Chapter 27 The Elevator (4) It's impossible to find the mastermind behind it all...
Chang Mingai immediately ran to the window and told Xie Tan about it.
But just then, all the doors in the corridor opened a crack, letting in light that streamed up onto the doors, enough for them to see the damp ceiling.
The reinforced concrete was like paper, crumbling and falling apart. Long-necked, fleshy monsters smashed open doors, twisting their heads like snakes to stare at them.
The elevator reached the top floor, and as soon as the doors opened, the monsters flew over.
Xie Tan didn't move, acting as a barrier in front. The long-necked monster did pause for a moment, but quickly bypassed him to snatch the toy house behind him.
Xie Tan toppled the hut over, and Chang Ming rolled onto the window of his bedroom. The next second, the other side of the hut, near his parents' bedroom, was bitten off by the monster, sending debris flying everywhere.
Taking advantage of the moment, Xie Tan threw the toy house into the elevator door, cleverly pushed the window of the toy house with his fingers, hid the falling Chang Mingai in his sleeve, then turned around and stood in front of the door, pretending to protect the toy house.
The monster wouldn't offend him; it could only squeeze in through the gap above him, pick up the hut, shake it, and scatter small furniture parts all over the floor, but there was no little man.
The elevator doors closed, and the monsters quickly retracted their necks, two of which were crushed and remained motionless.
The elevator car fell silent again, with only the sound of it moving downwards.
Chang Mingai was put back into the half-finished hut by Xie Tan. She sat down heavily, her heart still pounding.
"They didn't chase after us, did they..."
The monster's remains on the ground slowly turned into blood, which flowed down the elevator door.
They probably didn't chase after her; she couldn't hear the monsters' voices anymore.
She struggled to her feet and looked at the elevator buttons flashing wildly.
She was hesitating whether to eat the growth cookie when the button for the 25th floor lit up and the elevator stopped.
Did they successfully return to Zhongbin Apartment?
She didn't have much hope. Alice chased the white rabbit and wrote a storybook. She was Alice now, and probably wouldn't let her leave so easily.
What is it this time? A strange new place she's never seen before, or another old place disguised as a familiar one?
She made many assumptions, but when the elevator doors actually opened, she was terrified.
Outside the door was a giant eye, turning left and right, peering inside.
It's like when she's in her toy house, and her mother is peering through the door!
One layer inside another, could they be inside a model of an apartment building?
The eye saw tiny Chang Mingai, narrowed its eyes in terror, as if laughing, and reached in with two fingers, each as big as a person, trying to pry open the toy house.
But it was quickly drawn to Xie Tan, who stepped forward and pressed the elevator's close button.
It stared intently at the little human, having forgotten its original plan, and pointed its finger toward Xie Tan.
It likes this... It smells so good, it wants this!
The elevator, which had been pretending to be dead, suddenly plummeted half a floor, trapping the huge monster's restless fingers.
An emergency call came through with a familiar ringtone, but it wasn't answered; it was clearly a warning.
The monster reluctantly pushed downwards. From its current perspective, it could only look down as much as possible, its fingers flailing haphazardly in search of the toy house. But there was also an element of deliberate intent; in such a small space, it always managed to bump into Xie Tan.
Even just being able to stick it on would be good!
As a result, the elevator's surveillance camera was swept away and rendered unusable, the electronic expression on the small elevator screen turned into a "screaming" sound, and the red lights on all the elevator buttons flashed back and forth.
Xie Tan made a quick decision and threw half of the toy house into the gap on the next floor.
Seeing that the monster had failed, the elevator regretfully and decisively descended another half floor, directly to the next floor, crushing the monster's finger. Xie Tan heard another miserable scream.
They're all colleagues, how could they be so ruthless? Xie Tan was surprised.
Elevator: Only colleagues can be ruthless.
The door to the 24th floor opened, and surprisingly, the corridor on this floor was still the same. Chang Mingai's apartment seemed to have entered a loop.
Xie Tan was about to step out of the elevator when Chang Mingai, who was lying on the ground in the small room outside the elevator, looked ahead in horror.
