Chapter Ninety: The Room on the Second Floor and the Back Chamber

As Jiang Wan pushed the door open, the familiar room was no longer tainted by any filth. The girl’s room had become tidy; the wallpaper seemed to have been freshly applied, and the bed on the left, along with the adjacent desk, appeared much cleaner. The implements previously placed there for ritual-like purposes had all been removed.

However, Zhang Lan was nowhere to be seen in the room.

"Is she not here? Could she have accidentally wandered into the Backrooms?" Jiang Wan frowned, her fingertips brushing against the bedsheets.

The quilt was slightly dusty and felt damp to the touch. She turned her head toward the unlatched window; that, at least, was to be expected.

"How could she send me text messages if she were in the Backrooms..." Chen Qing furrowed his brows, his gaze sweeping across the room. "And her parents are missing too... This is highly abnormal."

Before he could finish, he turned his gaze toward Bu Zhaozhao, who was standing slightly above them, and asked, "Is it possible that after her whole family accidentally entered the Backrooms, her parents lost their consciousness, transformed into entities, and then relied on their primal survival instincts to escape? While Zhang Lan, having taken sufficient protective measures, remains alive inside?"

Bu Zhaozhao listened and nodded, but after searching the room for a moment, she spoke with a hint of confusion: "Your theory is possible. But entities cannot leave the Backrooms relying on their pre-transformation will. And as for Zhang Lan being alive... I remain skeptical. Theoretically, once an entity leaves the Backrooms, it cannot travel very far, due to various limitations. But then again, is there truly an entrance to the Backrooms in this building? Here..."

"You can't possibly think those two entities downstairs were brought here by someone else," Chen Qing asked, frowning again. "Who would have such capability? If they were already able to contain these two entities, there would be no need to transport them here. They could have just lured us in and sliced us up for dinner; there would be no point."

"So you mean..."

"The entrance to the Backrooms must be here; we just don't know how to access it."

Chen Qing looked at Bu Zhaozhao, appearing somewhat surprised. "How could you..."

He didn't finish his sentence, but the implication was clear: How could you, Bu Zhaozhao, fail to see such an obvious phenomenon? It didn't make sense.

After he spoke, Jiang Wan also regarded her with suspicion. Bu Zhaozhao’s status was so illustrious that even after two hundred years of seclusion, they wouldn't expect her to fail to grasp such basic concepts.

As they pondered this, Chen Qing’s gaze suddenly froze.

"So... what if this place is the Backrooms?" He looked up at Bu Zhaozhao, whose sanity seemed to be deteriorating further.

"What Backrooms! This absolutely cannot be the Backrooms! What kind of joke is this! I didn't even notice! I!"

Her words became increasingly like the ramblings of a drunkard. Her face flushed, her hands gestured wildly in the air, and she spoke in a way that no one could understand. She muttered about "bureaucracy and capital," then rambled about "academia and power."

As she spoke, she seemed to grow tired. Without saying goodbye to Chen Qing or Jiang Wan, her figure began to fade in mid-air, turning translucent before vanishing entirely.

Chen Qing touched the pendant on his chest, his expression turning grave.

"When exactly did we enter the Backrooms..."

Jiang Wan looked around, her expression darkening. "Could this Backroom be limited to just this one room?"

"Let's go out and see..." He turned to push the door open, but the world before him had undergone a cataclysmic change.

What met his eyes was a structure remarkably similar to a football stadium.

In the center was a vast, flat, and spacious ground. Along the edges, there were staircases leading up to the second, third, and fourth floors. Except for the first floor, every level was enclosed by opaque glass, and with each floor, the building protruded slightly outward. By the fourth floor, the opening left in the ceiling was no wider than a single person.

Chen Qing frowned and looked to his side; from this angle, one could see that each level was supported by only a finger's width, with the ceiling of the lower room serving as the walkway for the one above.

"Is this... a shopping mall?" Jiang Wan followed behind him. The moment she stepped out, her eyes were filled with shock. The merchandise on the first floor was actually being sold.

There, hundreds of creatures were searching for items they desired. They would take goods from the shelves, pay at the counter, and then vanish from the pair's sight.

"What is going on with this place?" Jiang Wan turned her head, casting her gaze toward Chen Qing, but contrary to her expectations, Chen Qing seemed equally bewildered.

"Let's head back first."

