Courtyard House: First, kill the hypocrites, leave none alive.

The explosion sounded like a series of muffled thunderclaps, shattering the silent night sky over the workers' new village in the west of the city.

First came a muffled boom from the kitchen of apartment 302, flames shot out of the window, and the glass shattered; then came an even more violent explosion in the bathroom, a fireball expanded, and debris flew everywhere; finally, the heaviest rumble of thunder came from the bedroom, and the entire window, frame and all, was violently thrown into the night sky, with raging flames erupting like a volcano, instantly engulfing the entire west side of the apartment!

The towering flames illuminated half the sky, and thick smoke billowed like a giant black plume of smoke rising into the heavens. The violent tremors shook the entire building, and dust and debris rained down from the ceiling.

"Fire! Explosion!"

"Run! The building is collapsing!"

"Fire! Firefighting!"

Terrified screams, cries, and the sound of running filled the air, waking the entire workers' village from the sudden disaster. People were jolted awake, their clothes disheveled, rushing out of their homes. Looking at the horrific scene at Unit 2 of Building 3, their faces were filled with fear and bewilderment. Some frantically tried to fetch water to put out the fire, but the flames were too intense; ordinary basins and buckets were utterly useless. Others rushed to the nearest public telephone to call the police; and many more fled in panic.

Fire trucks and police vehicles sped towards the direction of the raging flames, tearing through the night sky as they approached.

While this hellish scene became the focus of the entire city, in other corners of Beijing, an even more secretive and bloodier purge was unfolding simultaneously.

---

In a low brick house on the edge of a shantytown in the south of the city.

The broker, nicknamed "Oil Gourd," had just finished drinking with his men and was lying drunkenly on the kang (a heated brick bed), dreaming of getting rich. He was one of the first to smell the business opportunity of offering a reward for finding young girls. He had seven or eight teenagers working as informants, who would loiter around crowded places like train stations, docks, and shantytowns, hoping to strike it rich. A few days ago, one of his men actually found a piece of light blue cloth with small white flowers in a shantytown. Although he didn't find the girl in the end, the incident greatly boosted his confidence, and he felt that the reward of five hundred or a thousand yuan was already beckoning him.

In his drunken haze, he heard a noise outside, like someone knocking on the door.

"Who...who is it? In the middle of the night..." Youhulu muttered impatiently, swaying as he got up, kicked aside the empty wine bottle beside him, and shuffled to open the door.

The door had barely opened a crack when a large foot wearing a liberation shoe kicked it in!

boom!

The sturdy wooden door slammed into Youhulu's face, and he screamed and fell backward, his nose bleeding profusely, and he sobered up considerably.

Three dark figures flashed in with lightning speed. The leader was a gaunt man with a fierce look in his eyes—it was "Iron Head," one of Skinny Monkey's henchmen. The other two quickly closed the door, blocking their way.

"Who...who are you? What do you want?" Youhulu covered his nose, looking at the three uninvited guests in terror. By the dim light streaming in from the window, he recognized Tie Tou. "Tie...Brother Tie Tou? It's you! Misunderstanding, misunderstanding! I haven't offended you, have I?"

Tie Tou didn't speak, but just stared coldly at him, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket, on which some names and information were scribbled. By the light of the distant fire outside the window (the fire from the explosion at the Zhao family's house in the west of the city), he found You Hulu's name and pointed to it with his finger.

Youhulu's heart skipped a beat, and he vaguely guessed what was going on. Cold sweat instantly soaked his back. "Brother Tietou... I... I'm just trying to make a living. I didn't... I didn't offend Grandpa Wang Dagang! As for the bounty... I was just asking around about the bounty. I didn't really want to compete with Grandpa Dagang..."

"Too late," Tie Tou uttered, his voice icy.

The oil gourd was terrified and knelt down with a thud: "Brother Iron Head, spare me! Spare me! I... I'll tell you everything I know! I can also make connections with the Zhao family! I..."

His words came to an abrupt end.

A cold dagger pierced his back, precisely striking his heart. The one who did it was one of Iron Head's henchmen; the movement was clean and swift.

Youhulu stared wide-eyed, making a "gurgling" sound in his throat. He looked down incredulously at the knife tip protruding from his chest, then collapsed softly to the ground, blood quickly spreading across the surface.

Tie Tou didn't even glance at the corpse. He put away the list and gave the other two a wink. The two quickly searched the room, gathering all the scraps of paper, notes, and even the fragmented clues written in the oil gourd related to the "reward" and "finding the little girl." They piled them up and poured kerosene on them.

A match was struck, lit, and thrown up.

"call!"

Flames rose and quickly engulfed the papers, also igniting the broken furniture and clutter in the room.

