23: Chapter 23 Candidate Tasks

The third floor of the Qinghe Road Old Commercial Building was colder than the floor below.

Lin Zhao walked at the very front, the beam of his flashlight sweeping over the mottled plaster and dust-covered billboards.

This place used to be a row of small shops—children's clothing, stationery, a photo studio, and training centers—but now the rolling shutters were half-lowered, and the gaps were filled with pitch-black shadows.

As soon as the four of them stepped onto the third floor, a wisp of grey-white firelight ignited at the stairwell.

A grey cloth bag had appeared in the corner.

Inside, there were no weapons in the true sense, only a few makeshift tools: a short wooden staff, basic protective talismans, rubber gloves, plastic tongs, disposable containment bags, and a residual mark marker.

A prompt emerged on the edge of the grey message.

[Temporary equipment for the Candidate task.]

[Return after the task concludes.]

[Must not be removed from the task area.]

Lin Zhao picked up the short wooden staff and the basic protective talismans; Xu Minglan took the containment bags, rubber gloves, and plastic tongs; Zhou Yan took the residual mark marker.

Tang Zhiwei did not take any weapons; she only noted the location of the cloth bag and the blind spots of the security cameras at the stairwell.

Her movements were very light, as if she were attending an unsavory business negotiation.

Lin Zhao glanced at her: "Aren't you going to take something?"

Tang Zhiwei retorted: "Would I know how to use them if I did?"

Lin Zhao was choked up by her response and could only tighten his grip on the short staff.

The red shoes was placed right in the center of the corridor.

It was very small, like a leather shoe worn by a five or six-year-old child.

The surface was excessively clean, as red as if it had just been wiped with blood.

There was no second one; it sat alone in the dust, yet it hadn't gathered a speck of dirt.

Zhou Yan lowered his voice: "The files say that whoever sees the red shoes first will hear a child call their name.

After responding, the red shoes will become a pair.

Once both shoes are worn on the shadow, the person will disappear on the third floor."

Tang Zhiwei glanced at him: "Are you sure this isn't an embellished legend?"

"Not sure," Zhou Yan said, "But a child did go missing in this building twenty years ago, and there have been three similar records since then.

Every time, it was at night, and someone heard running sounds coming from the children's clothing store on the third floor."

Xu Minglan crouched down; she didn't touch the red shoes, only shone her flashlight over them.

There were tiny footprints on the ground next to the red shoes; the footprints weren't stepped out, but rather looked like they had seeped out from the cement.

"We cannot make direct contact," she said.

Lin Zhao nodded and took out the plastic tongs from the bag.

The moment the plastic tongs approached the red shoes, a girl's voice suddenly rang out from the end of the corridor.

"Uncle."

Lin Zhao froze.

The voice was very close, as if it were right against his ear.

"Uncle, have you seen my other shoe?"

He instinctively wanted to turn back, but the scar on his left arm suddenly burned hot.

The Fire Keeper mark on the grey message seemed to light up beneath his skin.

Do not respond.

This thought was like someone pressing it directly into his mind.

Lin Zhao gritted his teeth, did not turn around, and did not speak.

The red shoes moved slightly.

The fluorescent lights in the corridor flickered simultaneously.

Outside the Qinghe Road Old Commercial Building, in an inconspicuous car across the street, Zhao Ye stared at the temporary task record in his hand and couldn't help but curse in a low voice: "Is this assessment too real? Are they really letting a few ordinary people enter an anomaly site?"

In the passenger seat, Shen Qinghe watched the projection of the task stele, her expression much calmer than his.

[Observation Task: Qinghe Road red shoes]

[Task Nature: Candidate assessment, low-level anomaly disposal]

[Observation Members: Shen Qinghe, Zhao Ye, Bai Ya]

[Rules: Do not actively replace the Candidate to complete the task; intervention is permitted if the Candidate faces risk of death or contamination goes out of control.]

[Note: This task is coordinated by Zero; the Fire Keeper will not appear directly.]

Bai Ya sat in the back row, his fingers tapping lightly on his phone screen.

His outer-layer permissions for the Grey Net were already connected to nearby nodes, recording the anomalous fluctuations inside the building.

"Assessment does not equal suicide," Bai Ya said, "Look at the things they brought.

Rubber gloves, first aid kit, files, flashlight, spare rope.

The grey message only told them the location and didn't teach them what to do, yet they still brought things that could reduce the risk."

