Chapter 27: A Close Call |
The darkness around him dissolved as if wiped away by an eraser, colors rippling into existence one patch at a time.
Illusory golden vines danced before his eyes, vanishing into motes of light in the blink of an eye.
Qi Si blinked, and he was back in his studio, the metallic tang of blood hanging thick and sharp in the air.
A line of text hovered in the upper left corner of his vision.
[Your next instance will begin in 71:59:59]
A string of constantly changing numbers ticked down—this had to be the countdown Leaf had mentioned in the instance.
Three days. Just enough time to rest and prepare—not too long, not too short.
It seemed the Weird Game's instances didn't take up any time in the real world. Qi Si pulled his phone from his pocket. A glance confirmed it: 9:00 PM, March 9, 2035.
The man slumped before him was already a cold corpse, his eyes wide open in a final, unseeing stare.
"What a hassle."
The man's features didn't inspire him to turn the body into a specimen, but dumping it in the wilderness risked discovery by the authorities.
As a self-proclaimed good citizen, Qi Si had no desire to cause the authorities any unnecessary trouble.
The body had to be disposed of carefully.
The thrill of the Weird Game began to fade, replaced by the stark reality of the problem at hand.
With practiced ease, Qi Si untied the ropes and hauled the corpse onto the dissecting table. From a nearby tool rack, he selected a heavy bone cleaver.
For a split second, a hazy fragment of memory flickered in his mind like a spark of inspiration.
He seized upon it. Grabbing the corpse's right hand, he lifted it before his face, his eyes narrowing into thin slits.
There, on the little finger of the dead man's right hand, was a black ring.
The ring seemed a size too big, secured in place with a thin white thread wrapped several times around the finger. Its jet-black surface was inlaid with a carving of a black butterfly, its body twisted into the shape of an 'S'.
It was familiar.
Back in the instance, Chang Xu had shown him something identical.
"Sila?" Qi Si murmured the name, a sudden realization dawning on him. Things had just gotten complicated.
The man he'd just stabbed to death, Liu Ajiu, was a member of the Sila Guild.
From the way Chang Xu spoke of them, this "Sila Guild" was not to be underestimated. And who knew if they would seek revenge for one of their fallen members just to save face.
Vengeance, grudges, friction, disputes... This was the problem with people. They always let irrational emotions dictate their actions.
Any number of reasons could serve as a spark to ignite a conflict, pulling them into a vortex of eye-for-an-eye retribution.
And to survive in such a society, to get what you wanted, you had no choice but to accommodate and adapt.
Deciding to see it through, Qi Si dragged the body onto the workbench. After breaking the bones, he folded the corpse into a rough rectangular shape. He then pulled a faded suitcase from a pile of junk in the corner and stuffed the body inside.
He pulled the zipper shut. A few specks of blood seeped through the fabric near the seams, but they were faint enough to go unnoticed without a close look.
Even so, Qi Si took a handkerchief and wiped down the entire length of the zipper until the yellowish fabric was a uniform grimy black, the bloodstains indistinguishable from the dirt. Only then was he satisfied.
Killing was the easy part. Disposing of the body was the challenge.
Dismemberment was merely the first step. The real challenge lay in dealing with the parts that were unmistakably human—the fingers, the head.
Without access to chemical agents, stomach acid was an excellent alternative.
A criminal without connections had to get creative. One with resources, however, could contact a pig farm. A dog lover might feed the remains to their pets. A prankster might drop them off at the local market.
Qi Si was long past the stage of being without connections. He wasn't a pet lover, and a trip to the market felt like too much effort.
He pulled out his phone and checked the time. It was 9:40 PM.
Bob's pig farm would be closed by now. It wouldn't open until eight the next morning.
He sent a quick text, a heads-up about his visit tomorrow.
Next, he dialed a number saved in his contacts under "Friend." "Jin Yusheng, I need you to do something for me..."
