Chapter 460: Gigolo, Tough Guy, Sleeping Beauty

Hua City, Longevity Road, in an old residential building, inside a corner rental room on the top floor, the cheap wooden floorboards were stained red with fresh blood, and the air was thick with the stench of blood.

A man who looked to be in his early twenties lay in a pool of blood, his left hand and left foot had been chopped off and tossed into the corner of the room, a gruesome wound in his abdomen faintly revealed his internal organs, and a sharpened pencil was still stuck in the extra eye that had grown on his forehead.

Bai Kai squatted down and finished examining the corpse, shifted his gaze away from the kitchen knife tightly gripped in the man’s right hand, stood up, took off his gloves, straightened his clothes, and turned to look at the special task force members who had been waiting behind him.

“Guys, the danger’s been dealt with. The rest is up to you. Let me see the suicide note we just found, and I’ll step out for a smoke.”

With that, he took the bloodstained paper handed to him by a member of the special task force and turned to leave the rental room.

Out in the corridor, Bai Kai leaned against the window, reading the suicide note left by the man in the sunlight.

[I might really be sick, but if I go to the hospital…]

Only this section of the note was written clearly; the words after that descended into utter chaos, crooked and jumbled, like illogical scribbles, making it impossible to tell what he wanted to express.

But those messy lines and the bloodstains on the paper revealed, everywhere, the madness of the person who wrote this note in the final moments of his life.

After reading the man’s suicide note, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his inner pocket, lit one, and took a deep drag.

He’d dealt with haunting incidents long enough to have seen all kinds of gruesome corpses.

Although the Nocturnal Syndrome victims these past two days weren’t the most horrific he’d seen, they were among the most heartbreaking deaths he’d ever witnessed.

When Bai Kai first arrived at the scene, he had the special task force investigate the man’s background: twenty-one years old, not well-off, just graduated, found a low-paying job, rented a cheap one-bedroom, and had only just settled down in Hua City.

Just like many people who aren’t flush with cash, afraid to spend money, who don’t dare go to the hospital for minor illnesses, when his body showed slight abnormalities, the man seemed to have chosen to tough it out.

But in the end, unable to withstand the pain brought by Nocturnal Syndrome, his mind broke, and he chopped off his own hands and feet, cut open his abdomen, killed himself, and died alone in his rental room.

Just today, twenty-one Nocturnal Syndrome patients sought treatment at hospitals in Hua City.

But those are only the known cases; there may be more patients, like the man who died in his rental room, with no money to go to the hospital, too afraid to go, bearing the pain alone, waiting for death.

“Damn! That crazy woman… I never should’ve taken this job in the first place. Should’ve swapped with Li Xuan and gone with Xing Yuan to hunt down that damned Eclipse Society member.”

The thought that all this might have been triggered by Lu Yibei searching for Qi Nanzhu made Bai Kai curse fiercely, then, venting his anger, he crumpled the suicide note into a ball.

Just as he was about to toss the paper ball away, a familiar and annoying voice sounded behind him.

“Operator Bai Kai, would you call that tampering with evidence?”

Bai Kai turned around and saw Qi Dong’s half-smiling expression. His face darkened, and he grabbed Qi Dong by the collar, speaking in a low voice, “You said you had a way to find Yibei. It’s been two or three days now, and there’s still no sign?”

Qi Dong shot Bai Kai a look and brushed his hand away, saying, “I do know a way, but that place is somewhere neither of us can go. If we want to bring Lu Yibei back from there, I’ll need your help.”

“My help?” Bai Kai was stunned.

“That’s right.” Qi Dong nodded. “I know someone who comes from that place.”

“Who?”

“Gu Xiliu.”

Bai Kai, “???”

What does that pigeon have to do with this?

Is it really okay to entrust her with such an important task?

—

Late night, Hua City, Taigu Community, inside a residential building.

On the balcony, two middle-aged men stood with arms crossed.

Their gazes passed through the floor-to-ceiling glass window, watching the round-faced, chestnut-haired girl in the white dove onesie inside the room, eyes narrowed, lips curled in a mischievous smile.

