Chapter 3:
Space cracks and bloody handprints

The strange roar upstairs only lasted for a short time and then disappeared again.

However, everyone in the supermarket downstairs was shocked by this sudden change and became a little uneasy.

Jing Qizhen looked at the old lady and felt that she could always give good insights on biology-related issues.

Unfortunately, this time, the old lady also shook her head, “It is difficult to judge the creature itself based on its cry alone. At most, we can only say that its voice is so loud and penetrating, and its size must not be small.”

“Huh?” The girl who had just filmed the process of throwing air-dried pork outside the door suddenly exclaimed. She showed her phone over, “We can see the process of meat loss in the high-speed photography mode I just took!”

When the others heard this, they were all moved, and the old lady walked over immediately.

Only the girl’s boyfriend said, “Hey Manman, I just took a video directly…”

The girlfriend said calmly, “I asked you to take the video so that we can see the difference through comparison.”

The boyfriend immediately nodded obediently, “Oh!”

Everyone: …

Jing Qizhen held the rolling pin and did not move, after all, there may be other dangers here at any time, so he still had to be alert. He looked up and saw that obviously, Gold Chain Brother and the foreigner had the same idea as him. At this time, the three of them formed a triangular position outside the crowd in tacit understanding.

Gold Chain Brother nodded silently toward Jing Qizhen and the foreigner.

The foreigner smiled again, showing his big white teeth.

The old lady repeatedly held up the frame of her reading glasses and squinted her eyes to carefully observe the photos that were slowly switching on her phone. “Did it disappear out of thin air?”

The middle-aged man who had been wiping cold sweat also came forward, trembling. His voice echoed, “Yes, the pork in the seventy-eighth photo is intact but the pork in the seventy-ninth photo has been cut into pieces and parts of it are missing out of thin air.”

As he spoke, he stretched out his hand to enlarge the picture, pointing at several parts, “Here, here, and here are the parts where the pork meat disappears out of thin air.”

The girl who took the photos was a little surprised, “You can even see these?”

The middle-aged man continued to wipe away the cold sweat. He gave a wry smile and said, “I’m used to it.”

The old lady said, “It doesn’t look like it’s being eaten by some creature.”

The middle-aged man nodded, “Based on the photo, I don’t think so either. Look at the big piece of air-dried pork that was cut into pieces. The traces seemed to have been left by something extremely sharp.”

In Jing Qizhen’s mind, the Earth suddenly said, “Let me see! I want to see it too!”

Jing Qizhen was still a little confused, “Aren’t you the Earth? Can’t you see it?”

Earth: “This is an erosion area!”

Jing Qizhen: “So?”

Earth said, “The two balls collide with each other! That stupid ball is in contact with me, the two spaces overlap, and my sphere space is eroded by the other ball. Do you understand? So I can’t see it either! If I were outside the erosion area, I would be able to see it!”

Jing Qizhen: “…I think I understand.”

Earth confidently commanded Jing Qizhen, “And I’m chatting with you privately! Go and see, so I can get a little bit of perspective from you.”

Jing Qizhen did not leave his original position but directly took out his own mobile phone and asked the young couple, “Can you send me the pictures?”

The boyfriend said, “Yes but there is no Wi-Fi here and no mobile phone signal. We can only use Bluetooth. What model is your mobile phone?”

The girlfriend suggested, “There are too many pictures and the Bluetooth transmission may be slow. Let me send you the ones the big brother just picked out first!”

Jing Qizhen nodded, “Okay.”

As he turned on the Bluetooth on his mobile phone, he suddenly thought of something again and quickly added: “By the way, everyone can turn their Bluetooth on. There is still electricity in this department store, so the mobile phone’s battery is not a problem. If we want to measure distance or we accidentally spread out, Bluetooth can at least recognize our mobile phone information.”

Gold Chain Brother, who has always been relatively taciturn, reminded, “By the way, please change the names of your mobile phone’s Bluetooth. Try to choose a codename that matches your own unique characteristics.”

Hearing Gold Chain Brother’s words, a strange thought suddenly flashed through Jing Qizhen’s heart.

The Earth suddenly said excitedly: “Codenames? I know this, like the Left Azure Dragon and the Right White Tiger. It’s very important when you join gangs!”

Jing Qizhen complained, “Have you watched too many Young and Dangerous film series? Those are gangster names… ”

In Jing Qizhen’s impression, people who are used to using codenames might be members of the police or the military. He glanced at Gold Chain Brother again. Although this older brother looked impressive at first glance, after getting along with him for a short period, he didn’t give the gangster aura that Jing Qizhen expected. Instead, he was the taciturn, calm and reliable type.

In the Bluetooth interface on his mobile phone, Jing Qizhen directly renamed his mobile phone’s name to ‘College Student Xiao Jing’.

The young couple who sent him the photos also immediately changed their names as a couple; ‘I love Manman’ and ‘Manman is me’.

Jing Qizhen: …It’s too much to attack a single guy at this time!

Soon, other people also took out their mobile phones to change their codenames.

