Chapter 58

It was absolutely silent in the darkness.

There was only the sound of endless chewing.

The faint light illuminated the person sitting on the chair. He seemed to be lost in thought, his eyes half-closed as he listened to a sound in the distance.

After a long time, he sighed.

“The Qi household betrayed us.”

He murmured softly, “But that’s fine… The Qi household was always sitting on the fence, so they were not at all trustworthy. I’m not at all surprised that they turned traitor.

“Compared to allies who aren’t worth any attention, a useless subordinate is even more of a pain.”

The chewing sounds came to an abrupt halt.

The darkness slowly opened like an enormous mouth, spitting out a thin and naked husk that coughed violently on the floor, wailing and weeping tragically.

After a long time, that person woke up from his nightmare and prostrated himself on the floor like a dog. Falling onto the ground in front of the figure, he kowtowed desperately.

“Please have mercy, Lord! Please have mercy, Lord! Please have mercy, Lord…”

He wept and pleaded, “I was too arrogant. It was me, it was all my fault… Please give me another chance.”

No one said anything in the silence.

The Lord seemed to be lost in thought.

After a long time, he shook his head slowly.

“No, Wang Hai.”

He said, “If a hunting hound’s bountiful harvest is credited to the hunter’s instructions, then the failure of a mutt must also be a product of his owner’s negligence. It was my fault.

“I underestimated your disrespect and arrogance. After all, you don’t know anything about the real world.”

Wang Hai stood frozen on the spot. As though he could not withstand the cold in the dark, he began to shiver intensely. There was only the sound of the sobbing from his throat.

“Please have mercy, Lord, please have mercy… Please give me another chance… I won’t… I won’t fail again, I swear…”

“No, you didn’t fail.”

The Lord shook his head slowly and said in a calm voice, “In truth, you successfully drew the attention of the Astronomical Association and the Special Affairs Bureau. Although you didn’t manage to stir the pot, at least you achieved the lowest possible target.

“You have been granted the absolute punishment because you disrespected the Holy God.”

He reached out his hand and caressed Wang Hai’s head. “You were seduced by the mortal currency and showed no respect whatsoever for the true power. You never really worshipped the true god, nor did you show any loyalty.

“You have no future.”

Wang Hai’s body shook. He felt a chill and terror emanating from that hand, but he could barely even scream out loud. Amidst the silence, all he could do was let his tears flow.

He tried, as hard as he could, to sob in his throat.

“Lord… Mercy… mercy…”

“The Holy God is never cruel, Wang Hai, so the devotees must be compassionate as well.” The Lord looked down at him from above. “If you want my mercy, I’ll grant it to you, along with power.”

As he said that, that figure slowly stood up from the chair and crouched down. He met Wang Hai’s eyes, filled with surprise, and took a dagger out of his pocket, placing it in front of Wang Hai.

Wang Hai’s smile froze.

“You went to all those lengths, but all you wanted to get revenge on those living corpses from the Astronomical Association, right?” The Lord whispered into his ear, “But the way I see it now, wouldn’t it better for you to do it yourself as opposed to relying on others?”

The Lord gradually stood up and gave him one last look.

“Before your destruction arrives, you have plenty of time to make your decision. You can choose to die tamely, or you can choose to obey the god’s graces. This is the last act of generosity shown to you by the god.”

He said, “If you can attract a tad more attention later, party to your heart’s content. After all, that’s all a grasshopper is good for after the autumn.

“If you can attain your wish before you pass away, you would at least live up to the god’s kindness.”

He turned and left, disappearing into the darkness.

All that remained in that death-like silence was Wang Hai, slumped on the floor in a pool of his own sweat.

That pitch-black dagger was soundlessly reflecting a cold gleam.

.

.

.

Far away, Huai Shi saw a pitch-black car drive out from behind the tall wall and vanish into the distance. There seemed to be someone sitting in the car, but there was a reflective layer on the windows, so he could not look inside clearly.

He crouched in the shade of a tree, quietly observing the silent warehouse in the distance. He watched for a long time, but he could not see anything of note.

After all, the transit warehouse was very expansive. All he could see from outside was a tall wall and one warehouse after another. He could vaguely distinguish the employees’ barracks, a two-storied office building, and a ton of intermodal containers stacked up randomly, their colors already fading.

They were close to the suburbs, so there were no tall buildings around at all and no higher vantage point. If he really wanted to see what was inside, he would probably have to go inside himself.

There was no way he could take a shortcut this time.

When Huai Shi realized that, he sighed and took the bottle of spray the crow had given him out of his pocket, spraying himself with an even layer of the mist.

These border mutants had a sense of smell much stronger than a canine’s, and they even had infrared vision. If he really wanted to get past their noses and eys detected, he would need the help of alchemical potions.

Of course, this was just a deodorizer spray that the crow had refined and modified. It could not block infrared rays, but that was fine as long as he was not seen.

After he was sure that every corner of his body was sprayed evenly, Huai Shi rubbed his hands, took a deep breath, and jumped. He dug his fingers into a crack between the bricks and vaulted over the wall.

