Exploring the Fourth Floor

The computer was in the process of booting up. Zhao Yanchun intended to use it to learn about the situation here. However, as soon as she moved the mouse to click on the software, a notification window suddenly appeared on the screen.

"The computer is on, but it says that due to no activity for half an hour, it has automatically locked. It requires a six-digit password to unlock. Do you think you can find the password?"

"There's an employee ID here, which happens to be six digits. Let me try it." Tang Nianke walked over with the work badge she had just found. She had become much more cautious than she was a few months ago, not just picking any random computer. She carefully observed the items on the desk, then found the computer belonging to the owner of that badge.

Confirming the computer was on, Tang Nianke called out, "Wang Xia, create a protective shield for me."

"Alright!" Wang Xia immediately created an invisible protective ring around Tang Nianke. Tang Nianke tensed her muscles and entered the employee ID, fearing that if she entered it incorrectly, some monster would crawl out of the computer and bite her.

Fortunately, after entering the wrong password, no monster appeared. The computer only notified her that the password had been entered incorrectly once; if it was wrong more than three times, the computer would be completely locked and an alarm would be triggered. The pity was that even though they knew the computer held the most information, they had no way to access it.

Wu Dazhuang found a report in a cabinet. He didn't understand the genetic terms or ratios written on it, so he only skimmed the parts he understood. He quickly flipped to the last page. An exceptionally clear photograph caught his eye, leaving him horrified.

"Ugh! What on earth is this!" Wu Dazhuang looked as if he had seen something incredibly terrifying, his hand trembling as he dropped the report onto the table. Wang Quan was about to step forward to investigate when she suddenly heard a shrill, mournful cry echoing from a distance.

"Aaaaah!" Wang Quan abruptly turned her head. "Something's happened!"

Everyone quickly left the office. Perhaps the incident was quite far away, as they saw nothing, only hearing a loud explosion followed by several other rapid blasts. Those strange sounds came and went quickly, and the fourth floor soon returned to silence. Those who went out to check looked at each other warily; some chose to stay and observe, while others, along with a few teammates, proactively headed toward the source of the sound.

Wang Quan knew well that in "Strange Tales," danger and opportunity always went hand in hand. Seeing a Rank 7 Investigator heading that way, she immediately led everyone to follow. They didn't realize that a girl with a parrot perched on her shoulder was quietly following behind them.

Upon arrival, the first thing that met everyone's eyes was a bizarre monster, looking as if it had been clumsily stitched together, as large as an adult tiger. It had a wolf's head, a tiger's body, and a pig's tail, but its lower limbs were four human hands!

Hearing the commotion, many people ran over. Closest to the monster were three men: one man covered in blood standing to the side, another helping him bandage the wound to stop the bleeding, and a third smelling strongly of gunpowder—the one who had just used his transcendent ability to save his teammate.

The monster had many wounds from the explosion, the most serious being in the abdominal area, with foul-smelling blood staining the ground beneath it. But it wasn't dead yet, clinging to its last breath, its wolf eyes staring intently at the injured man, desperately crawling toward him. The four human hands beneath its body were very short, making it extremely difficult to support its tiger-like frame. Its movements were slow, looking as if it were paralyzed from the waist down, dragging a trail of bright red blood across the floor.

The injured man immediately backed away. "Quick, Yue Dong, kill it now!"

"Wait..." Ci Min tried to stop him, but the man named Yue Dong aimed straight between the monster's eyes and snapped his fingers. *Bang!* A blood flower immediately bloomed in the center of the monster's forehead.

In the crowd, Lan Ni blinked in surprise. That finger-snapping explosion skill looked really cool; she had to remember it.

[Eh?] Da Luo whispered to Lan Ni in her mind. [King, this person is also a Rank 7 Transcendent; his ability is finger-snapping explosions. And his label is... Variant Corps?] Because Da Luo was one rank lower than the opponent, she could only see that much information.

A member of the Variant Corps? A Rank 7 Transcendent with a doll-like face who looked even younger than Ci Min. As expected, the number one civilian transcendent organization was full of hidden talents.

On the other side, the monster on the ground began to convulse violently.

