Somewhere underground in Los Angeles, California.

 

It was a huge deserted tunnel, once built as part of a huge underground construction project,  initiated and managed by some ambitious billionaire in an effort to fix and optimize the terrible LA traffic.

 

Jianmen did not know what the billionaire's PR department told the public about the reason for the shutdown and restriction of access, but he had a pretty good idea what the actual reasons were.

 

Aside from the usual entrance blocking mechanisms like metal fence, security camera and huge warning signs aside, the entrance Jianmen went through also had several hidden night vision cameras and motion sensors. Jianmen also had no doubt in his mind, that should anything come out of the tunnel, there would be swift reactions from the authorities and even the military.

 

There’s a foul smell in the air, perhaps not noticeable for ordinary humans, but it was clear to Jianmen as the stench of a skunk. And even though there was basically no light in the tunnel, Jianmen was still able to traverse the routes into the depth of the tunnel with incredible speed, without hitting any obstacles or dead ends.

 

It was barely 10 minutes since he entered the tunnel, he already sensed something was moving in the direction in front of him. Also he began to see some tracks of human activity: there were  some used tools on the ground, like broken shovels, dirty gloves, buckets and even an abandoned fork lift truck at a short distance. And behind the fork lift truck, was a creature with shiny eyes.

 

Jianmen picked up a small stone from the ground, then threw it far behind the fork lift truck.

 

The creature stood up and was alerted by the sound of the stone, but the next moment Jianmen’s left hand already had a firm grab on its mouth and its body was slammed on the ground.

 

The creature tried to fight back at its attacker with its sharp claws, but all six of its limbs on its body full of sharp scales and its long tail with short spikes were all clamped down with some sort of invisible force.

 

Jianmen let go of his left hand, but still maintained an invisible energy seal using Xuanli on the creature’s mouth to prevent it from making any sound and alerting other things down in the tunnel.

 

Jianmen’s eyes lit up in an orange-golden light as he stared at the creature’s eyes a short while. When he felt like he obtained enough information from this crazed abomination, he lightly twisted his left hand, and the creature’s body broke down and dried up into a pile of stone like debris and ash.

 

Without looking at the remains of the creature, Jianmen stood up and started throwing folded light yellow paper at the walls of the tunnel.

 

Even though these were pieces of folded paper, yet they appeared to be sharp and hard enough to cut into the surface of the tunnel walls, and get embedded inside.

 

Leaving eight pieces of folded paper embedded in the tunnel wall’s internal circumference spreaded with almost even angles, Jianmen proceeded to continue forward.

 

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“I know, it’s a bad plan, you don’t have to tell me or signal me through your face.” after sneaking into the Prime Royals Hotel using Jason’s key card which should have expired but for some reason still worked, Jason said to Caroline: “Let’s find the window.”

 

“Hey, this is just you, I am just following your lead. And this face? This is my ‘sneaking into fancy places’ face.” Caroline shook her head and said: “And uh, I think it’s incredibly sweet, you willing to take action to protect your uncle like that. And your uncle willing to come to you just to check on you.”

 

“Thanks! I try.” looking at Caroline’s slightly dejected expression, Jason couldn’t find the right words to say for a while, “Well, hey, let’s deal with this monster. See if you can crack some monster skull in the limbo.”

 

“Dude, don’t even.” Caroline rolled her eyes, “Fighting a boney bendy creepy man sounds fun, but I’m not gonna risk it.”

 

“Don’t knock it till you try it. It might be surprisingly satisfying.” just went up the fire staircase to the second floor, the floor he stayed in last night, Jason trotted to the window where Donovan tried to jump out of.

 

The window was boarded up, seemingly due to its frame being bent out of shape due to the struggle last night, and a big paper sign with “Out of Order” was stuck on the wooden board. The wall facing the window, which Jason broke with his back when trying to save Donovan, was patched up with some temporary board and paint, and a small “Please don’t touch” sign on it.

 

“Ok. I take it that this one is the only security camera you know?” Caroline looked briefly out of the window, pointing at a security camera pointing at the direction of the pool.

 

“Yeah, seems like a really old hotel. We asked for security camera footage last night but they insisted they do not have one in this hall.” Jason tried to look around the ceiling of the hall, “But that was after what happened and there were only a few of us here, so we did not press that hard.”

 

“Could they be lying?”

 

“They could. But I can’t find a security camera around here.”

 

“And they probably don’t have a reason to lie either. ” Caroline checked out some corners on the ceiling around the window: “If your cousin’s husband was the one that tried to jump and it was on the video, it is a pretty clear evidence for them to avoid liability.”

 

“Yeah. That crossed my mind too. But still weird though? A 4 star hotel with no security camera in the hallway?” Jason gave up after checking the surrounding area twice, and turned to the window, “... nevermind. Let me take a look here...”

 

After basically confirming that there was no security camera around, Caroline and Jason decided to first investigate the area around the window. But besides a present but barely noticeable sense of eeriness, they could not find anything obvious.

 

“Okay, should we try to trace the ghostly man then? Where did the monster with many eyes again drag the ghost again?” Caroline asked Jason.

 

Just this moment, someone was at the door through which Caroline and Jason came to this floor, and with a twist of the door handle, they came in.