Chapter 92: Female Officer Chen Mo

A female corpse lay sideways in the alley, her pupils protruding, her pale face still shrouded in terror. Yet what struck me and Pangzi as odd was that, judging by appearance, there was no blood trace beside the corpse, nor any wound visible on her body. Had I not checked her breath, from afar I would have thought she was drunk asleep or just sleeping.

The earlier cry for help indeed came from this direction; although there was no evidence proving it came from the female corpse lying in the alley, our intuition told us it was her!

She was a young woman in her prime, dressed in a white female suit uniform, her fair hands gripping the strap of her shoulder bag tightly. Before death, she had shaken the bag vigorously forward, as if driving someone away.

But who was she driving away? The killer? A bad person?

To determine what weapon killed her, I gently unfastened the two buttons on her collar; the feel under my hand was warm, moist, and smooth, yet the icy touch and her still heart told me the woman before me was already a cold corpse.

When I undid the third button at her chest, I froze. This position had reached her bosom; her undershirt was exposed, and the scant fabric could no longer cover her two towering peaks.

They were… so towering!

I hesitated, my face flushed, my hands trembling from excessive nervousness, my heart pounding nonstop. Just as I wondered whether to continue undoing, a sharp shout came from outside the alley.

"Don't move, both of you raise your hands!" The fluent, clearly enunciated words fell into my ear without loss; a female officer in uniform, gun in both hands, slowly walked into the alley.

"Officer, you came just in time; we were about to call the police!" Pangzi explained, waving his hands nervously.

"Don't move, raise your hands and stand to the side!" The female officer paid no heed to our explanation; instead, her tone was extremely angry, her voice raised several pitches by fury.

Why was she so angry?

At first I found it a bit bewildering, but after looking at Pangzi and thinking it over, I understood.

Pangzi's clothes had been burnt to rags by the Fire Crow, leaving only a scrap covering his crotch; when the female officer entered, my hand was on the female corpse's chest—though I was merely unbuttoning to check the wound, from her angle it looked like I was grabbing the corpse's breast.

Thinking of this, a wry smile involuntarily crossed my mind; it seemed the female officer had mistaken me and Pangzi for troublemakers.

Sure enough, she squatted to check the corpse's breath, found no sign of life, and grew even angrier.

Gripping her gun, she snapped at us: "You two exhibitionists, get down on the wall!"

I… damn it, I'm not like Pangzi, fully clothed from head to toe—how did I get lumped in with exhibitionists?

As the female officer approached us under the dim moonlight, I could see her appearance clearly.

She was a tall girl with a slightly wheatish complexion, her hair tied in a small braid. Though not the fair-skinned Jiangnan beauty of the south, her every move exuded a spirited, heroic bearing.

She took out the walkie-talkie from her shoulder, preparing to call her partner.

Most officers in Gangao are equipped with such devices, so they can summon nearby patrol colleagues in case of emergencies.

At that moment, I was terrified beyond measure.

I was afraid not because she pulled out handcuffs to arrest me, but because I saw two ghostly heads suddenly appear behind her.

They were the faces of two infants, eerily floating behind the officer, their faces fused together like conjoined twins. What made it even more eerie was that their four tiny eyes glowed with a ghastly green light, and bloody drool dripped from the corners of their mouths.

It happened in an instant: a moment before, nothing was behind her; the next second, the air suddenly bore those two gloomy ghost heads.

Hiss… as they extended and retracted, they flicked out snake-like tongues; combined with their bluish-brown eyes, they were nothing less than a conjoined double-headed human snake.

"Be careful!" Seeing the two ghost heads lunging at the officer, I immediately shouted a warning.

In the nick of it, Pangzi dove at the officer with lightning speed; I rolled like a lazy donkey to dodge the incoming ghost heads.

My vision blurred inexplicably, and the two huge ghost heads appeared behind us.

At that moment I finally saw their true form: they were not two ghost heads but a solid ghost infant. Unlike the infant spirits I'd seen before, this one's head was larger than usual, and its entire body was covered in scales like a snake's; as it swept over my head I could even smell a nauseating stench. In a flash, the double-headed ghost infant gave me an eerie grin in midair and vanished without a trace.

"You dare assault an officer? I think you're tired of living!" A shout came from behind; I turned to see Pangzi and the officer rolling on the ground together, Pangzi's heavy frame pinning her down, his hands holding her to the floor.

Yet the officer's reaction was no slouch; in an instant she used martial arts to lock Pangzi's wrist and neck. With a click, a pair of shining handcuffs clamped his right wrist; another click, the other end of the cuffs locked onto the water pipe beside the wall.

Pangzi now resembled a slab of bleached pork, firmly pressed down by her, with many parts of his body still uncovered by clothing.

"Holy shit, you crazy woman, I came to help you in good faith and you repay kindness with hatred!" Pangzi bared his teeth, slamming the floor with his free hand.

"You… you…" the officer sputtered, her chest rising and falling rhythmically, her face flushed red. Evidently, she had just had close contact with Pangzi, but not seeing the ghost infant that swept by, she surely believed Pangzi was taking advantage of her.

"Enough!" I shouted angrily, cutting off the bickering man and woman, and stared warily at the direction where the ghost infant had vanished.

I must say, that earlier scene really gave me goosebumps. In all my years I've seen countless vengeful spirits and evil ghosts, but never anything so strange and eerie.

Though it looked like a newborn that had just died, its pupils were unmistakably snake eyes, its skin covered head to toe in greenish scales; the longer I looked, the more an inexplicable dread crept into my heart.

"Did you see clearly what that thing was?" Pangzi asked me solemnly.

I shook my head, half‑watching the spot where the ghost infant vanished, half‑distracted as I answered Pangzi.

"I saw it clearly, but it's very strange, extremely weird—I've never seen anything so bizarre."

The female officer was indeed startled by my solemn tone at first, also looking to detain me. But that hesitation was merely a reflex; soon she flushed red, hands on hips, and glared at us both: "Well, I, Chen Mo, have been a police officer for so long, yet this is the first time I've seen you two so arrogant—one assaulting an officer, the other a vicious officer."

She approached me step by step with handcuffs in hand, cracking her knuckles loudly, eyes flashing with menace as she stared at me.

It was clear she intended to throw me down and then cuff me. Pangzi was locked to the water pipe, unable to move. I had no choice but to steel myself, take a deep breath, and prepare to fight her with my modest skills.

Although Pangzi and I hadn't killed anyone, given the scene, no matter how we explained, the officer wouldn't believe us. The best course was to leave first, then rely on Chen Zheng's influence to clear our names.

Seeing Officer Chen Mo advancing step by step, I assumed the stance of the Daily Rush Fist, gritted my teeth, and lunged forward.

Just then, a dark, dull object suddenly loomed ahead, startling me into a jerk; I braked in time, my feet scraping the ground and sending sparks flying. The moment I stopped, the object pressed against my forehead; I knew that if I made even the slightest move, its owner would surely fire accidentally and blow my head apart.

Damn it, how can life be so screwed? I was about to fight with my fists, and now he's pulling out a gun…