Alien Hotel.

Chapter 508 Escape

Zheng Zhi stared blankly at the black screen on his phone, then opened the photo album in disbelief, only to find that several of the most recent photos were the same.

"This isn't right..." he muttered, looking bewildered. "I clearly took pictures of it. It was a large hall, and outside the hall were ruins, a tall tower, and something pitch black..."

He had only muttered half of it when Yu Sheng suddenly realized, "Wait! What did you mean by 'something'?"

Zheng Zhi snapped back to reality, looked up at the several pairs of eyes focused on him, quickly composed himself, and began to recall and recount everything he had seen in that eerie, dimly lit space.

To be honest, Yu Sheng's expression remained relatively calm when he heard the other party describe the tower—until he heard Zheng Zhi mention the dark "celestial body," at which point his eyes changed instantly.

Black Star!?
Although Zheng Zhi's last memories were somewhat hazy, and his impression of that dark celestial body was filled with hallucinations caused by mental pollution, the scene he described was clearly the "Black Star." In his memory, the Black Star hung high at the end of the endless tower, surrounded by countless bizarre debris...

This immediately reminded Yu Sheng of the description Baili Qing had mentioned—"In the Year of Drifting, Dark Stars and the Dome Overlapped, and Alien Gods Descended Along the Boundary Bridge..."

Even Little Red Riding Hood was taken aback, looking at Zheng Zhi with a strange expression: "...Where on earth did you run off to?"

"I don't know!" Zheng Zhi spread his hands innocently. "I just remember seeing a black line floating on the ground before I fell in, the kind Eileen usually uses... I had only eaten half of my meal when I fell in."

Upon hearing this, Hu Li, who was standing nearby, felt extremely distressed.

At the same time, several pairs of eyes suddenly focused on Zheng Zhi, who was startled and instinctively shrank his neck: "Wh...what's wrong?"

“Go back to that place!” Eileen pointed at her nephew, speaking with righteous indignation.

“This…this isn’t something I can just go back to whenever I want,” Zheng Zhi almost burst into tears. “I don’t even know how I fell in.”

Eileen then turned her head and looked at the spot where she usually rubbed the ball.

However, the black spider silk that had been floating in mid-air had long since disappeared.

The little doll thought for a moment, then looked up at Yu Sheng, only to see that the other person was deep in thought.

She reached out and ruffled the other person's hair: "Yu Sheng, what should we do?"

“I don’t know if the process of Zheng Zhi ‘falling’ in can be reproduced, but his falling in this time proves at least two things,” Yu Sheng raised his head and analyzed thoughtfully, “First, to find the strange space where that ‘tower’ is located, the ‘black spider silk’ is the key. Second, Zheng Zhi’s physique is indeed effective.”

Zheng Zhi, who was listening intently with blinking eyes, suddenly nudged Li Lin's arm and said, "Brother Li, why do I feel a chill down my back again..."

Li Lin didn't even turn his head: "The temperature has dropped these past two days."

Zheng Zhi was startled. Just as he was about to say something, he suddenly felt a chill rush towards him. When he looked up, he saw Eileen throwing a handful of black silk thread at him. By this time, she had already tied him up twice.

"Why doesn't it work?" The little doll raised its head and stared straight into Yu Sheng's eyes. "Black lines, nephew, you've met both conditions."

“It’s possible that the ‘threads’ you deliberately summoned aren’t working,” Yu Sheng quickly waved his hand, “or maybe there are other conditions missing—you should put the threads away first, it wasn’t easy for the person to come back.”

"Oh."

The black threads vanished into thin air, and the chilling feeling finally disappeared. Zheng Zhi belatedly shivered and began rubbing his arms vigorously, muttering to himself, "You should have told me in advance next time. This thing is as cold as a ghost."

“Well then, you should go back and rest for a bit,” Yu Sheng said, explaining his original plan to Zheng Zhi. “We were originally planning to go to the ‘Dark Alley’ again today, and take you with us, but you just got ‘lost’ once, so it’s not advisable for you to go to another foreign land…”

Before he could finish speaking, Zheng Zhi interrupted him, patting his chest and saying, "I'm fine, Brother Yu. I just got lost. That happens all the time..."

"Just rest when I tell you to!" Little Red Riding Hood glared at him rudely. "That's a proper foreign land, not the courtyard at No. 66 Wutong Road!"

Little Red Riding Hood was the youngest person present, but having been a parent in "Fairy Tale" for many years, she had a lot of authority when she scolded people. Zheng Zhi immediately wilted and smiled awkwardly: "Well, okay then, I'll go back and rest first."

……

Nighttime, Jinglin Sanatorium, in the director's office.

The sanatorium maintains the same day-night cycle as the outside world. At this moment, it is already deep night outside the window. According to the operating rules here, after nightfall, all human staff need to leave the core area of ​​the facility. So at this moment, there is only one lonely figure in this huge room, and the corridor outside the room is also silent.

