The entire building was now deathly quiet, save for a few still-burning chairs. A cold sweat instantly broke out on Little Moustache’s back, soaking his shirt.
"Team One! Team Two! Report back!" he hissed into his collar mic.
But the only response from the comms channel was the static HISS of radio silence. Not a single reply.
Clutching the pistol in his hand, Little Moustache looked toward the areas Team One and Team Two had gone to search, then ordered the two subordinates behind him:
"Skinny, Huangmao, you two go see what’s going on!"
Again, no one answered from behind him.
"Are you fucking stupid!?" Little Moustache cursed, spinning around, only to find that Skinny and Huangmao, who had been examining the two corpses just moments ago, had vanished.
They had vanished into thin air, as if they were never there at all.
But their footprints were still visible in the dust on the floor.
GULP... Little Moustache’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. The hair on his body stood on end.
’Where did they go?!’
’Is this place haunted?!’
Even though it was broad daylight and he was in a room with a blasted-open ceiling—he could see the bright sun just by looking up—Little Moustache felt as if he’d been plunged into an icy abyss. It was like he’d walked onto the set of a horror movie.
He desperately gripped his gun, raising it and waving it around wildly. Veins popped on his forehead as he screamed:
"Who’s there?! Who’s playing tricks?! Show yourself!"
Just then, one of the two bloody "corpses" suddenly moved. It was the "body" of the boy with the half-charred face!
The "corpse" abruptly opened its one remaining eye. With its other ruined eyeball dangling from its socket, it began to crawl toward Little Moustache, its tongue lolling out as it spoke:
"Mister... you’re so cruel... My eye hurts... sob... my eye..."
Caught off guard, Little Moustache found his foot seized in the "corpse’s" tight grip. He struggled desperately but couldn’t break free.
Even though he understood it was a robot, its appearance—a mix of machine and human flesh—combined with its genuinely pitiful voice, only added to the terror.
"Let go! Let go!" Little Moustache thrashed, but the hand clamped around his leg was like a steel vice. He couldn’t break its hold.
Then, the "corpse" of the little girl next to him also "came to life." It dragged its broken body over to Little Moustache, grabbed one of his arms, and cried out pitifully while coughing up blood:
"Mister, I’m so miserable... I died so horribly... My makeup is ruined... My mom told me not to buy cosmetics... I had to buy them in secret... You have to pay me back... Pay me back..."
The boy’s "corpse" chimed in:
"I have it worse, Mister... My mom said she’d give me 10K of data if I let her lock me in a beeper... SOB SOB... I don’t want to live anymore... Let’s just die together..."
"Stay away! Stay away!" Little Moustache squirmed on the ground like a maggot, trying to get away from the two "corpses." He tried to shoot, only to realize his gun had been snatched from his hand and tossed aside at some point.
"Mister, don’t you think I’m pitiful?" The girl’s "corpse" had crawled on top of him. It grabbed his head with both hands, forcing him to meet its gaze. A light began to flash rhythmically in its eyes, accompanied by a soft, melodic, and cadenced white noise.
"..." Little Moustache’s expression went blank. His eyes gradually glazed over, and he soon fell into a deep Hypnosis.
The sound of footsteps came from behind. Shen Feng, wrapped in a large bath towel, and Jingwei, wearing a miniskirt and high heels, walked over.
Behind them surged the Gray Tide. A dozen or so struggling human figures could be seen within it—the very same bandits who had been swallowed by the Gray Tide earlier.
Shen Feng walked over and picked up the pistol from the floor. He examined it and frowned.
"It’s just a homemade gun. Nothing special..."
"Nothing special? The gas explosion alone would have been enough to kill a normal person countless times over," Jingwei retorted, rolling her eyes.
Shen Feng nodded in agreement. He looked at his own arm; aside from some redness, it hadn’t sustained much damage in the explosion.
There had been some burns initially, but they had already healed in the short time since.
While this defense and regeneration couldn’t compare to a World Beast, it was far beyond what any normal human was capable of.
The body modification Jingwei had done for him was a great success.
Shen Feng crouched in front of Little Moustache and asked in a low voice:
"Common robbers? Child traffickers? The Purification Society?"
Though hypnotized, Little Moustache was still trapped in a state of terror. He muttered:
"...Stay away... Stay away..."
Shen Feng frowned and glanced at the bloodied, explosion-damaged Wei Xiaoqing.
’This kid’s hypnosis program isn’t very effective... Looks like I’ll have to handle it myself later.’
Wei Xiaoqing dragged his broken proxy body to its feet and said with a sycophantic smile:
"Dad, I think you look even cooler after getting blown up."
