Chapter 41: Swallowing the Bottle

The night deepened.

Lin Fan stood in the city's shadow, like a silent statue.

Since merging with Ling Xinyu's vengeful spirit, his world has changed.

His right eye is now a deep, bottomless azure, flashing with an inhuman chill; his left eye remains the stubborn, clear black of that boy.

He could clearly 'smell' it.

It was an indescribable odor—the bone‑deep despair and resentment Ling Xinyu felt as she sank to the river bottom, like maggots in the bone, clinging to every murderer's body.

No matter where they fled to the ends of the earth, this scent would point him the way, like a thread of karma.

Lin Fan lifted his head, his azure right eye gazing at a brightly lit luxury apartment building to the west of the city.

The first one.

Found him.

"Fuck! Will this idiot support even play? Heal me! I'm gonna die!"

Inside the apartment, a youth with dyed yellow hair was shirtless, frantically pounding the keyboard, cursing under his breath.

He was the one who smashed Ling Xinyu with a beer bottle.

From the headset came a friend's teasing voice: "Hey, Huang Mao bro, you okay? You fed again? Did you wreck your waist messing with some little girl yesterday?"

Huang Mao spat, then boasted proudly: "Forget it, yesterday's girl wasn't enough fun, nor could she take it. Think back, when I was in high school, that was truly badass."

"Oh? Do tell, what other glorious deeds do you have?"

"Just our school's campus belle, pure as anything, always acting aloof. I chased her for half a month, she wouldn't even let me touch her." Huang Mao's voice brimmed with bravado and contempt, "Later my brothers and I knocked her out, took some photos, threatened her a bit—guess what happened?"

"How so?"

"That stupid bitch, after finding out she was pregnant, she actually turned and jumped off the teaching building! Hahaha! You say it's not funny? With that mental toughness she still pretends to be pure!"

After a few seconds of silence on the other end of the headset came a dry voice: "... Then what? Nothing happened?"

"What could happen?" Huang Mao snorted nonchalantly, "My family spent a couple million to send her penniless parents packing. It's no big deal."

He was blowing his own horn.

"Ding-dong—"

The doorbell rang suddenly.

"Who the hell?" Huang Mao impatiently took off his headset, walked to the door, and peered through the peephole.

The corridor's voice‑activated lights were on, casting a harsh white glow.

Outside, there was no one.

"Damn, which idiot hit the wrong button?"

He cursed as he returned to the computer; in the headset, his friend kept joking: "Hey, Huang Mao, could it be that girl you got killed coming back as a ghost to haunt you? I've heard lately Jiang Hai City is haunted, real spooky."

"Get lost, quit trying to scare me, damn it!"

Huang Mao cursed with his mouth, but his heart gave an inexplicable jolt.

A few minutes later, he had already hung up the voice chat.

"Ding-dong—"

The doorbell rang again.

This time, the sound was especially clear in the quiet room.

Huang Mao's heartbeat skipped a beat.

He again walked to the door and pressed his eye to the peephole.

Still no one.

The corridor lights flickered on and off, like a bad connection.

A chill crept up his spine.

He really was getting a bit scared.

But then he thought, if a ghost wanted him, it would have come already—why wait till now?

"Damn, it's definitely a prank!"

A surge of angry fire rose in his chest; he grabbed a baseball bat from the entryway shelf and flung the door open!

"Who the hell..."

Outside, it was still empty.

Only a gust of cold wind blew in from the corridor.

Huang Mao panicked, his heart leapt to his throat.

He hurriedly slammed the door shut with a bang and bolted it.

But he didn't notice.

Just as he turned, a strand of wet, black hair, like a living poisonous snake, slipped silently in through the gap beneath the door.

Huang Mao put the baseball bat back and returned to the computer.

But as soon as he sat down, he froze.

On the computer screen, the formerly splendid game image vanished, replaced by a pitch‑black, boundless river surface.

The water rippled, soundless and still.

"What...... what's going on?"

He restarted several times, but the screen remained that weird river surface.

"Drip... drip..."

There was the sound of water dripping.

Huang Mao lifted his head, his pupils constricting sharply!

On the ceiling, black river water reeking of fish dripped down drop by drop, falling onto the expensive carpet and spreading blotches.

Ah! Holy shit!

He jumped up from the chair in fright.

The next second.

Pa! Pa! Pa!

The lights in the room began to flicker wildly, and the electric current hissed.

The living-room dressing mirror, the bathroom washstand mirror, the bedroom wardrobe mirror...

Every reflective surface in the house, in the gaps between each flicker of the lights, revealed a pair of hollow eyes constantly streaming with blood tears!

Ah——!

Huang Mao was terrified out of his wits, he scrambled to find his phone to call for help.

But as soon as he picked up the phone, the screen lit up on its own.

A faint, eerie requiem floated out from the speaker.

Huang Mao froze.

The next moment, an invisible force violently tripped Huang Mao to the ground!