Although the old lady who specializes in biology can use a mobile phone, she was obviously not familiar with the bits and pieces of functions in the phone. She directly approached the cashier girl and said, “Little girl, can you help me change it?

The girl responded simply, “Okay, grandma, what’s your name?”

The old grandma was very straightforward, “Just write ‘Grandma’!”

After a moment, Jing Qizhen looked at the very unique mobile phone codenames in the list of nearby Bluetooth devices. He couldn’t help but be deeply impressed by the proposal from Gold Chain Brother.

The Earth curiously read, “Gold Chain, Working Man Lao Xiao, Foreigner, Cashier Guijuan, Grandma, I love Manman, Manman is me, and you, College Student Xiao Jing… I can really recognize you humans right away!”

In such a short time, Jing Qizhen had already received the pictures sent by Manman via Bluetooth.

He clicked on his mobile phone to expand it, observed it carefully for a while, and silently said to the Earth in his mind, “It looks like a space crack?”

The Earth agreed, “It’s possible! That stupid ball is tangent to me. My space and that ball’s space overlap each other and I don’t know how many small cracks are opened. In this erosion area, space cracks may occur. ”

Jing Qizhen said, “In other words, no matter what enters the chaotic space cracks, it will be shredded into powder. As for the disappearing pork pieces, they are scattered in other spaces.”

Earth agreed again, “That’s possible!”

Jing Qizhen pondered for a moment and directly replaced the rolling pin in his hand with a longer mop rod, and then he walked to the door, “I have a guess that I need to verify.”

Gold Chain Brother was very cooperative, “I will open the door for you this time.”

Jing Qi Zhen nodded.

The young couple also understood each other very well, so they immediately prepared their mobile phones and sat down.

After a moment, he slowly extended the mop rod a little bit.

About half a meter outside the department store’s entrance, the top of the rod was broken into pieces.

Jing Qizhen instantly pulled the mop rod back and showed it to everyone, “There seem to be space cracks about half a meter outside the department store’s entrance. The building is intact inside the department store, so there should be no big problem. We should avoid going outdoors and be careful if we walk by windows.”

Everyone nodded with heavy expressions.

Gold Chain Brother took a deep breath and said to the cashier girl, “You’re Guijuan, right? Let’s find a place to rest first?”

The cashier girl, Guijuan nodded, “The lounge room and the manager’s office are on the second floor. Follow me.”

For safety reasons, Gold Chain Brother just asked the cashier girl to give him directions while he took the lead.

However, just as he walked up the stairs to the emergency passage and stood at the stairway of the second floor, everyone gasped in unison.

Unlike the supermarket on the first floor, which was simply dilapidated and old due to the passage of time, the second floor was also covered in dust but some of the walls, door handles, and door panels were covered with countless dense bloody fingerprints.

The most terrifying thing was that some of those bloody handprints had already turned into dirty black blood stains, while others seemed to have been left just recently, and were still a bright red color that had not oxidized.

The cashier girl’s voice trembled a little as she pointed at the door covered with bloody fingerprints, “That– that is our manager’s office.”

She was shocked by the sight, and after a period of deathly silence, Gold Chain Brother finally spoke with concise but powerful words, “Let’s go and take a closer look. Everyone, be careful.”

The old lady observed carefully for a while with her reading glasses and then said firmly, “This is a human handprint. It’s not from the monster just now. It has webbed toes. If it leaves a fingerprint, it will be very different.”

However, the fact they came from humans made it all the more terrifying and creepy.

Jing Qizhen’s eyes were also fixed on the bloody handprints. The bloody handprints were of different colors, some were new and some were old, but most of them overlapped in similar positions.

Although it was difficult to distinguish a mass of blood, some of the more peripheral marks could still be vaguely seen, and each handprint was left in the same places. Moreover, most areas on the door panels and walls were empty. The owner of the bloody handprint obviously did not have the habit of touching the wall.

Jing Qizhen thought for a while and a somewhat ridiculous idea suddenly came to his mind.

Immediately, Jing Qizhen stretched out his hand and gestured to open and close the door through the doorknob, “These fingerprints… They looked like the marks left by opening and closing the door when a person comes in and out repeatedly?”

After saying that, Jing Qizhen pointed to the bloody fingerprints left on the wall, “Here, there are clearly traces of turning the lights on and off.”

Gold Chain Brother was startled.

The foreigner started to chew gum since who-knows-when and nodded, “I think it looks like it too.”

Manman, the girlfriend, directly stretched out her hand and gestured, “Look at the size of the palm, it looks like it’s from a woman. Our palms are about the same size and the other person is probably about the same height as me.”

Upon hearing this, the cashier girl Guijuan’s face became even paler, “Our– our manager is indeed a woman and about the same height as Manman-jie… She– she does have the habit of closing the door and turning off the lights, and turning off the faucet in the bathroom…”

Jing Qizhen: …

A woman with bloody fingerprints still insists on closing the door, turning off the lights and turning off the faucet every day, what kind of existence is that!?