492 Seaglass
The gnarly cat shadow floated on Han Fei’s back. It transformed the Yin energy from the black anaconda into Han Fei’s strength. The black anaconda was necessary to unleash Han Fei’s full power. Han Fei also just realized he hadn’t tested how powerful his full damage was yet.
“Rest in Peace!” The blade was activated. The hands reached out to grab the hilt with Han Fei. The blinding light slashed through the black cloth at the top of the hotel. It left behind a gash about 3 meters long.
Horrible wails came from all around. The piercing female screams were about to puncture everyone’s eardrums. As the black cloth was torn open, endless Life Threads were severed as well. A black rain descended on the gallery. The humanity in the Life Threads was absorbed by Rest in Peace. “The voice is similar to the one on the phone, it’s her again!”
After all the Life Threads were severed, the puppet man fell to the ground. He was wounded. He looked at Xu Qin’s shoes and pleaded, “Kill me, please kill me!” Xu Qin raised her feet and was about to stomp on the man’s heart when another mad laughter came from the black cloth. Slowly the black cloth slid away. Everyone was shocked to see the wall of pictures behind the cloth. There were males and females. Some were taken when they were alive but most were after they were dead.
Auntie Lee and Seaglass Cat sat on the ground. They didn’t dare to lift their head. This was torture for normal players like them. With a dry heave, Ironman collapsed as well. Yan Tang’s face was pale but he was curious because Han Fei didn’t have any reaction. The mask had hidden most of his face but his eyes were calm. They were like a deep pond in the forest, there was not even a ripple.
“Brother Youfu, aren’t you afraid?”
“I have a similar wall back at home.” Han Fei was talking about his investigation wall but when the other players heard his answer, their hearts skipped a beat. Han Fei had seen too many pictures of the dead in the cryptic world so, at this moment, he was not afraid. He even widened his eyes to observe each picture. Perhaps it was a lingering influence from the memory world or it was the influence of the personality fragment, Han Fei realized he could spot something special from his left eye.
For example, when the woman laughed, Han Fei caught the people in a few pictures were smiling too. The women in these few pictures looked similar. From left to right, the woman became more and more beautiful. In the final picture, she was flawless. She had unparalleled beauty but when she smiled, it looked like she was crying. Her eyes were filled with resentment and her lips dripped with blood.
“She feels so familiar, I think she was a singer. But why is she the only one laughing?” Han Fei pulled Yan Tang beside him. “After you arrived at the hotel, did you receive any room service calls?”
“We did, it rang 7 times and Shen Luo answered all of them.” Yan Tang had no idea what was Han Fei trying to say.
“Can you see the largest pictures at the top? Everyone in the picture looks ghastly but this woman is laughing.” Han Fei hadn’t been inside the hotel that long. He hadn’t checked all the rooms so he had to rely on Yan Tang. Even though this player’s luck was low, he was highly intelligent, he might spot some clues.
“The laughing woman…” Yan Tang studied them and gasped, “I’ve seen her before!”
“Where?”
“In the hotel staff breakroom! Be it the employee’s room or the boss’ private guest room, there are artworks about this woman!” Yan Tang remembered the details, “When we entered the hotel, I rushed to the security room. Even the place where the security slept had the picture of this woman, at the time, I felt something was wrong! And then, we met many Slayers, some of them are cleaners, others are guards and receptionists. They look different but they have the same female voice!” Yan Tang pointed at the pictures and then pulled Seaglass Cat over. “Brother Youfu, Seaglass Cat knows a little bit about this woman.”
Seaglass Cat hugged herself. Her face was pale. She was weak from being scared. “The woman in the pictures was a singer. She wasn’t popular but her voice was amazing and she was very talented. She was scouted by a company when she was young. The company admired her voice and talent but they thought she look too normal so they had her write songs for another female singer.
“Of course, the woman wasn’t satisfied. She wanted to release her own songs but her songs wouldn’t get popular. In reality, it was her company who was suppressing her. They didn’t allow her to promote so that they could use the lowest price to utilize her service.
“The girl was still young at the time. She released her own songs on the internet but she was attacked by 50 cent army. They even attacked her family. After that, she disappeared, no one knew where she went. The songs she left behind got popular many years later but no one could find the singer anymore.” Seaglass Cat told Han Fei everything she knew and this surprised Han Fei.
“What was the singer’s name? And how did you know these things?” Han Fei stared at Seaglass Cat as if trying to read her mind.
“She was not a professional singer and no one knew her real nice. Everyone knew her by her online handle, Seaglass. She had such a wonderful voice, it was like she had been kissed by an angel. But her discography became more despaired as it progressed. She was like a lost bird.” Seaglass Cat sighed. “I study music and my experience is rather similar to hers. Even though she was not popular, she was the best singer in my mind.”
