Chapter 356: Banquet Hall

As the elevator doors on the sixty-eighth floor of Yun Duan Club opened, what rushed toward him was not the smell of champagne bubbles.

It was the smell of blood.

The thick, unmixable iron-rust smell blended with the unique sweet-savory stench of ruptured organs, seeping out through the ventilation ducts, turning the elevator shaft into a giant chimney that pumped the deathly air of the sixty-eighth floor down several levels.

Su Ming slipped out of the elevator, suppressor electric blade already in hand.

Blue-white arcs flickered twice, illuminating the deformed fire door at the end of the Corridor. An arm of unknown owner hung from the doorframe, its cuff made of custom suit fabric, the cufflink still there, silver, reflecting light.

"Jia Shan."

A heavy thud came from behind. A bloated monster covered in compound eyes flipped down from the elevator shaft ceiling; its countless eyeballs all turned toward the depths of the Corridor, its mouth split open, oozing a large glob of slime.

Excitement.

He smelled the prey.

Su Ming didn't look back at him, but strode straight over the shattered marble and crystal lamp fragments on the floor, pushing open that deformed door.

Banquet Hall.

— or rather, what used to be the Banquet Hall.

On the nine-meter-high ceiling, only three of the seven Swarovski crystal chandeliers remained hanging; the other four had smashed to the floor, shards of crystal mixed with broken bone covering the ground, squeaking underfoot.

Six long banquet tables had been overturned, the tablecloths soaked in deep-red liquid, the lobster and foie gras mixed with human tissue, indistinguishable whether it was food or diner.

On the walls, the blood-spatter trajectories fanned out in a regular pattern, caused by high-speed whipping of tentacle-like limbs. Su Ming took one glance and drew the conclusion.

Combat experience told him at least three different mutated entities had taken part in the slaughter.

"Ga—"

A sound came from behind the right-side serving table; a swollen thing that had lost all human shape crawled out of a pile of overturned chairs, its upper half still wearing a shredded suit, four thick meaty legs gouging scratches in the floor. It had no mouth, the lower half of its face a bulging wall of flesh, but its nostrils flared wildly, locking onto the scent of the living.

Su Ming didn't even lift his eyelids.

The electric blade thrust forward.

The arc sliced into the junction of its cervical vertebrae; the wrist rotated ninety degrees, precisely severing the nerve bundle between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. The meat-footed monster's limbs lost signal at once, its whole body collapsing like a puppet with cut strings.

Jia Shan's foot landed on top.

Thud.

The sound of crushing a skull was muffled, much like stepping on a ripe watermelon.

The second dropped from the ceiling, its back covered in pus-filled sacs, its spine everted into hinge-like bone spikes, two slimy tentacles curling toward Su Ming's neck.

Su Ming stepped half a pace to the left.

The tentacle grazed his ear as it swept past; the barbed tip snatched two strands of hair.

He backhanded a strike; the electric blade pierced the opponent's temple from the side. Blue-white arcs surged along the neural pathways into the cranial cavity, the mutated entity's tentacles twitched three times then went limp.

Jia Shan rushed up and added a kick.

The third huddled in the corner, no longer resembling a human, its body sheathed in a translucent membrane, dark-red vessels pulsing underneath. It hissed at Su Ming, trying to threaten.

Su Ming walked over.

One stroke.

Cervical vertebrae.

Jia Shan followed up.

One kick.

Skull.

In under forty seconds, all three mutated entities were finished. The whole process had no extra motion, no extra expression, clean and efficient as tightening screws on an assembly line.

The two technicians who had followed him in exchanged a glance; one swallowed.

"Secure the scene. Casualty counts and DNA matching proceed simultaneously." Su Ming returned the electric blade to his waist, his gaze sweeping over the banquet hall littered with corpses, without lingering even half a second on the shattered antiques or scattered jewels.

He walked toward the corner.

That grand piano.

The Steinway's body was spattered with blood, but the keys were clean. Black and white distinct, not a fingerprint left. The pianist had wiped them before walking away.

Su Ming stared at the keys for two seconds.

Then he saw it.

On the music stand sat a badge, perfectly centered.

Palm-sized, metal, finely crafted. Its face bore a set of scales—the symbol of law. The left pan was engraved with the character for "guilt," the right pan with the character for "penalty."

Blood stained the badge's edge—just a few drops, as if the maker had deliberately dabbed it on.

Su Ming picked up the badge with a glove, flipped it over—blank on the back.

He placed the badge in an evidence bag, turned around: "Where is the club's security system?"

"There's an independent server room on basement level two—"

"Lead the way."

The security room was more professional than Su Ming had expected, after all, those who could afford to spend here valued privacy far above ordinary people. Sixty-four-channel HD surveillance covered every public area of the club, the storage medium was local physical hard drives, with no cloud backup.

Su Ming pulled up a chair and had the technician pull up all footage from the sixty-eighth-floor banquet hall starting at seven tonight.

The image was pulled to 7:42.

A man in a deep-blue three-piece suit stepped out of the elevator. His high-collar shirt covered his neck, his gait steady, his spine ramrod straight.

Su Ming hit pause.

"Zoom in. Face."

The face on the screen was blown up to maximum. Features were regular, early thirties, aside from a pale complexion nothing unusual. The expression was a standard social smile, showing no aggression.

The footage continued.

