“Save the people first!!”
Qin Yue was the first to heave a tourist onto her shoulders who had passed out from smoke inhalation, sprinting down the stairs. The others followed suit.
Yet no matter how long they ran, the flight of stairs seemed endless.
Floor fifty-nine.
Floor fifty-nine.
Still floor fifty-nine.
“Damn it!”
Zhao Daxian cursed in exasperation:
“It’s a ghost wall! That thing wants to burn us all to death here! Section Head Qin, look out—”
When he looked up, Qin Yue and the tourist she was carrying had vanished, and the rest of his companions were nowhere to be seen.
Meanwhile, their surroundings had undergone an earth-shattering transformation.
Wall plaster flaked away continuously, load-bearing pillars collapsed, the sign reading “Escape Room” slowly melted, and countless fine white ashes danced through the air...
A colossal dark silhouette emerged from the swirling flames.
It—no, more accurately, he.
Almost his entire body was charred black. The exposed skin was covered in blisters and festering sores, his hair and eyebrows burned away completely, leaving behind only a bare, hairless head.
The orange-red uniform on his body had melted, its charred remnants fused to his skin. His face, thoroughly scorched and smoke-blackened, was no longer recognizable.
A mask-like face shield covered the dark silhouette’s face, but that too had melted in the blaze, leaving only gruesome, horrifying wounds and raw, red flesh.
With every breath the dark silhouette drew, plumes of white mist billowed from his mouth:
“Hoo...”
“Hoo...”
“Hoo...”
And slung over the silhouette’s shoulder was none other than the male ghost they had encountered earlier.
“Everyone has to die! Everyone will burn to death! Hehehehe!”
The scrawny male ghost writhed continuously on the dark silhouette’s shoulder, his shrill voice grating like keys screeching across glass:
“Hehehehe! The madman! He’s here!”
“The madman is here!”
“The madman is here!! Everyone will burn to death in here!!”
That woman was right—there truly was an evil ghost!
Zhao Daxian gritted his teeth, barely managing to keep his composure.
Flames raged and thick smoke billowed as aggrieved spirits from the past wept sorrowfully amid the inferno.
There was a mother shielding her child with her own body, who, while weeping bitterly before death, gouged bloody streaks into the floor with her fingernails.
There were young students who had planned to go shopping together, dead in agony before they could even leave their final words.
There was also a janitor who couldn't escape in time, trapped on the stairs by the black smoke, still clutching cleaning tools even in death.
Bitterness, grief, injustice, indignation, despair, resentment.
Enormous, overwhelming emotions assaulted Zhao Daxian, and he burst into tears uncontrollably:
“Wuuu-huu-huu-huu...”
Tears and snot mingled across his entire face.
It hurts so much.
It feels so horrible.
Save me, save me, save me.
I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.
It hurts so bad, I want to go home.
Countless emotions jammed into his brain all at once, feeling as though dozens of steel needles were stabbing through his skull, hurting so badly that Zhao Daxian wished he were dead.
Bombarded with far too many negative emotions, he felt as bloated as someone stuffed to bursting, wanting nothing more than to find somewhere to vomit violently.
“Hoo...”
The dark silhouette strode toward him, reached out, and, ignoring Zhao Daxian’s feeble resistance, firmly hoisted him onto his shoulder.
Behind him was a boundless sea of fire.
Beneath him was the madman evil ghost.
And face-to-face with him was a blackened ghost face, scorched halfway through by fire. Catching sight of him, the owner of the ghostly face squeezed out a bizarrely twisted grin:
“Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee! The madman is here, the madman is here! All must die, all must die! We’re all going to die here, hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”
Life and death hung in the balance!
“Patriarch, aid me!”
Forming hand seals and chanting an incantation, Zhao Daxian gripped his peach wood sword and drove it straight toward the evil ghost’s back—
Yet like a clay ox sinking into the sea, the peach wood sword passed harmlessly through the evil ghost’s chest, tumbled three times across the floor, and came to a stop in the corner.