The elevator doors were about to close, but just as they were about to close, they seemed to sense someone and opened again.
He looked down and saw that on the elevator dividing line between him and Chang Mingai, a toy version of Chang Mingai was standing there, holding a cookie clock, looking up at him, seemingly smiling.
The next moment, the elevator suddenly dropped a little, creating a slight gap between the inside and outside.
As it shook, the toy figure fell forward onto the ground with a thud, and the cookie clock was flung into the gap and fell into the next layer.
Just as the real Chang Mingai was about to run over, the elevator doors slammed shut, forcibly separating Xie Tan and Chang Mingai, and continued downwards.
Chang Mingai was carrying a biscuit. She quickly took a small bite, successfully returning to her normal size, and then banged on the elevator door and frantically pressed the elevator buttons.
Damn that rabbit hole! Give me back my leg! How dare you force her to play a level-based game? If you're so tough, don't confiscate her cheat codes!
She cursed and swore, her fear overwhelmed, but suddenly she heard a woman's muffled sobbing, a sound that sounded familiar.
She stopped what she was doing and looked at her own door. The voice was coming from behind the door.
This wretched fairyland was deliberately separating them. Now that things had come to this, Chang Mingai composed herself, rolled her eyes at the broken elevator, and walked to her own door, carefully opening it.
The lights were on inside, and it still felt so warm and cozy.
The water tank had a hole, and water was flowing out, but the amount of water in the tank didn't decrease at all; it just kept flowing, and a layer of water accumulated on the floor up to her ankles.
Her mother was tied to a chair, facing the door, her mouth stuffed with a live fish, tears streaming down her face.
The fish was still bouncing between her teeth, and Chang Mingai heard the terrifying sound of scales scraping against the tips of her teeth.
Upon seeing her, her mother opened her eyes wide in terror, screamed loudly, and turned her head away, urging her to run.
The clock in the living room had stopped, its hands gone, but in the birdcage beneath it was a live parrot—the same one they used to own.
The parrot flapped its wings, happily mimicking a woman's broken screams, complete with the sharp, piercing sounds of birds.
Chang Mingai immediately understood the parrot's role: it was the dodo bird in the story that made everyone race around it.
Sure enough, the parrot exclaimed, "Welcome to the circle-running contest!"
After Xie Tan realized the elevator's intention, he stopped and did not go out.
The mastermind behind it all made several phone calls; it seems he's disrupted a game.
The elevator pretended to be dead again, going up and down, back and forth, seemingly unsure of which floor it was taking Xie Tan to. The boy had indeed accidentally followed him into the apartment building.
The surveillance system is broken, and there are outsiders around. The human who provides power to the fairyland won't call anymore, so it won't get any instructions. It's all because of that stupid colleague!
Xie Tan, with a look of schadenfreude, asked, "Is there no backup plan?"
Actually, there is one, and it's simple and straightforward: that human said to just eliminate any element that disrupts the game experience.
The brutal inhabitants of Fairyland, who couldn't stand each other, unanimously agreed!
Then……
The elevator display screen glanced at Xie Tan, and when Xie Tan noticed and looked back, it immediately switched to the cutest emoticon.
The elevators thought desperately, and then, without exception, none of them succeeded.
But it didn't change its expression; Xie Tan seemed to smile, and it wouldn't change it again.
Never mind, let's leave it to that human. He's the mastermind behind it all. He's the one who gave us the power, he's the one who created the fairyland, and he's the one who planned the game. Let him decide how to handle it.
The elevator descended smoothly to the 18th floor and the doors opened.
Meanwhile, on the 18th floor, the two masterminds behind the tea party were completely unaware of this.
In reality, only one person was the mastermind behind it all; the other was an accident.
Zhu Fengliang, with a scarred face, wore an exaggerated top hat, patted the European-style dressing mirror a few times, and frowned: "The broken mirror you found."
"This is not my home, and your surveillance cameras were wiped out by the monster. I'm not taking the blame, Mad Hatter."
