Chapter 595: Unnoticed

"Fleeing for your life?" Wang Shi noticed something off in my tone. "Are you being hunted? And why do I have to wait until seven fifty in the morning to leave?"

The old fox wasn't actually concerned about me. He just wanted to get the facts straight so he wouldn't be dragged down with me.

"Just stay in the room. Someone will deliver food tomorrow at eight in the morning, and it's best if they don't see you." I waved him off, cutting the chitchat short. Shoving the Underworld Live Show Phone into my pocket, I walked over to the window.

"Wait, explain this clearly. Why do I have to stay here? Where are you going tonight?" Since fusing with Daoist Master Xu Yan's talisman, Wang Shi had become a special entity, neither human nor ghost. That very uniqueness left him with a deep sense of insecurity.

"Don't ask so many questions. Just do as I say. Whatever you do, do not leave this room. It's best if you stay in bed and pretend to be fast asleep." Wang Shi tried to argue, but I cut him off. "Remember, I'm the one who brought you out of the Yin-Yang Boundary. If you ever want a physical body again so you can live like a normal person, just follow my instructions."

Wang Shi was a smart man, and with smart men, a simple reminder was enough.

He stopped pressing the issue. Understanding what I meant, he lay down and pulled the covers up, even adopting the exact same posture I usually slept in.

'That should fool them,' I thought. Wang Shi was doing an even better job than I had expected. I nodded, turned around, and pulled back a corner of the curtain to look down.

This was the sixteenth floor. From up here, I couldn't even make out the pedestrians on the ground below.

The late autumn night wind carried a biting chill. I wiped the sweat from my palms to keep them dry.

Circulating the Profound Truth Mental Method, I channeled true qi into the Yifeng acupoint behind my ear, straining to listen to the noises on the fifteenth floor.

The blare of a television, the splash of a shower, the whir of an air conditioning unit, and the sound of footsteps...

'That man and woman are both there.' If I went down right now, I'd likely be spotted. But if I waited for the couple downstairs to fall asleep, I probably wouldn't get to stream at all tonight.

'That hypnosis I just learned is going to come in handy. If it doesn't work, I'll just have to knock them out and hide them.' Hidden behind the curtain, I made absolutely sure Wang Shi couldn't see me before taking out the Human Skin Mask and slipping it on. This face was my trump card, and I wasn't going to let anyone find out about it.

Fully prepared, I gripped the windowsill with both hands and swung one leg outside.

Hearing the noise, Wang Shi glanced back. His eyes went wide, completely baffled by what I was doing.

'I need to be fast. The longer I hang around out here, the greater the chances of getting spotted.' I hesitated no longer. Fixing the exact position of the fifteenth-floor air conditioning unit in my mind, I swung my other leg out as well.

By now, more than half my body was hanging in midair. Relying solely on my arms for support, I slowly adjusted my position.

Taking a deep breath, I abruptly let go and dropped toward the outdoor unit.

"Thump!" Both feet landed solidly. I leaned forward and pressed my body tightly against the wall, not daring to make a single unnecessary movement.

'Success.' In the span of barely three seconds, my back had already become drenched in sweat.

Perhaps hearing the noise, someone inside the room started walking toward the window.

I stood motionless on the air conditioning unit and glanced at the window. The curtains were drawn tight, but the window itself wasn't locked.

"What's making that racket?" the speaker was a man with a heavy regional accent. By the time he reached the window, I had already pushed it open. The exact second he pulled back the curtain, I lunged straight into the room.

"What are you doing?!" the man cried out in shock. He tried to stumble back, but it was already too late to dodge.

I tackled him straight to the floor, clapping a hand over his mouth. "Shut up."

The woman was still showering in the bathroom. Hearing the commotion outside, she called out, "You idiot, what's going on out there?"

I squeezed the man's throat with one hand. He whimpered, unable to speak, his eyes filled with absolute terror.

The man was lean and scrawny. Pinned under me, he didn't have the slightest ability to fight back.

"Behave." I took his phone, ripped down the curtain to tie him up, gagged his mouth, and dragged him over to the edge of the bed.

As they said, supreme skill breeds supreme courage. There was still another person in the apartment, but I didn't panic in the slightest. I took out the Misfortune Pocket Watch and recalled the hypnosis techniques Chu Men had taught me.

