Chapter 1175 - 1141: Strange Events at the Hotel
Chapter 1175 - 1141: Strange Events at the Hotel
"It's been a long time since I've been to this city. I remember the first time I came here was last year, when I was also investigating paranormal incidents."
Yang Jian and Li Yang were walking on an empty street.
Starting from here, they had entered the lockdown area. He looked at the surrounding scenery and talked about the past events.
"The captain is talking about the Caesar Hotel incident, right? That paranormal event invaded the headquarters' operator room. I heard many operators died. It was from then on that the headquarters realized that answering phone calls during paranormal incidents could be fatal," Li Yang said.
He had learned a lot from past paranormal event files.
Although those paranormal events had been resolved, they could still enrich his knowledge and increase his experience.
Many newcomers at the headquarters started by studying previous paranormal event files.
As the headquarters' paranormal files increased and each successful case emerged, many people found a direction to study, which greatly helped newbies transform into seasoned individuals, increasing their survival rate.
"But earlier, I noticed that this city hasn't been greatly affected by the supernatural, just this area has been sealed off," Li Yang said.
Yang Jian replied, "Naturally, the casualties from the last Ghost Newspaper incident weren't large, and the Caesar Hotel lockdown was very timely, so the impact was minor. After that, Tong Qian has been keeping an eye on this city, so no further paranormal incidents occurred."
"After all, this is merely a small city and cannot be compared to large cities like Dachang City, Dahai City, or Dachuan City. The probability of paranormal incidents occurring is relatively low."
Li Yang nodded and said, "Although paranormal incidents are frequent now, when spread across the country and divided among each city, the count is still low. With the captain's plan successfully implemented, the situation is relatively stable."
"Relatively stable?"
Yang Jian shook his head. "Don't be too naive. The situation is stable because the captain's growth matches the difficulty of the paranormal events. Several times the situation nearly worsened, like the Ghost Envoy incident; if it hadn't been for the successful escape, Wang Xiaoming and the other ghost wielders at headquarters would all have died there."
"And the Ghost Lake incident, several captains teamed up and almost all perished; they only survived by luck."
"Just one paranormal incident, one that causes the captain to fail, could completely destabilize the current situation," Yang Jian said with some emotion. "I hope that day doesn't come too soon, but it will eventually come."
"You might escape the Ghost Lake, but you can't evade the next S-level paranormal incident."
Li Yang said, "Captain, it's a bit early to worry about that now. We can only take it one step at a time, right? Besides, even if the situation worsens, with our abilities, we should be able to protect Dachang City."
"You're right, it's already quite something for us to be able to protect a city like Dachang. We don't have the capacity to take care of other places," Yang Jian nodded.
As they chatted, the two of them arrived in front of a sealed-off building.
It was a hotel.
Located on what was once a bustling street, but now completely deserted, everyone in the vicinity had moved away, leaving only a few teams to patrol and monitor the situation here.
Even though it's been sealed off, it still needs watching; otherwise, any incidents would go unnoticed.
"People have been evacuated, but surveillance is still running, and many drones are flying back and forth. It seems this is Tong Qian's idea: evacuating people to safe areas and using technology to check for anomalies here," Yang Jian said, looking up.
Drones patrol here around the clock.
There are many crashed drones on the ground, but no one has come to pick them up, likely accounting for such losses.
"This idea isn't great. Machines are always just machines; once a fierce ghost roams outside, machines can't detect it," Li Yang said.
Yang Jian replied, "Paranormal phenomena can interfere with circuits. If a fierce ghost appears, drones will definitely be affected; they'll either disappear or crash. So, they can still serve as a form of early warning. Forget it, let's not bother with this; we're not here to study it. Let's go check out the hotel. Have you notified Tong Qian?"
"I have. Tong Qian is waiting for us in the hotel," Li Yang said.
"That's good."
The two glanced at the Caesar Hotel.
All the hotel's doors and windows were sealed with cement, including the main entrance. But after so long, numerous gaps have appeared, some man-made and some caused by some special reasons.
It was noon, and the sunlight was strong.
