Chapter 14 – The Gateway

This was a small-scale gunfight. By the time Wei An arrived, the chase had already ended.

The faint smell of gunpowder hung in the air, and voices could be heard ahead.

“Are they from the Federal Military?” one person asked.

“Probably,” another replied. “Are they all cleared out? Just these two?”

“There’s one more—got him.”

“Make sure to catch them. We can’t let them send any information out.”

“It’s not like they could find anything useful anyway.”

Wei An continued forward. The Flâneur Hotel was sprawling, with hardly any of the monotonous corridors typical of hotels. Instead, it resembled an open garden, and he could vaguely see figures ahead.

Wei An stood in a darker area, so the others hadn’t noticed them yet.

The pursued individuals were clearly dead. Several armed men in civilian clothes gathered around the bodies to inspect them.

Just then, another person approached from the direction of the main hall and shouted, “Why the hell did you kill them again?!”

He sounded furious.

“I told you, we need at least three living people for the ‘Gate’! Are you deaf or what? Damn it, and you even fired so many shots—they’re practically minced meat now!” he continued yelling.

“It’s not that bad. He kept resisting. We were just being cautious,” the leader of the private soldiers said. “We’ll find you more live ones. A hotel this big is full of people. It won’t be hard.”

Two soldiers dragged the bodies toward the main hall while the other two walked toward Wei An, still chatting.

Wei An quickly processed the information he had just overheard. He didn’t move but adjusted his clothes to conceal his gun.

“Don’t act yet. Let’s see what’s going on,” he whispered to Gui Ling.

The leader was speaking into his communicator: “If you find anyone else, don’t kill them. Bring back as many alive as you can.” He then looked up and spotted Wei An and Gui Ling.

The two mercenaries froze for a moment when they saw them.

In that instant, Wei An’s previously cold demeanor vanished entirely, replaced by the look of a bewildered civilian who had just stumbled onto the scene.

“Hello,” he said nervously to the men. “We came from the East Poplar Hall. Something seems off here. My phone isn’t working…”

He trailed off uncertainly, eyeing the guns pointed at him.

“S-sorry,” he stammered. “Are you… with the police? Did something happen that requires weapons?”

His expression was so convincingly clueless about firearms that Gui Ling stared at the ground, visibly reluctant to look at him.

Just then, one of the mercenaries—wearing a black leather jacket—studied Wei An and said, “Wait, isn’t this Mr. Wei An?”

His companion blinked in surprise, and Wei An also feigned shock.

“You know him?” the other asked.

The man in the leather jacket smirked maliciously, like a predator spotting an unexpected prey falling into his trap, relishing the cruel anticipation of controlling someone who had once been out of his reach.

“This is the gentleman who’s so generous with his charity work,” he told his companion. “I told you about him—the one who donated 300,000 therapeutic pods to Falcon Relief and refused to play along with us.”

Wei An realized he actually did know this man.

During his charity work, he had donated a batch of neural repair devices to a small association called Falcon Relief, which had upset Cold Bird Corporation. Afterward, he had been ambushed by a group of men on his way home from a friend’s gathering.

The leader seemed to be this very man. At the time, Wei An had been about to get into his car when several people suddenly surrounded him, blocking his path. They warned him not to get any illusions just because he had money—that he wasn’t as safe as he thought, and he shouldn’t try to be a savior.

Wei An had briefly considered how to handle the situation—how to dispose of the bodies if he killed them, which would be tricky in a high-end residential area. But the group didn’t do anything further. After delivering their message, they left.

After that, they had tailed Wei An a few times, called him, and sent emails—all minor harassments.

Wei An never mentioned it to anyone or reported it to the police. In his previous line of work, he had faced far worse threats. These were just petty attempts to intimidate him, saying, “Don’t do that.” Compared to what he was used to, it was practically friendly banter.

Now, he had encountered one of them again.

And based on the black-leather-jacket guy’s words, Wei An had apparently become something of a celebrity among Cold Bird’s mercenaries.