“Didn’t you say you knew her well, even checked her file before coming? Then how come you didn’t know she locks all the doors and windows when she sleeps?” Bai Kai said quietly.

Qi Dong shot Bai Kai a look and replied blandly, “I only ever observed her secretly, never planned to break into her home. Not knowing this is pretty normal, isn’t it?”

Bai Kai pursed his lips, then silently took the suona from his waist, preparing to provide Gu Xiliu with a passionate midnight wake-up call.

“What the hell!?” Qi Dong caught sight of the suona in Bai Kai’s hand and twitched his mouth. “You seem pretty skilled at this. How many times have you done it?”

“Only seven or eight times at Amber Mansion…”

Bai Kai said indifferently, adjusted the reed, raised the suona to his lips, and was about to play when Qi Dong suddenly raised his hand to interrupt the ‘spellcasting.’

“Wait.”

“What? If I don’t play this thing, are you planning to smash the window and go in?” Bai Kai asked, puzzled.

“No.” Qi Dong looked at the girl inside the room, his expression serious. “When I told you Operator Gu came from that place, didn’t you not believe me?”

“Now that she’s asleep, just watch. The show is about to start.”

A show? What show? Bai Kai frowned, and just then, a strange and subtle psychic energy fluctuation suddenly spread out from Gu Xiliu’s bedroom.

Bai Kai had interacted with Gu Xiliu before, and he knew for sure that was not Gu Xiliu’s psychic energy fluctuation.

Startled, he whipped his head around and saw a shocking scene.

Inside the bedroom, as the sound of steady breathing rose and fell, the light and shadows twisted, the four walls stretched and shrank irregularly.

Pillows, tables, chairs, and ornaments that shouldn’t exist suddenly appeared out of nowhere, only to vanish in the blink of an eye. The teddy bear in the corner was being pulled into a vortex by some force, and half-real, half-illusory figures appeared, hurriedly walked by, and disappeared into the darkness after only a few steps.

For a moment, the whole bedroom seemed to center on Gu Xiliu, manifesting some indescribable, illogical spatial distortion.

“Is she always like this when she sleeps?” Bai Kai exclaimed. “That can’t be right! If she was always like this, those guys coveting Qi Nanzhu’s power would’ve snatched her up and devoured her alive long ago, even if…”

Bai Kai had once witnessed, during an internal meeting of The Midnight Watchers Society in Hua City, Gu Xiliu collapse asleep at the conference table after hearing only three sentences from Li Xuan, making for an awkward scene.

But nothing unusual had happened then.

“You mean, even if she isn’t kidnapped by criminal organizations, she should be taken away for observation by those lunatics at headquarters, right?” Qi Dong glanced sideways at Bai Kai.

Bai Kai didn’t say anything, but his expression silently gave an affirmative answer.

“You’re not wrong to think that way.” Qi Dong shrugged. “If she really stayed like this, she wouldn’t even have a chance to become an operator of The Midnight Watchers Society.”

Psychics without Spirit Patterns or with unstable Spirit Patterns not only can’t become operators of The Midnight Watchers Society, but also have to be controlled and monitored.

“But earlier, her condition wasn’t this severe. It was just that when she slept for too long, it would trigger extremely subtle, almost undetectable disturbances.”

“It’s like, suddenly a pen disappears, an unfinished bag of chips is inexplicably empty, your phone or keys go missing… At this level, even if someone notices, they’d just think someone took it by accident, or they forgot it somewhere.”

“……”

Damn! So that’s why the pens, toothpicks, and lighters in my office always go missing for no reason, just like a haunting incident-it was her doing all along?

Grumbling inwardly, Bai Kai looked at Qi Dong and said, “I get what you mean. You’re saying her condition has only started getting stronger along with those strange happenings in Hua City recently?”

“That’s right.” Qi Dong nodded. “And that’s exactly why my suspicion about her coming from that place turned into certainty.”

“Got it.” Bai Kai nodded, then raised the suona to his lips.

At once, a screeching sound like scraping a pot, grinding a saw, and a donkey braying echoed through Taigu Community…

—

That night, Taigu Community, Hua City.

