**Chapter 20: A Start That Can’t Even Be Counted as a Prologue [5K]**
Watching Lu Yibei finish showcasing the Xuan Ying Luo Fu, Zhang Hainan pondered for a few seconds and asked, “Are you sure you want this spirit energy item? Think carefully, after leaving the Zixiao Terrace, no turning back is allowed.”
The umbrella frame was indeed flawed.
Although Zhang Hainan respected Lu Yibei’s choice, he felt somewhat anxious that if any issues arose with the Xuan Ying Luo Fu in the future, Lu Yibei might come back to him to complain.
“No regrets, no regrets.” Lu Yibei said repeatedly, “The Xuan Ying Luo Fu is great.”
Initially, she had some reservations about the Xuan Ying Luo Fu, but after successfully acquiring it and trying to wield it for a moment, not only did her reservations completely disappear, but there was also a nostalgic joy reminiscent of childhood.
Most boys, at some point, have imagined an umbrella as a longsword or a short spear while walking home during the rainy season, each holding an umbrella, wearing rain boots, splashing through the puddles on the ground, chasing wild dogs running under the sunset, as if saving the entire world.
Lu Yibei had similar illusions; however, she used the sunshade that was often propped up at the entrance of Luxi Chuancaiguan, even taking it to school on rainy days.
Since Huacheng rarely experienced continuous rain, Lu Ming felt there was no need to prepare an umbrella for this kid.
As for the Xuan Ying Luo Fu, being an umbrella frame without a canopy and a spirit energy item, it could take on many different forms.
With the varying strengths and quantities of spirit energy attached to the umbrella frame’s branches, Lu Yibei was confident she could manipulate that big sister into eighteen different poses!
With that, Lu Yibei’s attitude became resolute, and Zhang Hainan said no more, silently sighing, “Alright then, I’ll take my leave for now. When you leave later, try not to get seen.”
“Got it, got it!” Lu Yibei waved her hand obediently.
Seeing this, Zhang Hainan gently shook his head, turned around, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked down the long stone steps in front of the Zixiao Terrace.
However, he didn’t head straight back to the rear mountain’s Moon Cave; instead, he went directly to Qing Hui Hall.
He wanted to check the records regarding the Xuan Ying Luo Fu.
Although he couldn’t recall the specific details of the Xuan Ying Luo Fu at the moment, Zhang Hainan always felt something was off about that name, which made him somewhat uneasy.
After watching Zhang Hainan walk away, Lu Yibei shrugged, “Things are almost settled, time to go back, rest a bit, and think about what dish to make for Huasang again!”
While speaking, she carefully put away the Xuan Ying Luo Fu, and then her figure flickered before disappearing from the spot.
At the same time.
On that derelict, sagging rooftop.
Qing Ji sat at the edge of the rooftop, staring at the white-clothed woman who suddenly appeared in the center, examining her for a while before finally unable to hold back and speaking up.
“Miss, I am Qing Ji. May I ask your name?”
Xuan Ying Luo Fu, “”
“Uh, how did you get here?” Xuan Ying Luo Fu, “”
“Excuse me, can’t you talk?” “”
After throwing a series of questions at Xuan Ying Luo Fu, Qing Ji finally realized that the other party seemed completely uninterested in responding and had no choice but to give up reluctantly. He then rested his chin on one hand, gazing at the cold, aloof woman, falling into contemplation.
That little rascal Lu Yibei, where did he find such a big girl?
Is she perhaps the great-granddaughter-in-law again?
And brought her here too; doesn’t he know I’m not good at dealing with this type of girl?
Qing Ji thought unhappily, secretly planning how to give Lu Yibei a good scolding later—
In Dawn City, the wealthy and the poor lived two starkly different lives, and it only took courage and skill to change that disparity.
Before bringing his two brothers to Dawn City, Funoman thought little of it.
However, after completing a big deal today and successfully exchanging valuable jade and rough jade for cash, he began to believe.
In fact, until last night, he and his two brothers had been squeezed into a shabby little hotel in Dawn City’s night market, but today they were staying in a luxury suite of a five-star hotel.
