Chapter 140: Elevator
Right after, Milk Tea’s excited voice crackled through the receiver: “Sister Bone Ash, it’s Milk Tea! I made it out too! I’m outside room 608.”
Brother He Ping spoke up immediately after. His voice sounded calm and relaxed, as if he had barely broken a sweat: “Boss, this is Peace and Violence. I’m near room 1209, so I should be in the corridor on the twelfth floor.”
Hearing their updates, Sister Cai realized that the sharper thinkers had indeed escaped quickly. She hurried to report her own position: “I’m in the hallway right outside room 304…”
The Young Miss and Flash Delivery Yellow Knight soon checked in as well, confirming they had made it into their respective corridors. However, the rest of the squad remained completely silent.
Lin Huai issued clear orders without hesitation: “Follow your hallways forward and look for the elevator banks. If the indicator light above an elevator is green, do not stop—keep walking.”
“If you see a red light, that means the elevator is safe. However, stay alert: if a red-light elevator shows that it stops on any basement level, do not enter. Keep moving.”
“Find a red-light elevator that does not serve the basement. Once inside, press floor two. The main apartment lobby is on the second floor, not the first. We will regroup there.”
With their instructions set, the teammates on the lower floors began hunting for the correct elevators.
Lin Huai continued to broadcast across the frequency as she moved, trying to reach the remaining members, but no answers came through the static.
Hearing the persistent silence, the Young Miss grew uneasy. “Boss, Brother Long and Old Wang still haven’t checked in. Did something go wrong?”
Flash Delivery Yellow Knight was equally anxious about his courier brothers. “Boss… should I go look for them? I haven’t heard a word from Big Brother or Second Brother either. I don’t know what kind of mess they’re in.”
Lin Huai considered the situation for a moment before making a firm call: “The floors might simply be spaced too far apart for the walkie-talkies to connect. I will go search for them. The rest of you find your elevators, get down to the second-floor lobby, and wait for us there.”
With that, Lin Huai turned and stepped straight into a nearby green-light elevator.
Only red-light cars could take passengers down to the second-floor lobby. Since Lin Huai was heading upward to hunt for her missing teammates, the light’s color didn’t matter to her right now.
Brother He Ping was on the twelfth floor, proving that the radio signal could reach at least that high. Stepping into the cabin, Lin Huai pressed the button for the twentieth floor.
Once the doors opened on floor twenty, she called out across the radio again. Still, nothing answered except white noise.
She transferred to another elevator shaft and continued her ascent. Each elevator served a different set of levels; some shot straight toward the hundredth floor, while others terminated at floor thirty-one.
Lin Huai moved between shafts, scouring corridors and calling out into the receiver. Finally, as she reached the fifty-third floor, Old Wang’s voice crackled through the speaker.
He was currently on the fifty-eighth floor. As they went higher, the elevator mechanics grew more complex—players had to monitor both the indicator lights and the specific floor ranges of each car.
Splitting up now was too dangerous. Lin Huai rode a local car up to the sixty-eighth floor to rendezvous with Old Wang so they could sweep the upper levels together.
The moment they met up on the sixty-eighth floor, they wasted no time and immediately pushed higher.
Faint bursts of static drifted through the radio at irregular intervals, hinting that other teammates were trapped in higher or more twisted sections of the building.
When their elevator rose to the seventy-fifth floor, a familiar voice finally broke through the speaker with reasonable clarity:
“This is Dragon Emerging from the Sea. Acknowledge if you read me…”
A wave of relief washed over Lin Huai. Brother Long was safe.
She quickly keyed her mic: “This is Bone Ashes Mixed with Rice. Brother Long, what floor are you on? Old Wang and I are heading up to find you…”
Before he could respond, the signal broke apart into loud buzzing static. Old Wang frowned and pressed the door release, forcing the elevator to stop at floor seventy-eight.
“Boss, let’s hold here for a moment until the connection stabilizes.”
