Chapter 142: The Key Point
Chapter 142: The Key Point
The men were a bit stunned. They looked at each other, and then they all released Zhou Ling’s arm. Zhou Ling walked to the glass door again. She inserted the object in her hand into the chain lock. She pried left and right, trying to open the chain lock. It seemed what she held was not the key to the chain lock, but just a rod-like object she was using to pick the lock.
“Xiao Ling, calm down! Your sister Xiao Jing passed away several years ago! This girl came from the Black Mist outside; there must be something wrong!” Liu Yin jumped down from the service counter and rushed over, blocking the space between Zhou Ling and the glass door.
The men who had tried to hold Zhou Ling back earlier turned pale when they heard Liu Yin’s words. They looked at each other, almost ready to run away.
“Thump! Thump! Thump!”
A series of knocking sounds came from the glass door. It seemed the girl in white, unable to enter the hall, had started hitting the glass door with her forehead. But the glass door was extremely sturdy. Soon, blood appeared on her forehead.
“Move aside! Let my sister in!” Zhou Ling shouted at Liu Yin.
“Xiao Ling, have you gone crazy!?”
Liu Yin suddenly acted, knocking Zhou Ling to the ground. Zhou Ling struggled desperately. Several men standing nearby helped Liu Yin pin her down.
“You will regret this!” Zhou Ling threatened the men.
At the same time, with a loud “Bang!”, shards of glass scattered all over the floor. Everyone in the hall looked towards the glass door…
The girl in white had actually broken the glass door with her forehead. Then, with a sway of her body, she moved into the hotel lobby.
Then, the hair on her head suddenly extended, turning into countless tentacle-like strands. They sharply stretched towards the men holding Zhou Ling down, lifting them all into the air. However, she spared only Liu Yin.
With one miserable scream after another, the men’s bodies were torn apart one by one by the girl’s extended hair strands. They exploded into scattered pieces of flesh and a rain of blood splattered everywhere, turning the entire hotel lobby on the first floor into a scene like a slaughterhouse.
Witnessing this bizarre and terrifying scene, the people in the hotel lobby on the first floor let out extremely miserable and frightened screams. They fled towards the hotel elevators like a tidal wave. But only when they reached the elevator doors did they discover that all four of the hotel’s elevators were suspended on the fourth floor. No matter how frantically they pressed the buttons, the elevators wouldn’t come down, and the elevator doors wouldn’t open!
“This hotel doesn’t even have a fourth floor…” a waiter who had fled to the elevators said, looking somewhat confused at the floor display above the elevator doors.
The waiter’s words reminded many people by the elevator doors of this fact, which made them even more frightened and uneasy.
Some people rushed to the side door and the back door of the hotel’s first-floor lobby, but the back door and side door were already locked. Through the thick glass, they could see outside… it was all menacing Black Mist. The entire hotel was now like a Deserted Island in the Black Mist, and the guests trapped inside had no way to escape!
…
At the same time, on the fifth floor of the hotel.
The Iron Gate of the hotel surveillance room was tightly shut. The lights inside were off. A man sat by the monitors, silently watching everything happening in the first-floor lobby through the hotel’s surveillance system. When he saw the girl who had entered, and the cat she held in her arms, he narrowed his eyes slightly.
…
“Xiao Jing!”
After freeing herself from the men’s restraint, Zhou Ling immediately rushed towards the girl in white. She hugged the girl in white and burst into tears.
The girl in white retracted her hair strands. She just stood there very indifferently, her facial expression unchanged. She let Zhou Ling hug her, touch her, and wipe the blood from her forehead, still not saying a word.
Liu Yin, still shaken, looked at the Zhou sisters, a very sorrowful expression appearing on his face.
“What the heck! Is this still a Mysterious Domain? It’s a ghost domain, right?” Lü Yang cursed inwardly. The scene of the girl in white extending her hair to kill people just now could rival the Female Ghost BOSS in supernatural horror movies!
The girl glanced at Liu Yin, then looked into the crowd, and finally her gaze settled on Lü Yang.
In her indifferent eyes, there were actually some very subtle changes, giving Lü Yang a sudden familiar feeling. But what exactly it was… he couldn’t remember no matter how hard he tried…
“Xiao Jing, are you here to find the Death Killer? The one who caused your death?” Lü Yang took a few steps forward and asked the girl in white. From the look in her eyes just now, he had an intuition that this girl wouldn’t hurt him.
“Don’t go over there! Come back!” Liu Hui, who had fled to a distance with the crowd earlier, shouted to Lü Yang, her voice trembling with fear.
“Xiao Jing wasn’t killed by the Death Killer; she died in a kidnapping case three years ago.” Liu Yin turned his head and explained to Lü Yang.
“A kidnapping case? Was the culprit caught?” Lü Yang asked Liu Yin.
“No, that’s also the reason Xiao Ling found me and strongly requested to join the work of the Nineteenth Bureau…” Liu Yin sighed again.
