Xiao He turned to Cheng Shengnan, uncertainty in her voice. “Uh… Boss Cheng, what should we do?”

Internally, she marveled at Shen Ge’s terrifying level of curiosity.

Who stays behind in a haunted bathroom instead of running for their life?

Then again, if not for Shen Ge’s curiosity—if he had just bolted immediately—she and Boss Cheng would probably be dead by now.

Cheng Shengnan frowned, deep in thought. “Let’s go. We’ll head down first.”

“Shouldn’t we help Shen-ge? He… saved us,” Xiao He ventured hesitantly.

“The best we can do is avoid being a burden. ‘Helping’ would just get in his way,” Cheng Shengnan replied. “Shen Ge has his own plan.”

“Oh.”

As the two stepped into the elevator, Shen Ge dashed to the office storage room. He grabbed the flat cart usually used for moving heavy items, then stacked several large empty cardboard boxes on top. After clearing out all the useless scrap paper from the work area, he stuffed it into the boxes.

“Only four bottles of alcohol left?” Shen Ge rummaged for more containers, trying to improvise some basic Molotov cocktails. Just then, his phone buzzed with a text.

It was from Cheng Shengnan: “We’re waiting downstairs. Call or message if you need help.”

Shen Ge replied with a simple “Got it,” then refocused on crafting his genuine homemade incendiaries. Once finished, he wheeled the cart toward the 33rd floor.

[Warning! Warning! Warning!]

[Host is approaching the lair of a Tier-5 supernatural entity (Trait: Immobility). Current attributes are insufficient for combat. Evacuate immediately—do not throw your life away!]

Ignoring the alert, Shen Ge lit a torch made from an alcohol-soaked towel and cautiously approached the rooftop door.

“Hah…”

“Hah…”

He took several deep breaths, forcing down his nerves, then slowly pushed the door open.

The moment he stepped onto the rooftop, he noticed strands of hair in the distance creeping toward the entrance. Strangely, the hair was clearly visible from the water tank to the center of the roof—but beyond that, it seemed to vanish abruptly, as if disappearing into thin air.

So that’s it!

Finally, Shen Ge understood why he could see the hair on the rooftop but not in the 19th-floor restroom. The key was distance.

When dealing with supernatural entities that hadn’t yet formed a supernatural domain, the system only issued warnings once Shen Ge was within a certain range—because an entity’s abilities varied with proximity.

The system’s alerts only triggered when he was in real danger.

Dragging the cart inside, Shen Ge saw the distant hair immediately shift direction, slithering toward the door. He quickly activated Silence.

The instant Silence took effect, the advancing strands froze.

This was exactly why he hadn’t activated Silence before opening the door—he wanted to test the entity’s behavioral patterns.

It was a simple hypothesis. After all, this thing had no eyes or nose. If it couldn’t track targets by sound or vibration, what else could it use?

Of course, if the hair had kept moving toward him even after Silence, he would’ve turned tail immediately—resignation letter pre-written on his way down.

Though the hair had stopped, Shen Ge still didn’t know if touching it would trigger the same invisibility effect Cheng Shengnan and Xiao He had experienced.

Playing it safe, he steered the cart wide around the open area near the door, avoiding any potential invisible strands.

As he advanced, the visible hair in the distance began retreating, clearly repelled by the torch in his hand.

Shen Ge lit the first cardboard box, then hurled it forward. Burning paper balls spilled out like fireballs, sending the surrounding hair recoiling in panic—some even retracting back into the water tank.

Step by step, he pushed the cart closer, using the boxes and flaming paper to herd the entity toward the tank.

By the time he reached the base of the tank, only three boxes remained. Shen Ge arranged them in a triangle beneath the tank and set them ablaze.

Then, clutching his last two Molotovs, he climbed onto the tank.

Two minutes left on Silence.

This was all he could do. If it wasn’t enough to finish the entity off, he’d have to leave the rest to the police.

Truthfully, Shen Ge didn’t want to hand this over to the authorities. For one, he wanted the entity’s corpse for system rewards. For another, if he reported it, should he disclose what he knew about its traits?

Not telling them would mean sending others to their deaths.

Telling them would mean drawing official scrutiny.

Reaching the top of the tank, Shen Ge lit the first Molotov and hurled it straight into the heart of the hair mass.

From the moment he’d discovered this Tier-1 entity hiding here to rescuing Cheng Shengnan and returning, less than twenty minutes had passed.

Yet in that time, the hair cluster had swelled from roughly two meters in diameter to three.

The stench of decay had grown overpowering—now, crouched beside the tank, Shen Ge felt like he’d been buried alive with a hundred diseased pigs.

“Ugh.”

“Ugh.”

He was grateful he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch—otherwise, he’d be vomiting right now.

Fwoosh—

The moment the Molotov hit, a third of the hair mass instantly burned away, the entire cluster visibly shrinking.

But the office alcohol wasn’t high-proof or specialized—and since the hair had been soaked in water, it resisted burning.

Gritting his teeth against the putrid smell, Shen Ge lit the second Molotov. Silent flames engulfed what remained of the entity, now less than half its original size.

As the fire from the second bottle began to wane, Shen Ge’s gaze swept the area, landing on the debris net hanging from the tank’s edge—used to fish out trash.

Snatching it up, he scooped the now fist-sized remnant of the entity from the tank and flung it onto the burning cardboard below.

Then he leapt down, using the net to sweep the flaming boxes and paper into a pyre, burying the entity in the blaze.

“How is this not enough to burn you to death?”

The hair cluster dwindled rapidly in the flames, soon reduced to a mangled, rat-sized lump of flesh tangled in long strands.

[Host has eliminated a Tier-5 supernatural entity (Trait: Immobility).]

[Entity corpse can be sold for system points to draw equipment/items, or consumed by the system to extract its Trait ability.]

[Supernatural Entity (Trait: Immobility)—Value: 7,000 system points.]

[Consuming the entity will extract its Trait.]

Just one tier higher than “Silence,” yet the price doubled.

As tempting as a 70-draw spree was, Shen Ge didn’t trust his “turtle-grandson system” not to screw him with pity rewards. Better to play it safe and absorb the Trait first—especially since Immobility’s effects intrigued him.

“Consume it!”