Right on cue, Dragon Emerging from the Sea’s hushed, urgent voice cut through the static, heavy with ragged breathing: “I’m in the corridor on the eightieth floor… I walked into an illusion and got locked inside an equipment room…”
An equipment room?
Old Wang glanced down the dim hallway. “There are dozens of utility rooms on every floor. It would help if he could give us a specific room number.”
Lin Huai nodded, pressing her talk button: “Describe any clear landmarks near your door. We’re on our way.”
While maintaining radio contact, she and Old Wang quickly located an elevator capable of climbing past the eightieth floor. The indicator above this car glowed with an eerie purple light, but with no better options, they couldn’t afford to be picky.
They hit their first major crisis on the seventy-ninth floor.
When the doors slid open, they did not reveal a standard hallway. Instead, a thick, writhing wall of darkness blocked the path, churning as if dozens of unseen hands were clawing to break through. The air was heavy with a sickly sweet smell of decay.
“Look out!” Lin Huai hissed.
Her reflexes were razor-sharp. She yanked Old Wang backward while hurling a white-glowing talisman directly into the void.
The paper struck the dark mass with a violent hiss, burning the shadowy tendrils like hot iron on flesh. The darkness recoiled slightly, but quickly surged forward again.
The elevator shuddered to a dead stop on the seventy-ninth floor, refusing to move up or down, while the metal doors jammed wide open.
“We need another route!” Lin Huai ordered instantly.
Moving with seamless coordination, Lin Huai threw out a series of barrier talismans to hold back the advancing black sludge, while Old Wang scanned the walls until he spotted a flickering green emergency exit sign nearby.
They threw their weight against the fire door, forcing it open, and sprinted down the concrete stairwell through the dark. The thick, creeping shadow chased close behind them like a living beast.
Only after they burst through the fire door onto the eightieth floor and slammed the heavy iron barrier shut did the creeping darkness fall back, allowing them a moment to catch their breath.
Following Dragon Emerging from the Sea’s description of the pipes and markings, they quickly located the hidden utility closet and broke him out.
With Brother Long back at their side, the rescue unit operated with even greater speed.
Dragon Emerging from the Sea possessed sharp tactical instincts. He had broken out of his trial room early on, and when his radio failed to connect, he had spent his time pacing the halls, mapping out the floor layouts, elevator ranges, and emergency escape routes.
Without hesitation, he guided Lin Huai and Old Wang toward a hidden service elevator that could travel directly past the ninetieth floor.
On the ninety-fifth floor, they found Fastest Hand at SF Express on the brink of losing his mind.
He had been trapped inside a spatial loop. Every time he believed he had sprinted to the end of the long corridor, he would suddenly find himself back at the starting mark.
Lin Huai caught the subtle anomaly—the painted eyes of the figures in the corridor’s wall murals were tracking his movements. Joining forces, the team attacked the entities concealed inside the paintings, shattering the illusion and freeing the exhausted courier.
“Thank you… Boss, Brother Long, Brother Wang…” The courier took a few deep, ragged breaths as the wild panic faded from his eyes. “While I was running in circles, I thought I heard Second Brother Blue Knight and Cute and Sparkling over the radio, but the reception was terrible…”
Now a four-person squad, they pushed higher into the tower.
When they stepped out onto the one-hundred-and-eighth floor, they entered a bizarre, cavernous hall packed with towering mirrors. In the center of the room, Hungry Spirit Blue Knight and Cute and Sparkling stood back-to-back, weapons raised as they eyed their surroundings with high vigilance.
Dozens of mirrors cast warped, unsettling reflections of the pair. As the team watched, the glass figures began leaning forward, attempting to step out of the panes and butcher their living originals.
Lin Huai barked out commands on the spot. Dragon Emerging from the Sea and Fastest Hand at SF Express charged forward to smash the mirror phantoms that were already pulling free from the glass, while Old Wang and the courier used their agile footwork to draw the enemy’s attention.
