EM CH17

Chapter 17: Fading Color?

Yu An’s hands and feet were still somewhat limp. Leaning against the tightly shut elevator doors, he pressed his ear against the metal to listen to the chaotic battle outside. He could hear only the Aberrants’ successive roars and howls of pain, while the interviewer laughed like a consummate supervillain. Clearly crushing his opponents in sheer power, he was cruelly toying with them with effortless ease.

Whenever he heard this commotion, Yu An couldn’t help but wonder whether the side he had joined was actually the righteous one.

The hostage wasn’t his responsibility? Then what had he come here for? As expected, the interviewer wasn’t a good person and deserved to be disciplined.

In truth, Yu An didn’t care all that much about the hostage either. He had merely gone along with what he assumed the interviewer wanted to hear, thinking bringing up the hostage first would make the interviewer believe he was taking tonight’s mission seriously.

Besides that, there was another suspicious point.

The interviewer wasn’t missing a hand.

Although he wore gloves, when he had wiped the blood from his face earlier, Yu An could clearly sense that the space beneath the leather wasn’t empty. His hand was attached soundly to his wrist.

“Hiss, so where did you come from?” Yu An unzipped the shoulder bag. The right hand was pitifully clutching its fingers, curled up in a corner of the backpack.

Could it be a misunderstanding, having nothing to do with the interviewer? Since the salon had turned into an Illusion Chamber, it seemed reasonable for some bizarre critters that didn’t exist in reality to spawn within it.

“Shouldn’t have called it xiongdi. Men on the left, women on the right; what if it’s a little female hand?” Yu An lifted the right hand out of the bag. He didn’t know what kind of feed was required to raise such a critter. If it ate human flesh, he would have no choice but to put it down.

The right hand no longer had the luxury to prove its gender. It scratched frantically at the elevator doors, desperate to return to Zhao Ran’s side immediately to explain its meritorious service.

Having fought the doctor couple for so long, the right hand was already mangled, its back and palm scored in more than one place by the sharp bone axe.

“You have so much blood on you.” Yu An picked up the interviewer’s shirt and wiped the scraped spots on the right hand.

Trembling, the right hand backed away in desperate refusal, but couldn’t escape, its entire form enveloped by the oppressive, decaying woody scent clinging to the shirt. Shuddering with a squeak, it passed out from sheer terror, its palm flipping pale-side up with its five fingers curling together.

“Is it really that comfortable?” Yu An scratched its palm, stuffed the right hand back into the bag, and zipped it shut. From now on, it would be his pet puppy.

He nearly forgot serious business: the interviewer had told him to head downstairs to receive Officer Ye.

Yu An propped himself up against the elevator wall and stood. Swapping too many Aberrant Cores within a single day was, to some degree, burning through his lifespan as a Vessel. Even if he were a genuine machine, he couldn’t undergo such unrestrained wear and tear.

Pressing the button for the first floor, the floor indicator above the elevator began ticking down from the seventh floor, yet the usual faint sensation of weightlessness when riding an elevator never arrived.

It seemed the streamer in the yellow jacket hadn’t lied. When carrying passengers, this elevator only went up, never down. Yu An understood the operating principle of such mechanisms: one only needed to install a weight-sensor switch and calibrate the trigger threshold to an adult’s weight.

Yu An’s eyes brightened. He pulled out the elevator keycard swiped from the drawer in the director’s office and swiped it over the sensor.

The sensation of weightlessness kicked in. The elevator began descending normally and arrived at the first floor.

The elevator doors slid open to both sides. The moment Yu An stepped one leg out, an icy, rigid barrel was abruptly pressed against his forehead. From the familiar texture, the tooling marks, and the wear on the muzzle, Yu An could even deduce the exact model: a 9mm police service revolver.

“Who goes there?” Officer Timon raised her arm, shielding Officer Ye behind her, using the gun to keep distance from the other party.

Wearing the Pure Black Hood, Yu An’s face was completely obscured by an abyss-like void. Nobody could make out his features.