At that moment, the sound of fire engine sirens, joined by police sirens, could be heard outside. Judging by the noise, several vehicles had arrived. Shen Feng knew he couldn’t delay any longer. With a wave of his hand, the Gray Tide, which had been waiting on standby, immediately surged forward. It enveloped Little Moustache and the bodies of Shen Xiaofeng and Wei Xiaoqing, flowing into the ground like mercury.
As it passed, it swept up all traces of the intruders and all the various pieces of experimental equipment, transporting everything to the subterranean space.
It left behind only the signs of a gas explosion.
Shen Feng and Jingwei also entered the subterranean space beneath the small courtyard and sealed the passage above, waiting for the fire department and police to arrive.
’This place is a bust now. We’ll have to move.’
For the time being, Shen Feng couldn’t figure out how his real-world residence had been exposed.
He was always extremely careful during his activities in other regions; it shouldn’t have been possible for someone to track him to his doorstep.
’Who exactly are these people?’
They couldn’t be petty thieves; there was no need for such a large-scale operation. But if they were professionals, they shouldn’t have been so amateurish.
After all, the people he had encountered before in America were all top-tier elites. Never mind the agents from the Rattlesnake Company; just the assassins and the Lone Eagles from the Columbia Medellin Group were professionals at murder and robbery.
This crew led by Little Moustache had shown up with a bunch of watermelon knives and a single, not-very-powerful handgun. They didn’t seem to fit the bill.
Less than ten minutes after the gas pipe explosion, the sirens outside the courtyard gate were blaring. A group of firefighters rushed in. After a quick search confirmed there were no casualties, they immediately began to extinguish the remaining flames inside the building.
The gas explosion hadn’t left many open flames, and they were put out in short order.
However, a few police officers also arrived soon after. They had received a call from a granny in a nearby residence, who reported seeing over a dozen delivery men entering this courtyard.
After all, one or two delivery men wouldn’t be strange, but more than a dozen entering a single residence at the same time was suspicious.
Shen Feng, Jingwei, and the others stayed in the subterranean space created by the Gray Tide, listening to the commotion outside through its sound-conducting properties.
"Director Zhang, what brings you here?"
"We got a report from a citizen about suspicious individuals in the area, so we came to take a look... What’s this about a natural gas explosion?"
"It was probably caused by an old household pipe, combined with an electrical short that ignited the gas. Luckily, no one was home, or it would have been a disaster."
"Thanks for your hard work, fellas. You didn’t see any suspicious individuals, did you?"
"Nope. We thought there might be injured civilians, but after checking, it looks like this is an unoccupied house. The owner wasn’t home."
"That’s good... I’ll go ask Granny Li if her eyes were playing tricks on her."
As the police and fire department personnel conversed outside, Little Moustache, bound within the Gray Tide’s subterranean space, came to his senses. Hearing the voices, he immediately began to struggle violently.
’Officer! I want to report a crime! The people living here are monsters! Help me!’
But his mouth was gagged tight by a Gray Tide tentacle, preventing him from making a single sound. All he could do was listen to the conversation and footsteps outside.
The few remaining hotspots at the scene were quickly dealt with, and the firefighters withdrew. A short while later, the police also left. After the gas company workers repaired the pipe, they too departed. A look of despair gradually filled Little Moustache’s eyes.
Only then did Shen Feng direct the Gray Tide to release its hold on Little Moustache. He patted the man’s head and asked:
"So, where are you from? Why don’t you tell me yourself?"
Little Moustache, thoroughly shaken by the bizarre spectacle of the Gray Tide, stammered:
"...We’re from... the Purification Society... the local branch... We... uh... deeply apologize... for the offense... Please forgive us..."
Shen Feng’s brow furrowed. So it really was the Purification Society.
They had already infiltrated the East.
Still, this was his first time encountering the Purifiers over here, and they seemed a lot weaker than their foreign counterparts... with their one homemade gun and watermelon knives.
"You call yourselves the Purification Society?" Jingwei looked at Little Moustache with disdain. "Blowing up gas pipes, posing as delivery men, carrying watermelon knives... this is it? The Purification Society? Even as their enemy, I’m starting to feel a little sorry for them... Did someone on your team embezzle the funds?"
Taunted by Jingwei, Little Moustache looked embarrassed. He knew his crew was far from professional. He gave a bitter laugh and said:
"To be honest with you... it’s... it’s hard to recruit here... Most people are atheists; they just don’t get with the program... Just a few days ago, one of our strongholds was busted by the local police station... It’s really tough..."
As he spoke, tears began to stream down Little Moustache’s face.