From the very beginning, that rich bastard had made it clear: the entire Rhine Manor was a "gift" for them. Only, it was the kind of gift meant to accompany them on their way to the afterlife. He had planned to kill everyone from the start, including his own "corpse." After all, how could he risk someone discovering the truth if the body wasn't destroyed? The best way to erase all evidence was to blow everything to hell.
A man who had gone so far as to fake his own death, terrified that people might not believe it, had to be in deep trouble himself.
But right now, the problem facing Jing Shu and her group was that the robot had announced Rhine Manor was entering self-destruct mode. Just how powerful would that explosion be? The red emergency lights in the room began to pulse with a rhythmic, sickening intensity.
Monkey shouted, his voice cracking with anxiety, "Run! Get Snake Spirit to bring the car, now!"
"Locking all floors, sealing all passages, closing all exits," the robot's voice declared. The sound was flat and metallic, punctuated by the heavy thuds of electromagnetic bolts sliding into place throughout the tower.
"What do we do? We can't get down!"
While they panicked, Jing Shu had already swept every bit of material in the secret room into her packs. Her fingers moved with a practiced speed, snatching up vials and folders. There wasn't time to check anything now. When she heard that all exits were sealed, Jing Shu's fist slammed into the robot, driving it straight into the wall with a crunch of metal and plastic.
Sure enough, they were trapped on the eighth floor. The tower had sealed itself off completely. There was no way up and no way down. There weren't even any windows to jump from, only thick reinforced glass and armored plating. Once the exits were shut, they could only wait for the end.
"What do we do? What do we do!"
Yang Yang's fingers flew across his device as he sent a message in the group chat, updating everyone on their situation. He told the others to retreat, had Snake Spirit stand by for pickup, and told Ling Ling to request backup right away. The formula was already in their hands, but what good would that do if they couldn't make it out alive?
Even with a rescue call sent, they still had to think of a way to escape. The faster the beeping countdown got, the more they all felt like their lives were roasting over an open fire. The heat in the small room seemed to rise with every passing second.
Jing Shu's brow furrowed. If she used explosives through one of the weapon ports, she could blast a hole in the wall. That way, they could parachute down from the eighth floor. It was high, sure, but she had the gear for it in her space.
The only question was, how long did they have before the place actually blew?
"The longer the countdown before detonation, the stronger the explosive force," Yang Yang explained, his face pale under the red lights. "It's like a demolition charge. If he is planning to blow up the whole manor, we still have some time. It's been nearly a minute already and nothing has gone off, which means he isn't just trying to kill us 'murderers.' There's got to be a lot of dirty secrets hidden in this place. If it were me, I would pack enough charges to reduce the entire manor to rubble. Whether we make it out or not, who cares?"
"But if we don't get out of this tower soon, we're screwed!"
Monkey snapped, his hands shaking as he gripped the damaged robot and shook it violently. "Mirror, you have got a weapon chip, right? Can't you control this thing? Rewrite its program or something?"
Jing Shu shook her head. Just as she stepped forward to try blowing out the wall herself, Hao Yunlai suddenly dropped to one knee. He was clutching his head in agony, his fingers digging into his scalp.
"Danger... so dangerous..."
Then he screamed, a raw, piercing sound that echoed through the confined chamber.
"What is happening?" Jing Shu stared, her eyes wide. "Don't tell me."
No way, right? She had seen Hao Yunlai's insane luck before in the underwater world, but his ability usually worked by twisting the fortune of everything around him. It made everyone else's luck turn to shit so he could survive.
But this? They were trapped on the eighth floor with a bomb that could blow the entire Rhine Manor sky-high. There were no outside factors this time. Could his luck actually stop the manor from exploding? Rhine Manor was massive. There was no way his "good luck" reached that far, right?
Still, trusting luck wasn't an option. Keeping control in her own hands was the only thing that made Jing Shu feel safe.
"I have got an idea!" she said quickly. She didn't have time to hold anything back. They needed to get out now. But before she could explain, the ground beneath their boots began to tremble.
An earthquake.
The entire tower shook violently, the metal structure groaning and screaming as the foundations shifted. Jing Shu was slammed into the wall, her shoulder hitting the hard surface with a dull thud. Stars burst before her eyes. Luckily, she was wearing thick gear and a helmet, so she wasn't seriously hurt.
"Quake! It's a damn quake!"
"Hold onto something, the tower is coming down!"
Jing Shu quickly threw on more layers from her space and tried to grab anything solid, but the whole structure gave way before she could find a handhold.
The tower collapsed.
Amid the chaos of snapping steel and shattering glass, she heard Hao Yunlai's faint, dazed voice. "Mom, this time, it's you. Guess I really am coming down to see you."
Huh? Was he talking in his sleep?
A deafening boom followed as the tower hit the ground. Jing Shu's whole body ached, a sharp, throbbing pain radiating from her limbs. Her head felt like it was splitting from the impact. Falling from an eight-story tower without protection should have killed them outright.
But miraculously, she was alive.
The tower had snapped in the middle, and the upper and lower halves had cushioned the fall. The wreckage had twisted in such a way that it trapped the eighth floor right between the sections. It absorbed most of the impact. She, Yang Yang, and Hao Yunlai were all still breathing, though dust and smoke filled the air around them.
Monkey wasn't so lucky. Half his body was buried under a pile of twisted rubble, his legs crushed by a heavy support beam. Jing Shu hauled him out by force, her muscles straining as she pulled. His screams rang in her ears, sharp and desperate.
Looking up at the broken tower, Jing Shu realized how insane it was. They had survived something that should have been impossible. If this was Hao Yunlai's twisted luck at work, it was downright terrifying.
He had passed out cold on the debris, while Yang Yang coughed and looked up toward the rumbling sky. Above the smoke, the rhythmic thrum of rotors grew louder. Helicopters. National rescue teams were here!
A rope ladder dropped down through the hazy air. If they climbed fast, they could make it out before the rest of the manor exploded.
"Beep, beep, beep..."
From a pile of rubble nearby, the half-crushed robot flickered weakly, its screen cracked but still functioning.
While the others were distracted by the rescue ladder, Jing Shu's hand moved quickly. She quietly stored the robot inside her Rubik's Cube Space. If it blew up in there, fine; the space could handle it. But once it was inside, the device froze completely, its lights dying as if it had glitched out in the stasis of her storage.
"Maybe this robot is the only link left to that rich bastard," she thought. If that was the case, she had to keep it safe.
After all, the man had given her such a "grand gift." It would only be fair for her to return the favor someday, with something even grander.