Chapter 7: New Material

The red‑blue flashing lights finally receded from the hospital's glass doors, taking away the last hint of solemn clamor.

Jiang Hai City Second Hospital returned to its former calm.

Chu Che stood by the office window, watching the last police car merge into traffic below and vanish. He raised his hand and leisurely adjusted the gold‑trimmed glasses on his nose.

Although he had not yet aroused the police's suspicion.

But he also knew.

As the cases multiplied, the hospital would sooner or later become a hotspot of trouble.

Continuing to "gather material" here would be like committing a crime under a spotlight; eventually his tracks would be exposed.

More importantly, he was still far from being able to confront the state's violent machinery head‑on.

A tiny, scorching peanut could still easily crack his skull, ending his grand plan to become a "god".

That night, he returned to his apartment.

Chu Che left the lights off, allowing himself to be immersed in the city light pollution streaming through the floor‑to‑ceiling windows.

He pulled out a chair, sat down, and summoned the pale‑blue interface in his mind.

Weird Editor

Task: 500

It's time to find a higher‑quality "fuel" and create a new "artwork".

A brand‑new stage that has nothing to do with Jiang Hai City Second Hospital or Chu Che.

And a completely new "protagonist".

Chu Che activated an auxiliary function on the editor interface that he had never used before.

Resentment Perception

Hum.

The world instantly changed its appearance before his eyes.

The familiar city nightscape was covered by a layer of crimson data flow. Countless black vapor columns, varying in density, rose lazily from every corner of the city, resembling a desperate black forest.

The fine, thread‑like ones were ordinary people's daily complaints, jealousy, and discontent.

The slightly denser ones belonged to the pitiful souls who had suffered betrayal, deception, and injustice.

Chu Che's gaze swept over these resentments like a discerning gourmand searching the dazzling shelves for the finest ingredients.

These... are all too ordinary.

Not pure enough, not extreme enough.

At that moment, his eyes narrowed slightly.

On the western side of the city map, a massive, ink‑black pillar of resentment shot upward, even stirring the clouds above to form a visible black vortex!

The concentration of that resentment was several times stronger than the Zhou Xiaosheng he had felt in the morgue.

Chu Che's mouth twitched upward uncontrollably.

Found it.

He started his car; the engine's roar ripped through the silent Underground Parking Garage, and the black sedan streaked like a phantom toward the source of the resentment.

West City, a stalled development.

This was the city's scar, a forgotten jungle of steel and concrete.

Dozens of unfinished high‑rises, like massive skeletons, stood silently under the dim moonlight.

Chu Che stopped the car and got out.

The air was thick with dust, mildew‑smelling cement, and a... a concentration of resentment so dense it seemed solid.

He walked toward the strongest concentration of resentment and, beneath a derelict guard post, saw a curled figure.

It was a homeless man, ragged, hair a tangled nest, watching Chu Che, the unexpected visitor, warily.

Chu Che wore a gentle, harmless smile, pulled an unopened pack of premium cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket, and handed them over.

He didn't smoke himself, but such items were useful in dealing with people.

The homeless man's cloudy eyes flashed with surprise; after a hesitation, he took the cigarettes.

"Lost?" he rasped.

"No, just looking around," Chu Che smiled, as if casually, "This place… seems to have been abandoned for a long time."

"More than just abandoned," the homeless man said, lighting a cigarette and taking a hard drag as if to expel the stifling air from his lungs, "This place devours people without spitting out a bone!"

He seemed to have gone a long time without speaking to anyone; once his mouth opened, he couldn't stop.

"I used to live right here," he said, pointing to the ground beneath his feet. "A nail‑house, you know? The developer wanted me out, but I wouldn't leave."

"What happened after that?" Chu Che asked with interest.

"Later? Later they offered a higher price, I was tempted and agreed," the homeless man said with a self‑deprecating grin, flashing yellow teeth. "But as soon as I signed the contract with my right foot, they turned around and sued me for extortion, sending me straight to a two‑year stint in prison!"

"I never got a cent; they took all the money back. When I got out, my home was gone, my wife and child had fled!"

