Chapter 477: Chapter 413: Clue
One afternoon, Yang Xiao, following his usual routine, completed combat and shooting training. After bidding farewell to the Bald Coach, he went to the locker room to shower alone. Once he dried off and came out, he received a message on his phone from his younger brother Ling Yanyu, who was far away in Xiang Ma Town.
The last time there was an attempt to kill him at night in Xiang Ma Town, Ling Yanyu was among them. However, after realizing Ling was not a person of great evil, Yang Xiao let him off and allowed him to continue running the Nie Family Teahouse in Xiang Ma Town.
In Xiang Ma Town, with its mixture of good and bad people, new faces are easily targeted as prey. Yang Xiao himself wasn’t afraid, but it could attract unnecessary trouble.
He would have to deal with the Peace Hotel sooner or later, so he urgently needed a secure foothold in the town as well as a reliable contact.
In the message, Ling Yanyu said he had collected quite a bit of information but was not sure what kind Yang Xiao needed, so he hoped Yang Xiao could make time to visit.
Previously, Yang Xiao and Ling Yanyu had agreed that if Ling worked for him for a year, Yang Xiao would give him a mask, which was a great temptation for Ling, eager to infiltrate the hotel.
Yang Xiao replied to him, saying he would arrive that night and would send a message in advance for Ling to drive over and pick him up.
After a quick meal outside, Yang Xiao returned to his apartment, entered Mirror World, took out the Character "Li" Mask stored inside, and also brought some money. If the information Ling Yanyu had gathered was indeed valuable, he was willing to invest more.
This time, he planned to stay in Xiang Ma Town for a few days to get to know the place. Of course, the most important thing was to book a room at the Peace Hotel. He brought those paintings that depicted the strange creatures attacking the woman in red, hoping to find some clues at the Peace Hotel.
Besides that, he also brought the Grudge Eye Key he had obtained from Wu Peide. This item was of no use to him, so it was better to convert it into money and exchange it for information.
Strapping on his beloved backpack, which held his dear sister, Yang Xiao set off. He hailed a black car near the station, agreed on a price with the driver, and sped off, leaving the city, heading west.
Driving through the night, Yang Xiao shut his eyes, planning to rest for a bit, but the talkative driver wouldn’t stop chattering, constantly asking questions when he saw that Yang Xiao was reluctant to chat.
"Brother, what are you doing going to Xiang Ma Town so late?"
"Are you going to meet an online friend?"
"It’s not safe making friends online these days, let me tell you. Last time, I met a Lolita girl, but it turned out to be a big man with hairy legs, wearing high heels and black stockings... Ugh, the image was too beautiful, I dare not even think about it."
"Brother, why don’t you talk much?"
"Are you naturally introverted?"
Finally running out of patience, the usually good-tempered Yang Xiao said in an icy tone, "I need to rest now. Call me when we arrive. Don’t talk to me until then."
Yang Xiao thought he would finally have some peace for the rest of the journey, but he had underestimated the other man. The driver stopped talking to him and instead muttered to himself in a low voice.
After driving for an unknown time, Yang Xiao, with his eyes closed, felt his pocket vibrating non-stop. He took out his phone; it was a call from Beibei. "Hello, it’s me."
Yang Xiao answered out of habit, but a few seconds later, his expression changed drastically, "Wait for me, I’ll be right there!"
With the call ended, Yang Xiao quickly tapped the driver’s seat, commanding, "Turn around, let’s go back!"
"Go back?" The driver was confused and glanced at the navigation map on his phone, "We’re almost there."
The next second, several Red Tickets were thrown onto the passenger seat, and Yang Xiao urged sternly, "Turn back, and make it fast!"
What was supposed to be a two-hour journey was completed in just a little over an hour. Yang Xiao had the driver drop him off at the Patrol Defense Office. He jumped out of the car before it could come to a complete stop. As soon as the driver saw the government office sign outside, he floored the accelerator and sped away.
Yang Xiao hurried into the large building of the Patrol Defense Bureau, went directly to the reception room, and although it was already after office hours, several people were standing outside the reception room door. Da Xiong, Xi Menxiu, and Yu Shu were all present, each with an expression of tension on their faces.
Seeing Yang Xiao arrive, Xi Menxiu, with bloodshot eyes, was the first to rush over, "Team leader, you’re finally here!"
"What happened?" Yang Xiao didn’t stop walking.
The two quickly reached the door of the reception room; through the one-way glass window, they could see a light on inside, with Beibei sitting on a chair and a young man sitting on a sofa on the other side. The man seemed quite restrained and nervous, with his legs together and his body unnaturally hunched over.
"An hour ago, the undercover guard outside noticed this person wandering around the Patrol Defense Bureau suspiciously, sneaking around, and when it got dark and no one was around, stretching his neck to peek inside. We were notified and the patrol team took control of him."
