The sound reverberated through the tiny interrogation room, stripping Director Jin of every shred of dignity.
The players surrounding Director Jin kept their heads lowered, trembling with fear. They did not even dare exchange glances.
Director Jin clenched his fists at his sides.
A message from Jin Rongxu had just appeared across his retinas. The red letters stabbed at his brain and made his eyes ache.
His face had been slapped hard.
That was still secondary.
The important thing was that Jin Rongxu was alone in an unknown dungeon. Since the dungeon was located in the elevator shaft on Level -18, even getting a rescue team there would be extremely difficult.
Jin Rongxu might die.
And the [Hunter] before him was very likely part of a larger group—
Judging from what Jin Rongxu had told him earlier and the clues from the dungeon upstairs, the other two members of this group were very likely the powerful Qiu family father and son.
But why were they doing this?
The more he thought about it, the more confused he became.
Director Jin took a deep breath and waved his hand, deciding to set a trap for the [Hunter].
“You all withdraw and stand by outside.”
Zhu Zeyu was somewhat worried. “Director Jin, then you—”
Director Jin wore a solemn expression, still presenting the image of righteous authority on the surface.
“This [Hunter] is no simple opponent. I’ll have a talk with him.”
“This group of people are nothing but contaminated lunatics.”
One of the players said, “Director Jin, you’re going alone—”
“They dared to lay hands on Jin Rongxu. Clearly, they’re targeting me.”
Director Jin let out a cold laugh. “I’d like to see exactly what they’re after!”
Zhu Zeyu understood.
Director Jin probably cared a great deal about his dignity. There were some things he could not say in front of his subordinates.
Taking the hint, he withdrew with the other players, while Captain Zheng opened the interrogation-room door and stepped outside as well.
…
Level -18.
Zhu Yan hovered silently in the air, looking quite pleased with his “spoils of war.”
He had expanded this space using a tiny bit of [Shuddering Delight]. He had been reluctant to use more, so the space looked extremely unstable.
The walls leaned crookedly. Since the area was restricted to one hundred square meters, Zhu Yan had simply made a long, winding loop of a corridor.
The corridor was only about a meter wide. Mosaic tiles covered the walls on both sides, and the crudely drawn human-head patterns on them looked more like skulls.
Sickly green light seemed to seep directly from the cracks in the walls, flickering every so often and carrying with it the charred smell of something burning.
Jin Rongxu gripped his knife tightly. He pulled a lump of tissue from a financial creature out of his ring and roughly smeared it over his body.
This place was way too damn narrow.
About twenty meters ahead, he could see a bend in the corridor, where the lights were flickering on and off as well.
But the narrowness made it impossible for him to turn around at any moment as he could in an open area. He could not keep watch over the blind spot behind his head.
That made him feel terribly unsafe—
The sound of electrical arcs crackled behind him. Every time it did, he would whip around to check, barely able to control his heavy breathing.
“Damn it… damn it.”
Zhu Yan heard Jin Rongxu muttering curses.
“What the hell is this place? Where are the rules? Where are the terrifying creatures?”
Zhu Yan wanted terrifying creatures and frightening rules too.
Unfortunately, all he could do now was rely on the space and the lights to scare people through cheap tricks. He was practically frantic.
If he had known this day would come, he would have played every horror game there was, just so he could give Jin Rongxu the full haunted-house experience.
Unfortunately, Zhu Yan simply did not have that much material stored away. He could only use what seemed to him like some rather clumsy tricks to give Jin Rongxu a nasty scare.
…
Upstairs.
Facing the empty interrogation room, Director Jin began speaking on his own.
“I know you’re still here. Whoever you’re working with, you can stop pretending.”
“Your goal is nothing more than to make the dungeon descend here.”
“But you shouldn’t have touched Jin Rongxu.”
Director Jin snorted.
“Let Jin Rongxu out. As for everything else, we can work something out. If necessary, I can even cooperate with you!”
Outside the door, Captain Zheng gestured for Zhu Zeyu to check his private messages on the [Player Forum].
The message read: “Director Jin will keep in contact with us.”
“He’s setting a trap for the [Hunter] and buying time. In a moment, you and Little Chen will retrieve the [Heavenly Net] and another poison-gas item.”
Zhu Zeyu fell into an oddly long silence.
“Understood, Captain Zheng.”
“As soon as Captain Jin comes out, act on my command,” Captain Zheng continued sending messages. “I don’t know the specifics, but there should be more than one [Hunter], and they’re coordinating with each other. They’re fairly cunning.”
“The negotiations may take quite a while.”
…
Meanwhile.
Zhu Yan hopped lightly in midair.
Fine.
Then he would just have to pretend to take the bait, emphasize his “true” objective once more, and, at the last moment, “lose his temper” before fleeing—leaving Director Jin disappointed one more time.
Oh, right.
He could also record a short video of Jin Rongxu and disgust Director Jin thoroughly.
At the thought, [Fog] slowly descended and pressed itself against the back of Jin Rongxu’s neck.
The icy chill made Jin Rongxu jump. He let out a roar and whipped around.
At the bend in the corridor behind him, the sickly green light flickered.
Jin Rongxu relaxed with half a sigh of relief.
Thank goodness.
There was nothing there. That cold sensation just now must have been his imagination—
Snap.
The light at the farthest end of the corridor went out.
Jin Rongxu’s hand trembled around the knife handle. His gaze fixed on that patch of darkness as cold sweat slowly seeped from his skin.
But nothing else moved in the corner.
After staring at it for a while, Jin Rongxu let out a cold laugh.
“Hah. Is that all? You damn freak, I’m not afraid of you!”
Zhu Yan did not know whether he was afraid or not.
He only knew that sweat was rolling steadily down the man’s forehead.
Breathing heavily, Jin Rongxu turned his head back again.
A line of vivid red text was waiting behind him, twisting like a winding snake.
Jin Rongxu let out a low cry of fright and leaped backward.
The red words were simple.
“This is a space you cannot leave without telling the truth.”
Jin Rongxu opened his mouth, apparently about to start cursing.
But more distorted red text quickly appeared beneath it, forcing him to swallow the words.
“Jin Rongxu, the abilities you possess now aren’t really yours, are they?”
“Jin Rongxu, whose abilities did you take, and which ones?”
The two lines struck straight through Jin Rongxu’s pride. He began shouting like a madman.
“Go to hell! My abilities are mine! Every last one of them is mine!”
“What the hell are you?! What gives you the right to slander me?!”
The red text crumpled into a ball, then spread back out into two enormous characters:
“LIAR.”
The two characters flashed wildly. At the same time, a shrill alarm rang out through the space.
The sickly green lights began going out one by one at terrifying speed. Accompanied by the thunderous snaps of the current cutting off, the darkness advanced toward Jin Rongxu at a pace visible to the naked eye.
Jin Rongxu took off running.
Zhu Yan silently laughed with delight.
He kept changing the direction of the corridor and the timing of the lights going out, watching as Jin Rongxu stumbled into the walls several times in a panic.
Ten minutes later, he finally came to a stop, panting hard and clearly exhausted. Yet that terrifying darkness still followed close behind him, utterly unmoving.
Jin Rongxu broke down.
“I’ll kill you! Every last one of you! Come on, then!”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
