The Fallen Merman

“There is definitely something wrong with you.” He Suowei frowned at him with a cigarette in his mouth. “A perfectly fine man can let an omega bite him.”

Seeing as Bai Chunian was also an alpha with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a height of around 1.85 meters, he didn’t seem like a person with an odd fetish. But then again—He Suowei took a serious look at him—his appearance was indeed one of those rare handsome ones. Particularly those amorous eyes he was born with, and his voice that didn’t sound rough at all, but was unhurried and sluggish. 

With this preconceived impression, he turned his head to the merman on the other side. The merman loosened his police uniform tie, tilted his head and stretched his muscles expressionlessly. There was a kind of innate arrogance and indifference beneath it all.

In just a short few seconds of looking over, He Suowei guessed that Bai Chunian had a position of being a pretty boy that was being provided and ravaged. Thus, he sincerely patted Bai Chunian on the shoulder. “Bro, I think you’re strong enough to even get a foothold in PBB. How about you consider taking a look at our place?”

“En?” Bai Chunian had already gone to squat on the floor and looked into the floor tile. He already finished the cigarette, his fingertips pressed the butt onto the floor and crushed it. He replied in a muffled voice, “The army is too hard, I can’t withstand it.”

“I mentioned you to the major a few days ago, and he quite admired you.” He Suowei picked the flashlight to go look for clues to the mechanism. He chatted casually, “You don’t want to go and try it out?”

“Oh, I heard of your Storm Special Forces’ major. Hongye Xia Clan’s second gongzi, a cougar alpha, very strong, and at a big shot boss level.”

“Correct. But when the major went to surround and suppress the experimental subjects three years ago, his arm was injured and it had never fully healed.“ He Suowei slowly blew out smoke with pity. “I’d  just entered the troop back then and didn’t participate in the siege.”

At this moment, the two brothers from the He Family were holding flashlights came over from the corner to report the situation to He Suowei, “Captain, each wall in this room has a door except the east wall. We say they are doors, but they can’t be opened. Actually, it’s just an outline of a door two centimeters deep in the wall. There is no keyhole nor a passcode. We’ve already tried prying at it for a long time.”

“You guys missed one.” Bai Chunian tapped on the floorboard with his knuckles. There was also an outline of a European-styled arch door two centimeters deep in the floorboard, close to the north wall. “It could be the basement.” 

“At the very least, we should know the question.” Bai Chunian raised the candlestick and walked around the room meticulously, observing the clues in the room. “Right now, we don’t even know what the person wants us to answer.”

The room was decorated in an elegant European style. A long dinner table was placed in the middle of the room. On the table were three 3-headed metal candelabras surrounded by goblets and high-back chairs. The cotton tablecloth was of high quality.

A Steinway grand piano stood in the corner of the room. Bai Chunian wanted to look through the storage space under the piano bench, but he couldn’t lift the bench cover. Seeing that there was a gap in the middle, it didn’t look like it was nailed down, so he lifted the cover with force.

Suddenly, a muffled sound came from the wall. Everyone heard it was as if something banged against the wall and fell on the ground. They were all startled for a moment before they calmed down and pricked their ears to hear the movement from next door. 

Ktf ygbatfgr bo atf Lf Mjwlis raemx atflg fjgr ab atf kjii ktfgf atf rbecv mjwf ogbw, delfais vlrmerrlcu, “Ktfgf lr rbwfbcf cfza vbbg. Ktja kjr atf rbecv bo rbwfbcf ufaalcu rijwwfv lcab atf kjii pera cbk. Ktfgf wera yf j kjs ab bqfc atf vbbg.”

Djl Jtecljc kjr ralii olvvilcu klat atf qljcb rabbi. Pc tlr bqlclbc, atfgf wera yf rbwfatlcu ragjcuf jybea atlcur ublcu kgbcu. Po wfgfis bqfclcu j qljcb yfcmt cffvfv rb wemt foobga, atfgf tjv ab yf rbwfatlcu lc la. Klq lcob? Vfmgfa Jbvf? Ktfgf rtbeiv yf miefr.

