Chapter 589: The Fourth Path

I memorized the locations of these three rooms and continued downstairs.

"There are security cameras in the elevators, and there is a fire escape on both the left and right." These were the only three ways up and down the building. I immediately ruled out the elevators. The cramped space guaranteed I would be caught on camera, and if something unexpected happened, I would have nowhere to run.

Even without that logic, I had harbored an inexplicable fear of elevators ever since the heavens set my death date. The last time I took one, I had nearly died, and it left me with a deep, lingering trauma.

I strode toward the left fire escape. Only when I pushed the door open did I hear footsteps. Someone had stepped out of the suite and was following me.

'The people from the sects shouldn't be able to tell that I'm testing them, right?' In the dead of night, the fire escape's lights were dim. The staircase seemed to stretch on endlessly, evoking an unspeakable sense of dread, as if urging anyone inside to sprint downstairs and desperately flee the building.

No one stopped me. I reached the thirteenth floor and slipped inside. I had been here before; it was a recreational hall equipped with various indoor entertainment facilities and a moderately sized swimming pool.

'Below the sixth floor is a standard hotel. The sixth to tenth floors are private lounges and banquet rooms. The further down I go, the more complicated the layout becomes, and the greater my chances of escape.' At past three in the morning, the thirteenth floor was completely empty. I glanced at the clear water of the pool, stepped into the locker room, and closed the door. Circulating the Profound Truth Mental Method, I channeled true qi into the acupoints in both ears and listened in the stillness.

Three distinct breathing patterns echoed from the thirteenth-floor fire escape. They clearly knew I was hiding on this floor, but to avoid alerting me and exposing themselves, they didn't rashly enter.

'They can pinpoint my location. My first hypothesis about that talisman is confirmed—it really does have tracking and guiding abilities.' The plan for two days from now allowed no room for error. I had to be extremely cautious.

I stayed there for half an hour. The three people in the fire escape remained right where they were, displaying immense patience.

I grinned. I wasn't going to waste any more time with them. I pushed the door open and headed downstairs.

I took a winding path along the way, thoroughly mapping out the interior layout of these floors in Century New Garden.

To an outsider, it might have looked like I was wandering blindly like a headless fly, but I was actually using this opportunity to search for a hidden path.

I had never forgotten that my first direct confrontation with Lu Xing took place right here in Century New Garden.

That happened before the fifth livestream began. Back then, Lu Jin had invited Tie Ningxiang to a banquet. To intercept and kill them to obtain the General Star Divine Fiends, Lu Xing hadn't hesitated to release a fully matured Fate Ghost.

In the end, it was only by using a redeemed thunder talisman that I managed to destroy Lu Xing's Fate Ghost. However, something still puzzled me even now. Lu Xing had fled upstairs, and the arriving police and security guards had completely blocked off the fire escapes and elevators. So how had he left Century New Garden?

A living person couldn't just sprout wings and fly away. Therefore, I was convinced that Century New Garden hid a fourth path to the outside world.

Lu Xing had escaped through this very fourth path. I hadn't had the time to investigate it before, but now was the perfect opportunity for a careful search.

The people from the sects were keeping their distance, afraid of being discovered. Since they could pinpoint my location, they weren't worried about losing me. It was this exact carelessness that gave me the chance to search for the hidden passage.

Recalling Lu Xing's escape route, I searched for a solid half hour before accidentally stumbling upon a passage that wasn't exactly a passage.

A multi-purpose high-rise like Century New Garden had extremely strict requirements for ventilation and lighting. Every floor was equipped with central air conditioning, making the internal ductwork incredibly complex.

When I reached the banquet hall on the seventh floor, I inadvertently noticed a square vent, about forty centimeters wide, located above a bathroom stall.

'A ventilation duct?' Seeing it, I quickly walked away, my expression unchanged, though my mind raced. 'Could Lu Xing have escaped through the ventilation ducts?'

Countless movies featured plots where secret agents crawled through hotel ventilation ducts to infiltrate a specific room and carry out a mission.

In reality, however, using ducts to access a specific room was virtually impossible. A hotel's internal duct system was highly complex, documented across no less than a hundred blueprints. Finding the target room and mapping out a route from those blueprints would be no easy task.

The difficulties didn't stop there. Standard supply ducts contained heavy fans, making entry and exit completely impossible.

Furthermore, ventilation ducts were typically made of thin galvanized sheet metal, which would struggle to support an adult's weight.

When HVAC maintenance workers occasionally entered the ducts to work, they brought specialized tools. The interior wasn't an empty crawlspace; it was fitted with duct silencers, smoke exhaust fire dampers, and other equipment. The only way to pass through would be to dismantle these components first.

Thinking about it this way, escaping the building through the ventilation system seemed unfeasible. However, seeing that specific vent in the bathroom made me hesitate.

Normally, the diameter of a bathroom exhaust duct wouldn't exceed sixteen centimeters. The ducts here weren't used to supply fresh air, but to extract the bathroom's odors.

