I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 143 - 143 142. The Person in the Wall_1

Chapter 143: 142. The Person in the Wall_1 Chapter 143: 142. The Person in the Wall_1 Of course, it’s better to gather as much information as possible before entering the room at the end of the fifth-floor corridor.

Liu Qingjiang was the demolition supervisor prior to the suspension of the demolition work. On the day the work was halted, he, who was on duty, disappeared. According to his last written notes, he had seen the light on in the room at the end of the fifth-floor corridor and went over to check it out, only to vanish afterward.

It was not difficult to deduce that Liu Qingjiang might have seen something on the fifth floor that led to his unfortunate fate.

Lu Ban could now probably summarize some patterns.

Firstly, if one used the stairs, they might encounter something the size of an infant following them, leaving footprints. Perhaps, if it followed you to the fifth floor, some unpleasant events would occur. From this point on, the missing nurse Xu Xiao had not lied.

Secondly, everyone who had seen whatever was inside the room at the end of the fifth-floor corridor vanished. However, Lu Ban suspected that they were not missing, but trapped within this alternate dimension. Just like the mission description had stated, these missing individuals had not died, they simply existed in the hospital in a different way.

And it’s possible that the gateway between the two spaces is located in the room on the fifth floor.

So, what exactly caused this space to exist?

Lu Ban realized that it seemed to be just him and Liu Qingjiang on this floor. Treading lightly, he arrived at the door of the room Liu Qingjiang had entered and peered inside.

At that glance, Lu Ban saw Liu Qingjiang’s eyes, dead as a corpse’s, staring right at him.

No, he was not staring at Lu Ban but gazing steadily outside the window.

Liu Qingjiang showed no reaction to Lu Ban’s presence.

After watching outside for a while, he picked up a shovel and began digging into the ground.

The cement floor was rutted and pitted, revealing a small hole.

Liu Qingjiang kept digging for a while before packing the broken stones into a cement bag, hoisting it onto his shoulder, and slowly leaving the room, retracing his steps back.

Lu Ban stood against the wall in silence, holding his breath, watching as Liu Qingjiang trudged away with the bag of cement.

“What is he digging for?”

As soon as Liu Qingjiang was far enough away, Lu Ban immediately entered the room and looked into the hole in the ground.

He saw that in the large hole in the middle of the ward, there were human corpses.

Their faces were plain, just like ordinary people one could see anywhere.

But the bodies were dismembered and shattered. Lu Ban didn’t even believe these remains could be put back together to form a complete human figure.

More importantly, Lu Ban discovered that these faces were not rotted and still maintained the appearance they had at the moment of death. Moreover, they were the workers who had previously died in accidents at this location!

Apart from those workers, there were other faces as well. Lu Ban did not recognize them but could conjecture that they, too, must have been the unfortunate souls who encountered accidents in the hospital.

“Was Liu Qingjiang just now excavating these bodies? Did he dig them out from under the floor?”

Lu Ban suddenly felt a chill in his chest, and he realized it was coming from the red-covered notebook.

Hurriedly opening it, he saw that on the last page of the notebook, on the muddy and dirty page, the black text began to emerge. It was a different handwriting from Xu Xiao’s, very neat and meticulous.

“The weather is cold, and the construction progress isn’t going smoothly. There seems to be an issue with the soil structure here; the foundation just can’t be set correctly. The steel bars tend to bend, and the concrete can’t be poured. As the construction deadline slips by day by day, it’s becoming too difficult. Those foreigners think they can boss everyone around because they have money, and those fake Westerners are not any good either. Sigh, if it wasn’t for the high payment, I wouldn’t have taken this job.”

“The locals say that this used to be Caishikou, the place for executions. The executioner would take a sip of alcohol, spray it on the blade, and the onlooking crowd would cheer. As he threw away the criminal’s placard from behind and lifted his sword, with the swing of his hand, a head would tumble to the ground and the crowd would cheer again. The blood from those heads seeped into the ground day after day. The resentment of those who were beheaded lingers here, so anything built on this ground doesn’t last long.”

“I’m not superstitious. I’ve looked into the geological data. The soil here is mostly sediment because this used to be a river channel. After Lingjiang changed its course, this place became land. Consequently, the soil is loose, which is not conducive to construction. To build a five-story hospital, it’s essential to reinforce the foundation. I’m an architect who graduated from Jiangcheng University; these problems won’t stump me.”

“However, the difficulty of the construction has clearly exceeded my expectations. The designs in theory don’t always pan out in reality—the foundation can’t be set properly. After much effort, only a third of the work was done. The workers are getting more irritable by the day, and all sorts of rumors are spreading wildly.”

“A twist came on the second day of the New Year. Some of the workers who stayed over the New Year’s holiday at the site somehow slipped at the construction site and fell into the freshly laid foundation. The thick concrete swallowed the worker in an instant. I frantically tried to get someone to fish him out, but the foreman next to me stopped me.”

“He said that it was tough to lay that foundation, and if we tried to rescue the person, the whole structure would need to be redone. Starting over now would surely miss the deadline, and all our efforts would be in vain. Moreover, he mysteriously told me that with the worker falling in, we now have a ‘living piling.’ This place has a heavy yin presence, and it must be suppressed with human vitality. If it had been in the past, we might have had to find those whose lives weren’t valued to fill the gap, but now that this worker has fallen in, it’s just perfect.”

“I couldn’t understand how such a superstitious belief could be so deeply ingrained. I ordered someone to retrieve the worker, but no one dared to move, fearing they would become trapped as well. As the concrete solidified before my eyes, I had to give up; after all, no one could afford the cost of a delayed schedule.”

“Strangely enough, ever since that worker died in the foundation, the foundation work has been going much smoother, almost without any issues. All the foundations have been laid, and construction was finally back on track.”

“Even I, who never believed in such things, couldn’t help but wonder if there was any truth to the idea of ‘living pilings.'”

“Until the Chinese New Year, when we faced problems with the main load-bearing beams—the construction progress was lagging, and the workers had all gone home, causing the work to stall once more. I was walking on the construction site, looking at the main load-bearing beams that we could never get right, feeling very frustrated.”

“I saw a worker standing next to the load-bearing beam, pouring concrete into it, which was strange because I certainly hadn’t instructed them to pour. I called out to him, and he seemed startled, slipping and falling into the concrete.”

“I immediately ran over, grabbing his hand. He begged me for help, half his body sinking into the concrete. He was pulling me desperately, and I could no longer hold on. The pain was intense, and I was about to fall in as well. I called for help, but there were hardly any people on the construction site at that time.”

“I held onto him for what felt like an eternity. Then, suddenly, the foreman’s words echoed in my mind—’living piling.’ The worker already half-submerged in concrete with barely any strength left to hold onto me. If I just let go, he would fall.”

“I had tried my best, I did. I wasn’t wrong, and besides, if he sank, ‘living piling,’ ‘living piling’… the hospital would be completed, everyone would get paid. Thinking this way, I let go of his hand.”

“I watched him sink, feeling an incredible lightness within me. After calling the police, I went to the restroom and looked in the mirror, finding myself smiling.”

“The hospital construction was completed, and I received a generous reward. The family of the deceased worker got more money than they could ever earn in their lives from manual labor. Everyone’s life improved, but sometimes I wonder, when I enter this hospital and stand beside those columns, will the people inside those columns smile at me too?”

As Lu Ban read, he noticed that the writing towards the end was no longer neat, but more like it was written by someone with epilepsy or a physical illness.

Feeling a presence, Lu Ban lifted his gaze from the notebook.

He saw Liu Qingjiang, holding a shovel, standing at the door.