"Not sure who dies first!" I raised my gun and fired all the remaining bullets in the magazine straight at the mysterious man's vital points. The shots made him stagger, but when the gunfire stopped, he also halted. The bullets had no effect on him, only buying us some time. I then noticed that every bullet was stopped by what looked like a small piece of silver armor over his skin at critical spots.
"You know, even though the bullets can't penetrate my body, your habit of aiming straight at my vitals is still..." The mysterious man's right hand made a grasping motion in the air. "Painful!" At that moment, I suddenly felt my body stiffen and become immobile, as if bound by invisible ropes. Then I was pulled forward, feet scraping the ground, as if a tremendous suction force was dragging me straight into his face.
We were now almost nose-to-nose. Our eyes met, and I clearly saw a pair of gray-white eyeballs with dilated pupils. At that instant, I realized—those were the eyes of a dead man! Yet why couldn't I sense the aura of death from him?
Seeing the shock on my face, the mysterious man sneered faintly. He snatched the empty pistol from my hand and fiddled with it for a moment before laying it flat in his palm and placing it in front of me. The gun's surface slowly turned red-hot and began to melt and deform. I watched helplessly as the pistol melted into molten iron in the mysterious man's palm, bubbling and sizzling.
The mysterious man stared coldly and said, "Who told you about what happened in 1975? How much do you know? Who else knows? If you don't say, drink all this molten steel." I gave him a bitter smile and replied, "What if I said I dreamed it—would you believe me?" The man, who had been expressionless until then, suddenly laughed and said, "I've forced molten steel down at least fifty people, watched them rot from the inside out. Your guts are the biggest I've seen, still joking now."
After speaking, he reached out with his other hand and pried my mouth open, ready to pour the molten iron down my throat. I could already feel the extreme heat scorching my face bright red. At the last second, I shouted, "Wait! It was Wu Ren'di who told me."
The mysterious man frowned. "Go on."
My mind raced as I feigned shock and gasped for breath, buying time while organizing a story. I slowly said, "That thing in the graveyard in 1975—Wu Ren'di didn't make it there, but he learned the gist. After joining the Bureau, he asked Director Gao about the details. The specifics were all from Director Gao." I kept watching the man's expression carefully. When I said it was Wu Ren'di who told me about 1975, his facial muscles twitched erratically, and molten steel dripped through his fingers, steaming as it hit the floor—but he didn't notice.
Thinking back to how the mysterious man appeared earlier, he had been muttering "Wu Baimao, Wu Baimao" but clearly knew Wu Ren'di had been sealed with the Six Senses, unable to see or hear. Yet he never dared bypass us to come straight to the hospital and look for Wu Ren'di's unlucky presence. Sensing the moment, I pressed on: "If you don't believe me, go ask. Wu Ren'di is on the fourth floor now. If you ask him, you'll know."
The mysterious man looked at me coldly. After a moment, he sneered, "You think I'm afraid of Wu Baimao? One by one. Don't rush—you'll see him down below sooner or later." Suddenly his expression grew strange. Before I could understand why, he bent over and spat a mouthful of fresh blood. I was too close—half of it splattered on me.
Not only that, but his abdomen and chest also bled steadily from two wounds. I just realized those were aftereffects from his previous fight with Yang Xiao. He'd taken two hits from Yang Xiao's copper nails, almost dying on the spot the last time. That's how Yang Xiao could safely deal with the Underworld Agents, but unexpectedly, the mysterious man dragged himself back half-dead to ambush Yang Xiao again.
While the man spat blood, my body's bindings loosened slightly. My hands slowly reached behind my back; with my right hand, I gently drew out a short dagger.
The transparent thread binding me was held by the mysterious man. It became faint and nearly invisible where it splattered with blood. Seeing the man still dizzy from spitting blood and distracted, I gritted my teeth and suddenly slashed the thread with the dagger. Following the momentum, I lunged hard toward the man's face.
