The lock on the door was twisted and stuck so they shattered a window and entered the building through it instead.
You Huo controlled his strength very well and landed very lightly. Qin Jiu also jumped through smoothly without a sound.
The two made a good headstart but the people after them stepped on the glass one after another emitting cracking sounds nonstop. Old Yu even landed on the ground with a 'thud' which echoed through the building several times.
"Sorry..." The middle-aged man with a beer belly felt ashamed.
You Huo waved his hand to indicate that it was okay. He originally didn't have any intentions to sneak around anyway. With the commotion earlier, it may alert their enemies and save him from the effort to find them.
But his wishes went unanswered.
You Huo led everyone around the first floor for a while but didn't manage to attract anyone.
On the first floor was the ticketing counter for the movie theatre and it was a relatively large open space. Apart from a row of ticket counters and machines, there was only a set of retro-looking light-up steps.
You Huo walked over to the ticket counter to take a look. Because of lighting reasons causing the counter to be submerged in the shadows, he couldn't see anything clearly.
He leaned against the glass counter and smoothly flipped over it. Using his phone's torch function, he bent down to search around only to see that there was a dark mass of something under the counter.
Qin Jiu examined a ticket machine not far away. When he saw him stooping there for a long time, he walked over to take a look, "Found something?"
You Huo nodded. Just as he wanted to reach over, he remembered something and turned to open a drawer.
He had originally wanted to make do with some plastic bags or something but he unexpectedly found a few white gloves amongst the pile of miscellaneous items.
Lucky King You Huo immediately felt good about this movie theatre. At least his luck here was good.
He threw a pair of gloves over at Qin Jiu before wearing a pair himself. The rest were then distributed to Yun Wen and the others.
"Huh? We even need to use gloves?" Yu Wen was surprised when he received it.
But his brother had already disappeared wordlessly behind the counter.
Yu Wen: "???"
Brother, what's wrong?
He leaned against the glass counter confused and decided to see what You Huo was doing.
In the end, he saw You Huo reach under the counter, pat around a few times and then drag something out with great force.
...
It was a person.
He was facing up and he was pretty much all bones—–in an almost literal sense. The flesh on the face was so sunken in, the contours of his skull was obvious. Like this, he 'stared' straight up at the sky with dark, lifeless eyes.
"Oh fuck!"
Yu Wen burst out with a profanity. He almost fell onto his butt.
It was a dried corpse. From its appearance, he seemed to have been...sucked dry of his blood by one or maybe several Mirror Humans and was left to die here. He was still wearing a white shirt and black vest. The vest was embroidered with a logo so he was probably a staff who was responsible for selling tickets.
You Huo silently stared at the corpse for a few seconds before pushing the staff back.
Yu Wen who had managed to calm down quickly wore the gloves and ran off.
You Huo quickly searched through the rest of the counter. Apart from the nice surprise from the corpse, he didn't find anything else.
Feelings can come and go very quickly. He no longer liked this damned movie theatre anymore.
Qin Jiu was no better than him. After searching around the ticketing machines, he also didn't manage to find anything.
Instead, it was Yang Shu who suddenly called them over, "Come and look."
You Huo and Qin Jiu went over.
"I just had a thought and wanted to see whether there was still electricity in the elevator but when I came over, I saw that the door was actually open." Yu Wen said.
The elevator was a place everyone else had subconsciously overlooked.
Afterall, with a movie theatre reaching a state like this, the elevator should no longer be functioning. Only a fool like Yu Wen would do something as pointless as giving it a try.
You Huo walked over to take a look and saw that the elevator door was indeed not firmly closed. There was still a small gap between the doors.
Because thee was no light inside and the elevator was already hidden in the shadows, this was something that could easily be overlooked.
The reason why there was still a gap there was because there was a person lying inside the elevator. Their arm was outstretched and two fingers just happened to be stuck between the door.
Yang Shu shone through the gap using her phone, "Look, there are a few arrows stuck on this person."
"Let me see." Qin Jiu took the phone and looked in for a few seconds, "Okay, we can pry open the door."
Although a crossbow wasn't found, collecting a few arrows first was also a good idea.
"This elevator door is too stiff. We tried to pry it and it didn't move."
Just as Yu Wen finished saying this, he saw his brother and Qin Jiu stand on either side, forcibly pulling the elevator door open.
He looked at their firm arms and felt extremely envious. They were all human but why was the difference so big!
There was a woman lying inside the elevator. Unlike the dried corpse earlier, she looked like she had only died very recently. Her dark purple sweater was stained with a large amount of blood which had solidified into a darker colour and there was also a pool of dried blood stains on the ground.
The entire elevator was filled with the smell of flesh rotting and blood. It was quite nauseating.
"This is a Mirror Human?" Everyone muttered.
The woman had blond hair and was fair-skinned, and there were no signs or markings on her body. She looked no different from a normal human.