"Let's go." Tie Tou shouted in a low voice, and the three of them quickly left the house and disappeared into the intricate alleys of the shantytown, leaving behind only the gradually rising firelight and the gradually spreading smell of burning.

---

In the eastern part of the city, in an abandoned old factory building.

Several young thugs who spent their days on the streets and stayed here at night were excitedly whispering among themselves around a small oil lamp.

"Hey guys, did you hear? The Zhao family's offered five hundred! Scarface's brother's even more ruthless, a thousand!"

"Fifteen thousand! That's enough for us to live life to the fullest for years!"

"But where is that little girl? We have absolutely no clue."

"Let's take our time looking! Beijing isn't that big, where could she possibly hide? She's probably lurking in some nook or cranny!"

"Yes! Let's go to the train station again tomorrow. There are a lot of people from out of town there, maybe..."

They were dreaming of getting rich, and no one noticed that the rusty iron gate of the factory was silently pushed open a crack from the outside.

Several dark figures crept in silently, each carrying weapons—steel pipes, machetes, and even a homemade gunpowder gun. The leader was a man with a scar on his face, nicknamed "Gap-Tooth," who was also one of Skinny Monkey's most trusted henchmen.

With a gesture, the man with the gap-toothed man immediately dispersed, forming a fan shape as they surrounded the unsuspecting thugs.

It wasn't until the gap-toothed group reached the edge of the oil lamp's circle and the shadow fell on the thugs that they realized something was wrong!

"Who?!" A thug looked up abruptly, saw a figure approaching from the darkness and a gleaming weapon, and was terrified.

"The one who'll take your lives!" The man with the gap-toothed grinned maliciously, and without wasting any words, he swung the steel pipe in his hand and smashed it down!

Bang! Crack!

The steel pipe slammed into the thug's head, the sound of his skull cracking clearly audible. The thug collapsed without uttering a sound, blood and brain matter splattering all over the ground.

"Ah—!" The other thugs finally realized what was happening and screamed in terror. Some tried to resist, while others tried to run away.

But it was too late.

The people brought by the man with the missing tooth were all ruthless and merciless. Steel pipes, machetes, and daggers rained down, and screams, pleas for mercy, the sound of bones breaking, and sharp blades piercing flesh echoed in the empty factory, brief but mournful.

The battle—or rather, the massacre—was over in less than a minute.

Five or six corpses lay scattered on the ground, their blood staining the earth. The man with the missing tooth wiped the blood splattered on his face, walked over to the body of the ringleader, and kicked it to confirm he was dead. Then he crouched down, pulled a small notebook from the man's pocket, and flipped it open. Sure enough, it contained fragmented information he'd gathered about the "little girl with a mole on her neck," written in crooked handwriting, and even a few guesses about her possible hiding places.

The man with the gap-toothed tooth threw the notebook into the still-burning oil lamp, watching it quickly turn to ashes.

"Clean it up thoroughly, leave no trace," he instructed his men.

The men sprang into action, dragging the body to a shallow pit they had dug deep inside the factory and hastily burying it. They then covered the bloodstains on the ground with sand. Having done all this, they quickly retreated, disappearing silently into the night like a pack of jackals who had completed their hunt.

---

The same scene was happening almost simultaneously in different corners of Beijing.

"Crippled Li" from the south of the city, a small-time boss with more than twenty men who specialized in petty theft and kidnapping at the train station and docks, was found dead in his home in the middle of the night, with a large gash on his neck and blood soaking the bed. Several of his most capable henchmen also died that same night, either in "accidental" car accidents or disappeared on their way home, their bodies never seen again.

The black market broker known as "Old Calculator" in the north of the city was found hanged in his rented bungalow the next morning. Scattered at his feet were some pieces of paper with reward information and clues written on them. The scene was arranged to look like a suicide, but anyone with eyes could tell what had really happened.

Several other lone wolves and intelligence brokers with some reputation in the underworld either suddenly "died of a sudden illness," "accidentally fell into the water," or were "stabbed to death in a fight"...

Overnight, in the underground world of Beijing, anyone who showed excessive enthusiasm for "finding Chen Xiaoyu" or possessed any possible clues was as if they had been precisely wiped out by an invisible hand. The manner of death varied, but the result was the same—utter silence.

Skinny Monkey and his men worked like a highly efficient killing machine, strictly following the list and "handling" instructions given by Chen Feng. They split up and carried out precise eliminations. They took advantage of the cover of darkness and the fact that the bombing had drawn away most of the police force. Their actions were swift, accurate, and ruthless, leaving almost no survivors or obvious incriminating evidence.

As the darkest hour before dawn passed and the first wisps of gray appeared on the eastern horizon, this bloody purge was essentially over.

The names on the list were crossed out one by one.

