Chapter 652: A Question Without an Answer
"Yezi, we're brothers, remember? Back in the Eternal Night Sea of Trees, I saved your life!"
Seeing the three people who went in ahead, each one tighter-lipped than the last.
Dantai Bie quickly sensed the danger.
This Chen Ye guy was not acting like a human; he clearly pushed people in based on closeness.
If that calculation held, Dantai Bie would be the fourth.
What could he do? He was only an outer-circle member of the Fair Convoy.
This guy... really wasn't a human!
Wu Zehui and that Number One obviously encountered something.
Dantai Bie didn't need to think hard to know how Chen Ye would act.
Having a teammate like this felt reassuring, but only if they were an official teammate.
Chen Ye cleared his throat twice, a little awkwardly.
Whether he had planned it that way, only he knew.
Before anyone could speak, there was a creaaak from the door.
"Who!?"
"It's me!"
The fourth person to push open Room 23 was Sun Xixi.
Seeing Chen Ye acting so cautious, the girl couldn't hold back and stepped forward.
However, when the door opened, Sun Xixi fell silent.
"Xixi..."
Chen Ye licked his dry lips.
"What did you see..."
"I... I don't know how to say it. You... you'd better come look yourself!"
That line again!
Still, Sun Xixi added, "There's... no danger here... for now!"
Hearing Sun Xixi's addition, Chen Ye felt a small measure of relief.
It wasn't hard to understand why Chen Ye was so cautious.
In this apocalypse, unbelievable dangers lurked everywhere.
Those who thought themselves powerful and able to handle anything had not made it this far.
Chen Ye knew that dithering any longer would only waste time.
He stood up, with both Hundred-Ghost Eater and Hatred sheathed at his back.
On the floor, only the blood and flesh left by the Multi-Headed Anomaly gave off a foul smell.
Chen Ye had asked Hundred-Ghost Eater whether they could use that thing as a sacrifice.
The blade had strongly opposed the idea.
Although the sword could not speak, it still transmitted a basic message.
This was "Wonders have spirits!"
Chen Ye stood at the entrance to Room 8723.
His entire body was raised to a razor edge of alertness; he could even hear his own rapid heartbeat.
What kind of world lay behind this door?
Why were people so secretive about one or two rooms?
Remember, Sun Xixi and Wu Zehui were both Sequence 4 superhumans.
A layer of black armor already covered their chests, but its sheen was dim, clearly not recovered from earlier fights.
His right hand gripped Hatred's handle.
His left hand gently pushed the door of Room 8723.
The old wooden door creaked as expected, an especially grating sound to Chen Ye's ears.
As the door opened, a rotten stench wafted into Chen Ye's nose.
The smell was like... like something left sitting for a very, very long time, complex and indescribable.
There was no light in the room; it was dim.
Outside the Haosheng Hotel, the sun had already set.
When the group fought in other rooms earlier, some rooms had floor-to-ceiling windows and still had daylight.
But the darkness in this room was as if it had never seen sunlight for centuries.
Chen Ye turned on the flashlight he always carried.
This flashlight had been swapped for when they came to the base, Captain Chu having found someone to trade with.
There had been a few flashlights in the convoy before, but never enough for everyone.
Now the convoy was a bit better off, so each person could have one.
An item that had once been worthless before the apocalypse had become precious now.
The flashlight beam shone into the room.
But it did not dispel the darkness, only revealing vague outlines of objects.
Chen Ye waited at the doorway for a moment.
The Smoke Breath Mist at his side surged forward like charging soldiers, entering the room faster than he did.
Only after a minute or two did Chen Ye step into the room.
The instant he crossed the threshold, even with his current temperament, what he saw made him shudder.
Within the beam of light,
within his field of vision,
there were countless people—so many people!
Men and women, old and young...
They hung densely from the ceiling.
Of course, the dead themselves were not the main horror.
Superhumans had seen thousands—maybe nine thousand—dead bodies, and had personally killed many.
But what lay before him now...
so many...
These people were hung from the ceiling... densely...