This was their first time seeing a Mirror Human. If they really looked like this, then it would be very troublesome. If a 'monster' like this mixed into the crowd, it would be difficult for people to notice.
The original population in the town of Brandon fallen to only about 500 people while the Mirror Humans managed to grow from a handful of people to about 1000 people. There must be a reason for this.
You Huo pulled out the arrows stuck in her body as the others stood nervously on the side. They were only able to breath a sigh of relief when they saw that the woman did not move.
Just to be safe, they pulled her in a little more and firmly closed the elevator door.
It wasn't appropriate walking around carrying arrows. You Huo glanced around before fixing his eyes onto Yu Wen's bag.
He didn't hold back. He moved straight over and shoved the arrows in.
Yu Wen felt as if he was given a precious jade seal to carry.
He turned his bag around to the front and looked around, "Brother, there hasn't been any movements the whole time. Does this mean there's no one here?"
His tone carried a hint of joy but unexpectedly his brother had nodded and didn't mock him.
Yu Wen: "???"
He turned to ask Qin Jiu, "What's wrong with my brother? Why isn't he talking? Did I do something?"
Qin Jiu: "..."
He rubbed his chin with some embarrassment and cleared his throat, "It has nothing to do with you. It's my fault."
"Huh?" Yu Wen was immediately provoked, "What did you do to him?"
But he then realised something, "That's not right. My brother may not have a good temper, but I haven't seen him truly get angry at anyone?"
"Not angry."
Would he give him gloves if he was angry?
Qin Jiu felt a little helpless and also found it a little funny, "You brother just doesn't want to speak."
Yu Wen: "...…"
For some reason, he felt like he was fed a bowlful of dog food.
***
The map of the building was posted on the wall by the staircase. It indicated that there are a total of five floors.
The first floor was the lobby, the underground floor was the carpark and the upper three floors were all movie theatres.
You Huo lead them down to the basement.
He thought it would be filled with cars but unexpectedly only a small part of the carpark was occupied. Those cars which had been here for who knows how long were now covered in a thick layer of dust.
Those townsmen have become especially cautious because of the Mirror Humans and probably were no longer in the mood to watch a movie.
The underground carpark was quite big. You Huo and Qin Jiu decided to take along three people each and split up to search the place.
You Huo searched very quickly. His steps almost didn't stop as his eyes swept around.
Unexpectedly, Yu Wen was also very skilled at this. Apart from the times where he would go up to cars and wipe away the dust to look inside, he similarly just scanned around briefly.
With a quarter of the carpark searched, they had acquired a lot of miscellaneous items—-
Several thin metal sheets that had come from who knows where, an emergency escape fire hammer, a security baton and something Yu Wen had insisted on getting ——- A slingshot which been left behind by a car by some child.
"Haa…The damned map made it seem big but there's nothing here….."
Yu Wen played with the slingshot and would occasionally pick up a few stones that appeared to be of an appropriate size.
You Huo who was a little further away faintly heard his grumbles turned back to glance at him.
He had turned around too suddenly, causing something to be unable to react in time to hide itself properly.
He saw a black shadow disappear behind a certain car from the corner of his eyes.
That car was behind Yu Wen.
You Huo frowned. He picked up the security baton he had just found and walked over.
Just as he took a step, the systems voice sounded in the carpark:
[Examinee Terrence Chu encountered three extremely hungry Mirror Humans, declared dead.]
[Examinee Wang Yasi encountered an extremely hungry Mirror Human, declared dead.]
How long had it been since the exam started?
These two successive death announcements made all the examinees stop in place.
Those that aren't examinees paid it no attention—–
Yu Wen who was in the middle of picking up another stone froze midway.
In just that moment, two figures suddenly appeared from behind the car. They rushed over brandishing thin and long knives.
Fuck!
Yu Wen only had the chance to shout this out.
He subconsciously squeezed his eyes shut but the pain he expected didn't come. Instead, his shoulder felt a little lighter.
Oh no! The bag!
Yu Wen quickly opened his eyes and was met with the sight of two lean figures disappearing in the distance with the bag.
Those smooth and fluid actions were clearly robbery!
The other items weren't important but the arrows in there was something they went through much difficulty to find!
Something flashed before him.
Another person had rushed over, quickly chasing after the two men.
It was his brother!
Yu Wen immediately felt reassured but he didn't lower his guard. Instead, he ran a distance and took out the slingshot he had picked up. Closing one eye, he pointed it at the two escaping men and shot out two in succession.
Pew pew——-
Two stones flew out.
One fell to the ground with a cry. He quickly urged the other, "Go on ahead!"
The next second, that person was pressed to the ground by You Huo.
Following that was a painful cry.
Who made them choose to rob from this group of eight villains?
It only took ten seconds. That man who was caught obediently reported the locations of his nest, "W-we're hiding on the third floor and j-just wanted to get more bows and arrows. There are too many Mirror Humans and it's difficult to deal with."
KK has something to say:
Poor thieves…Made a bad decision and robbed the wrong group of people