Chapter 21: Sun Tattoo

"Ah..."

Camel clamped his hands desperately over the terrifying, massive wound on his neck, yet still could not stop the blood gushing forth wildly; his eyes bulged as he stared at Lin Qing.

He stumbled back a few steps, still leaning against the restroom wall, and slowly slid down to a sitting position.

Immediately afterward, he lost consciousness.

【Order Level increased by 0.2 levels】

After Camel died, a line of green text appeared before Lin Qing's eyes.

The Order Level had reached 0.5 levels again.

"Indeed, it's also 0.2 levels..."

Lin Qing sheathed the retractable knife, then rolled up his sleeves with both hands, squatted before Camel, and his hands became blurred phantoms; in the blink of an eye, he stripped off Camel's shirt and then searched Camel's entire body.

It did not matter that his hands touched the blood on Camel's body; after all, he wore thin rubber gloves extending to his arms, so no fingerprints or skin tissue would remain.

"Eh?"

Lin Qing suddenly felt several coin-shaped hard objects in an inner pocket of Camel's shirt.

With a single hand moving like a phantom, he flicked once, and the blood on the gloves instantly flew off.

Only then did he open that pocket and discover it was indeed several coins, but their color was dark and heavy, revealing rings of special patterns; they were not the coins commonly used by children in the slums.

"This is..."

Lin Qing examined them closely and suddenly recognized the origin of these coins.

—The investigation files recorded that these should be coins cast from rare metals brought by extraterrestrial civilizations, highly valuable on the black market; judging by the denominations of these few, their estimated value was one or two hundred thousand.

However, Lin Qing did not put away these few coins; instead, he placed them all back.

One or two hundred thousand was not a small amount, but it was not worth taking such a risk.

Who knew what problems these few coins might have? In this era where cash had long been eliminated, only children without mobile phones would use coins, yet someone like Camel, who might be subject to body searches, carried coins worth over a hundred thousand? Even if it were to flee at any moment, such precious items could not be spent immediately; one would still have to find the black market.

He felt there was something strange about it.

Anyway, over a hundred thousand would not change anything; there was no need to be greedy.

As for the other things on Camel's body, nothing special was found either.

"Hmm?"

Suddenly, Lin Qing discovered a tattoo on the skin of Camel's chest and could not help but pause slightly.

Just over ten seconds ago, there was nothing there at all.

Moreover, this tattoo was becoming deeper and more distinct, as if it had appeared only because Camel had died?

Judging by the shape of the tattoo, it was merely lines radiating outward; it seemed... to be a sun? Although somewhat peculiar, Lin Qing did not care.

He was only checking whether Camel had any hidden recording or logging devices on his person.

Though it seemed slow, from the moment he killed with a single strike to finishing the body search, the entire process actually took only half a minute.

"There is one more..."

Lin Qing stood up and was just about to turn and leave the restroom when he heard footsteps outside the door and the sound of a doorknob turning.

His body moved, his steps became phantoms, and in an instant he hid inside a nearby stall.

"Camel, plainclothes officers were discovered in the bar; do you want to take a look?"

The restroom door was twisted open; a deep voice came in, and the footsteps walked toward the toilet stalls.

Lin Qing immediately recognized that this voice belonged to that towering, burly man.

"Camel?"

Tie Tie Wu Luo heard no response and even smelled blood; a bad premonition instantly arose in his heart, so he quickly hurried past the washbasin and entered the toilet.

Immediately, he saw Camel sitting against the wall at a glance; the pale, deathly still complexion and the pool of blood spreading beneath him instantly left him stunned.

How could this be?

In the time it took to enter a restroom, the person was dead? Who killed him? Just then—

"Boom!"

Tie Tie Wu Luo suddenly heard the thunderous sound of the toilet stall door being kicked open from behind; the moment he turned, he saw a streak of cold silver light slashing straight toward his neck!

Too fast! Shocked in his heart, he had no time to draw the retractable baton from his waist and could only raise one hand to block in front of him.

"Pfft!"

The sharp blade instantly cut open half of Tie Tie Wu Luo's palm; blood gushed forth. But this also gave him a moment of buffer time; he suddenly grabbed back with his hand, using his metacarpals to jam the blade, while his other hand suddenly clenched into a fist and smashed forward! "Die!"

