Enke glanced at his watch and whispered to the others behind him, “It’s getting late. Keep looking for the exit.”
Bai Chunian looked toward the doorway the mercenaries had entered through. Sure enough, it had vanished. The doorways in this house always appeared or disappeared when attention was elsewhere. Now the bedroom had turned into a dead-end again, but the mercenaries were unfazed, as if accustomed to such tricks.
“Found it!” one of the mercenaries shouted, having discovered a staircase behind Bai Chunian. Upon climbing, they saw the doorway was open.
Bai Chunian followed up the stairs, puzzled. This was the same doorway they had used from the dining room just moments ago. Minutes ago, it had been a wall—how was it a door again?
“Excuse me,” Bai Chunian asked Enke, “what time is it now?”
“Eight p.m.,” Enke replied, nudging Bai Chunian forward with the gun. “You go first.”
“Eight p.m.?” Bai Chunian repeated, confused. They had entered the triangular prism house at sunrise, barely an hour ago. The time should have been around seven a.m.
Enke froze for a moment, glancing at his watch. Irritated, he cursed and whispered to a fellow mercenary, “My watch is broken. Give me yours.” He took the watch handed over and casually shoved his old one into his pocket.
Bai Chunian frowned. Lan Bo slipped down from the chandelier and coiled himself onto Bai Chunian’s back, wrapping his arms around the alpha’s neck, letting Bai Chunian carry him.
Forced to lead the way, Bai Chunian climbed the stairs. His foot suddenly pressed against a small object.
“Lan Bo, pick that up,” Bai Chunian whispered, lightly lifting his foot.
Lan Bo silently used his tail tip to scoop up the small item—a miniature in-ear communicator. Its precision suggested military-grade equipment. Using his tail, Lan Bo slipped the device into Bai Chunian’s ear. It was powered on, but there was no sound coming through.
“Move quickly, don’t dawdle,” Enke prodded him twice with the gun.
Bai Chunian took a few long strides and reached the doorway. On the other side was the dining room they had just entered, though going back and forth between rooms seemed meaningless.
But as he stepped through, the scene before him made his heart skip a beat.
Though he had entered the same doorway, the room was completely different from the dining room with the long table and piano. It had transformed into a luxurious bathhouse with four hot spring pools. The walls were covered with blue-and-white mosaic tiles, the overall color scheme cool and refreshing.
One of the mercenaries said to Enke, “Boss, this room is blue too.”
Bai Chunian’s senses immediately picked up on it.
There were wet footprints on the floor, muddy in places, leading to the door on the west wall—which was now closed. It was difficult to tell when the footprints had been made, as the humidity in the bathhouse prevented them from drying quickly.
Bai Chunian circled the hot spring pools and towel racks, finally spotting a note on the countertop of the towel cabinet.
It was a page torn from an ordinary notebook, with neat horizontal lines. Written on it in a delicate hand were the words:
“I’m exhausted. The only food in this house is the water in the bath, but thankfully it isn’t poisoned. I can hold out a few more hours. It’s now 7 a.m., and I’ve been stuck in this cursed place for over 30 hours. If the police see this note, please come from the west door to rescue me. I have to leave now, because something in the water keeps staring at me.”
From this note, Bai Chunian deduced that it was likely written by one of the participants mentioned in yesterday’s police briefing—a thrill-seeking writer. After all, not many people could carry paper and pen, and the note’s mention of being trapped for over 30 hours matched the disappearance report received by the precinct.
He quietly slipped the note into his pocket.
Lan Bo, feeling thirsty, tested the pool water with the tip of his tail and curled it to scoop some water into his mouth.
The waterproof digital clock on the wall showed 7 a.m. Enke glanced at the watch he had taken from his brother earlier and compared it to the wall clock; it was accurate, also showing 7 a.m.
Several mercenaries, having spent hours in this strange house and having drunk all their water, began to falter. One leaned over a hot spring pool to drink.
Enke, busy searching for other exits, didn’t stop him. The moment the mercenary’s hands touched the water, he convulsed violently and screamed.
Startled, Enke ordered another mercenary to pull him back—but the second mercenary also convulsed upon contact.
No one dared move after that. Bai Chunian observed the bizarre reaction, and since his hands were cuffed, he used his foot to kick a mop leaning against the corner wall toward the group. “The pool is electrified—they got shocked.”
He glanced at Lan Bo, who blinked innocently. “Not me.”