"After being detained, he seemed very nervous. He said he came to find you, the team leader, because he had very important information to disclose. Unless he saw you in person, he wouldn’t say anything. However, he did reveal a bit in the end—it’s about something related to Zhu Junjie."
Pausing for a moment, Xi Menxiu explained, "The name Zhu Junjie is the alias Zhuge Zhijie used in the Nightmare World."
Hearing this, Yang Xiao hesitated no more, pushed the door open, and walked in. The young man inside was startled by the opening of the door and looked at Yang Xiao with fear in his eyes. Yang Xiao took out his credentials and handed them to the man, "I am the person you’re looking for. What do you have to tell me?"
Although afraid, the man still took Yang Xiao’s credentials, looked at them carefully, and then spoke softly after confirming Yang Xiao’s identity, "I... I was asked by Zhu Junjie to inform you that he died in the Nightmare World, and... he was murdered!"
"The man who killed him is named Pang Jian. Not long after Brother Zhu entered the mission, he led us to escape danger twice. Then he held a meeting and told us that he had investigated the background of this mission before coming, and instructed us to follow him."
"Everything went smoothly after that. I thought it would keep going well, but unexpectedly, on the third night, Brother Zhu and Pang Jian went on a mission together, and only Pang Jian came back. He was soaking wet and told us that Brother Zhu was targeted by a ghost because of a careless mistake, and fell from a twenty-meter-high crane at the construction site, shattering his body."
"He also said that because of the error Brother Zhu made, the ghost might come after us. To save the remaining people, he had no choice but to leave Brother Zhu’s body behind and warned us not to go near the warehouse by the construction site, as that’s where the ghost was hiding."
"I was last in line, and I had no partner, just me alone. I was terrified. It was raining, and the ghost would appear on rainy nights. I ran into that ghost by accident; in my fright, I ran in the wrong direction and got trapped in the warehouse."
"The ghost was waiting outside, constantly smashing the door with a shovel. I... I hid in a corner of the warehouse, scared to death, but then I heard a noise behind me, a very soft scraping sound. I went to check and found the sound coming from beneath a tarpaulin. Peeking under a bit, I discovered two coffins inside, one black and one... one red coffin, probably props for the haunted house."
"The noise came from the red one. I didn’t care anymore because the ghost was about to break through the door, and there was only one exit in that warehouse. I mustered my courage and lifted the lid of the red coffin. I didn’t expect... didn’t expect to find Brother Zhu inside!"
"His limbs were broken, his body covered in blood, but he wasn’t dead yet, he was still breathing, and I saw that his feet were shod in black rain boots!"
The man’s tone suddenly soared, "How could this be possible? It was Brother Zhu who told us never to wear the black rain boots provided at the construction site no matter what, as that was a taboo which would attract the pursuit of a ghost."
"Brother Zhu told me he was pushed off the crane by Pang Jian from behind. After Pang Jian came down and found he wasn’t dead, he forced a pair of black rain boots onto his feet, fearing that the incident would be exposed. He then dragged him to the warehouse and stuffed him into the coffin."
"By that time, the door had been broken open by the shovel, and the ghost would soon break in. I was in despair, but Brother Zhu comforted me, asking me to push his coffin out and then hide in the other black coffin. He instructed me to close the coffin lid and no matter what I heard, not to react, assuring me that after the ghost killed him, it would leave."
"I couldn’t bear to do this, but Brother Zhu said he couldn’t hold on much longer and couldn’t get out anyway. Having one dead was better than two. He begged me not to reveal anything unusual after leaving, to avoid letting Pang Jian find any faults and to seek you out at Rongcheng Defense Office after leaving the Nightmare World alive to report this incident," the young man spilled everything out like spilling beans.
"Is he really... really dead?" Beibei stared blankly, "Did you see his body?"
The young man pursed his lips and nodded, "I saw it. Brother Zhu died terribly, his skull halved by the ghost with a shovel, and his body... his body was also dragged away by the ghost, thrown into a large pit outside the construction site."
Taking a deep breath, Yang Xiao managed to suppress the rage in his heart, "Thank you, what is your name?"
"My name is Meng Yu," the young man said.
Yang Xiao nodded, reached for his backpack, and took out 50,000 yuan to give to him. Unexpectedly, the offer was immediately refused, and Meng Yu stood up angrily, "What are you doing? I came here to repay Brother Zhu for saving my life, not for money!"
Yang Xiao did not insist, and left the reception room alone. Xi Menxiu and others outside, who could also hear the voices inside, had already started crying, "Team leader, you heard it. Zhi Jie was murdered; he was killed!"
Beibei also came out, gritting her teeth and ordered, "Xi Menxiu, go check now. Find this bastard Pang Jian for me. I want to skin him alive!!"
