I, the screenwriter, have experienced a resurgence of inspiration.

……

In the corridor, Jiang Chen and Wang Lei were already waiting at the stairwell.

With the experience gained in the previous days, and with a large portion of the task being divided up, the two were able to patrol much faster during their second night patrol.

"Officer."

Jiang Chen crossed his arms and nodded slightly, tilting his chin toward Granny Li's house: "Have you found anything?"

"Rooftop".

Chen Xi lowered her voice: "Sister Lan suspects that the evil spirit is on the rooftop, and Granny Li also warned not to go up to the rooftop—this warning itself is the best clue."

Some taboos and the area where evil spirits operate may overlap. The rooftop is locked. We need to act quickly before the others come looking for us and find information on the last evil spirit.

Jiang Chen didn't respond; the shadow of a red embroidered shoe seemed to flash past his feet.

Wang Lei instinctively hid behind Chen Xi.

"Let's go. Let's go to the rooftop." Chen Xi turned and walked towards the stairwell.

The door to the rooftop is at the end of the rooftop corridor.

The door was larger than the doors of the other rooms in the corridor, and its paint was peeling off, revealing rusted iron underneath.

An old-fashioned iron lock hung on the door, its body rusted and worn.

"It's rusted, and there's no key."

Kang Xiaojia reached out and touched the lock, her fingertips getting covered in a layer of orange-red rust.

Chen Xi also tried the doorknob, but it didn't budge.

She stepped back and began to assess the feasibility of forcibly breaking down the door:

The door has three hinges, the sheet metal is about three millimeters thick, and the lock is located on the steel plate of the door frame. It would take at least two impacts to break it open with your body.

"...Let me try."

Wang Lei suddenly squeezed to the front, pulled a piece of wire from his pocket, and it was unclear where he had picked it up from.

He crouched down, inserted the wire into the keyhole, fixed the angle with his fingertips, and then gently pushed it in, rotating his wrist half a turn—

The wire made a faint metallic scraping sound inside the lock cylinder, like a mouse gnawing on wood.

Three seconds later, there was a "click" sound.

The lock is open.

The others looked at him with some surprise.

After all, this person has always had a very clear understanding of their own position.

The first thing to do when danger strikes is to run.

Avoid missions if possible.

They actually had this trick up their sleeve?

……

"Well done."

Chen Xi made a compliment, and Wang Lei chuckled, his expression as obsequious as could be, making Jiang Chen unable to bear it.

Just as they were about to push open the rooftop door, they heard a series of footsteps coming from the stairwell—

It was the rhythm of a living person's footsteps, soft boots stepping on the cement steps, the steps even but slightly dragging.

Someone must be injured or have exhausted themselves.

The other team appeared at the stairwell, and the two groups stared at each other across the corridor.

They looked disheveled.

The original team of eleven has now dwindled to eight: a priest, a mixed-race translator, two Navy SEALs, and four former Flying Tigers members.

The missing players no longer seem to need confirmation.

The priest's black robe was covered in dust, and the cross on his chest was clutched in his hand.

The mixed-race translator looked a little pale.

The grey-eyed Navy SEAL woman had a patch of skin missing from her neck, exposing the red flesh to the air.

Amin had a torn strip of clothing wrapped around his left forearm, with faint traces of blood visible through it.

Chen Xi glanced at Gray Eye's injuries and immediately realized something:

"Did you touch Fang Jie's human skin coat at the tailor shop on the seventh floor?"

"?!... "

Upon hearing this, the assault team member swore in English, speaking very quickly. Before Chen Xi could react, Jiang Chen immediately retorted in English:

"Are we your mother or your father? Why do we have to tell you everything in such detail?"

Normal people would avoid someone wearing human skin; do we really need to remind them? Have your brains been soaked in sulfuric acid?

"FUCK!"

The assault team member's eyes were bloodshot, and he raised his fist to strike—it was clear that he was on the verge of emotional collapse on the edge of the bizarre and the life-or-death struggle.

The mixed-race girl, Evelyn, stopped him.

Evelyn had clearly also seen the padlock lying on the ground; her gaze finally settled on the iron door leading to the rooftop.

"We encountered a 'ghost wall' and learned a taboo."

