The Fallen Merman

En Ke glanced at his watch and whispered to the few people behind him, “It’s getting late, you guys keep looking for the exit.”

Bai Chunian looked at the doorway through which the mercenaries had walked in, and as expected, it was now gone. The doorway to this room always appeared or disappeared when people’s attention was focused elsewhere. 

The bedroom was now a dead end without exit again, but the mercenaries looked unsurprised like they were used to this scenario.

“Da-ge, I found it!” One of the mercenaries exclaimed once he found a flight of stairs behind Bai Chunian, leading upwards with its door open after exploring.

Bai Chunian followed with some confusion and looked up the steps. This was the doorway they had just come down from the dining area. He had even checked it a few minutes ago, and it was clear that the door had turned into a wall, so how come the door was now out once again?

“Excuse me.” Bai Chunian asked, “What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock in the evening.” En Ke nudged Bai Chunian with the muzzle of his gun, “You walk at the frontmost.”

“Eight o’clock in the evening?” Bai Chunian repeatedly asked back. It was only just after sunrise when they came in from the pyramidal cabin and it was only an hour or so since they came in. It should at most be seven o’clock in the morning.

En Ke froze for a moment, stared at his watch in thought, cursed impatiently, and whispered to the mercenary next to him, “My watch is broken, give me yours.” He took the watch his brother handed him and tucked his own casually back into his pocket.

Bai Chunian frowned as Rimbaud came down from the crystal lamp, curled onto Bai Chunian’s back, his arms wrapped around the neck of his alpha, and allowed Bai Chunian to carry him. 

Bai Chunian was forced to walk in the forefront to lead the way. When he walked up the steps, he inexplicably stepped on a small object with his foot.

“Rimbaud, pick it up.” Bai Chunian whispered softly to him, and then slightly released the foot that was stepping on the object.

Rimbaud calmly used the tip of his tail to curl the object under Bai Chunian’s feet, quietly lifted it up, and found that it was a mini in-ear communicator.

Vfflcu atf rbqtlralmjalbc bo atlr bypfma, la rtbeiv yf wlilajgs fdelqwfca. Elwyjev erfv tlr ajli ab raeoo atf rwjii mbwweclmjabg lcab Djl Jtecljc’r fjg—atf rklamt kjr bc, yea atfgf kjr cb rbecv mbwlcu ogbw la. 

“Leggs eq jcv ub, vbc’a vjkvif.” Sc Bf egufv Djl Jtecljc aklmf wbgf klat atf wehhif bo tlr uec jujlcra atf yjmx bo tlr tfjv.

With his long legs, Bai Chunian took big steps across several flights. After going through this door, they would arrive at the dining area where they came in earlier. He wondered what was the point of walking back and forth within these two rooms as he reached the door.

However, as he stepped in through the doorway, the sight before him shook him to his core.

They obviously walked through the same door, but this room was vastly different from the dining area with the long table and piano when they first arrived. It had turned into a luxurious bathroom with four spa pools, the walls covered in blue and white mosaics, and the place had a cool blue color scheme, which looked refreshing. 

One of the mercenaries said to En Ke, “Da-ge, this room is also blue.”

Bai Chunian keenly caught these words.

There were wet footprints with muddy water on the floor, leading to the door on the west wall, but that door was now closed. It was difficult to tell by these watery footprints when the owner of the footprints had passed through here, as the bathroom was very humid and the footprints did not dry easily.

Bai Chunian went around the sink and towel rack and found a note from the bath towel countertop. 

This paper was torn from an ordinary grid notepad with a beautiful line of handwriting that read:

“I’m already too tired. The only food in this small cabin is surprisingly the water in the bath. Good thing the water isn’t poisoned. I can last a few more hours. Well, it’s seven in the morning and I’ve been in this hellhole for over thirty hours. If the police can see my note, please use the west door to rescue me. I have to get out of here because something in the water keeps staring at me.”

Based on the information written on the note, Bai Chunian tentatively judged it to be one of the participants in the game mentioned in yesterday’s police department meeting— a writer who came looking for excitement. After all, not many people would carry a pen and paper with them, and from their mention of being trapped for 30 hours, it also fit the missing reports received by the police department.

He quietly slipped the note into his pocket pants. 

By this time, Rimbaud was also a little thirsty and stretched out the tip of his tail to test the temperature of the pool water, curling it up to scoop up a little water and feed it into his mouth.

There was a waterproof electronic clock hanging on the wall, showing the current time of seven in the morning. En Ke took a look at the watch he had just asked for from his brother and checked the time with the wall. His brother’s watch was intact and the time was fine, also showing 7:00 AM.

Several of the mercenaries had been in the creepy cabin for several hours, and they had run out of the only water they had. One of them plopped down to the edge of the hot tub to quench his thirst.

En Ke was too busy looking for other exits to stop him. To his surprise, when the mercenary lying on the edge of the pool touched the water with his hands, his whole body suddenly convulsed, and he opened his mouth to scream. 

En Ke was taken aback and ordered another mercenary nearby to pull the man back. What was even more surprising was that when the second mercenary’s hand came in contact with the man, he also started twitching and screaming.

