Chapter 90: Only Four Households

Captain! They're really hard to handle!

Mo Shu followed Jiang Yuan's words, speaking into the earpiece with urgency and gravity:

The special ammo and Jiang Yuan's weapons can only temporarily restrict movement, not cause fatal injury! Moreover, their murder rule is still unknown! We need reinforcements!

On the other end of the earpiece, Wang Zhangzhi's voice was terrifyingly calm, without a ripple.

Received.

Jiang Yuan, Mo Shu, we absolutely cannot let them come out! Immediately organize evacuation of all residents in the building! The reinforcement team will enter the residential area within five minutes, ready to respond and conduct containment operations!

The order was clear and decisive.

Understood!

The two exchanged a glance and responded simultaneously.

Fortunately, Room 1802 is on the top floor, so for evacuation we only need to evacuate the residents below.

Jiang Yuan made a quick decision:

Mo Shu, go evacuate! I can hold this position alone!

Mo Shu hesitated not at all; the usually lively girl, like a little sparrow, now had eyes full of the decisiveness of an elite agent.

Good! I believe in you, hold on!

Before her words even finished, she turned and rushed straight to the safety passage without hesitation.

Mo Shu's footsteps echoed in the stairwell.

Starting from the seventeenth floor, she pounded on every door with all her strength.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Community emergency notice! Terrorist attack upstairs! Everyone evacuate downstairs immediately! Quick!

Unexpectedly, every door was opened quickly.

Every household had someone inside.

Panicked men, women holding children, drowsy elders...... their faces full of fear, yet they unusually cooperated, rushing into the hallway at Mo Shu's urging, merging into a chaotic crowd flowing downward.

Too smooth.

Smooth to an eerie degree.

But at this moment, Mo Shu had no time to think; she could only muster all her strength to organize this large-scale evacuation.

Meanwhile, at the entrance of Room 1802.

This place had become Jiang Yuan's one-man battlefield.

The three monsters mutated from the Li family members tore off their disguises, becoming nauseating forms. Countless viscous tentacles surged from their twisted bodies, emitting a 'hissing' sound, frantically trying to burst out of the door.

Jiang Yuan took a deep breath, his gaze focused to the extreme.

He stood outside the door, his whole body forming an insurmountable barrier.

Whoosh!

A black poker card sliced through the air with a sharp whistle, precisely pinning a tentacle trying to squeeze out of the door gap!

Hiss!

The monster let out a painful shriek, its tentacle snapping back.

But more tentacles surged from the other two monsters, shooting toward Jiang Yuan from different angles like poisonous snakes!

Jiang Yuan advanced instead of retreating, his body like a leaf drifting in a gale, his steps shifting to dodge attacks by a hair's breadth.

Meanwhile, he flung out the poker cards in his hand one after another!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

The card shadows whirled like a scythe of death.

One card pierced Li Mo's eye socket!

One card sliced Mother's arm!

One card firmly pinned Father's clothing to the door frame!

He alone suppressed the three monsters in the tiny entryway, their growls nonstop, yet they could not move an inch!

However, this high-intensity suppression consumed Jiang Yuan's specially made poker cards enormously.

Soon, his hand reaching for the card bag at his waist came up empty.

Cards, used up!

When the suppression halted, the three monsters seized the opportunity, roaring like three out-of-control tanks, smashing the door open and filing out!

A foul-smelling gale blasted toward him!

Jiang Yuan's pupils contracted, yet he showed no panic.

At the moment the first monster lunged, he tapped the wall with his toes, flipping backward at an impossible angle and landing lightly at the other end of the corridor.

The monster missed, its huge body slamming into the wall with a dull thud.

The other two monsters followed closely, their tentacles dancing wildly, sealing off all of Jiang Yuan's dodging space!

However, Jiang Yuan had no intention of dodging.

He advanced instead of retreating, charging straight into the sky-full of tentacles!

He donned special gloves on both hands, moving so fast they left afterimages!

In the instant he brushed past one monster, his left hand shot out like lightning, retrieving two previously fired poker cards from its twisted flesh!

