Chapter 82.1 – Abandoned Factory (2)
Returning to this place, Glasses still seemed haunted. He stood outside the decaying iron gate for a long time, peering through the railing at the scene inside several times. Only after confirming that there were no abnormalities did he reluctantly take a cautious step forward.
The gate was locked, but he had already opened it before and, in his haste, hadn’t had time to close it. They could go in directly.
Inside the factory, the first thing they saw was a stack of unused but rusted steel materials. Weeds broke through the floor tiles, growing vigorously, already more than half a calf high.
Walking into the thick grass, Jiang Yujin bent down to touch the leaves of the wild grass, his figure seemingly disappearing into the foliage. He said, “These grasses have grown quite tall.”
Glasses Boss was still afraid of the second appearance of the dark shadow. After entering, he searched while remaining vigilant. Seeing someone not far away casually observing the wild grass, he reminded him to quickly look for the wallet and phone.
Jiang Yujin raised his head, took out the hand in his pocket, nodded, and asked, “Boss, what do your phone and wallet look like?”
Glasses described them as both black, with the wallet being leather and containing various identification cards.
He mentioned that at that time, he was only focused on running and didn’t notice where these two things had fallen. However, he was certain they fell in the front yard of the factory, and there was even the sound of them pressing against the grass stalks and leaves. If nothing unexpected happened, the two of them could find them in no time together.
—But they found nothing.
Nowhere at all.
Clearing away the deep grass, the two of them searched the front yard of the factory. Apart from the various mechanical parts that had fallen into the grass and were already half-buried in the soil, they couldn’t find anything else.
Jiang Yujin asked Glasses, “Is it possible that you remembered the wrong place? Are you sure they fell here?”
His memory told him that these two things must have fallen in the front yard, but after searching the entire yard and hearing questioning voices from nearby, even Glasses himself became uncertain.
Perhaps it wasn’t that he remembered wrong, but that something had moved the two items to another location.
Jiang Yujin looked up at the tightly closed factory door and asked, “Should we go in and look?”
Glasses looked at the dilapidated windows above the door and the faded slogans on the walls. The window was pitch black, appearing as if something lurked within, silently waiting for him to walk right in.
Jiang Yujin took great care of his client and said, “If you don’t want to go in, you can wait here. I can go in alone.”
Despite his fear, Glasses decided to go in together.
Jiang Yujin glanced at the person next to him and stepped forward.
The factory gate was also unlocked, merely ajar, with a broken lock hanging on it, pretending to be secure.
Actually, there was no need to pretend. No one would want to come to this eerie place, let alone enter it.
The interior of the factory was indeed as dark as imagined. There were windows, but compared to the entire building, they were small and mostly obstructed by leaves, barely allowing any light in. One could only vaguely see an outline.
While Jiang Yujin could discern the structure of the factory, his client couldn’t. So, Jiang Yujin kindly turned on his phone’s flashlight to illuminate the surroundings for his client.
The areas illuminated by the light were covered in thick dust. The factory seemed to have stopped production abruptly, with most machines still in place, and tangled wires on the floor.
Glasses stepped over various debris and wires on the floor, searching the ground.
Jiang Yujin looked down at machines that showed no signs of recent use and asked, “This place stopped discharging pollutants a long time ago. Boss, what was your intention in buying this factory?”
The inability to discharge pollutants meant the inability to resume factory operations. The location wasn’t suitable for residential use or farming, especially given its remote location, with almost zero geographical value.
People who bought such factories at a time like this were either misguided or had their own plans.
Glasses seemed to belong to the latter category. He said, “The future development direction is involved in this. I can’t reveal it temporarily.”
Jiang Yujin nodded and looked down at the ground.
Besides his footprints from today, there were other footprints on the ground, quite new and not yet covered by dust, still visible.
Following the footprints, Jiang Yujin walked forward and eventually stopped at a wall. The footprints paused here before turning back.