Spacious suite, chefs and waiters on standby at all times.
The waiters were all tall beauties, all dressed in tight high-waisted skirts, swaying their slender waists and peach-like curvatures in front of him, bustling about.
The Southeast Asian-style decorated suite had a huge balcony, with the best view of the entire city’s night scene at the highest point, and the room was filled with a refreshing scent of special spices, even the golden decorations were real.
Funoman, wearing a bathrobe, sat by the pool on the massive balcony, raised his champagne glass to the night sky, and exclaimed, “This is living! I love this d*mn place!”
Compared to now, the past three months of his life felt like that of a stray dog. He owed it all to that lovely lady.
Without her, the three brothers would never have dared to rob shops in this unfamiliar place, let alone k*ll someone.
Remembering the corporate worker who had fallen victim to his g*n, Funoman’s expression suddenly changed. He had killed before.
When he was in Romania, he had been a famous vampire hunter, using the guise of hunting vampires to k*ll many people. In fact, when outmatched, finding a few ordinary people to serve as scapegoats and collecting the commission was far easier than confronting a vampire directly.
Hunting vampires not only posed a life-threatening danger but also required using alchemical bullets, which incurred high costs. He had made a fortune this way until a damned b*stard exposed him.
After the exposure, he intended to escape to Amsterdam to seek refuge with his cousin. However, that cousin, who held an important position in the Tulip Society, had run afoul of something and ended up being killed by the notorious Bruce Ma.
He received the wind of it in advance, which spared him from the fate of becoming his cousin’s companion in d*ath, and he fled here.
On the run, the number of souls who had fallen to his g*n had already exceeded the number of fingers on his hands, and he met those two equally dubious black brothers while on the escape.
He had killed many people, and often after pulling the trigger, he would turn around and forget about it.
Many people fall into fear after killing, but since the very first time he killed, he didn’t care about the value of a life. However, this time, he could not forget the image of that corporate worker right before d*ath.
Those images were like barbed spikes piercing into his mind, causing unbearable pain with the slightest touch.
Remembering the scene of the corporate worker before d*ath, Funoman abruptly felt that the expensive, sweet champagne in his hands had turned bland, like a cup of bitter water.
The tragic scene of the corporate worker’s d*ath seemed to morph into some kind of potent poison; once seen, it would poison you severely. “d*mn it!” he cursed darkly, grabbing the bottle from the ice bucket, tilting it back, and gulping it down.
After making a lot of money, there was naturally a need to celebrate. After successfully selling that batch of “goods,” Funoman had celebrated with his two brothers, drinking a lot.
At this moment, the entire bottle of champagne down his throat seemed to finally reach some level of excitement, leading to a rising buzz in his head, and his breathing became heavier.
With the alcohol kicking in, Funoman leaned one hand against his forehead while holding the empty bottle with the other, stumbling back to the bedroom. “Dingling—dingling!”
He lay down, and the phone next to his pillow rang. He turned over, picked up the phone, and asked impatiently, “Hello, who is it?” “Is this Funoman Jovovich?” A strange man’s voice came from the other end.
An inexplicable image of the corporate worker flashed through his mind, and a chill ran down Funoman’s spine as he cautiously asked, “Who are you?”
“I am…”
The man’s voice suddenly became strange, distorted and eerie, accompanied by loud static, as if there was some communication malfunction.
Perhaps due to a language barrier, Funoman could not understand what the man was saying through the intermittent sounds. It sounded like he was mumbling, as if talking to himself.
Normally in such situations, Funoman would definitely hang up, but the man’s words, like flowing water, slowly seeped into his ears, unstoppable, clearly useless yet capturing his attention.
Then, as if in a hallucination, Funoman caught some additional sounds coming from the phone.
Distant car horns, the light clinking of pots and pans, laughter with a hint of malice—then all strange sounds disappeared, and the man stopped speaking, leaving only a series of “tick-tock” sounds on the line.
That sound was akin to some viscous liquid dripping onto the ground, in a dark, humid, vacant alley.
