Translator: CinderTL
Wang Qi reached out and cracked the door open slightly. It was indeed the bedroom.
The red-shelled television was on, and a single chair stood directly in front of it. Someone was sitting in the chair, their back facing them.
From their silhouette, it was unmistakably the Gatekeeper.
But the old man was drenched, as if he'd just been pulled from the water. Water dripped steadily from his clothes and hair.
The sound of "splash, splash" came from the television. The screen flickered erratically, emitting a pale cyan light.
Even more bizarre, each time the screen flickered, water overflowed from it.
The water flowed down the edge of the table in streams, giving the impression not of water, but of blood.
As the television image gradually stabilized, Jiang Cheng slowly held his breath. It was a recording, a black-and-white recording with a timestamp in the lower-left corner.
The image quality wasn't sharp, but it was clear enough to see they were in a swimming pool. The pool was in the center, with a dimly lit background, suggesting it was filmed at night.
The video showed a woman swimming alone in the vast pool. She moved with graceful, elegant strokes, like a solitary, proud swan.
The anomaly occurred in an instant. The woman's graceful movements were disrupted, her body contorting violently in the middle of the swimming pool as she struggled in agony, sending water splashing in all directions.
Jiang Cheng immediately realized this was the female high school student who had drowned here before.
This was her final moment.
Sure enough, within seconds, a group of girls appeared at the edge of the swimming pool. Jiang Cheng counted them one by one—exactly five.
One girl immediately tried to jump in and save her, but another girl pulled her back. The girl who stopped her then whispered something to the others.
A heated argument seemed to erupt among them, but ultimately, the girl who had pulled the others back managed to regain control, convincing the others to stand by.
The girl who had initially wanted to help now watched with cold indifference.
The group stood at the edge of the pool, watching the woman's helpless struggle as she gradually lost strength, until finally her body went limp and floated lifelessly on the surface.
Jiang Cheng was horrified by the cruelty in these girls' hearts.
Yuan Xiaoyi had lied to him.
This wasn't just some punishment; they had never intended to save her!
Moreover, Jiang Cheng had a feeling that the girl who had first stepped forward to stop the rescue attempt was none other than Jiang Yanran!
"Doctor," Fatty's voice had changed, "look... look in the swimming pool."
His gaze casually swept across the scene, and Jiang Cheng suddenly noticed that during his moment of thought, the floating corpse in the video had vanished.
"Let's go, we need to leave first," Jiang Cheng said, and the group quickly retreated.
They glanced one last time at the gatekeeper, who had been facing away from them the entire time. It was clear the old man was dead, and from the looks of it, he had drowned in the water.
Jiang Cheng formed a bold hypothesis: the gatekeeper had entered the video and drowned in the swimming pool.
The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant.
If they had stayed any longer, they might have suffered the same fate.
Treading through the puddles on the floor, they remained vigilant, constantly wary of a hand suddenly reaching out from the water to drag them under.
Fortunately, they managed to escape the gatekeeper's room without incident.
Outside, the familiar corridor stretched before them.
The group gasped for breath, Wang Qi clapping Fatty on the shoulder. "Hurry, we need to reach the school swimming pool before midnight."
The moment they pushed open the dormitory door, they froze in shock.
The dilapidated concrete path outside was gone. The streetlights on either side, and the crooked tree in the distance, had all vanished.
What stood before them was a spacious hall with a frosted floor, a sky-blue reception desk, and a waiting area not far off.
Prominently displayed on the wall was a promotional poster bearing the words "Jiangtan University Swimming Pool."
The poster's background featured a young woman in a swimsuit standing by the pool, her smile sweet and radiant, her youthful beauty captivating.
"This is really the school swimming pool?" Fatty seemed unable to accept the reality, constantly scanning his surroundings. "Is this an illusion or real?"
He turned his head to look behind him, but the narrow dormitory corridor had vanished. They were now standing right in front of the swimming pool's main entrance.
They had already entered, standing in the reception hall.
Jiang Cheng didn't answer, instead turning to Wang Qi.
"It should be real," Wang Qi nodded.
"Let's go in," Jiang Cheng said quietly. "Everyone, be careful."
"Which entrance should we use?" Huai Yi whispered, as the swimming pool had separate entrances for men and women.
After a moment's hesitation, Jiang Cheng replied, "Let's go through the men's entrance."
The group started walking towards the men's entrance, but as they passed the waiting area, Wang Qi suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Jiang Cheng frowned, following Wang Qi's gaze. The waiting area was eerily quiet, furnished with a few sofas, but mostly lined with rows of chairs.
Like the Sculpture Hall and other Urban Legends locations, this place had no lights, only a faint gray glow.
It felt like an old photograph, sealed away for decades.
Wang Qi's expression was equally strange. The sudden, inexplicable palpitation he'd just experienced had come without warning, and he couldn't explain why.
"If everything's okay, let's hurry up and leave. It's so... cold here," Huai Yi said, hugging his arms and shivering slightly.
But shortly after they left, a strange scraping sound echoed from a corner near a sofa. Then, the indentation on the sofa slowly began to rise, as if someone who had been sitting there had just stood up.
The girl from the promotional poster they'd seen earlier was gone, leaving only an empty swimming pool in the background.
Creak—
Jiang Cheng reached out and pushed open the Gate. They passed through the men's locker room and down a corridor before finally reaching the interior of the swimming pool.
The pool itself was just ahead.
I don't know if it was just an illusion, but the swimming pool was far larger than the typical swimming pool you'd find in a swimming pool. The water inside was murky and black.
The lighting was terrible. When they looked across, they couldn't even make out the pool's boundaries. The far side seemed to be swallowed by darkness.
Standing at the edge, they even felt a strange sensation—as if this wasn't a swimming pool at all, but a bottomless lake.
Fatty stared into the water for too long, and his head began to spin. His body swayed precariously. If Wang Qi hadn't snapped him out of it, he might have fallen right in.
"Something's not right about this pool," Wang Qi warned. "Let's avoid it for now and focus on finding clues."
With Wang Qi around, Jiang Cheng felt a significant weight lifted from his shoulders. He could concentrate on searching for clues without constantly worrying that Fatty would be dragged away by a Ghost the moment he turned his back.
"Huh?" Fatty twitched his ears. "Did you guys hear something?"
"No," Huai Yi replied.
Jiang Cheng and Wang Qi also fell silent, listening intently. The surroundings were eerily quiet.
(End of the Chapter)
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