The abrupt knocking sound echoed within the "Wild Pigeon" bar amidst the raging wind, causing those playing cards, mahjong, haggling, and waiting to dance to quiet down involuntarily.

At this moment, Shang Jianyao smiled and commented:

"How polite."

Long Yuehong was initially taken aback, then realized what Shang Jianyao meant:

The door of the "Wild Pigeon" bar wasn't closed at all. Blocking the entrance were two wooden boards that could be moved freely, which could be opened with a push, making knocking unnecessary.

"A bit strange..." Jiang Baimian echoed.

The leader of the "Fox" bandit gang at the door, Pannania, was also a little uneasy. However, there were even more ferocious and terrifying beings inside the bar. So, he eventually signaled one of his subordinates to push open the wooden board that only covered the middle part of the doorway.

On the street outside, the light from the street lamps illuminated a portion of the area. A dark figure flashed through it and entered the area dominated by the night.

Pannania breathed a sigh of relief and laughed heartily:

"Which little rascal is making trouble?"

Amidst the laughter, he led his thirteen subordinates out of the "Wild Pigeon" bar. The two wooden boards rebounded, swayed a few times, and gradually came to a standstill.

Seeing that nothing was happening, the card players resumed pushing forward their chips, the mahjong players blindly picked up their tiles, those haggling gradually reached an agreement, and those waiting to dance asked the bar owner, Cai Yi, whether the dance floor would be closed tonight due to the raging wind and impending rain and snow.

Jiang Baimian also withdrew her gaze and turned her attention to the pool table beside her.

Shang Jianyao had already arranged the pool balls and pulled out a wooden cue.

He wiped the tip of the cue, bent down, and adopted an unusually professional posture.

In a word, handsome!

"Oh, you're quite good at this." Jiang Baimian commented with a smile.

The next second, Shang Jianyao swiftly struck the white cue ball.

With a bang, the white ball flew up and slammed heavily into the pile of red balls.

The red balls scattered, some jumping and some rolling, one of which tumbled into a pocket.

Jiang Baimian watched with a slightly dazed expression and couldn't help but ask:

"You've never played before?"

"I've only watched them play," Shang Jianyao answered truthfully.

In "Pangu Biology," not every floor's "activity center" had a pool table.

The 350th floor, where the university was located, did have one, but there were many waiting, and it was really hard to get a spot without some skill.

"What about you?" Jiang Baimian turned to look at Long Yuehong.

Long Yuehong shook his head:

"I've only watched others play too."

"Haha, I'll teach you. With your eyesight, wrist strength, and body control ability, this is easy to pick up." Jiang Baimian immediately became interested.

She then looked at Bai Chen on the side:

"Xiao Bai, can you play?"

She remembered that Bai Chen was no stranger to bars, dance halls, and nightclubs in Wild Grass City, and obviously frequented these places from time to time, looking for opportunities.

And some of these places had dedicated pool rooms.

"Yes," Bai Chen answered succinctly.

"Then let's play a game and demonstrate for them." Jiang Baimian pulled out a cue and tossed it to Bai Chen.

The two ladies started playing pool, while Shang Jianyao and Long Yuehong watched and listened to their explanations of techniques and rules.

In this game, Jiang Baimian relied on her aggressive offense and precise control of the routes and power, winning against Bai Chen with a slight advantage.

"You're really a little grinder," Jiang Baimian said with a smile.

She meant that Bai Chen was good at defense, always putting the ball in a position that made her feel very uncomfortable and awkward.

This also meant that the game was "ground" out for a long time. The bar owner Cai Yi had finished his other tasks and prepared the first batch of food:

Canned luncheon meat.

Cai Yi took out the luncheon meat and air-fried it for a full eight minutes, making both sides a little crispy and the grease oozing out.

This made the aroma of the luncheon meat even more obvious, and even the four members of the "Old Task Force," who were tired of canned food, twitched their noses and felt hungry.

They took chopsticks, each picked up a piece, and after one bite, felt that it was much more delicious than the normal way of eating:

It had the aroma of fried food and avoided the original greasiness.

"Not bad," Jiang Baimian said sincerely after eating a piece.

Shang Jianyao, who was eating the second piece, nodded in agreement:

"We... methods... development... too little..."

In this way, they ate the food that was brought over from time to time, and played pool while learning.

After finishing dinner, because the wind outside was still very strong, Jiang Baimian decided not to give Shang Jianyao a chance to dance. She took the cans that were exchanged for the remaining value of the portable computer and led the three members of the "Old Task Force" out of the "Wild Pigeon" bar.

Shang Jianyao took a step and looked back, reluctantly leaving the door.

"The wind isn't that strong..." he commented as he walked onto the street.

"Huh, what did you say?" Jiang Baimian raised her hand and touched her ear.

Long Yuehong and Bai Chen also didn't hear Shang Jianyao's words clearly, because the wind was really too strong.

People were almost blown away, let alone voices?

They put their hands in their pockets, slightly shrunk their bodies, and walked towards the "Dreamland" hotel.

The light of the street lamps and the black night alternated, and the stall owners on both sides had already returned to their respective homes, the street was silent.

It was so quiet that Long Yuehong felt a chill in his heart.