As Huang Mao lay sprawled, a greater force grabbed his ankle and dragged him forcefully toward the kitchen!

No! Don't! Save me!

He screamed in terror, his hands clawing desperately at the floor, his nails scraping the boards with a screech, leaving white marks.

But that force was too great to resist!

He was dragged into the cold kitchen.

Ah!

Just as he stopped, Huang Mao in horror saw black, wet, sticky hair begin to grow wildly from the walls, ceiling, and floor cracks!

Those hairs, like living things, reached out and tightly bound him, fixing his limbs in a spread‑eagle shape, suspending him midair, unable to move!

The hair tightened its grip.

Creak...... creak......

He could clearly hear his whole body's bones groaning under the strain.

Suffocation and terror made him lose control of his bowels, and a foul odor spread through the kitchen.

Just as he was about to be driven mad by this endless fear and pain.

As a cold wind blew past.

A figure appeared before him without warning, as if suddenly popping up.

Huang Mao's eyes widened sharply, his pupils trembling violently.

His crotch grew wetter.

Lin Fan expressionlessly watched Huang Mao, suspended in midair by black hair, tears and snot streaming down his face.

His right eye, that patch of azure, blazed frighteningly bright at this moment.

You smashed Xin Yu's head with a beer bottle.

Lin Fan's voice was soft and calm, devoid of any emotion.

So...... I will also kill you with a beer bottle.

As soon as his words fell.

He reached out, pulled a green beer bottle from the nearby refrigerator.

Huang Mao stared wide-eyed in terror, shaking his head wildly, emitting pleading "uh-uh" sounds from his throat.

Lin Fan paid no heed.

He grabbed Huang Mao's chin, and with a crisp "crack," he easily crushed Huang Mao's jawbone!

Amid Huang Mao's heart-rending screams, Lin Fan aimed the icy beer bottle at his gaping mouth and viciously shoved it in, inch by inch!

The sound of shattering glass, tearing flesh, and breaking throat bone mingled together.

In the end, the whole beer bottle was forcibly stuffed into Huang Mao's abdominal cavity.

Huang Mao's body convulsed violently a few times, the light in his eyes quickly faded, and he fell completely silent.

His death was gruesome to the extreme.

Gazing at the dead Huang Mao, Lin Fan's azure right eye shone even brighter.

Ling Xinyu's resentment transmitted the location of the next target in his mind with perfect clarity.

The feast of revenge had only just begun.

Lin Fan stood up, turned, and vanished into the darkness.

Qin Yu.

Soon, it will be your turn.

Lin Fan knew this himself.

With the terrifying power he and Ling Xinyu had fused into, let alone Qin Yu being the son of the Public Security Bureau Chief.

Even a battlefield commander could not escape his death warrant.

City Bureau, Criminal Investigation Team office.

Qin Zhixia sat in her office, staring at the screen at the confidential report just synced from the Ninth Division, silent for a long time.

The report's title was——【Containment Report on Weird Sequence 001/002】.

Sky City.

Using dozens of heavy transport aircraft, an entire half-built skyscraper was hoisted to kilometer-high altitude as a prison.

Life Anchor.

Using the life of a death row inmate as an anchor, they confined an unkillable Weird in a sealed room.

The methods of the Ninth Division were cruel, efficient, filled with unimaginable imagination and ruthless violence.

They succeeded.

Two Weirds that had left the Jiang Hai City police helpless were successfully "contained" by them using almost barbaric means.

But Qin Zhixia felt no joy in her heart.

Only a bone-deep chill and waves of nausea.

Is this still the "law" and "procedure" she upholds?

For the sake of results, can we ignore all process?

For the so-called greater goal, can we trample upon individual lives and dignity at will?

She read in the report how Jiang Hande and two other death row inmates were used as "bait" and consumed, and how Zhou Xiaosheng's mother was reported as a hostage, feeling a deep sense of helplessness grip her.

Without doubt, without the tacit approval of the Senior Executive's will, the lower levels would not act this way.

The world seemed to be madly sliding in a direction she could not comprehend.

In her confusion and struggle, a person's face suddenly appeared in her mind.

Chu Che.

The man whose countenance was warm and jade-like, always wearing a gentle smile.

The man who, after experiencing the tragedy of his mother's heart being snatched by the powerful, could still calmly pick up a scalpel and even discuss the "Shepherd Theory" with her.

How similar they are.

Both faced a system that shattered their beliefs, both endured torment and struggle.

But how did he manage... to still maintain that calm?

He even experienced such great sorrow.

An inexplicable impulse surged in her heart.

She wanted to talk with him.

She wanted to find an answer from him, or rather, find a strength that could let her stand firm again.

She also wanted... to apologize for her previous probing and doubts.

She pulled out that number from her phone, the one she left from their previous blind date.

Her fingertip hovered over the dial button, hesitating for a long time.

In the end, she still pressed it.