Chapter 550: The Puzzle in the Dark

Wu Xian immediately stepped back to examine closely.

He compared that row of footprints with his own.

“Definitely not mine—this footprint is much larger, suggesting a height of around two meters, and the prints come in pairs, as if not walked but leaped here with legs pressed together…”

Wu Xian licked his lips.

“So someone taller than me has been following me all along, hopping like a standing long jump—and I heard not a single sound!”

Before entering the sports warehouse, Wu Xian had been confident; now he felt a twinge of unease.

The thing tracking Wu Xian was a serious threat, but he couldn’t locate it yet—he decided to first return the ten balls to their places, then consider catching the rat.

So Wu Xian quickened his pace, striding deep into the warehouse.

At the rear of the warehouse, Wu Xian saw a shocking sight.

The floor, walls, and ceiling at the very back were completely covered in human corpses.

All the corpses wore the training center’s sportswear, each body shattered to varying degrees—clearly students who had died during physical education classes. Men and women alike, all with eyes wide open, staring fixedly at Wu Xian, pressing down on him with unbearable weight.

Soon, Wu Xian found the stand holding the ten balls.

In the center of the wall of flesh and blood stood ten headless corpses—these must be the supports for the ten balls.

Wu Xian swallowed hard, one hand holding the candle, the other gripping the hair of a corpse, forcing himself past intense revulsion as he stepped into the wall of bodies.

Whoosh! Suddenly, from the side of the wall, a human head blew out a breath, extinguishing the candle in Wu Xian’s hand.

Wu Xian muttered a curse and struck a match, trying to relight the candle.

Fzzt… fzzt-fzzt…

Sparks flickered in the dark; the fragile flame barely ignited before being snuffed out by an unknown, sinister gust.

He couldn’t carry a lit candle into this area of flesh and blood.

If Wu Xian were alone in the warehouse, he could light the candle and leave it outside—any faint light would suffice to return the heads to their bodies.

But the warehouse wasn’t empty—so the candle had to stay in his hand, or something else might steal it.

Thus Wu Xian shook his head, removed all the heads, and laid them one by one on the ground.

He matched seven heads to their corpses based on gender, age, and build.

But three female corpses couldn’t be distinguished by appearance.

Wu Xian blew out the candle himself, put it in his bag, picked up four corpses whose positions he had confirmed, mentally prepared himself, and stepped onto the spongy, bloody floor.

The ground’s flesh was stitched together from fallen chunks of meat—disgusting to step on, but not enough to overwhelm him.

But the corpses on the walls were different—touching one, he immediately knew exactly which part of the body he was feeling.

He pressed through the darkness, making two trips, and returned all four heads to their places.

But the remaining three were difficult.

Wu Xian could only grope in the dark, using his palms to feel the contours of the corpses, testing skin texture, roughness, and the edges of severed flesh—like solving an extremely difficult puzzle.

He hesitated many times before finally placing each of the three heads correctly.

The experience was beyond words—the stench was unbearable, and every head seemed to whisper, a psychological burden so great that anyone with weaker nerves might vomit within seconds…

Fortunately, Wu Xian endured it. He exhaled slowly, stepped out of the flesh-wall’s range, and relit the candle to check if the heads were correctly placed.

In the instant the candlelight flared, Wu Xian saw a horrific face, crisscrossed with wounds, its ox-bell eyes fixed unblinkingly on him.

Wu Xian flinched, instinctively drawing his dagger.

The man quickly waved his hands: “Don’t be afraid—it’s me!”

Wu Xian squinted—he realized the man was the PE teacher, Guo Xiaodong.

Guo Xiaodong smiled: “I saw you didn’t come out for a long time, worried something happened inside, so I came to check.”

Wu Xian tucked his hands behind his back and bowed slightly.

“Thank you for your concern, Teacher.”

Guo Xiaodong continued: “By the way, did you find the rat?”

Wu Xian paused, his hands behind his back fiddling with something; after a moment, he pulled them back.

“Of course I found it—it’s right in front of me!”

The man before him was the rat Guo Xiaodong had mentioned!

In the perfect match version!

As Wu Xian finished speaking, he thrust both hands forward—the blood-soaked old wolf-whip materialized out of thin air and lunged at the burly man ahead.

But Guo Xiaodong leapt backward, dodging the whip, standing at a distance with a cold gaze fixed on Wu Xian.

This Guo Xiaodong showed almost no flaws in appearance.

But everything beyond appearance was flawed.

The real Guo Xiaodong never spoke so casually; he had already declared he wouldn’t enter the warehouse. Most importantly, this fake Guo Xiaodong kept his legs clenched together while speaking. Long before Wu Xian noticed the footprints, he had already suspected the rat might be the fake Guo Xiaodong.

Because the footprints were enormous—and in the training center, only Guo Xiaodong and Su Mi had feet that large. Plus, Wu Xian had already encountered another fake Guo Xiaodong, so when he saw those prints, he already had his suspicions.

Now Wu Xian had to consider how to deal with this fake Guo Xiaodong.

The fake Guo Xiaodong bounced a few times in place, then stopped, a strange, expectant smile spreading across his face.

“Let’s have a contest—standing long jump!”

“That fake said you must take me out—if you can catch me with your legs pressed together, I’ll go with you!”

Wu Xian snorted, refusing to play along—he assumed the posture of “Invasion Like Fire,” charging forward at blinding speed.

But the fake Guo Xiaodong was faster—his legs sprang like springs, leaping in grotesque, unnatural motions; even “Invasion Like Fire” couldn’t catch him.

After several chases, the faster Wu Xian ran, the faster the fake Guo Xiaodong jumped.

So Wu Xian reluctantly stopped, tried taking one leap toward the fake—and realized this time, the fake didn’t escape with impossible speed.

Perhaps this was the fake’s ability: if someone chased him by running, he moved at inhuman speed; only if chased by jumping did he move at normal speed.

So Wu Xian raised the candle and cautiously leapt toward the fake Guo Xiaodong, each jump barely covering distance, careful not to extinguish the flame.

In the dark warehouse, two figures bounced and hopped after each other, the candle flame flickering dimly, making the scene eerily surreal.

Suddenly—

Wu Xian’s eyes flashed—he activated the demonic technique: Demon’s Inch Higher! Whoosh! He instantly appeared one meter above the fake Guo Xiaodong’s head, then fell freely, straddling his shoulders, both hands gripping the dagger as he drove it into the fake’s skull.

“Ghost-True Fire Spell!”

Whoosh! Flames erupted from the dagger! (End of Chapter)