Chapter 30: “Half an hour ago, I had…”
As the party’s start time approached, the guests had almost all entered. They didn’t walk in through the door, but rather seemed to materialize from a thin white mist, and the venue gradually began to grow crowded. Like the staff, the guests also showed severe signs of doll-ification. Their appearances were largely similar, meticulously dressed, like Venetian masks come to life.
“Here!” Zhuang Ningyu waved.
Yi Ke hastily squeezed through the crowd and handed him the phone. “Wen Yue’s. It was thrown near the fourth-floor stairwell. I just went through the entire fourth floor again, still no sign of her.”
“Wu Tao uses the same model of phone. Its selling point is being sturdy, resistant to drops and water.” Zhuang Ningyu picked up the device and looked at it. “For the screen to be shattered like this, it doesn’t look like it fell out of a pocket. It’s more like it was smashed during a struggle.”
“Wen Yue, a struggle?” Yi Ke frowned. He found it hard to connect those two words. Tian Luxin might be able to hold her own in a fight, but with Wen Yue’s frail physique, if she really got into a physical conflict, she would ninety-nine percent of the time be the one getting beaten.
“I just asked A’Lin. He confirmed that the photographer had already given the invitation to Wen Yue after the photoshoot,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “And according to the rules, everyone who receives an invitation will appear at the party on time. There are still ten minutes left. Let’s wait a bit longer.”
Yi Ke nodded and followed his line of sight. “What’s that?”
“The check-in counter.”
This was the result of Zhuang Ningyu’s brainwashing of the reception staff. He had successfully added a “photo check-in” session to the event’s flow. The check-in location was Gate No. 3, the “Gate of Life.” The specific rhetoric was unknown, but the effect was significant. A large group of handsome men and beautiful women were now lining up in an orderly fashion, striking various poses against the door. Even though it was unlikely for the “key” to be among this group of NPC-like guests, they still had to try everything possible.
Yi Ke casually picked up the sign-in book, wanting to find Wen Yue’s name and also count the number of guests to see if all the victims were here. But the entire book was signed like a ghost’s scrawl—wild and flamboyant, scribbled circles, overlapping, torn, and stained with drinks. Not only was it impossible to count clearly, but even deciphering the words was an impossible task.
“Stop counting,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “The party is about to start.”
The empty VIP section on the second floor was covered with a soft, expensive white long-pile carpet for this night. The time ticked on a huge screen encrusted with small diamonds. In the final minute before the anniversary celebration began, everyone spontaneously flooded the dance floor, looking up and counting down in unison—
“Fifty-nine! Fifty-eight! Fifty-seven!”
The DJ turned the volume to the maximum to welcome the boss’s grand entrance. Tong Yishuai, wearing a specially tailored haute couture suit and a sparkling silver mask, appeared like a god behind the second-floor railing. The deafening cheers from the entire venue immediately rose several octaves, the sound wave instantly filling the entire bar! Zhuang Ningyu, with sharp eyes and quick hands, pulled Tian Luxin away, allowing her to narrowly dodge an overly excited doll behind her. The doll’s hard arm was waving frantically and slammed heavily onto the cleaning cart with a “thud,” immediately creating a noticeable deep dent.
“If things go wrong, hide in the restroom,” Zhuang Ningyu emphasized.
Tian Luxin inevitably felt a little panicked. She knew the dolls would lose control, but she never imagined they would start rampaging so impatiently before eight o’clock. Not far away, a female doll’s joints were clearly already stiff, but this didn’t stop her from dancing to the music. Her unbendable knee was forced into a grotesque arc, and then with a “crack” at the climax, it completely twisted 180 degrees.
“Ah!” The doll looked down at the heel exposed under her tulle skirt and let out a scream like a rubber chicken!
The response she got was a new round of excited roars from those around her!
“Thirty! Twenty-nine! Twenty-eight!”
“Wen Yue has appeared,” Yi Ke said.
The girl in the white dress, wearing low-heeled leather shoes with bows, seemed to have emerged from the ground, standing silently amidst a sea of flashing colored lights.
“Wen Yue, Wen Yue, Wen Yue!” Tian Luxin hurriedly called out to her.
The girl in the white dress slowly turned her head. Her dark black eyes held none of the emotion of a living person.
