Chapter 74: Realization

Yang Dongqing looked at the mannequins and swallowed nervously. "You don't think these mannequins will suddenly come to life, do you?"

Su Mu offered a faint smile. "Wouldn't it be more interesting if they did?"

"I shouldn't have even bothered asking." Yang Dongqing rolled his eyes and kept walking.

Su Mu followed, letting him lead the way. However, the strange feeling in his chest was only growing stronger. He couldn't shake the sensation that he had forgotten something. What exactly had he forgotten?

"Fuck! What the hell is this?" Yang Dongqing's sudden yell broke Su Mu's train of thought, and he walked over to him.

He found Yang Dongqing stopped in front of a storefront, staring nervously inside.

When Su Mu shifted his gaze into the shop, he frowned slightly.

It was a door!

An old wooden door coated in red paint. It looked ancient; much of the paint had flaked off, revealing the color of the raw wood beneath.

The door itself didn't look like anything special. What was truly unusual was that it stood completely alone in the center of the shop, with absolutely nothing behind it. Furthermore, the door was wide open, and thick fog churned within its frame, like a gateway leading to another world.

"There's nothing at all behind this door, but there's heavy fog inside. Could this lead to Hell?" Yang Dongqing's eyes betrayed his apprehension, and he didn't dare approach the frame.

Naturally, Su Mu wasn't going to risk his own life. He directly called up the nightmare apostles from downstairs.

Soon, a man with full-sleeve tattoos and a balding middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses jogged up the stairs.

"Any discoveries down there?"

The two men shook their heads. The tattooed man replied, "Never mind gold leaves, even the shops selling gold jewelry on the floor I searched were completely empty. There were plenty of signs of fighting, too. Scavengers from the past probably looted the place."

Su Mu nodded. He was just about to order the tattooed man through the door when he suddenly froze.

He turned to Yang Dongqing. "How many people did we bring out with us this time?"

Yang Dongqing looked confused, seemingly thinking Su Mu was asking a moronic question. "Just these two!"

"Two?" Su Mu narrowed his eyes, his gaze faintly visible behind his Tinted Glasses. In his memory, they had indeed brought two people, but why did it feel so incredibly wrong?

The entire Bronze Coffin Company only had two employees?

"No! Not two, but seven!" A barely perceptible gleam of azure light flashed in Su Mu's eyes.

Yang Dongqing gave him a weird look. "Are you running a fever? Where would seven people come from?"

"Even though my memory doesn't have seven people, I expended enough mental energy for seven right before we left! I remember hypnotizing them prior to our departure. My memory says I hypnotized two people, but the mental energy I spent doesn't lie!" Su Mu said with absolute certainty.

He finally realized what was wrong. His memory had been tampered with!

Yang Dongqing's expression changed slightly. "You mean..."

Right at that moment, completely unnoticed by anyone, the thick fog within the wooden door continuously churned, and wisps of mist began to seep into the room.

"Any discoveries down there?" Su Mu asked.

The two men shook their heads. The tattooed man replied, "Never mind gold leaves, even the shops selling gold jewelry on the floor I searched were completely empty. Scavengers from the past probably looted the place."

Su Mu nodded and told the tattooed man, "Go inside and check out the situation."

There was no way he would let Yang Dongqing risk going in. Nobody knew what was in there, and he didn't want to lose a top subordinate for nothing.

The tattooed man hesitated, but under Su Mu's gaze, he quickly rallied his spirits and said with unwavering duty, "Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Director! I definitely won't let you down!"

He strode toward the fog-filled wooden door, his silhouette gradually swallowed by the mist.

"Fuck! What the hell is this?!" Yang Dongqing cried out, pointing in disbelief at the door inside the shop.

Su Mu looked over at the sound and frowned. A door billowing with heavy fog?

"There's nothing at all behind this door. Could this lead to Hell?" Yang Dongqing said warily.

"Go inside and check out the situation," Su Mu said to the balding man beside him.

When the balding man looked at the bottomless fog, his heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He backed away repeatedly. "No, no, no, I'm scared."

Su Mu's eyes flashed, and the balding man suddenly changed into a completely different person. "Thank you for giving me this opportunity, Director! Everything for the Director!"

The balding man then strode into the doorway, his silhouette swallowed by the thick fog.

"Fuck! What the hell?!" Yang Dongqing cried out, pointing in disbelief at the door inside the shop.

Su Mu looked over at the sound and frowned. A door without any walls around it, yet billowing with heavy fog inside?

"There's nothing at all behind this door, but there's heavy fog inside. Could this lead to Hell?" Yang Dongqing said warily.

Su Mu instinctively wanted to send Yang Dongqing inside to scout out the situation, but he suddenly froze. This didn't fit his behavioral logic. According to his reasoning, when facing a place with unknown dangers, the optimal solution was to send ordinary people in first. Yang Dongqing was the only transcendent under his command; it would be a massive loss if he perished inside.

But right now, it was only him and Yang Dongqing here.

A bizarre feeling surged in his chest.

Why had he only brought Yang Dongqing with him when heading out?

His memory and logic clashed. This was completely unreasonable, because he rarely went out on his own. Even after becoming a transcendent, he still had the habit of bringing lackeys along. Transcendents were not invincible; ultimately, there was strength in numbers.

Only the two of them were on this Bronze Coffin exploration mission? Bronze Coffin was a shell corporation with no employees at all?

Was Murong Mengli really so useless that she couldn't even recruit anyone?

More and more logical loopholes appeared in Su Mu's mind, yet his memory insisted that everything was perfectly normal. The sense of wrongness grew stronger and stronger.

Abruptly, he asked, "How did we get to the Abandoned District?"

Yang Dongqing was deeply puzzled, looking at Su Mu as if he were an idiot. "We drove here, obviously."

"How many cars did we take?"

"Two," Yang Dongqing answered without thinking, but right after saying it, he completely froze. "Two cars? Why would the two of us take two cars?"

His eyes suddenly went wide. He had clearly realized something, and he whipped his head toward Su Mu. "It must be because you're so difficult! You didn't want to ride in the same car as me, so we took two."

Su Mu: "..."

Although he had long known that Yang Dongqing's blockhead couldn't be relied upon, he had never expected the man to be this obtuse.