"Hey, didn't I tell you to wait a moment?" Ci Min stepped forward unhappily to question him. As soon as she spoke, the monster on the ground breathed its last. At that moment, everyone witnessed it melt into a puddle of earthy yellow mud, and the bloodstains on the floor also turned into red mud water. Just seconds later, the red mud seemed to come alive, seeping into the cracks of the ceramic tiles and disappearing without a trace.

"What was that?" Although the red mud wasn't scary, the sight of the monster's flesh and bones melting in an instant still made people shiver. Those who were alert immediately backed away several steps.

The dissatisfaction on Ci Min's face deepened. "I intended to examine this derivative to find clues; now it's all ruined."

Yue Dong knew Ci Min was blaming him for acting too quickly and not following orders. Ci Min was the only Rank 7 powerhouse here, and he didn't want to cause trouble, so he immediately apologized. "Sorry, I didn't hear clearly just now. But if everyone wants to catch a derivative to find clues, I don't think it'll be hard. It doesn't have to be this one..."

Before he could finish, someone in the crowd countered, "Who says it's not hard? I just did a round; this fourth floor is just like the three floors below—there's not a single living creature besides us. We finally find a derivative, and you kill it so quickly."

Some people nodded in agreement, believing the fourth floor was empty as they hadn't found any derivatives. Others asked Yue Dong's group what they had done to trigger the rule that lured the monster; if they knew how, they could try again.

"That's easy to say. Daring to voluntarily trigger a rule in a Strange Tale is no different from thinking you're not dying fast enough. Regardless, I'm not doing something that stupid; anyone who wants to can go ahead."

Yue Dong raised his hand to calm everyone, then entered a nearby room. On the fourth floor, besides the hallway area near the main hall which was for work and rest, the rooms deep inside the other hallways were identical to the three floors below. The only difference was that these cold "jail cells" didn't have any transcendents locked inside.

"After entering here and seeing the rooms were empty, we decided to check them one by one. This is the fourth room we checked." Following Yue Dong's direction, everyone saw square holes on the alloy doors of these four rooms, just large enough for a person to crawl through, with clear cutting marks. They were likely the work of the transcendent ability of one of his two teammates.

Yue Dong continued, "We were standing here when that derivative suddenly jumped out from the air vent and bit his shoulder."

The injured man was still terrified. "Luckily I dodged quickly, otherwise my whole arm would have been bitten off!"

The crowd began to chatter:
"How could a derivative that big fit through such a tiny air vent?"
"Are you stupid? There are all sorts of bizarre derivatives in Strange Tales. Looking at the red mud on the floor, I bet it turned into mud to flow through the vent and then reformed its shape to attack!"

Yue Dong nodded. "That's pretty much it. Initially, it only flowed out half its body to bite him, then it fell to the ground and turned into the shape you just saw."

"You only encountered trouble when you reached the fourth room. Could the number four be the trigger point?"
"That's not right. We're also checking the rooms nearby. My friend and I went faster and have already reached the fifth room without seeing anything!"
"I've only looked up to the third room; let me try."

A man of action immediately phased through the wall into an undamaged room. He waited inside for a while, but nothing happened.

"It's not related to the number four."
"Could it be related to damaging the room?"
"Also unlikely. Because the three floors below only had us, and this fourth floor is so quiet that we mistakenly thought there were no living creatures. But what if there are? Think carefully: the three floors below were used to imprison us, so these similar rooms here—could they have imprisoned something before?"
"Exactly!"
"Very likely!"
"That derivative could crawl through the air vent, so if it was locked in here, it could completely escape that way."

Yue Dong nodded. "I think so too, which is why I said catching another one won't be hard."

Someone took a sharp breath, glancing at the empty rooms along the hallway. She had just taken a walk to see the layout; while there weren't as many rooms here as on the three floors below, there were still dozens! Didn't that mean that in the air vents right above their heads, dozens of monsters like that were lurking?

"If that's the case, we should take the initiative to attack."
"This air vent is too small; a person can't fit."
"I can shrink my body; let me try..."