To maintain equalized air pressure inside and outside the room, the exhaust volume was typically eighty percent of the fresh air volume. As a result, bathroom exhaust ducts were much smaller than the supply ducts in the main halls.

Yet the exhaust duct I had just seen was absurdly large. An adult could easily squeeze inside without any trouble.

'Could this be the fourth path Lu Xing took to escape?' Knowing the sect members were trailing me, I didn't climb up to check. Instead, I just kept walking aimlessly to create a false impression.

I slowly wandered down to the next floor. The bathroom exhaust duct here was small. I took one glance and immediately left.

Floor by floor, I made my way down. As I neared the bottom of the building, I suddenly realized a rather awkward problem: no one was actually trying to stop me!

'Am I supposed to just stroll out the front door? This is completely different from my original plan. Aren't these sect members acting a little too fake?'

Just as I was hesitating over whether to intentionally expose my position, the blinding beam of a flashlight pierced the darkness, making me instinctively shield my eyes.

"Sneaking around! Halt!"

This sudden voice resolved my awkward situation. An imperceptible smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. Looking up, I saw the man shouting at me was pudgy, with a fat head and large ears, wearing a gray security uniform.

"Shi Youfu?"

Seeing him, I was a bit surprised myself.

Right now, the fat security captain looked the picture of devotion to his duty. Gripping his flashlight, he stood side-by-side with another security guard wielding a baton. He pointed aggressively at me. "I saw you on the cameras ages ago! Why are you running around blindly in the middle of the night instead of staying in your room?"

Shi Youfu was incredibly smug, acting as if he had just cracked a major criminal case. With a proud look on his face, he said in a mocking tone, "Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, you definitely have some ulterior motive!"

He pulled out his walkie-talkie and started notifying the security team. The peaceful night was completely shattered.

I hid my smile, though I was blooming with joy inside.

Eager to claim credit, Shi Youfu even called Jiang Chen. The Jiang family's young master, oblivious to the underlying situation, immediately notified the sect members.

Encountering such a foolish teammate, the sect cultivators could no longer keep up their act. They emerged from the shadows, pretending they had just been woken up, their faces painted with dissatisfaction and anger.

Seeing their expressions, Shi Youfu and the belatedly arriving Jiang Chen became even more convinced they had accomplished something great, their words dripping with pride.

The sect cultivators couldn't voice their grievances, so they decided to vent all their simmering fury onto me.

"Gao Jian, where are you going?" The first to speak was Wei Jianming. Young and hot-headed, he had followed me through the building for nearly half an hour, and his patience had long since worn away.

I ignored him, looking instead toward the end of the hallway. Aside from Wei Jianming, three other people stood there: the senior martial brother of the Golden Mountain Sect, Wei Wenming; Lu Chen; and Chen Jiuge.

All four were neatly dressed in Daoist robes, without a single hair out of place. It was obvious at a glance that they had been prepared for a while; they absolutely hadn't rushed over after a sudden notification.

I saw through it but didn't point it out. My mind was focused on another problem entirely.

Using Breath Listening, I had only detected the breathing of three people. Yet, in reality, there had been four people trailing me!

Among the four, one of them had completely concealed their aura, making it impossible for Breath Listening to perceive their presence.

I compared the frequencies and characteristics of their breathing, but I still couldn't be entirely certain who it was.

'Is it Chen Jiuge?' Compared to the dream, the Chen Jiuge in reality was slightly more terrifying. However, this only deepened my resolve to kill him.

"I'm asking you a question! Where are you going?"

Wei Jianming's voice was much louder than before. I rolled my eyes at him. "Do I need to report to you about where I'm going?"

"Daoist Master Xu Yan asked you to stay over for your own good, in case you did something foolish." Wei Wenming stepped forward to speak for his junior martial brother. He waved a hand to dismiss the security guards. "We will handle things here. You did well. Keep up the good work."

Wei Wenming's voice was lukewarm, betraying neither sorrow nor joy. Eager to take credit, Shi Youfu trotted off happily. Jiang Chen, on the other hand, seemed to have noticed something amiss; he cupped his hands in a polite salute and retreated to the first floor.

"Alright, there are no outsiders present now." Wei Wenming put on an earnest and well-meaning expression. "You are the Ghost Mother's husband. We want to execute the Ghost Mother, but we worried you'd be caught in a dilemma, which is why we invited you to stay here. We were afraid it would be difficult for you."

"Exactly! Like a dog biting Lu Dongbin fails to recognize a good heart!" Wei Jianming chimed in. The two put on a very convincing act. If I hadn't discovered that talisman in advance, I might have actually believed them.

"Imprisoning me is for my own good?" I scoffed disdainfully. "If that's truly the case, then I appreciate your goodwill. Let's part ways here!"

"Still thinking of leaving? You dare act so brazenly in front of us..."

I didn't care what Wei Jianming said after that. I turned around and walked away without looking back.

The youngest, Wei Jianming, couldn't tolerate my unyielding attitude. At some point, a talisman radiating golden light had appeared in his hand. "I told you to stop!"