“Why would a singer appear here? And why would she hate the hotel boss so much?” Yan Tang tried to think of the connection. As a surface world player, he still wasn’t used to the way of thinking for the cryptic world. While he was thinking, Han Fei already had the answer. “Earlier, Auntie Lee said that this hotel only provided accommodation for the patients of the plastic surgery hospital. The singer was here to do plastic surgery. In the pictures, she became more beautiful and her smile became sadder and more pained. While she gained beauty, she lost other things. From the way she tortured the hotel boss, I believe it was the first boss who murdered her in the cruelest way.”
Han Fei grabbed Yan Tang. “You said you saw the woman’s picture in the hotel boss’ private guest room?”
“Yes.” Yan Tang’s eyes brightened. His mind was slowly aligning with Han Fei.
“Bring me there now!” Han Fei grabbed Ironman and Yan Tang, they raced out of the gallery. Xu Qin who was pondering whether to kill the boss saw Han Fei leave. She grabbed the urn and threw it at him. Han Fei caught the urn. Han Fei and Yan Tang arrived at the 9th floor. Even though the 9th floor had guest rooms but outside guests were not allowed here. The electric locks on the rooms were different from the rooms downstairs.
“This is it!” Kicking down the door of the innermost room, Han Fei felt a chill coming from his ring. He pulled out his blade and entered the room. The hotel boss transformed the 9th floor into his special guest rooms. The rooms looked normal on the surface but each room had a hidden door. All the rooms on the 9th floor were connected. In the hidden pathway, there were many torture tools. “Based on my prediction, the hotel boss would invite his prey to the 9th floor and then kill them here.”
Yan Tang led Han Fei into the main bedroom. Seaglass’ picture was hanging above the large single bed. She was smiling her sad smile. Stepping on the headboard, Han Fei was about to remove the picture when Yan Tang stopped him. “We tried to remove the picture last time but once you touch the picture, something bad would happen.”
“It’s fine.” Han Fei used his hands to pull down the picture. The picture looked light but it weighed about the weight of a normal adult. Sticky hair and blood were on the back of the picture frame. There was another picture stuck to the back of the frame.
The bloody picture on the back showed a normal-looking woman. She was tied to a chair with a blindfold. Her lips opened like she was singing. Behind her was the surgical table. A man was producing his ‘artwork’. The blood splattered on the woman’s face. She was afraid but she didn’t dare to stop singing. “This should be the real truth.”
The frame slipped from Han Fei’s grasp and dropped to the ground. When Han Fei bent down to pick it up, he noticed blood splatter out from under the bed. Han Fei turned the bed over and realized someone had written a bloody message under the bed.
“9th November, the hospital told me that I am not qualified but the male boss of the hotel thought my talent shouldn’t be buried. I was happy and so I followed his suggestion and decided to stay one more night at his hotel. He said he would help me persuade the doctors.
“11th November, at around 1 am, the phone rang, asking if I wanted room service. I declined politely. Soon they called again. I was rather angry so I reminded them not to disturb me. I thought that would stop them but they called me soon after. I pulled out the phone line. I played on my phone and slept.
“After don’t know how long, I felt something beside me. My eyes flew open and all the lights in my room had been switched off! I couldn’t sleep in full darkness so I always kept some lights on. I was so afraid. I reached out to find my phone but suddenly a man’s voice echoed beside him.
“Do you require room service?”
At that moment, the phone in the room suddenly rang. It shocked him and Yan Tang. “Brother Youfu, should we answer it?” Yan Tang was still young. This arrogant and proud student was so obedient around Han Fei.
“Why shouldn’t we?” Han Fei picked up the phone. There was a grinding sound and finally, a woman whispered, “Do you require room service?” Han Fei swung his knife to his left as if predicting that an attack would come from there. The black Life Thread was severed, but that appeared to only anger the woman. The whole room started to change. The woman cackled on the phone. The television, the mirror, the picture, the window, every reflective surface showed a woman’s face which was shedding blood tears. She repeated the same question as her twisted body slowly approached. This scene shocked Yan Tang, his mind was blank.
“Don’t be afraid, she is surrounded by us.” Han Fei pressed on Yan Tang’s shoulder and pulled him behind him.
“Brother, have you lost your mind?” Yan Tang held onto Han Fei’s sleeves. His body couldn’t stop shaking.
“You are extremely talented and have a high intelligence but you are too self-centered in your thoughts. Follow me and I will change your life.” Han Fei opened the urn and the shadow in the room appeared to come alive. Han Fei blocked Yan Tang’s sight and turned around to continue reading the notes under the bed.
“11th November, yesterday night, the hotel boss led me to the gallery on the 10th floor at midnight. He told me he was an art aficionado. He called his artwork the Feast of the Human Physique. The madman was once a plastic surgeon at the hospital. He liked to use the human body as material for his carving. He got addicted and he needed more freedom of creation.
“Conventional beauty couldn’t satisfy him anymore. But he couldn’t cut his patients so he started to branch out.
“The 10th and 11th floors are his art galleries. In the morning, they display his paintings, at night, they display his sculptures. The demon was not wrong, he did value my talent. He didn’t want my talent to be buried so he wanted to make me into his personal music box, to be part of his art.
