Author: 颜凉雨 / Yan Liang Yu
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 126: Elevator
Advisor Wu’s feeling of being admired was abruptly interrupted by Chi Yingxue’s simple and straightforward question.
Xu Wang quickly changed the subject to help maintain Wu Sheng’s image. “What should we do next?”
This brought the conversation back to Wu Sheng’s area of expertise, and his eyes immediately lit up with intelligence. “We need to find the source. Each accident, like the butterfly effect, developed step by step according to logical reasoning. But the initial flap of the butterfly’s wings, the start of it all, must have been caused by the demon.”
Qian Ai asked, “How do we find it?”
Wu Sheng looked up, his gaze falling on the young man who had pushed him near the Finnish bath door. “We start with the people.”
There were seven accident scenes with relevant people still around, but only the restaurant and the Finnish bath remained. The two girls who had quarreled in the restaurant, who also happened to be survivors of the car crash at the previous intersection, had now gone to the spa, leaving only the young man who pushed him as the breakthrough point.
Fortunately, Wu Sheng didn’t even need to think of a reason to approach him.
Normally, Xu Wang would handle “communication” tasks during the levels, but this one was different. Wu Sheng had to gather firsthand information, including the responder’s reactions and other details, which no one else could substitute.
Standing up, Wu Sheng walked directly towards the young man.
His four companions stayed back, not wanting to crowd the area and hinder the “conversation”, but they watched closely, ready to assist at any moment if needed.
Soon, Wu Sheng reached the young man’s lounge chair. The man was lying down watching TV and turned his head in confusion when he noticed Wu Sheng. “What’s up, man?”
Wu Sheng sat down on an adjacent empty lounge chair and politely said, “You bumped into me earlier.”
The young man frowned, took off his headphones, and asked again uncertainly, “What?”
“Just now in the bath area, you ran into me,” Wu Sheng repeated more specifically.
The young man remembered, quickly sat up, and apologized profusely, looking genuinely remorseful. His demeanor and tone showed no signs of deceit.
“Forget it.” Wu Sheng finally pretended to let go after the young man almost exhausted his apologies. “If he hadn’t fallen into the bath, you wouldn’t have bumped into me.”
The young man thought for a moment, then realized what had happened and quickly sat up, looking embarrassed. “Hey, at that time, I was just focused on rescuing people and didn’t notice. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Wu Sheng said. “But when you bumped into me, the bathroom door got stuck and couldn’t be opened. My friend almost suffocated inside.”
The more the young man listened, the more remorseful he became, apologizing incessantly. From his demeanor to his tone, there were no flaws to be seen.
“Forget it.” Wu Sheng finally appeared to let go when the other’s apologies seemed to run out. “If he hadn’t fallen into the bathtub, you wouldn’t have bumped into me.”
“You can’t say that. He didn’t fall in there on purpose.” The young man spoke quite honorably on behalf of the one who fell in.
Wu Sheng didn’t continue the topic. He just smiled at him and quickly found an excuse to leave. He turned around and went to the end of the row behind.
The man who fell into the water was there.
He was a young man with flowing hair, not one of the four suspects Wu Sheng had identified.
“Why did I fall in?” The young man was already confused by Wu Sheng’s sudden approach and was even more baffled by this opening remark. “What else could it be? I just missed my step.”
“Bathing is a dangerous activity. How can you be so careless?” Wu Sheng said heavily, trying to show some sincere concern.
But to the young man, it sounded odd, and he replied more aggressively, “I’m distraught over being dumped. What’s it to you!”
A flicker in Wu Sheng’s eyes showed he knew he was onto something. “A girl in the tour group?”
The young man hung his head, his flowing hair falling with it, and after a long while, he muttered quietly, “It’s not a girl.”
Wu Sheng: “……”
He didn’t deny the tour group, just the gender.
Before Wu Sheng could ask further, the young man looked up mournfully, glancing in a certain direction.
Wu Sheng followed his gaze—the tour leader had risen from the lounge chair and was looking everywhere for his slippers.
“Are you dating him?” Wu Sheng looked at the young man’s hair and then at the tour leader’s vague features, unable to see any couple vibe.
“No…” The young man looked down, playing with his fingers somewhat shyly. “I have an unrequited love for him…”
Well, as long as he’s happy.
But “unrequited love” means they haven’t dated, so how could there be a dumping?
“I couldn’t help it. I sent him a message.” The young man knew what Wu Sheng was going to ask.
“And then?”
“Then he rejected me in the reply…”
The young man pouted. The circles under his eyes were truly red, a genuine display of love.
Wu Sheng was reminded of his own bitter memories. He sighed and said sincerely, “Can I see the message? Maybe there’s some misunderstanding…”
The word “misunderstanding” reignited hope in the young man, who quickly handed over his phone.
The messages were brief, with just two exchanges.
The first was in the morning—
Tour leader: Gather, handsome.
Young man: ?
Tour leader: Stop smiling foolishly. I’m talking about you.
Young man: Am I handsome?
Tour leader: Very handsome.
The second was at noon—
Young man: I think, I might have fallen for you.
Tour leader: Think about it again.
Young man: Really, I truly like you.
Tour leader: Sorry, but I really don’t.
The conversation was short and quickly read, but Wu Sheng took his time. The tour leader initiated the flirtation but ended up rejecting him, suspiciously straightforward, lacking a sense of reality. Like preparing for a difficult exam for a long time, only to find elementary questions—it was unsettling.
“Sheng Ge.” Kuang Jinxin ran over. “We’re gathering.”
