Chapter Forty-Five: The Invisible Bustle

A powerful and unsettling aura emanated from the grand piano on the stage. Qi Chen and the Gentleman both noticed that this aura was strikingly similar to the abnormal energy clinging to the audience members—it was as if the piano itself was the source of this eerie power.

“Another haunted weapon?” Qi Chen recalled the confessional guillotine from before, but compared to that blade, whose binding abilities were limited to a small area, the grand piano before him seemed to possess far more daunting and terrifying capabilities.

The Gentleman, who was pretending to be a staff member against the wall, nearly lost his composure after assessing the piano’s mental intensity.

“Grade C!”

This was the equivalent of the mental force of a thousand people. Unlike the haunted, who could only wield as much power as their own mental strength, the piano could perfectly unleash whatever intensity it possessed. Take Qi Chen, for example; though his mental strength tested at Grade B, when compared to the haunted, it was more akin to the power of a Grade D entity.

The disaster this piano could create would surely affect an entire region!

Qi Chen instinctively lowered himself, staring intently at the grand piano through the lowest gap in the vent’s grille.

Suddenly, a key on the piano moved by itself!

A crisp note rang out in the pitch-black concert hall, and the audience, standing like puppets, responded as if commanded: they sat down in unison, even leaning back against their seats.

From behind, they seemed like a crowd immersed in the music.

But Qi Chen, observing from above, could see their faces clearly—all the audience members had their eyes wide open, their pupils vacant and lifeless, evoking only the thought of corpses.

Yet as the grand piano played its melodic rhythm without a performer, these soulless spectators wore expressions of deep satisfaction and intoxication.

Qi Chen suddenly felt his mind grow heavy, but the furious roar of the Overlord echoed in his ears, snapping him back to alertness!

“So the piano’s music is the trigger mechanism for this haunted power?”

With the Gentleman absent, Qi Chen couldn’t rely on his senior’s deductions as he had with the confessional guillotine; instead, he had to depend on his own reasoning to decipher the piano’s strange abilities.

Abruptly, Qi Chen realized something and quickly shifted his gaze to where the Gentleman should have been.

His eyes narrowed as he rubbed them hard and looked again—the Gentleman, who should have been standing by the wall, had vanished without a trace.

Among those in staff uniforms, not a single one was him!

A wave of unease swept over Qi Chen’s heart. He worried that the enemy behind the scenes had noticed the Gentleman’s anomaly and, using the piano’s haunted cover, had already launched an attack without him noticing.

“Impossible…” The sense of wrongness grew stronger, and a familiar irritation quietly stirred within him.

The piano’s melody suddenly intensified, notes pouring down like a torrential storm, heavy and forceful, pounding against his chest!

Qi Chen shook his head hard, anger rising in his eyes as he stared at the piano on stage. The robust figure of the Overlord hovered behind him as a spectral shadow.

Snap!

The performance abruptly ceased!

After a brief silence, the audience and staff erupted together in deafening applause, and the stage curtain, drawn by invisible force, closed again. The sole light illuminating the stage was extinguished with a sharp snap, plunging the concert hall into complete darkness.

Yet the applause continued, and Qi Chen saw the audience rise from their seats and head straight for the exit.

What were they going to do? Where had the Gentleman gone?

After a moment’s thought, resolve flashed in Qi Chen’s eyes.

He trusted the Gentleman—this senior, though only recently acquainted, was utterly reliable. Rather than chasing after the Gentleman’s whereabouts, a more important target now lay before him—the haunted piano!

He forced himself to quell the fire rising within, clenched his fists tightly, and waited for the hall to empty of spectators. His attention was quickly drawn by several staff members.

He watched them lift the closed curtain and step onto the stage. Minutes passed, and the stage fell silent; not a single person remained in the concert hall.

Bang!

The Overlord gripped the vent window’s grille and wrenched it free with ease.

Qi Chen leapt down from the duct, rolling forward to absorb the impact, though his legs still ached from the landing.

Grimacing, he rubbed his feet and hurried toward the stage, feeling the haunted aura weakening rapidly—a sense of foreboding rising within him.

He flung the curtain aside, only to find emptiness beyond.

Both the haunted piano and the staff who had entered the stage were gone without a trace.

Yet the lingering aura remained strong enough to guide Qi Chen, who immediately set off, determined to pursue it to the very end.

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In the grand music hall, the audience spilling out from the haunted concert chamber scattered like walking corpses in different directions. The hall, long past its intermission, was nearly devoid of light.

Only a few windows allowed faint beams from the tower to filter in.

At this moment, the Gentleman was following a line of audience members, blending in seamlessly, his staff uniform discarded.

“A simple method for distinguishing identities,” the Gentleman recalled the most perilous haunted event he had ever experienced, drawing on prior knowledge to guide his actions.

By removing his staff uniform, he effortlessly merged with the audience.

Keeping pace with those ahead, he used his peripheral vision to map the route, swiftly calculating their destination.

The administrative wing of the grand music hall.

Years of frontline missions had honed the Gentleman’s instincts. He sensed that soon he would reach the target of this covert reconnaissance—the rats lurking beneath the peaceful façade of City Three.

The audience in front stopped abruptly, and the Gentleman, collecting his thoughts, kept pace, waiting patiently.

Meanwhile, outside the grand music hall, Fu Ying, who was constantly monitoring the situation, made a discovery.

“Captain Fu! Two vehicles are approaching the back exit of the grand music hall—they’re parked outside now!”

In the command car, messages were relayed from the surveillance team, and investigators quickly switched camera feeds to the scene.

Fu Ying, her face stern, focused on the black-and-white footage, locking onto two ordinary sedans.

As the car doors opened and several figures emerged, her gaze sharpened.

“Is it… him?”

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