Just as I was about to punch a new hole in his face, the man spat blood again, and it sprayed onto my face. My vision blurred and my strength weakened; the dagger's tip slanted as it pierced his face, cutting off half his nose and splitting his philtrum into three gashes. The man howled in agony, covering his face with his left hand, stepping back half a pace. Meanwhile, his right hand grabbed the crossbow bolt still lodged in my shoulder and stabbed forward fiercely. The arrow pierced through my scapula. The sharp pain made my whole body tremble uncontrollably. I could no longer focus on him and staggered backward several steps. The pain muddled my thoughts, and I stumbled all the way to the stairs.
"Ahh…" The mysterious man wailed again. Blood from his nose and mouth stained the front of his clothes bright red. I'd thought his face was some kind of human skin mask before, but seeing all this blood, this really was his true visage. He hadn't expected me to cause such damage and was filled with furious rage. Recklessly, he charged at me.
Yang Xiao's previous formation had no effect. I ran desperately upstairs, only realizing when I reached the second floor that I shouldn't be going upward. Going to the fourth floor meant endangering Wu Ren'di and Yang Xiao's wife. But with the mysterious man right behind me, I had no choice but to keep running up.
The mysterious man spat blood several more times. A normal person would have collapsed and awaited death, but he showed no sign of weakness, chasing me relentlessly. His missing half nose and split rabbit-like mouth were bloody and horrifying, making him look even more sinister than before.
I had wanted to fight him on the second floor, hoping to find a chance to retreat back to the lobby. Unexpectedly, the mysterious man leaped up several steps and was already right behind me. If I hesitated even a moment, he could have grabbed me and snapped my neck. Terrified, I dared not linger on the second floor and ran on toward the third.
"Let's see who can save you now!" The man shouted wildly behind me. His damaged nose and mouth made his words sound like a hiss carried on the wind. He had calculated that I had no other choice but to keep climbing. But hearing his words, an idea sparked in me. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small glass vial filled with brown liquid.
In the blink of an eye, I had reached the third floor and was desperately sprinting toward the central intersection. The mysterious man was closing in on me faster and faster. Just as he was about to catch up, I forcefully smashed the small glass vial onto the floor at the junction. The glass shattered instantly, and the brown liquid inside transformed into a wisp of red smoke. It seemed like the floor beneath had some suction, instantly pulling the smoke downwards.
Without time to react, I stepped over the broken glass and continued running forward. Ahead was the third-floor window, and judging by the situation, my only option was to jump out of it. At that moment, something unexpected happened. As the mysterious man stepped over the broken glass behind me, there was a cracking sound. Two hands suddenly emerged from beneath the floor and grabbed his ankles. The man was caught off guard and fell headfirst onto the floor.
Then came a thunderous noise as a "person"—a puppet!—climbed out from under the floor, gripping the man tightly.
It was the same type of puppet I'd seen before in the Qilin Medical College basement, with the same pale egg-shaped face. But this puppet was a bit different—it had a mouth that opened wide to reveal two rows of sharp fangs. It seemed to have no consciousness or sound, just silently holding the mysterious man down. The puppet pressed its hands on his shoulders, then bit down on his neck with its gaping jaws. From my vantage point, the posture of these two "people" was somewhat suggestive.
The puppet left a bloody bite mark on the man's neck. His skin was extraordinarily tough—if it were an ordinary person, the puppet could have torn his neck bones right off. The man groaned and raised a hand to press against the puppet's face. Immediately, a swirl of blue smoke flared from the puppet's egg-shaped face, and within seconds, a large patch of skin was burned off. Unfortunately, the puppet seemed unaffected by pain and, like nothing had happened, bit down again on the man's neck.
These two non-human, non-ghost entities rolled and wrestled on the floor, breaking the stair railing. Both fell from the fourth floor together. The puppet landed first, cushioning the fall for the mysterious man, who collapsed paralyzed on the floor. From above, I could clearly see the puppet on the first floor still unharmed. It abandoned the man and slowly approached "Yang Xiao."
Yang Xiao was still lying on the floor as the puppet knelt beside him, lowering its head face-to-face. It opened its mouth and began inhaling deeply and rapidly. Black smoke streamed out from Yang Xiao's mouth, nostrils, ears, and eyes, all being sucked into the puppet's body.