Sixteen members of the travel group, plus Xu Wang’s small team, gathered at the entrance of the rest hall.
The tour leader checked his watch. “It’s 3:30 p.m. now. Half an hour to change clothes, and we’ll meet at the downstairs entrance at 4:00.”
Wu Sheng hadn’t had time to share the news he just heard with his teammates, now focusing intently on the tour leader, trying to detect some clues.
The elevator reached the top floor.
With so many people, they’d have to go down in two groups. The tour leader conscientiously moved to the back. Perhaps to avoid awkwardness, the young man with the flowing hair squeezed to the front of the elevator.
The elevator doors slowly opened.
A couple in the front center entered first, but as soon as they stepped in, they fell through!
The young man with the flowing hair and another girl, following right behind them, also fell in!
The muffled sounds of heavy objects falling echoed up the elevator shaft.
Right behind these four were Qian Ai and Kuang Jinxin!
One clung to the door frame; the other was grabbed by the bathrobe by Chi Yingxue, narrowly escaping disaster.
Curious travelers peered down the shaft—the elevator hadn’t come to the top, still stopped on the first floor. The four people, stacked like logs on top of the elevator cabin, were twisted into bizarre angles—none survived.
The last to fall was the young man.
Just two minutes ago, he was chatting with Wu Sheng. Now, with a broken neck and his eyes wide open, he stared into the empty elevator shaft and at the onlookers above.
Owl time 16:00. The death toll rose to twenty, with only six men and six women remaining in the tour group.
While changing clothes, Wu Sheng quietly shared the information he gathered with a few companions.
Xu Wang and Kuang Jinxin felt the same as Wu Sheng, suspecting the tour leader but unable to fully trust that he was really the one.
However, Qian Ai, who didn’t follow the usual thought process, suggested while the tour leader was away changing clothes, “Is it possible that the demon is him, and the answer is that simple, but we overcomplicated the issue?”
“There is a possibility,” Wu Sheng said. “So we also need to follow up on the incident at the restaurant. If the source is still him…”
Qian Ai clenched his fist. “Then there’s no escape for him!”
Xu Wang looked at Wu Sheng and said just two words, “Be quick.”
Wu Sheng nodded. “I know.”
Just after Wu Sheng questioned the young man, the young man died. Who could guarantee the two girls would live much longer?
“Next, we will go to the suburbs to enjoy the green mountains and rivers…”
An old-fashioned bus, looking like a modified scrapped public bus, without air conditioning and with manually operated windows, was waiting outside the bathhouse.
The tour leader led the surviving twelve people and Xu Wang’s small team onto the bus.
The five companions looked left and right, naturally avoiding the front and back of the bus and choosing seats in the middle. Xu Wang and Wu Sheng sat together, and across the aisle were Chi Yingxue, Qian Ai, and Kuang Jinxin, squeezed into two seats.
Xu Wang looked at his teammates with an indescribable expression. “Isn’t it crowded?”
Qian Ai said, “It’s warm, feels safe.”
“……” Xu Wang looked at Chi Yingxue, who was sitting on the innermost seat with a very gloomy face, feeling that the word “safe” was on shaky ground.
The bus started slowly and merged onto the main road. The driver, a middle-aged man, drove steadily.
Wu Sheng slightly stood up and looked back. The two girls who had quarreled in the restaurant were sitting in the last row, now reconciled, and half-opening the window to enjoy the breeze and laughter.
“Be careful,” Xu Wang said.
Wu Sheng gripped his hand and smiled. “Facing me, that warning should be for the demon.”
Xu Wang rolled his eyes and shook off his hand. “Hurry up.”
“Why did we have a quarrel?” The two girls, faced with the uninvited Wu Sheng, were baffled. “What does this have to do with you?”
Wu Sheng said, “It’s related to the continuous deaths.”
The girls looked at him strangely. “Doesn’t traveling always involve deaths? What does our quarrel have to do with it?”
Traveling always involves deaths?
Wu Sheng frowned. Was this the default setting of these NPCs? If so, their calmness towards the continuous accidents made sense.
“Maybe traveling involves deaths, but my friend almost got hurt in the restaurant, and you can’t be absolved of that.”
Wu Sheng changed his approach, acknowledging the accidents of traveling but insisting that the two girls were entirely responsible for the near accident with Xu Wang in the restaurant.
As Wu Sheng expected, the girls, like the young man he talked to earlier, had simple personalities. Hearing Wu Sheng’s logical argument and admitting their part in causing the subsequent accident by quarreling and splashing water, they felt guilty and revealed the reason for their quarrel.
“Actually, we both fell for the same guy.”
Wu Sheng: “Let me guess. It’s not the tour leader, is it?”
The girls suddenly looked up. “How did you know?!”
Wu Sheng: “……”
“But later we both realized he’s a real scumbag!” one of the girls suddenly added.
Wu Sheng, sensing a clue, quickly asked, “How did you realize that?”
Both girls took out their phones. “In the restaurant, we both thought the other was the third party. Only after comparing messages did we realize that he had been two-timing from the start!”
Wu Sheng checked the phones at the back of the bus, while Xu Wang, in the middle, occasionally looked back, remaining highly vigilant.
The bus had left the city, and the scenery outside the window became pleasant, with blue skies, white clouds, and birds chirping among the flowers.
Almost all the members of the travel group opened their windows, enjoying the breeze and the scenery.
The four companions stubbornly kept their windows shut, fastened their seat belts, and remained unmoved by any scenery, firm like revolutionary soldiers.
<<< || Table of Contents || >>>
Kinky Translations 