Chapter 279: The Cicada Sloughs Its Shell

The lobby was a mess, littered with broken glass that crunched underfoot.

I grabbed the police service weapon, abandoned the car with Bai Qi, and ducked into the emergency stairwell.

Most of the internal security cameras in Century New Garden were positioned at the corridor corners. I had memorized their general layout the last time I came here to rescue Tie Ningxiang.

Jiangcheng had been battered by relentless rainstorms lately, causing water levels to rise steadily. As a result, the number of tourists and business travelers visiting the area had sharply declined.

Century New Garden was practically empty. Most of the guest rooms were unoccupied, a fact made obvious by the sparse number of vehicles in the parking lot.

As I made my way up the emergency stairwell, I figured there were close to a hundred police officers stationed outside the building. Chen Jianguo and his team had clearly gone to great lengths to set this trap.

It was one against a hundred—a massive disparity in strength. They were armed with guns, tear gas, and other riot gear. If we were out in the open without any cover, I wouldn't stand a chance of fighting back.

Fortunately, I had decisively driven the police car straight into Century New Garden. The main building was twenty-six stories high; using its complex layout to divide their forces might just give me a glimmer of hope.

I was already on bad terms with the Jiang family and had a bitter grudge against Chen Jianguo. If I fell into their hands, a death sentence was one hundred percent guaranteed. Rather than dying unjustly in prison, I was better off putting everything on the line.

Figuring this out was exactly why I dared to do something so crazy.

Ignoring the police, openly resisting arrest, and fighting back with violence.

I didn't mean to show contempt for the law; I simply wanted to use my own two hands to fight for a shred of the fairness I deserved.

Smashing through the roadblock and fleeing into the building was just the first step of my plan. The main event was yet to come.

When I attended Ye Bing's wedding, I had noticed several luxury cars in the parking lot. Barring any surprises, that Spyker worth over five million and the slightly less expensive Lamborghini belonged to the Jiang family father and son. There was a very good chance they were hiding inside this building right now.

Century New Garden had tight security measures, making it the safest place in Jiangcheng for them. They had guilty consciences; knowing I could silently kill Jiang Long, they were naturally terrified of my revenge. It made perfect sense for them to take refuge here.

Putting it all together, I understood the connection. The Jiang family and the police had set up their perimeter around Century New Garden specifically to prevent me from making a desperate bid for revenge against the Jiang father and son.

"Setting up such a massive formation to 'welcome' me... If I didn't do a little something to return the favor, wouldn't I be letting down your good intentions?" Staring at the security camera in the corner, I chambered a round, clicked off the safety, and casually fired a shot.

"This unrestrained feeling is actually pretty good."

There were too many cameras in the building. Destroying them one by one would take too long. I needed a more effective method.

"The main reason Lu Xing managed to escape last time was because he cut the building's power. Darkness favors the fugitive. But the police should have thought of everything I could think of. The electrical room and the security room will be heavily guarded."

Going up floor by floor, I heard the sound of the elevator arriving as I reached the eighth floor. Three police officers stepped out before the elevator continued its ascent.

"Groups of three, two veterans leading a rookie, conducting a carpet search. This Chen Jianguo really does have some skill." I didn't dare to linger. The police were advancing from both ends using the elevators and the stairs. One careless move, and I'd be caught.

Taking on one or two officers was manageable, but if I were cornered by a fully formed armed police combat squad, I'd have almost no chance of escaping.

Violent resistance to arrest was a serious offense. They already had the authorization to shoot me on sight, so I had to be extremely careful.

I had six bullets left in my police service weapon. As I climbed, I shot out the stairwell security camera on every floor I passed. I only stopped and slipped into the hallway when I was down to two rounds.

Below the sixth floor of Century New Garden were restaurants and dining halls. The sixth through eighteenth floors were guest rooms, and above that were the executive offices for the Jiangjin Group.

I was currently on the twelfth floor. I blew off a door lock with a single shot and quickly scanned the room. It had a standard five-star layout—spacious, but entirely lacking anywhere to hide.

Alerted by the gunshot, people were already approaching. The heavy footsteps of the police echoed from the stairwell.

