The sandalwood box opened with a soft click.
Li Ran felt as though he had barely exerted any effort to open it
How come Song Linjia couldn’t?
But he quickly figured it out.
He could sense a mysterious power hidden within the sandalwood box—this power felt very similar to the eerie force inside his own body.
That explained why Song Linjia couldn’t open it, yet he could do so with ease.
After all, Song Linjia had only completed the introductory guidance task and had just 10 points of eerie force.
Whereas Li Ran currently possessed 100 points—ten times more than her.
That’s why he could open the sandalwood box without resistance.
[Eerie Force Perfume: A sandalwood-scented eerie force perfume sold by Lankor. It not only has a long-lasting fragrance, but also temporarily boosts eerie force value.]
The description on the system panel made Li Ran’s eyes light up.
This thing was more than just perfume—it could actually increase eerie force, like a powerful buff.
“A good find!”
Unfortunately,
This thing… was probably made for women.
Not that men can’t wear perfume…
But Li Ran just wasn’t in the habit of using it.
“Forget it, I’ll save it for later.”
The late-autumn sky darkened even earlier than usual.
By 5:30 in the afternoon, night had already fallen.
Arriving at the foot of Building One, Li Ran paused.
The oppressive presence brought by Wang Qian that morning still lingered in his heart.
And now, the killer Wang Qian was in the same building as him, and on the only path up to his apartment via the elevator.
He was being hunted. For all he knew, Wang Qian might be waiting right now in the elevator or the hallway.
If Wang Qian appeared, he could kill him in the blink of an eye.
Li Ran put himself in his enemy’s shoes, analyzing his current situation.
Clearly, taking the elevator or the stairs would both be extremely dangerous.
It wasn’t that Li Ran was being overly cautious—he simply had no choice. In this strange world, he had to calculate every step with care.
“I still have to go home. Otherwise, I can’t complete the quest triggered by my ex-wife.”
The quest [Repair the Broken Family] had only one outcome for failure: death.
That meant, no matter how high his eerie force value was, if he failed the quest, he would still die in the end.
So he had to go home. He had to gain the trust of Su Bingyao and Li Ziyang as quickly as possible, become the true head of the family, and mend the rift.
Even though he had no desire to return—after all, what he faced wasn’t human.
But for the quest, for survival, he had to go back, no matter how unwilling.
Which led to the real question: if he couldn’t take the elevator or the stairs… how could he get home?
Darkness quickly swallowed the entire high-rise, with only a few dim lights flickering on.
“Oh right, I almost forgot this skill.”
“Shadow Dive!”
Li Ran decisively activated the Shadowstep skill attached to the Shadowstep Bracer.
In the next instant, his entire body merged into the darkness, fusing with the shadows on the ground.
“Whoa, this is incredible.”
Li Ran found himself immersed in a sea of shadow, yet it didn’t feel like being compressed or squeezed—it felt more like sinking underwater, with the normal world floating above his head.
He reached out and touched the border between shadow and reality—his hand passed through easily, meeting no resistance.
He tried moving within the shadows. The perspective above moved with him.
“Damn, this skill is insanely overpowered.”
If a girl in a short skirt walked by right now…
Ahem. In short, this skill was pretty much magical.
Not only could he breathe and walk normally within the shadows—he could even swim up walls.
That’s right—Li Ran was now swimming up the side of the building.
There was no sense of weightlessness; the movement was smooth as silk.
He easily climbed from the first floor to the eighteenth.
Only downside was that moving too fast made the shadow state unstable—if he went too quickly, he might fall out of the shadows.
He had to stick to a walking pace while shadow diving.
But he wasn’t going to be greedy—having this skill alone already made him a powerhouse.
Meanwhile—
An elevator reached the first-floor lobby.
Ding!
The elevator doors opened slowly, and Wang Qian strode out, fierce and furious.
“You little punk, you’re de—”
But in the next second, Wang Qian froze. The lobby was completely empty—not a soul in sight.
“What the hell? Where is he?”
Just as Li Ran had feared, Wang Qian had been waiting for him to come home.
The moment Li Ran entered Building One’s line of sight, Wang Qian had spotted him from above.
He immediately took the elevator down to intercept him and unleash the fury burning in his chest.
Wang Qian glanced at the other elevator—still stuck unmoving on the 9th floor, and scratched his head, puzzled.
The stairs? Even less likely.
He had already rigged them with traps earlier. If the kid dared to take the stairs, he’d be dead for sure!
Bang!
Wang Qian punched the wall in frustration, leaving a deep crater.
“Damn it, did that brat grow wings and fly up!?”
…
Outside his apartment door,
Li Ran paused briefly before entering the code.
He had memorized the password his son entered the day before.
If a husband couldn’t even remember the home entry code, that would be suspicious, wouldn’t it?
“Honey, I’m home…”
As soon as he stepped inside, Li Ran spun around—
A pair of cold, glowing purple eyes appeared before him, exuding an eerie light.
[She’s hypnotizing you, trying to extract some secret from your mind.]
Su Bingyao had clearly been prepared for this. The moment Li Ran entered, she cast a hypnosis spell using her eye technique.
Li Ran’s gaze was overtaken by the strange purple glow. His arms dropped weakly to his sides, his eyes becoming blank and hollow as he stood motionless.
The strange light faded from Su Bingyao’s eyes, replaced by a biting, icy coldness.
There were things she had to confirm—otherwise, she would never be able to forgive her husband.
A man’s words were all lies—not a single one could be trusted.
Her ex-husband’s transformation yesterday had left her deeply uneasy. It wasn’t that change was a bad thing… but if it was just a cover-up, why had he changed so suddenly?
And all the things her husband had done to her in the past—she would never forget them.
She didn’t believe for a second that a man with such a dirty record would change for her.
Since she couldn’t get the truth from his mouth, then she’d pry it out herself.
Her hypnosis could uncover the deepest secrets buried in a man’s heart.
No lie could escape!
Su Bingyao turned and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, sitting down gracefully as she gave a voice of commanding certainty:
“Come here.”
Li Ran’s eyes remained vacant as his puppet-like body stumbled forward.
Su Bingyao had full confidence in her hypnosis.
Once hypnotized, there was no defying her!
“Stand.”
Su Bingyao’s gaze locked firmly onto the obedient Li Ran standing before her.
“I ask a question, you give an answer.”
Li Ran nodded mechanically.
Su Bingyao was quite satisfied with his reaction. Now, she would dig the truth out of this ex-husband’s mouth and finally ease the knot in her heart.
Su Bingyao said: “Give me your phone.”
(End of Chapter)