He drew his Underground Railway ID card and flashed it to the two officers.

Officer Ye nodded slightly. Both policewomen wore plainclothes today, disguised as disillusioned office workers heading to a bar late at night to drown their sorrows, avoiding unwanted attention.

Still, considering Officer Timon’s height of nearly 1.8 meters, paired with the black mask welded to Officer Ye’s face, walking into a nightclub would easily make them look like mob bosses coming to trash the venue.

Recognizing Yu An from his build, Timon hastily lowered her weapon, holstering it back into her leather rig: “Heavens, you really broke through an Illusion Chamber all by yourself. Incredible.”

“…” At moments like this, Yu An’s otherwise sharp mind stalled. Quick, think of some modest, polite words.

Yu An: “1.”

“…” Intimidated by Yu An’s icy attire, and knowing secret operatives from Underground Railway all possessed eccentric tempers, Timon realized she probably shouldn’t engage in casual chatter. Awkwardly rubbing the tip of her nose, she whispered toward the bottomless darkness beneath the hood: “Sorry, sir.”

Thank goodness for the Pure Black Hood, allowing Yu An to avoid making small talk with strangers as much as possible. This outfit had been worth every penny.

Officer Ye was far more concerned with the hostage: “Are there any living people left in the building?”

“Mr. Zhou is still alive.” Keeping his head down, Yu An planted the Arrogant Bat vertically between his feet. “Follow me.”

The elevator ascended slowly, the aged cab and steel cables squealing and groaning. Facing away from the two policewomen, Yu An stared blankly at the floor buttons.

The elevator hadn’t been cleaned in ages. Cobwebs hung in the corners, and the buttons were coated in grease and dust. Evidently, only the seventh floor had become an Illusion Chamber; the smiling janitors couldn’t take the elevator to clean other floors.

The seventh-floor button appeared smooth from frequent use, but upon closer inspection, the eighth-floor button was relatively clean as well.

Curious, Yu An pressed it.

The button didn’t illuminate; only the seventh floor stayed lit.

Yu An pulled out the elevator tag again, swiped it across the sensor, and pressed the eighth floor.

It actually lit up. Both the seventh and eighth-floor buttons shone simultaneously. Testing the other floors yielded no response at all.

The eighth floor could be unlocked with the keycard? Yu An hadn’t explored anywhere beyond the seventh floor yet and had no idea what dangers lurked there. Since the interviewer had things well in hand on the seventh floor without needing interference, taking advantage of having two formidable fighters behind him to scout the eighth floor seemed like a solid plan.

Yu An had gotten smart this time, refusing to guide the police to the interviewer’s side. Defeating the doctor couple would inevitably yield two Aberrant Cores, and he had no desire to watch the fruits of his hard night’s labor get confiscated by the police.

Having served as a special tactical officer for a decade, an inexperienced student was as transparent as blank paper before Officer Ye. She saw right through his little scheme, but chose not to expose him.

Upon reaching the seventh floor, the elevator didn’t stop, continuing upward for half a level. Just as it neared the eighth floor, it shuddered suddenly and ground to a halt.

The cab appeared trapped midway between the seventh and eighth floors.

Vigilant, Timon raised her sidearm toward the seam of the doors, then expertly drew a pry bar from her utility belt to wedge the elevator doors open.

Theoretically, forcing the doors open now should have revealed the concrete ceiling slab of the seventh floor dead center. Yet reality proved otherwise. Prying the doors open led directly into a pitch-black room. Although the cab’s ceiling light was on, the limited glow couldn’t penetrate the depths of the chamber.

A foul stench of putrefaction rushed in.

“A secret chamber,” Officer Ye deduced from experience. Drawing her sidearm and flashlight, she stepped cautiously out of the elevator. Timon flanked her, covering the blind spots opposite Officer Ye’s line of sight.

This place resembled a cheap dormitory ward, with iron bunk beds lined up in rows. Inside a cramped space of merely several dozen square meters, nearly twenty beds were crammed together.