The remaining mercenaries scrambled to lift the two convulsing men away with the mop. The two emitted a burnt smell and collapsed, their eyes rolling back.
Bai Chunian leaned closer, checked their breathing, and regretfully tore a paper towel in half, placing each piece over their faces.
“Damn it, we’re losing out on this job. If there’s no extra pay, forget it,” Enke muttered through clenched teeth, sweat beading on his forehead. He nervously lit a cigarette and glared at Bai Chunian. “You really had to split one paper towel into two layers? Are you precinct officers that poor?”
Bai Chunian leisurely packed away the remaining half-pack of paper towels. “Gotta conserve. Won’t be enough otherwise.”
Then, catching Enke completely off guard, he kicked the nearest mercenary into the electrified pool.
The man screamed and thrashed wildly, and Enke’s eyes widened. He raised his gun to Bai Chunian’s throat, his rage visible, bloodshot eyes bulging: “Do you even believe I won’t shoot you right now?”
Bai Chunian smiled faintly, lifting his chin. Enke glanced behind him: the other two mercenaries were convulsing on the floor, limbs crackling with blue electricity.
Lan Bo perched on the beast-head fountain at the pool’s edge, holding a submachine gun with one hand, the barrel pressed against Enke’s head, tapping the trigger with a finger. “Don’t move.”
Enke ground his teeth, staring daggers at Bai Chunian. When he considered shooting outright, Bai Chunian raised his hand, pinching the gun barrel with his fingers—bending it like clay.
Bai Chunian clapped his hands. The cuffs on his wrists crumbled to dust. Nonchalantly, he pulled out the paper towels, opening one and layering it over the convulsed mercenaries’ faces, repeating until only one sheet remained.
The room reeked of burnt flesh, a nauseating, overpowering stench.
Unfazed, Bai Chunian tapped Enke’s cheek with the remaining sheet. “This last one’s for you—wiping sweat or covering your face, your choice. Don’t worry, it’s thicker than theirs; looks more dignified.”
Enke clenched his jaw and accepted it, closing his eyes.
“I realized your teammates are kind of stupid,” Bai Chunian said, crouching comfortably and using the mop to adjust the bodies. “Not only are they clueless about the secrets, they like moving things around and messing with serious investigators. So I decided to handle it first.” He tilted his head teasingly. “Don’t shiver—you have to admit, we haven’t revealed any differentiation abilities yet, and barely gave away any secrets. There’s no reason to kill you.”
Enke opened his eyes. “What do you want?”
Bai Chunian replied, “You’re giving me a face like you’re unwillingly waiting to be ravished. I don’t like that.”
Enke exhaled forcefully, stopping the surge of blood from his head.
“First question,” Bai Chunian began, shuffling the mercenaries’ bodies with the mop. “Did you enter from the dining room with a long table and a piano?”
“Yes.”
“Which door did you take, and what kind of room was it?”
Enke hesitated. Lan Bo tapped his head with the gun, forcing him to answer: “The door on the west wall leads to a reception room with sofas and a digital clock. Once we went in, the doorway disappeared. When it reappeared, we ended up in your room.”
Bai Chunian asked, “What time does the digital clock show?”
Enke replied, “Six a.m.”
Bai Chunian followed up, “What color was the wallpaper?”
Enke thought hard. “Blue patterned.”
Previously, Bai Chunian hadn’t paid attention to the wallpaper color difference. From the first room—the dining area—to the second bedroom, the wallpaper had all been red patterned. His habitual thinking had led him to assume the whole house was decorated with red wallpaper.
“Second question,” Bai Chunian said, straightening up and holding a copy of documents he had pulled from a mercenary’s backpack, tapping it against Enke’s chest. “During the ATWL exam, while you were helping cheat, how many files did you take from the library?”
Enke’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Now it’s our turn to make a deal, brother,” Bai Chunian continued, flipping through the copies. “You should still remember some of the contents of the files you took from the library, right?”
“Can’t recall?” Bai Chunian glanced at the pool with the floating mercenary corpse. “Maybe this pool will jog your memory.”
Enke struggled for a moment, then lowered his head. “We took File E and File F. File E is the researcher’s observation journal, which I already told you about.”
“File F records 324’s differentiation ability—it’s…”
Bai Chunian rolled up the copies into a tube and tapped it in his palm. “An ability to mimic others, right?”