Chapter 327 Vision
Xia Yubing has been spoiled since she was a child. The closest thing to housework she has ever done is throwing all her clothes into the dirty laundry bin before taking a bath. She is too lazy to sort them out herself. Fortunately, she is strong enough and is not like a daughter of a wealthy family who cannot even lift a mop.

After mopping the floor in half an hour, it was time to clean the windows. The airship room didn’t have a large viewing window, only a glass wine cabinet embedded in the wall, which was filled with Van Dyke’s wine collection, occupying most of the wall. The maids usually had to use a stepladder to clean the wine cabinet, but Xia Yubing didn’t need it. She could reach the top layer by standing on the ground, and she rolled up the wet rag in her hand and wiped it carelessly.

The wet rag wiped across the smoky glass surface. Two figures, one tall and one short, were vaguely reflected on the wine cabinet with water droplets condensing on it. Xia Yubing said without turning her head, “I can do it myself, Qiao Mary. I don’t need your help.” Then she continued to wipe the glass.

This was what Ning Zhe had instructed in the message in his notebook. She had to clean it herself and not let others do it for her.

But after Xia Yubing finished speaking, the shorter figure in the wine cabinet seemed not to have heard it. He walked forward step by step, getting closer and closer.

“I told you, I can do it myself.” Xia Yubing rolled up the rag in her hand, turned around and said, “If you really want to help, just change the rag for me…eh?”

Where is Joe Marie?
Xia Yubing blinked and saw that the room with soft light was empty. There were drops of water on the waxed cedar floor. Those were the marks left by her mopping the floor. The maid named Qiao Mary was not in the room at all, and there were no signs of anyone walking on the floor.

“That is…” Xia Yubing swallowed her saliva, clutching the rag and slowly turned around. The smoky glass of the wine cabinet still reflected two figures, one tall and one short. The tall one was herself, but the short one was nowhere to be seen.

Xia Yubing felt a chill down her spine, and her hair stood on end: “Ghost?”

Is the airship haunted?

In the blink of an eye, the reflection in the wine cabinet took another step forward. This time Xia Yubing could see clearly that the figure was wearing a loose mid-sleeved robe, with broad shoulders and hips. It was a man’s body shape.

After all, the wine cabinet is not a mirror. Xia Yubing could only barely see the figure’s clothes and body shape reflected in the glass. The facial features under the hood of the robe were covered by a shadow and could not be distinguished.

As if noticing that Xia Yubing had stopped wiping the glass, the figure in the robe standing behind her raised his head slightly. It was not just a psychological effect or something else, but Xia Yubing felt a cold gaze cast at the back of her head from behind, and the chill of fear ran through her entire spine from top to bottom.

boom–!
He drew his gun, turned around, and pulled the trigger. Everything happened in an instant. The revolver originally inserted at his waist emptied all six bullets in the magazine in Xia Yubing’s hand in just two seconds, leaving six burnt bullet holes on the resin coffee table not far behind him – the human figure reflected on the wine cabinet was standing next to the coffee table.

In the empty room, Xia Yubing held a rag in one hand and a revolver in the other, breathing rapidly. The smoke wafting from the muzzle emitted a smell of burnt gunpowder. In the silent room where one could hear a pin drop, the only sounds she could hear were her own breathing and heartbeat, as if the deafening gunshot just now had never occurred.

If it weren’t for the brass bullets embedded in the floor and the coffee table, she would even doubt whether she had fired the gun at all.

Turning around, the man in the robe was still standing quietly beside the coffee table, his blurry figure reflected on the glass of the wine cabinet. In the blink of an eye, he took another step forward.

“No, no, something is wrong.” Xia Yubing casually threw the rag aside, opened the magazine with a click, ejected the shell, and reloaded it with trembling fingers. She stared at the shadow of the man in the wine cabinet, backed away, and raised the muzzle of the gun. Bang——

Another gunshot was heard, and the glass shattered along with it. A bottle of gin with a tree branch pattern printed on the package also shattered. The golden liquor flowed along with the broken glass and dripped onto the shiny floor. The sweet aroma of the liquor filled the air, as if a believer had cut the god’s throat with a knife, releasing golden blood.

The glass of the wine cabinet was shattered, but the reflections in the glass did not shatter together. It was like a large mirror was broken into countless small mirrors, each small mirror reflected a miniature shadow. The reflections of countless men walked forward in unison in the smoky glass. At this time, the door opened.

“Ms. Xia, do you still need the mop? I’ve got another bucket of clean water.”

The maid, Qiao Mary, pushed the door open and walked in. She placed the bucket next to the mop Xia Yubing had used, stood on tiptoe to take down the landscape painting hanging on the wall opposite the wine cabinet, and carefully placed it on the table: “Mr. Dyke likes this painting very much. Be careful not to get it wet.”

Xia Yubing stood there in a daze, and when she turned her head, she found that the man reflected in the glass had disappeared at some point. The wine cabinet on the wall was intact, and even the broken bottle of gin was placed neatly in the cabinet. The faint aroma of wine was still lingering in the air, but the brass bullets that were stuck on the resin tea table were nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, why are you holding a gun?” Qiao Mali’s voice was filled with fear. Xia Yubing looked in the direction of the voice and met the maid’s fearful gaze.

“Nothing.” Xia Yubing shook her head and said, “This is the handicraft I bought in Vivian Port during the day. I’ll check to see if the ammunition inside is completely emptied.”

“So that’s how it is.” Qiao Mali heaved a sigh of relief and quickly took down the other paintings on the wall one by one.

At this moment, Xia Yubing suddenly understood Ning Zhe’s mentality when he faced her in Zanju Town. Some things cannot be explained in a few words. Even if you go to great lengths to explain them clearly, it will not help the current situation, so it is better not to say anything.

“Was that just… an illusion?” Xia Yubing walked to the wall, stretched out her hand to open the cabinet door, and took out the bottle of gin from the intact glass cabinet:
The cork at the bottle mouth was well sealed, there was not a single crack on the bottle body, and even the label paper on it was still dry, with no signs of being wetted by the wine.

Xia Yubing came to the coffee table with a glass of wine in his hand. The waxed floor was still shiny without a single bullet hole. The coffee table that had just been hit by several bullets was also intact, as if nothing had happened. However…

Xia Yubing reached into his pocket and found that there were indeed 6 rounds missing from his spare magazine.

“what happened?”

(End of this chapter)