The bedding was filthy and greasy, as though dipped in kitchen grease traps, with small crimson blood specks and smeared stains scattered across the sheets, barely leaving the original white fabric recognizable.

The blankets on every cot lay spread out, a slender ridge rising slightly in the center, as if covering some kind of thin, human-shaped object beneath.

Hearing the words “secret chamber,” Yu An roughly understood the purpose of this isolated room.

When arriving at Xiliu Beauty Salon, there had been four clients in total including himself, assigned respectively to Rooms 701 through 704. Yet after crossing the skybridge into the body sculpting wing and checking each white door along the way, Yu An had only discovered the imprisoned Mr. Zhou at the deepest end of the corridor.

The headcount didn’t match; something was missing.

Where had those obese patients recorded in the Skeletal Art videos gone?

Just as the thought crossed his mind, Officer Ye’s flashlight beam landed beside the pillow of one cot. A man slept upon the pillow, barely identifiable as male by his facial structure; his face was merely a layer of skin wrapped around a skull, his eyeballs completely rotted away to leave two maggot-infested dark pits, lips curled back to expose distinct yellow teeth and desiccated gums.

Officer Ye’s knit brows relaxed: “Victims’ remains. Timon, help me carry them into the elevator.”

Scanning the surroundings while gripping his bat, Yu An spotted an unlabeled medicine bottle rolling under a bed. Unscrewing the cap, it contained several green capsules. They looked quite unique: transparent shells filled with a fluorescent green compound.

Prying one out, he tucked it into the Core Storage Analyzer and handed the remaining bottle to Officer Ye. As he stepped forward, some movement stirred in the shadowy corner to his right. He swung his flashlight beam over on reflex.

“Officer Ye, no need to carry him.”

Hearing that, Officer Ye looked up at Yu An.

Facing the dark corner, Yu An pointed a finger: “He seems able to walk on his own.”

In the direction he indicated, a gaunt bag of bones stood in the corner. Beneath the skin lay zero fat for support, leaving only shriveled, jerky-like muscle. Suture marks lined his face, the thread blackened and rotting, dropping a few maggots from the wounds as he staggered forward.

Fumbling ahead, the skeletal man picked up speed, lunging madly toward Yu An.

“Officer, I didn’t touch him, okay.” Without blinking, Yu An raised his bat and swung with the wind. With a heavy clang, the skeletal man was sent flying three meters away. “Justifiable defense!”

Officer Ye looked around. Across the cots in the room, blankets were tossed aside as skeletal figures clambered up sluggishly, joints creaking and clicking as they closed in on the trio.

Seeing this, Timon immediately aimed her gun at a skeletal man’s head, only for the muzzle to be pushed down by Officer Ye.

Holstering her sidearm as well, Officer Ye lowered her right arm. A black tube slid from her sleeve into her palm; gripping it cleanly, she flicked it downward, extending a police baton into her grip.

“Keep the victims’ remains as intact as possible,” Officer Ye ordered.

“Yes, ma’am!”

The baton was rigid and slender, whistling sharply with every swing. Her expression unchanging, surrounded by over a dozen skeletal men, Officer Ye maintained pinpoint accuracy, striking exclusively at their knees and elbows.

Yet this restrained fighting style proved perilous when outnumbered. The room was pitch-black. The moment Officer Ye swung her baton, a lunging skeletal man bit down on her arm, tearing her sleeve and carving a long, bloody laceration across her skin.

“Captain!” Timon’s face contorted in sudden fury. Drawing her sidearm, she put a single shot through the skeletal man that had bitten her. Taking the round to the head, the violent impact threw the creature backward, blowing open a massive crater in the back of its skull.

The gunshot shook dust from the ceiling. Officer Ye snapped back: “I said keep the remains intact.”

“I’ll write a self-criticism!” Timon’s sharp eyes tracked targets in the dark. As another skeletal man snapped its bloody maw toward Officer Ye’s carotid artery, Timon drove a shot down its throat, blasting it back several meters.