Ci Min saw the logic and immediately ordered someone to remove an air vent cover, intending to send the person with the ability inside to investigate. As a result, the person who had shrunk to the size of a fist hadn't been inside long before his face changed, and he hurriedly crawled back out. He fell to the ground, returned to his normal size, and backed away in panic.

"There really is something inside!"

Before he could finish, red mud gushed out from the air vent, falling in mid-air and transforming into a Ma Huang hen. More precisely, it was a hen but with human eyes! It let out a "cluck" and lunged to peck a woman in the crowd. The transcendent didn't just stand there; seeing the attack, she blew a sharp whistle, and the hen immediately stiffened and tumbled to the floor.

Ci Min was about to order someone to catch the hen for examination, but at that moment, all the air vents along the hallway simultaneously gushed red mud. The next second, a series of derivatives with bizarre, clumsily stitched shapes lunged at the crowd.

The more than 300 people were all transcendents, but their strengths were uneven. There were Rank 7 powerhouses like Ci Min, but also many Rank 1 "rookies." The sudden attack caused a tall man to have half his head bitten off instantly. The remaining half of his face still carried a look of terror and confusion; he seemingly hadn't understood what was happening before his corpse collapsed onto the floor.

"Run!" The cowardly and weak began to flee.

"I'm still here, what are you running for?!" Ci Min shouted, raising her hand. Thick fire serpents with a mind of their own avoided everyone and incinerated the entire group of derivatives in an instant.

After dying, the charred corpses also melted into mud and seeped into the floor. People tried to stop it; someone took a bowl and spoon from their storage space, intending to scoop up the red mud for study. Those around watched with twitching eyes—was he planning to taste it?

But the red mud had a bizarre permeability. He had just scooped up a spoonful when the mud seeped through the bottom of the spoon and fell to the ground. Even if he quickly poured it into the bowl, the mud seeped through the bottom of the bowl and disappeared. Not just ordinary utensils, even the Strange Tale remains of transcendents couldn't stop this seepage.

A transcendent with telekinetic abilities used his power to make a glob of red mud float in the air. Everyone cheered, thinking they had succeeded. But the man had only been smug for a moment before he discovered the red mud was "seeping" through his telekinesis. The nature of his action was to wrap the mud in energy, and now he had to constantly "patch" the holes caused by the mud's seepage. But he was only a Rank 3 Transcendent; the red mud's seepage speed far exceeded his patching speed. Persisting for a while, his face turned bright red, and he finally withdrew his power helplessly, letting the glob of mud fall to the ground.

The other puddles of mud had already seeped away; this was the last remaining glob. Those nearby weren't willing to give up and tried to reach out to stop it. But as soon as a hand touched the red mud, in an instant, the person's skin, nails, hair, and entire body turned earthy yellow, looking like an exquisite clay statue. Immediately after, accompanied by a shrill cry, his whole body began to melt rapidly, looking like an ice cream under the summer sun. In just a few seconds, he shrank from 1.7 meters to 1.6, then 1.5, his face completely distorted, no longer looking human.

Everyone naturally didn't just watch him die; several people immediately used their abilities to try and help, and even Zhao Yanchun stepped forward. Perhaps out of a desire for money, or because of the pain of losing her mother and her aunt's illness, Zhao Yanchun had awakened a healing-type transcendent ability a few months ago.

Rank 2 Ability: Malicious Doctor. She could collect money from a target to heal them; the more money, the higher the effect, up to four times the normal rate. While she couldn't bring the dead back to life, at the highest level, she could reattach a severed arm within eight hours. The target could also owe money, but they had to pay in full with high interest within a month; if they defaulted, the wound would reappear and her ability would be sealed for a month. If the target died, the debt was cleared.

Right now, Zhao Yanchun was using her ability on credit. This Strange Tale could capture even Rank 7 Transcendents; it was surely incredibly powerful, and she had to unite all forces to survive. As for the other party not knowing about the debt? She was the "Malicious Doctor," so she had the right to force a sale! If she saved him and he didn't pay, it didn't matter; the payment period was a month, and she could still use her ability in the meantime. Wang and Hu had said that healing transcendents were treasures that organizations fought over; showing her ability now would surely be valued by the Jiu'an City Investigation Corps. Then she could bring Tang Nianke and the others under Ci Min's protection. As for her ability being sealed a month later... if they couldn't escape this Strange Tale, she wouldn't even live that long.