The man’s companion stared at Wei An and exclaimed, “Holy shit, is this the rich guy you went after a couple of times, called a bunch, but he still thought what he was doing was righteous and ignored you?!”

“Yeah, and he acted all high and mighty—didn’t even report us to the police,” the leather-jacket guy said. “Kept donating money afterward, didn’t cancel any of his parties. I still can’t figure out what kind of person—”

Wei An listened awkwardly as they shouted. He had always thought his life here was low-key, discreet, and entirely inconspicuous. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.

The two continued ranting.

“I did threaten him not to report it, but who’d have thought he actually wouldn’t? He seemed scared, but he kept donating—”

“These types think they’re so noble for helping people, even when they’re terrified—”

“Who the hell knows why he’s wasting money on useless ordinary people? Adjust the price of neural repair devices, and the cost of keeping those losers alive for a day would exceed my monthly salary!”

“I’ve dealt with plenty of ‘holier-than-thou’ types, but this one leaves a special impression!”

Wei An stared at the floor. Gui Ling glanced at him, but Wei An was too embarrassed to meet his gaze.

In the upper echelons of the Federation, charity was often more like a business.

Wei An had managed many related activities for his family in his earlier years—some of which weren’t even charity and were legally questionable at best.

After retiring and moving to Taoyuan, Wei An found that he still had to participate in some of these events.

He did continue donating, making sure to contribute where it mattered. But he figured that if he was going to do charity, he might as well actually do something meaningful.

Falcon Relief was one such case.

It was a small, obscure organization with only seven members, renting a shabby 50-square-meter office. By the time Wei An donated, they were on the verge of shutting down.

They helped patients suffering from neurological diseases caused by specific types of pollution. With continuous treatment, these people could live relatively normal lives, but most gave up quickly because the costs were exorbitant.

The world always had its unlucky ones—people trapped in darkness, struggling to survive. Money could buy them a sliver of hope.

Falcon Relief rarely received donations because the illnesses they dealt with were caused by biochemical pollution, and most patients were embroiled in costly lawsuits. Some more powerful figures wanted these people dead.

Wei An knew this involved certain local power dynamics but didn’t care.

How much influence could the upper class of a small place like Taoyuan really have? He had retired to do charity work, and no one was going to stop him.

Wei An didn’t think what he was doing was particularly rebellious. His efforts were almost insignificant compared to the vast darkness crushing those trapped under the system.

But to some people, he had already done too much.

The mercenary in the black leather jacket smirked at Wei An.

“I heard you’ve been feeling threatened lately and even hired a bodyguard,” he said.

He eyed Gui Ling.

“Not bad-looking.”

Suddenly, he stepped forward and pressed his gun against Gui Ling’s forehead.

He was strong—Gui Ling took half a step back from the force, his hair disheveled. The mercenary glared at him with malice. “You look like you’ve got a problem with this.”

Gui Ling, of course, didn’t “have a problem.” He didn’t even have an expression—he was just standing there, not as immersed in playing the victim as Wei An.

As the black-leather-jacket guy kept the gun pressed to his forehead, Gui Ling stared back with his usual suppressed stillness.

Wei An startled and quickly stepped between them, shouting at the armed mercenary, “Don’t touch him!”

He pushed Gui Ling back a step and stood protectively in front of him, putting on a righteous front.

The black-leather-jacket guy looked surprised for a moment before grinning. The two mercenaries exchanged amused glances, savoring Wei An’s desperate attempt to control the situation for a few seconds. Then, lowering the gun, they gestured for them to move.

Wei An complied obediently, even tugging Gui Ling along to walk beside him.

*He’s waiting to see what kind of misfortune befalls us*, Wei An thought.

The two mercenaries seemed to consider Wei An harmless and didn’t search him.

They did frisk Gui Ling, but while Wei An was armed, Gui Ling was totally clean—nothing but car keys, fitting his wealthy young master image.