Light poured through these gaps into the hotel, adding a bit of brightness to the otherwise dim interior.
But this brightness was limited, enveloped in darkness beyond five or six meters, causing uneasiness.
"Be careful, this place is rather eerie," Yang Jian said.
"Don't worry, Captain, I'm fine," Li Yang replied.
The two had come well-prepared, knowing they might encounter who knows what, so they had to be thoroughly prepared.
Yang Jian glanced at the cement-sealed main door, and his ghost eye rolled mysteriously, the red light flickering briefly.
The cement blocking the main door instantly vanished, revealing a path into the hotel.
With light streaming in, the gloom inside the hotel lobby disappeared, replaced by murky, cool air mixed with a musty odor.
It was evident this place had been sealed off for too long.
"Yang Jian, Li Yang, have you arrived?" At this moment, Tong Qian came down from the hotel upstairs. She had received word of Yang Jian's arrival, so she specifically came to meet.
"How's it going? Not encountered any danger, have you?" Yang Jian asked.
Tong Qian replied, "There've been some scares, but nothing serious. However, something feels very off, which is why I asked you to come and check it out."
"What's off?" Yang Jian inquired.
Tong Qian said, "For now, the hotel is quite safe; at least during my stay here, I haven't encountered any ghosts."
"You even dared to stay here?" Yang Jian was moved. "You've become bolder."
"I didn't sleep, just monitored," Tong Qian said.
She had three faces. As a ghost wielder, she had her unique traits, like transforming into a smiling face, letting her face fall asleep while her consciousness stayed awake.
With three faces switching in turn, Tong Qian could stay awake around the clock.
Yang Jian said, "No movement is normal. After all, it's been sealed for so many years. If ghosts were popping out frequently, there'd be paranormal incidents long ago, it wouldn't wait until now."
"Forget it, let's discuss this later. First, come over; I found someone during my patrol in the hotel—a person who sneaked in," Tong Qian said.
"A person?" Li Yang exclaimed, "Is there a regular person who managed to come here?"
"Just some young people who have no idea how high the sky is. They found a loophole and snuck in," Tong Qian shook her head with some helplessness.
Yang Jian said, "You mentioned someone living here and lights being on at night; you don't mean them, do you?"
"No," Tong Qian said, "I wouldn't take ordinary people's pranks seriously. This place at night is truly odd."
"Where is that person? Let's go have a look," Yang Jian didn't mince words and headed up the stairs immediately.
"This way," Tong Qian led the way in the front.
Soon.
They arrived on the third floor of the hotel.
The first floor of the hotel is the lobby and kitchen, the second floor the dining room, and the third and fourth floors are the rooms.
But the truly dangerous floor is the fourth floor.
Because on the fourth floor, there is a passage leading to an unknown corridor and rooms.
The rooms there are suspected to be inhabited by fierce ghosts, and there are many rooms, an absurd number, containing dangers along with many inexplicable bizarre phenomena, it's a prohibited area.
Tong Qian lingered on the third floor, one had to say he had a lot of guts.
Quickly.
Tong Qian led them to a room.
Inside the room were some stored food and water, and in the corner was a girl curled up, this girl had dyed yellow hair and was wearing jeans, looking just over twenty, very young, but now her expression was quite off, merely shivering in the corner, and upon hearing sounds, her trembling intensified.
Yang Jian took a glance and immediately understood what was going on: "She's been scared out of her mind and has gone insane."
"You're right, I tried to take her out, but she absolutely refused to leave the room." Tong Qian said.
"Refusal to leave the room indicates she encountered something terrifying outside, creating a shadow over her, making her afraid to step out the door." Yang Jian said.
Li Yang said: "Probably saw a ghost, and was lucky not to die, scared into hiding in this room."
"When I found her, she had already fainted, it was me who saved her, gave her food and water." Tong Qian said: "I initially intended to extract some information from her, if that still wouldn't work, I'd have no choice but to forcibly take her away."
Yang Jian didn't speak, just walked over.
"Yang Jian, do you have any good ideas?" Tong Qian asked.