As the black smoke fully left Yang Xiao's body, the stroke-like expression on his face gradually normalized. When the last wisp of black smoke floated out of his nostril, Yang Xiao suddenly opened his eyes, as if aware of me watching from above. He slowly said, "Thank you for your effort. You don't need to do anything more. I'll handle the rest." Then he pulled the few crossbow bolts out of his body; the talismans on those bolts had no effect on him.
Seeing Yang Xiao recover and the mysterious man lying motionless on the floor, the pressure on the man suddenly eased. He slumped on the broken railing of the third-floor staircase, gasping heavily, eyes tracking every move below.
After the puppet absorbed all the black smoke inside Yang Xiao, it walked to the entrance and stood upright facing inward. Yang Xiao picked up a crossbow nearby, loaded a bolt, and fired at the motionless man's left leg. The bolt hit, but the man didn't move or react. Yang Xiao sneered, loaded a second bolt, aimed at the man's right leg, and said, "If you have the ability, just keep still."
As he spoke the last word, Yang Xiao released the bolt, hitting the man's right leg. The man's body stiffened momentarily, then started to tremble lightly. Yang Xiao loaded the last bolt and fired at the man's head. At the instant the bolt shot out, the man suddenly flipped, and the bolt grazed his scalp, embedding in the floor.
Though the man dodged the bolt, his legs were now useless. He lay on the floor, staring coldly at Yang Xiao. Yang Xiao looked back and said, "This skin sack isn't your true form, right? You deliberately found a corpse as a body double that leaks no corpse aura. That corpse even bleeds and feels pain—it's rare. I once thought this was a clever corpse control technique, but now, it doesn't seem like it... It's the 'Human-Ghost Integration Technique.' Unexpected to find someone in the Bureau familiar with the Heavenly Principle Diagram. Who exactly are you? Speak."
The mysterious man was silent for a long time before sighing, "A pity... just one step away." Then he stared at Yang Xiao and said, "Today is only the beginning. The road is long. Tell Wu Baimao—I don't believe his luck will be so good next time." After saying this, the man collapsed onto the floor. His body emitted a strong stench of decay, which I could clearly smell even on the third floor. His body started collapsing, with pale yellow corpse fluids slowly oozing out. Yang Xiao glanced at him indifferently and ignored him, letting the man turn into white bones.
Yang Xiao walked over to Sun Fatty, pried open his eyelids, and looked inside without expression. He took out a small wax pill, crushed the wax coating, and stuffed the pill into Sun Fatty's mouth. Five or six minutes later, Sun Fatty slowly woke, still a bit dazed and confused about the situation. He looked at Yang Xiao and shook his head, "Old Yang, has your wife given birth yet?"
Sun Fatty didn't see me in the hall and turned to Yang Xiao, asking, "Old Yang, what about Lazi? Has something happened to him?" I stood up from the third-floor stairs and shouted, "Sun Dasheng, you're the one who's something!" Seeing me safe on the stairs, Sun Fatty grinned and said, "I'm just worried about you. As long as you're okay, that's all that matters. I just feared something happened to you." I had no energy to banter further, so I leaned on the stairs and slowly went down to the first-floor hall.
Sun Fatty noticed the bolt lodged in my shoulder and jumped in fright. "Lazi, what happened to you? Who did this?" I'd already started to get used to the pain in my shoulder, but his words reminded me, and the wound suddenly hurt deep into my bones. Gulping cold air, I recounted everything that had just happened and then asked Sun Fatty, "Dasheng, I finished telling you about me. Now, it's time to tell me what happened to you. I came back and saw you collapsed on the floor. What happened?"
Sun Fatty tilted his head, still a bit hazy, and said, "When you went to get the rope, a black smoke suddenly blew in from outside, filling the hall. I was too scared to move inside the smoke and kept shouting for you, but you didn't answer. Now I think I might have been drugged during that time. Later, someone gave me something to eat—there was a strong medicinal smell that hit my brain—and that's how I woke up."
