Chapter 723: Unfinished Building

Chapter 723: The Abandoned Building

Wu Qi's RV was driving deeper into Orange Island, and Li Huowang, bent over in the passenger seat, peered through the window at the surrounding dark, unfinished buildings.

The puddles on the ground and the scattered construction materials had already slowed the RV’s pace. The headlights cut through the darkness, casting a pale glow over the road ahead.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Li Huowang thought he saw a figure flash past one of the abandoned buildings—but he couldn’t sense anyone watching him.

After about five minutes, the rolling tires finally came to a stop.

“Look at the garbage place you picked! It’s nearly impossible to drive through, and you even scratched my car paint,” Wu Qi complained as she pushed open the driver’s door.

“Sister Wu, how many hands has your car gone through? You still have paint left to scratch?” Qing Wang Lai stepped out of the vehicle, dodging a foot that came flying from Wu Qi.

Behind them, Li Huowang, supported by Yang Na, also got out of the car.

He stared at the half-finished, unroofed building in front of him for a few seconds before turning to Qing Wang Lai and asking, “Which floor?”

Before Qing Wang Lai could answer, a flashlight beam suddenly flickered from the sixth floor, flashing back and forth.

Seeing this, Li Huowang walked away from the building and began climbing the stairs, which had no railings.

When he reached the sixth floor, however, everything was pitch black—no light at all.

“What’s going on? There was definitely light just now. Did I misjudge the floor?”

Confused, Li Huowang was about to walk toward the window to count the floors when a pale, deathly white face suddenly appeared right in front of him. “Wake up! It’s all fake!”

“……”

Li Huowang looked at the young man in front of him, who seemed younger than himself, with dyed yellow hair. He held a flashlight under his chin, illuminating his grotesque, deliberately scary face.

Li Huowang had seen many strange things, but he had never seen a ghost with a tongue ring.

“Are you the only one here? Where are Qian Fu and Chen Hongyu?” he asked the man.

“I told you so—you’re not scared by this kind of nonsense, huh? Hey, Li Huowang, what happened to your head?” A voice came from the darkness—Chen Hongyu.

Soon, both Chen Hongyu and Qian Fu emerged from the shadows, their faces lit by the flashlight beam. They were eating a packet of spicy sticks, oil dripping from their mouths.

“Hehe… hehehe…” The young man laughed nervously, placed the flashlight on the ground to serve as a light source, and waited for Qing Wang Lai and Wu Qi to arrive. The cold, desolate building suddenly began to fill with life.

“What happened to your head?” Qian Fu asked Li Huowang.

“It’s a long story. Something happened on the way. We’ll talk later,” Li Huowang said, looking at the man who had startled him earlier.

This man’s appearance was odd—he wore black leather clothes, applied dark eye shadow, and his skin was unnaturally pale, as if he hadn’t seen sunlight in ages.

Perhaps due to Sun Xiaoqin’s teachings, Li Huowang instinctively felt repulsed by people like him.

Qing Wang Lai cleared his throat and introduced the man to Li Huowang. “This is Zhao Lei. Zhao Lei, this is Li Huowang, the one I mentioned to you before.”

“You can call me Steven,” Zhao Lei said, walking forward with a haggard face. He extended his right hand, adorned with a black ring, toward Li Huowang.

Li Huowang took his hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you, Zhao Lei. I’m Li Huowang.”

“Hehe… it’s obviously fake. Too fake. I even told you my English name, yet you still followed the script,” Zhao Lei mumbled as he staggered back to his original spot.

“What’s wrong with this guy? He’s completely nuts.”

Li Huowang frowned slightly at him. Qing Wang Lai and Wu Qi almost made him think there wasn’t another lunatic among them.

Li Huowang had expected more people to emerge from the shadows, but to his surprise, it turned out Zhao Lei was the only one.

“Didn’t we agree on eight people? Why are there only six?” Li Huowang frowned and asked Qing Wang Lai.

“Maybe they had last-minute business and didn’t come.”

“Do you have their phone numbers? Call them and ask,” Li Huowang’s heart grew uneasy. After all, they had been in a car accident. If two people hadn’t shown up, it was too coincidental.

If his luck had been worse earlier, would four people be missing now?

“They don’t use phones—they’re afraid of being monitored,” Qing Wang Lai said seriously, glancing around at the others and clapping his hands to draw attention.

“Have you guys recently contacted Brother Bone or Aunt Yan? Or met them?”

Seeing their confused expressions, Qing Wang Lai immediately knew the answer. Something had really gone wrong.

After a moment of contemplation, he spoke again. “I called you all here because I need to tell you something. We’ve run into trouble at the projection site. Brother Bone and Aunt Yan are late—most likely they’ve encountered trouble. Did you see the injury on Li Huowang’s head? Our previous incidents confirm this.”

“This kind of crisis can’t be handled alone. We must work together to deal with them safely and effectively, no matter what form their projections take.”

But none of them asked a question. They stood silently, processing what he had said.

It was unclear whether they had already sensed something, or whether they simply didn’t care.

“Cough,” Li Huowang coughed lightly to break the silence, then turned to Qing Wang Lai. “What do you plan to do in our current situation?”

Qing Wang Lai didn’t respond directly. Instead, he asked another question. “Based on the truck incident earlier, you seem very sensitive to them?”

“No, it’s not sensitivity. They’re watching me! As long as they’re staring at me, I can feel it!” Li Huowang answered firmly.

“Can you sense them now?”

Li Huowang closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and focused. After five minutes, he shook his head. “No. This place is safe. They shouldn’t be able to find us.”

As soon as he finished speaking, before Qing Wang Lai could reply, Qian Fu stood up abruptly and interrupted. “Listen to me! All of you listen to me!”

Excitedly, he announced to everyone, “Those two aren’t here because they’re dead! Even if they weren’t, they’d be imprisoned like me! It’s all part of the Leo aliens’ conspiracy! We must stop them!”

After saying that, he rushed to Li Huowang’s side, grabbing his arm. “I have a plan! The Leo aliens are interested in his genes! We can use him as bait to catch their UFOs!”

Others turned to look at Qian Fu, listening to his wild lies.