The midday sunlight turned a scorching gold as it spilled over everyone's shoulders, making it feel as though a lifetime had passed.
The incident at Branch No. 2 had lasted barely an hour from beginning to end.
Yet when the group outside the Hot Pot Restaurant turned to look at the hotel, supporting one another, their gazes grew complicated. Its decline was already inevitable.
The Hot Pot Restaurant was still the same Hot Pot Restaurant. It was simply empty now.
Branch No. 2, however, was no longer what it had been. Even its two heavy doors were half-shattered, unable to close ever again.
Deep inside the hotel, where even sunlight seemed unwilling to reach, a lone figure stood with his back to them, forlornly gathering the bodies of his old friends, one after another.
Just like that, a branch became a thing of the past. From now on, this would be a one-man establishment, and one day, when Su Chenghe died, it too would close its doors for good.
Perhaps they grieved because they shared the same fate. Perhaps they feared that, with one gone, the others would be left exposed...
Of the vast force of nearly a hundred employees, almost all who walked out alive belonged to the Seventh Branch, led by Hong Fu, who had remained on the first floor without taking action.
Of course, twenty had gone in, and only six had come back.
Chang Nian, Xu Chan, and the others all stopped involuntarily outside the doors. They watched that solitary figure with mixed emotions, though their thoughts were occupied with their own troubles.
The only exception, perhaps, was Hou Guisheng.
Hou Guisheng's face had originally been sharply defined, dark-skinned and resolute. Though he was over sixty, he had always projected an air of unyielding strength.
Now,