On a soft pink mattress, a girl in a white dove onesie slept soundly, her eyes closed, her body curves pleasing to the eye, her face dewy like a freshly ripened peach, making anyone want to reach out and touch.

Gu Xiliu had always slept more than her peers since she was little.

Out of twenty-four hours a day, she spent at least half of them in deep sleep.

Every time she fell asleep, she would vaguely see the outline of a city in her dreams, a city that kept sending her a silent call.

That call, weeping and plaintive, carried an irrepressible warmth, like a mother calling her child, making her want to throw herself into its embrace.

And every time Gu Xiliu couldn’t help but respond to that warmth, she would immediately fall into a deep slumber.

Later, after joining The Midnight Watchers Society and drawing the [Heroic Spirit type: Zhuang Sheng’s Butterfly Dream] Spirit Pattern, her condition worsened, and she slept fifteen or sixteen hours a day.

So she would suddenly collapse on the street, at home, in a meeting room, anywhere imaginable… falling asleep uncontrollably.

Recently, for some reason, the city’s call had become more frequent, and the scenes in her dreams grew clearer.

She dreamed of entering that city, wandering unfamiliar streets, searching for someone, going days without a bite to eat.

The intense sour ache of hunger in her belly felt especially real, lingering even after she woke, followed by bouts of binge eating.

In just a week, she gained five jin!

Most recently, she even dreamed of being kidnapped by a terrifying woman, tortured, and having a humidifier forcefully shoved into her mouth…

……

Tonight, Gu Xiliu ate a large meal in advance, drank some hot milk, took a hot bath, and went to bed early, soon falling into a deep sleep.

She slept so sweetly, so beautifully, just like the Sleeping Beauty in a fairy tale.

But tonight, the witch who cast a curse on Sleeping Beauty did not appear; instead came two strange old men who knew nothing of cherishing beauty.

“Woooo-!”

That sound, carrying a faint psychic energy fluctuation, like a summons from the underworld, seemed to kill one’s hearing.

Gu Xiliu woke up with a start, the chaotic phenomena in the room instantly dissipating, everything returning to normal.

She rubbed her eyes and sat up, looking out the window. Seeing the two “strange uncles” on the balcony, grinning maliciously, she tilted her head, then silently reached under her pillow, took out her phone, and dialed the police.

“Hello, officer? There’s a burglar in my house!”

Gu Xiliu hadn’t fully woken from her dream, and in her daze, upon seeing Bai Kai and Qi Dong, her first reaction was to call the police.

“Mm-hmm! I’ll protect myself!”

Bai Kai, Qi Dong, “???”

—

Hua City, New District police station, in the holding room, two men were locked up.

One was a gigolo with an air of “you’re always here during vice raids!”

The other was a burly man who looked like he could smash your skull with a single “What are you looking at?”

Bai Kai glanced sidelong at Qi Dong for a long time, finally breaking the silence. “This is your plan? You didn’t expect Gu Xiliu to call the police, did you?”

As he spoke, he raised his hand and quietly cast a simple spell formation, isolating their conversation from being overheard.

After Gu Xiliu finished her call, she ran to the next room, locked the door, and went back to sleep, never even seeing Bai Kai and Qi Dong’s faces. Coupled with the terrifying sound of the suona earlier, Gu Xiliu’s neighbors were especially “enthusiastic,” so when the police arrived, the two were happily taken away.

Although The Midnight Watchers Society had long maintained a cooperative relationship with the police, so they wouldn’t really be detained as criminals, as law-abiding citizens, they still had to go through the basic procedures.

“If we’d done it my way from the start, we should’ve followed proper procedure and notified Gu Xiliu to assist us in handling the incident.”

Qi Dong turned his head and glared fiercely at Bai Kai, as if he wanted to carve a piece of flesh off him.

“Cut the crap!”

“When Qi Nanzhu just passed away, all the factions fought over what she left behind and turned Hua City into a mess-have you forgotten? Do you want to see that tragedy happen again?”

Hearing Qi Dong bring up the past, Bai Kai immediately shut his mouth. In the silence, he stared at the corner of the holding room, his gaze deepening, his thoughts drifting back to the days when Hua City was shrouded in shadow, intertwined with blood and fire…