Chapter 45: Retribution

Jiang Hai City, a hillside villa on the outskirts of town.

The frenzied EDM at the pool party nearly tore the night sky apart.

Young men and women frolicked in the azure water, the scent of alcohol and hormones mingling, suffusing the air with a decadent fragrance.

"Zhang Shao! Over here!"

A bikini‑clad beauty waved toward a purple‑haired youth at the center of the pool.

The purple‑haired youth known as Zhang Shao was proudly treading the water, basking in everyone's adulation. He was one of the rich heirs who took part in the murder of Ling Xinyu.

"Come on! Whoever can finish this bottle gets to drive my sports car tonight!"

He raised a pricey bottle of champagne, prompting waves of excited shrieks.

Suddenly.

The smile on his face froze.

At his feet, a cold, slick sensation coiled around his ankle like a water snake.

"What the heck?"

Zhang Shao looked down; the water was clear, nothing there.

He muttered a curse, about to brag again, when that force yanked sharply!

"Splash!"

He was instantly dragged underwater, gulping a large mouthful of pool water mixed with disinfectant and alcohol.

"Cough cough! Damn!"

He surfaced in a mess, wiped the water from his face, and was about to lose his temper.

Another, even larger force enveloped him from all sides, pressing him hard against the pool bottom!

"Ugh! Ugh!"

He thrashed desperately, limbs flailing wildly, to no avail.

Pool water surged into his mouth and nose, his lungs burning with searing pain.

The surrounding friends finally noticed something was wrong.

"Hey! What's up with Zhang Shao? Cramping?"

"Quick! Pull him up!"

The two nearest buddies swam over at once; one braced Zhang Shao's arm and hauled him upward with force.

But a weird scene unfolded.

Even after exhausting all their strength, Zhang Shao's body remained motionless, as if welded to the pool floor.

"Damn! Can't pull him!"

"What's happening? Something down there is dragging him!"

Panic spread through the pool like a virus.

More people gathered, pulling with seven hands and eight feet.

But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't free Zhang Shao from the invisible force.

They could only watch, eyes fixed, as under everyone's gaze, in the brightly lit pool center, Zhang Shao's struggling grew weaker, strings of desperate bubbles rose from his mouth, and finally his body went limp, completely still.

"Ah—!"

The scream finally pierced the thundering EDM.

Everyone scrambled to the shore like madmen, staring in terror at the corpse floating in the pool's center.

He was dead.

In full view of the crowd, he drowned alive in a pool only one‑meter‑five deep.

Police arrived quickly and set up a cordon.

The officer leading the team watched the CCTV replay, cold sweat beading on his back layer after layer.

On the footage, everything was crystal clear.

Zhang Shao was drowned in the water, pressed down by an unseen force with no external influence.

"Captain, this… this case feels off," a pale‑faced young officer said, "It's a bit like those bizarre incidents spreading online lately."

"Shut up!" The Captain, knowing more, barked harshly, his voice trembling slightly, "Seal off the scene immediately, record every statement! This case must be reported to the City Bureau at once! We can't handle it!"

Meanwhile.

Dong Lin City, a dilapidated Abandoned Clothing Factory.

Chu Che pushed open the rust‑stained iron gate and walked inside.

Just minutes earlier, he had been in an apartment in Jiang Hai City.

Using the Weird Editor, he finished watching Suffocating Ghost Girl's Second Revenge Performance and received a credit of 300 karma points.

Within the Murder Rule of Suffocating Ghost Girl, there is an interesting ability.

Exploiting that ability, he used an internet phone to dial the public consultation hotline of Dong Lin City's Urban Construction Planning Bureau.

Amid a polite electronic greeting—"Hello, this is Dong Lin City Planning Bureau, how may we assist you?"—Chu Che's figure vanished from the Jiang Hai City apartment and appeared behind the operator.

Then he used the "Ghost Wall" ability to slip out of the room.

Continuing to create weirdness in Jiang Hai City at such a high frequency.

Therefore, this time he chose Dong Lin City.

For him, it also served as a perfect alibi.

Back to the present.

Chu Che stood in the middle of the empty factory, the air thick with a pungent mix of dust and vengeful toxin.

The almost‑solidified resentment surged within him, invigorating his spirit.

It was the scent of this premium material... that drew him here.

His gaze fell on the mountain‑high pile of arm‑less, leg‑less Plastic Dummy Models in the corner.