Tian Luxin covered her mouth with both hands, forcibly stifling a gasp. “You, you, you… what, are you okay?”
The girl in the white dress ignored her and turned her head back with a “crack,” the distinct sound of misaligned wood. When Yi Ke had first discovered her, her features were still their original, beautiful, and lively selves. But with the countdown echoing throughout the venue, Wen Yue’s body, like the other guests, began to rapidly transform into a doll. Her face seemed to be covered with a meticulously carved, yet featureless, beautiful mask—monotonous and deathly pale.
“Seventeen! Sixteen! Fifteen! Fourteen!”
Zhuang Ningyu said, “She has already been mentally polluted, and to a high degree.”
The frantic voice of a colleague from the third division came through the earpiece: “What’s going on? How could she be so severely mentally polluted? We only let her in after she passed all the tests! She’s very smart! What about the bracelet? The protective bracelet? The high-grade protective bracelet we gave her? Is she not wearing it?”
“Stop yelling,” Zhuang Ningyu’s eardrums were hurting from the noise. He took out a new protective bracelet from his pants pocket and stepped forward to grasp Wen Yue’s stiff arm. The girl had been looking at Tong Yishuai on the second floor. Startled by someone suddenly grabbing her hand, she turned her head with a hint of irritation! Zhuang Ningyu quickly put on an affectionate expression. He had been handsome since he was young and was well aware of the killing power of his face. He said in a gentle voice, “The sign-in bracelet. You forgot to get it just now.”
Wen Yue glanced at the bracelet, then at Zhuang Ningyu’s face. As expected, she didn’t pursue the matter further. And when he subsequently proposed taking a supplementary check-in photo, although she looked reluctant, she was still half-pushed, half-pulled over by Tian Luxin. She reached out and pressed her hand against the “Gate of Life,” looking at the crowd with a cold expression.
At this point, her face had completely stiffened. The only difference between her and the other “dolls” in the venue was her attire. Her dirty skirt hem was stained with sewage, as if she had just been in a fight.
The door remained unchanged.
She was not the “key” either.
“Three! Two! One!”
As the final countdown ended, all the lights in the bar were instantly turned to their brightest. Champagne and silver confetti rained down, and the music was almost loud enough to shake the ceiling. Tong Yishuai raised his glass, looking down on everyone from above, holding a diamond-studded microphone as extravagant as the night itself. “Welcome, distinguished guests, to Yin Bar!”
Screams erupted, and everyone clinked glasses. Under Zhuang Ningyu’s instruction, Tian Luxin promptly took the champagne glass from Wen Yue’s hand.
Wen Yue maintained the posture of holding a glass, her expression wooden. The new protective bracelet could only ensure that her mental contamination status did not worsen. If she wanted to become completely clear-headed, she would generally need a period of purification. So, she was currently still in a non-communicative, dull state.
“Here.” Tian Luxin handed her an empty glass. “There will be many more rounds of games later. For now, just pretend, to avoid getting drunk.”
Wen Yue stared at her and opened her mouth with effort. “Th-thank you.”
“You’re welcome!” Tian Luxin smiled and stood by her side, taking out a wet wipe to clean her dirty face. She secretly gave Zhuang Ningyu an “OK” gesture, indicating that she would be responsible for keeping Wen Yue from drinking. The slender girl, after turning into a puppet, had only thin arms and legs, and didn’t look very threatening.
Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke’s next plan was to get Tong Yishuai, who was waving his arms like a madman on the second floor, to come down and see if he could open Gate No. 3.
The red-haired DJ had been leading the crowd in interaction. He wore headphones, his hands skillfully gliding over the buttons in front of him, his shouts incessant, the sound waves growing stronger. Zhuang Ningyu stepped onto the stairs, feeling his heart shrink into a ball. A security guard at the side stopped him. “The second floor is not open to the public today. Only the boss can go up.”
“Then at what point does the boss plan to come down?”
“He won’t be coming down all night.”
Zhuang Ningyu looked at the two nearly two-meter-tall security guards in front of him and felt that a direct confrontation was not a wise move. He first took a symbolic two steps back, then looked up again. Tong Yishuai was now standing behind the railing with his arms slightly spread. The vibrating sound waves distorted the light and spacetime, making him look like a bizarre, post-modernist sculpture.
“Why isn’t he moving?” Yi Ke asked. “Could he be completely stiff already?”
