Discovery (Second Update)

Inside the room, all he could see was a pile of clutter. The knocking seemed to be coming from outside the wall in front of him.

But the knocking stopped the moment Chi Li entered.

Chi Li's nerves tensed slightly as he walked farther into the room.

This was probably an old house. Either no defense system had been installed when it was built, or Si Jinyan had overlooked something when installing the security system. As Chi Li approached, he noticed that one corner of the double-paned floor-to-ceiling window, assembled from several sheets of glass, had already cracked.

All it would take was a gentle push—almost as if bewitched, Chi Li suddenly reached out. His fingertips pressed lightly against the shattered-patterned glass, and the next second, it broke. Wind rushed in from outside.

Chi Li's heart jolted. When he came back to himself, no alarm had sounded in the room. Before him was a gap large enough for one person to crawl through.

His heart pounded violently. Once again, he felt that freedom lay just beyond this wall, yet that strange, unsettling feeling grew stronger again.

As Chi Li hesitated, his resolve wavered once more. He crouched down and cautiously began crawling out through the window.

Just as more than half of his body had made it outside, lightning flashed across the sky again. Chi Li suddenly snapped back to his senses, and the instincts honed from years spent on the edge of danger instantly tightened.

But by the time he sensed that something was wrong and tried to retreat, it was already too late. Chi Li could only pull in his legs, curl his body as tightly as possible, and roll to the side.

The air was thick with a strong fishy stench and the smell of decay. Everything