"Dasheng was lucky. He was affected by a descending spell," Yang Xiao said, not finding any clues in the pile of rotten flesh and bones where the mysterious man had been. "Dasheng's luck is extraordinary. The descending spell requires the caster's own flesh and blood as a tether. Luckily, Dasheng and the caster share the same blood type, so he's immune to most of the curse. Otherwise, twenty Dashengs together wouldn't survive one round."
Looking at Yang Xiao's pale face, I could tell he'd had a rough night too. He'd lost a lot of blood, and the wounds on his foot and chest were still bleeding. I asked, "Old Yang, are you okay? After your wife gives birth, do you need a doctor to give you a blood transfusion or something?" Yang Xiao waved his hand. "Just a minor issue. I can handle it myself. Shen La, your injury is a bit more troublesome."
He made a circular motion over my wound with his hand. "You injured the bone. You should treat it quickly. If not, the bone will rot, and then it'll really be troublesome."
Hearing this, a cold sweat broke out on me. I hurriedly said, "Old Yang, don't scare me. Tell me honestly, this small injury—no need to amputate, right...?" Yang Xiao came closer and looked down at the crossbow bolt's feathers sticking out of my wound, his expression strange. "Don't move. Let me see your wound."
Before I could answer, he suddenly grabbed the tail end of the bolt sticking out of my shoulder and pulled hard. Along with the bolt, a spray of blood shot out over a meter away.
The intense pain immediately blacked out my vision, and I collapsed onto the floor. The bleeding stopped spraying but still flowed heavily. Within moments, my half-sleeve was soaked red. At this rate, in less than ten minutes, I'd die from excessive blood loss. Damn it—I remembered Yang Xiao's strange expression earlier and thought: He probably still hasn't expelled all the black smoke inside. Could he have been possessed by some Underworld Agent again?
"Yang Xiao! Are you trying to kill Lazi?" Sun Fatty panicked, pulling a handgun and aiming it at Yang Xiao's forehead. "I don't care what's going on. If Lazi dies, you'll go down with him!" Then he remembered bullets wouldn't affect Yang Xiao, so he drew a dagger from his waist and started slashing toward Yang Xiao's neck.
Sun Fatty's loyalty was something else. I looked at him, about to say something, but suddenly memories of the Qilin Hotel surfaced—the words Sun Fatty said to comfort Yang Xiao: "I die with my comrades when I'm a cop. I die with my boss when I'm undercover." Thinking of this, my gaze at Sun Fatty became complicated...
Yang Xiao carefully blocked the dagger with two fingers and said, "Look closely before you speak." He pulled out a crimson pill, split it in half, then split one half into two quarters. He ground the two quarters into powder and sprinkled it on my wound. The powder didn't wash away with the blood but instead acted like glue, instantly coagulating the bleeding. Seeing the bleeding stop, Yang Xiao gave me the remaining half pill to swallow. As soon as it entered my stomach, I felt a warm current flowing down my esophagus. Within a few breaths, the discomfort from blood loss began to fade.
"Old Yang, didn't expect you had some tricks up your sleeve," Sun Fatty said with a grin as he saw color returning to my face. "Hey Old Yang, where'd you get this miraculous pill? Got any extras? You don't know... I've been a little anemic lately." Yang Xiao glanced at him. "There's still one left, but as you can see, I'm hurt too. Though minor, I rely on this pill to regenerate blood. Once we get back, I'll see if I can make more for you."
Sun Fatty didn't press. I also felt the blood loss discomfort completely gone. Looking at Yang Xiao preparing more medicine, I asked, "Old Yang, mind sharing the recipe? We can make more ourselves and keep them for emergencies."
I knew Yang Xiao might not agree, and sure enough, he said, "I have the recipe, but the herbs are hard to source. Even Director Wu might struggle to find enough ingredients for just a few pills."
Just then, someone's voice came from the doorway: "Are you talking about me?" The three of us jumped in surprise and turned to see Wu Rendi entering. The puppet at the door ignored him and silently let him in.
Wu Rendi? Why was he here? Wasn't he supposed to be on the fourth floor monitoring Yang Xiao's wife's delivery with her six senses sealed? Yang Xiao looked at Wu Rendi and then at the fourth-floor ward, his surprise impossible to hide: "How did you get here?"