Zahlreiche Katastrophen

Kapitel 2

"Shut up, you two good-for-nothings! You've disgraced the underworld! Take them away!" The bearded man slapped each of them across the face.

Soon, Li Dui and his two companions were driven by the kidnappers to a living room on the ground floor. It was a very spacious hall with two rows of huge glass windows on both sides. The bearded gang sat on a green sofa on the left, while Li Dui and his companions sat on a sofa on the right, separated by a brown glass coffee table.

The bearded man remembered his boss, Lai Ziqiang, and ordered his two men, "Keep an eye on them. I'm going to find the boss. These three chickens are cunning; be careful." Just then, the cabin door suddenly opened, and Lai Ziqiang, with his hair standing on end, stood stiffly in the doorway like a rooster.

"Brother Lai, you didn't go diving, did you? We're risking our lives, and you're nowhere to be seen." The bearded man crossed his legs and glanced at Lai Ziqiang.

Lai Ziqiang walked in expressionlessly. His gait was strange, giving off a light and airy feeling. He walked up to Li Dui and let out a series of strange laughs.

"Good sir, let's talk this out." Li Dui looked at Lai Ziqiang with terror. "I'll do whatever you say, just please don't kill me." "Crow like a rooster." Lai Ziqiang ordered with a forced smile.

"Stop messing with me, please." Li Dui begged for mercy with a mournful face.

"Bang!" Lai Ziqiang kicked Li Dui in the stomach, and Li Dui clutched his stomach and screamed in pain.

"Imitate a rooster's crow," Lai Ziqiang coldly ordered.

"Hey, Brother Lai, what's wrong with you? We're here to make money, not to play games. You should be ordering Guo Jinshan to call and ask for money, not making someone squawk like a rooster." The bearded man vented his frustration on Lai Ziqiang.

"I should be the one saying that. I'm the boss. You're just a dog. When I was in the business, you were still wearing open-crotch pants. Go grab a banana and suck your own throat!" Lai Ziqiang turned around and sneered.

"What?!" The bearded man jumped to his feet. He'd been a ruthless figure for over a decade, and no one had ever dared to contradict him. Back in the day, armed with an AK-47, he'd robbed eight children's toy stores in the heart of Central, stealing dozens of boxes of high-end toys and clearing out eighteen garbage bins in the back alleys—a truly awe-inspiring figure in Hong Kong. But now, this guy surnamed Lai dared to disregard him? He'd only cooperated with Lai for the money, but this guy had publicly insulted him. "A scholar can be humiliated, but his pride cannot!" the bearded man slammed his hand heavily on the coffee table. "What did you just say?!" "You can insult me, but you can't insult my chastity. I'm a pure and innocent virgin, my thing is innocent. You have to apologize to my darling, or else I'll make you suck my banana." "Go eat shit!" Lai Ziqiang let out a scream like Bruce Lee, then with a "whoosh," he somersaulted in the air, followed by a lightning-fast spinning kick. Just like in a movie, with a "bang," the bearded man was kicked into the air, then with another "crash," he screamed as he crashed through the glass window, rolling over the ship's side in a wave of shards, flying into the sea and splashing up a huge spray.

A round of enthusiastic applause immediately erupted in the hall. Seeing the dazzling array of mustachioed men and the fat man, people shouted, "Brother Lai, hero! Brother Lai, hero!" Even Guo Jinshan and the other two joined in the applause. Guo Jinshan even took the opportunity to offer Lai Ziqiang a cigarette, asking, "What's your name, hero?" "I am the King of the World!" Lai Ziqiang shouted, raising his hands expressionlessly.

"Long live King Lai!" The man with the mustache and the fat man flattered him lavishly.

"King Lai is indeed young and promising, with a bright future ahead." Guo Jinshan suddenly noticed Lai Ziqiang's full head of silver hair and quickly corrected himself, "He's a late bloomer, a child again." "Shut up." Suddenly, Lai Ziqiang stared at Li Dui, a strange smile appearing on his face.