Hypnotists had many methods of induction, but one specifically designed for manic patients had been deeply inspiring to me.

I made the man close his eyes. He was still trembling constantly from fear, so I circulated my true qi to my fingertips and pressed down on several major acupoints across his body, forcing his tense muscles to relax. Once he stopped shaking and finally calmed down, I told him to open his eyes again.

"I don't want to hurt you. As long as you do exactly as I say, I guarantee neither you nor your wife will be harmed." The man tactfully nodded. I made him lie down on the bed, arranged him in a normal sleeping posture, and then brought out the Misfortune Pocket Watch.

The moment this luxurious watch appeared, it captured the man's full attention—the platinum case, the sapphire glass, and the hands that danced like flickering flames.

"Stare at the hands, and answer a few questions for me." I gently swung the pocket watch back and forth, asking completely trivial questions that required no real thought. Once the man's eyes began to track the watch's swing unconsciously, I initiated the formal hypnosis. "Relax. With every breath, relax further. As I gently rock your head, your neck becomes loose. Feel the relaxation flowing through your entire body..."

My formidable willpower merged into my voice, producing an unexpected effect. My words slowly influenced the man's own thoughts, shaking his resolve—or rather, his will was completely incapable of resisting the invasion of mine, and he quickly surrendered.

His eyelids grew heavy and stuck together, leaving only his pupils to track the watch's sway. What caught my attention, however, was that the Misfortune Pocket Watch seemed to undergo a strange transformation at that exact moment. The blue, flame-like hands on the dial twitched in a bizarre rhythm, like a wicked demon conducting some dark ritual.

The man's arms stiffened, and his thoughts slowly ground to a halt.

I repeated the questions I had asked at the very beginning. The man had already forgotten most of the answers, even starting to confuse basic numbers.

'It's basically a success.' Hypnotizing someone in a state of sheer terror was extremely difficult, yet I had pulled it off on my first try. There were many possible reasons for this: it could have been my formidable willpower, or it might have been the Misfortune Pocket Watch. Of course, I couldn't rule out the possibility that Chu Men's teachings were just that professional.

I reached out and pinched the man's arm. He didn't react at all. Only then did I let out a sigh of relief. 'Loss of pain sensation... this has to be in the realm of a master hypnotist, right?'

Thinking back to Chu Men's smug expression whenever he styled himself a master hypnotist, I shook my head and chuckled softly. I pulled the covers over the man and issued my final command: "You saw no one tonight. You are very sleepy... very sleepy..."

The man fell into a deep sleep. As I sat by the edge of the bed, the sound of running water in the bathroom finally stopped, and the woman walked out wrapped in nothing but a bath towel.

She suddenly spotted a stranger sitting in her room and nearly screamed.

"Who are you? What are you doing in here?"

I raised a finger to my lips in a hushing gesture. "A service your husband ordered. Thai massage."

Acting the perfect gentleman, I had her lie down next to her husband, pulled out the pocket watch, and repeated the entire process from before.

"You haven't seen anyone tonight. Go to sleep. You are very sleepy..."

I closed the window, rehung the curtains, and restored everything to its original state. To ensure I didn't leave any glaring flaws behind, I even untied the woman's bath towel and tossed it back into the bathroom. After all, very few people slept wrapped in a towel.

I pulled the covers over them, shifting my gaze away from the large expanse of snow-white skin. 'No wonder Chu Men said hypnosis shouldn't be taught to outsiders so easily. If someone used this casually, it could cause absolute chaos.'

I had no idea if my hypnosis would leave any lingering side effects on the couple, but this wasn't the time to worry about that. After wiping away my fingerprints and shoeprints, I quickly left the room. Following my pre-planned route and carefully avoiding the security cameras, I made my way down to the seventh-floor banquet hall, slipped into the restroom, and crawled straight into the ventilation duct.

To avoid collapsing the duct under my weight, I crawled very slowly. I didn't run into any obstacles along the way, and in certain spots, I could even make out tiny splatters of dried blood.

'This is exactly how Lu Xing escaped back then.' I braced my hands against the walls of the duct. Now that I was sure the route was safe, I naturally picked up my pace. After passing through several vertical drops and crawling for about ten minutes, the passage was finally blocked by a painted sheet of iron.

I pushed it open, and the dim yellow glow of a streetlamp immediately illuminated my face. Looking down, I saw that I was barely over two meters above the ground.