One of the mercenaries even remarked, “Is he really a bodyguard?”

“With looks like that? No way.”

“Wonder what *other* services he offers—”

They laughed crudely as they walked, their minds clearly in the gutter.

“Was the head of that Falcon Relief group handsome? Hotter than this bodyguard?” one asked.

“Not even close! The guy’s balding before forty and can’t even afford treatment. No idea what this rich guy sees in him!” the black-leather-jacket guy said.

The other burst into laughter, thinking himself hilarious. “Hahaha! Way more than a few hairs short!”

As they talked, they passed the site of the earlier gunfight. Wei An noticed a long trail of blood on the carpet—evidence of a body being dragged away.

Gui Ling stared at the ground. Wei An felt guilty making this terrifying creature endure such indignities.

They soon reached the main Forest Hound Hall.

This was the Flâneur Hotel’s most expansive indoor garden—a refined, elegant space with ancient white-barked trees arranged in a gate-like design, creating the effect of a shaded pathway.

Tables, chairs, and a bar were placed around the garden, making strolling through it feel like a pleasant outing. It was a first-rate work of small-scale landscape design—one of Taoyuan’s specialties.

As they approached, the lead mercenary turned to Wei An with a malicious grin.

“Now,” he said, “Mr. Wei An, you’re about to see something real and exciting.”

Then Wei An stepped into the hall.

His pupils constricted slightly. For a moment, he found it hard to breathe.

The garden was still there, but it had undergone a horrifying transformation—as if this once-civilized space had been plunged into a nightmare, sinking deep into hell.

The once-beautiful trees had been grotesquely reshaped, now twisted and menacing, with corpses hanging from them.

At a glance, there were at least five—all naked, stripped of dignity like livestock in The Great Dark Age, reduced to mere “flesh” for the “gods.”

At the center of the tree gate, where there should have been bright glass showcasing the bustling street outside, was now a wall of impenetrable black—the same unsettling darkness of Hellflower petals. It pulsed with life yet allowed no light. Though it grew from the wall, it created an illusion of depth, as if harboring horrors beyond human imagination.

Beneath it, trenches had been dug into the soil. The bodies of those who had died messily—riddled with too many bullet wounds to hang—had been dismembered and thrown inside.

The ones closest to the tree gate had already been buried haphazardly, limbs and severed body parts jutting out, forming a “path” paved with mutilated corpses.

It looked like a strip of hell buried just beneath the surface of the human world, its edges barely visible.

Wei An saw dozens of people in the hall, all dressed in funeral attire with their sleeves rolled up—like demonic figures appearing from an ancient burial rite. Their expressions were cold as they methodically carried out their bloody tasks.

The bodies came from a pile under a plastic sheet in one corner—five or six corpses in total.

Someone was stripping the victims naked, quickly tossing their personal belongings into a high-security trash bin.

Most had their necks snapped, though a few had been shot. Either way, they would all end up dismembered or hung bare from the trees.

At the edges of the Hellflower darkness, someone was applying a transparent liquid. Where it touched the ordinary walls, mold-like growths spread, expanding the territory of the nightmarish realm.

A man with an artistic demeanor wielded a boning knife, butchering corpses in ways Wei An didn’t want to examine closely. His forearm was drenched in blood, like some clawed creature of gore. This was the man who had earlier demanded live captives.

The entire hall was a nightmare—its horror lying in how orderly it all was.

This wasn’t supernatural frenzy or hysteria. Everyone worked efficiently, knowing exactly what to do, showing no signs of abnormality.

Yet it was the order of a nightmare. Through their efforts, every shadow in the hall had become sinister and menacing—the civilized world twisted into superstitious chaos.

The tree gate loomed black, as if stepping forward would truly transport one into the domain of an ancient, malevolent god.

Wei An stared in shock at the scene, realizing—

This is a “Gateway.”

They’re building a “Gate”—the kind that belonged to the dark ancient civilizations?