Evil As Humans

Chapter 80: The Hunter

“Because in the end, you’ll always understand. Compared to being on the run, the police station is the place that will give you complete peace of mind.”

The mask took a round stainless steel jar from the shelf and put a new label on it. The mouth of the round jar was wide open, making it look like a deep well from the side.

The man arranged the small objects in an orderly manner; they circled Guo Laifu one after another. There were countless sensor wires connected to the ends of these spirit weapons. The computer screen flashed with cold light, and the mainframe emitted a loud heat dissipation sound.

…Yin Ren had seen science posts do similar things. This was a researcher preparing to collect data.

Guo Laifu let out a muffled roar, which sounded like a curse. The masked man turned a deaf ear as he walked slowly to the office chair. He leaned forward and supported his hands on the armrest.

The two dark eye holes of the rabbit mask were directly facing Guo Laifu.

“Hm,” he said. “Now you have more panic than fear. You never imagined that you would be in a position of prey.”

The masked man went back to the computer and muttered a few words. “The basic data is determined. Empathy ability is poor, and fear of oneself is relatively dull…”

After finishing the recording, he moved and returned to Guo Laifu again.

“Let’s get started,” the masked man said quietly.

The next moment, Guo Laifu’s memory turned into melted butter.

They didn’t know what the masked man had done, as there were only chaotic colors in Guo Laifu’s vision. The colors quickly deformed and merged as Guo Laifu’s screams overshadowed the buzzing vibration of the spirit weapons. It was hard to imagine a human making such a sound.

The chaos continued, and time seemed to have lost its concept.

Guo Wei thoughtfully fast-forwarded the memory.

At the end of the boundless chaos, it was pouring rain.

After the indescribable chaos was over, Guo Laifu’s vision finally returned to normal. He was standing on a deserted road. The masked man was wearing a translucent raincoat and stood silently beside him.

Guo Laifu was soaked all over. His eyes were wide open, and he looked dumbly at the night in front of him. His limbs were free, but he remained motionless.

“Two days later, leave Haigu and return to Qingjiang Public Security Bureau to surrender,” the masked man commanded deftly.

“Ah… Ah…” Guo Laifu spoke in a broken voice, as if he had awoken from a dream. He nodded his head desperately.

“Don’t hurt anyone during this time.”

“Ahh… That tricky evil…”

Guo Laifu folded his hands and bowed desperately like a drowning dog*. He moved his tongue with difficulty, spitting out ravings that no one understood.

*(落水狗) Refers to a bad person who has lost favor or power.

At the end of his screaming, Guo Laifu’s knees went weak, and he knelt heavily on the muddy ground.

The masked man lowered his head. Though Yin Ren couldn’t see the man’s expression, he knew that there was no sympathy in them.

“Very good,” he said flatly.

Just then, a blood-red lightning bolt flashed across the sky.

The masked man paused.

He raised his head and looked at the dark clouds rolling in the sky. In the crazy rainstorm, blood-red lightning flashed one after another, filling the darkness with a bloody color in the middle of the night.

“……Ah.” The masked man sighed. “Trouble. Things are getting unbalanced.”

Before the man finished speaking, Guo Laifu seemed to sense something. Like a sudden illness, Guo Laifu stared at the man’s back. His body fell onto the uneven asphalt road and convulsed frantically.

Melting chaos once again appeared in Guo Laifu’s vision. He yelled, shook his head desperately, and rolled back wretchedly. This road was close to a garbage dump. Guo Laifu rushed into it like crazy as he gouged out his eyes with both hands.

There was no hesitation in his movements as a sticky noise sounded from his eye socket.

Immediately afterwards, ignoring the sharp pain in his eyes, he groped around a pile of household garbage and grabbed a dirty fruit knife…

Yin Ren knew what happened next.

Guo Laifu used the fruit knife to cut off his nose and jabbed disposable chopsticks into his ears. Until a security personnel appeared, he was madly mutilating himself.

…Like trying to escape his five senses.

The heavy rain and thunder covered everything as Guo Laifu lost his eyesight. The masked man also disappeared, and everything sank into nothingness.

The memory ended, and the darkness dissipated.

The three of them returned to the sunny campus again.

“This is the process of Guo Laifu going crazy.” After seeing the record, Guo Wei’s face was a little distorted with joy. “Unfortunately, I can’t reproduce his thoughts at the time, so I don’t know how helpful that was to you.”

“No.” Yin Ren swallowed. “Thank you, you’ve helped us enough.”