Before Officer Ye could speak, Timon volunteered: “I’ll write two. In Chinese.”

Yu An cared even less about formalities. His mission was solely to protect Mr. Zhou; aside from living people, he had zero qualms against any target.

With crisp, agile maneuvers, the two policewomen pinned half the skeletal figures to the floor, binding their hands.

Suddenly, an electronic broadcast brought an end to the brawl in the room.

A chime sounded from the Core Storage Analyzer: “Illusion Chamber ‘Beauty Salon’ resolved. Illusion Chamber cleared.”

It seemed the interviewer had settled the doctor Aberrants on his end.

The uncontrolled skeletal men across the room froze for several seconds before abruptly losing support, collapsing into limp heaps on the floor.

At dawn, police cruisers from Jiu’an City cordoned off the abandoned pedestrian street. A squad of detectives rushed up the office building, bringing down the hostage and victims’ remains. Mr. Zhou was rushed to the central hospital for emergency resuscitation.

His mission thoroughly accomplished, Yu An still wanted to squat on the curb to watch the spectacle for a bit, but was dragged away by Zhao Ran.

“Haven’t slept in a day and a night. Aren’t you tired? Still watching?”

“Tired.” Yu An yawned, following behind Zhao Ran with his backpack slung over his shoulder. “My eye hurts. Taking a taxi back?”

Brushing the dust off his motorcycle, Zhao Ran swung his leg over. Straddling the bike with his long legs braced on one side, he pulled down his goggles and patted the empty seat behind him: “Think I’d make you walk back? Get on.”

The motorcycle roared along the narrow roads at breakneck speed, vaulting over ditches and leaning into sharp turns from time to time. Zhao Ran’s technique was flawless, but for a passenger, it was more blood-pressure-spiking than a roller coaster.

Battered by the stiff wind, Yu An could only grip the grab bar tightly, keeping his eyes shut with his head pressed flush against Zhao Ran’s back.

Curling his lips upward, Zhao Ran accelerated.

Unable to hold back any longer, Yu An wrapped his arms around Zhao Ran’s waist, clinging tightly to his clothes with his entire body pressed against his back, terrified a sudden hard turn might fling him straight off the planet.

Entering Hongli City, the speed visibly dropped before Yu An finally opened his eyes. Zhao Ran pulled the bike up before a detached villa, explaining that this was housing provided by Underground Railway for senior operatives.

The rising sun rimmed the clouds in gold leaf. Dawn broke across the frigid night, the morning rays dispelling a touch of the bitter cold.

Yu An waited in the courtyard, sleepily squinting his eyes to soak in the morning sun. A night of extreme tension had left him utterly spent, to the point where he hadn’t even noticed where the interviewer had abducted him to.

Zhao Ran walked out of the garage. He could have entered the house directly from inside the garage, but his intern had stubbornly waited in the courtyard like an idiot.

Seeing the interviewer walking toward him, Yu An patted his cheeks to perk up. Did pulling an all-nighter cause color blindness? The interviewer’s hair looked significantly paler.

Wait, his eyes were turning white too.

Zhao Ran raised a hand to shield his face from the sun, looking like a delicate blossom scorching under the harsh light.

“Albinism, UV sensitivity…” Help, the interviewer was fading.

Startled fully awake, Yu An stripped off his hooded jacket and pounced forward, throwing the jacket right over the interviewer’s head.

With his entire head swathed in Yu An’s black jacket, Zhao Ran stood rooted to the spot in complete confusion, feeling as though he had been hijacked by some tiny animal.

Clamping both legs around his waist, Yu An freed both hands to peel back a corner of the jacket, poking his head inside to inspect carefully whether the color had completely drained away.

“…” Zhao Ran exchanged glances with the face squeezed beneath the jacket for several seconds, sighed, and simply carried him by the thighs into the house.

He was used to it. The kid was always like this, not unlike a house cat: sometimes it was impossible to figure out what was going through his head, yet you couldn’t find a reason to scold him.