CHAPTER 65: CHAPTER 48: THE UNBEARABLE BACKLASH

"Borrow from east to west— I’ll definitely pay it back—"

"Go!"

Sang Que pushed Xu Yichao, and the two of them went straight downstairs. Everything here has rules, and as long as you don’t actively trigger them, nothing will happen.

Moreover, this isn’t ’village resentment’.

’Village resentment’ can trap Xu Shufen and the others, at the very least, it’s at a level similar to or stronger than the Mountain God. When facing the Mountain God, the Yin Child shows obvious reactions.

Now, the Yin Child is completely still.

Most of the time, the Yin Child is very quiet and won’t aggressively attack anyone. She only reacts when encountering something she wants or if there’s a threatening presence.

To find ’village resentment’, the Yin Child is the best ’detector’.

The sound of the opera faded behind them as the two continued downstairs.

After a little more than a minute, Sang Que suddenly stopped, startling Xu Yichao, who immediately hugged his Tang Blade and looked around warily.

Sang Que stopped at the stairwell and asked in a deep voice, "What floor are we on?"

"Huh?" Xu Yichao was a bit confused, glancing at the room closest to the stairwell, "Isn’t this 601, the Fifth Layer."

Sang Que looked at Xu Yichao, "Do you think it’s as if we’ve only gone down two floors?"

Xu Yi felt a chill rise up to the top of his head upon realizing the problem. He immediately ran to the hallway railing and stretched his head out to look down.

Below, a dark mist loomed, the first floor couldn’t be seen.

Above was also a dark mist, the top floor couldn’t be seen.

"What the hell! Is it the Ghost Wall?"

"Give me the bottle of rooster blood."

Sang Que took the mineral water bottle containing rooster blood from Xu Yichao. Only a little was left at the bottom. She made a small cut in the bottle with a fruit knife to let the rooster blood drip slowly.

They slowed down, dripping blood as they walked down.

This time, they counted carefully, and after descending three layers, Sang Que looked at the nearest doorplate.

701!

Despite going down continuously and using a method to break the Ghost Wall, they had unknowingly gone up a floor.

Rooster blood wasn’t effective. Xu Yichao hesitated and asked, "Should I... give it a try?"

Sang Que knew Xu Yichao was referring to the child’s urine. Since rooster blood didn’t work, child’s urine was similar. It was likely not effective either.

"This isn’t a simple Ghost Wall. Otherwise, how did Grandma Xu get trapped here? I was also negligent just now."

Sang Que leaned against the hallway wall, taking a slight breather.

Xu Yichao frowned, trying to think of a solution, "How about we keep going down and see if we can find the Second Layer? If not, the Third Layer, we could jump off from the railing. As long as we don’t land on our heads, it would just be fractures at most."

Sang Que thought about Zheng Letian, who fell from above. Could this have been his thought process?

"Give me Zheng Letian’s phone first." Sang Que reached out her hand.

Xu Yichao took out the phone, and Sang Que reopened Zheng Letian’s phone to check those two videos. After watching, she asked Xu Yichao, "Would someone always thinking about saving others commit suicide?"

Xu Yichao shook his head, "I wouldn’t. As long as one is alive, there’s hope, unless pushed to a corner."

"Exactly, pushed to a corner, so they decided to take a risk."

Sang Que paused the video and zoomed in on the wall Zheng Letian was leaning against.

"It seems to be the corner of a room number 3 and a public restroom on a certain floor. He must have discovered something or found a way. He decided to take a risk but was afraid something might go wrong, so he left his last words in advance."

Xu Yichao sighed, "Unfortunately, he still failed."

"Let’s search around. Since he was able to enter with Grandma Xu, perhaps he was also a professional and might have left useful clues."

Using the video as a reference, they began searching floor by floor. The time inside the Skywell Building could change, but some fixed items couldn’t be affected.

It took them more than half an hour, playing cat-and-mouse with Old Tian, the patrolling security guard, avoiding the suddenly revived sleepwalking woman, and the landlord’s little son who always rode a child’s tricycle haphazardly around.

Overall, as long as they didn’t enter a room, these were the external dangers. By keeping track of each floor’s time and familiarizing themselves with the rules, they could avoid it.

After some effort, they found the spot where Zheng Letian recorded the video outside room 303 on the Third Layer, a place they hadn’t searched before.

"Can you really fall from the Third Layer and scatter your brains?" Xu Yichao was quite shocked.

Sang Que looked around. "Nothing in this building can be measured by common sense. Here’s a rope."

Sang Que found a piece of rope tied to a rusty railing nearby. She used a fruit knife to touch the rope, and it didn’t disappear; it was something real.

Pulling the rope up, there were traces of it being cut by a sharp tool below.

"It seems Zheng Letian intended to rappel down from here with the rope."

Xu Yichao said, "That would mean my idea is correct, jumping off the building will get us out."

