Chapter 25: Owing That Cat a Favor

After thinking, Zheng Tan still lifted his foot and walked toward the warehouse.

Wei Leng watched the black cat running toward the warehouse, gathered his focus, and prepared to deal with the few people behind the wall first. If that cat went over, his senior brother should notice.

Zheng Tan looked at the exhaust fan opening without a wire mesh blocking it; it was a bit high, and he couldn't jump up at once. So he used some discarded planks leaning against the wall nearby to climb a bit, then jumped to the fan's vent opening and peered through the gaps between the blades… Apart from some discarded items, there was nothing.

The room with the exhaust fan wasn't large; after entering, Zheng Tan walked around. The door had long been blocked by some discarded planks and a few fallen large boxes of packaging bottles; otherwise someone would have come in to pull those bottles out and sell them. He saw no insects or the like; perhaps it was due to the scattered auxiliary medicinal agents here.

Although the door was blocked, there was a gap in the nearby wall, probably drilled when equipment was installed earlier; it wasn't big. Zheng Tan tried it—passing through was somewhat difficult, but after squeezing, he managed to force his way through.

Cats have astonishing bone flexibility; they can achieve that effect without practicing yoga, only his whole body was covered in wall dust.

After leaving that small room, Zheng Tan shook off the dust on his body and looked around. This was the warehouse's storage area; now the factory had been relocated, leaving no goods, only discarded miscellaneous items. The light was dim, several rotting thick wooden beams lay haphazardly, making it look very messy. Those thick wooden beams weren't part of this warehouse; they were likely dragged in from the collapsed small storage rooms nearby.

His view was blocked by the discarded miscellaneous items, and his smell was disturbed by the pungent auxiliary medicinal agents, so Zheng Tan could only rely on hearing to locate people.

Following the direction the sound came from, Zheng Tan weaved through the gaps in the miscellaneous items. If it were a person, it definitely wouldn't be this convenient; Zheng Tan could move quickly only because of his small size advantage.

This storeroom was somewhat large; Zheng Tan walked a distance before he got close to the source of the sound.

Here a clearing had been made; three people lay on the ground, and Wei Leng's "Walnut" Senior Brother was using rope he'd found nearby to bind the hands and feet of those three on the ground. Their mouths were also stuffed with some packaging bags, so they couldn't speak, only making whimpering sounds,

Walnut Senior Brother wasn't wearing his police uniform today, probably to move more easily.

Beside Walnut Senior Brother stood a woman who looked like a well-behaved person, wearing red-framed glasses and a waist-cinching coat that accentuated her figure. If Wei Leng's suspicion fell on this woman, Zheng Tan really couldn't associate this ordinary-college-student-looking girl with the killer who had several lives on her hands.

However, one shouldn't judge by appearance alone, just like those two thieves caught earlier—looking well-behaved doesn't guarantee innocence.

Zheng Tan didn't reveal himself right away; instead he hid behind an old plank, watching the situation, focusing his attention on that woman. Walnut Senior Brother was clearly on guard against that girl and didn't let his back face her.

After seeing Walnut Senior Brother bind the three people on the ground, Zheng Tan took out his phone.

"No signal?"

Walnut Senior Brother frowned, looked around, took his phone and walked a circuit, still no signal, so he decided to go out first to make a call. After two steps, he turned back to the girl still standing there and said, "Come with me."

The girl said nothing, obediently followed, but kept a distance of one to two meters from Walnut Senior Brother, which some psychologists consider a safe interpersonal distance.

Not only was Walnut Senior Brother guarding against her, she was also guarding against Walnut Senior Brother.

Zheng Tan followed silently, weaving through the debris, needing to stay quiet while keeping up the pace—walking, stopping, walking. Each pause let him plan the route ahead and, during that brief break, observe the surroundings, so after each pause he moved quickly.

It's like when cat owners tease their cats: one moment they see their cat standing seven or eight meters away, the next blink and the cat is already five or six meters away.

Zheng Tan didn't realize that his movements now looked like those of the "Captain" before catching prey—silently following, waiting for the opportunity.

Heading toward the door, the debris was somewhat thinner, perhaps because the three people who first entered had already cleared a path. When exiting, Walnut Senior Brother didn't need to exert much effort; he merely occasionally lifted any obstructions lying across the walkway, using the chance to observe the girl behind him.

Just as Walnut Senior Brother lifted the board blocking the front and lifted his foot to step forward, Zheng Tan saw the girl who looked like an ordinary college student pull a tubular object from her sleeve and point it at Walnut Senior Brother ahead.

Zheng Tan instinctively felt that thing was dangerous.

This is the moment!

Zheng Tan, who had been watching the girl, pushed off with his leg and sprinted toward her.

The girl, holding a micro needle ready to strike, had a cold glint in her eyes, though the glasses dulled it considerably. Just as she thought she was about to succeed, she suddenly felt a heavy blow to her chest, lost her balance and toppled sideways, and the needle in her hand was thrown off course.

Before she could react, Walnut Senior Brother, walking ahead, had already moved—he twisted her arm and slammed her against the nearby thick wooden beam with a bang. Because her wrist was twisted and she was shoved hard against the beam, her glasses fell off.

After landing the blow, Zheng Tan lingered on the nearby plank, flexing his palm, and thought: "It seems her chest isn't that big either; the feel isn't great."

Walnut Senior Brother flipped his hand and produced a rope; when he'd been looking for rope earlier he'd grabbed a few extra as spares, never expecting to use them so soon.

"I've been on guard against you, and now you finally reveal your killing move." Walnut Senior Brother glanced at the needle tip, askew and lodged in the discarded plank nearby, then at the micro needle fallen on the ground. The piston rod had been modified; the needle tip differed from a normal one—when the piston rod is pushed inward, the instantaneous high pressure shoots the needle tip out, and the needle contains a drug, probably a fast-acting anesthetic.

"Huh, already settled that quickly?" Wei Leng, who had just climbed in through the window, spoke up.

Zheng Tan followed the sound and looked over; behind Wei Leng was a large window, though he remembered it had been tightly shut, maybe even locked, and it was about five meters off the ground—how did this guy get in silently?

Walnut Senior Brother wasn't too surprised by Wei Leng's performance: "Just now I owed it to that black cat's help, otherwise I'd really have been hit by that needle; I didn't expect this woman to have such a killing move."

Wei Leng looked at the person, still calm after being subdued, and said, "So I told you earlier this woman is problematic; you just wouldn't believe she's the killer—test her DNA and it'll surely match the criminal's DNA we previously obtained."

"Shouldn't it be a man? Is she transgender? No way, I looked up her information."

"It's her; she just has a somewhat special constitution. If you want more details, you can ask those geneticists or gene specialists."

With Wei Leng present, Zheng Tan didn't bother doing anything extra; he slipped through the debris's gaps, used the piled-up objects to jump to the side of the window Wei Leng had entered through, and looked outside. Opposite the window stood a discarded utility pole, and there was nothing else he could use for leverage.

Zheng Tan didn't think he could vault out like Wei Leng did by using a utility pole some distance away, so he retraced his route and exited through the exhaust fan opening he'd entered by.

Outside, four people were bound, all unconscious—this was Wei Leng's handiwork.

Zheng Tan glanced around, then used a tree to climb into a five-story building. The lower two floors were probably formerly offices, with little discarded auxiliary material or trash; the walls bore some incomplete record sheets. The upper three floors were staff dormitories, and on the windowsills were some simple flowerpots made from drink bottles, holding dry soil with a few dead cacti.

Zheng Tan didn't bother looking at those either; he went straight to the small building to read.