As he spoke, Qi Si grabbed a rag from the tool rack, soaked it in a bucket of water, and crouched down to scrub the stains from the floor.
He was fastidious about cleanliness, a habit that compelled him to leave any place he occupied spotless.
It was a good habit, one he had cultivated over the past six years to minimize complications.
The wet rag smeared the blood into a thin, pale pink film across the concrete. With each wipe, the cloth absorbed the diluted stain, strand by strand, until the floor showed no trace of what had happened.
Qi Si tossed the rag into the trash can along with his own bloodstained shirt. He gathered the black liner, tied it off securely, and the bag looked perfectly innocuous.
He took a clean shirt from a nearby shelf and slipped it on. It hung loosely on his frame, casual and comfortable, making him look like any other ordinary young man.
By the time he had finished, it was already half-past ten.
Dragging the suitcase, Qi Si nonchalantly pushed open the warehouse doors and was met by a wall of rain.
For a fleeting moment, reality and the instance seemed to merge, connected by some unseen thread, like a behemoth breaking the surface of a viscous sea.
Fortunately, Qi Si was well accustomed to the fickle March weather of Jiang City.
He stepped back inside, pulled a black umbrella from the pile of junk, and opened it over his head before melting into the relentless downpour.
...
The eastern suburbs of Jiang City, usually deserted at this hour, were now a flurry of police activity. The flashing lights of patrol cars painted shimmering reflections across the oily puddles.
"Lost the trail right around here. Damn it all," an older man in a detective's uniform grumbled, popping a piece of gum into his mouth. "Surveillance camera's busted, who knows for how long. Those pencil-pushers at the bureau are great at lining their pockets, but they never get a damn thing done... And Old Mu, making such a big deal out of this. It's just one guy who slipped the net. Let him run off to another jurisdiction, make it some other precinct's headache."
"It's still a point on our record if we catch him," a young woman said, leaning against a patrol car with a faint smile. "Besides, his behavior was the strangest part. Director Mu suspects he might have 'Puppet Thread' on him. You know how the folks in Unit Five are always desperate for research samples." The old man chewed his gum, unimpressed. "Come on, Ning. It's been ages. Sample or not, whatever he had is probably long gone."
The woman's smile didn't waver. "Either way, this is the final phase. We need to see it through to the end."
...
Qi Si had only gone a short distance from the warehouse when he saw the approaching police cars. He made an instant decision and turned back.
Ever since the Federation's founding in 1989, peace had been a rare commodity. Cults and resistance movements festered, terrorism was rampant. Bombing a skyscraper was a common occurrence; even a missile launch barely made the news anymore.
To maintain a semblance of stability, the authorities would, whenever funds ran low, pick some "lucky" district for a surprise security check, rounding up anyone suspicious who wasn't carrying proper identification. The citizens got a lecture, the officers got a commendation on their records. A truly happy outcome for all.
Ordinarily, it wouldn't have been an issue. But with a suitcase full of human remains, Qi Si had absolutely no desire to be stopped for questioning.
After all, disposing of a cop's body was exponentially more troublesome than dealing with a vagrant's, and the complications would likely be endless. A massive headache.
Qi Si cut through a winding, narrow alley. After about a hundred meters, seeing no one was paying attention to his corner, he calmly reached for the yellow caution tape.
"Hold it!" a sharp voice barked from behind him.
A moment later, a middle-aged officer with tousled hair and a cigarette dangling from his lips hopped out of a patrol car parked in the shadows and strode toward him.
Qi Si retracted his hand from the tape and half-turned, speaking before the officer could. "Is something wrong, Officer?"
He wore a look of nervous apprehension, the picture of an honest, unassuming citizen who had simply stumbled into something he didn't understand.
The officer stopped on the other side of the tape, flicking ash from his uniform. His eyes, neither large nor small, scrutinized Qi Si. "Name?"
"Qi Si."
"Name sounds familiar. What do you do for a living?"