For a moment, no one dared to act on their own. Bai Chunian observed the odd behavior of the two men briefly, and since his hands were cuffed, he could only use his foot to kick the wooden pole mop standing in the corner to the group of mercenaries, “There’s electric leakage in the pool, they’ve been electrocuted.”

When he was done speaking, he glanced back at Rimbaud, who blinked innocently, “Not me.”

The rest of the mercenaries raised the mop pole in a hurry and pulled the two convulsing mercenaries away with force, both of them reeking of charred stench and twitching a few times before their eyes rolled back in shock. 

Bai Chunian looked closer, tested the two men’s breathing, and regretfully pulled a tissue from his pocket, thriftily splitting it into two and covering the faces of the two mercenary corpses in turn.

“Fuck, this trip is a loss, can’t do it without additional money,” En Ke clenched his fist, cold sweat seeping out of his forehead, forced himself to stay calm and hold a cigarette and viciously stared at Bai Chunian. He said in a low curse, “A piece of paper was even divided into two to be used. I’m fucking speechless. Are you police officers really that poor?”

Bai Chunian slowly put away the remaining half pack of tissues, “We have to save, otherwise it won’t be enough.”

With that, he reached out and kicked the nearest mercenary standing at the edge of the pool into the water when En Ke wasn’t expecting it at all. 

The mercenary screamed and frantically struggled and twitched in the pool of water that had electric leakage. En Ke’s eyes widened and he raised his gun to point at Bai Chunian’s throat. His eyes were bloodshot with visible blood vessels, “Do you fucking believe I won’t directly shoot you?”

Bai Chunian smiled faintly and raised his chin as En Ke glanced warily behind him. The last two mercenaries were lying on the ground in convulsive spasms, their limbs flowing with blue electric light.

Rimbaud sat on the beast head fountain at the edge of the pool, holding a submachine gun in one hand, muzzle against the back of En Ke’s head, and index finger lightly resting on the trigger and knocking on it. He said coldly, “Don’t move.”

En Ke gritted his teeth and turned back, glaring at Bai Chunian. When he wanted to shoot directly to exchange life for a life, Bai Chunian raised his hand, his index and middle fingers gently clamped his gun, and the muzzle was pinched together like clay. 

Bai Chunian clapped his hands. The handcuffs on both wrists then turned into crumbs and fell to the ground. He carelessly fished out the tissue packet from his pocket just now, leisurely pulled out one, divided it into two layers, covered the mercenary’s corpse’s face, then pulled out another, still divided into two to cover the corpse’s face. In the end, only the last one was left in the tissue packet.

The entire room was filled with a strong stench of burnt human flesh that was sickeningly unbearable.

Bai Chunian was oblivious, clutching the tissue packet and gently patting En Ke’s face, “Should I use the last one to wipe your sweat or cover your face? Don’t worry, you’ll look decent with this one being a bit thicker than theirs.”

En Ke clenched his teeth and resigned himself to closing his eyes. 

“I found that these few companions of yours are a bit stupid. Not only do they not know many secrets, but they also like to move things around to mess up the people who are seriously looking for clues, so I decided it’s better to get rid of them first,” Bai Chunian squatted down comfortably and tilted his head to tease, “Don’t shiver, ah. Think about it, neither of us has shown our differentiation ability, and we haven’t revealed many secrets to you, so there’s no reason to silence you.”

En Ke opened his eyes, “What do you want?”

Bai Chunian said, “Now you’re showing a look of unwillingness as if waiting to be raped. I don’t like it very much.”

En Ke forcefully smoothed out his breath to keep the blood from rushing up and breaking through his skull. 

“First question.” Bai Chunian casually asked while picking at the mercenary’s body with a wooden pole, “Did you guys come in from a dining room with a long table and a piano?”

“Yes.”

“Which doorway did you walk through and what kind of room was it?”

En Ke was reluctant to say much at first. He was only encouraged to talk after Rimbaud tapped the back of his head with his gun, “The door on the west wall is a parlor with a couch and a digital electronic clock. After we went in, the door disappeared, and when it reappeared, we walked to the room you were in.” 

Bai Chunian: “What time does the electronic clock show?”

En Ke, “Six in the morning.”

Bai Chunian, “What color is the wallpaper?”

En Ke tried to remember, “Blue floral pattern.” 

Bai Chunian didn’t notice a difference in the color of the wallpaper before. Because the wallpaper from the first dining room to the second bedroom that he came in was all red-patterned, he habitually assumed that the whole cabin had the red wallpaper.

“Second question.” Bai Chunian straightened up, took a copy of the documents retrieved from the mercenary’s corpse’s backpack, and patted En Ke’s chest, “How many documents did you get from the library when you were an exam helper in the ATWL exam?”

En Ke’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Now it’s our turn to make a deal with you, bro.” Bai Chunian roughly flipped through the copied document in his hand, “You can still partially recall the contents of the document you got in the library, right?” 

“Can’t remember?” Bai Chunian glanced at the pool of water with a mercenary corpse floating in it, “Let’s see if this pool can help you remember.”

En Ke struggled twice and finally lowered his head, “We got Files E and F. File E is the researcher’s observation diary, which I have truthfully told you.”

“File F records the differentiation ability of Experimental Subject No. 324, which is…”

Bai Chunian put away the copy, rolled it into a paper tube, and tapped it in his palm. 

“An ability to mimic the abilities of others, right?”