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Since it is a "cursed stone", it should naturally be a stone, at least on the surface, in the palm of my hand, it is a stone whose weight has been reduced to one-tenth, just enough to be grasped in the right hand, and even the five fingers can feel the finger-shaped grooves on its surface. I had been fascinated by pottery sculptures for a while at an art museum on Hong Kong Island, and it really felt like a piece of clay that had been held so hard that it had been burned dry.

Of course, when you hold it with your right hand, you can only close half of it, and the other half is still exposed.

"Mr. Chen, is your calmness and composure innate, why do you still remain absolutely awake like a piece of ice that cannot be melted when others should be surprised, excited, confused, and unable to hold on?" Charlotte sighed and sat back in her swivel chair.

I stared at the stone for half a minute, then put it back in the box, then slowly paced to the window.

This time, I was forty paces away from my window, and there was a black hole in the sniper rifle on each of the five slightly lower roofs, and the muzzle was pointed in this direction. Even if someone is lucky enough to break the window and jump out, I am afraid that it will become a huge honeycomb in mid-air.

In Lorraine's suicide note, she said that only the "Cursed Stone" was useless, and that a higher intelligence was needed to dig out its usefulness. She is a world-famous great soothsayer, but she only sees this and cannot reveal much more.

"Is higher wisdom some kind of power above the minds of all mankind?" a silent wry smile passed through my heart. I don't know if the professor and Leng Xin have this kind of wisdom, but they have obviously made a breakthrough, but now it's a pity that the heavens don't fulfill people's wishes, and the two of them will be robbed together.

There was a beep, and the LCD screen on the side of the desk lit up, and an old man with a beard was speaking generously, waving his hands in the air.

That is, Professor Leng Hannan and Leng Xin adhered to the expression of my father, and every time I discussed an issue, it was like this, as if a U.S. congressman was participating in a debate in the Senate and House of Representatives.

"Madam, I'm 100 percent sure that I'll get the Wheel of the Sun in ten days—not just five days to a week, and I'll give it to you myself. Keep the stone, it will be mine. The professor is too fond of using modifiers like "certainly, definitely", and probably everyone who has become an authority in the professional field will subconsciously say this to accentuate the tone and maintain his image of "never being in doubt".

Next, Leng Hannan babbled to Charlotte about his feelings for Lorraine, believing that under the guidance of the other party's hypnosis, he "certainly" fell for the trick and "certainly" revealed everything about himself and revealed all his secrets.

Speaking from the heart, Professor Leng Hannan was a good man, and for a long time before his wife and after his death, he never even went to the red light district, and he was pure and self-disciplined, and he was a standard image of a "good man and good father". Because of this, Leng Xin will support him in pursuing Lorraine, and try to make him have a happy and fulfilling old age.

The contents of that video were of little value, and on the other hand, Charlotte would have purposefully erased the valuable parts and only showed me the edited version.

After the video was over, Charlotte shrugged her shoulders and smiled unusually easily: "Mr. Chen, I have taken the most cooperative attitude, and you can even take this stone with you right away - as long as you can bring back the Wheel of the Sun." Well, the other things I promised will not be missing, that chest of gold can be temporarily stored here with me, and after the cooperation is successful, I will give you the same nine additional chests. Hehe, the recent continuous rise in international gold prices seems to be a celebration drum for our cooperation......"

She is indeed "cooperative" enough, but all the information she came out will not help me much, even if I take the stone away, there will be no breakthrough for the time being, but it will be easier to lead people from all walks of life to rob.

I took a step to the left and stopped silently in front of a telescope.

Charlotte stood up and smiled a little nervously: "Mr. Chen, we are talking about cooperation, please don't be distracted, okay?"

The Star Pathfinder telescope, produced by the European company Loorline, is the highest target for most astronomy enthusiasts, and each one sells for 1.6 million euros and is still very popular.

I noticed something unusual about her and immediately raised my hand to turn on the power switch on the side of the tripod.

Charlotte quickly walked around the desk and stopped me: "Mr. Chen's observation of the sky at this time is easy to be stabbed by the sun's retrograde reflection light waves. If you don't want to be blind in an instant, stop your stupidity. ”

I didn't know that this astronomical knowledge was just trying to test why she was nervous.

