Chapter 284 - The First Floor Intersection (1/2)

My spirits lifted partially when I saw the six different holes. Lin Feng often carried six throwing darts with him and each of them shaped variously. It must have been Big Sister, Lin Feng, and Chongxi who had just exited the elevator and they must have also realized the peculiarities about this place.

Naturally, Big Sister must have already realized this when I stabbed my sword through the wall. That reminded me of the movement of the elevator when they were coming up to the second floor. The elevator had to stop for a short extended moment on the second floor before coming up to the third. Then I noticed. This means that the elevator could have returned to the first floor to initiate the transition from the Real World to the Fog World… But if that’s true…

Then I remembered, of all the buttons in the elevator, only “1”— the first floor—has no twin! There was only one button for “1”!

Edelweiss saw me grinning and asked, “What is it?” “The first floor,” I said, “That’s where these two different dimensions intersect! The middle-ground between both the Real World and the Fog World! And I’m betting that Big Sister too has discovered what we’re in now.” As I said, I used my sword to scratch the taijitu symbol, the round black-and-white symbol that represented Yin and Yang, to illustrate my hypothesis to her. Big Sister and the others were now separated from us like the Yin and Yang parts of the symbol.

We waited in the dark for quite some time. So long that I would have thought they had left. I was just about to give up waiting when an invisible hand scratched a tick just below my taijitu symbol. I chuckled and thought, Well, at least Chongxi is in his vigilant self now.

Then, a single English letter appeared. A capital T. “Huh?” Edelweiss gasped. But I raised a hand to calm her, signaling for patience.

And indeed, three little vertical lines with rising lengths appeared beside the capital T, drawn to illustrate the symbol for cell phone signal. Then a cross appeared to denote the failure of our cell phone signals. A comprehending “Ah” slipped past her lips as Edelweiss understood finally. So Big Sister and the others had tried calling us, but to no avail.

I paused to think, then I drew a capital Y and added a circle right below the base of the alphabet. Seconds later, Big Sister returned with a tick above the Y alphabet.

I flashed nods to Na San and Edelweiss. It was time we press on.

We rushed through floors second to ninth without any trouble. Every floor looked almost the same and every one of them was empty. There was no one at all. Finally, as we prepared to board the elevator for the tenth floor, we gulped hard. The tenth floor. The boss level, where Mr. Huang would be waiting. We knew that Mr. Huang took up lodging at his office so, Heaven forbid, he would be there licking his lips with anticipation for our arrival. There was no way he was unaware of our presence given all the brouhaha we had caused.

The doors of the elevator slid open with the ominous chime of the bell that sounded like a death toll and the dark hallway, with not even one lighted lamp, only seemed to portend the terrible showdown waiting for us. We stepped out of the illumination of the elevator and the doors closed behind us, allowing darkness to engulf us whole, casting us all into a somber mood as my grip tightened around the hilt of my sword. I led Edelweiss and Na San ahead, pacing briskly through the same cubicles we had come by in the day.

The twin doors leading into Mr. Huang’s office was ajar when we arrived. I looked to Edelweiss and Na San to make sure that we were ready. Na San shifted instinctively to stand in front of me and he pushed it open before I could, storming in before I could stop him! But what was inside shocked us greater. Inside the office was contrary to what we were expecting! Mr. Huang’s office was a black hole of silence and stillness, only an eerie shade that welcomed us in. Na San proceeded carefully; he would know better than to let his guard down in a seemingly-empty office. With his shamanic drum held out and his other hand with the drumstick on the ready, he inched step-by-step, stealthily as he could, until we reached the door behind his desk and chair. The one that led to Mr. Huang’s little humble abode, his one-room dormitory.

I placed my hand on the handle and I took a deep breath. Then, as quickly as I could, I swung it open with a whoosh and Na San began hitting on his drum. Only what came out of his drum was not the sharp ratatata or tumtumtum of normal drums, but instead the rumble of thunders!

But the thunderclap hardly lasted long. Na San’s hands lowered right after one beat. And we sighed. There was also no one here in this dingy little room, modestly furnished with a little safe, a creaking iron-wrought bed, a matching bedside cabinet, and a sink.

We looked at each other and relaxed finally. All that tenseness and anxiety, we grinned at each other, only for nothing. So Mr. Huang was not here. That could mean that he could be waiting in his office in the Fog World.