Lan Ni already knew about Zhao Yanchun's ability through the forum. Seeing the white light from her hand fly toward the clay statue, she guessed her intention. Unfortunately, despite everyone's best efforts to heal him, no divine ability worked. The man initially could still scream, but very quickly he completely melted into a puddle of mud and seeped into the ground, disappearing.

Everyone backed away in fear, not daring to touch that puddle for fear of sharing the same fate.

Someone reminded, "Everyone should walk in groups of three to five from now on. Absolutely do not go alone, and do not touch the red mud!"

"Save me..." a hoarse voice rang out.

Everyone thought another derivative had appeared and looked around in panic but saw nothing unusual.

"Who? Who's talking?"
"Who just called for help?"
"Xiao Mian?" Someone looked at the female friend with them.

"It wasn't me." The person named Xiao Mian was the woman attacked by the hen earlier. She pointed at the ground in panic. "It's calling out. It's the hen we just caught."

Not far from her feet, the hen was tightly bound by a glowing ring. Its human eyes were full of terror, and tears fell, wetting its feathers. Its beak opened and closed, emitting a voice identical to Xiao Mian's: "Save me... save me... I'm the real Xu Men... save me!"

The hen with human eyes was already terrifying, but now it was speaking with a human voice, leaving everyone horrified as they turned to look at the woman named Xiao Mian. Xu Men was initially shocked that the hen could talk, but hearing this, she immediately glared angrily. "Nonsense! I am Xu Men. You're just a hen, how dare you impersonate me?!"

Under the suspicious gazes of the crowd, her teammates affirmed that they had met on the second floor and had been together ever since; there was no way she had been swapped. Xu Men also nodded in confirmation. To prove it, she demonstrated her transcendent ability and recounted current news from the real world. Meanwhile, the hen only knew how to cry and call for help, insisting she was the real Xu Men. By comparison, Xu Men seemed more credible.

Shi Ying and the other investigators stepped forward to examine the hen, but found no clues. Although its human eyes looked terrifying, they grew very naturally, not looking as if they had been stitched on. Its throat also had a human-like structure, which was likely why it could speak human language.

Lan Ni stood in the crowd observing Shi Ying. Previously in the Ghost Town, Shi Ying had always worn a tiger head; now looking closely, she realized she looked very much like Shi Shuo. Both sisters had ordinary looks but tall, strong bodies and a powerful aura. Shi Ying had a cold, resolute air, her gaze sharp as a tiger's, while Shi Shuo looked somewhat simple but was incredibly terrifying when angry.

Shi Ying keenly sensed someone was watching her and turned her head to see a small girl standing in the corner. Such a tiny child was also a transcendent? Lan Ni didn't flinch and even smiled at her. She knew well that Shi Ying's memory of the Ghost Town had been wiped by Vu Xi, and with her current appearance, even if Shi Ying remembered Diệp Vũ, she couldn't recognize her.

Shi Ying didn't recognize the little girl, only seeing the dried bloodstains on the child's puffy dress and sighing inwardly: *The world is getting more and more chaotic.* She turned to ask Ci Min, "Kill it?"

"We can't kill it. Whether this hen is a real hen or not is still unknown." An elite investigator from Jiu'an City stepped forward and said, "I once encountered a cunning Strange Tale where the derivatives could turn into human form to blend into the crowd. Previously, all 300 of us were locked in separate rooms; no one knows anyone else's situation. We can't guarantee that everyone who stepped out of those rooms is human. What if someone triggered a rule in their room and was replaced?"

Xu Men was horrified. "I really am Xu Men! It's just a hen; you have to believe me!"

But her explanation was too weak. Everyone heard the investigator's analysis and felt a chill down their spines, immediately distancing themselves from those around them. Everyone looked at each other with suspicious eyes, fearing the other was a disguised derivative. Most suspicious gazes fell upon Xu Men, and even her teammates began to waver. ||CHAPTER_SEPARATOR