The electrical supply to every machine was cut off. The lights dimmed and eventually went out covering the lab in darkness. In that brief moment, everything froze as if time stood still. The silence ensued for a few seconds before it was broken.
“What’s happening? Why is the power out?” Salmon asked. “We have dedicated lines for our power, no?”
“I have no idea. I’ll turn on the backup power now.” A voice rang. He spoke to Salman in Hindi.
During this period, Xia Lei quickly reached out to the door handle and left the laboratory. He pulled something out from his backpack as he ran towards the stairway leading to the roof.
“Boss, aren’t you worried about the experiment result?” Tsukino Kyoko followed after Xia Lei.
Crack! A gentle sound rang. Xia Lei turned on a tactical flashlight. A beam of light shone in the pitch-black hallway.
“What are you doing?” Tsukino Kyoko was anxious. “Turn it off! You’re basically painting a target on our backs.”
In contrast to Tsukino Kyoko, the tension gradually disappeared from Xia Lei’s face. “Stop talking and follow me. We need to get out of here.”
Tsukino Kyoko was confused but Xia Lei didn’t bother to explain. She didn’t pry any further given the situation. She followed Xia Lei into the stairway. Shortly after, they were on the roof.
They were shocked to see that this building was not the only building that had a power outage. Instead, no light was visible in the whole area. The whole area was shrouded by a blanket of darkness. It was terrifying.
“How is this possible?” Tsukino Kyoko didn't know what to make of this.
“Forget it. We need to get out of here now.” Xia Lei approached the edge of the roof and found the rope with the help of the tactical flashlight.
The rope was hanging at the outer wall. One end of it was tied to the base of the lightning rod, another end of it was hanging on the wall and dropped to the alley.
“Go on first,” said Xia Lei.
“No, you go on first. I got your back,” said Tsukino Kyoko.
“Quick!” Xia Lei shouted. “There’s no time for this. Get down now! Also, turn on your flashlight.”
Tsukino Kyoko shrugged her shoulder. “When have you ever seen a ninja with a flashlight?”
Darkness was the cloak for the ninja, the darker the environment was, the better for ninja. If a ninja used a flashlight in the dark, that would completely defeat the purpose of a stealthy suit.
However, Xia Lei couldn’t laugh at all. He felt the danger approach him from afar. The feeling was as strong as the feeling he had during that night in Hattori Mei’s villa.
Fortunately, Tsukino Kyoko took action immediately. She grabbed on the rope tightly and slid down to the alley. She was fast, which she only took ten seconds to reach the ground from the thirtieth floor.
Xia Lei grabbed the rope and prepared to slide down.
Just when Xia Lei was about to jump off the roof, he heard woosh behind him. He felt that a bullet had hit on his tactical flashlight. The glass of the tactical flashlight and the bulb inside shattered. The impact was large enough to numb his hand.
Whoosh!
The sound of an object moving at high speed sliced through the air. However, it was too fast to be spotted with the naked eyes.
Before Xia Lei could do anything, the rope he was holding suddenly became lighter. A large part of the rope fell onto the ground.
It was his only way out of this building.
Xia Lei could feel the fear rising in his chest. He quickly took a glance at his right, which was where the stairway was situated.
The security door was closed, but a person was standing in front of the doorway. He was wearing a black robe. His face and hands were invisible. It seemed like a robe hanging in the air. It was not human.
As soon as Xia Lei spotted the man, he bounced back by kicking the ground while pulling out his gun. He quickly fired a shot at the man in the black robe.
The viper pistol Xia Lei had was equipped with a silencer, which eliminated the sound of the gunshot. The bullet travelled beyond the speed of sound. The man was not far away either. The bullet should be fast enough to pierce his skull.
However, the man managed to avoid the bullet. He even did it after the shot was fired!
Ding!
The bullet hit the steel plate of the security door.
Suddenly, the man dashed towards Xia Lei.
Xia Lei pulled the trigger and fired seven to eight shots at the man in the blink of eyes.
The man didn’t let down his guard. He strafed from side to side, avoiding the bullets with ease. It was a complete violation of the law of physics. His body was as light as the robe, which was near weightless.
A bullet hit the man in the chest.
It was the last shot from Xia Lei. He saw the bullet pierced through the man’s body, but he couldn’t see blood flowing out from the man’s body. He saw the man drifting back as the bullet passed through the man, but he recovered after a short while.
He didn’t have a body!