Nearly a third of the well-known and unknown thugs, brokers, and informants in Beijing's underground scene have disappeared. A faint, lingering smell of blood seems to permeate the air.

One of the instigators of all this, Skinny Monkey, is currently standing on the top floor of an abandoned water tower in the east of the city, facing the biting morning wind and gazing towards the west of the city.

There, the fire at Building 3 of the Workers' New Village had been initially brought under control by the fire department, but thick smoke still billowed out, appearing particularly alarming against the backdrop of the rising sun. The lights of jeeps, fire trucks, and ambulances were still flashing in the area, and the sounds of people and horns could be faintly heard.

Skinny Monkey knew what had happened there. He also knew what he had done that night.

His hands trembled slightly, not from fear, but from a physiological reaction to extreme excitement and tension. He had never participated in such a large-scale, ruthless, and efficient cleanup operation. Before, when he followed Scarface Wang Dali, the most he did was fight and kill, seize territory, and teach a lesson to a foolish opponent. But like this, cleaning up dozens of people overnight like harvesting leeks, according to a list… he had never even imagined it.

"Wang Dagang"... No, now Skinny Monkey had an even more terrifying suspicion in his mind, but he dared not think about it deeply, much less speak it out. That person was too terrifying. His methods, his thoughts, his ruthlessness... were nothing like a gangster boss who had come from out of town to avenge his brother.

More like a vengeful god who has returned from hell to collect debts from the entire world.

Skinny Monkey shivered, rubbed his face hard, and forced himself to calm down. He knew he was completely tied to this chariot, with no turning back. He either followed "Big Steel Brother" all the way to the end, or... his fate wouldn't be much better than those on the list.

"Brother Monkey," a subordinate reported in a low voice as he climbed up the water tower stairs, "the names on the list in the south, east, and north of the city have all been 'dealt with.' Iron Head and Gap Tooth are cleaning up the mess, making sure there are no traces before dawn."

Skinny Monkey nodded, his voice a little hoarse: "Where are our men? Have we suffered any losses?"

"No, everything went smoothly. The other side was basically unprepared."

"Okay." Skinny Monkey breathed a sigh of relief, then looked at the firelight in the west of the city. "Over there... the commotion is too big. The police have definitely rushed over there. We should keep a low profile for now and lay low for a while."

"Understood." The subordinate hesitated for a moment. "Brother Monkey, the Zhao family... is it completely finished now? What about the bounty..."

"A bounty?" Skinny Monkey sneered, a flicker of lingering fear and relief in his eyes. "After such a massive incident, the Zhao family itself has burned to the ground. Who would dare mention a bounty? Even if there are any survivors, they'd be scared to death. From today onward, in the streets of Beijing, anyone who dares to mention 'finding the little girl with the mole on her neck' is courting death!"

His subordinate nodded in deep agreement. Last night's actions had already proven this point with bloody facts.

"Go back and tell the brothers," Skinny Monkey glanced one last time at the dawning light on the horizon, then turned and walked downstairs, "stay put for now, eat and drink as usual, and don't cause any trouble. Wait for Big Steel's next instructions."

"yes!"

The first rays of dawn illuminated the city, which had just endured a bloody night.

At the scene of the fire in the west of the city, firefighters were still battling the remaining flames, while police had cordoned off the area and were investigating the explosion site and questioning witnesses. The horrific scene caused many veteran police officers to frown—a family of several people had been almost entirely wiped out, and two others who had escaped were shot dead at their doorstep… This was no ordinary arson or revenge killing; it was a premeditated and extremely brutal massacre!

The news spread like wildfire within the police force and among the general public. Combined with the sporadic reports of numerous heinous murders and disappearances from other areas last night, an ominous premonition gripped many hearts.

It was as if an invisible and terrifying behemoth was awakening in the shadows of the city, opening its blood-red maw to devour anything it deemed an eyesore.

Who will be this behemoth's next target?

Nobody knows.

Only the rising sun coldly gazes upon this scarred city, and the ever-thickening crimson shadows hidden beneath its light.

Chen Feng carried the still-sleeping Xiaoyu on his back, walking along the path out of the city. The distant noise and sirens had been diluted to almost nothing by the morning breeze. His sister's even breathing brushed against his neck, warm and real.

He tilted his head slightly, nuzzled Xiaoyu's soft hair with his cheek, and looked into the depths of his eyes, where the darkest darkness before dawn had solidified into ice.

There are still some names left on the list.

For example, those "old neighbors" who moved away from the courtyard house early on and escaped the explosion.

For example, there were several staff members in the subdistrict office who initially helped Director Wang with his affairs but turned a blind eye to the Chen family's plight.

such as……

His steps were steady as he walked step by step into the unknown wilderness outside the city.

Not urgent.

one by one.

Everything owed must be repaid.

Not a single one can be left alive.