Esoteric Buddhism: To live as king in America

"Of course, of course."

Wang Yuanli readily agreed:

"That's only right. Even if you hadn't mentioned it, I was prepared to take you all for a spin. Shall we go now?"

Mian glanced at Shirley, who shrugged to indicate that everything was OK, so Mian nodded to Wang Yuanli.

"Well, then I'll leave it to Mr. Wang."

The group immediately set off and approached the Jinfu Building.

At this moment, the building's doors were tightly locked. Wang Yuanli picked out a slightly worn key from a bunch of jingling keys, unlocked the chain lock on the heavy iron door, and then opened it.

"I've arranged for all the residents of this building to stay elsewhere in the past few days, so none of them are in the building right now. I have all the keys to everyone, so we can go wherever we want."

Wang Yuanli patted his chest, making such a guarantee. But Mi An ignored him, instead looking around at the surroundings and asking:

"Is this the only way out?"

"No, of course not. This is actually the back door, which leads directly to the stairs. There's another exit over in the main lobby, right across from the street."

Wang Yuanli pointed in a general direction, and Mi An looked in that direction. She saw that there seemed to be more ground-floor shops in that direction, so she asked:

"Then why don't we go through the main entrance? Don't we need to check the first floor?"

"The first and second floors are all shops and storage rooms. Now those shops are all closed, and there have never been any accidents on these two floors. There's nothing to see. Let's just go upstairs."

He spoke and walked quickly, seemingly eager to get them out of the area. Judging from the beads of sweat on his forehead, Mr. Wang was clearly quite afraid of entering the building, so much so that he couldn't wait to get it over with.

Mian naturally refused to give up exploring the first floor, but since his master, Wang Yuanli, had said so, he didn't argue with him. He simply kept the matter in mind and followed Wang Yuanli upwards.

The group quickly reached the apartment floor. They took out the key and opened the tightly locked door. The poorly ventilated air, filled with a strong, damp, and musty smell, rushed into their nostrils.

The building was pitch black until Wang Yuanli fumbled for the hallway lights and turned them on, at which point one or two working lights came on. The corridor stretched into the darkness, seemingly endless. Apartment doors were tightly closed on both sides, and the apartment numbers were blurred even up close due to the shadows and the passage of time.

Wang Yuanli led the three of them carefully into the room, and began to explain.

"The incidents over the past few months occurred on the 22nd, 16th, 11th, 5th, and 4th floors. The first to have an accident was that unfortunate old man in the water tank. And the last to have an accident was an elderly woman on the 4th floor. She was lying in her bed at home, with no external injuries, and just died. The police said it was an acute asthma attack, but who knows?"

Wang Yuanli was shivering, but he still mustered up the courage to turn on his phone's flashlight, adding a little more light to the dim stairwell.

He forced a smile at Mian and Shirley and said:

"I'll take a few heroes to check out the scene of the accident one by one, and then I'll show you the top floor where you'll be staying tonight. That way we'll have seen everything. What do you say?"

"Okay, then let's do it this way."

Shirley readily agreed. Mian, however, remained silent, carefully observing her surroundings.

Mosa Street is a predominantly populated area for people of Asian descent, and the Kim Fook Building is theoretically filled with them. However, for some reason, the exotic Asian atmosphere in the stairwells is not as strong as on the main street. Instead, there are graffiti and paintings with a distinctly Oceania character.

Mian noticed that there seemed to be traces of Spring Festival couplets still pasted on the doors of several families, but at this moment these cultural features from Shengzhou had either been brutally torn off, leaving only some scraps of paper and ugly tape marks, or they had been splashed with red paint, making them blurry.

Seeing that Mian seemed engrossed in the graffiti on the wall, Wang Yuanli awkwardly leaned over to explain:

"These graffiti and vandalisms were done by thugs from other areas. They outnumbered and outgunned the security guards, who couldn't stop them at all and could only let them do whatever they wanted. This kind of thing happens every now and then; after all, when people come to cause trouble for these Shengzhou people, they don't need any reason."

At this point, Wang Yuanli looked heartbroken and sighed as he said:

"At first, we suspected that those strange things were the work of thugs. Who would have thought that something dirty was behind it? It's true what they say, misfortune always finds its way to the unfortunate."

Mian remained noncommittal, but calmly took out a shard of mirror, a "crystal ball," from her pocket. In the dim light, she pretended to straighten her clothes and quickly glanced at it. On the surface of the shard, a new line of text quietly appeared:

[You saw at a glance what was hidden in the Black Forest: countless trees that had grown animal eye-like patterns through brutal evolution. Yet, amidst these countless mimicry, the real thing existed, lurking in the shadows, brewing a conspiracy, waiting for its chance to strike.]

The real object is hidden among the confusing patterns. Could it be that something is hidden in these powerful graffiti?

Mian speculated this way, and looked again at the rebellious graffiti on the wall, trying to find clues.

However, at this moment, Ai Yin, who was clinging to Mian's clothes and not letting go, suddenly tensed up and reacted like a cat about to explode.

"My lord, over there..."

Before Ayn could finish speaking, the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground came from behind the apartment door, followed by a heart-wrenching cry of a child.

"Shit!"

Shirley cursed and rushed to the door first. After failing to break it open, she turned around and yelled at Wang Yuanli, who was so frightened by the child's crying that he almost collapsed to the ground.

"Don't you have a key? Come and open the door."

Upon hearing this, Wang Yuanli seemed to wake from a dream, and tremblingly began searching for the keys. But Mian couldn't wait that long.

He patted the excited Ai Yin on the shoulder, signaling him to stay put, then rushed forward and snatched the key from Wang Yuanli's hand. After glancing at the house number, he quickly found the correct key and inserted it into the lock.

With a click, the somewhat rusty security door opened, and Sherry rushed inside, followed closely by Mian.

In the dim light, the room was almost entirely filled with all sorts of household items, not a single empty space in sight. Mian's eyes darted among the countless clutter, trying to find traces of the "ghost" or "person" that had caused all this.

However, all he found in the end was a crying child.