# 495
**Chapter 495 – Silence**
Seventh Seat stood on the second-floor landing, her gaze sweeping the surroundings. Nothing seemed out of place.
She stepped forward, unhurried.
*Clack, clack, clack...*
The sound of her high heels echoed through the empty corridor. On the right, the wall’s peeling paint had long since fallen away, revealing gray bricks beneath. On the left, vines tangled across the windows, blocking part of the sunlight and casting deep shadows across the hallway.
The entire second floor was dead silent, save for the rhythmic tapping of her heels.
What she didn’t notice was that with every step she took, a few blades of grass quietly sprouted from the cracked floor tiles, growing silently...
Fresh and green, full of life in this desolate, crumbling estate.
Gradually, the corridor behind her transformed into a lush meadow.
Seventh Seat seemed to sense something and frowned slightly.
She stopped and turned around.
Her pupils shrank violently!
A legless girl in a white dress floated silently behind her, her cold eyes fixed on Seventh Seat like a silent ghost.
Before Seventh Seat could react, the ghostly figure plunged into her body!
In that instant, Seventh Seat lost control of her body.
At the same time, the green grass covering half the corridor surged like wildfire, swallowing the entire hallway. Buds bloomed one after another, and in the blink of an eye, a swaying sea of flowers had formed!
Then, buds began to bloom on Seventh Seat’s skin as well.
Now possessed by Jiang Er, Seventh Seat quickly drew a **Short Sword** from the sheath strapped to her thigh, flipped it around, and stabbed it toward her own throat with lightning speed!
Terror flashed in Seventh Seat’s eyes!
Driven by the instinct to survive, her magnetic field violently fluctuated. The blade froze just before piercing her throat. Her entire body trembled violently, as if she were about to break free from the possession.
“Zzz... Her emotional fluctuations are too strong. I can’t keep up with her magnetic field changes.”
A girl’s voice came from an MP3 player hidden in a corner of the second floor.
*Whoosh—!*
A quiet boy carrying a black coffin burst out of a nearby room and rushed toward the struggling Seventh Seat.
Threads shot from his fingertips and wrapped around the **Short Sword**. With a sudden burst of force, he broke through her resistance and drove the blade into her throat!
*Pfft—!*
Seventh Seat’s skin was tougher than expected. The blade only managed to leave a shallow cut. But the pain ignited her emotions.
Jiang Er’s figure was forcefully ejected.
A flicker of gray flashed in An Qingyu’s eyes. He pulled out a purple test tube from his pocket and flung it at Seventh Seat!
Though she didn’t know what was inside, Seventh Seat instinctively dodged. Just as the tube flew past her, an arrow shot from the other end of the corridor!
The arrowhead struck the test tube dead-on!
*Boom—!!*
The tube exploded, and a concentrated wave of mental contamination instantly engulfed Seventh Seat.
“It’s fine. You bought enough time,” An Qingyu said with a smile, adjusting his glasses.
By now, colorful buds had covered half of Seventh Seat’s body, absorbing her mental and physical energy at an alarming rate. The flowers grew more vibrant by the second.
“What... is this... damned thing...”
Under the dual effects of **Ultra-Concentrated Mental Contamination** and **Eternal Secret Garden**, Seventh Seat’s mental strength plummeted. She had never felt so weak. Her consciousness began to blur.
She knew her situation was dire. If this continued, she would die silently on this floor!
She had to do something!
Even if she couldn’t kill her enemies, she had to make enough noise to alert the other **Believers**!
She bit her tongue, using the pain to sharpen her mind. She raised the folding fan in her hand, but before she could act, a voice drifted from afar.
“**Heaven and Earth Reversed.**”
In the next moment, the fan flew from her hand!
Caught completely off guard, she lost her weapon.
She froze.
A moment later, she opened her mouth to scream—but before she could make a sound, something foreign surged up her throat.
Seventh Seat clutched her mouth and retched violently...
Then, a white flower bloomed inside her mouth, silencing her.
Her face turned deathly pale.
The longer this dragged on, the more flowers bloomed. Her legs lost all strength, and she collapsed to her knees, desperately scanning her surroundings...
From the beginning until now, aside from the boy carrying the black coffin, she hadn’t even seen the shadows of her other enemies!
She was like prey caught in a trap, struggling alone while the true hunters watched silently from the shadows.
Seventh Seat had never felt so humiliated!
At full strength, breaking through these strange flowers wouldn’t have been difficult. But between the ghost possession and mental poisoning... she had delayed too long.
She grew weaker, and the flowers grew stronger.
Once she reached a certain level of weakness, she lost all ability to resist.
Without help, there was only one outcome: she would be drained dry and forever entombed in this secret garden.
Seventh Seat lay on the ground, gasping for breath, her face drained of all color. Her vision began to blur...
Despair like never before surged in her heart.
Just then, a figure quietly approached.
Seventh Seat lifted her head with great effort.
It was someone wearing a **Sun Wukong** mask—cartoonish, even a little silly.
But to Seventh Seat, that mask looked like a demon from hell.
He raised a finger,
placed it gently against the mask’s mouth,
and made a “shhh” gesture.
“Shh...”
...
**First Floor.**
Shen Qingzhu strolled leisurely behind Twelfth Seat, holding a radio.
From the radio, a deep voice echoed through the corridor:
“...Agent codenamed **Sun Wukong** stood calmly in the burning room, looking down at the dying Li Gou Dan, smiling as he made a shushing gesture...
Li Gou Dan’s eyes widened in terror.
Eventually, she stopped breathing.
No one in the entire criminal faction noticed that Director Li Gou Dan had quietly died on the second floor of the ballroom.
Next...
It’s your turn.”
Shen Qingzhu slowly came to a stop.