Chapter 18

“Big sis, is there a problem?”

“I just feel like… have we seen this person somewhere before?”

The blue-haired boy could only remember that the waiter who just passed by was tall and slim, with broad shoulders and long legs—a figure perfect for modeling. Moments later, the girl with green highlights suddenly exclaimed, “Oh no!”

She didn’t explain but immediately turned and ran toward the elevator. The blue-haired boy followed her, running without looking back, shouting, “Big sis, what’s wrong?”

“This person appeared in the mall’s surveillance footage! Even if it was just one frame!” the girl with green highlights said. “He and that customer named ‘Lucen’ appeared in the mall and this hotel at the same time… this can’t be a coincidence!”

The two ran breathlessly to the elevator. However, one elevator had already taken the waiter straight to the 30th floor.

—-

Standing in front of room 3003, Bai Wei’s eyelid twitched abruptly. His intuition told him that something ominous was about to happen. But no matter how hard he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer.

Compared to the potential danger, the surroundings of room 3003 were even stranger. A deathly silence enveloped the entire corridor, and even the bright lights shining on the dark red carpet seemed particularly dim.

But it was a weekday afternoon, and it was normal for the top floor of the hotel to be quiet. Bai Wei pressed his ear against the door of room 3003 and listened, ensuring there was no activity in the living room.

He used the 3003 room card he had copied from the front desk to open the door. At this time, it was the brightest part of the afternoon, but what he saw was complete darkness.

All the windows in the living room were covered with thick curtains!

Lu Sen must be doing something shady. Bai Wei pushed the cart inside and put on his gloves again. He moved sideways, following the wall toward the bedroom. But before he could make a sound, he smelled something strange.

The smell of the deep sea… just a slight fishiness, but more of a sweet, intoxicating fragrance. Bai Wei’s ears grew hot. He covered his mouth and nose, trying to expel the smell from his nasal cavity.

The dark, unresponsive bedroom door was within reach.

Bai Wei lightly knocked on the door.

“Room service,” he said in a low voice.

No response.

It seemed that no matter what state Lu Sen was in, he wouldn’t notice this quiet intruder. Bai Wei held the drug-laced handkerchief and twisted the doorknob.

Bai Wei had always considered himself a hunter. It wasn’t until much later that he realized some predators release bait pheromones to lure their prey closer, then skin them, dismember them, and completely devour them. And on this day, for the first time, he became the prey.

The smell in the room was even stronger, and all the curtains were drawn. Bai Wei’s night vision only allowed him to see the scattered bottles of mineral water, canned food, and a large freezer. In the center of the room, the large bed stood tall with a black silhouette. Seeing the silhouette, Bai Wei breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that Lucen was in that shadow.

Bai Wei held his breath and maneuvered around obstacles to approach him. But at that moment, something tripped him. He clearly remembered there being no obstacles where he stepped, quickly looked down, but only saw a blur, as if something dark and shadowy.

If Bai Wei had better night vision than a feline, he would have seen several colorful tentacles pulling a discarded shell under the bed. The discarded shell had been casually thrown around and now had to be stored properly. If Bai Wei’s vision were sharper, he would have seen the shell’s form.

It was, without a doubt, his husband—Lucen’s form.

But a sense of danger washed over Bai Wei. It traveled up his spine, deeply embedding itself in his brain. Like a spark of electricity when a lightbulb is switched on… Even though he was already beside the bed, even though he was just one step away from the lump buried under the blanket with faint breathing, Bai Wei still made the wisest decision immediately.

“Sir, the ice you requested has been delivered to the living room. I won’t disturb you,” he said softly.

He retreated, but something tripped him again—damn it! There was definitely nothing there just now! Bai Wei struggled to steady himself and ran towards the bedroom door.

If there were light in the room, if Bai Wei looked down, he would have found that what tripped him was a long, thick tentacle reaching out to him. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have taken another step toward what he believed to be a safe escape direction… Bai Wei felt a blur before his eyes again. He stumbled and fell towards the bed—this time defying the laws of physics. Bai Wei’s eyes widened as he saw several tentacles tightly wrapping around his calves…

And dragging him towards the bed!

“You’ve come.” An ancient voice whispered, “I’ve been waiting for you… you finally came.”

