“Save the people first!!”
Qin Yue was the first to hoist a tourist who had fainted from smoke inhalation onto her shoulder. She dashed down the stairs, and the others followed suit.
But no matter how far they ran, the staircase seemed endless.
Fifty-ninth floor.
Fifty-ninth floor.
Still the fifty-ninth floor.
“Oh no!”
Zhao Daxian cursed in exasperation:
“It’s a ghost wall! This thing wants to burn us all to death here! Section Chief Qin, watch out—”
He looked up, only to find that Qin Yue and the tourist she was carrying had vanished. His other companions were nowhere to be seen either.
The surrounding environment, however, had undergone a world-shaking transformation.
The wallpaper was peeling away, load-bearing pillars were collapsing, the sign that read “Escape Room” was slowly melting, and countless tiny white flakes danced in the air...
A massive black figure stepped out from the billowing flames.
It—or rather, he.
His entire body was charred. The exposed skin was covered in blisters and pustules. His hair and eyebrows had been burned away, leaving only a bald, scorched head.
The orange-red uniform he wore had melted, its fragments sticking to his body. His face was blackened by smoke and fire, his original features long gone.
A mask-like face shield covered the figure's face, but it too had been melted by the intense heat, leaving only hideous wounds and raw, red flesh.
As the black figure breathed, plumes of white mist puffed from his mouth:
“Hoo...”
“Hoo...”
“Hoo...”
Slung over the black figure’s shoulder was the male ghost they had seen earlier.
“Everyone must die! Everyone must burn to death! Hehehehe!”
The thin male ghost struggled on the black figure’s shoulder, his shrill voice as piercing as a key scraping against glass:
“Hehehehe! The madman! He’s here!”
“The madman is here!”
“The madman is here!! Everyone’s going to burn to death here!!”
That woman hadn't been lying; there really was an evil ghost!
Zhao Daxian gritted his teeth, barely keeping his composure.
The flames surged and thick smoke billowed as the souls of the past wailed piteously within the fire.
There was a mother who had used her own body to protect her child. Before she died, she had clawed at the floor in agony, leaving trails of blood with her fingernails.
There were young students who had planned a shopping trip together, only to die in pain before they could leave their final words.
There was a janitor who hadn't been able to escape in time and was trapped in the stairwell by the black smoke, still clutching a cleaning tool in death.
Bitterness, grief, injustice, frustration, despair, and resentment.
A wave of overwhelming, intense emotions crashed into Zhao Daxian, and he couldn't help but burst into tears:
“Waaaaah...”
Tears and snot smeared across his face.
It hurts so much.
It’s so painful.
Save me, save me, save me.
I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.
It hurts, I want to go home.
Countless emotions crammed into his head all at once, like thousands of steel needles stabbing into his brain. The pain made Zhao Daxian wish for death.
He was taking in too much negative energy. It felt like he had overeaten until he was bursting; he just wanted to find a place to vomit it all out.
“Hoo...”
The black figure strode toward him and reached out. Ignoring Zhao Daxian’s weak resistance, the ghost firmly hoisted him over his shoulder.
Behind them was a vast sea of fire.
Beneath him was the madman ghost.
Face-to-face with him was a pitch-black ghost face, half-charred by fire. Seeing him, the owner of the face squeezed out an incredibly bizarre smile:
“Heeheeheehee, the madman is here, the madman is here. Everyone’s going to die, everyone’s going to die. We’re all going to die here, heeheeheehee.”
Life and death hung in the balance!
“Patriarch, please aid me!”
Zhao Daxian performed a hand seal and chanted a mantra, thrusting his peach wood sword toward the evil ghost’s heart—
But like a clay ox entering the sea, the peach wood sword passed right through the ghost’s chest. It tumbled across the floor and came to a stop in the corner.
What kind of monster is this?
Even the treasure his master gave him was useless?!
Zhao Daxian was horrified, but he immediately realized something else:
They had miscalculated. Qin Yue was in danger!!!
...
...
“...Section Chief Qin, watch out!”
Zhao Daxian only had time to leave those words before his figure vanished into the billowing black smoke.
Qin Yue reached out to grab him, but her hand met only empty air.
The unconscious tourist on her back had also disappeared.
The fire, the cries for help, and the chaos all receded like a tide.
They were still on the fifty-ninth floor; they hadn't gone anywhere.
The pale grey lights of the corridor hit the floor tiles, creating a quiet and somewhat desolate reflection.
The other team members all looked like they had just woken from a dream, their expressions dazed as if they had lived through another lifetime.
“What’s going on? Where’s the little kid who was pinned under the timber?”
“Lyu Qing, weren't you trapped under the rubble?!”
“Wang Cailiang! You’re alive! I thought you were dead!!”
“Where’s the fire? Wasn't I just pinned under a table trying to save someone??”
The group swung their arms and shook their legs, their faces filled with the joy of having narrowly escaped death.
What on earth is happening!
Qin Yue’s pupils constricted sharply.
Was that fire just now not real?
Was it an illusion?
But what about the heat she felt, the tourists she saw, and the constant smell of scorched skin in the air?!
Where was Zhao Daxian?!
Where did he go!
“Don’t worry, that boy is perfectly safe.”
In the corridor, a white mist quietly drifted as a woman’s laughter rang out:
“Heehee. Little demon suppressor, do you want to know where that evil ghost is? Come find me on the rooftop. If you find me, I’ll tell you!”
It’s that woman!
Qin Yue’s breathing grew heavy, and she immediately turned to the others.
Lyu Qing and the rest were also wide-eyed, clearly having heard the voice as well.
“Two of you come with me to the roof. Two of you contact backup. The rest of you stay here and keep looking for Zhao Daxian. Once you find him, find a way to notify me immediately!”
Qin Yue picked a man and a woman, then strode up the stairs.
The people behind her exchanged looks, their eyes burning with determination as they followed her.
...
The door to the rooftop was slightly ajar. Qin Yue led her people through it without any trouble.
The night wind whipped around them, and countless neon lights flashed as if surrounding the building. A woman dressed in purple stood at the very edge of the roof.
Her skirt fluttered in the wind, tracing a graceful curve and revealing the Black Tortoise boots on her feet.
The woman had her back turned, with a full moon behind her. The gentle moonlight bathing her actually seemed to outshine the surrounding neon glow.
Amidst the misty white fog and the distant city lights, the woman’s figure seemed ethereal, like a drifting immortal.
“The demon suppressors of today really are getting worse with each generation.
They can’t distinguish between evil and good ghosts, and they can’t even tell a living soul from a dead one.”
The woman’s gaze was kind and gentle, as if she were looking at a junior from her own family:
“I am surnamed Ma, and everyone calls me ‘Ma Guniang.’ I currently serve under Commissioner Qu of the Kuizhou Circuit, so I suppose I have some connection to you all.
Little demon suppressor, what level have you reached in your bone forging method? Do you have a master? Are there any famous figures among the elders of your family?”
She really has mistaken me for someone else.
“Ma’am... Senior, I’m not the demon suppressor you’re talking about. You must have the wrong person.”
Qin Yue braced herself and stepped forward, performing a cupped-fist salute. She replied using the woman’s manner of speaking:
“Could you please tell me where my companion went? And what exactly happened in this building tonight?”
Rate on N.U.
