Chapter 120: The First Level of Ghost Ninjutsu

It was still nighttime when Jiang Luyu and I agreed to start the operation at dawn. Jiang Luyu went ahead to deploy his men, while I notified the director of the Z City Police Department, Fang Panguo, and Baker, arranging for them to secretly assist Jiang Luyu and me in the rescue mission. Once all preparations were complete, everyone quietly awaited the arrival of the next day.

June passed swiftly. At sunrise, heralded by a rooster’s crow, our units were already lurking near the Qinghua Group headquarters. Jiang Luyu and I, as the main forces of the operation, naturally infiltrated deep into enemy territory, accompanied by a workplace elite named Wang Yong.

I hadn’t realized Wang Yong’s talents were being wasted. His professional skills were remarkably sharp; no wonder he had risen to a managerial position in less than a month. The three of us formed a formidable trio: two workplace elites and one rookie—me. Jiang Luyu was the young master of the influential Jiang Group, and Wang Yong was the sales general manager at the Wang Group headquarters. Each of them was fluent in multiple languages and far more socially adept than I was.

Dressed in suits, we entered the Qinghua Group as job applicants. Luckily, with Wang Yong and Jiang Luyu providing cover, my broken Japanese wouldn’t give us away. Otherwise, the mission would have been compromised from the start.

The Qinghua Group was no small enterprise. It ranked within the top 100 groups in Z City and boasted one of the ten tallest headquarters buildings. Its annual pure profit exceeded one billion.

Our three pairs of polished leather shoes stepped inside the Qinghua Group. Instantly, I sensed an atmosphere unlike any other—a gentle, otherworldly energy permeated the air, soothing and comforting. No wonder the group had so many members; they came for this very feeling.

“Gentlemen, you seem unfamiliar here. Please present your membership cards,” a melodious voice chimed from a female staff member before us. I didn’t understand her because she spoke fluent Japanese. Perhaps my patriotic bias meant I only mastered the languages of China’s fifty-six ethnic groups besides my native tongue.

None of us had membership cards. Surprised that entry required one, Wang Yong and I exchanged confused glances with Jiang Luyu.

“Oh, right. Here are our three membership cards. We’re new members; please verify them,” Jiang Luyu said, pulling out three cards from his pocket and handing them to the woman.

Jiang Luyu, having studied in Japan, spoke Japanese so fluently it almost surpassed his native dialect. Watching him, I felt a strange discomfort, like looking at a traitor. Perhaps this was the instinctive resistance every Chinese person felt toward Japan.

With the immediate crisis averted, we boarded the elevator and followed Jiang Luyu up to the tenth floor.

On the way, I asked Jiang Luyu how he had gotten those membership cards. He shrugged and said, “How else? I didn’t face this before, so the priority was to steal the cards of three people nearby.”

As we neared the tenth floor, Jiang Luyu pressed a hidden button. Suddenly, the staircase began to plummet rapidly.

Passing the first floor, I heard a woman outside complain, “Why is the elevator so slow?”

“Whoosh.”

It felt as if the elevator box had broken through a barrier. A sudden dizziness hit me hard. When we regained composure, the elevator doors slid open, revealing a pitch-black corridor without a single light.

“This is the secret first level of the Qinghua Group. Be careful not to touch anything. No matter what you encounter, do not speak to them,” Jiang Luyu warned, pulling out night-vision goggles and stepping out first.

Wang Yong and I activated our demon corpse eyes and followed. The moment I stepped out, the elevator shot upward at light speed, as if powered by liquid propulsion.

The corridor was pitch dark and incredibly long. However, Wang Yong and I saw clearly, being night-dwellers. As for Jiang Luyu, a wealthy man, I wasn’t sure how good his night-vision goggles were—only a handful of such high-end devices existed worldwide, and they were exorbitantly expensive.

The corridor walls were made of pitch-black stone slabs and blocks. They had clearly invested heavily to build this underground headquarters. Jiang Luyu said it had seventeen floors—perhaps modeled after China’s eighteen levels of hell.

The corridor stretched hundreds of meters. The elevator button glowed faintly with a sickly green light in the distance. No sooner had we walked a few dozen meters than trouble arose.

“Beep beep, clack clack, beep beep, clack clack.” The sounds resembled dripping water, but I sensed something more sinister. It felt as if a creature was drooling behind me, the sticky drops landing on my neck. Yet when I looked back, nothing was there.

“This place is creepy—more sinister than I am as a demon corpse. I feel like something’s following us, but I can’t see it!” I confessed anxiously to Jiang Luyu and Wang Yong, who led the way.

“You’ve activated the ghost ninja. I told you not to speak, but you had to say something. Now we’re in trouble!” Jiang Luyu scolded.

At his words, the black stones nearby shifted, transforming one by one into doors. With eerie “tick-tock” sounds, pairs of withered, skeletal hands reached out from the doors.

“I’m flesh and blood—I can’t withstand their torment. I’ll head to the stairs on the opposite side. Cover me!” Jiang Luyu said, sprinting toward the green-lit button, brandishing his katana.

True to form, Jiang Luyu escaped first. As soon as he opened the elevator, the ghost ninjas retreated from him, suspiciously. Instead, they shifted their focus to surround Wang Yong and me, blocking our path completely. Reaching Jiang Luyu now seemed almost impossible.

The only option was to eliminate these zombie-like ghost ninjas.

Each was wrapped in white cloth, dripping with a milky-white liquid—disgusting beyond words. The more disgusting they appeared, the harder it was to strike.

“I can’t take this anymore!” I roared.

“Bang!”

Rather than letting these revolting creatures crawl all over me and choke my neck, I decided to strike them dead with a palm strike each. Though the ghost ninjas were weak, the milky liquid splattered everywhere, making Wang Yong and me almost vomit.

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