There was no visible edge.
This space had no bounds!
The space stretched to a far distance.
Chen Ye aimed his flashlight farther, trying to find the edge.
But he could only see pitch black, nothing discernible.
No, there was something.
At the far limit of his sight, there were more and more endless corpses hanging densely.
It was like...
during the Lunar New Year when every family hangs cured meat outdoors...
No wonder Iron Lion and the others didn't know what to say.
Iron Lion was blunt-mouthed and not very bright.
Seeing this probably stunned him on the spot.
As for Wu Zehui and the others, no description could capture the scene in front of them.
"This place... is huge!"
Suddenly a voice sounded beside Chen Ye.
He flinched, but the familiar aura made him relax his guard somewhat.
It was Sun Xixi.
Not only Sun Xixi—Dantai Bie, Wu Zehui, Number One, Iron Lion...
Everyone was here.
Room 23 connected to an adjoining space.
This... this made no sense!
They were not even on the same floor.
But this was not the time to debate whether it was scientific.
In this world, how many things defied science?
When Chen Ye saw that Ding Dong's arms were gone, his pupils shrank slightly, but he quickly set that aside.
Now was not the time to dwell on that.
The hanging forest of corpses demanded attention.
"Looks like these people came to Xi City for tourism!"
Dantai Bie observed the bodies dangling from the ceiling, his voice dry.
Anyone seeing so many of their own kind would shiver inwardly.
Although the Sea of Chaotic Graves had provoked suspicions—surely many people were buried there—it was still within graves.
But here...
these corpses were displayed nakedly before everyone's eyes.
Any normal person's heart would tremble.
Superhumans were becoming less human, but they had all once been people.
Now...
Once Dantai Bie said it, the others noticed, too.
Many of the clothes looked like tourist wear.
Normal coastal city folks usually wore flip-flops or simple outfits.
But these hanging people wore gaudy boxer shorts, floral shirts.
The girls wore all kinds of colorful sundresses.
Many of the hanged even still wore sunglasses on their faces.
"How did these people end up here?"
Someone voiced the question every person had.
But there was no answer.
Just like why the Sea of Chaotic Graves had so many graves.
No one could answer that either.
The hanged corpses before them were countless—certainly not just hundreds of thousands, certainly not merely millions...
Even trying to fathom the number chilled the heart.
When migrating convoys scavenged supplies in abandoned cities, often they did not find corpses.
Logically, with so many dead worldwide, bodies should be visible in many places.
But actually, they were not.
The most bodies they'd ever seen were the Crawlers encountered in Rong City.
Some had wondered where all the bodies had gone.
But that remained an unanswerable question.
Perhaps the Sea of Chaotic Graves explained part of it.
Chen Ye even had a wild thought that the Sea of Chaotic Graves might bury the entire world's dead.
And now here...
the Haosheng Hotel's hanging forest of corpses...
seemed to explain part of it as well.
But...
who hung these corpses?
Who buried those in the Sea of Chaotic Graves?
There still was no answer.
"We must get out of here quickly!"
Chen Ye had already spread his Smoke Breath Mist around, trying to find an exit.
The place made him deeply uncomfortable.
It felt as if those hanging bodies were watching him.
He was not the only one who felt it; the others sensed it too.
Chen Ye tried to back out,
only to find the door behind them had been closed at some unknown time.
He grabbed and pulled hard, but it wouldn't budge.
"I'm fast, I'll go look ahead!"
Dantai Bie didn't hesitate. As a Wandering Immortal Sequence, he felt duty-bound.
The pink-haired girl said nothing; her Fire Dragon Sword was drawn. With a light step on the sword, she became a streak of fire and dashed forward.
"Everyone search, see if there's any way out!"
Chen Ye didn't want the others idle; the unease intensified.
Something bad seemed about to happen.
This was a superhuman's intuition.
The others moved quickly.
Each aimed their flashlights at the surrounding walls, trying not to point lights upward.
As the beams swept the walls,
everyone inhaled sharply together!
Holy shit...