"One telescope of this kind of high-precision and high-stability is enough, so why put four at the same time? Is it so rare that Mrs. Charlotte often has four people in this room observing the celestial phenomena at the same time? I sighed as I pretended not to care, skimming the corner of my eye to the telescope's manual focus knob.

If the instrument is used frequently, the friction marks on the knobs will be quite noticeable. Sure enough, I noticed that there were slight sweat stains on the knobs of three of the machines, and I guess these three observers were quite nervous every time, so the sweat on their fingertips often stayed on the knobs and slowly seeped into the lines.

Of course, the maid who cleans the study will do regular cleaning of the telescope, but it will not completely eliminate these stains, which are almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

What puzzled me even more was that the last telescope near the left side of the room was as clean as new, and it seemed that no one had used it since it was unboxed.

Charlotte shrugged and laughed silently. This is a common weapon for women, who will respond with this "omnipotent" smile when they are unwilling to answer a certain question.

It had come to this point that it was no longer interesting for me to linger, so I politely bid her farewell.

She was greatly surprised that I didn't want to take the stone, and asked twice in a row before she smiled abruptly: "You are the opposite of Professor Leng Hannan's attitude, he was eager to take the stone to Curator Lorraine immediately. In any case, Mr. Chan wishes you success!"

We walked out of the two-storey villa together, and the driveway was filled with flowers in two rows, but it was clear that neither of us was in the mood to enjoy the flowers. I always remember the dismantling of the eighteenth-floor room at the Moonlight Hotel, but it is not the best opportunity to make this request. Now that everyone has decided to work together, they have to do something to be eligible to make a request, and she has already shown the "Cursed Stone", and what I need to do has not started at all.

There are several rows of high-rise apartment buildings to the southeast of the villa, where Syvi must have lived, and I couldn't help but laugh dumbly when I thought of her call.

Charlotte owns more than a dozen private cars, each with a chauffeur, but I declined her courtesy and beckoned a taxi to the hotel. Now I need to go back to my room on the eighth floor for a short break to relax my nerves.

As the car approached the hotel, I heard the familiar siren whistling, and the taxi immediately stopped nearby, reluctant to go any further.

I had to pay the bill, got out of the car, walked down the sidewalk to the hotel, and had just passed through the revolving door in the lobby when I heard Mitz's slightly hoarse voice: "Hold the exits, every floor and every room must be thoroughly searched." All guests are required to show valid documents, especially those with Indian physical features—"

The lobby was already filled with armed police officers, more than in the first search, and the number of people more than tripled. A hotel manager in a gray suit followed Mitz with a grim face, holding a registration book, his eyes sneaking a sneak glance at the grimacing officers.

Miz's mental state was much better, and as soon as he saw me, he immediately raised his hand to greet me: "Mr. Chen has finally waited for you." ”

He had just shaved his beard, his chin was iron-blue, and he had also taken a shower and changed his clothes, and he seemed to have applied a lot of whitening skin care products, and he looked energetic.

I knew that something big must have happened, and my mood immediately became heavy, and the joy of the "cursed stone" flew away without a trace.

Miz approached me and sniffed before he could speak, "Hmm, such a strong aroma, Mr. Chen, are you and Mrs. Charlotte—" A tacit smile appeared on his face, and he secretly picked his thumb, probably taking it for granted that something had happened between me and Charlotte.

"What's wrong?" I accompanied him to the empty bar.

"It's a missing case. He took a bottle of beer from the fridge with his own hands, bit off the cap with his teeth, and poured a third of it in one go.

I heard the phrase "watch out for Indians" in his order, and I already vaguely felt that something was wrong, but I still had illusions that the case had nothing to do with Narun and Sukan, but with other Indian guests staying at the hotel.

"All the people in the VIP suite on the eighth floor are gone, and about forty people have disappeared inexplicably. The hotel had no checkout records at all, and the surveillance equipment did not capture them leaving the room, and even the hotel safe kept a large amount of cash for them. Hehe, that's it, it's gone?"

Miz shrugged his shoulders comically and gave a wry smile of helplessness.

My heart sank to freezing point, and Sukan came to break the curse, but before the matter could be resolved, he was already in the worst predicament.

"Is it like the two police officers under you, disappearing out of thin air for no reason?" I didn't mention Wei Yueyan's human skin, and I really couldn't bear to think that Nalun would encounter the same ending.

Miz nodded, drank the rest of the beer in one go, and threw the bottle into the trash.