“No,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Look at his occasional body movements. They are still natural. Tong Yishuai’s degree of puppetization is lower than the others. Besides being a victim of contamination, he is also the source of the contamination itself.”
“Sister, wait, where are you going!” On the other side, Tian Luxin tightly gripped Wen Yue’s arm, determined not to let her go.
Wen Yue struggled a couple of times but couldn’t break free, so she had to sit back down. There was no helping it; Tian Luxin’s strength was simply too great. Every bicep she had trained in the gym was playing its proper role, making her like a pair of human handcuffs.
His phone vibrated. Zhuang Ningyu squeezed through the crowd, found a quiet corner where he could clearly see Tong Yishuai’s movements, and put in his earpiece. “Speak.”
“Captain Zhuang!” A colleague from the Yangcheng investigation team reported urgently. “Xiao Yi was right. We found out what Zhao Jiaxue used that large cash withdrawal for. She didn’t buy anything. She went to a street-side beauty salon in Jincheng for some hyaluronic acid and botox injections. The beautician didn’t have a medical license and was afraid of being investigated, so she required cash transactions. But later, Zhao Jiaxue separately bought a box of face masks at the salon’s front desk. Because the amount was small, she paid by scanning a code, which is how a record was left.”
“A street-side beauty salon?”
“Yes. Zhao Jiaxue said she was originally planning to go to Star Beauty. The person who initially persuaded her at the bar that she could get some minor work done was also a medical tout from Star Beauty. But after inquiring about the price, she felt it wasn’t suitable. Later, through a friend’s recommendation, she went to another beauty salon. She was lucky; it wasn’t botched, and the results were quite good.”
“What happened next?”
“We’re still asking about what happened next. Chief Huo told us to sync with you as soon as we find out anything.” The investigator loosened his earpiece slightly to avoid his hearing being damaged by the deafening music on the other end. “Captain Zhuang, how are things on your end?”
Zhuang Ningyu said sincerely, “My side? That depends on your progress.”
The investigator was both flattered and startled. “Is Zhao Jiaxue’s testimony that important?”
Zhuang Ningyu said, “It is. Keep up the good work.” He ended the call and asked Yi Ke, “How are things on your end?”
In the fourth-floor corridor, Yi Ke threw a backhand punch, knocking the DJ in front of him to the ground. His movements were ruthless and decisive, but his expression carried a hint of hesitation. He held his earpiece and replied, “Everything is going smoothly, but are you sure this will work?”
“I’m sure,” Zhuang Ningyu insisted on his view. During his time working at Yin Bar, he had discovered that the person most capable of hyping up the atmosphere was the red-haired DJ. Given that the madness of the dolls tonight was positively correlated with the party’s atmosphere, getting this guy to exit the stage first would definitely not hurt.
As for how to do it specifically, Zhuang Ningyu had initially said, “You first try to persuade him verbally. See if he can slack off tonight and disappear for a bit.”
Yi Ke actually went and tried. But after listening, the DJ looked at him as if he were an idiot and sincerely asked, “Are you a spy sent by a competitor?”
There was no choice. Time was tight, and the mission was important. Since words didn’t work, Yi Ke had to trick him into going to the fourth floor and take care of him physically.
Now the DJ’s mouth was sealed with tape, and he was struggling in terror, making “mmph, mmph” sounds. Yi Ke squatted in front of him, holding his stiff, “creaking” joints with one hand, and sincerely apologized, “Buddy, I’m really sorry, but I’m really doing this to save you.”
DJ: “Mmph, mmph, mmph!”
Yi Ke: “You’re welcome.”
He held a shiny silver anesthetic needle between his fingers and swiftly stuck it into the neck that had not yet fully puppetized. This medicine was a new item Pei Yuan had gotten for him. It was said to be effective against most low-aggression NPC-type monsters. Sure enough, after only three seconds, the red-haired DJ collapsed to the ground.
Yi Ke dragged the man into a restroom in the corner.
At first, the people in the venue didn’t notice the DJ’s disappearance. His assistant lowered the volume and switched to a relatively gentle song, treating it as an intermission. With the change in music style, the restless atmosphere on the dance floor indeed calmed down. Tian Luxin, who had been tightly holding Wen Yue’s arm, was also able to breathe a sigh of relief. She asked cautiously, “Do you remember who you are now? Can you recognize anyone on the dance floor as your sister?”
