Chapter 38: Using Lives as Bait

Tongzi Lou, Room 302.

The temperature inside the room was dropping at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The heavy herbal scent in the air was swept away by a chilling, bone‑piercing aura of resentment.

The glass cup of water on Zhou's bedside table went "Snap!" and shattered without warning, spilling water everywhere.

On the mottled wall, wet, black handprints began to appear, as if someone had crawled out of water and left desperate marks on the wall.

Thump... thump... thump...

The familiar heartbeat echoed clearly throughout the room.

Zhou Xiaosheng was angry.

He could not tolerate that a fraud who had emerged from nowhere deceived his most beloved mother with lies, and now even dared to hurt her right in front of him!

Unforgivable!

Yet, faced with this Weird scene that could scare an ordinary person to the point of soul‑shattering, Mo Zixuan's face showed not a hint of fear but a near‑mad excitement!

"Oh? Angry?"

He tightened his grip on the old man's neck, not loosening it but adding extra pressure.

The elderly woman's already sallow face instantly turned blue‑purple, a painful "Gasp" echoed from her throat, and her legs kicked weakly.

"That's right!"

Mo Zixuan's smile grew more feral as he snarled at the empty room in a taunting tone:

"Come out!"

"Aren't you filial? Aren't you the most concerned about your mother?"

"If you don't crawl out now, she'll really go see you!"

His eyes, flashing with mad light, fixed on every corner of the room like a beast that had caught a whiff of blood, waiting for prey to walk into the trap.

"I'll count to three."

"Three!"

"Two!"

Meanwhile.

On the western outskirts of Jiang Hai City, beneath a derelict seven‑story unfinished building.

Inside a heavily modified black command vehicle, the atmosphere was tense.

Nie Yang lifted his Goji Berry Thermos, his expression calm as he stared at the massive surveillance screen before him.

On the screen, dozens of small windows divided the view, monitoring every corner of the unfinished building without blind spots.

Conventional equipment might not capture the trace of the Ghost Wall.

But thanks to the arms race and years of accumulated research into spatial technology.

The Federation's newest, most classified military research product, though far from creating or opening an alternate dimension, can already observe mutations in ordinary three‑dimensional space.

Whenever the Ghost Wall activates its ability to make a person vanish from normal space, it inevitably creates a spatial mutation that can be observed.

And by tracking that spatial mutation... its exact location in real space can be pinpointed.

"All units, attention."

Nie Yang issued a cold command through the Communicator.

"'Fish Bait' is in the water."

"Activate the omnidirectional 'Heaven's Eye' system, begin data capture."

His voice was calm and steady, yet carried a chilling coldness.

"I want to see where this Ghost Wall is actually hidden!"

The order was given.

Two fully armed special police escorted a man whose face was ashen and whose whole body trembled like a sieve, into the pitch‑black stairwell of the unfinished building.

He was Director Qiu, one of the three death row inmates of the Han De Group.

"No... don't! I don't want to die! Please..."

Director Qiu let out a pig‑slaughter‑like wailing scream that echoed through the empty stairwell, sounding especially gruesome.

Yet, the instant he was pushed into the stairwell, his silhouette flickered violently on the surveillance screen.

Then, he vanished into thin air.

"Report, team leader!"

Inside the command vehicle, a technician's voice, tinged with excitement, said, "Spatial abnormal fluctuations detected! Preliminary lock on the Ghost Wall's movement pattern; it's distorting our three‑dimensional space!"

On the screens before the other technicians, countless complex data streams surged wildly as a crude model based on spatial fluctuations was being rapidly constructed.

Nie Yang nodded with satisfaction.

"Very good."

But his words fell just as

On the rooftop, Director Qiu who had just disappeared suddenly materialized out of thin air.

He stood at the edge of the rooftop, turned, and faced the direction of the command vehicle below, flashing an extremely Weird smile.

Then he spread his arms, as if embracing death, and leapt.

"Bang!"

On the ground lay a pool of mangled flesh.

Qin Zhixia stood outside the command vehicle, watching the scene, his complexion extremely grim.

Nie Yang, however, walked out of the command vehicle as if nothing had happened, still wearing that warm smile.

He glanced at Qin Zhixia, then picked up the Communicator and continued issuing orders.

Bait No. 1 consumed, deploy Bait No. 2.

Execute Plan A, demolition team, prepare.

In the sky, a helicopter roared in, hovering over the roof of the unfinished building.

The second death row inmate, Director Liang, was dropped onto the rooftop by rope.

Qin Zhixia's pupils suddenly contracted; she rushed forward to Nie Yang, sharply demanding, "What else are you going to do?! Is the next one going to blow up this building, together with the living?"

"Team Leader Qin, you are truly ice‑cold clever."

Nie Yang smiled at her, showing his plan without concealment:

"I will destroy its 'nest' while it 'feeds', to see what reaction it will have."

As soon as the words fell, Director Liang, who had been sent into the hallway, also vanished Weirdly, just like Director Qiu before.

At the moment the action team's personnel withdrew from the unfinished building, a flash of sharp light passed through Nie Yang's eyes.

"Detonate!"

He gave the order.

"Boom—!"

The ground trembled violently!

The high explosives pre‑planted in the building's foundation detonated instantly!

Amid the deafening blast, the seven‑story unfinished building crumbled like a cookie crushed by an invisible giant hand, collapsing with a roar!

Reinforced Steel Bar concrete twisted and shattered in the flames, raising clouds of smoke.

The just‑vanished Director Liang, together with the building, was blown into powder.

However, inside the command vehicle, the monitoring technician's complexion changed for the first time!

"Report! The spatial fluctuation has vanished! And before it vanished, it moved rapidly underground!"

"It… it can 'burrow' away!"

On the screen, the red dot representing the 'ghost wall' rushed toward the deep underground at an incomprehensible speed the instant the building exploded, then its light gradually dimmed until it almost vanished.

Qin Zhixia stared at the red dot on the screen in the command vehicle, too late to be outraged by Nie Yang's trivial lives, her heart roiled with a storm.

Destroying the whole building can't kill it?

It can even move within solid ground?

Everyone was left speechless by the scene.

Nie Yang likewise watched the rapidly moving red dot on the screen, his face showing not a hint of panic but a cold smile of a scheme fulfilled.

"So that's it, even this can't catch you?"

He seemed to be talking to himself, yet also speaking to the unseen enemy.

"However, you can move within solid matter… the most important second piece of Intelligence is also in hand."

He turned, ordering the two black‑clad subordinates behind him:

"Execute the final plan, select Plan D."

"Bring Jiang Hande over."