But there was nothing.

Rimbaud, who had been sitting on the long table, used his tail to tap on the chair. 

The others’ attention was drawn over there.

“P, S, E.” Rimbaud asked, “What is it?”

Bai Chunian thought over it. “PSE, Psychological Stress Evaluation device? Project Support Equipment? Packet Switching Experiment? Pacific Ocean Stock Exchange?”

The He Family’s older brother clapped. “The escape expert bought stocks for this escape room.” 

The He Family’s younger brother went along with him, “The money he got from stocks is used as the reward money to repay his fans. This person isn’t bad.”

He Suowei turned around and gave them each a slap.

“Where did you see the letters, let me see.” Bai Chunian went to the long table, looked down and held down on the tabletop. On the cotton tablecloth were three enormous letters printed on it. When he sat in front of the table just now, he was too close, so he thought it was just some decorative pattern that went straight up and down.

“This is the fu…cking PSE? Babe, this P is not closed up.” Due to the letter being close to the edge of the long table, the P’s missing top wasn’t very noticeable. 

Bai Chunian rubbed Rimbaud’s hair and turned his head several degrees to observe. Just as he went over to the floor-to-ceiling mirror that he’d previously used to check the mark on his neck, he froze for a moment, looking at the blue fish-shaped mark in the mirror.

“Mirrored.” Bai Chunian went back to the long table. He pulled off the tablecloth, flipped it over, and spread it out on the table once again.

He brought the candle closer to the table. The three letters on the table changed to three digital numbers: 324.

Suddenly, the piano bench cover in the corner that Bai Chunian had pulled apart by force turned back to how it was before. The grand piano’s top opened, the black and white keys automatically played. The rhythm was lively, however, the melody had an indescribable bone-chilling eeriness. It was an unfamiliar piece of music; it shouldn’t be by any renowned pianist, but an original piece. 

Bai Chunian couldn’t help but hold his breath. The candle in his hand loosened and a candle dropped on the tablecloth. It instantly ignited with a blue flame rising up, and the entire room was illuminated by the dazzling blue flame. The flame engulfed the whole wall, and the burning path formed a line of floating words:

“Welcome, my friend.”

It seemed like the wall had been smeared with fuel.

After a brief period of blazing, the flames gradually subsided. The tablecloth had already been completely burnt, only the three numbers ‘324’ on the table were still burning with blue flames. 

The piano sound stopped.

Without them realizing, the sunken door on the floorboard had opened. They could see the staircase, appearing to be leading to the basement.

Just now, everyone’s attention was on the indescribable and strange piano playing as well as the blazing blue flame. No one knew how the door opened.

“I thought we could soon go home and eat midnight snacks.” Bai Chunian sighed, picked up Rimbaud, and walked towards the door of the floorboard. “I didn’t expect it was just the beginning. If I had known earlier, I would’ve brought some food.” 

“If you speak less nonsense, we could’ve been out of here a few minutes earlier.” He Suowei used the flashlight to scout ahead and muttered, “324, it was the experimental subject by the number 324 that injured the major.”

Bai Chunian wasn’t clear about this. He only heard that the cougar major differentiation grade had reached M2, and was very strong. The elite members of the Storm Forces completely listened to and obeyed his commands during actual combat. An experimental subject that could cause a grave injury to him should at least be at maturity stage.

“Have you seen 324 before?”

“Special Operations Experimental Subject No. 324.” He Suowei shook his head, “Nobody’s ever seen him before. The brothers who participated in the siege also had never seen him, and even the major stayed silent.” 

“Ah, I know.” Bai Chunian raised his head, “In the ATWL exam, did you guys get that Ac hallucinogen from the hospital laboratory?”

“Yes.”