The masked man in the memory, Zhong Chengshuo, was standing behind him.

Yin Ren turned his head slowly to look at him. The culprit who drove Guo Laifu crazy was standing under the sun. Behind the transparent glasses, those black eyes were moist and stable, and he even looked slightly innocent.

There was no sense of guilt on Zhong Chengshuo’s face. He blinked at Yin Ren, with a slight expectation in his eyes.

This kid…

“Come with me.”

Yin Ren grabbed Zhong Chengshuo’s wrist, and the two went into the main teaching building and found a relatively hidden corner. Yin Ren skillfully cut off all communications and took a deep breath.

“Zhong Chengshuo, what the hell is going on with Guo Laifu?”

“He should have gone to Qingjiang to surrender himself.” Zhong Chengshuo stood upright as he spoke with a trace of regret in his tone. “But the Evil Force that broke out that night… Well, you broke the seal, causing the Evil Force in Haigu to be thrown into disorder. He was affected by the drastic change in environmental conditions.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.” His tone was still calm. “This has never happened before.”

Before?

Zhong Chengshuo’s voice surfaced from the memories.

[…The people in those recordings are all death row prisoners. Except for one of them, the rest have been executed.]

That was the day they visited Feng Qi after the case was over.

When they visited, Feng Qi was using some recordings to consolidate his ability to “interpret ravings”.

The tablet screen was full of “Mom, Mom, I’m so scared”, “Help, help”, “I’m scared, I’m scared”.

It was the same as Guo Laifu’s situation.

[Guo Laifu, a serial murderer on the run… This person is completely mentally disturbed and is still undergoing treatment. The other death row prisoners only showed symptoms of ravings, but they have no mental problems.]

At that time, this was what Zhong Chengshuo said while he was joking with Feng Qi, saying that some big case might be unearthed from this.

A prophecy.

“Besides Guo Laifu, how many people are there?” Yin Ren patted his face.

Zhong Chengshuo leaned in front of a window in the corridor of the teaching building. Outside were the bright sunlight and swaying flowers. Coupled with the handsome face of that person, this image was soft and harmless… which made it particularly deceptive.

“Plus Guo Laifu, forty-two people,” Zhong Chengshuo replied calmly. “All of them are murderers from Sunken Society, who carry at least three lives or more and are wanted by the police. They only left behind the sequelae of ravings—I dealt with them very cleanly.”

Ravings, a language disorder that occurred after a specific mutation appeared in the brain. The specific cause was unknown, but most of them appeared in people who had been greatly stimulated.

Yin Ren: “……”

Yin Ren: “…What did you do to them?”

“Secret.” Zhong Chengshuo stared at Yin Ren earnestly while holding his index fingers to his lips. “We just started dating, so we need to get to know each other slowly.”

Yin Ren silently looked at the ground.

Forty-two murderers related to Sunken Society.

Was “King Yama” of the Nightwalkers uninterested in living tasks, or was the spontaneous “murderer hunter” already full?

He wondered why King Yama insisted on developing in the Nightwalkers—whether it was to get rid of evil beings or study them, even if Zhong Chengshuo had such eccentricities, with King Yama’s strength, Shian would give some leeway.

But it was absolutely impossible for Shian to accept a “murderer hunter”.

Seeing Yin Ren unresponsive, Zhong Chengshuo looked at him with some confusion. “What’s wrong with you?”

Yin Ren looked at the black ballpoint pen in his hand.

A few strands of hair quickly wrapped around the body of the pen and cut it directly into pieces. In Zhong Chengshuo’s surprised gaze, there was a creepy chewing sound in the black hair, and the remains of the ballpoint pen were swallowed up.

“Now we’re real accomplices.” Yin Ren let out a long exhale.

He believed in him.

Zhong Chengshuo’s past, his motivation; Yin Ren decided to continue to explore—this wasn’t to obtain some kind of victory. He just… simply wanted to understand this person.

The wing ball covered them again, isolating the two of them from the bright and noisy campus.

Zhong Chengshuo looked at Yin Ren suspiciously.

“What are you waiting for?” Yin Ren rubbed his face vigorously as he spoke sternly. “I’ve made up my mind about what to say. Let’s make a confession quickly. We have to go out and have a serious, ahem, relationship.”

Zhong Chengshuo was stunned for a moment. In the shadow, his entire face blushed slightly.

“But before that, I have a question I must ask,” Yin Ren muttered. “Is it really a coincidence that you met me that night?”

