I Ask a Question, You Answer

The sandalwood box sprang open.

Li Ran felt as if he hadn't needed to use much force at all. How had Song Linjia been unable to open it?

But he soon figured it out.

He could sense a mysterious power inside the sandalwood box, one very similar to the Mysterious Power in his body.

That explained why Song Linjia couldn't open it, while he could do so with ease.

Song Linjia had only completed the introductory task and had just 10 points of Mysterious Power.

Li Ran, on the other hand, currently had 100 points—ten times as much as her.

That was why he could open the sandalwood box so easily.

(Ghost Power Perfume: A sandalwood-scented Ghost Power perfume sold by Lancome. It not only has a long-lasting, pleasant fragrance but can also temporarily increase Mysterious Power.)

The description on the prompt panel made Li Ran's eyes light up.

This thing was more than just perfume. It could actually increase Mysterious Power, like a powerful buff.

"Now that's a good item!"

Too bad.

This thing was probably meant for women, right?

There was nothing wrong with men wearing perfume, either.

But Li Ran had never really gotten into the habit of wearing it.

"Whatever. I'll save it for later."

The sky grew dark earlier than usual in late autumn.

At half past five in the afternoon, night fell.

When he got back to Building One, Li Ran stopped outside.

The sense of pressure Wang Gan had given him that morning still made him uneasy.

And the Demon King of Killing was in the same building as him, right along the route he'd have to take up the elevator.

The Demon King of Killing had his eye on him. For all Li Ran knew, he was waiting by the elevator or in the stairwell.

The moment Wang Gan showed himself, he could kill Li Ran in an instant.

Li Ran tried to consider his predicament from Wang Gan's perspective.

It was obvious that taking the elevator or using the stairwell would be dangerous.

Li Ran wasn't being overly cautious. In this Weird World, he had no choice but to be careful and plan every move.

"I still have to go home. Otherwise, I can't complete the task triggered by my ex-wife."

Failing the [Repair Broken Family] task meant death.

That meant no matter how high his Mysterious Power got, he would die if he failed the task.

So he had to go home. He had to earn the trust of Su Bingyao and Li Ziyang as soon as possible, become the true head of the family, and mend the rift.

He didn't want to go home, of course. After all, the people waiting for him there weren't human.

But for the sake of the task—and his survival—he had to grit his teeth and go back.

So here was the problem: if he couldn't take the elevator or use the stairwell, how could he get home?

Darkness soon swallowed the entire high-rise, leaving only a few scattered lights shining.

"Oh, right. I almost forgot about this skill."

"Shadow Escape!"

Li Ran promptly activated Shadow Escape, the skill that came with the [Shadow-Escape Bracers].

In an instant, his whole body slipped into the darkness and merged with the shadow on the ground.

"Whoa, that's incredible."

Li Ran found himself in a world of darkness. His body wasn't flattened or squeezed into a compressed state. It felt more like sinking underwater, with the normal world above his head.

He reached out to touch the boundary between the Dark World and the normal world. His hand passed through without the slightest resistance.

He tried moving through the shadows, and the view above his head moved along with him.

"Holy crap, this skill is insanely awesome!"

If a pretty girl wearing a short skirt happened to walk past right now...

Ahem. In short, this skill was downright outrageous, like magic.

He could breathe and walk normally in the shadows. He could even swim up walls.

That's right—Li Ran had already swum up the wall.

He felt no sense of weightlessness at all, and moved through the shadows with effortless ease.

He swam from the first floor to the eighteenth floor without any trouble.

The problem was that if he moved too fast, his Shadow Escape state became unstable. He might even fall out of the shadows.

He could only move through them at walking speed.

He knew better than to get greedy. Having a skill like this was already amazing.

Meanwhile,

An elevator arrived in the first-floor lobby.

"Ding!"

The elevator doors slowly opened, and Wang Gan stepped out with a murderous look on his face.

"You little punk, you're dead—"

But in the next instant, Wang Gan froze. The lobby was completely empty. There wasn't a soul in sight.

"Am I seeing things? Where is he?"

Just as Li Ran had feared, Wang Gan had been waiting for him to come back.

And as soon as Li Ran came into view of Building One, Wang Gan spotted him from upstairs.

He'd taken the elevator down right away to intercept and kill Li Ran, hoping to vent the fury burning in his chest.

Wang Gan stared at the other elevator, which hadn't moved from the ninth floor, and scratched his head in confusion. It hadn't budged at all.

There was no way the kid had taken the stairs, either.

Wang Gan had set traps in the stairwell well in advance. If the kid dared to use it, he'd be dead for sure!

"Bang!"

Furious, Wang Gan punched the wall, leaving a huge dent in it.

"Damn it! Did that kid grow wings and fly away?"

Back at the apartment door,

Li Ran waited for a moment before entering the door code.

He'd memorized the code when his son entered it the day before.

It would be pretty suspicious if a husband couldn't even remember the code to his own home.

"Honey, I'm ho—"

The moment he stepped inside, Li Ran turned around.

A pair of icy eyes glowed with an eerie purple light right in front of him.

(She is hypnotizing you, trying to coax certain secrets out of you.)

Su Bingyao had apparently been prepared for him. The instant Li Ran came through the door, she used her eye technique to hypnotize him.

His eyes filled with eerie purple light. Then his arms fell limply at his sides, and he stood motionless, his gaze dull and vacant.

The demonic glow in Su Bingyao's eyes slowly faded, and a bone-chilling coldness gleamed in her frosty gaze.

There were things she had to find out. Otherwise, she would never be able to forgive her husband.

Men were liars, and not a single word they said was true.

Her ex-husband's sudden change the day before had left her unsettled. It wasn't that she disliked this change in her husband. But if he wasn't trying to hide something, why had his personality changed so suddenly?

Besides, she would never forget everything her husband had done to her in the past.

She didn't believe that a man with such a terrible record would change for her.

Since she couldn't get a definite answer from him, she would find out for herself.

Her hypnosis could draw out the secrets buried deep in a man's heart.

No lie could escape!

Su Bingyao turned and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, then sat down gracefully and spoke in a voice that brooked no argument. "Come here."

Li Ran's gaze remained vacant. He shuffled over like a soulless puppet.

Su Bingyao had complete confidence in her hypnosis.

Anyone she hypnotized had no choice but to obey!

"Stand there."

Su Bingyao stared intently at the obedient Li Ran standing in front of her.

"I ask a question, you answer."

Li Ran nodded woodenly.

Su Bingyao was pleased with his reaction. Now she could pry the truth out of her ex-husband and put her doubts to rest.

Su Bingyao said, "Give me your phone."

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