"Is it really time to tear down this ghost house and rebuild it?" he looked up at the dozens of flower chandeliers on the roof of the lobby, and angrily took out his cigarette case and picked up a cigarette fiercely.

In my opinion, tearing down and rebuilding is not the fundamental purpose, the most important thing is to find out the secret mechanism of the existence of the building, so as to thoroughly find out the whereabouts of the dragon elephant girl and unravel the mystery of the continuous disappearance.

"Mr. Chen, can I find another hotel for you? don't continue to live here, the evil spirit is too heavy, and I am afraid that you will be affected in the end." Rest assured, I have a place of familiarity and guarantee that you will get used to it. "He's quite psychologically dependent on me, always trying to help me with something in exchange for my help.

I tapped him on the shoulder: "Miz, you know what? I've thought about it, and I'll move back to room 1808 to see if I'm missing like them. With that, I immediately turned around and walked to the elevator, leaving the stunned Miz alone in the bar.

There were four armed police officers standing side by side in front of the elevator, and one of them, a young man with a faint fur on his lips, shouted to stop me: "The police are handling the case, please recuse yourself." ”

His three companions covered their mouths and laughed together, regardless of how tense the atmosphere was.

"Hey, Nanda, let Mr. Chen be our case counsel!" Miz shouted from afar.

The young man immediately blushed and glared at his companion to give way as he pressed the button on the elevator door for me.

I first went to the corridor on the eighth floor, where there was a five-step post and a ten-step sentry, and there were police officers with serious expressions. Thankfully, they didn't show anything like human skin in the VIP room, at least not to cause a wider panic.

The large living room and small living room that Naren took me to were also full of police officers who collected evidence at the scene, and a team leader who knew him well introduced to me: "There are six small rooms attached to this suite, and there is no sign of particular messiness in all the rooms, and the missing person seems to have disappeared suddenly without being aware of it." The computer and TV were both working, and there was a half-opened erotic magazine on one of the beds, and the lid for skincare products in the bathroom was also open......"

If the reason for the disappearance of this group of people is the same as that of Wei Yueyan and the two police officers in charge of surveillance, then the following judgment can be made: "The Dragon Elephant Girl never left the building, and for some reason she needs to kill until there is no one to kill." ”

She may have killed for the sake of silence, obtaining information, searching for secrets – or even just killing for the sake of killing.

In the head-lowering technique of Mai Ye's faction, one of them is that the cultivator needs to constantly kill people to hone his mental state, and finally reach the realm of selflessness of non-human and non-beast selflessness, and obtain the supreme true meaning of the head-lowering technique. In fact, many things in this world are cyclical retribution, the thirsty for killing must be killed by others, the more cruel the murderer's methods, the more tragic the retribution will be, and the cycle will never end.

I called the front desk and ordered room 1808 to be reopened.

Miz was so horrified that he sent a team of officers up and down the room to remove any suspicious objects. Then he shoved a powerful elongated revolver under my pillow and another short-necked submachine gun in a half-open bedside table drawer. In the end, I hid two pistols in the bathroom and two in the closet, so I put a little refreshment.

I refused his request to be protected, opened the door to see off the guests, and then went back to my bedroom to lie down comfortably and close my eyes to rest.

"Am I going too far, am I capable of dealing with any sudden event, should I shoot her first if the dragon elephant reappears, where will she come from? will it still be that strange wall......" The question was like a firefly on a summer night, and it kept floating in my mind.

The disappearance of Naren and Sukan hit me the hardest, after all, the number of missing people this time was unacceptable. In the six small rooms lived Sukan's bodyguards, what kind of strange attack could kill them in an instant without leaving any traces of the fight?

It's been a long time since I've killed someone with a firearm, and this time I might be forced to shoot again.

The room was quiet, and I couldn't sleep all day, so I quickly fell asleep, mostly unguarded. If the dragon elephant girl is peeping in the dark, she should secretly appear and do some treacherous actions that ordinary people can't imagine.

This is exactly my trick to lure the enemy, "sleep with your eyes open and your ears pricked up" was originally a compulsory course for the U.S. Navy SEALs, but after the instructor's skillful improvement, what I learned has belonged to the higher level of "sight and hearing", and even when I am asleep, I will catch any abnormal noises around me.