He examined the wall in front of him. It was an ordinary wall, no different from the others around it, except for peeling paint that had fallen off in a large piece, revealing the gray concrete underneath.
A black thin line protruded from the concrete.
Before Jiang Yujin could take action, Glasses, who had been observing from a distance, said, “I’ll search the first floor. Can you check the second floor?”
As the one paying, Jiang Yujin nodded. He found the stairs, left the current location, and ascended the stairs.
There were no footprints on the stairs; the newest footprints were the ones he just made.
The second floor, apart from having a different layout from the first floor, seemed similar in appearance. Walls of the same color, windows that barely let in any light, and dilapidated surfaces all indicated that this place hadn’t been visited or cared for in a long time.
Although there were no signs of anyone on the second floor, Jiang Yujin still circled around responsibly. In the silence, he glanced down at the ground once, then withdrew his gaze and continued his small circle.
The flashlight’s beam could only illuminate limited areas, and there were unknown things churning in the darkness.
It had been a while since they entered the factory, and the shadow from yesterday had not reappeared. Glasses finally breathed a sigh of relief, no longer as tense as before.
As he lifted his foot to continue walking, something caught his ankle.
—It wasn’t a trip but a grip on his ankle. A dark, misty substance completely engulfed his ankle.
“Help—”
Before he could finish his plea, the force on his foot suddenly increased. Unable to maintain balance, he quickly tilted forward, fell to the ground, scraped his face, and swallowed a mouthful of dust.
The phone fell with the screen facing up, the light extinguished completely. He was swiftly dragged into the darkness by whatever had grabbed his ankle.
“Help!”
His final cry for help was muffled by the piled-up debris, and a sense of despair rapidly spread.
Fortunately, the person on the second floor heard his voice. Although he couldn’t see in the darkness, he could hear a series of footsteps coming from the second floor, getting closer.
As the footsteps approached, the gripping sensation on his foot disappeared. He could even sense a feeling similar to fear emanating from the void.
Arriving from the second floor, Jiang Yujin picked up his fallen phone as soon as he reached the scene, checking if it was damaged.
It was evident that he genuinely cared about his mobile phone.
Glasses Boss, still lying on the ground, said, “…”
Generally speaking, shouldn’t he prioritize concern for his client first? Shouldn’t he?
After confirming that his phone had landed safely on a nearby cushion without any damage, Jiang Yujin relaxed. It was only then that he remembered his client. Holding the still-lit flashlight to illuminate the person on the ground, he asked with confusion, “Why are you on the ground?”
Seemingly without any intention of offering help. Glasses managed to get up with some difficulty, his voice trembling as he said, “I encountered the same thing as yesterday.”
Jiang Yujin symbolically shone his phone around, indicating that he didn’t see anything.
Glasses looked down at his ankle, and the person standing beside him also glanced down. In just a short period, his ankle had turned completely purple, as if imprinted by several fingerprints.
Something had indeed been present here just now.
Jiang Yujin raised an eyebrow, showing some surprise but not much. Glasses asked him, “Do you know what this thing is?”
Jiang Yujin stated that he hadn’t seen it before, so he didn’t dare to conclude easily but speculated that it could be a type of grudge spirit.
A grudge spirit feeds on human resentment and becomes more powerful as the grudge intensifies, usually appearing as a dark shadow. He wasn’t sure about the specifics; he had only heard about it from friends.
He asked Glasses, “Boss, did you provoke someone?”
Glasses wiped his sweat and replied, “Maybe, I’m not sure.”
Finally breathing more freely, he asked back, “How did you know I was here?”
The factory was very dark, and without the assistance of a phone flashlight, it was challenging to see anything. The stairs to the second floor were quite a distance away, so theoretically, he shouldn’t be able to see anything from there.
Jiang Yujin casually pointed to his ear, saying, “Don’t judge me by appearances. My ears still work fine.”