What kind of monster was this?
Even the treasure his master gave him couldn't do a thing to it?!
Inexpressible dread seized Zhao Daxian’s heart, and realization dawned on him in the very next instant:
Their calculations were wrong. Qin Yue’s side was in danger!!!
...
“...Section Head Qin, look out!”
Zhao Daxian had only managed to leave behind those words before his figure vanished into the billowing black smoke.
Qin Yue reached out to grab him, but grasped only thin air.
The unconscious tourist on her back had also vanished.
Flames, cries for help, and chaos receded like the tide.
They were still on the fifty-ninth floor, having gone nowhere at all.
The grayish-white lights of the corridor fell upon the tiles, quiet and still, reflecting a sense of chill and desolation.
The other squad members also wore dazed expressions, looking as though they had just awakened from a dream, as if a lifetime had passed.
“What’s going on? Where’s the little kid who was trapped under the wooden beam just now?”
“Lyu Qing, weren’t you pinned under the rubble?!”
“Wang Cailiang! You’re alive! Damn it, I thought you were dead!!”
“Where’s the fire? Wasn’t I just crushed under a table trying to save someone??”
The group shook out their arms and legs, their faces filled with the relief and joy of narrowly escaping death.
What on earth was happening!
Qin Yue’s pupils contracted violently.
Was the fire just now not real?
Was it an illusion?
But what about the temperature she felt, the tourists she saw, and the ever-present stench of burned skin in the air?!
Where was Zhao Daxian?!
Where did he go!
“Don’t worry, that kid is safe and sound.”
Through the corridor, white mist quietly drifted in as a woman’s chuckle rang out:
“Hee-hee. Little demon suppressor, want to know where that evil ghost is? Come find me on the rooftop. If you find me, I’ll tell you!”
It was that woman!
Qin Yue’s breath hitched, and she immediately turned to look at the others.
Lyu Qing and the rest widened their eyes, clearly having heard the words as well.
“Two of you come upstairs with me. Two contact backup. The rest stay here and continue searching for Zhao Daxian. Once you find him, notify me immediately!”
Qin Yue picked a man and a woman, then bounded up the stairs with brisk strides.
Exchanging glances, those behind her followed in hot pursuit, eyes burning with resolve.
...
The door leading to the rooftop was left ajar. Without any difficulty, Qin Yue led her squad members up onto the roof.
The night wind howled fiercely. Countless neon lights flickered as if encircling the building. Clad in purple robes, a woman stood at the precipice of the roof.
The hem of her skirt danced in the wind, tracing an elegant arc that revealed the Black Tortoise boots on her feet.
The woman stood with her back turned, framed by a bright full moon. The gentle moonlight bathing her figure surprisingly outshone the brilliance of the surrounding neon.
Amid swirling white mist and dimming city lights, the woman’s ethereal silhouette looked just like an immortal descending from the heavens.
“Demon suppressors these days truly grow more pathetic by the generation. You cannot tell an evil ghost from a benign spirit, nor can you distinguish a living soul from a dead ghost.”
The woman looked at her with kind and gentle eyes, as though gazing upon a junior of her own family:
“This old woman’s surname is Ma; everyone calls me ‘Ma Guniang.’ I currently serve under Commissioner Qu in Kuizhou Circuit, so I suppose I share some ties with you lot. Little demon suppressor, what layer have you cultivated the bone forging method to? Do you have a master or lineage? Among your family elders, are there any persons of renown?”
She really had mistaken her for someone else.
“Ma’am... Senior, I am not whatever demon suppressor you mentioned. You must have mistaken me for someone else.”
Steeling herself, Qin Yue stepped forward and gave an awkward cupped-fist salute that was neither purely traditional nor modern, responding in the woman’s manner of speech:
“Could you please tell me where my companion has gone, and what exactly happened in this building tonight?”
Rate on N.U.
