Chapter 8: Slaughter Beneath the Truth

Li Chenqiu’s gaze was indifferent, his fair skin appearing chillingly cold under the dim, yellow glow of the streetlights.

Wang Zhongshan looked at Li Chenqiu with a face full of terror, then tremblingly crouched down, using his fingernails to pry the photograph from the cold, damp pavement.

The moment he turned the photo over, he froze. His eyes instantly turned bloodshot, and the muscles in his face began to twitch uncontrollably.

In the photo were a woman in her thirties and a fourteen-year-old boy. Their eyes were vacant and terrified, their mouths tightly gagged with tape, their hands and feet bound with hemp rope, leaving them unable to move.

How could Wang Zhongshan not recognize the people in the photo? They were his own wife and child.

"You animal! If you have a grievance, take it out on me! Do you even count as human for touching my family!!!"

Wang Zhongshan lunged forward like a stray dog on the roadside, his two fists, fueled by towering rage, smashing toward Li Chenqiu.

"Human?"

Li Chenqiu gave a disdainful smile, lifted his foot, and with a wet, muddy "thwack," stomped it onto Wang Zhongshan’s forehead, pressing him violently to the ground.

Wang Zhongshan’s knees slammed into a puddle with a heavy thud, splashing greyish-black, muddy water across his face.

Just as Wang Zhongshan began to struggle, Li Chenqiu’s next words doused him like a bucket of ice water.

"Do you think I don't dare to kill them?"

Wang Zhongshan shuddered, looking up at Li Chenqiu with red-rimmed eyes.

"You ask me if I count as human? I am an Awakened; I was never human to begin with. You see Awakened as monsters, and I see humans as experience points. Isn't it only logical that I kill my experience points?"

Li Chenqiu opened his palms and smiled playfully.

"I... I'll tell you... I'll tell you everything. Just please, spare my wife and child after I'm done. I beg you!"

With that, Wang Zhongshan braced his hands on the ground and, with a heavy *thud*, kowtowed to Li Chenqiu.

"Go ahead. I am a man of my word," Li Chenqiu said calmly.

Nearby, Gong Qi was so terrified he nearly lost control of his bladder. He wasn't a fool; anyone could see that the person before them had an extraordinary connection to Xu Yue and her son. If Wang Zhongshan revealed the truth, how could he possibly survive?

Thinking of this, Gong Qi was about to speak up to stop him, but Li Chenqiu’s voice cut across the scene first: "Interrupt, and you die."

The simple, three-word sentence forced the restless Gong Qi to shrink back.

After a long silence, Wang Zhongshan finally spoke:

"Ever since the surveillance footage leaked, the netizens online started a barrage of abuse against Gong Qi, causing him to suffer much criticism within the Special Abilities Division. If he were an ordinary person, he might have had to endure it, but he was different.

"His mother is part of the Federal Zhou Consortium. Although she is from a branch family, she is still a high-ranking figure in City 11. His father, Gong Ran, used his connections with the Zhou family to ascend to the position of Chief of the City 11 Special Abilities Division. Later, Gong Qi went to his father, and his father ordered me to resolve the matter and transferred one million into my bank account..." Wang Zhongshan’s expression grew heavy.

"Keep talking. Once you're done, I’ll let your family go," Li Chenqiu said, his expression devoid of joy or sorrow—a calmness that was bone-chilling.

"Later, I went to the woman's home. She had some mental issues; the table was covered in piles of dumplings. I asked her why she made so many, and she said her son liked them. Chen Xiumei had been shot through the brow; even if he liked them, how could he possibly eat them?"

Wang Zhongshan sneered and continued, "After that, I warned her not to go to the Special Abilities Division again, or she wouldn't have a good ending. When the woman heard this, she acted like a lunatic and threw the dumplings at me, so I grabbed her by the hair and threw her off the seventh floor."

Li Chenqiu slowly closed his eyes. "Why were there no bodies in the news?"

"I don't know. When the ambulance and the security forces arrived later, there was only a large pool of blood. That complex was too old; there was no surveillance inside, only at the entrance, and nothing abnormal was found there." Wang Zhongshan said, head bowed, his voice lifeless.

"Is it possible, then, that Xu Yue might still be alive?" Li Chenqiu’s voice was calm, but the slight tremor in his fingers betrayed his inner turmoil.

"It shouldn't be possible. A month later, we found an Awakened in that complex. His ability was stealth. If nothing went wrong, that woman must have been snatched by that Awakened. We killed that Awakened, too. If he ate the woman, then I suppose I’ve avenged her. That’s it. There’s nothing else."

After saying this, Wang Zhongshan seemed to age a dozen years in an instant. His broad shoulders slumped powerlessly, but his eyes were filled with hope. "I told the truth. Can you let my family go now?"

Li Chenqiu slowly opened his eyes. His deep black pupils were as dead and silent as the abyss, yet the corners of his mouth remained curled.

"Fine. Kill yourself. Stab a knife through your heart. Even if a Tier Three Destiny-Bound Awakened has their heart pierced, they can still live for about a minute. I’ll let you hear their voices before you die."

"Thank you."

Wang Zhongshan took a deep breath and turned his head, casting a lingering, reluctant gaze at the surrounding Special Abilities members.

Those men stared at Wang Zhongshan with red eyes; some of the bolder ones even shook their heads slightly, but Li Chenqiu paid no mind.

They were just a group of experience points—it was only a matter of harvesting them sooner or later.

Finally, Wang Zhongshan made up his mind. With a solemn expression, he grabbed a blade from the side and pressed the tip against his left chest.

For his family, dying was a small price to pay.

*Squelch!*

The tip of the blade pierced his chest as if slicing through tofu, and bright red blood bubbled out from the wound.

Wang Zhongshan’s body tilted and he collapsed straight to the ground, his dimming eyes fixed intently on Li Chenqiu.

Li Chenqiu, naturally, had no intention of breaking his word. He jumped off the roof of the vehicle, pulled out his phone, navigated to a video, and crouched before Wang Zhongshan. "Watch."

With that, Li Chenqiu pressed play.

A split second later, shrill, piercing screams erupted from the speaker.

"The child is innocent! If you want to kill someone, kill me!"

"Daddy! Daddy, save us!"

...

Wang Zhongshan’s wife and son cried out before the camera, but at the eleventh second of the video, the phone speaker went silent.

Because at the eleventh second, two droplets of water pierced through their brows, abruptly ending their lives.

With that, the video ended.

Veins bulged on Wang Zhongshan’s forehead, his facial muscles tightened, and his body trembled involuntarily.

"Are you happy? Your family can finally be reunited. No need to thank me." Li Chenqiu placed his hand on Wang Zhongshan’s face and patted it gently.

"You..."

Wang Zhongshan tremblingly raised his hand, reaching for the phone. Just as he was about to succeed, Li Chenqiu tucked the phone into his pocket.

*Thud!*

Wang Zhongshan’s arm dropped limply to the ground. Even in death, the despair in his eyes lingered, never to fade...