At 7:51, he appeared at the bar. He took a silver flat container from his suit's inner pocket and poured something into a bottle of red wine— the motion as natural as adding a sugar cube; the bartender glanced at him, then carried his tray to the main table.

Su Ming stared at that segment three times.

"The bartender's reaction is abnormal." He tapped the screen, "Look back at his eyes."

The technician lowered the frame rate to minimum, playing frame by frame. In the frame where the bartender met that person's gaze, the pupil showed an unnatural dispersion process lasting less than 0.3 seconds.

Mental interference-type ability.

"8:03." Su Ming said.

The screen switched. The five honored guests at the main table had already begun mutating, the banquet hall doors were sealed, and in the chaos over a hundred people screamed and fled.

In front of the piano in the corner, the man in a dark blue suit was playing.

Playing.

Amid the hall's plasma and screams, his ten fingers walked across the keys, his posture relaxed as if sitting in his own living room.

In the screen, a young woman covered in blood crawled to the piano side, clutching its leg begging for help.

Su Ming's fingers lightly tapped the chair armrest twice.

"Send his facial features back to headquarters database for full-dimension comparison."

The reply came faster than expected.

Less than three minutes later, the analysis results came through the encrypted channel.

"Match successful. Yan Ming, male, 34. Federal Judicial Qualification Certificate No. JF-2037-041182. Partner at Honghai City Zhenghe Law Firm, rated Federal Outstanding Defense Lawyer for five consecutive years. Recently reported missing by the firm, and all social accounts and communication tools were cancelled at the same time."

Su Ming leaned back in his chair, flipping through the case file pulled up on the tablet.

Yan Ming's losing records were compiled into a timeline, dense and numerous. Although his win rate in criminal defense cases he handled was not low, the losses shared a common trait—

They had already been classified as criminal cases, or the second trial upheld the original verdict.

Su Ming flipped down. The second-trial verdict document of the Zhou Desheng case was still on top. Eighteen pages of defense opinion, written fluently without omission, each element of justifiable defense analyzed, citing seventy-three precedents.

The original verdict was upheld—just four words to dismiss it.

Su Ming tossed the tablet onto the table.

"An idealist driven mad by injustice."

He glanced at Yan Ming's ID photo on the screen—refined features, black-rimmed glasses, suit and tie impeccable. He looked like the standard good guy who believes law can uphold justice.

"He killed only those with judicial blemishes."

Having said that, Su Ming already produced his communicator.

"I need personnel from the Federal Criminal Behavior Analysis Division, now."

Twenty minutes later, two profiling reports were sent to Su Ming's terminal.

The criminal profiler's conclusion was concise: the target has a strong ritualistic need, crime scenes highly replicate court trial structure, belongs to typical "mission-type" offender, will progressively escalate targets according to his self-constructed "justice" logic.

The criminal psychologist's report was more detailed: after gaining extraordinary ability, the target did not lose rational thinking framework. His behavior pattern shows he still employs the logic of legal practitioners—gather evidence, identify defendant, hold trial, execute sentencing. The only difference is that he no longer trusts the existing judicial system's authority, but has appropriated that power for himself.

The report's final line, highlighted in red and bold: This person's target selection follows the strict "equivalent guilt" principle. After "judging" grassroots judicial personnel, he will likely proceed to higher-ranking judicial power holders.

Su Ming combined the two reports, his gaze falling on the tablet displaying Honghai City Judicial System's complaint records for the past five years.

Yan Ming's name repeatedly appeared in the complainant column. Twelve real-name reports, targeting from grassroots judges to intermediate court presiding judges, then to—

Honghai City High Court, Vice President, Qian Jingzhi.

Su Ming pulled up this person's file. Sixty-one years old, fourteen years in service, a resume shiny enough to reflect. But attached were four internal memos from the Discipline Inspection Department, all "insufficient evidence, no case filed."

Yan Ming's last three reports all targeted this person.

Su Ming closed the tablet.

"Yan Ming won't be cleaning from the bottom up anymore." He stood up, re-sheathed the electric blade at his waist. "Just now he fed the seed to five powerful people to expose them publicly—this is a declaration—he doesn't care about exposing himself, because he has already taken the judge's seat."

Su Ming dialed the encrypted channel of the Investigation Bureau Honghai City branch.

"Qian Jingzhi, Vice President of Honghai City High Court. Where is he now?"

The other side clacked away at the keyboard for ten seconds.

"Today there's a schedule. Courtroom 23, labor dispute second trial case, he is the presiding judge. Court opens at 9 AM, now—"

Su Ming glanced at his wristwatch.

8:47.

"When does the trial end?"

"According to the schedule, it's at 11. But Qian Jingzhi is known to be fast, often announcing judgment half an hour early—"

Su Ming was already heading toward the door.

"Jia Shan."

At the end of the corridor, the compound-eyed monster gnawing on mutated entity limbs lifted its head, saliva dripping from its mouth.

"Finished eating?"

Jia Shan stuffed the last bone piece into his mouth, chewed and swallowed; those dense compound eyes all turned toward Su Ming, sending a clear signal—can still eat more.

"Don't rush, the next meal is already arranged."

Su Ming picked up his combat coat, threw it on, and strode toward the elevator.

8:51.

Nine minutes until the trial begins.

And a judge holding the power of life and death was passing through Honghai City's morning traffic, heading toward the same courthouse.