Zhao Ye snorted: "They're still just ordinary people."

Shen Qinghe looked toward the pitch-black windows on the third floor: "We were also ordinary people once."

Zhao Ye was speechless for a moment.

Inside the third floor, the red shoes had slid from the center of the corridor to the entrance of the children's clothing store.

Faded cartoon stickers were pasted on the shop's rolling shutter, and a little bear without eyes was smiling right at them.

Zhou Yan opened the files: "The children's clothing store was originally named 'Little Deer Wardrobe' and closed after the owner's daughter went missing.

Rumor has it that the last time the child was seen, she was trying on a pair of red leather shoes."

Tang Zhiwei suddenly asked: "If this thing is utilizing the rule of 'finding the other shoe,' then the other shoe might not be in reality, but in some place it has dragged people into."

Xu Minglan looked at her: "You mean, it doesn't want us to find the shoe, but wants us to acknowledge that it lost a shoe?"

"Many scams are like this," Tang Zhiwei said, "First, they make you accept the premise they provide, and then they make you pay the price according to their logic."

Lin Zhao said in a deep voice: "Then we won't respond, won't acknowledge, and won't search."

"We cannot accept any of the premises provided by the anomaly.

First, identify the core."

The girl's voice sounded again from the red shoes.

"Big sister, can you help me, please?"

This time, the voice changed into that of a sick child Xu Minglan had heard while on duty.

Her expression changed slightly, and her fingers gripped the first aid kit tightly.

What she feared most was not ghostly voices, but a child's plea for help.

But she quickly closed her eyes and said in a low voice: "The voice is an inducement, not a real person."

The fire mark on the grey message in her pocket heated up slightly, as if confirming her judgment.

The four of them did not respond.

Lin Zhao handed the plastic tongs to Xu Minglan, wrapped his arm with his jacket, and stood at the very front.

Tang Zhiwei shone her flashlight intently into the inner side of the children's clothing store, while Zhou Yan pointed out the location of the old fitting room based on the files.

The mirror in the fitting room was shattered, but a tiny red shoe buckle was nailed below the frame.

The shoe buckle was the thing truly emitting the contamination.

The red shoes suddenly overturned, and a stream of black-red mud gushed out from the opening.

The girl's voice at the end of the corridor sharpened: "You saw me! You clearly saw me!"

Lin Zhao kicked the red shoes away; the toe of the shoe hit the wall but didn't scatter.

Xu Minglan held the containment bag open, Tang Zhiwei pressed her flashlight onto the location of the shoe buckle, and Zhou Yan read out the missing date recorded in the files, attempting to confirm the source of the anomaly.

Just as a black line cracked open on the surface of the shoe buckle, a wisp of grey-white firelight suddenly ignited outside the third-floor window.

That was not to solve the problem for them, but to cut off the cold, gloomy aura that the red shoes were attempting to spread to the floor below.

Zhao Ye clenched his fists across the street: "Can we intervene now?"

Shen Qinghe shook her head: "It hasn't reached the risk of death yet."

Bai Ya watched the fluctuations in the Grey Net and said in a low voice: "They found the core."

Inside the children's clothing store, Lin Zhao used the plastic tongs to clamp onto the shoe buckle.

The shoe buckle trembled violently, and the girl's crying suddenly multiplied, as if over a dozen children were crying behind the wall at the same time.

Xu Minglan quickly sealed the bag, and Tang Zhiwei, following the prompt from the grey message, pressed down on the ring of fire patterns on the edge of the containment bag.

Zhou Yan tore half a corner off the page of the missing person record in the files and stuck it against the shoe buckle through the plastic bag.

A faint fire ignited on the edge of the containment bag.

The red shoes stopped struggling.

All crying stopped abruptly.

The four of them stood in the children's clothing store, cold sweat seeping from their foreheads.

No one cheered, and no one was in a rush to claim they had won.

Lin Zhao looked at the shoe buckle that was gradually dimming inside the containment bag, his voice a bit hoarse: "What do we do now?"

At the end of the corridor, grey mist emerged silently, condensing into a line of text on the wall.

[Candidate task complete.]

[Please carry the contained object and arrive at the designated location before midnight.]

[Do not turn around.]

The four of them looked toward the stairwell at the same time.

Deep in the stairwell, it seemed there was another shoe slowly following them.

But this time, no one turned around.