Seeing this, Li Dui became even more frightened. He trembled all over and raised his hands in a shaky voice to beg for mercy, "Please spare me, Lord Lai, you are very generous." --- Magpie Bridge Fairy replied [10]: Give me his blood, I like his blood, it tastes like Viagra, I like it, I want to suck all your blood, hahaha. "Lai Ziqiang stared at Li Dui with a drooling look, as if he were a huge cake.

"Don't suck my blood! My blood is unsanitary. Viagra will cause high blood pressure. I also do drugs. I have AIDS. It's a small matter if I die, but it would be terrible if King Lai were hurt. Please don't suck my blood!" Li Dui was so frightened that he shrank into a ball.

"I saw it, silly daughter. I knew from the start that this monkey was no good. Look at him, he's admitted to everything. He not only does drugs, but he also has AIDS and needs Viagra. He's probably impotent. I wouldn't take a man like that even if he were given to me for free. Look at Lai Ziqiang, that's a real man among men." Guo Jinshan lectured his daughter eloquently.

With a "slap," Guo Jinshan was slapped across the face by Lai Ziqiang. "Call me Your Majesty, understand?" "Yes, yes, Your Majesty, please calm down, Your Majesty, please calm down, this servant obeys." Guo Jinshan immediately knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly.

"Cut off this bastard's thing and boil it into soup for me," Lai Ziqiang ordered Guo Jinshan, pointing at Li Dui.

"You bastard!" Guo Jinshan took the fruit knife and walked tremblingly to Li Dui. "I'm going to turn you into a eunuch, and see how you seduce my daughter then." Just at the critical moment, Li Dui noticed something strange. Lai Ziqiang's posture was a bit odd. Good heavens, he was standing on tiptoe. No wonder he walked so lightly.

When Li Dui was a child, he heard from a shaman in his neighborhood that a person possessed by a ghost had a characteristic: he walked on his tiptoes and his heels did not touch the ground.

Could a ghost be possessing Lai Ziqiang? In a flash, Li Dui suddenly realized why his prayers had failed, why the Red Ghost King was no longer effective, and why Lai Ziqiang said his blood tasted like Viagra and that he liked it. The reason was very simple: the Red Ghost King had escaped. He had once fed the Red Ghost King with his own blood, which explained the reasons for the previous questions. Now, this Red Ghost King was possessing Lai Ziqiang, and it wanted to take revenge on its master and avenge being enslaved by him. This was why Lai Ziqiang had been targeting him.

"He's not Lai Ziqiang, he's a ghost, he's a ghost!" Li Dui pushed away the fruit knife Guo Jinshan was offering and pointed it at Lai Ziqiang, shouting, "His heels aren't touching the ground!" "Hahaha!" Lai Ziqiang, whose eyes were glowing red, suddenly let out a shrill laugh like a child. "Too late, you're all going to die." "Ah!" The man with the mustache and the fat man screamed wildly as they watched Lai Ziqiang slowly rise into the air. They were terrified and rushed towards the door, but a gust of cold wind suddenly blew in from outside, and the door slammed shut with a "bang."

Despite the two men's frantic ramming, the door remained completely unmoved.

Guo Jinshan was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground, unable to move. Guo Tianru also screamed and covered his head. A fierce gust of cold wind swept through the hall. Lai Ziqiang rose to the ceiling and spun around with his back against it. As he spun, Lai Ziqiang grinned and pointed at the coffee table, which then automatically rose into the air and flew towards the fat man and the mustachioed man who were banging on the door.

With a "bang," the man with the mustache and the fat man were sent flying to a corner. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Dui took out the packet of ghost-slaying powder from his inner bag, grabbed a pinch, and sprinkled it on Lai Ziqiang, who was suspended in the air.

With a "sizzle," Lai Ziqiang let out a child's scream, then fell heavily from the ceiling, his body billowing red smoke.

"Ah!" Lai Ziqiang screamed and rolled around on the carpet. At the same time, he also woke up and found that Red Ghost had escaped from his body.

"Quick, quick, there's a ghost here!" The man with the mustache grabbed Lai Ziqiang and pulled him outside.