"Let's stick to the plan and hope nothing else goes wrong." Running aimlessly through the building would inevitably lead to my capture. To break the stalemate, I first needed to hide and vanish from the police's line of sight.

Stepping into the room, I thought back to the plan I had formulated in the car on how the cicada sloughs its shell.

The building was heavily surveilled. The police command center would spot me the moment I stepped anywhere. Blindly hiding wouldn't work; I could only rely on misdirection.

I had to use their own eyes to deceive them.

I walked into the room and shut the door. It would take about thirty seconds for the police to arrive. If they slowed down outside the door to wait for backup, I might have up to sixty seconds.

I kicked open the bathroom door, stripped off my soaked shoes and socks, rolled up my pant legs, and stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

"Fate Ghost!"

Black hair burrowed into the mirror. I stood perfectly still, but my reflection suddenly blinked.

"I need your help!"

A dozen seconds or so passed. I took off my raincoat and looked at the Fate Ghost stepping out of the mirror.

Its skin tone was rather dark, but its face looked eighty to ninety percent identical to mine.

I draped the raincoat over its shoulders. Bai Qi and I then hid in the bathroom and locked the door from the inside. "Run upstairs and lure the people outside away."

The Fate Ghost walked out, looking as though it only half-understood. Draped in the dark raincoat, it wore an eerie expression, seemingly trying to suppress something.

Just as it reached the doorway, the guest room door was violently kicked open.

"Freeze!" Two police officers stood outside. Seeing the Fate Ghost standing completely still inside the room gave them a fright, but they were well-trained armed police. They recovered in a fraction of a second. One raised his gun and pressed his body against the door to secure it, while the other turned on his radio to report to the command center.

"Get down! Hands on your head!" Real police enforcement was far more violent than what was shown on TV, especially for the first wave of officers securing a crime scene. They had to subdue the criminal as quickly and aggressively as possible.

The officer holding the gun did exactly that. He slowly approached, then suddenly lunged forward, smashing the butt of his rifle into the back of the Fate Ghost's head.

A normal person would have been knocked unconscious by the blow, but the Fate Ghost was absolutely beyond human comparison.

The rifle butt felt like it struck something, yet simultaneously felt like it hit nothing at all. Unable to pull back his strength in time, the momentum carried the officer's body forward, crashing right into the Fate Ghost.

His face slammed into the raincoat. He could feel the freezing rainwater clinging to his cheek—sticky, feeling exactly like cold blood.

'No body heat? How is that possible?' Right before he lost consciousness, he raised his head in sheer terror, his eyes falling directly on the Fate Ghost's head—warped and twisted into a grotesque deformity from the blow.

Before he could even scream, a mass of black hair tangled around his face, forcing its way into his mouth!

Bang! Bang! Two consecutive gunshots rang out from the doorway. The officer who had been reporting over the radio was scared out of his wits. Having never seen anything so bizarre, he fired at the Fate Ghost purely out of instinct.

The bullets pierced through the raincoat, passing clean through its body and shattering the window glass.

The storm blew into the room, showering it with rain as the fierce winds sent the curtains whipping wildly.

Black hair whipped frantically through the air. The Mahayana Fate Ghost hurled the officer in its grasp into the corner of the wall before sweeping past the cop at the doorway like a gust of sinister wind.

"R-report! The wanted fugitive Gao Jian has been spotted on the twelfth floor! He's heading for the thirteenth floor! Also, officer down! I repeat, officer down!"

"Go after him! If the target resists, you are authorized to shoot to kill!" The voice over the radio was ruthless and decisive. It seemed the command center hated my guts to the core.

"Copy that!" He rushed into the room, quickly checked his partner's injuries, and bolted after the fugitive upon seeing his life wasn't in immediate danger.

The half-open door swayed gently. A flurry of chaotic footsteps echoed down the hallway; the police must be converging to chase after the Fate Ghost.

"Are they gone?" I opened the bathroom door and walked over to the injured officer. His eyes were tightly shut in pain. I had no idea what the Fate Ghost had taken from him when it shoved its hair down his throat, but he looked incredibly weak.

"Just rest easy here." I was just about to take his service weapon and radio when the sound of footsteps echoed from the corridor once more. Their target was crystal clear—they were heading straight for this room.