Chapter 22: The Orphanage

When he opened his eyes again, he was still in the security room.

It seemed that every time this scenario switched between day and night, it would always place him in the security room. Zhou You turned his head and glanced at the clock.

The time looked fixed as well.

Just like the last time he arrived, the security room was still completely empty, and he was wearing the same brand-new security uniform. However, compared to before, the place was far messier.

Or rather, much more than merely messy.

Tables, chairs, and other furniture had been overturned and shoved aside. Logs and files were scattered everywhere. Even the television that had long since been broken had been knocked onto the floor, its screen smashed to pieces.

Zhou You searched through the clutter for a while, then muttered to himself.

“It doesn’t look like a robbery. It looks more like someone was searching this security room for something. As for whether they found it...”

Turning his head, Zhou You glanced at two flower vases nearby that had clearly been smashed out of frustration.

“Judging by this, they probably didn’t find it. But that raises another question. What could possibly be worth tearing apart a lousy little security room like this?”

Zhou You conducted a thorough search as well, but like the intruder, he found nothing. The security room was so small that everything could be seen at a glance. The thin walls and floor didn’t look like they concealed any hidden compartments either.

In the end, he could only shake his head and leave.

After all, daytime was limited. He had to use every moment wisely.

The scenery outside was much the same as the previous day. The only notable difference was that the fog had become even denser. If he had once been able to make out the appearances of pedestrians, now he could only see vague, blurry silhouettes.

“But it doesn’t matter much. There’s no way to communicate with these people anyway.”

Within the milky-white fog, Zhou You followed the familiar patrol route forward.

Perhaps because he had cleared two stages during the night, the area he could move through during the day had expanded considerably. The fog barrier that had previously blocked Yuanshun Intersection was gone. He easily passed the former stall location and arrived before the alley where the children had played their game.

Yet here, he stopped.

Unlike the seamless scenery of the night, a peculiar building had suddenly appeared beside the pitch-black alley, as though it had materialized from nowhere.

From the outside, it was a detached structure. Its footprint was neither especially large nor particularly small, roughly two to three hundred square meters (about 2,150 to 3,230 square feet). The building itself had two stories and a brick-and-stone construction. At the top hung a battered signboard.

Home of Angels.

But the building looked as though it had suffered a fire. The entire structure had been blackened by soot. Numerous collapsed sections were visible at a glance. To prevent curious passersby from wandering in and getting hurt, a ring of metal fencing had been erected around the perimeter.

“This must be the orphanage from that little ghost’s nursery rhyme.”

Zhou You casually looked it over and felt there was probably nothing useful here. After all, he had already cleared that game and no longer needed to search for clues.

Just as he was about to leave, however, he suddenly sensed something off.

The next moment, he slowly crouched down, grabbed a handful of dirt from beneath the fence, and rubbed it gently between his fingers.

The moisture deep within the soil had not yet dissipated. Judging by the dampness, these fences had been erected less than half a day ago.

No, probably only a few hours ago.

An interested expression appeared on Zhou You’s face.

“But here’s the question. Why would anyone suddenly decide to fence off a fire-damaged building that’s been abandoned for years?”

“Did some accident just happen?”

“Or is this a ripple effect caused by me clearing the alley last night?”

With that thought, Zhou You became even more interested.

Taking several steps back, he sprinted forward and lightly vaulted over the fence. Crossing the bare ground with no vegetation to obstruct it, he arrived before the orphanage and gently pushed on the relatively intact iron gate.

It wasn’t locked.

The gate opened with a creak, releasing a cloud of stale, choking dust.

Judging by the condition of the place, those recent visitors had merely fenced off the building. The structure itself had clearly not been visited in a very long time.

Coughing twice, Zhou You endured the dusty air and stepped inside.

The interior looked much like any building after a fire. Burned furniture and dark black ash were everywhere. By the light filtering through the windows, he casually surveyed the room and found nothing unusual.

“The main entrance leads directly into the lobby. Normally, there wouldn’t be any clues here. Nobody would openly leave private items in a place where people are constantly coming and going, so...”

He casually grasped the handle of a door leading deeper inside and pulled it open.

Beyond it appeared to be a cafeteria.

The scene was equally dilapidated and desolate. Several surviving tables remained inside. Zhou You rummaged around and found only a few charred potatoes.

The talent called Keen Observation chose that moment to make its presence known, but unfortunately all it identified was worthless junk.

Still nothing.

Yet there was no sign of anxiety on his face.

Since he had already come this far, at worst he could spend a revival token to reset the daytime segment.

With that in mind, he headed directly toward the next area.

But when he opened the following door, Zhou You’s eyes instinctively narrowed.

The sudden change in brightness had stung them.

Separated by only a single doorway, the environment instantly became extremely dark.

Unlike the lobby and cafeteria, this innermost room had no windows whatsoever. The only illumination came faintly through cracks left behind by the fire.

Yet despite the cramped darkness, more than a dozen iron bunk beds had been crammed into the small room. The beds packed every corner so densely that there was barely any space left to stand.

“Looks like this was the children’s dormitory.”

After estimating the room’s dimensions, Zhou You concluded that each bed space could barely fit a single child.

“And a terrible living environment at that. The people running this orphanage really understood how to maximize space. They managed to squeeze this many people into what should’ve been an ordinary dormitory.”

He casually picked up a doll that had somehow escaped the flames, dusted it off, and examined it briefly before shaking his head and returning it to its original place.

“The doll is cheaply made too. Inferior fabric, and the stuffing is probably the cheapest toxic cotton available. Combined with the fact that I didn’t see any decent food in the kitchen, it looks like the children’s living standards here had already been cut down to a shocking degree.”

Zhou You had heard of such things in the real world.

Some orphanages would take in far more children than they could properly support in order to fraudulently collect government subsidies. To those directors, the children were nothing more than tools for making money. Every possible expense was cut. There had even been news stories of children freezing or starving to death.

Still, those incidents belonged to a distant past.

Now that he was seeing a scene like this with his own eyes, even as someone who generally enjoyed watching chaos unfold, he felt a trace of discomfort.

Letting out a soft sigh, Zhou You decided there were probably no clues here either and prepared to head upstairs.

Yet the instant he turned around, his entire body suddenly froze.

The reason was simple.

Right before his eyes, standing in the shadow beside the cafeteria doorway,

was a child.

A child whose entire body had been burned black.

Its eyes and mouth had vanished completely.

Using only empty eye sockets, it stared at him.

Like a malicious ghost.