"From the outcome, it’s both right and wrong."

The correct part is that Zheng Letian did get out, but the wrong part is, he didn’t make it out alive.

Sang Que leaned forward and looked down, the height of each layer here is not particularly high. With her arm strength, she could jump down, grab the railing of the next layer for a buffer, then jump down again without much issue.

"How’s your arm strength? How many pull-ups can you do in one go?" Sang Que asked Xu Yichao.

Xu Yichao immediately raised his arm to show his muscles, "I’m the dunk king of our Third Middle School, knocking out 10 pull-ups in one go is no problem."

"Not bad, passing grade, then let’s jump down from here." Sang Que looked downstairs.

"Huh?" Xu Yichao was extremely shocked, "Really jump?"

Sang Que explained her plan, "Not jumping directly to the bottom, I’ll go down first, you grab the rope and follow down, just need to jump to the next layer."

Understanding now, Xu Yichao looked down. Though the base was obscured by dark mist, the railing and the floor below were still visible. Jumping layer by layer seemed a relatively safe approach.

Just as Xu Yichao was pondering how to jump, suddenly a shadow flashed beside him, and Sang Que already flipped over the railing.

"Wait a..."

Sang Que let go and securely grabbed the railing of the layer below, Xu Yichao’s heart, lodged in his throat, finally settled.

"Down...go down first."

The door number in front of her was 203, Sang Que breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that descending this way should be correct, only the stairs might be distorted.

She exerted force with her arms, leveraged the edge, and flipped over the railing in one go.

At the moment of landing, the ground suddenly seeped blood rapidly forming a pool, Sang Que couldn’t dodge and stepped right in.

A hand swiftly reached out from the blood pool and fiercely clutched Sang Que’s ankle, a piercing cold sensation instantly coursing through her body, Old Tian’s grim face squeezed out from the blood pool.

"Don’t come down!"

Sang Que shouted upwards, then swung the fruit knife, stabbing fiercely towards Old Tian’s top of the head.

Old Tian’s half-emerged head immediately evaporated under the effect of the Ghost Soldier Talisman, and the talisman faded significantly.

But the blood pool beneath Sang Que did not vanish, more hands stretched out, tightly grasping her ankle, almost rendering her lower body numb with a feeling of merging into the blood pool.

So, is jumping considered ’throwing objects from a height’?

Thus triggering Old Tian’s attack rule?

A cold breeze crept up from behind her neck, Sang Que’s breath hitched, and she immediately squatted.

Old Tian’s blood-stained security baton narrowly missed hitting Sang Que, she attempted to pull out her feet, but the more she pulled, the deeper she sank, unable to break free from the expanding blood pool.

Thrusting the fruit knife with the Ghost Soldier Talisman into it, the blood pool sizzled and emitted smoke, the talisman was rapidly consumed, but the pool was too vast for it to make a substantial impact.

Like a sleepwalking woman, Old Tian couldn’t be completely obliterated within this building, even if killed by the talisman, he could quickly absorb the building’s resentment to recover.

Old Tian’s security baton swung down again from behind Sang Que, this time, she couldn’t avoid it but falling into the blood pool meant being entirely absorbed in.

"Damn it!"

In that critical moment, Xu Yichao descended holding the rope from above, hurling the Tang blade like a javelin directly at Old Tian.

The Tang blade pierced through Old Tian’s soul, the lingering Ghost Soldier Talisman on it took effect, causing Old Tian to shudder, his body dissolving again, disappearing behind Sang Que.

But in less than two seconds, another Old Tian squeezed out from the bloodstained wall in front of Sang Que.

The entire hallway, whether walls, floor, or ceiling, was seeping a massive amount of blood. If Old Tian couldn’t be solved, they wouldn’t be able to escape at all.

There were no loopholes in rules for Sang Que to exploit this time!

Old Tian swung his security baton towards Sang Que once more, Xu Yichao suspended mid-air was too tense to make a sound.

Sang Que erupted with fierce strength, decisively pulling out the pig-killing knife from the bag on her chest, tore open the red cloth, slicing her palm wide open with spurting blood she fiercely slashed at the ferociously faced Old Tian.

Old Tian’s head instantly flew off, his body slumped at Sang Que’s feet, a deep cut appeared on the wall behind, and all the blood in the entire hallway instantly disappeared, reverting to its previous state.

Sang Que half-kneeled on the ground, in front of her dropped a ring with two rusty and bloodstained keys threaded onto it.

"Sang... Mulan, you’re amazing!"

Xu Yichao jumped down from above, looking at Sang Que in shock.

Sang Que tried to turn her head to look at Xu Yichao, but her whole head uncontrollably tilted to the right.

Drip... Drip!

Blood drops blossomed, the pig-killing knife clanged onto the ground, with a chipped edge on the blade.

A line of blood rapidly spread from Sang Que’s neck, vivid, glaring blood gushed out unstoppably!