He was similar to Zhu Xuanyue!
Perhaps, he was more powerful than Zhu Xuanyue.
Those thoughts popped into Xia Lei’s mind in waves. However, the man came in front of him before he could conclude anything.
Although Xia Lei’s evolution was near perfection, it couldn’t be compared to the man in the robe. He was still too slow when he was compared with the man.
Before the gun smoke disappeared into the wind, the man grabbed Xia Lei by his neck. He could feel the cloth around his neck, but not the hands that were supposed to accompany it. In a split second, a tremendous force threw him to the ground.
Xia Lei was so close to him but he couldn’t see his face. His X-ray vision was not working either.
“Am I going to die?” This thought popped into Xia Lei’s mind. Despair and fear were slowly creeping over him, he couldn’t see any hope.
However, Xia Lei’s fear didn’t turn into reality. The man didn’t do anything to him. Instead, the man stared at Xia Lei with his inky black eyes, deeper than an abyss.
That was the illusion of Xia Lei. The eyes staring at Xia Lei were just a pair of black eyes. The eyes with no other colour except for black.
“Who are you?” Xia Lei asked in a trembling voice.
The man didn’t answer Xia Lei’s question. He reached out to the alloy pendant on Xia Lei’s neck with his hand. It seemed like he was observing the pendant.
“Do you want it? You can take it if you want. I’m not your enemy,” said Xia Lei. If he was given a choice to choose between his life and the last capsule, he would definitely choose his life.
However, the man let go of the pendant. He also let go of the hand that was grabbing Xia Lei’s neck. It was truly bizarre.
“You…” Xia Lei was stunned. He thought the man would break his neck, but the man let go of him instead. It was weird and he didn’t know what was going on.
“No wonder, you’re slightly incomplete.” The man spoke in a cold, husky and low voice. It didn’t sound like a human.
Much to Xia Lei’s horror, the man was speaking in Chinese.
“Who…Who the hell are you?” Xia Lei asked this question while suppressing the horror and fear that crept over him. It was the second time he threw this question to the man.
“The answer lies within you,” said the man.
Xia Lei was stunned. What kind of answer was that?
“I won’t kill you because the answer is in you.”
“What do you mean? What answer?”
“Everything has a starting point and an end. Perhaps, you may find the end this time,” said the man.
“The end? You mentioned that the answer is in me. Are there any other hints you can give me?” Xia Lei asked carefully.
At this moment, the man suddenly moved towards the stairway. He hissed, “Damn, she’s always making trouble.”
Xia Lei looked at the security door. However, he saw nothing but the empty staircase behind the security door
“Ah!” Out of nowhere, a shrill rang out in the distance.
It was Salman.
“Something happened in the lab?” Xia Lei got up from the floor immediately.
“If you don’t give me the answer in three years, I’ll kill you,” said the man.
“Who the hell are you?” Xia Lei was getting worked up. It was equivalent to giving him a three-year suspended sentence of execution without a commutation.
“I mean no harm.”
Xia Lei smiled. “How can a man who threatened to kill me mean no harm?”
“You’ll understand one day.”
“Who the hell are you? What on earth are you up to?” Xia Lei’s emotions were out of control.
“You have to be careful. You aren’t as smart as I thought,” said the man.
If he wasn’t the definition of smart, who was?
Before Xia Lei could sort out his thoughts, the man suddenly moved towards the edge and jumped off the roof. Xia Lei hurriedly ran towards the edge of the roof and looked down. He saw the man break into the thirtieth floor, the floor in which the laboratory was situated. The glass of that floor was shattered as he went into the floor as if the glass was as fragile as the tofu.
“What is he doing? Is he planning to stop Zhu Xuanyue?” Xia Lei started to rush towards the security door as he thought of this.
He only spent ten seconds unlocking the security door with the password. Just when he prepared to rush towards the laboratory, he heard an explosion from downstairs. The blast swept him down the stairs with splinters of glass, metal and wood trailing behind him.
The man’s target for tonight wasn’t him. It was Zhu Xuanyue!
“Ning Jing…” At the moment of the explosion, the person that popped into his mind was not Zhu Xuanyue or Gu Kewen. It was the quiet and pitiful woman, Ning Jing.
Ka-boom!
Another explosion happened, which shook the whole building.
The sky turned red as the fire broke out.
As weirdly as it seemed, the whole area regained its power supply. The explosion seemed to trigger the electrical supply of the whole region.