“30th December, I have the world’s most beautiful voice and the world’s most beautiful face but beyond that, I have nothing else. Every night, the demon would ‘create his art’ while I sing. I was forced to watch his process and I knew I have become a monster too. I no longer had human emotions, I couldn’t sing the songs I once loved. I was numbed by despair. I bit my tongue and died like a bird in a cage.”
Han Fei read all the notes. All the shadows in the room were defeated by Han Fei’s neighbors. When Yan Tang came to his senses, there was only chaotic aftermath in the room. When the last shadow was destroyed, the woman’s picture and the frame cracked. It bled and a weak song leaked out.
“Come, we need to destroy all of her picture frames!” Han Fei was a reasonable person but he was afraid the other party was not reasonable so he needed to weaken the other party as much as possible first. “This Large Lingering Spirit is hard to deal with.”
With Yan Tang leading the way, Han Fei cracked all the picture frames in the breakroom and workroom with Rest in Peace. As more pictures bled, the woman’s expression slowly returned to normal. The Large Lingering Spirit didn’t mind Yan Tang and Han Fei, she allowed them to roam freely. Yan Tang was a very observant person, with his help, Han Fei managed to destroy all the picture frames in the shortest amount of time. When the woman’s last frame was ruined, the woman’s shrill laughter came from the top floor. Underneath the mad laughter, there was singing too.
“We need to go back to the 10th floor!” With Rest in Peace, normal Animated Regrets couldn’t stop Han Fei. Han Fei kicked down the door. In the gallery, plenty of Life Threads hooked the bodies inside the freezers to attack Xu Qin.
“The pictures, destroy the pictures on the ceiling!” Han Fei shouted. His neighbors moved and the woman couldn’t hold all of them back. The pictures were punctured. When Han Fei leaped to slice the last picture, the remaining Life Threads in the room, wrapped around the picture and then slammed at Seaglass Cat. Seaglass Cat only knew how to dance and sing, she didn’t know how to fight. She didn’t expect she would meet her idol in this manner too.
The Life Threads were like a reaper’s scythe. The woman already lost her mind. Her face was bloody and ruined. Her lips that once evoked such a beautiful melody now only poured out blood. “I’ve always wanted to meet you…” It was too late to evade and Seaglass Cat didn’t look like she was about to evade. She opened her arms and hummed a special melody. There were no lyrics but the melody danced on people’s hearts. It was moving and sad.
“I’m experiencing your former despair. I can’t hold on much longer.” Seaglass Cat’s skin started to crack. She didn’t seem to mind dying as long as she could finish humming the song. That was her last wish. Hearing the familiar melody, the woman’s eyes struggled with pain but she didn’t stop. The picture bound by Life Threads swung at Seaglass Cat but eyes suddenly opened on Seaglass Cat’s clothes. The hollow gazes appeared to come from hell itself. A girl hugging a fishbowl stared at the woman in the picture silently. A boy’s cry overwhelmed all the other voices. A bright blade cut through the picture and the Life Threads.
A woman without her tongue materialized on the small stage. She was tied to a chair and a golden music box was placed before her. Inside the golden music box was a severed tongue filled with curses and resentment.
“Notification for Player 0000! You’ve completed the mission, Special Room Service! You’ve gained 3 skill points and Grade F Talent—Art Appraisal.”
When the woman appeared, the chill dissipated. The tension in the air was torn apart. The oppressive feeling lifted. They had broken the endless loop. The gallery changed back to normal. The freezers became normal paintings, the only thing unchanged was the stage in the middle.
“Art Appraisal: You have unique taste for art. You can easily see the flaw in any artwork. You can use this ability 5 times per night.” Han Fei didn’t care that much about this ability, he didn’t have much chance to approach art after all. But when he turned to look at Yan Tang beside him, the system asked if he would use Art Appraisal. Han Fei picked yes and he managed to see Yan Tang’s weakpoints. He could see the ‘flaws’ in human beings!
‘The ability has taken humans and ghosts as artworks?’ Han Fei tried it on Weep. It still worked. This ability could help Han Fei pick out his enemy’s weakness so he could focus on them. ‘The human body is an art too.’
Han Fei used the ability on the woman on stage. He saw there was a red Life Thread hidden behind the woman’s back. It was connected to the tongue in the music box. Han Fei shared a look with Xu Qin. They moved forward. The woman was weak, now was the time to take care of her. Taking out Rest in Peace, Han Fei was about to pounce when a familiar melody echoed in the gallery. This was the song sung by Seaglass Cat but this time, the song came from the music box.
Han Fei thought the woman still wanted to fight. But the woman slowly opened her eyes to look at Seaglass Cat. The woman tried to stand up but her rotten body was bound to the chair. Her soul was pierced by the Life Thread. The woman was the core of the hotel. She could control everything in this building but she was also trapped in this place where she wanted to escape from the most.
