Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 288

Chapter 288

After Zhou Chuanning left, Xiling You poked her head out and peered into the room, only to discover with a jolt that Gu Huaiwei wasn’t there.

“Looking for me?”

Gu Huaiwei appeared off to her rear side.

“You!” Xiling You took a step back, then quickly steadied herself. She frowned slightly. “You already knew I was here.”

“Mm.” Gu Huaiwei didn’t deny it.

Sometimes she liked playing little pranks, scaring the people who were always watching her.

“How did you get behind me?”

Gu Huaiwei shrugged indifferently. “Nothing special. I just walked out, only a little faster than usual. You just didn’t see it clearly.”

Xiling You was full of wariness.

“Tell me about the Xiling Family.” Gu Huaiwei lifted her eyes. Behind her lenses, they seemed especially bright. She grabbed Xiling You’s wrist and leaned in. “Does this Dimension have a Xiling Family too? Or did you come from the same place I did?”

“Why should I tell you?” Xiling You had no intention of telling Gu Huaiwei any of this. Besides, she felt that Gu Huaiwei was standing far too close.

She tried to pull her wrist back without making it obvious, but Gu Huaiwei only tightened her grip.

“You don’t want to stay in the Sanatorium?”

Xiling You gave a light laugh. “Don’t lump me together with the other ordinary people in this world.”

“Oh? Then that means you really did come from the same world as me.”

Xiling You’s brows furrowed, and she retorted, “I never said that.”

Gu Huaiwei stared at Xiling You. Her makeup was exquisite, her lashes curled, her lipstick cold and striking, even her brows shaped into a carefully crafted arch.

“You’re very beautiful.” Gu Huaiwei spoke as though she were evaluating a work of art.

Xiling You looked displeased. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“Nothing. It’s just…” Gu Huaiwei released her wrist. The corners of her lips lifted into a gentle smile. “I really want to know about the Xiling Family. But since you won’t tell me, then I can only…”

Gu Huaiwei paused, rubbing the fabric at her cuff with her fingers before lifting her eyes to Xiling You. “Do something not so friendly to you.”

Before the last word had even fallen, naked malice seemed to thicken the air.

In an instant, Xiling You drew the gun at her waist and pulled the trigger without hesitation, firing several shots in rapid succession.

The muzzle flash lit up her icy features. The bullets tore through the air, carrying lethal intent as they shot straight toward Gu Huaiwei.

But Gu Huaiwei could clearly see the spinning trajectory of each bullet, the ripples spreading through the air, and the faint glint reflected from the warheads.

Everything slowed down, as though someone had pressed a slow-motion button.

She tilted her head slightly. A bullet brushed past her temple, sweeping up a strand of hair and carving a sharp arc through the darkness.

Just as Xiling You was about to keep firing, a fierce gust of wind suddenly cut through the air.

Gu Huaiwei’s figure flashed. With a sharp kick, the gun in Xiling You’s hand was sent flying at once. It spun through the air, slammed into a distant wall, and let out a dull metallic clang.

“You can dodge bullets?! You’re not even human!” Xiling You’s expression changed abruptly. She reached back to draw the second gun at her waist, only to freeze all at once.

A cold blade was already pressed to her throat.

The icy metal rested against her skin. With the slightest pressure, the sharp edge could split her delicate flesh and draw beads of crimson blood.

“Darling, even if you can’t win, you shouldn’t go around insulting people,” Gu Huaiwei said lightly. “Now then, can we finally have a proper talk about the Xiling Family?”

Interrogation was a technical skill, and Gu Huaiwei wasn’t very good at it.

Still, she had no intention of doing it personally.

Mu Lanwo secreted a kind of mucus that had the miraculous effect of making people tell the truth. The only requirement was that there could be no bystanders during the interrogation.
Gu Huaiwei only cared about the outcome. As for the process, she didn’t care in the slightest.

She made a list of everything she wanted to know and handed it to Mu Lanwo.

Watching Mu Lanwo nod gently and accept it, Gu Huaiwei had originally wanted to comfort her with, “No rush. Take your time with it.”

But when she thought of Mu Lanwo’s temperament-the kind that would stay unhurried even if the sky were falling-the words changed by the time they left her mouth.

“Move faster. Finish all of this before the Dimension Jump.”

Mu Lanwo really did deliver the intelligence related to the Xiling Family to Gu Huaiwei right on the eve of the Dimension Jump.

The Xiling Family was one of Paradise’s worshippers.

They had taken in many orphans and raised them to adulthood, only to offer them up to Paradise as sacrifices. In return, Paradise provided them with endless wealth from other Dimensions, allowing the family to remain undefeated for years and become the stuff of legend.

Among those children sacrificed to Paradise, some were offered up as intact corpses, while of others, not even a corpse remained.

Xiling You had never truly entered Paradise.

What she carried out was a different assignment: cooperating with the family’s internal spatial experiments and going to the Dimension World to find a way to establish a reliable interdimensional passage.

“In the past, the Xiling Family would assist the Dimension Operator chosen by Paradise, providing money and manpower. But this one-sided worship gradually turned into a transaction between both sides.”

“The Xiling Family’s ambition also slowly grew. In the Dimension Operator, they saw something even more valuable than gold and jewels. They began to feel dissatisfied with the deals Paradise offered them, dissatisfied with their status as worshippers. They tried to pry the secret of crossing space from the Dimension Operator, hoping to seize the treasures of other Dimensions directly.”

“Paradise does not allow that.”

“But Paradise has already been sealed, and the six creators inside have no way to leave it.”

Mu Lanwo spoke very slowly, but she completed her task with remarkable thoroughness. From Xiling You, she had dug out every last secret.

When Gu Huaiwei went to see Xiling You, Xiling You had grown visibly thinner. She had no external injuries, but when she saw Gu Huaiwei, she sat quietly in her chair, her expression ashen, looking at her with a complicated gaze.

“What kind of monster are you, exactly?”

“You come from the Xiling Family. You should know that all Dimension Operators are human.”

Xiling You suddenly laughed. “No. In the end, all of you become monsters. Ageless, undying, possessing power far beyond that of humans, and then getting lost in some small Dimension. If that isn’t a monster, what is?”

Gu Huaiwei snapped her fingers. “I prefer to call it the harder you work, the luckier you get.”

“Once you’re lost, the halo fades.” The effects of Mu Lanwo’s drug still hadn’t worn off, and Xiling You laid bare the malice in her heart without the slightest attempt to hide it. “The road to Paradise won’t be that smooth. I’ll be waiting to see the retribution that belongs to you.”

Gu Huaiwei had Xiling You sent away.

Xiling You probably went to find Zhou Chuanning. In any case, after she left, Gu Huaiwei had no idea where she’d gone, and she never saw her again.

When the day of the Dimension Jump arrived, it was no different from any ordinary day.

Gu Huaiwei didn’t make any special effort to say goodbye to anyone.

As usual, she stayed at her post and finished the last day’s work. In the morning, she greeted Xia Wenxin, who was up exercising, and teased the child of Zhang Wenwu and Qin Yuhuan.

That afternoon, she and four Assistant vanished from the Sanatorium.

Without a sound.

Like air suddenly being pulled away.