"Get to the cockpit quickly, we need to get ashore immediately." Lai Ziqiang, now fully conscious, ordered, "Fatty, bring these three pieces of meat over as well." Lai Ziqiang pushed Li Dui and the other two into the cockpit, and the man with the mustache activated the mecha-merge system. The yacht started up with a "clatter, clatter, clatter," and Fatty steered the ship towards Hong Kong.

"Call home and bring over a billion." Lai Ziqiang held out his mobile phone to Guo Jinshan.

"A billion? A billion would raise suspicion. How about 500,000? It's safe and comfortable." Guo Jinshan reverted to his businessman's haggling nature. "500,000 can buy a lot of popcorn cones. Popcorn cones are very nutritious." "Bullshit! I said a billion, so it's a billion. 500,000? Dream on!" Lai Ziqiang impatiently pointed his gun at Guo Jinshan.

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [11]: "How about 800 million? It's very auspicious." Guo Jinshan was still nervously bargaining.

"Fine, eight hundred million it is. Hurry up and make the call." Lai Ziqiang said impatiently.

Guo Jinshan dialed a number randomly, hoping to take advantage of the chaos. "Hello, wife, it's me, Guo Jinshan. Listen, immediately have someone withdraw 800 million into this account." Then Guo Jinshan read out the account number that Lai Ziqiang had written on the note.

"You're insane, go to hell!" Guo Jinshan heard another shrew's voice yelling on the other end of the phone before the call was hung up.

The cunning Guo Jinshan continued his act, his hands trembling. He shouted into the empty phone, "What? Three weeks? Seven days? I have urgent business to attend to!" Lai Ziqiang snatched the phone away. Guo Jinshan laughed, trying to justify himself, "She might be having an affair." "Damn it, do you think I'm an idiot? Your wife is as old as an ox now, and she wouldn't have anyone cheating on her. Call the real number now, or else..." Lai Ziqiang glanced at Guo Jinshan's daughter, "I'll make sure you have a grandson with the surname Lai." "No, no, I'll call, I'll call." Guo Jinshan dialed the number again, his whole body trembling. Suddenly, with a "bang," a bolt of lightning struck from the ceiling. In a flash of white light, Guo Jinshan's cell phone turned into a smoking, deformed black lump of glue. Guo Jinshan was so frightened that he collapsed to the ground.

"Something's not right, run!" The man with the mustache glanced at the sky through the window. A huge, rolling red cloud covered the yacht, the seawater had turned pitch black and was churning with white waves and steaming. Through the gap in the ceiling, one could see the massive red cloud with lightning and thunder. The sun appeared and disappeared within the cloud, and gusts of biting cold wind howled in from the gap. Lai Ziqiang was so frightened that his hair stood on end.

"Get ashore quickly! There are many people on the shore, and Red Ghost King's power will be greatly reduced!" Li Dui shouted. He was afraid, not of the kidnappers, but of Red Ghost King.

At this moment, a majestic mountain slowly rose from the northern horizon, its slopes covered with layers of lush, verdant trees, like green waves spreading across the ridge. A highway stretched out from the foot of the mountain, winding like a ribbon along its waist, all the way to a ten-story glass building at the summit. Under the sunlight, the glass curtain wall of this building glittered and shone brilliantly.

"Quick, get ashore!" Lai Ziqiang was worried that Red Devil Boy Wang would soon make a comeback, so he didn't care where they were and immediately ordered the mustachioed man at the helm to rush ashore at full speed.

"Strange, I don't think I've ever seen this beach or this mountain in Hong Kong before." The fat man turned the rudder with a lot of doubt.

The yacht roared onto the beach, its wide gunwales kicking up clouds of sand. Amidst the swirling sand, Lai Ziqiang and his hostages jumped off the boat and fled toward the woods at the foot of the mountain.

A white van with its doors wide open was parked by the roadside at the foot of the mountain. Strangely, there was no one inside the van.

Lai Ziqiang looked around. The quiet beach was deserted, not a soul in sight.