“Nn. Guo Laifu went crazy, and I have no way to deal with it,” Zhong Chengshuo replied sincerely. “But I still have time to save my dad’s two potted plants.”

“…Pfft.”

“What are you laughing at?” Zhong Chengshuo scratched his nose. Yin Ren saw this human’s expression of “embarrassed” for the first time.

“Has anyone ever told you your character is really…”

“Strange? Many people have said it.”

“No, special,” Yin Ren whispered. “It’s very special.”

……

“Therefore, that child intends to stay here and doesn’t want to turn into a ghost,” Fu Xingchuan concluded.

Yin Ren and Zhong Chengshuo were rescued out of the school, and were interrogated by Fu Xingchuan on the spot. He obviously didn’t intend to let them leave the Archive before asking for a clear overview.

The two partners quickly handed in the fragments of the red rope full of Evil Force. In order to show their sincerity, they even put their luggage 800-miles away.

“Yes, I seriously asked Guo Wei several times and told him Shian could help him turn into a ghost.” Yin Ren only had one set of clothes left. He leaned “weakly” on his partner as he said, “He refused.”

“It’s not like it’s a good thing—not much better than being a ghost.”

Fu Xingchuan let out a sigh. His eyes were still firmly locked on the two of them. He vaguely guarded the members of Unit 7 behind him. Yin Ren could see that there were several hidden attack arrays around him, ready to go.

Fu Xingchuan was warning them.

…As cultivators, their Minister Fu was really conscientious.

Yin Ren pretended not to notice and continued his “weak” act. “Guo Wei was affected by Kong Wangqing’s corruption source. I used a dream technique to recruit Guo Wei’s teacher and classmates. When Guo Wei was about to return to normal, Kong Wanqing appeared…”

“He… He forcibly controlled Guo Wei and began to use strange powers. I was hit by his technique and barely held on, delaying him to let Zhong Ge take the others and run first.”

Fu Xingchuan looked at them silently.

Yin Ren specifically confirmed that after he returned to his original state, Guo Wei was beside him, safe and sound—that was to say, he was able to control the spread of the Evil Force.

As long as the source of corruption was handed in quickly, even if Fu Xingchuan wanted to doubt him, there would be no conclusive evidence.

After all, a dead man tells no tales. Yin Ren lowered his head, showing a sad look.

“Kong Wanqing claims that his ability is emotional ‘resonance’, which can amplify negative emotions. After I was hit by him, everything fell into chaos. I may have been influenced by the Evil Force. After Zhong Ge woke me up, I realized… I killed Kong Wanqing.”

In a sense, everything he said was the truth.

“I have no idea how I killed him. I just remember being in great pain and feeling like the Evil Force was about to smash me into pieces. Minister Fu, will I go to jail?”

Fu Xingchuan raised his hand and glanced at the reading instrument on his wrist. His brows arched, but he didn’t say much.

“Do you have an impression of how Zhong Chengshuo saved you?” Fu Xingchuan showed no sign of relief and continued to ask sternly.

“He…”

Zhong Chengshuo: “I hugged him and fed him a bag of chocolate chips.”

Fu Xingchuan: “?”

Fu Xingchuan: “…Chocolate chips?”

Minister Fu’s tone was so confused that even his alert posture titled for a moment.

The two members of Unit 7 looked at each other and felt that this style was completely incompatible with the ferocious ghost just now. It was more credible to say that Zhong Chengshuo gave him ten shots of tranquilizer than the current statement.

The dark ghost fetus just now wouldn’t be defeated by a few chocolate chips.

Fu Xingchuan looked at the lie detector device again. What Zhong Chengshuo stated wasn’t nonsense; the honesty index was surprisingly high.

“You hugged Yin Ren and gave him some sweets.” Fu Xingchuan tried to make sense of the statement. “Is he normal now?”

Did these two think it was that easy to deal with a frenzied non-science post? Combined with the previous abnormal readings, Minister Fu felt that these two in Unit 9 must be crazy.

Yin Ren: “……” Zhong Chengshuo told the truth too quickly that he couldn’t think of a reasonable way to amend at this moment.

Damn it. He originally wanted to describe the entire process in a more touching way. As a result, Zhong Chengshuo gave a brief summary, making him look like some kindergartener who was throwing a tantrum during lunch.

King Yama obviously had his own ideas.

Zhong Chengshuo gently grabbed Yin Ren’s hand and made sure the other party couldn’t break away. He took a deep breath. “Yes, Yin Ren’s will is very strong—I wanted to go back before because I know him and have the confidence I could wake him.”