There perhaps lay a corpse. Funoman suddenly had that thought flash through his mind, and just then, the man on the other end of the phone started laughing.
Funoman felt that the man found some amusement in the thought that had flashed through his mind, his laughter tinged with mockery and resentment—he knows what I’m thinking. He knows. Funoman thought with a hint of panic, hurriedly discarding the phone. After tossing away the phone and pulling out the phone line, Funoman lay on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.
He dared not sleep; as soon as he closed his eyes, that image of the corporate worker before d*ath filled his vision.
Funoman had never felt fear towards humans, but when it came to urban legends, it was different.
He had been a vampire hunter; although just a low-tier spirit energy fluctuation vampire hunter, he still understood the strangeness and horror of urban legends very well.
However, under the influence of alcohol, his eyelids began to grow heavy and uncontrollably droop, and then suddenly snap open again, forcing himself to stay alert, the cycle repeating.
He didn’t know how long it had been, but Funoman finally fell asleep—
Outside the window and inside the room, it was pitch black, and there was no sound at all nearby.
Funoman opened his eyes, dazed for nearly five minutes before recalling where he was. He had woken up from a desperate urge to relieve himself; he had drunk too much alcohol, red and white, as if it were free.
He didn’t know when he had fallen asleep, nor did he know what time it was when he woke.
Perhaps only an hour or two had passed, or maybe a whole day, the dizziness brought on by the alcohol made him feel an inexplicable sense of time distortion.
He shakily climbed out of bed, reaching to press the switch by the bedside. With a click—there was a faint sound, but the light didn’t turn on, sending his heart racing. Click.
He pressed several times back and forth to no avail, glancing around and seeing no light, not even an indicator light from any appliance. It then dawned on him that the power was out.
“d*mn it, there’s a power outage? And this is a five-star hotel!” Funoman cursed, stood up, grabbed his phone, and swayed toward the bathroom.
The luxury suite was quiet at night, with only the damp wind blowing in through the small door of the balcony that hadn’t been closed, swirling and making slight yet sinister sounds.
As if whispering, speaking of something ominous.
Funoman passed through the spacious room and reached in front of the bathroom. He suddenly pushed the door open and then staggered back in shock. He saw a shadow.
Swallowing hard, Funoman summoned his courage to focus, then couldn’t help but curse, “Son of a b*tch, it’s just a mirror? Dammit, who designed the mirror to face the door, that designer must have a screw loose!”
The mirror in the bathroom reflected his robust figure, staring right back at him.
In the darkness, the faint light from his phone became the only source of illumination, standing between the mirror and reality, almost like some bait enticing whatever was in the mirror to come out.
He entered the bathroom, steered clear of the mirror, quickly dealt with “business,” then walked briskly out of the bathroom.
Though he cursed, Funoman’s heart still felt uneasy, not daring to linger in the bathroom. When he had seen his reflection earlier, he had for a moment thought of that corporate worker.
As he left the bathroom, he couldn’t resist cursing again, “Crazy! Even if it’s askew facing the door, mirrors should…”. Mid-sentence, he suddenly froze, his hair standing on end.
The mirror was indeed askew facing the entrance, yet that shadow he had just seen was facing him directly, “Thunk!”
At the moment Funoman realized something was off, a muffled sound echoed from within the bathroom. The sound seemed to indicate something crashing against the glass.
Funoman stood in the bathroom doorway, hearing the noise behind him. He jolted, “Who’s there? I see you!”
He yelled, turning around, his gaze fixed on that mirror.
The mirror reflected his image, large and imposing, holding a phone, with his back turned to the bathroom exterior. It wasn’t until a few seconds after he focused on the mirror that his reflection, as if lagging a beat, slowly turned around.
Then,
Under the faint light of the phone, that shadow suddenly blurred and contorted into a face Funoman knew all too well. A work uniform stained with grime, a ghostly pale face soaked in bl**d, a b*llet hole in the forehead, and an eye that appeared devoid of a sclera.
It was that d*mn corporate worker!