Thank goodness he had found some protective gloves in the store before he left, or else the barbed wire and glass shards on the wall would give him a pretty harsh time.

Once he landed and looked around him to find no one in sight, he heaved a sigh of relief. Under the cover of the 9 pm night, he darted into the place that looked like an office building.

The office building was only two stories tall and not very large. There were a few departmental offices, but there was no one in them and the doors were not really locked.

This transit warehouse had ceased operations a long time ago, so no one would need these things anymore.

Huai Shi had a face full of dust for his troubles, but he did not find anything at all.

When he stealthily looked out of the window, he could see the warehouse and the employees’ quarters, both illuminated with lights. If he really had to search, those would be the best places to look, huh?

However, everyone who went in and out of there wore an especially strange white uniform. It would be very difficult for him to blend in.

Logically speaking, people who did physical labor like this would avoid wearing white or other easily stained colors, but this place seemed to buck the trend.

The white coat was unnaturally wide, and it even had a hood, as well as an ouroboros logo he had never seen before on the chest.

Huai Shi watched for a long time before he hammered his fist into his palm.

Alright, he was going to freaking get one of those!

Now, his target was going to be crucial…

He hid in the building behind the window for a long time before he saw someone walk to a nearby wall. That man pulled up his hem, undid his belt, and began doing both of his businesses on the ground right there.

“Whoa, uncivilized, much?”

Huai Shi was stunned. In the dim light, he looked at that man’s unmentionables for a long time before he could not help a sympathetic sigh. “I choose you, Charmander…”

He did not want to scare off his target, so he snuck to the other end of the building and jumped out. As soon as he leaped out of the window, however, he felt a beam of light hit him squarely in the face.

Huai Shi looked up in shock and saw another security guard, leaning against the wall and peeing.

Why did he hide himself so well?!

In that instant, their gazes met.

“Who’s there?!” The patrolling guard’s eyes widened and he reached for the baton at his waist. “Where did you come from, thief?”

“Don’t misunderstand me!”

Huai Shi’s mind turned quickly, and he held up his hands, stopping the guard before he could yell out for reinforcements. “I’m from the gospel choir!”

“The what?” The guard paused. That sounded familiar, so he asked suspiciously, “Is that true? Weren’t you supposed to come together?”

“Of course it’s true. See, I’ll make you believe me! Dum-cha-cha, dum-cha-cha…”

As they talked, Huai Shi decided to just burst into song and dance. He took three steps forth and two steps back, singing loudly, “Enter the home of God, sit by the side of the Lord. Bread sweeter than our mother’s rice, hallelujah, let’s go to paradise~”

Huai Shi took two steps forth and approached the guard, then he suddenly kicked the guard into the wall. Before the latter could fall to the ground, Huai Shi covered his face with a handful of Disastrous Dust, stuffing it all into the guard’s mouth.

The guard’s eyes rolled upward and he immediately fainted.

“That handful was at least four or five thousand. You lucked out.”

Huai Shi patted the scraps off his hands and shook his head helplessly. Dragging the guard with him, he jumped back into the room. When he leaped out of the window again, he was already wearing their ridiculous white uniform, with a baton at his waist and a torch in his hand.

If he put on the hood, he would be just another member of the security.

No one could tell without a closer look.

He had to be grateful that the People of the Pure Land had a good entrepreneurial culture. The same gospel musicians went everywhere, and even their hymns were unchanged.

It was a good thing he still remembered the tune from the errenzhuan. If it were not for that, he might have done all this today for nothing, right?

Huai Shi whistled and held the torch as he casually wandered toward the center of the transit warehouse.

Everything looked perfectly normal, and nothing unusual happened. He did not see any scenes of blood and carnage, only the guys in white robes walking in and out. Some of them were even lying in their forms, kicking up their legs and playing games on their phones.

It was all too normal.

If it were not for this ridiculous outfit, this place would look like any other factory.

The entire transit warehouse was just too large. Huai Shi wandered around aimlessly, but he did not find his targets or anything he needed. He was even beginning to wonder if he had just been paranoid. Maybe Wang Hai was not hiding here either.

However, that all changed when his feet stopped outside that unassuming warehouse at the south-west corner.

He lowered his head.

He looked at the Disastrous Dust slowly accumulating in his hands.

That was the specks of elementium drifting in the air, filled with despair and death.

Someone had died here.

In an instant, all the hairs on his body stood on end. There was more than one, too!

Attracted by the Trapping Hand, the particles kept gathering here in Huai Shi’s hand. Soon, there was a small pinch of dust in his hand. Huai Shi blinked and walked around the warehouse. The scattered elementium did indeed come from inside the warehouse.

He simply stuffed the Disastrous Dust into his pocket and began to look for a way inside.

The entire warehouse was sealed tight from the inside. It seemed quite difficult to enter except through that large door outside. However, Huai Shi found a ventilator shaft about four meters wide at the back of the warehouse.

Just as he was wondering what he should stand on to crawl inside, he suddenly smelled a very familiar scent.

It was the smell of blood. When he turned around and pulled aside a door on top of a heap of trash, he saw the corpse hidden underneath…

He was stunned.

It was the other guard?