The instructor once said, "The key to winning a duel is confidence." The strongest player should not only know what he is about to do, but also know what he can do. ”

Since I dare to sleep in this bed, it is equivalent to telling myself that I will definitely be able to kill the dragon elephant girl and become the last to reveal the secret. I could always feel the chill coming from the knife in my trouser pocket when I rolled over occasionally. When the instructor passed it on to me, I was destined to have an indissoluble bond with it.

In a trance, I felt as if I had walked into a huge black movie theater, and in the far distance was a huge white screen in front of me. I seemed to know that an extremely bloody horror movie was about to play, so I anxiously looked around to find an empty seat to settle into.

It was too dark in the theater, and there was no waiter to guide me, so I could only grope my way through the rows and blindly look forward. But there were people in all the seats, and everyone sat solemnly, staring in the direction of the curtain, ignoring my painstaking search.

Finally I found a seat and sat down. At that moment, the movie projector cracked and a shaky shadow appeared on the screen.

It's been quite a while since I've been to a movie theater, and the last time I saw a movie was at least ten years ago, when I first met the instructor. At that time, he took me to watch a movie in an unnamed town in North America and bought me drinks and creamy popcorn.

The name and content of that movie have long since disappeared, and I remember only the goose feather snow on the dark long street outside when I left the movie theater.

"What am I doing here? Will the Dragon Elephant Girl show up?" I suddenly realized that I had gone to the wrong place, and I should have been lying in room 1808 of the Moonlight Hotel to lure the enemy to appear. So we got up and walked past the large crowd on the side and exited through the entrance.

The image on the curtain disappears, and a line of giant black letters pops out - "End".

I was relieved all of a sudden: "When the movie is over, I just left the stage with everyone, so I don't have to walk out abruptly." "It's disrespectful to filmmakers to leave early, it's common knowledge that moviegoers around the world know, so I sat back down and waited for the person next to me to leave. But I leaned back in the soft seat and fell asleep for only a few seconds, and fell into a deep sleep, forgetting all my mission.

I don't know how long it took, a thought suddenly popped into my mind: "How could Nalun and Sukan disappear? They are obviously in the VIP suite of the hotel, who can sneak in and take people away without a trace? This is almost impossible to accomplish under normal circumstances, unless the hotel is full of secret passages." It would be good if the old class was here, he was the best at using mercury to find the secret way, in this line of work, the class family is the second, and no faction dares to call the first. ”

As soon as we got up, we felt that there was no one around us, and the curtain returned to a lifeless gray-white color.

"So everybody's leaving?" I anxiously ran to the side and stepped up the steps to the ticket gate. After climbing about forty or fifty steps, I suddenly realized that the iron grille at the ticket gate was locked. Outside, the sky was snowing heavily, and the sky was getting darker.

"Is there really a lot of snow in Cairo?" I muttered to myself, bowing my head and reaching out from the iron grate, and my palms were immediately covered with goose feather snowflakes.

On the iron fence hangs a dilapidated blackboard with the words "One every day, come tomorrow morning" written in crooked English.

It dawned on me that I was trapped in the after-hours movie theater and that I was going to be trapped all night, but I did have something to do, and if someone went missing from the hotel, Miz would have to jump off the building. Besides, if he can't find me, will he think I'm missing too?

An old man in a ragged coat ran over and a long string of keys dangling from his waist rattled and rattled. His cheeks and chin were covered with a curly beard, and he looked ridiculous, ridiculous.

"Hey, don't sleep in it next time, this is a movie theater, remember this is a movie theater!" he muttered, unlocking the lock on the iron grille, letting me out, then walking into the movie theater and locking the door with his backhand.

I walked down the wet steps, and suddenly remembered that this old man was Leng Hannan. Of course, he is also on a mission, vowing to retrieve the "Wheel of the Sun" and exchange the "Cursed Stone" from Charlotte for Lorraine. Now that Lorraine has died on the pyramids, he still leisurely locks himself in the movie theater and sleeps?

"Professor, Professor?" I kicked hard against the rusty iron grate.

Leng Hannan had already gone far away, just at the curtain at the end of the passage, as inconspicuous as a prop in a puppet show. I couldn't call him back, so I had to turn around and leave. Below the stairs is a small free market, each with a huge parasol at the door to block the snowflakes.

Under the umbrella closest to my left, a plainly dressed old woman was fanning a freshly lit stove with a fan. Green smoke and snowflakes mixed and gradually diffused into the dim sky.