This was obviously not a normal elevator speed. Someone had cranked a rapid-release mechanism somewhere high above. Sweat beaded on Da Mao's forehead. The salty drops ran into the creases of his skin. Their enemies had come prepared for this exact moment.
The thunderous crash made the entire underground passage shudder as the vibration traveled through the soles of their boots. Pebbles and sharp grit sprayed through the air like shrapnel. In her daze, Jing Shu took several shallow cuts to her face and body from the flying debris. Blood slipped into her mouth, warm and metallic. She licked it and was startled by how good it tasted.
"Wang Chuang? Where is Wang Chuang?"
"Wang Chuang didn't make it out!"
Breathing hard, Su Mali ran back toward the opening they had just escaped through. The elevator had slammed full force into the metal frame assembly. She leaned over the jagged edge and saw nothing but a single forearm jutting out from the wreckage. A Swiss watch was still strapped to the wrist, the one she had given Wang Chuang.
The bearded man was crushed beneath the heavy car. He was likely pulped by the weight of the descent.
The elevator itself was nearly scrap metal now. The interior of the car was empty. Someone had operated it on purpose from a control room. Did they already know the group had escaped the vault?
Jing Shu staggered over toward the edge. She was conscious of what was happening around her but remained unable to control her body. She moved on instinct alone.
Su Mali clapped both hands over her mouth to stifle a cry. Tears flooded her eyes. How could this be? Wang Chuang had just been talking to her. Why had he not gotten out in time?
Da Mao swallowed the dry air and pressed his lips together into a thin line. "Brother, rest easy. I will keep Miss safe." He had no time for grief now. He checked his phone. There was still no signal on the screen. "Miss, we need to find an exit. Someone is close by. Here, take this pistol. If anything feels wrong, shoot it."
He grew even more cautious as he led the way. Of the three, only he could still be relied on for protection. He tossed small stones ahead to sound the way through the gloom. Thankfully, the end of the metal assembly was the exit.
Da Mao put Jing Shu and Su Mali behind him and opened the final door himself.
A rusty, metallic creak answered the movement. Inside the new area was pitch-black. He dared not use a light and alert the enemy to their position. Da Mao threw pebble after pebble in different directions. He listened to the echoes to map the dimensions of the space.
Jing Shu still drifted in a thick fog. If she had been clear-headed now, there might not have been a later.
"Move. Carefully. Keep your back to the wall," Da Mao said, entering the hall first. Nothing happened in the stillness. Su Mali pulled Jing Shu along and the two women tiptoed into the dark.
Just then the whole hall blazed with a blinding white light.
"Back!" Da Mao shouted, but the sudden burst of gunfire cut him off. With no time to think, he hurled Su Mali and Jing Shu back through the doorway with a desperate shove.
Shots cracked for four or five seconds, then a sudden silence followed. It was over.
Da Mao, riddled like a sieve by the bullets, sagged to the floor as a dark pool of blood flooded out beneath him. He lifted a shaking hand toward Su Mali. "Miss, run. Quick. If you make it out, look after Er Mao and San Mao for me." Da Mao got the words out with immense difficulty. Then his head lolled to the side and he was gone.
"Sob, all right. I know."
Shaking with terror, Su Mali pushed herself up from the floor. The yellow open-shoulder dress was filthy and torn across the bodice. Her carefully polished nails had split to the quick. Su Mali stared at the suddenly lit room, shocked, and pointed a finger at the middle-aged man with the assault rifle cooling in his hands.
"You? You're the one? Uncle Gou, you? Impossible. It cannot be." By the end, Su Mali's voice had ripped into a jagged scream. For someone of her background, betrayal was the hardest blow to bear.
It was Uncle Gou standing there.
Jing Shu had been shoved to the ground by Da Mao's final effort. That shove finally nudged some hidden threshold inside her mind. Cause and effect locked into place. The thin paper window in the Rubik's Cube Space finally tore open. The upgrade had met every necessary condition.
A surge of raw power roared through her mind like a storm. Jing Shu couldn't withstand the pressure. She blacked out.
Every upgrade of the Rubik's Cube Space was like a system update on a phone or a computer. It had to shut down and restart the interface. Jing Shu rebooted at the worst possible time. She left her fate to the wind.
But this upgrade was unlike the ones before. She received the Rubik's Cube Space's information consciously. Even as the system upgraded, she could still hear the muffled sounds of the outside world.
More incredible still, she seemed to have vivid hallucinations. The Rubik's Cube Space expanded before her eyes, one cubic meter at a time. Because the second form overlapped the real world, she could see it happening.
It felt like her soul had left her body. Jing Shu saw herself lying there on the floor, Da Mao dead on the ground, Su Mali sobbing, and the man standing across from them. She also saw the overlapping space reassembling. White motes of light were growing like photons in a science fiction film. It was astonishing.
So that's how the Rubik's Cube Space always upgraded itself.
Right now, Su Mali was truly alone. Jing Shu had fainted. Both bodyguards were dead. The man Su Mali trusted most, Uncle Gou, was the mastermind. How could that be? Su Mali nearly broke in that instant.
"Uncle Gou? Oh, you mean that loyal dog of yours?" the middle-aged man said with a cold, mocking smile. "What a pity. He died miserably in the end."
He pushed his damp hair back and began peeling a layer of latex from his face.
"He stopped being your Uncle Gou two months ago. You never noticed the change?"
"What?" Su Mali was stunned. "Impossible. He is with me every day. How could that have been?"
The skin came away in pieces to reveal a young man's face. In her out-of-body state, Jing Shu saw it clearly. It was Lin Yi, the one she had watched daily on her monitors.
It was him. It was truly him.
Jing Shu was beyond words. How could it be him? How could one person play two roles so perfectly? On the monitors, Lin Yi had never once behaved strangely. No, that was the problem. Lin Yi had been too normal, too plain for a man in the apocalypse. Did Lin Yi know Jing Shu watched him?
Right. No wonder Uncle Gou had seemed so tall lately. The silhouette looked familiar to her. But the real Uncle Gou had always been burly, unlike the lanky Lin Yi she had seen before the New Year.
"Why not?" Lin Yi said mildly. "I started imitating his mannerisms three months ago. Two months ago, I abducted him and brought him to my place. It took a lot of work to learn everything about him. Now, I can finally peel off this human-skin mask."
Lin Yi hooked a finger under his neck and pulled upward. The skin came away with a wet sound.