He took Jiang Wan’s hand, and after returning to the room, they sat down on Zhang Lan’s bed.

"Can we consider Zhang Lan’s room the entrance to the Backrooms?" Jiang Wan frowned, looking toward the mysterious window to their front left.

Beyond the window lay a sky of blue clouds and sunshine, looking so beautiful it didn't seem real. It was like a scene buried deep within the recesses of memory. It was so exquisite that one could even smell the fragrance of grass drifting in from outside.

But how could this be? Zhang Lan lived in the city center; the world outside should have been steel and concrete, not blue skies and fragrant grass.

She frowned and stood up, walking toward the window. Under Chen Qing’s watchful eye, she retrieved a chair and placed it beneath the window. He watched as Jiang Wan stepped onto it, standing straight until her eyes reached the level of the window.

He stood up and walked over to her, steadying the chair, his curiosity piqued. "What do you see?"

She gripped the wall inside the window frame, straining to reach higher. She stood on her tiptoes, her face flushing red from the effort. She tilted her head back, not daring to answer Chen Qing’s question. At that moment, her eyes beheld what lay beyond the window.

Instantly, her arms pushed forward violently. The reaction force against the wall caused her body to sway sharply. Though the chair remained steady, she lost her balance and tumbled backward. Within a mere two or three seconds, she fell directly from the chair.

Fortunately, Chen Qing had been watching; he scooped her into his arms, preventing her from hitting the floor and suffering a serious injury.

She looked at Chen Qing, who was only a few inches away, her face filled with terror. She turned pale, gritting her teeth so hard that the veins on her temples bulged. She pointed toward the window, trembling with fear.

"What is it?" He frowned and was about to turn around when he heard Jiang Wan’s voice: "Someone... someone is there."

As she said, hanging outside the mysterious window was a person. A person who might still be alive, or perhaps already dead.

Her fingertips trembled from the fall, but she steadied herself with sheer willpower.

She caught her breath and reconstructed the scene in her mind.

It was a person, she said, pointing toward the window.

It was a person whose eyes were turned inside out; there wasn't a single patch of healthy flesh on his face. His body was covered in snails that had grown out of the fields. These snails crawled over every part of him, swallowing his rotting flesh.

He looked at those inside the window and opened his mouth to smile; his tongue had been devoured by a bivalve—or perhaps it wasn't a bivalve, but its shell filled his entire oral cavity.

The carotid artery in his neck was occupied by clumps of waterweed, which pushed out a black, pipe-like vein beneath his skin.

His chest was still rising and falling, but the movement didn't seem to be caused by breathing.

She said: At the window, it is packed with people—all of them dead.

She added: Hurry and look, they are all staring at us!

She pointed to the window, urging Chen Qing to climb up using the chair she had set. He braced himself and poked his head out of the window, but what met his eyes was a vast, white, hazy expanse, as if the world had been split in two: the upper layer was the sky, and the lower layer was a snowy, white void.

He turned his head, his face full of confusion, but he didn't utter a single word to question Jiang Wan. He knew that in this world, anything was possible.

"If Zhang Lan was in a similar state to us, how did she manage to send me that text message?"

He pulled Jiang Wan up and picked up the handgun she had dropped.

"Does this mean... she left and then came back?"

Chen Qing nodded, focusing his attention back on the room.

"If she left or escaped from here, she must have left something behind."

He fell silent, his gaze fixed on the desk with the mirror. He walked forward, and since Jiang Wan had moved the chair aside, it was easier for him to crouch down and search.

He knelt under the desk; it was quite new, smelling of a mixture of wood and paint. He reached out and felt the legs of the desk; the texture was exactly as expected. This tactile sensation came from the paint.

"It hasn't been stained by any other fluids..."

He looked up and pulled the drawer. With a clatter, the entire desk shook.

"Locked?" He reduced his force, and Jiang Wan approached from behind. She looked at the drawer and pulled a multi-tool from her waist, handing it to Chen Qing.

"Try this..." Her face was still pale, but her demeanor had improved significantly. She unfolded the multi-tool, and Chen Qing inserted the thin, sharp blade into the gap of the desk.

He pried it back and forth for a moment, and with a snap, the drawer slid open.

He reached out and pulled the drawer out completely. The items inside were revealed to them: a sealed nutrient pack, a bottle of psychiatric medication, a sticky note, and a hand-cranked flashlight.