LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 64: The Invisible Monster
Seeing Pei Youguang's appearance, Pei Tiancheng frowned slightly.
“Youguang, where is your senior? Why didn’t he come with you?”
The others also cast puzzled glances his way.
Pei Youguang hesitated to speak, considered briefly, and scratched his head.
“Haha, we were having such a good conversation earlier, I totally forgot to mention it to him.” His plump face showed an awkward grin.
His words immediately caused dissatisfaction and astonishment among the crowd.
“Pei Second Young Master, how could you forget something like that?” a girl said, clearly displeased.
Pei Youguang chuckled sheepishly, “Sorry, sorry...”
Pei Tiancheng, seeming thoughtful, pondered for a while, then nodded lightly, saying blandly, “Is that so... then let's forget it. Since he has duties, it's best not to disturb him.”
As someone with high standing in the circle, his words, though met with discontent, ended further discussion.
Yet subtly, the group became even more distant from Pei Youguang, who never quite fit in.
Sensing the atmosphere turning silent, Ye Chenglin clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention and said with a smile, “Alright, we still have a program tonight. Later, when it's a bit late, let's go explore that suite where someone died—maybe we'll come across something thrilling!”
...
Meanwhile, elsewhere.
The driver Zhao Dequan, who brought Xue Jing to the Ruizhu Hotel, was carefully pushing a trolley towards the elevator entrance, with a seven or eight-tiered cream cake on it.
As the hotel manager, he usually wouldn't have to do this himself, but the guests in the twenty-second floor banquet hall today were no ordinary people.
To prevent any clumsy employee mistakes and with the intention of networking with these rich second-generation people, he decided to deliver the cake himself.
“Ding—”
The elevator doors opened, and Zhao Dequan cautiously maneuvered the cake inside.
“Huh?”
Zhao Dequan glanced sideways at the person next to him after stepping into the elevator.
The man was tall and dressed entirely in black sportswear. He wore a black baseball cap, and the bridge of his nose supported large sunglasses that completely obscured his eyes. The lower half of his face was tightly masked, and he even wore construction gloves on both hands.
The man held a cart, which carried a long rectangular object sealed tightly with black duct tape, making it impossible to identify what it was.
“Uh... hello.” Zhao Dequan instinctively greeted the stranger.
Due to an incident where someone died at the Ruizhu Hotel yesterday, most guests had checked out. Today, aside from the twenty-second floor banquet hall, the entire hotel felt eerily deserted.
He really didn’t expect to encounter... a guest?
A sense of unease crept into Zhao Dequan’s heart.
That outfit was unsettling, no matter how he looked at it. He knew all the hotel staff, and this man wasn’t one of them...
However, being a seasoned middle-aged man, Zhao Dequan understood the wisdom of avoiding trouble whenever possible.
It wasn’t his business who this person was or what they intended to do; solving cases was the sheriff’s job, ensuring safety was the security’s responsibility, and he was just a minor manager.
Many guests were like this, odd and peculiar... it was a common occurrence.
He comforted himself with this thought.
The elevator doors slowly closed.
The strange man remained silent.
Zhao Dequan sat uneasily, feeling as if the man’s gaze, hidden behind the sunglasses, was fixated on his neck.
“Today... is so hot, even though it’s almost November, heh.” Zhao Dequan awkwardly joked, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the cold sweat that wouldn’t stop from his face.
“...” The man remained silent.
Zhao Dequan’s hands fidgeted nervously on the handle of the cart while watching the elevator’s floor indicator climb upwards. He couldn’t help but complain in his heart about how slow it was.
17th floor, 18th floor, 19th floor...
The moment the elevator reached its destination, the tension was palpable. 'Chunk, clunk.' An unsettling sound echoed. It came from the cart a man was wheeling down the hallway. Past the flapping canvas, a suspicion crept into the mind of Zhao Dequan—a memory from a long-ago night. Back to a forgotten apartment where cockroaches scuttled through tightly coiled sheets. The stench of fear, always closer than the shadows.
“Keep your wits about you,” he murmured to himself. But the words, once sharp, died like the lies they’d breathed. Intent on the word, his glazed eyes met the man's, a terrible emptiness. Only breath—a gasp—would defy the dark.
With a heartbeat, the elevator doors heaved open. In the throated depths, a silent scream dwindled. Blood gleamed, velvet rose, from life's lost tethers. Curtains of arterial spray in ultimate betrayal.