Tie Tie Wu Luo roared; under the stimulation of pain, he became even more vicious, disregarding the worsening injury to his palm, swung his arm with all his might to throw a punch, determined to kill this person with a single blow! Strength could be said to be his most proud advantage; even compared to those who had cultivated the Four-Six Version of the training method and mastered strength-based combat techniques, he still held the advantage.

With this punch, even a steel plate, he could smash into deformation!

However—

"Whoosh!"

To Tie Tie Wu Luo's disbelief, this mysterious figure whose face he could not see merely moved his body, then, like a phantom, lightly sidestepped to dodge his punch, causing his fist to swing through empty air! "How can he be so fast?"

The moment this thought flashed through Tie Tie Wu Luo's mind, he discovered the opponent instantly drew the retractable knife, then stepped forward and raised his hand.

He could not see the blade's light; he could only see those two cold eyes.

In an instant, the silver light swept across Tie Tie Wu Luo's throat at an astonishing speed.

"No..."

Tie Tie Wu Luo only felt a chill at his neck; immediately afterward, it seemed something was constantly flowing and gushing outward, making his heart grow cold with dread.

He knew he was about to die; helplessness and fear surged, as if he had returned to that cold laboratory.

"Who exactly is it..."

Tie Tie Wu Luo covered his throat with one hand while the other raised and weakly clawed; that massive, burly body finally crashed to the ground with a boom.

Lin Qing's figure moved like the wind; he closed the restroom door once more, then returned to Tie Tie Wu Luo's side.

【Order Level Increased by 0.2】

Only after the prompt indicating an Order Level increase appeared before his eyes, confirming Tie Tie Wu Luo posed no threat, did he begin searching the body.

Soon, Lin Qing confirmed there were no suspicious devices on Tie Tie Wu Luo either; it was just that this fellow was far too muscular, with a stature so tall and muscles so unnaturally strong.

Even a layer of tight muscle covered his neck; one didn't know how he had trained it.

Otherwise, his blade just now should have nearly severed the other's neck, leaving only the cervical spine and a layer of skin on the back of the neck.

No wonder this fellow's strength was so terrifying; luckily his movements were slow and not agile enough, which played perfectly into Lin Qing's hands.

After he activated the combat technique "Agility," this big guy's speed was, in his eyes, no different from a turtle crawling.

Having strength alone was useless if he couldn't touch him.

"Luckily 'Agility' operates at an instinctual level; if I hadn't pushed it to the limit, I could only have fled..."

Lin Qing secretly rejoiced.

At this moment, he suddenly noticed a sun-like tattoo also beginning to slowly appear on the burly man's neck.

"The same tattoo?"

Lin Qing raised his eyebrows slightly. "Could these two be from the same organization?"

He did not linger; immediately, he took out a small canister of homemade accelerant prepared in advance, poured it over the two corpses, and ignited it with a lighter found on the camel.

Before the bar's automatic fire extinguishers activated, this was enough to burn the two bodies beyond recognition.

At the very least, it would be difficult to determine the condition of the wounds or the precise time of death.

Everything had happened within just a few minutes.

Lin Qing cast one last glance at the spreading flames in the restroom, gently pressed down his hat brim, and turned to leave.

Inside the noisy bar, the frenzied music drowned out all sounds; even the thugs of the Blue Scarf Gang were immersed in alcohol and desire, with no one noticing what had actually happened tonight.

After jumping out of the bar through the second-floor viewing gallery window, Lin Qing avoided the sparse road surveillance cameras along the way and found a sewer in a remote area.

He bundled his coat, gloves, hat, mask, shoe lifts, shoulder pads, and wig into a ball, doused them with the remaining accelerant, and threw them all into the sewer to burn completely.

Only then did he head back to his own home.

Avoiding the surveillance cameras of the residential complex all the way, he deliberately did not take the elevator, using the unmonitored stairwell instead, before finally returning home.

For someone like him, a Patrol Bureau officer, finding where surveillance cameras were located was nothing easy.

"Luckily this era is chaotic enough; surveillance is either incomplete or just for show..."

Back home, Lin Qing glanced at the mobile phone placed on the living room table, which was casting a screen to play an old television drama.

Then, he summoned the Entropy Reverser, looked at the Order Level of 0.7, and could not help but reveal a satisfied smile.

"Tomorrow I'll search Tie Shi Bar again; the Blue Scarf Gang will have to disband, and by then it will be 0.8."

(End of this chapter)