After walking for a while, Jiang Baimian, who had been observing the surroundings, suddenly froze.

She saw a sign diagonally in front of her. On the sign, many small light bulbs formed five words:

"Wild Pigeon Bar"

"This..." Jiang Baimian stopped.

"This is the arrangement of fate." Taking advantage of the wind getting smaller, Shang Jianyao used his magnetic baritone to narrate.

"Fate my ass!" Jiang Baimian retorted, saying seriously, "It seems we're in big trouble."

She, Jiang Baimian, had never been lost since she had the transplant surgery and auxiliary chip!

And most importantly, they hadn't noticed anything unusual beforehand.

Long Yuehong's spirit was already tense, and he was in a state of high alert.

Shang Jianyao then seriously explained to Jiang Baimian:

"The academic name for this is 'ghost wall'."

Hiss... Long Yuehong suddenly felt a chill down his spine.

"Maybe we never left, we were just circling around outside," Bai Chen said her guess.

Her expression was also a bit solemn.

Jiang Baimian "hmm"ed:

"Don't be nervous, we'll cross the bridge when we come to it. Let's go in and see if there are any changes, see if the problem is inside, outside, or ourselves."

As soon as she finished speaking, Shang Jianyao had already walked to the door of the "Wild Pigeon" bar and heavily knocked on the two wooden boards.

"Bang!" "Bang!" "Bang!"

At this moment, Jiang Baimian's first reaction wasn't that this guy was really bold, but a thought that frightened herself:

"The knocking sound we heard in the bar before, couldn't it have been made by the current Shang Jianyao?"

This idea was too absurd, involving time that humans still didn't understand much about, and was quickly denied by Jiang Baimian.

She didn't even say similar guesses, because she knew it would scare Xiao Hong and make him too tense.

That wasn't a good state.

Soon, the wooden board was opened, and the bar owner Cai Yi appeared in front of the "Old Task Force" four.

Huff... Jiang Baimian secretly breathed a sigh of relief, repenting for a second for her crazy thoughts just now.

--She remembered that after the knocking sound before, it was a member of the "Fox" bandit gang who opened the door.

It seems like just a simple "ghost wall", bah, why did I say "ghost wall"? "Ghost wall"... a directional illusion? Jiang Baimian vaguely had a guess.

"You, why are you back again? Did you leave something behind?" Cai Yi asked in confusion.

The wind outside picked up again, howling so loudly that it was difficult to hear.

"Let's go inside first." Jiang Baimian pointed inside.

Without waiting for Cai Yi to respond, Shang Jianyao had already sidestepped and "slipped" into the bar.

The gap is so big... Long Yuehong couldn't help but mutter to himself, and his spirit wasn't so tense anymore.

He normally walked past Cai Yi and entered the "Wild Pigeon".

The third was Bai Chen, and Jiang Baimian was responsible for guarding the rear.

After everyone was in place, Jiang Baimian looked at the wooden boards that were gradually stopping swaying, and asked Cai Yi:

"How long have we been gone?"

She had an estimate of the approximate time and wanted to compare it with Cai Yi.

This was both a test and a verification.

"Just three or four minutes." Cai Yi turned to look at the clock near the bar.

"Then there's no problem." Jiang Baimian initially confirmed that her judgment on time hadn't been confused yet.

As soon as she finished speaking, a dark shadow suddenly flew in from above the wooden board and slammed heavily to the ground.

Bang!

Shang Jianyao, Long Yuehong, and the others looked over at the same time and found that it was a bloody corpse.

His eyes were wide open, frozen with extreme fear, his clothes were tattered, one of his arms was missing, and there were obvious bite marks on his neck.

It was as if he had encountered a hungry, man-eating beast.

…………

Nanke Temple.

Zhou Yue, with her black hair draped down, wearing a white robe and a linen rope, was sitting cross-legged on a futon, facing the dragon symbol in the shrine, reading the old-world scriptures compiled by the cult—all related to hallucinations.

Around her, several "Dream Guides" and many "Dream Wanderers" were either reading scriptures or praying attentively, no one making a sound.

After a while, a "Dream Guide" got up, walked to Zhou Yue, and asked her for some classic interpretations.

Zhou Yue answered peacefully.

Suddenly, within the shrine, the surfaces of the shattered mirrors that made up the dragon symbol quickly flashed with a hazy light.

Zhou Yue's heart stirred, and she subconsciously raised her head and looked over.

Her gaze then froze.

Around her, including the "Dream Guide" who asked her for advice, most of the figures gradually disappeared, only five people truly existed.

…………

In the "Dreamland" hotel, the landlady Ai Nuo, wearing a brightly colored long dress, was shrinking at the front desk, using three electronic devices at the same time.

In front of her was the original computer, playing old-world dramas, she was holding a palm-sized machine in her hand, with lines of text on it, and on her right was the latest portable computer that Shang Jianyao and the others had paid for, which was running some patterns, text, and data.

Lost in her activities, Ai Nuo suddenly looked up, straightened her body, and looked towards the door.

The gloomy wind howled in.

Buzz, buzz, buzz, the lights in the hotel dimmed strangely, and dark shadows loomed outside the window.

ps: Asking for double monthly tickets at the end of the month~