Of course it was familiar. He was practically a regular in their interrogation rooms. Qi Si offered an abashed smile. "I'm a specimen creator. I just had a provincial exhibition the day before yesterday. It was in the papers."
He gestured back toward the warehouse. "That's my studio. I'm sensitive to noise, can't stand the city, so I moved out to the suburbs."
The officer seemed to accept this, pulling up a photo on his phone. He held it out for Qi Si to see. "Ever seen this man?"
The photo showed a man with a heavy stubble and vacant eyes staring straight ahead. A livid, pale scar stretched from the corner of his right eye down to his lip, lending his square jaw a jarring, dissonant quality.
It was Liu Ajiu.
Qi Si's expression remained neutral. In less than half a second, he mentally reviewed his hand:
—My friend already hacked all the cameras in this area. The nearest working one is at a bus stop a quarter of a kilometer away.
—Liu Ajiu had only been here for three hours, not long enough for anyone to file a missing person's report. And he hadn't made much noise when he died.
—The police couldn't know he was dead. They were looking for him, which likely meant they considered him a suspect...
His mind made up, Qi Si frowned, feigning a look of strained recollection. "I've been shut in my studio all day, so I haven't seen anyone... I think someone might have come by the day before yesterday, but my schedule has been so erratic lately, everything's a bit of a blur... I can't be sure..."
The officer had already started waving a dismissive hand the moment Qi Si mentioned "the day before yesterday."
He clapped Qi Si on the shoulder, offering a piece of friendly advice. "You should head home. And stay inside the city for the next few days. It's not safe out there."
Qi Si glanced around, a perfectly calibrated look of curiosity in his eyes. "What exactly is going on, Officer? Can you say?"
"Can't," the officer said, exhaling a plume of smoke. His voice was a low rumble as he gave Qi Si a world-weary, cryptic look. "Some things... the less you know, the better."
Qi Si offered a wry smile and didn't press the matter.
Lifting the caution tape with one hand and dragging the suitcase with the other, he tucked the umbrella under his chin and stepped past the officer.
He'd only taken five steps when the officer's voice cut through the rain again. "What's in the suitcase?"
Qi Si stopped and looked back over his shoulder. "A specimen. It's half-finished. I'm taking it home to work on it."
"Mind if I take a look?"
Qi Si lowered his gaze. "I'd rather not. I just finished setting the mold, and the draft could damage it... But of course, if you insist..."
"Forget it. Just get home safe," the officer said with a wave, turning away. "Sorry to hold you up."
A grateful, compliant smile spread across Qi Si's lips, the hint of mockery in his eyes dissolving into the expression, becoming imperceptible.
"No, no, it's fine. Thank you for your hard work, being out here so late."
He gave a polite nod and walked away, his pace steady and unhurried as his shoes splashed through the puddles.
The rain continued to fall, its soft patter on his umbrella only accentuating the stillness of the night.
After rounding a corner, Qi Si stopped. The cold finally seeped into him, yet a faint warmth radiated from a spot on his chest.
He reached for his neck. A blood-red pendant, one he hadn't been wearing before, now hung there, faintly warm to the touch.
[Name: Rose Heart]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: ...]
He'd actually brought an item out of the game?
Qi Si untied the garbage bag from the suitcase handle and rummaged through the crumpled shirt inside. He found nothing.
"So the Fate Pocket Watch didn't make it out, only the Rose Heart..." he mused. "Then again, the ability to rewind a full minute of time would be far too powerful for the real world."
Beneath the ghostly glow of a streetlight, the dark-haired young man's eyes narrowed with keen interest. "It seems this Weird Game," he murmured, "is even more interesting than I imagined..."
..............
[Note: The real-world sections of this book are set in the same universe as the novels *Fan Zui* and *Zhou Lin*. In this setting, the world is ruled by a global Federation, and former nations have been reorganized into "provinces."]
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