Bai Chunian, “Did you guys take the lab report from the laboratory bookshelf?”

He Suowei, “No, we didn’t, our mission was different. But later, when we went out to find people to kill, we found a report when searching through the equipment from a dead team. It said ‘Special Operations Weapon 613 Monster and Demon Hourglass’. I even flipped through it a few times at that time.” 

Bai Chunian, “When we arrived, the bookshelf had two lab reports left. The Any Alphas Here team took the Medusa’s Eyes report, while our team took No. 324, Invisible Stalker.”

“What did it say?”

Bai Chunian, “It said, Special Operations Weapon 324 has already entered the maturity stage and has the ability to communicate with the researchers normally. However, 324’s ideas are always whimsical. The researchers can’t keep up with his jumpy thinking at all.”

“324 is extremely gifted in the arts. His desire for attacking isn’t strong, on the contrary, his nature is more like a fantasy boy who likes graffiti and music on the streets of Florence.” 

“Oh, right, there was also one note: Experimental subjects in the maturity stage have a normal appearance. Their conveying and comprehension ability is perfect, and they can control their desire to eat. However, there are a few mature stage experimental subjects who’d continue to consume organisms, causing their growth stage to advance from maturity to deterioration stage.”

“There’s a CT scan attached at the end. It’s a big-eyed omega with a long tailbone.”

He Suowei lifted his eyes in astonishment, “You memorized all that?”

Bai Chunian smiled relaxedly, “As long as you have a brain.” 

“But that’s all I know. That lab report doesn’t contain much. I’m guessing that there are other exam candidates in this entire ATWL exam who have the detailed documents on this Invisible Stalker. But it’s already too late if we want to go look for it.” Bai Chunian didn’t have any hope for this at all, “Did you guys take the ATWL to protect that husky?”

He Suowei, “Not quite. With Wulü’s strength, he can still deal with the exam. Actually, the major received an email from a hacker the night before the exam, it said he had hacked into 109 Research Institute’s database, and that he was going to reveal 109 Research Institute’s crimes during the ATWL exam in front of the masses. The major sent us to observe the situation.”

Bai Chunian, “Looks like the hacker sent it to more than one faction.”

He Suowei, “Did you also receive one?” 

Bai Chunian, “No, the crow omega from Any Alphas Here did. He is a police officer from the International Prison. I’m assuming that the other three omegas are also officers—Spittlebug, Sea Spider, and Bell-bird. Otherwise, it’s impossible for them to form a makeshift team.”

The chat abruptly came to an end.

As they walked down the stairs, Rimbaud had his arms around Bai Chunian’s neck while looking around. He discovered that there was a hanging crystal lamp on the wall, so he raised the tip of his tail to turn it on with electricity.

The room lit up suddenly from the crystal lamp’s light. 

This was a European-styled bedroom. The bed and dressing table were oddly nailed to the wall, and the wardrobe stood against the wall. The wallpaper was strange; it had the appearance of wooden floor tiles.

The crystal lamp was on the opposite wall. The wallpaper on this side was even stranger—it was made almost like the ceiling. The four corners also had a European-style wavy decoration. Moreover, the crystal was dangling in the direction parallel to the floor in which Bai Chunian and the others were stepping on.

“Ah? What the hell is this?” Bai Chunian carried Rimbaud and casually walked a few steps. Suddenly, the light turned off, and the room plunged to a frightening pitch-black.

All of a sudden, the other three people that were squeezed into the room turned silent. They vigilantly took out their firearms and pointed at predetermined directions, the laser red dots moving around in the midst of the darkness. 

“Oh, don’t be nervous. I stepped on the light switch just now.” Bai Chunian crouched down and groped around for the switch below his feet and pressed it. The light turned back on.

He lowered his head and studied the switch. Light switches were usually installed on the wall.

Bai Chunian rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Damn, it looks like we’re standing on the bedroom wall right now.”