He walked over, extended his slender finger, and lightly tapped the chest of one of the female models.

A hollow echo.

He could see it clearly.

Within that cold plastic shell, shattered corpse fragments lay silently.

And that resentment—raw, angry, utterly desperate—roared madly inside, denouncing the criminals' brutality and the betrayal of public authority.

In Chu Che's eyes flickered an almost fanatical gleam.

"Perfect..."

The resentment in this material was the strongest and most terrifying he had ever encountered.

It was not directed at a single person nor a group, but at the countless heavily sinful people of this world.

It was a vengeful spirit yearning for judgment and annihilation.

Chu Che stared at the freshly credited, still‑warm 1000‑point "Karma" in his account and, without hesitation, chose to invest it all.

This time, he intended to try something different.

"Cavity Person" and "Ghost Wall" are essentially "Ghosts", vengeful spirits.

What he was about to create would be a true "Weird"... a self‑propagating "Urban Legend".

【Please create Weird: ____】

Chu Che typed four characters into the Weird Editor.

"【Smiling Dummy】"

【Your Weird creation succeeded, please set the Murder Rule】

Chu Che's fingertips flicked swiftly through the void, inscribing cold, Weird rules into it.

This brand‑new "artwork" would no longer be limited to revenge.

It would become a nightmare roaming the city's shadows, a yardstick measuring the evil of human nature.

In the pen, any greedy one dissatisfied with encroaching on other sheep's pastures could become its prey.

【Edit complete.】

As the prompt tone sounded, every dummy model in the factory, in that instant, eerily and uniformly lifted its head upward.

Each stiff, peeled‑paint plastic face twisted its mouth corner into an extremely Weird, spine‑tingling smile.

Jiang Hai City, Criminal Investigation Team.

Forensic doctor Lao Zhang removed his White Gloves, his face turned extremely grim.

On the dissection table lay Huang Mao's gruesome, unbearable corpse.

"What was the cause of death?" Detective Xiao Liu asked.

"The immediate cause of death was asphyxiation and massive internal bleeding," Lao Zhang said, pointing to the opened abdominal cavity, his voice hoarse, "The killer... forced an intact beer bottle from his mouth straight into his stomach, piercing the stomach wall and liver."

Even Xiao Liu, accustomed to horrific scenes, couldn't help but have his pupils shrink slightly at the description.

"What about the scene investigation results?" Lao Zhang asked.

"All doors and windows were locked from the inside, with no signs of forced entry or tampering," Xiao Liu shook his head, "The scene also showed no signs of a struggle; apart from the victim's own fingerprints and DNA, no other person's biological data was found."

"Not a single hair?"

"There is," Xiao Liu hesitated, pulling a wet, black strand of hair clamped with tweezers from the evidence bag, "found beside the corpse, about this long. Strangely, the scene was very dry, yet a puzzling puddle of water stained the ground around the body."

A sealed room.

A cruel, bloody massacre.

The spontaneously appearing water stain and a strand of hair belonging to no one.

Lao Zhang fell silent for a moment.

"... Report it."

"This case is clearly beyond our jurisdiction now."

City Bureau Director Qin Yongchang's office.

The man who commands the winds and rains of Jiang Hai City, the head of a powerful bureau, now wore a pallid face, with throbbing veins bulging at his temples.

His hands trembled, barely able to grip the two urgent reports just placed on the desk.

One concerned Huang Mao's brutal killing in the sealed room.

The other detailed Zhang Shao's drowning death at a pool party.

He knew both of the dead.

They were the worthless friends of his son, Qin Yu!

Both had taken part in the recent corpse‑dumping case that killed a female student!

Qin Yongchang was no fool.

Based on the intelligence gathered so far, all the Weird things were caused by people.

The usually powerful, dignified man now truly felt that bone‑deep terror!

The next one...

Or the one after that...

It would be Qin Yu's turn!

Cold sweat instantly soaked his shirt.

"... Is this retribution?"

If he could guess the situation, the people of the Ninth Division couldn't possibly fail to investigate it.

Qin Yongchang, realizing he could no longer hide it, proactively reached out toward the phone.

But just as his finger was about to touch the phone, he stopped.

After a long inner struggle, he finally trembled as he picked up the phone on the desk, his fingers whitening from force, and dialed a number.

"I am Qin Yongchang... put me through to Team Leader Nie Yang!"

At that moment, Qin Yongchang seemed to have aged ten years.