Wen Yue rolled her black eyes upwards, looking at her with the whites of her eyes.
Tian Luxin: “…”
“Sam! Has anyone seen Sam!” More than ten minutes later, the assistant finally noticed something was wrong. He tried to call him, but the phone rang right next to the DJ mixer.
He didn’t even take his phone. Where did he go? The assistant was puzzled. While switching back to a high-tempo dance track and pushing up the volume, he gestured for the person next to him to keep an eye on things and planned to go to the restroom to find him personally. But before he could get far, a new round of cheers erupted from the dance floor. Zhuang Ningyu had stood up in the most conspicuous position on the sound control console. The lighting technician timely shone two spotlights on this face of Yin Bar. The golden light filled his long eyelashes, and the atmosphere was instantly thrown to a new high!
“No, no!” Tian Luxin used all her strength to hold back Wen Yue, who had suddenly become violent due to the environmental influence, preventing her from climbing to the second floor with both hands and feet.
Yi Ke, who had just come downstairs, also looked baffled. He looked at the out-of-control, crowded dance floor, his right hand moving towards the gun at his waist, while his eyes questioned the person not far away—What’s going on?
Zhuang Ningyu gestured for him to be patient. He himself grabbed the nearby headset and put it on, the Bluetooth switching to a new song. Starting from zero, with no intro, not even any accompaniment, only the deep, emotional roar of a yellow-haired guy in tight construction pants, heartbroken from unrequited love: “You said you wanted to be Director Li’s mistress, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t!”
Everyone was stunned, including Tong Yishuai. He had been standing on the second floor, engrossed in admiring Zhuang Ningyu’s supreme beauty, marveling at the creator’s miraculous handiwork. But the next moment, he was almost made to vomit blood by the row of embedded German speakers in the ceiling. There was a moment of silence in the bar, followed by a thunderous burst of laughter. But the singing, which could be described as noise, continued. Tong Yishuai dropped his glass and staggered downstairs on trembling legs, his whole body trembling with rage. Although his face was completely covered by the mask, Zhuang Ningyu knew he must be furious.
A high-degree of perfectionism, a perfectionist, a doll party crafted with all his energy, had now, because of this vulgar song, a black history that could never be erased, like a mildew spot on a delicate flower petal, polluting the senses of all onlookers.
Yi Ke timely understood Zhuang Ningyu’s intention. He rushed to the staircase first, intercepted the enraged Tong Yishuai, and then, before the other could react, grabbed his arm and pushed him against Gate No. 3!
“Thump!”
The door didn’t move an inch.
Tong Yishuai was beyond furious. “What are you doing!”
Yi Ke said from the bottom of his heart, “What a terrible song.”
“Then hurry up and get him down!” Tong Yishuai shrieked, his hair standing on end, his sharp, broken voice almost piercing through the metal mask, his chest heaving violently. “Quick!”
“Yes, boss, right away.” Yi Ke let go, took two or three steps up to the stage, and led Zhuang Ningyu away. The DJ’s assistant breathed a sigh of relief and quickly took over the control console.
Yi Ke put his arm around his shoulder and asked as they walked, “Where did you get that divine song?”
Zhuang Ningyu replied, “I had Qian Yue sing it live half an hour ago.”
The lyricist was Wu Tao. She did not disappoint her identity as a liberal arts student, possessing a unique talent for online marketing. Without a second thought, she contributed a series of explosive lyrics that combined ethics and morality, such as “My husband won’t listen to me, insists on getting his mother-in-law tattooed on his body,” “If you’re going to marry, marry Trump,” and “If only my boyfriend’s boss back then could have been a little braver,” and handed them over to Qian Yue overnight.
Qian Yue: “Me, me, me, me? But I’m not very good at singing, my level is average!”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Don’t be modest. Bring out the perfect pitch you showed at the last department karaoke party!”
And just like that, they managed to provoke Tong Yishuai, who had originally planned to stay in the VIP section all night, down the stairs.
“But he’s not the ‘key’,” Yi Ke said.
Zhuang Ningyu had also witnessed the entire process of Tong Yishuai failing to open the door from the console. Since most of the possibilities had been eliminated, there was now only one person left—You Hong.
The time had already reached nine-thirty at night.
