Tianfu City, Xingcheng Garden, Building Thirteen.
This residential building had twenty-six floors. Including the rooftop terrace, that made twenty-seven. The two girls gripped their weapons tightly as they watched the numbers on the elevator display steadily tick upward.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty...
Just as the number was about to change to twenty-one, the elevator car suddenly jolted violently and came to a stop.
Then, the lights and display screen went dark at the same time.
"The elevator stopped!" Yang Lian immediately pulled out her phone. The glow from its screen lit up their faces, making them look deathly pale.
"The building's power lines were probably cut." Ye Xuan lowered her voice. "Don't panic. The elevator has a backup power supply. Once it detects the outage, it'll restart within a dozen seconds and take us to the nearest floor. Then we'll use the fire stairs to go up."
"Mm." Yang Lian nodded.
But at that moment, a faint rustling sound came from beneath the elevator car, as though something were rapidly climbing up the cables.
Both of them immediately held their breath.
Yang Lian glanced at Ye Xuan and asked in an extremely quiet voice, "What do we do?"
Ye Xuan pressed a finger to her lips, signaling for silence. Then she stepped backward until she was pressed against the elevator wall, gesturing for Yang Lian to do the same.
Yang Lian stepped back into the corner of the car through the half-congealed blood plasma. The next second, a sharp spike pierced through the elevator floor.
Yang Lian's body immediately tensed. Her right thumb flicked lightly, disengaging the pistol's safety.
But the spike quickly withdrew, leaving behind only a fist-sized, pitch-black hole.
"Don't move yet. That thing is still underneath us," Ye Xuan mouthed to Yang Lian.
"I know," Yang Lian mouthed