"I can cure her, but she'll have to pay a small price." Yang Jian said.
Tong Qian said: "Then go ahead, leaving her untreated will ruin her life."
"You're right." Yang Jian nodded.
The Ghost Shadow behind him immediately swayed and directly invaded the girl's body. Visit My Virtual Library Empire (*) for more.
The Ghost Shadow encroached, and the girl couldn't resist.
Her memory was plundered, then rewritten, making her forget everything that happened here, her memory stayed right before she entered.
Soon.
The girl fainted, Yang Jian glanced, a red light flashed, directly sending her out of the Caesar Hotel.
"Where did you put her?" Tong Qian asked.
Yang Jian said: "Asleep on the main road outside, it's safe, but she lost a few days of memory, once she wakes up she'll forget everything here, thinking she returned from a bar and passed out drunk by the roadside."
Speaking, he was recalling the girl's memory.
The girl's name was Huang Ying, a very ordinary girl, after graduation came out to work, loved to have fun, frequently visiting bars, then met a group of drinking buddies... such experiences and memories were not special, Yang Jian was not interested and skipped over.
The turning point was three days ago.
This Huang Ying and a group of young impulsive guys, came to this Caesar Hotel out of curiosity and to have fun.
She was invited, the initiator was another person named Zhang Zhe.
A group of six in total, four men and two women.
.....Memory continued to recall.
Yang Jian knew all that had happened to Huang Ying these past few days.
"Captain, how's the situation?" Li Yang asked.
"She's just one of the survivors, there are still five more missing in this hotel, all a group of thrill-seeking young people, she became like this because she saw a corpse." Yang Jian said.
Tong Qian said: "A corpse shouldn't be enough to frighten someone to this extent."
"The key is that corpse walked in the dark hotel, and the light from her phone shone on it, so in fear she screamed and ran in here, in panic she came in and didn't dare to go out." Yang Jian said very calmly.
"Was that corpse a ghost?" Tong Qian asked.
Yang Jian said: "Unclear, but certain that there's definitely something wrong in the hotel now, did you check the fourth floor?"
"I went, but found nothing, and I didn't explore the most dangerous area, after all, as you said, monitoring is the main job, don't act recklessly." Tong Qian said.
"Your thought is very correct, Caesar Hotel isn't a place to act recklessly, even I have to tread carefully here." Yang Jian said.
Li Yang asked: "Now, the three of us together, should we have a look or wait until night and check the situation?"
"Does anything else change here at night?" Yang Jian asked.
Tong Qian said: "In a while, the lights will turn on, the hotel will revert to its operating state before, filled with bright lights, and you'll hear many strange sounds, like footsteps approaching, people dining... it feels like activities are going on, but no one's actually there."
"But everything returns to normal by daytime."
Yang Jian frowned and said: "What time does this happen?"
"I noticed, it happens from 10 PM to 4 AM, six hours in total, I've experienced it twice, so there's no mistake, but with this happening I didn't dare wander the hotel, just stayed in the room to observe, luckily aside from these ghostly phenomena, no other dangers appeared."
Tong Qian spoke of some personal experiences.
This time he was cautious yet bold.
Daring to stay alone at Caesar Hotel, while observing cautiously.
Didn't stumble like the last time.
"You're absolutely right, wandering alone in such conditions, facing danger would definitely be lethal, securing your own safety is paramount." Yang Jian said.
"We're in no rush to the fourth floor now, anomalies appear at night, so we'll wait until night to check."
"It'll take several hours though." Tong Qian said.
Li Yang said: "Meanwhile, we can search the hotel and eliminate potential hazards."
"Absolutely."
Yang Jian said: "It's safer this way, handling supernatural events can't be rushed, needs to be step-by-step."
He was still recalling the earlier memory of Huang Ying.
The walking corpse in her eyes seemed somewhat familiar, seen somewhere before.
Unsure if it's due to his messy recollections making everyone seem familiar, or if the corpse indeed had been seen before.
"I need a piece of paper to sketch that face." Yang Jian thought secretly.