Nightmare Apostle

Chapter 533: Chapter 461: Dying with Eyes Open

The second floor was arranged more simply. Yang Xiao found another bedroom there with clean bedding that clearly had been changed recently. The doors and windows were all intact without any signs of being tampered with. Opening a window, he looked out to see a small garden below, covered with a soft layer of fallen leaves.

Yang Xiao was quite satisfied with this bedroom, as he could lock the door from the inside at night, and in case of danger, he could also escape through the window.

With his current physical abilities, as long as he was careful, a jump from this height wouldn’t cause much harm.

Sitting on the bed, Yang Xiao slowly let out a breath of stale air. He had given Monk Wukong the newspaper in the taxi, and now only had his phone and some money in his pocket.

As time ticked by, Yang Xiao remained vigilant until ten o’clock at night, when he called Fei Rou using the number stored in his phone. The call was answered promptly, and upon hearing that there were no issues on his end, the other party advised him to stay safe before hanging up.

"Hopefully, nothing will happen tonight..." Yang Xiao gripped his phone tightly, constantly alert to any noises from downstairs.

...

All through the night, Yang Xiao barely closed his eyes, until dawn broke and no unusual sounds had been heard.

It was very quiet downstairs.

Regardless, the night had passed peacefully.

It wasn’t until 7 a.m. that Yang Xiao unlocked the bedroom door and walked downstairs. Everything he had arranged beforehand was untouched, and the door remained firmly closed.

After securing the villa’s main door, Yang Xiao headed to the community gate where Monk Wukong and Ju Juan had been waiting. They felt a great relief upon seeing Yang Xiao emerge unscathed, waving to him from a distance.

"Mr. Chu, are you alright?" Ju Juan asked warmly, her eyes scanning him up and down, checking for any injuries or... anything amiss.

"Stop looking, I’m real. Nothing strange happened last night," Yang Xiao saw through her caution at a glance.

"Master Chu, a man of good fortune is protected by heaven," Monk Wukong said, his face showing a rare smile, as he brought his palms together in respect.

"Thanks to your blessings, Master Wukong," Yang Xiao returned the gesture, his hands also in a prayer position. A few words later, his stomach growled hungrily, as he had been on edge all night.

The three of them went to a breakfast shop across the street. To accommodate Monk Wukong, Yang Xiao specifically ordered two steamed buns filled with vegetarian stuffing.

However, when it came to Monk Wukong’s turn to order, something surprising happened that astonished both Yang Xiao and Ju Juan. Monk Wukong, with a solemn face, brought his hands together and said reverently to the waitress holding the menu, "Amitabha, please give this humble monk a portion of trotter soup, two steamer baskets of beef buns, and also a serving of soy beef. Cut it into larger slices, I’ll take it to go."

The waitress blinked at Monk Wukong’s tonsured head and then turned to look at Yang Xiao and the other person, her expression clearly labeling the three of them as frauds.

After the waitress left, Ju Juan couldn’t help but ask in a hushed voice, "Don’t monks usually eat vegetarian food?"

"Monks generally eat vegetarian food, but this humble monk does not," Monk Wukong said plainly.

"Sss—" Yang Xiao smacked his lips. The monk’s words were full of wit, a play on words. It was possible that this guy really had some skills up his sleeve.

But he couldn’t be sure whether the man was just putting on an act, so taking advantage of the beef buns being served, Yang Xiao asked with a smile, "Master Wukong, suppose... I say suppose, if today at this table the Buddha joined you for a meal, and there was only this basket of meat buns, with both you and the Buddha starving, who should eat the buns for survival, and who would starve, would you give the buns to yourself or to the Buddha?"

"It’s all the same to me," Monk Wukong said as he grabbed a meat bun and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing with large bites, and even found time to sip some trotter soup.

Yang Xiao frowned, "What do you mean by that?"

The monk set down his soup bowl, not bothering to wipe the drips from his mouth, brought his hands together in prayer, and with a suddenly solemn and reverence-filled expression, said to Yang Xiao:

"When he eats, he is Buddha; when I eat, I am Tathagata."

Yang Xiao’s hand shook, and his chopsticks nearly fell to the ground. He didn’t dare to ask any more questions, and continued to eat silently, concluding the monk must be insane.

He hadn’t finished his meal, however, when Yang Xiao’s phone rang. It was Zhang Man calling, and she sounded urgent, telling Yang Xiao they needed to come to the hotel immediately.

Something had happened...

Even in such a rush, Monk Wukong didn’t forget his soy beef. He packed it up with the plastic meal container and stuffed it all into his pocket.

The three of them caught a taxi and hurried to the hotel. Zhang Man had told them to go straight to room 9018, the very room where Sha Meihui had died years earlier.

When they arrived, the hallway outside room 9018 was already filled with people, including Lian Jinsun’s group of three, plus Zhang Man and a distraught Wen Chongxian.

The door was still closed, and Yu Dagui was nowhere to be seen.

"What happened?" Yang Xiao pushed through to ask.

"Yu Dagui said he would keep watch here on the first night. But when we came to look for him in the morning, there was no answer to our knocking, no sound from inside," Zhang Man quickly briefed, "I called him, and the ringtone was coming from inside the room!"

Taking a deep breath, Yang Xiao realized the situation was quite clear; the man had likely met with trouble. A Qiang used a bent piece of wire, and after a few tries, he opened the door. They all entered the room cautiously, and in the next second, the scene in the bedroom unfolded before their eyes.

Yu Dagui lay in a strange, curled position on the bed, his body stiff, eyes wide open, his hands pushing outward as if trying to fend something off.

He was dead. Yang Xiao hadn’t expected this self-proclaimed veteran of three missions to be the first to die.

Lian Jinsun stepped forward and quickly examined Yu Dagui’s body with evident professionalism. A few minutes later, he stepped back, his gaze fixed on the corpse on the bed, and spoke gravely, "There are no external injuries on the body; he literally died of fright."

Hearing this, a heavy weight involuntarily settled on everyone’s hearts. Whatever could scare a seasoned player like Yu Dagui to death must be horrifying indeed.

"Don’t touch anything." Lian Jinsun’s warning voice reached them, and he turned to look at Yang Xiao, "Chu, let’s examine the scene. Everyone else, do not disturb anything."

With a keen eye, Lian Jinsun seemed to have recognized Yang Xiao’s skills. Together, they checked everywhere in the room—the bathroom, the wardrobe, and under the bed—until at last, when Lian Jinsun yanked the curtains near the window open, he suddenly "Hmm?" with curiosity. freewёbnoνel.com

Rushing over at the sound, Yang Xiao saw Lian Jinsun staring intently at the floor by the side of the bed that was closest to the window. The proximity to the window glass had created an easily overlooked blind spot in vision, and now, there was a bloody footprint.

To be precise, it was a shoe print from a high heel, pointed directly at Yu Dagui’s bed where he lay with eyes unshut in death.