“Minster Fu, we just started dating.”

He added the final sentence with extra emphasis and solemnity.

Fu Xingchuan fell completely silent.

It was hard to tell whether the expression on his face was lost in deep thought or complete blankness. After a long time, he waved his hand as if he had given up..

“Forget it. You guys go back first and isolate for a while,” Fu Xingchuan said wearily. “We’ll verify your statements… Well, apart from the relationship thing.”

The faces of the two members of Unit 7 were still shocked. Their eyes swept between Yin Ren and Zhong Chengshuo.

“Hurry up and pack your things.” Although Fu Xingchuan lowered his guard, he didn’t release the protective spirit weapons. “Xiao Zhong, take care of Xiao Yin. We—”

Suddenly, something frantically moved in Yin Ren’s pocket.

Oops, it was Dog Thing.

The black ballpoint pen had been destroyed, which meant Guo Laifu would return to normal soon. Those little monsters that only exist in the minds of lunatics would no longer appear, so Dog Thing had lost the opportunity to freely eat the “weak”.

Yin Ren quickly held it down and patted it soothingly. Now he had been strengthened by a lot, so it wasn’t like he couldn’t share some of his Evil Force and feed that dog.

Despite its poor intelligence, the dog was well-versed in current events and knew who it shouldn’t mess with. Since Fu Xingchuan was here, it wouldn’t continue—

But it backfired. The cell phone began to struggle more vigorously. At the same time, Yin Ren’s scalp became cold.

“Get down!” Fu Xingchuan yelled. “Don’t even look up!”

The three of them hit the ground instantly except for Wang Zhou, who was still distracted by the outrageous love story. Fu Xingchuan threw out an explosive spirit bomb and directly blasted him to the ground.

Wang Zhou’s leg knocked against some ruins and made a “crack” sound.

Wang Zhou: “Ahhhh!”

“Quiet.” Fu Xingchuan gritted his teeth.

Yin Ren didn’t say a word.

He finally knew the reason for Dog Thing’s struggle—

Something was watching them.

The line of sight descended from above, pierced the direction of the center of the vortex, and stared at the five of them steadily. He didn’t know if it was because of the special environment in the Archive, but the sense of peeping was hundreds of millions of times stronger than the “sniper” from the outside world.

It was like a cold, foul, barbed tongue.

The sight licked the five of them, one by one, causing Yin Ren’s back to become horribly numb.

“Zhong Chengshuo, Wang Zhou, don’t push yourself. Do not look at it.” Fu Xingchuan lay down under an abandoned wall, staring at the dust on the ground.

“What is that?” Zhong Chengshuo asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” Fu Xingchuan said. “Know when you are outmatched. I have a hunch that it’s very bad.”

……

At the same time, Haigu Municipal Hospital.

Sun Qi’an cracked her sore shoulders and neck and went to dinner with a familiar nurse friend.

Her nurse friend was in a single room that belonged to an elderly man.

Speaking of which, this old man was considered a legend here…

The old man had been in a vegetative state, lying unconscious at the hospital for over seven years. Just six years ago, the old man miraculously woke up, but his body was so weak, he couldn’t leave the hospital.

His kids made quite a hearty living, so there was no shortage of money. Counting the moment he was admitted to the hospital, the old man had been hospitalized for thirteen years.

He was introverted, didn’t talk much, and wasn’t a picky eater. On weekdays, except for reading books and watching TV, the elderly man didn’t have any other requirements. All the nurses had a pretty good impression of him.

Usually, when people came to visit, the old man would always look their way and nod quietly.

But this time, it was different.

The old man didn’t look at Sun Qi’an, as if he hadn’t noticed her arrival. His wheelchair was parked by the window of the ward. The location of the ward was quite good, as he could see most of Haigu.

Perhaps the old man was tired of reading and wanted to look at the scenery. Sun Qi’an didn’t think much about it and just waited politely at the door.

At this moment, the old man moved…

He raised his hand, straightened his skinny fingers, and made a gun gesture.

The direction of the muzzle was pointed towards the Shian Building at the center of the city.

“Mr. Qiu?” Sun Qi’an called out in surprise.

The old man turned his head stiffly and smiled at her.

It was a twisted smile that bared all his teeth.

The author has something to say:

Cleansing wipes and chocolate chips save the world!!!

Good news: We’re in love!

Bad news: Medical examination and separation into isolation rooms.

Xiao Yin and Xiao Zhong: ……