The bed slats were rather thin. Gu Mian lifted the mattress and quickly sawed through them.
It was worth mentioning that Zhao Guanhai seemed to have taped his bank card and diary to the underside of the bed slats.
But for some reason, these two items, which should have stayed stuck to the underside of the bed, had fallen to the ground. Part of the card was poking out.
Some tape was still wrapped around them.
Untangling tape in the pitch dark wasn't exactly easy.
Even in broad daylight, Gu Mian would struggle to unwrap packages, let alone at this late hour.
After pulling off the tape, Gu Mian glanced at the bank card. There was nothing unusual about it. He quickly turned his attention to the diary lying next to it.
This notebook was rather thin, seemingly having only about thirty pages.
Zhao Guanhai would squeeze many days' worth of diary entries onto a single sheet of paper, evidently to conserve the notebook.
He didn't like to date his entries, but by observing the variations in ink color and the content, it was deducible that he only wrote occasionally.
Hence, there were only a dozen or so entries in the whole diary.
Gu Mian briefly flipped through the initial pages, finding nothing but mundane notes about how much money Zhao Guanhai had saved.
The later entries, however, were somewhat more useful.
Zhao Guanhai didn't seem to have a high level of education. His handwriting was a mess, with numerous corrections, Pinyin used for some characters, and typos. But Gu Mian mentally corrected them.
The real issue, however, was that they were currently in the World in the Mirror, where everything they saw was reversed and, hence, a colossal pain to decipher.
But Gu Mian was highly proficient at reading mirror-reversed text. A few glances, and he could make out the original meaning.
"Xiao Lei is a sophomore now. I haven't seen him in a long time; he doesn't come home during holidays either. I wonder if he's still holding a grudge over what happened with his girlfriend."
The next entry, judging by the ink color, was written much later than the previous one.
"My back is hurting, and I'm always coughing. I've also been feeling slightly dizzy these past two days. I guess I'll take a day off, just one day."
The following pages contained more records of savings.
As Gu Mian continued to flip through, he paused on a certain page, sensing something different. It seemed as if some noise was coming from the living room.
He threw a glance at the doorway, then refocused on the page.
"Xiao Lei is about to graduate. He called, saying he needs to discuss something with me today. I need to clean the room a bit and dress a bit more neatly. I'm not going to work tomorrow; I'm just going to wait at home for my son to come back."
This entry was at the very top of the page. The rest was blank, as if the diary ended there.
Fatty, flashlight in hand, came closer. "Doctor, I heard some movement outside, like a door opening…"
This place was practically a haunted house. The power was out, only the two of them were present in the huge, two-story building, and they had just heard a door opening. It was enough to make anyone shudder with fear.
Gu Mian gave a symbolic shiver and then turned to the next page.
That's what most people would do.
Although it looked like the diary was finished, most people would still choose to flip through, trying to find a few more words.
It was like scratching the lottery section on a supermarket receipt. Even if the first character revealed was "Thank," some people would stubbornly scratch off the remaining characters until the words "Thanks for your patronage" fully appeared before they finally gave up.
From childhood to adulthood, Gu Mian had scratched off countless "Thanks for your patronage" messages. He always held unrealistic fantasies about his luck, insisting on scratching to the very end each time before conceding.
And now, Gu Mian stubbornly flipped through a few more pages, attempting to find something else.
Then, he noticed he had indeed gotten lucky this time; there was something else written on one of the later pages.
Fatty also curiously leaned in to take a look. "Doctor, you really found something else this time!"
However, immediately after, Gu Mian found that his luck was as dismal as ever.
The reason he had managed to scratch "Thanks for your patronage" for over twenty years was simply because that was the worst possible outcome on a supermarket receipt.
If a worse reward had been thrown into the prize pool, such as "Lose thirty years of life," Gu Mian would undoubtedly have drawn the reward starting with "lose."
The page in the diary before him now was an even worse "reward" than "Thanks for your patronage."
On this page, red text was written on white paper.
This handwriting wasn't messy like the previous diary entries; instead, it was neat and tidy. It was evidently written by someone proficient in writing, a stark contrast to before.
Furthermore, this handwriting wasn't mirrored but appeared before them in the correct, legible form.
"Doctor…" Fatty tilted his head to look closely at the diary in Gu Mian's hand, only to be astonished to find that Gu Mian, who had just been next to him, had suddenly vanished into thin air.
Where Gu Mian had been standing just a moment ago, a diary now lay. But it was somewhat different from the one they had just been looking at.
At the same time, he noticed something was different about the room.
The diary is reversed… the entire room is also reversed…
Did I get out? Fatty looked around like a startled rabbit. "Where is the Doctor?"
Moreover, I couldn't have just suddenly returned. I must've been pulled out by a ghost… It's after me! ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ NovєlFіre.net
This thought made Fatty even more panic-stricken, and he turned to look at the door.
He was still in Zhao Lei's room, but now the door was tightly shut. He tried to twist the knob, but it wouldn't budge.
Then Fatty gave the door a light push, but it still wouldn't open. It seemed he needed something to open it.
A Key… Is there a Key somewhere…?
Fatty wandered around aimlessly for a bit before his eyes were drawn to the diary on the floor.
Come to think of it, I haven't read what that red text says yet. Maybe it holds a clue to opening the door?
With this thought, he quickly picked up the diary and flipped towards the end.
The night was still and dark.
Fatty rapidly flipped through the diary to the last page.
Then, three bright red words appeared before his eyes: "Look above."