Evelyn didn't explain why they were on the seventh floor or here, she only turned to Chen Xi:

"We need to go up to the rooftop."

"sure."

Jiang Chen spoke up before Chen Xi could: "Okay, but we must leave someone to patrol at night."

He also failed to inform people that the time outside the building was chaotic, with day and night appearing randomly.

The mixed-race translator's gaze met Chen Xi's for a second.

She found herself unable to recognize the unfamiliar woman again.

"Our men can stay and finish the patrol, but we have to go up to the rooftop."

Evelyn paused, a barely perceptible wariness in her voice: "Your people, our people, all go up together."

If only Chen Xi's team goes up to the rooftop, anything they find there could be tampered with while they're not around.

The reverse is also true.

Chen Xi doesn't trust Evelyn, just as Evelyn doesn't trust her.

……

Chen Xi quickly weighed the pros and cons in her mind.

Both sides need to keep people, but her team only has four people.

If she leaves Jiang Chen below the rooftop, the other party alone won't be able to control the situation.

Moreover, he is too prone to treating unexpected situations as mere stimuli.

Kang Xiaojia is the team doctor, and she is unable to fight under these circumstances.

Wang Lei? Needless to say, if anything unexpected happens, he will definitely hide immediately.

However, if all four people go to the rooftop and the other side takes over the patrol mission, the risks still exist:

The patrol route covered the area controlled by the Huaxia team. If the other side took the opportunity to explore Chen Shulan's territory above the seventeenth floor, the consequences would be uncontrollable.

However—Chen Xi's gaze swept over the opposing team members:

The opposing team lost four members, and their physical exhaustion was clearly visible.

"Okay." Chen Xi glanced at his teammates: "Your men stay to patrol, my men all go to the rooftop, you guys—"

"The priest, Amin, Ashan, and I are the four of us."

The mixed-race person immediately chimed in, "We'll go up, and the remaining four will stay behind for night patrol."

Her choice of names was very deliberate—Amin and Ashan were the strongest fighters, and Father Coleva was a professional gamer.

The remaining assault team members then cooperated with the remaining two Flying Tigers members:

Four well-trained veterans were more than capable of completing the patrol mission.

Chen Xi nodded slightly.

Both sides had their own agendas, but their interests were temporarily aligned on the rooftop issue.

This temporary cooperation was as fragile as the curtain hanging in Grandma Li's kitchen; it would tear at the slightest touch.

But it can barely block the wind before it's punctured.

……

The two women walked to the front of the rooftop, Chen Xi on the left and Evelyn on the right.

The gap between the two was just an arm's length, the optimal distance for close combat, and also the distance for mutual defense.

Evelyn glanced at Chen Xi, who then gently pushed open the door.

The next second, everyone froze.

The sky is half day and half night, and in the chaos, it intertwines into swirling black and white patterns.

The dividing line is not stationary; it is slowly rotating.

Looking up from the rooftop, the real world appears upside down, with cars flowing by and traffic lights changing in turn.

—You can even see that famous tea restaurant is open for business.

But outside the building, amidst the upside-down scene, the enormous black and white phantom image of the Impermanence was a poorly connected image, appearing intermittently.

The building itself has a stable time.

Chen Xi suddenly remembered what Chen Shulan had said before—"Time and space in the underworld are different from those in the mortal world."

The building is the handover point, and the time is fixed.

But the rooftop—the rooftop is right on the junction line.

If they didn't leave anyone behind, a long time might have passed inside the building by the time they went up, and the night patrol might be late.

So this is the real reason why "Uncle Biao will get angry" – you can't go up to the rooftop?

……

The rooftop was filled with ghosts.

Not just a dense mass of ghostly figures, but they filled every inch of the concrete floor from the doorway to the edge of the rooftop.

They tilted their heads back, stretched their necks to the limit, pointed their chins to the sky, and stared directly at the split sky above them.

Each ghost was dressed in a paper shroud, and at their feet was a pile of paper money that was emitting a faint green glow.

The ashes from burning paper money were swirled up by the flames, forming thin black whirlwinds that rose straight up.

Each whirlwind of ashes is connected to a ghost and an inverted cloud.

Burning paper money for the dead.

For whom should we burn it?

Is he alive?

Everyone felt a chill run down their spines, as if they had stepped into a still graveyard.