Chapter 532: Chapter 532 Suspecting a Dream_1 Chapter 532: Chapter 532 Suspecting a Dream_1 Because the business management office was still underground, there wasn’t even a single window around the office.
In the dim light at this time, the atmosphere could be described as oppressively abnormal.
Staring coldly at his bodyguard, the next moment Song Hang couldn’t help but step forward to take the microphone from him.
Unfortunately, there was indeed no buzzing sound inside, and the buttons were unresponsive.
“It seems we can’t contact the outside for now.”
The next moment, he turned back to Tan Ying and nodded, placed the phone back, and let out a long sigh.
“Then there’s no point in staying trapped here. Let’s go back up and figure something out.”
Although disappointed, Tan Ying wasn’t unable to accept reality and decisively made a suggestion.
Song Hang nodded silently, while he casually glanced at Fu Qian.
Throughout this time, Tan Ying appeared to attach great importance to Fu Qian’s opinion, but he had hardly expressed anything.
If it were someone else, he might think that the surroundings were too oppressive for them to want to speak, but Fu Qian looked as relaxed as if he were strolling through a shopping mall.
Seeing Tan Ying looking at him too, Fu Qian spread his hands. As the mastermind behind the scenes, naturally, he had no objections to Tan Ying’s suggestion.
The group quickly reached a consensus and began to retrace their steps.
Song Hang’s bodyguards led the way, their movements betraying a hint of impatience.
Humans indeed naturally dislike being confined.
Um… where is everyone?
Returning to the elevator the same way they came, the moment the elevator doors opened, everyone almost simultaneously froze in shock.
Unlike when they left, the vast mall was now eerily empty at a glance.
The noisy crowd from just a while ago had vanished in an instant.
“There were so many people just now, where did they all go?”
Tan Ying couldn’t help but be the first to speak up, rushing out of the elevator and looking around incredulously.
There was no helping it, the stark contrast from before was just too great, giving an eerily strange feeling.
In the elevator, Song Hang, too, was coming out under the protection of his bodyguards, and his expression stiffened at the sight before him.
“Could they be hiding?”
The tallest bodyguard, Number Two, couldn’t help but suggest.
“Even if that’s the case, where would they hide, and why?”
However, his suggestion had just been voiced when Tan Ying immediately dismissed it.
“I can’t think of any reason for them to hide, and their actions were just too uniform.”
“Speaking of which, from the very beginning…”
Tan Ying shook his head and glanced at the elevator everyone had descended in.
“It seems like we were the only ones who used this… Didn’t they think of using the elevator to leave?”
In the silence, Fu Qian looked expressionlessly at the group.
As the mastermind behind the scenes, the sudden disappearance of those people outside was obviously his doing.
What he did was actually quite simple; he just let the other people go.
When the Clear Dream Ring was initially activated, it naturally had an area-wide effect, unable to selectively pull people in, but Fu Qian discovered that once the dream stabilized, letting someone out was just a matter of intention.
So, while the group hurried downstairs, he kicked the others out of the chat room.
“Wait a second, was that door there originally?”
At this moment, however, it was Tan Ying who suddenly called out, pointing to a corner on the level below.
At that location, a smooth metal door was open a crack, just wide enough to let a person through.
The bodyguards looked at each other, obviously lacking a clear enough memory of such a meticulous detail.
Song Hang felt the same; this wasn’t a place he frequented very much.
“It does seem a bit out of place, and the design doesn’t quite match the other doors.”
Although his memory was not clear, he still suppressed the irritation in his heart and analyzed the situation seriously.
“Shall we go take a look?”
This suggestion clearly aligned with Tan Ying’s thoughts, as she nodded briskly.
“I think we might not have noticed this door just now; those people might have left through here. What do you think?”
The last sentence was addressed to Fu Qian, whose opinion she still greatly valued.
Fu Qian’s commentary was extremely concise.
With Fu Qian’s affirmation, Tan Ying no longer hesitated and immediately took the lead, rushing down the escalator.
“Indeed, it seems we’re heading down.”
By the time everyone had caught up, she had pushed the door even further open and peered inside several times.
“I think we could give it a try.”
“Do we need to split up?”
Seeing no one voiced an objection, Tan Ying continued to ask.
Facing this proposition, Song Hang clearly hesitated for a moment.
“The situation inside feels a bit weird; for safety’s sake, I think it’s better if we stick together.”
“After all, our communication devices are all experiencing issues. It would be troublesome to contact each other if we’re separated.”
“Then let’s stay together.”
This concern was clearly reasonable, and Tan Ying, without any objection, continued to push hard on the door, swinging it wide open.
Behind the door was a staircase leading downward, nearly matching the width of the door.
Other than an incandescent light every few meters above, there were no distinctive markings to be seen.
In such a narrow space, it was hard to imagine that so many people had escaped through here in the brief time before.
“Even if it’s not the way out, Pei Yanqing might have gone inside.”
As she walked, Tan Ying murmured almost to herself.
Even in a predicament, she hadn’t forgotten the original purpose of her actions.
At this point, under Song Hang’s instruction, three bodyguards quickly moved ahead of Tan Ying, not letting a young woman lead the way for a group of people.
Fu Qian still followed at the very back, and soon the group spiraled downward through the narrow passage.
At each turn, there was almost always a similarly shaped metal door, which upon opening revealed another identical staircase.
After making several 360-degree turns in succession, the group fell into silence, but then the staircase suddenly ended.
At the end of the horizontal corridor, there was another metal door.
Perhaps out of frustration, without waiting for Song Hang to speak, the lead bodyguard pushed the door open without a second thought.
However, the next moment, he came to a stunned halt.
Song Hang was a bit displeased but managed to hold back his temper, yet the bodyguard’s reaction made him somewhat uneasy.
Tan Ying almost simultaneously rushed to the side of the door, and after peering inside for a moment, she, too, was instantly frozen in place.
The dim lighting, the empty hall, the slowly moving escalator, and the dirty transparent dome above their heads.
This was still inside the mall, just from a different position.
But clearly, they had been walking down for quite a while.
All five unconsciously looked back, and Fu Qian still stood now behind them in the corridor.
“Could this not be real…”
The next moment, finally snapping out of it, Song Hang couldn’t help but murmur to himself.