"Hahaha." Lai Ziqiang laughed as he climbed into the van, started the ignition key inserted under the dashboard, and the van actually started. "Hahaha, I never thought that after just escaping the clutches of Red Devil Wang, I would run into such a big fish. I'm really blessed." The man with the mustache and the fat man used their pistols to force Li Dui and the Guo father and daughter into the van, which then roared up the winding mountain road and headed towards the top of the mountain.

"This van looks familiar, like I've seen it somewhere before," Li Dui thought to himself, but he couldn't recall where he had seen it before.

The van wound its way up the mountain road through lush green trees on both sides, turning left and right, before finally reaching the top of the mountain after many twists and turns.

A ten-story glass building stands tall under the deep blue sky, its glass curtain wall smooth, bright, and gleaming.

"What hotel is this?" Guo Jinshan stuck his head out of the window and said, "It's so beautiful, I want to buy it." "Don't stick your head out." Lai Ziqiang suddenly pulled Guo Jinshan's head back. Guo Jinshan is a celebrity---Queqiaoxian replied [12]: If this guy sticks his head out, this car may become an exhibition car that is surrounded by people.

Suddenly, the van stopped. The man with the mustache who was driving inexplicably stopped the van in front of the glass building on the hilltop.

"Hey, are you out of your mind?!" Lai Ziqiang yelled at the man with the mustache for foolishly stopping the car. "Drive! You idiot, do you want people to find out we have a Guo Jinshan here?" The man with the mustache turned around, looking surprised. "There's no road. This road only leads to this hilltop building; there's no way out." "Then hurry back, you moron." Lai Ziqiang gestured impatiently to the man with the mustache, worried about people around. "Go back the way you came." The man with the mustache stuck his head out of the car and looked back at the original road. Suddenly, his eyes widened as he pointed to the back of the van and shouted, "That road is gone!" "What?" Lai Ziqiang stuck his head out of the window and looked. Good heavens, the road behind them had turned into a high wall, a thick wall that encircled the entire open space around the hilltop building.

"That's impossible. It wasn't like this when we came up. How did these walls appear?" The man with the mustache looked completely bewildered.

"What on earth happened?" Lai Ziqiang angrily pushed Li Dui and the others out of the car. He looked around again. The towering blue brick wall surrounded the glass building, and there was no exit in sight.

At the end of a large lawn, the glass building stands quietly under the blue sky, a scene of tranquility.

"Let's go inside the building and see what's going on." Lai Ziqiang waved his hand, and Fatty and Mustache escorted Li Dui and the other two toward the building.

The building's entrance is magnificent, with a gleaming gold-plated glass skylight that rises high above the main entrance, bearing four large, gleaming gold characters: "Jinle Building".

The name "Jinle Building" sounded so familiar to Li Dui. He felt like he had heard the words before, and even the building itself, like the van, seemed vaguely familiar. But he couldn't remember where he had heard the words "Jinle Building" before, nor could he recall where or when he had seen the building.

Pushing open the glass door, you enter a spacious and bright hall. Strangely, the hall is completely empty; you can't see a single person, just like the open space on the mountaintop outside.

The hall's floor is paved with smooth, orange-patterned marble, and at the far end of the hall are transparent glass walls. A rockery and pond stand quietly in the left corner, with an artificial stream cascading down its jagged walls like a white ribbon. In the right corner of the hall is a row of long black cabinets, behind which is a row of screens embedded in the stone wall. At the very far center of the hall, four transparent glass pillars rise from the floor to the ceiling, each containing a cylindrical metal elevator, approximately two meters high.

"Is anyone here?" Lai Ziqiang called out as he led the group to the counter.

"Damn it, there's not a soul in this building." The man with the mustache ran around the area and came back to report.

"Maybe it's a newly built building," the fat man speculated.

"No, ever since we got ashore, I've had a strange feeling. Why haven't we seen a single person from the foot of the mountain to here? Although I've been to many places in Hong Kong, I've never seen this place before. Could this not be Hong Kong, but the mainland?" Lai Ziqiang was full of doubts.

"It might be in the mainland, so why don't we order some chicken tonight and relax?" the man with the mustache suggested.

