Chapter 317: Chapter 273: The Red Dress
With the copper mirror in hand, Yang Xiao was fully confident. He didn’t plan on a head-on confrontation; instead, all he needed to do was buy time. Silently doing the calculations in his mind, he estimated that a few more minutes should be the limit for maintaining his strength.
The moment Yang Xiao stepped out from behind cover, he was spotted. The Doraemon was now blood-soaked, standing in front of a glass door, its body riddled with arrows. For some reason, the tale of Zhuge Kongming borrowing arrows with straw boats came to mind.
As Doraemon raised its fist, Yang Xiao activated his ability and vanished from its sight. After a brief pause, Doraemon shifted its focus to the three people behind cover, staggering towards them. Meanwhile, Yang Xiao emerged from behind it, fired his gun, but the bullets seemed to sink into a sea of mud, causing no ripples on hitting Doraemon’s body.
However, this did attract its attention. Doraemon turned around and charged at Yang Xiao once more. This time being closer, Yang Xiao suddenly realized that this creature wasn’t a summoned Doraemon at all, but a ghost wearing a Doraemon costume.
Looking through the open mouth of the costume, he saw a face hidden within, a cold, numb, purple face.
It seemed like a man, but Yang Xiao couldn’t be sure.
In that moment of hesitation, the costumed ghost’s fist was already upon him. If it weren’t for Yang Xiao’s quick use of the copper mirror, that punch would have hammered his internal organs out of his mouth.
Yang Xiao used the teleportation ability of the copper mirror to keep buying time. Whenever the costumed ghost lost sight of Yang Xiao and shifted its target, Yang Xiao would pop up nearby. Eventually, he got so tired of shooting that he simply shouted, managing to attract the costumed ghost’s attention once again.
After a struggle, time was up. Yang Xiao watched in dismay as dirty water bubbled up from under the costumed ghost’s feet. It stood motionless, slowly sinking into the water until it vanished completely.
Seeing this, Yang Xiao couldn’t help but be curious about the origin of the costumed ghost, but with enemies at hand, now wasn’t the time for questions.
Once the costumed ghost disappeared, its master, Beibei, naturally felt it and led Wu Zhengwu and Sun Qiya out from their hiding place. Yang Xiao returned a pendant he had picked up from where the costumed ghost vanished to Beibei, and the group proceeded up the stairs.
Earlier, as the costumed ghost wreaked havoc, the sound of gunfire echoed from another part of the mall. Yang Xiao deduced that their other team had entered through the front door, backed by a support squad led by two captains from the Luming Bureau—one in charge and one deputy.
The layout on the second floor was much more complex than on the first. Whoever managed the mall had set up several gates. What made Yang Xiao and the others more alert was the discovery of several bodies near a gate that had fallen halfway down.
"Wait, there’s an ambush behind the door," Sun Qiya’s ability came in handy, and the four of them quickly dispersed to find cover.
Yang Xiao dragged a body from beneath his feet over for a quick inspection. The body was dressed in black and lying next to it was a crossbow arrow with the string ready to fire. The pure black arrow, still menacing in the dark, undoubtedly belonged to someone from the heretics’ side.
But what was strange was that there were no external injuries on the body; it was just the neck that had been twisted by some tremendous force. Yang Xiao surmised that the person had been ambushed so suddenly, there hadn’t even been time to shoot the crossbow held in hand, and guessed that the killer must also possess Resentful Eye abilities.
Given the location of the bodies, these people were clearly hiding here with a good vantage point over the stairs they had ascended—they could easily shoot anyone coming up like porcupines.
"Wu Zhe, is that you?" Beibei suddenly called out.
A moment later, there was a response from behind the half-lowered gate—a young man’s voice, "Beibei?"
"It’s one of our own." As Beibei stepped out from cover, the others gradually emerged, led by a man and a woman, all wearing the same uniform.
"Captain Wu, what’s the situation on your end?" Wu Zhengwu asked, all business.
"We’ve taken care of the guards at the main entrance and killed a Resentful Eye Cultivator," Wu Zhe replied, pulling a semi-transparent evidence bag from his pocket. Inside was a bloodied object shimmering like a hair clip, "The Resentful Eye has been seized."
He made it sound easy, but from the unnatural twist in the arm of the deputy female captain standing beside him, it was clear their fight with the heretics hadn’t been simple.
"How about you?" Wu Zhe asked.
"We’ve nearly cleared them all; a small number got away," Wu Zhengwu glossed over, not wasting time.
It seemed the Great Heretic Cultivator of the Venerable Level hadn’t shown up yet, but they had cast a net in the area, and she couldn’t possibly escape. The two teams decided to join forces and continue the search upwards; the children’s playground was the crucial area.
Wu Zhe nodded, turned around, and instructed his injured deputy captain to lead some of their members to stay back and clear any hidden heretical cultists nearby, while he continued the search with two his men joining forces with Yang Xiao’s group.