At the moment Bai Wei fell onto the bed, dizzy and seeing stars, he began to question Newton, question René Descartes who proposed the law of conservation of momentum. From any force analysis perspective, he shouldn’t have fallen like this! The bed in the presidential suite was very soft, but Bai Wei still let out a cry of pain. After the stars cleared from his vision, he saw a pair of eyes glowing with a faint blue light in the darkness.

“Don’t leave… don’t try to escape…”

Several hands clumsily grabbed his left arm, which he was trying to use to prop himself up. At that moment, Bai Wei blurted out, “How many people are there in here?”

How many people are on Lucen’s bed? And why did they have to drag him here, thinking the more the merrier?

Almost instantly, the sensation on Bai Wei’s arm turned into just one hand. It was as if the owner of the hand briefly overcame the instinct to “pull Bai Wei back,” remembering that a person should only have one left hand.

“Don’t… scream.”

Another right hand grabbed Bai Wei’s chin and cheeks, and a rough, long index finger of that right hand stuck into Bai Wei’s mouth, stifling any potential scream.

“Mmm… mmm!”

Bai Wei struggled desperately. At that moment, he finally realized there was only one person on the bed, and it was his tall, strong husband. He never knew Lucen had such strength and knew how to restrain so well. Bai Wei’s legs struggled fiercely, so Lucen flipped him over and pressed him down onto the bed.

“Now you’ve finally come.”

The voice sounded like Lu Sen’s, yet not quite like Lu Sen’s. The drug-soaked towel in Bai Wei’s hand was pulled away by Lu Sen and thrown to the floor. Bai Wei was pressed into the pillow, only able to hear Lu Sen’s heavy breathing. Lu Sen’s body was sometimes frighteningly cold, like it had just been pulled out of a freezer. At other times, his body was scarily hot, like a white-hot soldering iron.

Bai Wei was dizzy. The taste of seawater made his entire body weak, leaving him able only to lie on the pillow, whimpering like a kitten, one soft cry after another. His disguise as a waiter was torn off and thrown far away onto the floor. When his calf skin touched Lucen’s calf skin, he finally realized what Lu Sen intended to do.

And he understood the words Lucen was repeating in his ear.

“Let me…”

The taste of seawater surrounded him, dragging him down into the abyss. At the very first moment, Bai Wei let out a small, uncontrollable scream.

“I forgot… it hurts you…”

“Very soon… it won’t…”

Bai Wei’s trembling face buried in the pillow was turned around. He vaguely felt something sweet and sticky fall into his mouth.

Very soon, Bai Wei felt all the muscles in his body begin to tremble.

—-

“3003, I think it’s this one. Look, there are tire marks here.”

The girl with green highlights was very cautious. She opened the door to 3003 carefully, with a weapon at hand. The blue-haired boy followed closely behind, nervously preparing to confront the serial killer.

There seemed to be some sounds inside. The blue-haired boy perked up his ears, trying to listen carefully.

But soon, his teammate backed out, with a slightly embarrassed expression… there was no time to even enter the bedroom. The blue-haired boy waited until the green highlights girl closed the door and led him to the elevator before he asked, puzzled, “Sis, what happened?”

“Nothing, false alarm.” The green highlights girl twirled her hair with her fingers, a habit she had when easing embarrassment.

Blue-haired boy: “Huh?”

Green highlights girl: “I saw fragments of a waiter’s uniform thrown out from the bedroom… uh, and the sounds inside were quite loud.”

“Sounds quite loud… is someone being killed?” the blue-haired boy asked, confused. “Sis, shouldn’t we ambush by the door and wait for them to come out?”

The green highlights girl twirled her hair faster, almost making it smoke: “Rather than killing, it’s more like… making people… well, they shouldn’t be able to make people, but the crying was quite loud… uh, I guess we just stumbled into a love scene.”

They reached the hotel lobby. Suddenly, the phone at their waist rang.

The pink-haired girl’s message was brief: “Elite battle, come to the coordinates immediately.”

“Elite battle? Looks like even they can’t handle this elite… hey? Wasn’t it sunny just now? Why is it suddenly pouring rain?” The blue-haired boy looked up, surprised to see Blackport City covered in dark clouds, with rain pouring down in torrents.

It was as if some supernatural being had caused a supernatural phenomenon.

That night, Blackport City, accompanied by wailing police sirens, was drenched in heavy rain.

There was the sound of rain rushing, streams gurgling, and water droplets splashing, stirring up foam.