A young man was lying across two chairs at the dining table. He wore a rabbit eye mask, a gold pocket watch around his neck, and a simple letter-print short-sleeved shirt and shorts, but paired with Taoist-style shoes. His feet were stacked on the armrests and swaying back and forth.
"The cat is still inside!"
"What cat?" the young man suddenly remembered. "The Cheshire Cat? Is its energy cut off and it stuck in the mirror? Oh well, it can become invisible anyway, right? We can just pretend it's there. You've seen The Emperor's New Clothes, right? From now on, it's the Emperor's cat."
"The Cheshire Cat is no small fry."
"We can divide the lines; the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are not insignificant characters either."
"You're really getting into character. Did I invite you?" Zhu Fengliang said impatiently.
"I invited my club members to play a murder mystery game, didn't I? You were the one who targeted her, lured that magical rabbit in, and turned this place into a rabbit hole." The young man pulled down his sleep mask and complained, "You ruined my wonderful weekend team building."
As the most respected president of Dida Travel Agency, he has a great relationship with the members and they often hang out together.
We arranged to play a murder mystery game here today. He arrived first, and Chang Mingai was the second.
After receiving the bad news that several members of the club had stood him up, Chang Mingai went downstairs to pick up something her classmate had given her and sent him a message saying that the classmate he was interested in had come up with her.
Actually, he had forgotten who it was. Did he say something like inviting the other person to join the club? Maybe the atmosphere was right; he's particularly good at that.
Oh well, it doesn't matter. If it really doesn't work out, just join. Anyway, under his leadership and with the adventurous spirit of their club, ordinary students would voluntarily quit after participating in just one club activity.
Hopefully it won't come to the point of expulsion; it would be troublesome if the counselor questioned him.
He was waiting for Chang Mingai and her unimportant classmate to come upstairs when, in the blink of an eye, this place became Chang Mingai's home.
He and Chang Mingai were high school classmates. He had visited her home before and recognized her.
He was accompanied by his fellow members of the religious order; he had mistakenly wandered into their work area.
No, he arrived first. It was a colleague with no sense of propriety who forcibly occupied someone else's entertainment venue and leisure time!
Zhu Fengliang: "Are you so free? Are you addicted to being a college student? I see you eating, drinking, and sleeping, living a very comfortable life, without caring about the members who are having an encounter with ghosts."
"What do you mean by 'addicted'? I'm a college student, okay? I worked hard to get into college, and I'm a graduate of regular compulsory education. Do you know how hard it is to get into the Flute? I can't reason with someone like you who's just a social idler."
The young man said casually, "And I also did a divination for Alice, it said 'she will escape danger'."
"With your skill level?"
Zhu Fengliang had a lot to say. If he remembered correctly, this person had entered university on his own, but obtained his Taoist certificate through connections.
Even pulling strings couldn't get it done. The Taoist Association was probably afraid that their patriarch would appear in their dreams in the middle of the night and ask why they let such a scoundrel in and disgrace their sect.
"You should be glad I'm going to become a Taoist priest. The religious order has lost a capable member. It was destined!"
Zhu Fengliang couldn't stand his frivolous manner and used the authority of the church to pressure him: "Show some respect. Don't forget your identity and faith just because you're appreciated by the vice-bishop."
"My faith is witnessed by heaven and earth, and my status is that I am of a higher rank than you." The young man laughed heartily, "Call me senior, you little brat!"
This is the truth. Although he was young, he joined the church earlier than Zhu Fengliang. Most importantly, he was highly regarded by the vice-bishop and was a senior figure.
Zhu Fengliang still couldn't understand what the vice-bishop saw in him. Was there anyone more unreliable than him?
Zhu Fengliang wasn't led by the nose; he just frowned slightly and asked, "Have you finished your work?"
"I'm not like you, taking two tasks at once. You need to get rid of your number compulsion."
Changing the subject. Zhu Fengliang scoffed, "You didn't finish. Didn't you find a useful monster, that clown?"
"It ran away." Mentioning this, the young man couldn't help but feel resentful. "After the circus performance, it disappeared without a trace. Luckily, the mirror recovered its energy. Its abilities are really useful; I wanted to use it long-term. Did it have a grudge against me?"
