoped to persuade the woman. Keeping a close eye on the surroundings by himself was just too tiring.
He was beginning to feel unsustainable, his eyes dry, waves of fatigue and sleepiness welling up.
If someone could help keep watch around, giving him ten minutes, no, even five minutes!
Even just five minutes of rest would allow him to recover substantially!
What puzzled him was whether this woman hadn't encountered anything unusual when she arrived? He had encountered the faced monster on his second visit.
Seeing her maintain such a distance from him now, he knew she still didn't trust him.
"The shopping bag in your hand, that's from the Cainemina Mall downtown, right? I remember that place, it's the fanciest mall in Suiyang City. I used to play in the nearby Lanyunsi Park when I was little. Standing on the highest artificial hill in the park, I could even see the Colonel Corn model inside Cainemina."
He tried to make his expression as gentle as possible as he recounted the memories of his previous life.
Colonel Corn was a childhood cartoon character watched by people of their age, its endearing appearance represented many people's beautiful childhood memories.
Indeed, as he described it in such detail, the expression on the woman's face gradually softened.
Clearly, her fear had loosened somewhat.
"So, are you a local born and bred here? What's your name? You don't have to use your real name, just something for me to call you by." She thought for a moment and then asked.
"Cheng Yi, call me Cheng Yi," Li Chengyi replied. "And you?"
"Meng Dongdong," the woman responded. "Alright, I believe you wouldn't deceive me for no reason, but could you put down that knife in your hand first?"
"...." Li Chengyi then noticed that he was still holding a fruit knife.
He was so tense that he hadn't even noticed these details.
After putting the knife down, he took a long breath and then pulled out a wet wipe from his pocket, carefully wiping the blood off his face.
Once he was clean, he looked up again and appeared much more normal.
"Better now?"
"Mm...." Meng Dongdong nodded, her complexion also more at ease. "Let's confirm our situation. You said you've been in here for over half an hour and haven't found an exit, right?"
"Yes."
"Which floor did you come up from below?" she continued to ask.
"The very bottom. From here it's down two or three floors... but I'm not sure if anything will change," Li Chengyi answered.
"Okay, let's not talk about monsters or anything for now, just focus on finding an exit." Meng Dongdong took a deep breath, gave a hand signal, and signaled to Li Chengyi to listen to her.
"Typically, the entrance and exit to an underground parking garage are on the top floor, so you were also making your way up.
But let me tell you, there's no exit to be found by going up," she said somberly.
"Before I ran into you, I rushed up five floors in one go, and they were all identical parking garage environments. That's why I chose to go down, to see if there's any new breakthrough."
"Then why did you think I was one of the staff here?" Li Chengyi asked.
"I thought I had been kidnapped," Meng Dongdong answered, looking somewhat exhausted.
"Kidnapped?"
"Yes, some freaks like to kidnap people for experiments out of nowhere, like that movie 'Elevator Horror', isn't that the plot?" she replied. "People are captured and observed to see what actions they take to survive."
Li Chengyi was at a loss for words.
If he hadn't actually encountered the monster, he might have harbored the same suspicions as her.
Seeing that Meng Dongdong had calmed down, he began to slowly talk about some of the local features, news, and other realistic aspects of Suiyang.
This concrete exchange of daily information further stabilized Meng Dongdong's emotions, and she was no longer terror-stricken or fearful of him.
But in reality, although Li Chengyi appeared stable on the surface, his eyes would still occasionally sweep toward the small door to the repair room.
Behind that small door was an unknown creature that he had stabilized using his Flower Language Ability.
If the ability failed, the monster could emerge at any moment and attack the living.
So, outwardly calm, inside he remained tightly wound without relaxation.
After chatting for a while, he felt that Meng Dongdong's emotions had stabilized, but his own mental state was getting worse.
Finally, he made a request.
"Can you do me a favor? I need to find a place to rest; you keep watch for any monsters that might approach!"
"You do look quite bad," Meng Dongdong frowned, noting that the young man called Cheng Yi was really tired and exhausted.
"How long do you need to rest?" Her question was an implicit agreement to help keep watch.