He lurched back, wide-eyed. 'No! NO!’ His soul was stumbling, scrambling for escape. But before it could—light—sound—a bitter sword. Silent death.
In that strangled corridor, the quiet was blood’s triumph. From behind the cochlea, a murmur: death had come. Limbered fingers, clumsy dregs, moved.
And bled. And bled.
Into folds of death—a coffin, no escape.
Once, he had reached out—empty—no stars, no answer. Echoing, still, his hollow cry met in torrents.
'Cut.' The life turned on itself, a stranger's stare.
--
“Useless filth,” came a voice, dry, cold; the spill upon flesh—a coat.
Blood congeals, soaks. abScreeching, as the end, closed.
Mirrors burst.
And at the door waits destiny, cruel, stark.
Beyond, death waits. And you. Death, without light, or cause.
The white becomes red—a mask. He has arrived, and at the next instant...
Blood calls it home.
The story ends.
By the hand of a son—a word and its char. “Shush,” that voice. A sound—a death—a slip. “No one leaves.”
Fingers sweeping over lips—hold—hiding—nowhere.
Thus: ends.
"I'm sorry, but I don't use a phone and I don't have WeChat."
In the grand hall, Xue Jing was smiling politely, shaking his head as he declined the advances of a girl dressed in a revealing, shoulder-baring gown.
"Hey, don’t be like that, handsome. Just add me, I won’t bite," she teased persistently, wrapping her arm around Xue Jing's and making sure to subtly press him against her softness.
Xue Jing remained unfazed, sighing inwardly, what a skilled seductress.
Suddenly, he frowned, reaching into his pocket to pull out a phone.
At once, the girl's eyes lit up, mistaking his action for success in her flirtation, and she couldn't help but feel a bit smug.
"That's more like it! Here, add me. I'll tell you so… many… things…" she spoke, her voice becoming lower and more tantalizing with each word.
Ignoring her, Xue Jing focused silently on his phone, his brows knotting together.
A barely noticeable tingling flowed through his palm holding the device. If it weren't for his days of practicing the shaking armor technique that heightened his sensitivity, he might not have sensed it at all.
Before he could ponder further, the phone screen suddenly dimmed.
Immediately, the entire banquet hall's lighting was extinguished, plunging the room into darkness.
"Huh? What just happened?" someone exclaimed in surprise.
"Is it a power outage?"
"Hold on, I'll turn on my phone's flashlight… Hmm? My phone's dead too!"
The room buzzed with confused voices.
Xue Jing patted the phone in his hand, his eyes narrowing slightly.
He was certain that his phone was fully charged.
Moreover, it wasn’t just his phone; in such darkness, not a single person among the dozens present took out their phones to shine a light. Obviously, everyone's phones had stopped working.
Additionally, all the lights in the banquet hall were suddenly out... it seemed like every electrical device had failed.
This series of phenomena inevitably reminded him of something.
“EMP...” he murmured softly to himself.
An electromagnetic pulse, a high-tech method capable of instantly disabling all electronic equipment.
“Oh! I'm so scared of the dark, handsome, you must protect me,” a young lady clung even tighter to Xue Jing’s arm, nestling deeper into the soft embrace.
She giggled, seemingly indifferent to the sudden darkness.
It's just a power outage, what's the big deal?
Just then, a loud crash suddenly came from the direction of the banquet hall's entrance.
“Bang!!”
The sound of shattering glass, coupled with the noise of something falling, pierced through the darkness and startled everyone.
“What the heck!?”
“Damn, nearly scared me to death!”
“Ahhh!!”
The girl in the dress was also frightened, letting out a sharp scream.
Taking advantage of the chaos, Xue Jing freed his arm and took two steps forward, his deep eyes quietly scanning the surroundings.
In the darkness, it felt as though an invisible monster was lurking.
The ballroom was eerily still. Xue Jing's mind raced as he pieced together the puzzle of the malfunctioning devices, suspecting the work of an electromagnetic pulse. Could it be a targeted attack?
As the guests uneasily whispered among themselves, Xue Jing noticed the vibrant chandeliers flickering, casting enigmatic shadows. He scanned the room for any unfamiliar faces, wondering who might be behind the disruption.
Meanwhile, a sense of unease spread. The air felt charged with tension, as if an invisible beast lurked, unseen but palpable. Xue Jing steeled himself, knowing that the coming moments could unveil more than just a technical anomaly.