"I appealed, but no one listened. When I tried to cause a scene again, someone knocked on my door at midnight, pressed a knife to my throat, and warned that if I said another word, they'd erase my whole family from this world." The homeless man's gaze turned hollow. "I'm scared of dying; I was cowardly."

He paused, then pointed again at the unfinished buildings.

"The worst is that damn developer! He took the land of us displaced residents, swindled down payments and bank loans from hundreds of families hoping to buy homes, then simply announced a broken funding chain and fled without a backward glance!"

"Now this place looks like a nightmare. The families who paid got no houses, are left shouldering massive debt, spend every day crying and fighting, and have no avenue to lodge complaints."

The homeless man chuckled, "But thanks to these unfinished towers, at least I have a place to hide from wind and rain."

Chu Che's eyes behind the lenses flickered with an inexplicable sheen.

"I heard…" he said as if casually, "There were deaths here before, weren't there?"

He hadn't heard anyone mention it, but the dense resentment proved it.

The homeless man's body froze suddenly; he glanced warily around and lowered his voice.

"Who did you hear that from?"

"Just overheard people chatting while passing by," Chu Che said.

The vagrant fell silent for a long time, then spoke in a voice almost too faint to hear: "There is such a rumor. Back then, just like me, there was a family with the surname Wang who refused to move no matter what. Later... the developers came with force, and in the middle of the night they directly drove a bulldozer and flattened their home."

"I heard that the wife and daughter of the Wang family didn't manage to escape and were buried right underneath..."

"The man of that household happened to be out working that day, so he escaped disaster. When he came back and saw his home gone and his family missing, he went mad, going every day to the developers' office to cause trouble. Later... later that man also disappeared—no trace of him alive or dead."

They chatted a while longer, then Chu Che bade him farewell and turned to leave.

Left alone, the vagrant shivered in the night wind.

Following the direction of that resentment, Chu Che entered the basement of an abandoned building.

It was dark and damp here, the air filled with a rotting stench.

And the source of that towering resentment was right before him.

One wall, recently poured and whose color clashed with the other walls, was made of cement.

The resentment was emanating from inside the wall.

Chu Che understood.

As it turned out...

The supposedly missing man of the Wang family had not actually gone missing.

After his death, he was built into this place.

Chu Che reached out and lightly pressed his palm against the cold wall.

He could "hear" from deep within the wall a soul filled with endless pain and hatred, wildly howling, screaming, and cursing.

The resentment of his buried wife and daughter, his destroyed family, and his own brutal killing and entombment here.

This... is literally the "perfect material" one could only dream of!

On Chu Che's face appeared the kind of near-obsessive fervor an artist shows upon seeing a peerless treasure.

He raised his hand, and the editor interface unfolded before him once again.

【Detected extremely high-quality resentful spirit. Capture and use as editing material?】

"Of course." He spread his arms.

An invisible force pierced the concrete, forcibly dragging that tormented soul out of its prison!

A twisted, violent wraith exuding thick black mist appeared in the editor.

Chu Che extended his slender fingers and began, on the void's template, to set a brand-new Killing Rule for his second artwork.

At the same time.

In a children's park on the other side of the city, the moonlight was just right.

Manager Li's assistant Zhao Wei was playing on the slide with his wife and five-year-old daughter.

"Daddy, hurry up and push me!" the daughter's clear laughter rang out like a silver bell.

"Coming, coming!" Zhao Wei laughed, his face full of indulgence, ran over, and gently pushed his daughter's back.

The whole family was blissfully happy, the scene warm as a painting.

Just then, Zhao Wei's heart gave a sudden tug.

A sudden, unexplained palpitation made his legs go weak, almost causing him to lose his balance.

"Honey, what's wrong? You look awful," his wife said, anxiously supporting him.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Zhao Wei said, rubbing his chest and forcing a smile, "Maybe I'm just tired from working overtime lately."

His words had barely left his mouth.

An extremely faint yet crystal-clear sound suddenly pierced his ear.

Thud.

Thud.

That was a hollow sound, a heartbeat approaching from afar.