A tall figure in a white coat sat behind a desk, one hand supporting a spherical fish tank that served as his head, his fingers unconsciously tapping the tank wall. His elbow rested on the armrest of the chair, while his other hand moved the mouse on the desk, operating something on the computer.

On the computer screen in front of the "dean," video recordings retrieved from the surveillance system were playing.

The top left corner of the screen displays relevant surveillance data—one day ago, at 4:10 PM, in the reading room.

In the shot, a middle-aged man wearing a shirt and trousers is sitting quietly at a table, casually flipping through a magazine.

Sun Chen—at that time, he was still alive and appeared perfectly normal. The goldfish swam slowly around in the spherical fish tank, manipulating its humanoid body to move the mouse and drag the screen backward.

Sun Chen looked at the magazine for a while, then raised his hand to tap his neck and loosen his shoulder and neck joints.

A few minutes later, the man in the video suddenly stood up from the table and looked around blankly.

He turned around, his steps somewhat stiff, and walked out of the reading room.

He left an hour earlier than he usually does.

The "dean" leaned forward slightly and dragged the progress bar back.

After reading the magazine, Sun Chen stretched his shoulders and neck, then suddenly stood up. From the limited surveillance view, his expression clearly turned blank.

But there was no one else around him.

"Um……"

The goldfish thrashed about restlessly in the tank, then pulled the image back and increased the volume.

Sun Chen returned to the moment of moving his shoulders and neck.

A muffled sound came from the speaker—a melody, a whistling sound.

There is no one else in the picture.

Sun Chen was whistling to himself—it seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do from the scene. He was flipping through magazines in the empty reading room, whistling idly, then stretching his shoulders and neck, and then… he suddenly fell into a daze amidst his own whistling.

The "dean" sat up straight instantly, a dense cloud of bubbles rising in the fish tank, and the goldfish rapidly swung their translucent fins in the water—and almost at the same time, it seemed to sense something.

Its tall, humanoid body suddenly dodged to the side, and the air around it abruptly distorted. A figure appeared out of thin air as the optical field failed, and a faintly glowing blade in its hand grazed the "Dean's" body, easily slicing through the back of the office chair with the disintegrating force field.

The goldfish watched the attacker in the office through the transparent fish tank.

A human wearing a shirt and trousers—but above the neck, it no longer resembled a human at all. Swollen and deformed nerves and blood vessels grew out of the neck of that body, twisting and intertwining like tangled vines, becoming a huge and swollen lump of flesh shaped like a brain, and that brain seemed to be slowly expanding over time.

The attacker turned around, his two eyes, embedded in the front of his swollen brain, calmly staring at the "Dean" not far away. He brandished the dagger in his hand, the blade buzzing in the air, and the illusory light of the disintegrating force field dancing on the blade.

The dean stared intently at the "human" before him, a hoarse, magnetic female voice emanating from within him: "Feigned death... no, Sun Chen's body is still in the containment chamber... is it a personality materialization?!"

“They said that as long as I cooperate with them to extract the ‘knowledge’ from my brain, they will have a way to get me out of that tower…” Sun Chen’s voice came from the swollen brain, sounding somewhat pleased. “Although the process is not quite what I imagined, but… I feel great now.”

"'Them'?" the dean asked in a deep voice. "Who are they?"

Sun Chen did not answer, but simply stared calmly at the tall figure in front of him.

The office fell silent, and the dripping sound of running water seemed particularly jarring.

A trickle of liquid was flowing down from near the "dean's" neck. There was a small hole in the bottom of the fish tank, and the clear liquid inside was constantly leaking out.

The goldfish suddenly realized what was happening and raised its hand to press against its fish tank—however, the containment device had already been destroyed by the disintegration field, and the liquid inside was leaking out at an even faster rate.

"Being trapped in this fish tank for so long... must have been suffocating, right?" Sun Chen said softly. "Today is the day I gain my freedom—Dean, you are free too."

The goldfish didn't respond; instead, it suddenly raised its right hand towards him.

An invisible stream of water appeared out of nowhere, enveloping Sun Chen layer by layer. The powerful water pressure began to squeeze and tear at his swollen and deformed brain, as if to crush him in the water.

But the next second, the condensed water mass suddenly lost control and began to spread in all directions.

The humidity in the office rose rapidly, and streams of water began to flow down the floor, walls, and ceiling.

The liquid in the spherical fish tank completely drained away, and the goldfish, like a phantom, swam out of the tank with the last stream of water, swimming around in the increasingly humid air, where water droplets were even beginning to condense out of thin air.

Sun Chen's figure slowly disappeared into the air.

The goldfish swam aimlessly around the office, then seemed to suddenly regain its senses for a moment—the next second, it crashed into a large red button on the side of the desk.

The piercing alarm instantly resounded throughout the building, accompanied by repeated urgent emergency broadcasts:
"Alarm! The 'Director' has breached containment! Emergency evacuation of the facility! Alarm! The 'Director' has breached containment! Emergency evacuation of the facility!"

(End of this chapter)