Through Beibei’s introduction, Yang Xiao learned that those cult members with broken necks were the handiwork of Wu Zhe.
As the group cautiously ascended to the third floor of the shopping mall, they encountered no resistance on the way. They hadn’t gone far before they could see the sign for the children’s play center in the distance. Suddenly, Sun Qiya seemed to sense something and whipped around to look behind them.
Yang Xiao instantly drew his gun, pointing it behind them, but all that met their gaze was the path they had come from, empty and devoid of anything unusual.
"What’s wrong?" Beibei asked nervously.
"It’s like...it’s like someone is following us." Sun Qiya closed her eyes, and a faint red color seeped from the bottom of her eyes. After a moment, she abruptly opened them, her face filled with confusion, "Strange, could I have been mistaken? That feeling has disappeared now."
Yang Xiao chambered a round and quickly switched to fully automatic mode, aiming in the direction where Sun Qiya had been looking, "Let’s go back, where did you feel that person was earlier?"
Everyone insisted on going back to check. The feeling of something suddenly appearing behind them was not a good omen. Under Sun Qiya’s guidance, they quickly came to a shop about ten meters away. Judging from the sign that had not yet been removed, it used to be a shop selling children’s clothing.
The glass doors of the shop were closed now, with no lights inside, creating a dark interior. Looking through the glass door, nearly nothing remained on the shelves, and the few remaining counters had been cleared out.
But as soon as Beibei turned on the flashlight she carried, a chilling scene unfolded before them in the next second. Two rows of clear footprints lay on the dirty floor inside the shop, winding erratically without any pattern, like those of a drunken person, extending from the doorway into the depths of the shop.
"Fuck..." Beibei took a deep breath and instinctively drew the short knife she carried. Flashlight in the left hand and knife in the right, she prepared to enter.
"Wait, don’t go in yet," Yang Xiao said, holding her back. He then glanced at the eerily silent children’s playground in the distance and lowered his voice, "We can’t maneuver with too many people. You and I will go in, the rest stay outside and keep watch towards the playground."
"Captain Yang, how about I go in with Beibei instead?" Wu Zhengwu was a decent man, aware that Yang Xiao was not adept at close combat.
Yang Xiao shook his head to decline the offer, then Beibei pushed open the door, leading the way, with him following closely behind, gun raised. They slowly entered the shop, following the strange footprints until they reached a wooden door at the very back. The footprints stopped outside the door.
"Who is in there?" Beibei yelled, "Come out!"
As expected, there was silence inside. But Beibei knew that their opponent wouldn’t simply surrender; her actions were intended to buy Yang Xiao some time.
Yang Xiao had already approached the side of the wooden door. He pressed his body against the wall and listened intently; there was not a sound inside. He tapped the wall lightly—it was thin, made of plywood or something similar. After estimating the size of the space behind the wall and the most likely hiding spot for their opponent, Yang Xiao silently gestured to Beibei. They both slowly backed away; Yang Xiao then raised his gun, aimed, and quickly emptied his clip into where someone might be hiding.
"Bang bang bang bang bang bang..."
Once one clip was empty, he inserted another, giving no chance to anyone inside. After the shooting stopped, the wall was riddled with bullet holes. Beibei, ready for action, kicked open the door without waiting for Yang Xiao to get close. Before he could approach, a cry of alarm came from Beibei inside.
Following the beam from Beibei’s flashlight, Yang Xiao rushed in and was also struck dumb. A chill instantly crept over his entire body as he saw, behind a pile of discarded wooden racks, a mannequin riddled with bullet holes, dressed in the Patrol Defense Bureau’s uniform.
The mannequin didn’t move, its bullet holes still smoking. Wu Zhengwu and Sun Qiya rushed in after hearing the cry, and their expressions were as if they had seen a ghost upon seeing the mannequin. "Wasn’t this thing by the back door where the security passageway is? How did it get here?"
Sun Qiya wondered if it might be another mannequin, but after examining it, Beibei confirmed it was the same one they had seen before.
The mannequin was dressed in a full set of Patrol Defense Bureau uniforms, including a coat, shoes, and, more disturbingly, even underwear and socks.
Wu Zhengwu squatted down, removed the mannequin’s shoes, and compared them to the footprints at the entrance. They matched perfectly.
The atmosphere now turned eerie as the group was haunted by a terrifying guess—this mannequin might be the missing team member.
For precaution, before they left, Wu Zhengwu used a hunting knife to disassemble the mannequin’s body, scattering the pieces; there was no flesh inside, only the most common materials.
After leaving the shop, everyone’s faces looked grim. Unexpectedly, in the next second, the sound of music erupted, comparably startling in the silent environment. Looking towards the source, they saw the carousel in front of the children’s playground suddenly start moving by itself. A bizarre figure in a red dress, wearing a mask, was standing beside the carousel, turning its head to look at them.