"Bullshit! We're doing something big. A small act of impatience can ruin a great plan." Lai Ziqiang slapped the man with the mustache again. "I don't want any oversight to ruin everything. No one is allowed to call for a 'chicken' without my permission." Just then, all the screens behind the counter suddenly lit up, showing cartoon Donald Duck images.

"Welcome, children, to the Jinle Building! Here you'll find all the most popular and fun amusement facilities from around the world. We guarantee you'll play until your eyes are sore! On the second floor, there are trampolines, laser guns, video game arcades, and a roller coaster. On the third floor, there are..." "Damn, it's just an unmanned, automated children's park." The man with the mustache shrugged incredulously.

"The kidnapping is too tense, brother. Why don't we go up and relax a bit?" Fatty suggested.

"Yeah, yeah!" Li Dui seized the opportunity to urge, "Being a kidnapper is incredibly demanding, risking your life and causing all sorts of trouble. The psychological pressure must be immense. You should find a chance to relax. I love children's parks, especially this one with cutting-edge technology. The roller coasters are fun, they can relax your nerves and lower your blood pressure, and I've even heard they can fight cancer..." "Shut up! Do you think I'm Mickey Mouse?" Lai Ziqiang slapped Li Dui twice more. "I have a heart condition. I rode this thing ten years ago, it was terrifying! I peed myself on the spot! And now you dare to make me ride this thing? Damn it, do you want me to have a stroke? You clown, are you tired of living?" "No, no, I wouldn't dare. It's just that Brother Lai is too powerful. I thought only roller coasters and bungee jumping were suitable for Brother Lai." Li Dui quickly changed his tune. "But now I've discovered that Brother Lai also has a gentle side. Brother Lai is truly a new generation of people who are full of love, love peace, and are virtuous and beautiful!" --- Magpie Bridge Fairy replied [13]: "No one is allowed to play without my permission." Lai Ziqiang looked around seriously and then ordered, "What we need to do now is to figure out where we are. So I've decided to go up to the tenth floor first, take a look at the surrounding environment, and then I, the most powerful Jianghu hero in the world, Lai Ziqiang, will make the next wise decision." "Wise, superb, even Sun Tzu's Art of War would have to admit defeat. Brother Lai is indeed fearless in the face of danger. Only when the sea is turbulent can the true hero's nature be revealed." Guo Jinshan grabbed Lai Ziqiang's hand with a lustful look. "Are you free tonight? I think, hehehe." Guo Jinshan actually showed an embarrassed smile. It turned out that he was a gay man.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Lai Ziqiang stared straight at Guo Jinshan.

"Don't talk like that with so many people around!" Guo Jinshan winked at Lai Ziqiang.

"You want to be gay with me?" Lai Ziqiang gasped.

"You're so bad, you're so bad." Guo Jinshan turned his head away.

"Go find a pig to sleep with!" Lai Ziqiang kicked Guo Jinshan to the ground, then stomped on him like a madman. "I'll find you a super-heavy boar to sleep with, I guarantee it'll make you lay eggs." "Brother, stop! If you kill him, we won't get any money!" The man with the mustache quickly pulled Lai Ziqiang away, but Lai Ziqiang remained furious.

"Ah, that feels so good!" Guo Jinshan clutched his chest, a look of pure bliss on his face. "Brother Lai, those three kicks of yours were amazing, so satisfying! I love it! Please, give me another one!" "Ah, I can't take it anymore! Quickly stuff this old man's mouth shut!" Lai Ziqiang clutched his head.

Guo Jinshan hurriedly shouted, "Brother Lai, don't abandon me, I'm sincere, I love you." Suddenly, a pair of smelly socks were stuffed into his mouth.

"Quickly, get them into the elevator," Lai Ziqiang ordered.

When the elevator reached the tenth floor, they discovered that it was a huge swimming pool with clean artificial turf on both sides. Huge floor-to-ceiling windows framed the deep blue sky at the end of the lawn, and sunlight streamed in from the left-hand window, creating shimmering light on the pool's azure surface.

"Want to swim naked here?" The man with the mustache nudged Guo Jinshan's chin and removed the smelly sock stuffed in his mouth.

"That's for low-class people. I only play in saunas," Guo Jinshan said dismissively, raising his head.