Liu Yin’s Nineteenth Bureau was originally not within the scope of the Ministry of State Security’s organization. It was established only because higher-ups gave face to his father, General Liu Zhanting.
His position as bureau chief was also a sinecure, responsible only for some unsolved, mysterious cases that occurred domestically. Because they were unsolvable, the Nineteenth Bureau’s record of solving cases was still zero, but no one would hold him accountable for it.
Lü Yang couldn’t help but feel a bit strange. After he left the Donkey Head Mountain Mysterious Domain, he suddenly entered the current Mysterious Domain. When all this happened, he had his own thoughts in mind, which was also the reason he had kept his gaze locked on Zhou Ling.
One thing Lü Yang was sure of: this current Mysterious Domain was definitely related to the Death Killer. He even felt that this Mysterious Domain, following right after the previous one, was most likely created by himself. And it was after confirming who the Death Killer was that he created this Mysterious Domain, pulling the Death Killer into it to engage in a final battle and rescue Yi Ya.
But now, inexplicably, a Female Ghost had appeared, a Xiao Jing who died in a kidnapping case three years ago, and who was also Zhou Ling’s sister.
Had he made a mistake in judgment when creating the Mysterious Domain?
However, since it was an unsolved kidnapping case, Xiao Jing’s death back then might still be related to the Death Killer… Who knew when this Death Killer started killing?
A Female Ghost… If a Female Ghost appeared in a Mysterious Domain, and such a powerful, undefeatable one at that, wouldn’t it disrupt the balance of the Mysterious Domain? According to some descriptions on the Creation Card, if a Female Ghost was deployed, corresponding weapons to deal with the Female Ghost should also be deployed.
Lü Yang felt that with his ability as a Junior Paranormal Master, he probably couldn’t have created such a powerful enemy…
Could it be that this Mysterious Domain was still created by the Death Killer?
Or, had a disaster occurred at the hotel, resulting in a naturally occurring dangerous Mysterious Domain?
No… that’s not right…
For a moment, Lü Yang’s mind suddenly jolted…
No! It’s the kidnapping case!
The key point lies in the kidnapping case!
Xiao Jing’s kidnapping case years ago… the kidnapping case of Liu Hui at Donkey Head Mountain…
The Death Killer chose to use a kidnapping case as the blueprint to create a Mysterious Domain…
All of this was absolutely not some coincidence, nor was it his (or her) whim…
…
“That cat in her arms, it couldn’t be the same cat that the Death Killer tortured and killed during the first Death Livestream, could it? They look identical…” a male voice spoke up. It turned out to be the internet celebrity Han Cheng, who had somehow come over. His assistant and a number of bodyguards hadn’t dared to follow him.
“Is it that cat?” Liu Yin looked carefully at the cat the girl was holding and frowned slightly.
“If it really is that cat, then the Death Killer must be in this hotel. All these strange, illogical things must have been caused by him!” Han Cheng’s face turned ugly. He looked around, his fists clenched tightly, showing extreme hatred towards that Death Killer.
The long-haired girl in white, Zhou Jing, pushed Zhou Ling away and stepped step by step towards the people by the elevators. This sudden change terrified the already frightened people, causing them to flee everywhere and scream miserably.
However, Lü Yang quickly noticed that the long-haired girl in white, Zhou Jing, had a target this time… a man standing among the crowd, looking towards them with a bewildered expression.
The man was tall and handsome. From his clothing and demeanor, it was clear he was likely from a wealthy, powerful family—what is now commonly called an official second generation or rich second generation.
This man, seeing Zhou Jing step by step walking towards him, did not flee to the sides. Instead, an expression of extreme shame and guilt appeared on his face. He looked at Zhou Jing fearfully and trembling. When Zhou Jing reached him, he suddenly fell to his knees with a ‘thud’ in front of her.
“Xiao Jing… I’m sorry… Please forgive me…” the man begged Zhou Jing, his voice choked with tears.
Zhou Jing placed the cat in her arms on the ground, then knelt down. Her pair of blank and indifferent eyes suddenly seemed to gain some spirit. She reached out and cupped the man’s cheeks, looking at him softly with her gaze, but she didn’t say a word.
The cat that the girl had been holding seemed to recognize the man. After being put on the ground, it let out a “meow” towards him, then went close to his feet and rubbed its head against his pant legs.
The hotel lobby on the first floor was extremely quiet. No one dared to make a sound. They just watched the girl in white and this man from a distance, afraid that any noise might disturb them and cause the girl to go berserk again.
“Who is that man?” Lü Yang asked Liu Yin beside him.
Liu Yin glanced at Zhou Ling, then began to speak slowly…
“That man is Xiao Jing’s fiancé, Wan Wenzhong, the heir to a wealthy family’s business. Three years ago, the two of them drove out for a trip, but unfortunately were hijacked by a group of thugs…”