After a moment's thought, the young man decisively shook his head: "Impossible, what problem could I have? It's just that it has no vision."
Zhu Fengliang scoffed, "Maybe she ran off with someone else."
"That's even more impossible. The Order isn't doing charity. Giving them mirror fragments comes with a contract. Although the contract will gradually unravel after the energy is recovered, they're still under the contract's restrictions during this period. If they don't work for me, they'll suffer backlash. Who could have such great charm that they can't even wait this long? Those monsters are all very cunning."
The young man sighed, "Is it Mercury retrograde lately? I even ran into the blind old woman. She's having some bad luck too. The little ghost she refined almost escaped after reincarnating through a living person. And you... well, it's still you, hahaha. The vengeful ghost you painstakingly chose was used by a nobody whose blood was diluted like watermelon juice. It almost delayed the retrieval mission. Do you know the sense of redemption I felt after painstakingly finding out that young master's background for you? I thought he was some kind of powerful person, hiding so deeply, but it turns out he's just a good-for-nothing abandoned by the old sheep family. Nobody cares about him, which is why there's not much information about him."
He got more and more excited as he spoke, leaning out of the rocking chair: "What's the point of competing with the Black Goat Diagram? You two made a big show of it, but in the end you just destroyed each other's plans and accomplished nothing. You're evenly matched opponents."
Zhu Fengliang's face was gloomy, but he wasn't provoked. Instead, he stared strangely at the mirror: "No."
"Um?"
"The person who almost delayed my mission was not that scrap from the Goat family. I don't know what the Goat map is for, because I wasn't the one who destroyed it."
The young man understood his meaning: there was a third party involved.
"Who is it?" He became interested, seeing Zhu Fengliang still staring at the mirror that no longer reflected anything, and suddenly realized, "That boy? Isn't he Alice's classmate?"
But he still didn't take it seriously.
He mocked his colleague, but he also knew that his colleague was capable, and in the end, the power of the mirror was successfully recovered.
As for that so-called collateral branch, well, if they're collateral branches, then their actual skill level is just not good enough.
He was playing a game and didn't see Chang Mingai's first experience in Wonderland. After he finished playing, he glanced at the footage and saw Chang Mingai and her classmate entering the elevator again. The surveillance footage was quickly taken down.
Those long-necked monsters didn't touch the boy, so does that mean the boy has a talisman or magical artifact with the ability to bounce back?
"Stop looking in the mirror. The image itself needs solar energy. It's already exhausting enough to support such a large fairyland in the apartment. Don't be so controlling."
The young man still didn't understand Zhu Fengliang's seriousness and yawned: "The elevator separates them, how considerate! This boy who wandered in isn't in the script. This way, it prevents him from being frightened and doing something stupid that would mess up your game. Just let him stay in the elevator. Going up and down, there's no danger. It's much more comfortable than poor Alice."
Zhu Fengliang gave a perfunctory reply, his brows still furrowed. His dog of a colleague and boss hadn't understood a word he said, but one thing he said was true.
Since the boy is trapped in the elevator anyway, let him go up and down the drop tower. Just don't disturb his plans for now; he has plenty of time.
But he had a... ominous feeling.
The young man was a bit surprised. He offered some words of comfort, but he didn't expect his colleague to actually let it go.
He knew this ruthless colleague well; he had severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. The only reason he kept him around was because Alice hadn't reached the tea party stage yet, and there was only one person who didn't fit his even-number aesthetic, so he was included to make up the numbers.
It's also because I can't beat him, and besides, he's my boss!
Anyone else who disrupted the plan was simply killed by the ruthless colleague.
"It's not like the sun has risen in the west; it's just that I've grown up." The young man, twenty years younger than his colleague, thought with satisfaction.
Oh dear, so many layers of loops, so many monsters, none of them are merciful. Surely that boy couldn't have found the mastermind's lair, could he?
He continued slacking off! He grabbed some snacks and went back to playing games.
The elevator doors on the 18th floor closed, and Xie Tan arrived at the door of Chang Mingai's home.
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