Lai Ziqiang walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass window on the left and looked out. He could hardly believe his eyes. He found that all around him was a vast blue sea. The mountains and trees were gone. The building stood straight into the water, becoming a solitary tower on the sea. He could also see waves slowly sweeping towards the glass curtain wall at the bottom.

"Brother, something's wrong! The mountain's gone, the car's gone, everything's gone! We're trapped in a lonely building in the middle of the sea!" On the right side of the pool, Fatty yelled. He noticed that the glass window to his right also offered only the vast ocean view. The building was no longer perched atop a mountain, but plunged into the turbulent sea. Worse still, there wasn't a single ship in sight on the endless expanse of water—just utter emptiness.

"Damn it, what's going on?" Lai Ziqiang knew something was wrong, and he ordered, "Get out of here!" Something even more terrifying happened. When they entered the elevator, it turned into a long corridor paved with black and white checkered tiles, stretching all the way to a row of stone steps at the end.

"This was clearly an elevator just now." The man with the mustache exclaimed in surprise, his mouth agape.

"Run! Take any road you can find and get out of here quickly!" Lai Ziqiang ordered everyone to run towards the stone steps.

The green walls on both sides of the corridor were covered with many oil paintings, all of which depicted ferocious and terrifying demons. There were ghouls with black hats and sinister blue faces, vampires with sharp teeth and green eyes dressed in tuxedos, werewolves in suits, and ghouls with bared teeth and claws. The crowd was so frightened by these terrifying oil paintings that they ran like madmen up the stone steps at the end of the corridor.

They rushed up the stone steps, running for an unknown amount of time, until they realized they could never reach the top. Lai Ziqiang stopped and looked up. Good heavens, the dense stone steps stretched all the way to the endless darkness. The stone staircase, as far as the naked eye could see, was several kilometers long, like a jade ribbon, winding its way into the boundless darkness.

"Damn it, we've gone up a bottomless staircase! Let's get back!" Lai Ziqiang knew something was wrong and immediately ordered everyone to go downstairs.

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [14]: But something even more terrible happened. When they reached the end of the stone steps, they found that the corridor had disappeared and turned into a fork in the road, with two stone steps extending downwards to the left and right.

"Hurry up and rush down!" Lai Ziqiang grabbed a stone staircase without thinking and charged down. But then another fork appeared below, with one staircase leading downwards and another extending upwards on either side. Lai Ziqiang started to panic. He screamed at the top of his lungs, "Who's playing tricks on us? Show yourself if you dare!" "Hehehe," came the eerie laughter of children from the depths of the staircases.

"Red Ghost King." Only then did Li Dui realize that he had finally remembered the familiar van and the Jinle Building he had seen before. It was very simple: last night he had burned a paper van and a paper building called "Jinle Building" for the Red Ghost King. In addition, there were so many children's play facilities inside, which may have been burned by the previous owner. Therefore, Li Dui came to the conclusion that the Red Ghost King was the culprit.

"That van, and this building, were all burned by me for those Red Devils. We've all been caught in their trap!" Li Dui screamed.

Upon hearing this, the kidnappers and hostages were terrified and scrambled to run down the descending stone steps, trying to escape the building as quickly as possible. However, they ran for over an hour, passing countless forks in the road, but still couldn't reach the end of the steps. They realized they had entered a maze with no end in sight, full of upward and downward branching staircases. They had no way to get out of this staircase maze. So they ran for another half hour, rushing up and down, until they were exhausted, but still couldn't get out of the staircase maze. Finally, they all collapsed on a staircase.

"Wait a minute." Li Dui suddenly stopped. "I've heard people say that a boy's urine can ward off ghosts who are lost." "Are you a virgin?" Lai Ziqiang asked.

Li Dui, who was covered in sexually transmitted diseases, quickly made up an excuse: "I can't pee, I haven't drunk any water." "Which of you is a virgin?" Lai Ziqiang asked Fatty and Little Mustache.

"He must be, he's impotent," the mustachioed man said, pointing at the fat man.

"You bastard, revealing my secret!" The fat man raised his fist to punch the mustachioed man.