Unfinished Building

Chapter 726: Unfinished Building

Wu Qi’s RV was pushing deeper into Orange Island. Bent at the waist, Li Huowang peered through the window at the pitch-black, unfinished buildings around them.

Puddles on the ground and loose construction materials had forced the RV to slow to a crawl. The headlights cast a pale white film over the road ahead.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Li Huowang thought he glimpsed a figure dart past inside one of those half-built shells—but he felt no one staring at him.

After nearly five minutes, the rolling tires finally came to a halt.

“Look at the shithole you picked. A nightmare to drive through. Scraped my goddamn paint,” Wu Qi grumbled, pushing open the driver’s door.

“Sister Wu, how many hands has this thing gone through? Is there even any paint left to scrape?” Qing Wanglai had barely stepped out before he sidestepped left, dodging the kick she aimed at him.

Behind them, Li Huowang climbed out with Yang Na’s help.

He studied the roofless, unfinished building before them for a few seconds, then turned to Qing Wanglai. “Which floor?”

Before he could answer, a flashlight beam flickered from the sixth floor—once, twice, a signal.

Seeing that, Li Huowang walked into the building and started climbing the staircase that had no handrails.

When he reached the sixth floor, though, he found only darkness. No light at all.

“What the hell? There was light here just a second ago. Did I come to the wrong floor?”

Puzzled, he was about to walk to the window to count floors when a man’s face—drained ghost-white—jumped right in front of him. “Wake up! It’s all fake!”

Li Huowang stared at the young man before him, who looked even younger than himself. His hair was dyed yellow, and he held a flashlight under his chin, shining it up at his own deliberately spooky face.

Li Huowang had seen a lot, but he’d never seen a ghost with a tongue ring.

“You the only one here? Qian Fu and Chen Hongyu should have come too, right?” Li Huowang asked the man.

“What did I tell you? That kind of cheap trick isn’t gonna scare him. Hey, Li Huowang, what happened to your head?” Chen Hongyu’s voice came from the darkness.

A moment later, Chen Hongyu and Qian Fu stepped into the flashlight’s beam. They were sharing a bag of spicy strips, mouths slick with red chili oil.

“Heh… heh heh heh…” The young man let out a nervous, theatrical laugh. He set his flashlight on the floor to serve as a light source.

By the time Qing Wanglai and Wu Qi caught up, the cold, empty unfinished building started to feel a little less dead.

“What’s with the head wound?” Qian Fu asked, looking at Li Huowang’s skull.

“Long story. Ran into some trouble on the way. I’ll tell you later.” Li Huowang turned his attention back to the kid who’d tried to scare him.

The guy dressed oddly. A grown man wearing black eyeshadow, his clothes some bizarre style of black leather. His skin had that unnatural pallor of someone who hadn’t seen sunlight in a long time.

Maybe it was because of how Sun Xiaoqin had raised him, but Li Huowang felt an instinctive wariness toward people who dressed like this.

Qing Wanglai cleared his throat. “This is Zhao Lei. Make his acquaintance. Zhao Lei, this is Li Huowang, the one I told you about before.”

“You can call me Steven.” Zhao Lei walked over, looking haggard, and extended his right hand, which was ringed with black bands.

Li Huowang took it. “Hello, Zhao Lei. I’m Li Huowang.”

“Heh… fake. Too fake. I even gave him my English name, and he still follows the script.” Zhao Lei swayed back to his original spot.

“What’s wrong with this guy? He’s off his rocker.”

Li Huowang frowned at him. Qing Wanglai and Wu Qi had almost made him forget that there might be other psychotics in this group.

Li Huowang half-expected more people to emerge from the darkness. But to his surprise, it ended after just Zhao Lei.

“Wasn’t it supposed to be eight people? So why are there only six?” Frowning, Li Huowang looked around, then asked Qing Wanglai.

“Maybe something came up, so they didn’t make it.”

“Do you have their numbers? Call them and ask.” An unease crept into Li Huowang’s chest. His own group had just been in a car accident. If two people both didn’t show, it was too much of a coincidence.

If his own luck had been just a little worse, wouldn’t there be four no-shows now?

“They don’t use phones. Afraid of being monitored.” Qing Wanglai’s expression turned serious. He looked at the others and clapped his hands to get their attention. “Have any of you been in touch with Bone-Brother or Auntie Yan recently? Or met them in person?”

Seeing their confused reactions, Qing Wanglai already knew the answer. Something had really happened.

He was silent for a moment, then spoke again. “I gathered you all here to announce something. We’ve run into trouble on the projection side. Bone-Brother and Auntie Yan being late—they’ve probably run into it too. See Li Huowang’s head? The danger we just faced proves the same thing.”

“You can’t handle this kind of crisis alone. We have to act together, work together, if we want to solve this cleaner and safer. Whatever their projections are.”

But faced with this announcement, not a single person asked a question. They just stood there, silently digesting his words.

Whether they’d already sensed something, or simply didn’t give a damn—Li Huowang couldn’t tell.

“Cough.” He cleared his throat to help Qing Wanglai out, then asked, “Given our situation now, what’s your plan?”

Instead of answering, Qing Wanglai asked a different question. “From what happened with that truck, you’re very sensitive to them?”

“No. It’s not ‘sensitive.’ They’re staring right at me! If they stare at me, I can feel it!” Li Huowang’s answer was cut and dried.

“Can you feel them now?”

Li Huowang closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and concentrated. After five minutes, he shook his head. “No. The place you picked is safe. They shouldn’t be able to find us here.”

The moment he finished, before Qing Wanglai could speak, Qian Fu stood up and grabbed the conversation. “Listen to me! All of you, listen to me!”

Excited, he announced to the others, “Those two aren’t just late! They’re dead! Even if they’re not dead, they’re trapped just like me! This is all the Leo aliens’ conspiracy! We have to thwart their plot!”

With that, he rushed over to Li Huowang and grabbed him by the arm. “I have a plan! The Leo aliens are very interested in his genes lately! We can use him as bait to capture their flying saucer!”

The others turned to look at Qian Fu, listening to the nonsense spilling out of his mouth.