Immediately after, he used that monster as a springboard, leaping higher to dodge the third monster's horizontal sweep, his right hand simultaneously reaching out to pull three poker cards from the second monster's back!

The whole process flowed smoothly, so fast it dazzled the eyes!

Those three violent monsters, facing Jiang Yuan's extraordinarily agile martial arts technique, appeared utterly clumsy, actually being toyed with by him alone, spinning around!

For a moment, in the narrow corridor, only a silhouette could be seen flipping up and down, while those three terrifying monsters couldn't even touch the hem of his clothes!

Jiang Yuan executed a backflip, landed steadily, and had already reclaimed seven or eight Poker Cards in his hand.

He twitched his wrist again!

Again, several sharp card shadows flew out, crushing the three monsters that had just burst through the door back down.

At that moment, Mo Shu's footsteps came from the stairwell.

"Jiang Yuan! It's done! Everyone in the building has been evacuated!"

"Good!"

Jiang Yuan stared at the last two cards in his hand, flung them out without hesitation, and blocked the monsters again.

"Let's go!"

The two met up and sprinted downstairs without looking back.

In the hallway, the chaotic atmosphere left by fleeing residents still lingered.

Jiang Yuan ran, pressing his ear mic.

"Captain! We're evacuating! Where are the reinforcements?"

Wang Zhangzhi's voice came through quickly, but this time it was laced with uncontainable anger and confusion.

"Damn it! The reinforcements are blocked at the entrance by the residents of the complex!"

Jiang Yuan was stunned: "What?"

"A bunch of old men and women refuse to let our vehicle in! They say our siren disturbs their rest, call us liars, and claim there are no terrorists in the complex at all!"

Wang Zhangzhi's voice was full of disbelief.

"My men explained that it's an anti‑terror operation, and they just lounged in front of the vehicle, acting like brutes!"

Jiang Yuan's steps abruptly halted.

A chill rose from his core without warning.

Something's off.

It's terribly off.

Even the most unreasonable residents wouldn't act like this when faced with armed special police and warnings of an anti‑terror operation!

"Jiang Yuan? What's wrong?" Mo Shu sensed his abnormality.

Jiang Yuan gave no reply; he just pressed his ear mic tightly and thought hard.

Just as they rushed down to the First Floor, about to run out the unit door, a voice, lazy yet unprecedentedly panicked, suddenly blasted through everyone's ear mic!

It's a Ghost!

There was no trace of laziness left in its voice.

"Something big has happened!"

"I originally intended to investigate the residents' situation so we could evacuate thoroughly, so I hacked into the municipal planning and property systems to check, and discovered..."

The Ghost's voice even trembled slightly:

"Ling Shui Garden was only handed over last month as a new development! The entire complex… when all the buildings are added together, only four actual households are registered with property management and the housing authority!"

Boom!!!

The Ghost's words left Jiang Yuan's mind blank.

Four households?

Then… what was the bustling scene of people coming and going he saw when he entered the complex earlier?

What were those old men and women exercising in the Square?

What were those women pushing strollers and chatting?

And… the black, panicked "residents" that Mo Shu just evacuated from upstairs, what were they?!

Jiang Yuan and Mo Shu, as if struck by a petrification spell, slowly, inch by inch, lifted their heads and gazed at the world beyond the unit door.

It was unclear when it had begun.

The complex fell silent.

The sunset's afterglow had long faded; night fell, and under the dim streetlights there was no longer any lively scene.

Yet it was not empty of people.

The children who had been chasing and playing earlier.

The old men and women still doing afternoon exercises on the open ground.

And those "evacuated" by Mo Shu, now gathered on the lawn below, men and women…

Everyone stood rooted, motionless.

At the moment Jiang Yuan and Mo Shu looked over.

Everyone seemed to have received some command.

Simultaneously, they slowly, uniformly turned their heads.

One by one, pair by pair, expressionless faces and unmoving eyes stared fixedly, dead‑on, at Jiang Yuan and Mo Shu standing at the unit door.