Chapter Ten: The Vacation Villa 10

At this hour, who could be outside? Everyone was already here. She tightened her grip on the dagger, rose up on her toes, and peered through the peephole.

All she saw was a distorted, magnified face pressed close.

“What’s wrong? Nobody inside?”

The muffled voice seeped through the door. Whoever was speaking sounded like a normal person, but this wasn’t a world governed by ordinary logic. A group of strangers arriving at a mountainside villa in the middle of a stormy night—no matter how you looked at it, something was off.

Su Man had no intention of opening the door. She tiptoed away, barely making a sound, yet she could still catch snatches of conversation outside: “The lights are all on in this house—someone must be home. Hey, where did Xiao Liang go?”

Once she was a safe distance from the door, Su Man spun around, intent on heading upstairs, only to collide headlong into a wall of muscle.

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Hu Meili and the other two collapsed on the floor.

Damn, someone had gotten inside—and she hadn’t heard a thing.

Su Man’s heart skipped a beat. Without hesitation, she stabbed the dagger toward the intruder’s chest. No matter who he was, anyone who broke into a house in the dead of night was never up to any good.

But the expected sound of blade piercing flesh never came. Instead, her wrist was seized in a brutal grip. The man seemed trained—he gave her wrist a quick twist, sending a jolt of numbness through her fingers. The dagger fell to the floor, and he hastily tried to explain, “Miss, I’m not a bad person. Please calm down.”

“I’m the property manager here!”

“Property... manager?”

Now Su Man got a good look at him: a sharply dressed man, athletic build straining against his clothes, hair slicked so shiny a fly could skate on it. He claimed to be the property manager, and indeed, he looked the part.

Still, Su Man wasn’t completely convinced.

“Can you let go of me?”

She couldn’t best him in a direct confrontation; it was better to face him openly, meeting force with force.

“Oh, sorry, sorry. If you hadn’t been holding a dagger, I wouldn’t have... Anyway, my apologies.”

Despite his imposing physique, he scratched his neck with a hint of bashfulness. “Right, I’ll explain later—there are a few more people outside.”

He hurried past her to open the door. Su Man glanced at the dagger on the floor, then at his size, and thought better of trying again—too much muscle, the blade wouldn’t reach anywhere vital.

The door swung open, letting in a crowd, all men of varying heights and builds. As they entered, they shook off the rain and began complaining, “The rain out there is ridiculous! Damn it, we knocked forever and no one answered. You always pull through, Xiao Liang…”

Halfway through his rant, one of them noticed Su Man standing to the side. “Hey, there’s a woman here!”

His gaze swept past her to the three bodies on the floor. “And there are more people here.”

He grew disgruntled. “You must be the owners, right? We’re all here, so why didn’t you open the door? Are you looking down on us?”

The speaker was short and scrawny, dried up like a monkey. He stared at Su Man, who said nothing, and grew agitated. “Do you recognize these shoes? Designer! This jacket cost thousands! What’s with that look? Are you looking down on me? Could you afford anything I’m wearing?”

“No, I couldn’t,” Su Man replied coolly. She hadn’t asked him anything, yet he insisted on this pointless tirade.

“What’s your attitude!” Her mild answer lit a fuse—the monkey-like man exploded, lunging at her as if he meant to strike.

“Enough, Skinny Monkey! It’s all a misunderstanding. We need this young lady’s permission to stay here tonight.”

His companion stepped in, voice dropping to a whisper, but the effect was instant—the monkey-man, though clearly disgruntled, fell silent.

Xiao Liang, the property manager, breathed a sigh of relief and apologized to Su Man on the group’s behalf. “Sorry, miss, everyone’s just a bit blunt—no harm meant. These fellows came after getting a phone call inviting them here…”

From Xiao Liang’s explanation, Su Man understood: aside from him, the other five had also received mysterious calls summoning them.

Xiao Liang worked down in the valley. The storm had triggered a mudslide. He’d tried to stop them, but they insisted on coming up the mountain, so he followed, worried for their safety.

Upon arriving, he found the house silent and feared the owners were in trouble, so he entered through a rear window.

“I’m really not a bad person,” Xiao Liang insisted. “I know Miss Xin—she’s often unwell and prone to fainting. I was worried for her. You’re her friend, right? You can call her—she’ll vouch for me.”

Su Man glanced at him, then at the five others.

Besides the monkey-man, there was a very fat man whose darting eyes were constantly scanning the room; noticing her gaze, he dropped his head, looking guilty.

The remaining three were nondescript, the kind of faces that would vanish in a crowd, sitting timidly, looking every bit the honest sort.

Why had they received the call too? Su Man had no clues yet, just as she hadn’t with the man who had vanished earlier. This sense of disorder, of things slipping out of control, left her uneasy.

She needed to hunt for more clues.

Since these newcomers weren’t NPCs, they must be players—there’d be no getting rid of them. Su Man simply let them find their own rooms to rest and retreated to her own. Given the situation, she needed time to plan.

Zhou Bin had been dealt with by that vanished man, so tonight should be safe.

“Wait, these three…” Xiao Liang, perhaps out of professional habit, noticed Hu Meili and the others lying unresponsive and called after Su Man.

“They’re drunk. No need to worry.”

After that, Su Man paid no heed to the rest. With so many people suddenly barging in, she didn’t bother searching for the revival card; she still had one left, enough to see her through the night.

She slept uneasily, worried something might go wrong. Near dawn, she heard faint rustling outside the door—before she could react, a muffled groan sounded, as if something had fallen to the floor.