CHAPTER 63: CHAPTER 63: OFFICE BUILDING

"Huh? You’re actually giving it to me?"

Sun Hang picked up the cup of coffee—the cup was exquisite, made of bone china with ice crack patterns. The rim of the cup was lined with a circle of gold, and the coffee inside was filled to eight tenths full, with a small ring of fine foam clinging to the inner walls.

Sun Hang brought the cup to his nose and sniffed. A rich, burnt aroma entered his nostrils, but amidst this aroma, there was a faint, almost indiscernible smell of blood.

"Drinking this might make you question life itself, with the runs," Sun Hang muttered as he stood up and walked over to the figure labeled "Bing Six Three Four," "How about this: I think your stomach can handle it, why don’t you drink it for me?"

With that, Sun Hang gripped the hair on "Bing Six Three Four," lifted it from its tattered humanoid form, and used four mycelial threads to force its mouth open, pouring the entire cup of coffee inside.

"Bing Six Three Four" began to struggle desperately, but hundreds of sturdy mycelial threads bound it tightly, leaving it no choice but to let the brown-black liquid flow down its throat.

As soon as the coffee touched its hollow cavity, it began to boil immediately—the coffee seemed to turn into a highly corrosive liquid, burning through its throat in an instant, and leaking out from its neck.

The struggling force transmitted through the mycelial threads suddenly grew stronger, and Sun Hang could completely feel the kind of pain "Bing Six Three Four" was going through.

Wait a minute? Could an eerie entity feel pain?

This thought had just flashed through Sun Hang’s mind when the mycelial threads abruptly loosened. "Bing Six Three Four" melted rapidly like heated wax, turning into a pool of viscous glue made of skin, fat, and flesh.

"Disgusting," Sun Hang took two steps back, wiping the glue from the soles of his shoes on the dry carpet.

At this moment, he noticed that in the original spot of "Bing Six Three Four," there was a metal object lying in the pool of glue.

"... Is this, like, dropped loot?"

Sun Hang had just bent over, then paused and stood up again, grabbing a plastic folder from the desk to scoop out the metal object from the glue.

Next, he found a half-empty bottle of mineral water in one of the cubicles and used it to wash the residual glue off the metal object completely.

It was a key.

The key was entirely copper-colored, with a very antiquated design. The main body was a roughly five-centimeter-long copper rod with a small section of jagged protrusions near the end—this type of key was typically used in locksets made in the last century or earlier. In modern society, keys of this design usually appear as crafts and decorative items rather than serving their original purpose.

"Although I’m not sure if this eerie entity is really ’Bing Six Three Four’... it’s most likely a product of time displacement, which means it probably originated from sixty-five years ago." Sun Hang carefully examined the key, "If it’s from sixty-five years ago, keys like this were quite common... just not sure where the lock that matches this key is located."

This eerie office building that trapped Sun Hang was filled with modern style, with office doors equipped with electronic locks using facial and fingerprint recognition. An antique key like this clearly wasn’t meant for use here.

Sun Hang casually slipped the key into his pocket and then surveyed his surroundings.

In typical horror scenes, the environment is often shrouded in darkness, or at least the lighting equipment is made to "fail" intermittently, creating an effect where shadows constantly shift, keeping nerves on edge. But the floor Sun Hang was on was brightly lit, lacking the atmosphere typical of environmental entities.

To leave this place, there were three options: the elevators inside the office building, the emergency stairwell, and the large hole Sun Hang had just carved in the glass curtain wall.

The elevators and stairwells were decidedly questionable, but the endless darkness beyond the glass curtain wall was also clearly untrustworthy.

Sun Hang walked over to the curtain wall and peered outside.

He had a feeling that if he jumped out, he might fall continuously into the darkness, as if into a bottomless abyss, never reaching the ground.

He turned back, rummaged briefly on a doll with a very protruding backside, and found a phone—it was locked with a fingerprint. Sun Hang could only try each of the doll’s fingers, but none could unlock the phone.

When Sun Hang was about to give up, his own thumb inadvertently swiped across the screen, and the previously dim screen lit up instantly.

"Almost forgot about this trick," Sun Hang muttered, rubbing his thumb pad before focusing on the phone screen.

The phone contained nothing but the factory-installed apps. The gallery, contacts, call logs—everything was empty. Naturally, there was no signal either.

But Sun Hang didn’t plan to make a call. Instead, after activating the phone’s flashlight and turning it to its maximum brightness, he tossed the phone out through the hole in the glass curtain wall.

The glowing phone descended rapidly, disappearing into the darkness after about thirty seconds.

Assuming he was on the twenty-ninth floor of the building, the height from the ground at most would be over a hundred meters, certainly no more than two hundred meters... The phone shouldn’t have taken thirty seconds to fall without hitting the ground.

And from the falling speed when he let go, it seemed the space outside didn’t have any gravitational anomalies.

"Alright, the third path is basically ruled out," Sun Hang concluded.

He entered a cubicle where a computer was still running on a desk; the screen cluttered with gibberish text, as if created by someone driven mad by 996 hours rolling their face across the keyboard. A glance at the bottom right corner of the screen confirmed the status—"Unable to access the internet."

"Hey, the internet’s down; is anyone handling this?" Sun Hang called out, looking up.

The unexplainable appearance of the coffee earlier confirmed that this eerie office building was conscious—not only did it possess awareness, but it also understood what Sun Hang said.

In other words, it was possible to communicate.

But this time, the building gave no response.

"If you don’t speak up, I’ll set it on fire," Sun Hang threatened, pretending to ignite something, "If a fire breaks out here, there’s no fire brigade that can reach this place, right?"

Still, there was no response.

Sun Hang wasted no time and immediately sought out something to ignite, but after finding seven or eight lighters, he realized none had any fuel, incapable of producing a flame.

"Can’t handle it, huh..." Sun Hang glanced at the array of lighters on the table with a hint of dissatisfaction.

This eerie entity seemingly could control items within the building at will, so even if Sun Hang attempted to "create fire by friction," it’s likely the kindling material he prepared would be replaced with a flame-retardant counterpart just before ignition.

From some angles, environmental entities possess a certain degree of "rule-based abilities," although not as overwhelmingly unbeatable and irrefutable as "Type A Rule-class" entities. These rule-based abilities still exert significant suppression on humans trapped within.

If the entity desired, it could even create a variety of lethal tools; it could turn the ground beneath Sun Hang’s feet into a trap filled with bayonets, bombs, or strong acid, but...

"Then why hasn’t this office building actively attacked me? Leading me here just to trap me?" Sun Hang was somewhat puzzled—even the entity that seemed to be "Bing Six Three Four" didn’t show a shred of aggression toward Sun Hang.

This was unusual.