After the finance Minister left, the door was closed, and Cheng Linzhou's heavy breathing remained in the office.
He leaned back wearily in his chair, his gaze drifting to the window. The city was still bustling, but it couldn't conceal the invisible, suffocating sense of dread.
He knew what he had done: misappropriating the Investigation Bureau's strategic gold reserves to build himself an absolutely safe "golden house," a serious crime punishable by death in peacetime.
But now... everyone's doing it, why isn't he?
He picked up the private Satellite Phone on the table and dialed an encrypted number.
"How's the construction progress of the safe house?"
"Mr. Cheng, the main structure is complete, with 100% gold plating coverage inside. The air circulation and water treatment systems are top-tier independent systems. However, the 'observation platform' you requested, with its pure gold dome, is simply too expensive..."
"Do it my way!" Cheng Linzhou interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Money is no problem, materials are no problem. What I need is absolute safety! Absolute safety where not even a mosquito can fly in!"
He hung up the phone, his fingertips tapping unconsciously on the table. The Investigation Bureau's warehouse was becoming empty, while his safe house was rising from the ground deep in the mountains.
He needs more gold.
Open the drawer, and there lies a heavy gold bar, gleaming with a cold yet alluring luster under the light.
He picked up the gold bar, feeling its heavy weight, as if he had grasped the only ticket to the end of the world.
A mental hospital in Jing City.
In the bathroom, Su Yu was chatting with her fellow patient.
As a former Supernatural investigator, Su Yu did suffer a strong psychological shock after experiencing the Supernatural events at the Lan City Starlight Cinema, but it wasn't very serious.
She simply used this opportunity to leave her post in the Investigation Bureau, unwilling to deal with those dangerous Supernatural phenomena anymore.
In the current chaotic situation, with doomsday theories rampant, Su Yu, having encountered quite a few Supernatural events, knows that the end of the world may very well be real.
But she showed no sign of panic, not because she had the confidence to protect herself, but because her mindset had already given up.
Although she had worked within the system, she wasn't a big shot and couldn't embezzle gold to build herself a safe house; at most, she could only hoard some gold items.
Aside from gold and Ghost Tamer, nothing else can stop the Supernatural. Su Yu didn't have either of those, so she couldn't be bothered to bother.
If the day of doomsday really comes, then we'll see if she's lucky enough.
Speaking of luck, she thought of Feng Qian, who was recognized by the Investigation Bureau as Koi Constitution. She wondered if this luck would continue to work in the apocalypse.
Su Yu never intended to curry favor with Feng Qian or try to ride his coattails. Who knows if his luck was just absorbing the luck of everyone around him?
Starting as a low-level police officer, Feng Qian rose through the ranks to become a high-ranking officer in the Investigation Bureau. Every time he took a step further, his teammates were sacrificed.
Although "luck" is an elusive concept, Su Yu prefers to believe that unusual good fortune may come at a high price.
"Is my earring pretty?" a fellow patient suddenly asked, interrupting Su Yu's thoughts.
She looked at the green plastic piece on her fellow patient's earlobe and said with disgust, "What an ugly thing! Get away from me, it's hurting my eyes."
The fellow patient grinned, completely unconcerned about Su Yu's attitude, and proudly raised his chin. "This is a coming-of-age gift from my dad, worth two million three hundred thousand!"
Su Yu rolled her eyes. "Didn't you say last time that your identity was that of the real heiress who was secretly switched by the nanny, and that after you went home, your father didn't love you and your mother didn't care about you, and that you were even framed by the fake heiress and sent to a mental hospital? How could they possibly buy you such expensive earrings?"
The patient hesitated for a moment, then said, "Did I say such a thing? I clearly remember that when my brother was pregnant, he ate vegetarian food every day, saying he wanted to have a blessed baby born from a vegetarian diet. I advised him that eating only vegetarian food was bad for his health and that he should have a balanced diet of meat and vegetables. He wouldn't listen and even got angry and said I had a mental illness, so I came here."
Su Yu lowered her head helplessly, took out a lollipop from her pocket, and said, "Stop talking nonsense, here's some candy for you..."
When I looked up again, the fellow patient in front of me had disappeared.
Su Yu froze on the spot. She was standing at the bathroom door, and the patient from before had not walked out of the door.
She checked the toilet stalls again, and even looked up at the ceiling, but still couldn't find her fellow patient.
"What's going on? A sudden transformation?" Su Yu murmured to herself, a sense of foreboding creeping into her heart.
Footsteps and voices could be heard in the hallway outside the restroom, but they stopped abruptly at a certain moment.
Su Yu pushed open the bathroom door and walked out. The empty corridor was deserted and quiet.
The sunlight streaming through the window into the corridor inexplicably created a somewhat eerie atmosphere.
Su Yu took a deep breath and carefully recalled the training she had received when she was an investigator—how to save herself in the event of a sudden Supernatural incident.
She tossed the lollipop into the hallway, observed for three minutes, and nothing happened.
She then stepped into the corridor, and nothing happened.
Seeing this, Su Yu strode out and arrived at the activity area on the first floor.
The sounds of laughter and chatter from fellow patients reached my ears. There was no blood, no corpses; everything seemed normal.
Su Yu breathed a sigh of relief; she probably had just scared herself.
"Patient number 224, come to my office." A doctor saw Su Yu and called out to her.
224 was Su Yu's number. Upon hearing the doctor's words, she hurriedly followed.
The doctor entered the examination room first, Su Yu followed him about four steps behind. "Doctor, you wanted to see me...?"
The examination room was empty; the doctor who had just walked in was gone.
Su Yu stood at the door, her face turning deathly pale, cold sweat beading on her forehead, her movements as if she were slowly turning around in a broken frame.
Just then, a nurse carrying a folder walked towards the examination room. Seeing Su Yu's appearance, she quickly asked, "What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"
"Don't go in!" Su Yu shouted a warning, "A Supernatural event has occurred in the clinic. It's dangerous. Anyone who goes in will mysteriously disappear!"
She conveyed all the key information in the most concise and clear language.
Unfortunately, the nurse didn't believe it.
Because this is a mental hospital.
The absurd things the patient said were hardly credible.
The nurse glanced at the patient's name tag hanging on Su Yu's body, noted down her number, and decided to report to the attending physician later that patient number 224's condition seemed to have worsened.
Seeing that the nurse wouldn't listen to reason, Su Yu said anxiously, "I used to be an investigator at the Supernatural Investigation Bureau Headquarters, please believe me..."