Funoman cursed inwardly, and at that moment, the reflection in the mirror mechanically leaned back, then suddenly lunged forward, as if attempting to smash through the glass to escape from inside.
“Thunk!”
With a dull sound, the mirror shattered, cracks spreading, bl**d seeping from the reflection’s forehead along the fissures.
In an instant, fear crawled like a swarm of insects over Funoman’s heart. He subconsciously reached for his g*n by the bed but stumbled as he rushed a few steps forward and then darted towards the exit of the suite.
“Thunk—thunk!—thunk—!”
The crashing sounds behind him grew louder, echoing throughout the grand suite, each thud feeling as though it collided with Funoman’s heart. Thanks to the D-level enhancement of spirit energy to his body, from the bathroom entrance to the suite’s main door, he only took half a second.
At the moment he opened the large door and dashed outside, something hidden in the darkness suddenly tripped him, causing him to stumble forward several steps and collide against the wall.
“Help! Someone! Waitstaff!”
Despite the pain from the impact, Funoman screamed at the top of his lungs. His voice echoed along the long hallway until swallowed by the darkness.
Soon, the darkness became agitated.
Sounds of footsteps rushed in from the other end of the hallway engulfed by darkness, as if someone was quickly approaching.
The doors of the rooms lining the hallway silently opened one by one, and shadowy figures drifted out from behind the doors. In the brief moments while Funoman regained his balance, the hallway filled with people.
A fat middle-aged man in only shorts, a woman in a bathrobe peering halfway out from the door, a well-dressed young man cursing about something, and several waitstaff sprinting from the end of the hallway—all eyes were on the disheveled and terrified muscular man.
At that moment, the hotel’s power suddenly returned, the lights illuminating the hallway.
Funoman looked up, his eyes filled with that bloodied face marred by a horrifying b*llet hole.
Even the paintings on the walls transformed into that face, the flowerpots turned into heads soaked in bl**d. It was as if the entire world consisted solely of that already deceased individual.
Their lips moved, whispering low to Funoman, recounting his terror before d*ath, speaking of the dampness of his final resting place, sharing the hopelessness of never returning home—
The sound of police sirens sliced through the night, and in front of the five-star hotel’s small square, a crowd quickly gathered to gawk.
In the distance, a man in work attire with a worn spirit approached, halting at the periphery of the crowd. Peering through the gaps amongst the bustling heads, he saw a corpse being loaded into a vehicle, observed the police questioning a man dressed as a waiter.
From the badge on the man’s chest, he appeared to be the hotel manager.
“Are you saying that man suddenly rushed out from the room like he had gone mad and then jumped off to commit s*icide?”
“Exactly, other guests on the same floor saw it too!” The manager replied confidently, “Officer, I suspect that guy must be a druggie!”
“Officer, to be honest, when I called to ask if he needed late-night snacks, he didn’t seem quite right; this incident has nothing to do with our hotel!”
“We will conduct a thorough investigation on this matter.”
The officer glanced at the manager and continued to ask, “I’ve heard from others that just before he jumped, he seemed to mention a power outage? Did your hotel experience any outages tonight?”
“No, not at all! How could there be a power outage? We have three backup generators…”
The man paused in the crowd for a moment, silently turned, lit a cigarette, and walked into the shadowed city. Exhaling smoke slightly tilted towards the night sky, he murmured, “I still came a bit late, what a pity.”
By the time he got here, he hadn’t been able to make a move, and Funoman was already dead, falling to pieces from over thirty floors.
All of this had been predetermined when Funoman shot him. That was the rule.
Even if he hadn’t made a move, Funoman would have died sooner or later; everything he witnessed tonight was merely a beginning. A trifling start, not even sufficient to be considered a prologue.
However, if possible, the man still wanted to take action himself. “I should have spent those few extra bucks.”
Yes, he had walked over from the night market, and taxi fares were expensive. Having just been scammed by the food stall owner, he felt a bit reluctant. “Well, no matter, it’s time to meet that Miss Hua; I can take a cab over there. She’s about to be affected too.”
Muttering to himself, the man waved his hand, stopping a passing taxi.
