“Fuck, they’ve blocked off all the exits. We lost contact.” The bodyguard heard something from his earpiece: “Fucking hell - how did they know we’re coming over here?”

  “They tracked me here. I think they just might have sent people out on me at the hospital.” Mick looked around: “There must be some place we can hide in this area - there’s all of these unfinished apartments.”

  “I may know a few places. But we can’t all be clustered up like this.” Gloria sighed and shook his head: “I hate to say this - but we may need to split up - ”

  “No.” Mick looked up at the sky: “I think - we must stick together for now. I just - I just have this weird feeling that we must stay together - and then something good could happen.”

  “What? Why?” Kevin narrowed his eyes: “What are you seeing, Mick?”

  “Wait.” Tae Kuo raised his voice and stepped up to Mick to check on his eyes - his pupils were still slightly dilated, tiny sprinkles of light spots hid deep in them. Tae Kuo had never seen things like this before, yet he HAD READ about it -

  “What is it?” Gloria asked.

  “We should listen to him - I’ll explain later.” Tae Kuo pleaded: “Please - this might be our best chance.”

  “... fine.” Gloria sighed and looked back at the rest of the team, no one objected, so she fixed her eyes on Mick: “Where do you suggest we go, Mick?”

  Mick looked around, smelled the air and her eyes glowed even more, the bodyguard came over and tried to grab him, but he just casually stepped to the side and the strong, muscular hands didn’t even touch his clothes.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Come with me.” Mick took a deep breath before turning around and running into the building where his parents were hiding before.

  “Mick! Wait!” Mick’s mother yelled, she did not hesitate and immediately ran after her son. Then Mick’s father followed, as did the bodyguard and the rest of the men in black. Gloria signaled the rest of the team to follow.

  “What makes you think he knows what he’s doing, Sifu?” Gloria asked Tae Kuo as they ran through an interior gate that was still to be fully constructed.

  “He’s seeing Qiyun flow right now.” Tae Kuo sighed and shook his head: “If you pay attention to his pupils you can see the glow. I think he just kinda - got it, when we were in the datacenter. I’ve never seen it, I’ve only known it from old manuals, where some people who are put under specific circumstances can suddenly gain this ability. It probably won’t last, and we still need to find a solution to it. Hell, it might have happened to him BECAUSE OF the injuries he got and the fact that he was under anesthetics. But right now - we’d better follow his lead. If he senses it, then it’s very likely it’s gonna happen.”

  “What if he’s wrong?” Kelvin asked, with a lowered voice.

  Tae Kuo let out another long sigh: “Let’s hope he’s not.”

  Mick led the group into an area warded off by red tapes. In the center of this area was an irregularly shaped sinkhole, a hole that was obviously caused by some kind of accident - proven by the cracked tiles and bent steel plates around its edges. There were some rough scaffoldings connecting the floor above and the bottom - an underground structure of age, an old, dusty tunnel with some dim lights placed around the ground where debris from the ground had fallen.

  They climbed down from the scaffolding, Mick looked around, then began heading into the deeper, darker part of the tunnel, against the caution of his parents and his parents’ bodyguard.

  “Come.” Mick waved at the rest of the group: “Only in there can we hide from them.”

  “But - I don’t think this is - this place is safe - ” The bodyguard tried to dissuade Mick, but Mick just would not listen.

  Tae Kuo frowned, ran up to a wall and wiped off the dirt on its surface, revealing the stone with sallow and weathered relief sculptures underneath. He was stunned for a moment, before he turned to Gloria: “This is - this is an old tunnel from a temple. But - ”

  “But you don’t remember what temple this was?” Gloria also frowned, as she ran her fingers across a few joints of the scaffolding.

  “No!”

  The sound of cars got dangerously close, the people pursuing them made it to the outside of the building. They had to rush deeper into the tunnel. As they went in further and made more turns, the environment became darker, and colder. The men in black brought small flashlights, which worked only as well to prevent them from bumping into walls.

  They only walked for around two or three minutes, but it felt much longer. And just when Gloria and Keryn were about to ask Mick where he was taking them, a man in black in their team yelped and fell onto the ground.

  It was a skeleton, lying at the foot of a wall. And another skeleton, half buried inside the wall above the one by its foot.

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