Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
The teachers’ office building had been constructed this summer, and the smell of formaldehyde had yet to completely disperse. Thus, there were not many people there.
Teacher Shi Qingsong was carrying a stack of documents and standing in front of the elevator while pressing the button.
He was wearing round-frame glasses and a dark shirt. He had neatly-combed hair, a calm and steady face, and an amiable and easy-going temperament. He looked just like a professor who read poetry in photos of the Republic of China.
He treated others kindly. Middle-aged Shi Qingsong had always been a good teacher in the eyes of the students, a good subordinate in the eyes of the school principal, a good husband in the eyes of his wife, and a good father in the eyes of his children.
The elevator descended from the upper floor and the door slowly opened with a ding-dong.
A person was standing in the corner of the elevator, wearing a yellow construction protective helmet and a blue work uniform. His pants were stained with large patches of black slurry, and the protective gloves on his hands looked really worn-out.
He was just an ordinary construction site worker wearing a white mask. His age and face weren’t obvious.
“Is this building still being renovated?”
While Shi Qingsong was thinking to himself, he entered the elevator and immediately smelled a pungent odor of renovation materials.
Without a doubt, the source of the smell was the worker. He seemed to have noticed Shi Qingsong’s gaze, so he quickly took a few steps back.
Shi Qingsong coughed awkwardly. Nevertheless, he smiled slightly with courtesy. He held his breath and reached out to press the button to the first floor.
The elevator continued to descend. In the narrow, confined space, that pungent smell grew increasingly worse. It seemed as though it was going to dig into his nostrils, enter his throat, and corrode his pulmonary alveolus.
Shi Qingsong pretended to move his foot by accident away from the source of the smell. At the same time, he used the documents in his hands to cover his nose and slowly breathed.
Drip, drip.
He heard the sound of liquid dripping.
Shi Qingsong did not look back. Through the bright mirror-like walls in the elevator, he could see some kind of black liquid slowly dripping from the legs of the worker’s pants.
Was it slurry?
He pursed his lips and tightened his grip on the documents, silently hoping that the elevator would reach the first floor as soon as possible.
Drip drip, drip drip.
The black muddy water kept dripping. Very soon, a large puddle formed under the worker’s feet, taking up more than half of the elevator floor.
At the same time, that pungent smell grew increasingly worse. It was about to sting his skin and seep into his heart.
What was going on?
While Shi Qingsong took two steps back to avoid the puddle of liquid spreading toward him, he stared at the silent worker.
This stare nearly left him with half his soul.
He only noticed that the construction worker had lifeless eyes and his pupils were turbid. There was also a red color around his black pupils.
These were the eyes of a dead man!
Shi Qingsong felt goosebumps all over and suddenly recalled a piece of news that was related to this building.
Just two months ago, the road in front of this building had been rebuilt and repaved. A construction worker had been working beside a truck spreading asphalt gravel.
All of a sudden, the axle on one side of the truck had broken and the truck bed had poured its contents down. The hot asphalt gravel had instantly covered half of the construction worker’s body.
The construction team had hurried forward to try to rescue him. However, because of the high viscosity of the asphalt and its high pressure, in combination with the fact that there was too much rubble inside, the worker had not been pulled out.
Furthermore, the hot asphalt had been sticky and hot, making it impossible to cut it mechanically. It could only be dug by a hoe or a spade.
After digging for ten minutes, the worker had finally been dug out. However, his lower half had been cooked alive by the hot asphalt… He had no chance of being rescued.
Fortunately or unfortunately, the worker had entered a coma within a few minutes after the incident without suffering much pain. On the other hand, the construction side had compensated his family with a huge sum of money for aftercare expenses.
In order to avoid a negative impact, the school had strictly prohibited those who knew about this incident to disclose it to outsiders. The school staff could not discuss this with each other either. As one of the few people who knew about it, Shi Qingsong would secretly speed up whenever he walked past the road in front of the teachers’ office building.
Drip drip, drip drip.
He pushed aside his thoughts.
Like a small-scale waterfall, the black turbid liquid that dripped down from the legs of the construction worker’s pants was a mixture of hot asphalt and blood plasma.
The hot, sticky, pungent smell was full of something else. There was a faint barbecue fragrance.
The construction worker took a step forward, but the asphalt under his feet was as thick as glue, tearing the rubber sole and the durable cloth on the construction uniform.
As if he hadn’t noticed the hot asphalt, he took another step forward. The sticky asphalt was like a pair of big hands that firmly pulled at the bare skin of his leg.
As he moved his thighs with only his flesh left, the worker walked toward Shi Qingsong unhurriedly.
“Ah!”
Shi Qingsong, who was frightened, shouted in fear without showing the refined, amiable character of a scholar.
He tried to step back at all costs and pressed his back against the elevator door desperately. At the same time, he kept pressing the emergency button in the elevator madly with his trembling hands.
The area where he was standing was the only safe island not submerged in asphalt.
Ding-dong.
The elevator bell rang. They had arrived on the first floor.
The door opened in response to the sound. Shi Qingsong, whose glasses were crooked, let his documents scatter everywhere and quickly pried open the elevator door before rushing out.
He had forgotten one thing.
When he had been a child, his grandmother had told him not to run if he saw a ghost. This was because one’s heels would be lifted when one ran. The spirits would use this chance to press their toes under a person’s heel to occupy their human body.
Behind him, where he couldn’t see, the worker in the elevator stood upright with his toes pointed just like a stationary ballet dancer and floated out of the elevator.
The lobby on the first floor was empty and silent. Only the footsteps of Shi Qingsong running frantically broke this tranquility.
He would run out of the door soon and get bathed in sunlight.
When his finger finally touched the door handle, the ghost’s toes were swiftly placed under Shi Qingsong’s lifted heels.
Shi Qingsong, who had been frantically running, suddenly paused. He stood upright expressionlessly and walked to the lobby wall of the teachers’ office building. Using the reflection of the ceramic wall tiles, he calmly put on his crooked glasses properly, wiped off the sweat on his forehead, and combed his hair neatly.
Thud, thud, thud.
‘Shi Qingsong’ turned around very calmly and walked back to the elevator. He saw that everything in the elevator seemed to be normal. There were no drops of asphalt or blood plasma.
He squatted down and picked up the scattered sheets of paper on the floor before taking them into his arms.
At an angle that was not visible, ‘Shi Qingsong’ smiled widely in the elevator and the strange corners of his mouth almost reached his ears.