Starting with dissecting ghost stories

Chapter 181 Obsession

Cheng Ren walked along the road by the river, dragging a doll covered in crystals behind his back.

He took out his phone, opened the MMS, looked at the map and punctuation marks on it, and compared them with the scenery in front of him.

This should be the place.

Cheng Ren dragged the doll with his right hand and walked towards the overgrown slope by the river. He raised his hand and threw the doll directly onto the slope, where it was quickly buried in the weeds.

"Uncle, what are you doing?"

A child's voice rang out from behind.

Cheng Ren turned around and saw a little girl in a floral dress standing behind him, holding a roll of giant bubble gum and looking up at him with curiosity.

He paused for a moment, glanced around, and not seeing the child's parents, Cheng Ren asked, "You..."

Where are Mom and Dad?

"Look." The girl pointed to a shop across the street, where a couple was busy unpacking and checking the merchandise. They didn't seem to notice that their daughter had crossed the traffic to the other side of the street.

"Don't run around..." Cheng Ren's eyes were tired, but he still managed to force a smile and held up one finger. "Uncle will take you back."

While leading the girl across the street, the girl's mother seemed to realize that her daughter was missing. She anxiously ran out, looking around and calling her daughter's name, and then saw Cheng Ren walking towards her with her daughter.

"Ah... Xiaolu..." The girl's mother seemed to collapse from exhaustion. Ignoring the possibility of cars passing by, she rushed into the middle of the road and hugged her daughter tightly.

"Thank you, thank you." The woman seemed a little surprised by Cheng Ren's wrinkled suit and trousers that were almost worn into shreds, but she still thanked him and then turned and left in a hurry.

She also seemed worried that Cheng Ren might have some kind of mental problem.

However, Cheng Ren didn't care about the other party's attitude. He just stood on the double yellow line, looking at the family reunited in the small shop, slightly stunned.

Just a few seconds later, he turned around and continued walking along the side of the road.

If the anomaly is not completely eliminated, not only will you be destroyed, but many more happy families will also be destroyed by it.

All anomalies should be eliminated.

Anyone who helps someone who seems suspicious is a traitor.

The sadness, the despair, the heartbreak—I've already experienced them all in my memory. There's no time for reminiscing now; there are more important things to do.

Almost all of his feelings for Thangka had transformed into a tangible hatred and obsession with the abnormal.

This is his mission.

Soon, Cheng Ren walked to a truck by the roadside, went directly to the passenger seat, opened the door, and got in.

In the driver's seat sat a young girl, who turned her neck so that the dark hole in the wooden clock on her neck was aimed at Cheng Ren.

"Let's go, Brother Cheng?" The girl asked only one word.

"Let's go." Cheng Ren nodded slightly, seemingly not noticing at all that the girl had a wooden clock hanging around her neck that was exactly the same as Wu Xiaoting's.

The girl skillfully started the truck, just like a seasoned truck driver who had driven countless large trucks, and drove Cheng Ren forward.

They had only driven for less than half an hour when they saw a silver-gray sedan that had broken down on the side of the road.

The left rear wheel of the car was dented. If you looked through the car window, you could see that the rear seat, from the seat all the way to the chassis, was completely corroded, creating a huge hole. The axle also seemed to be ruined as a result.

"That's enough for now." Cheng Ren got out of the car, glanced at the information on his phone, then turned and walked towards the villa area by the river.

He easily scaled the wall of the villa area and headed straight for one of the villas that appeared to be unfinished, his goal clear.

The villa was unfinished, just a bare shell, as if it hadn't been sold yet; even the door hadn't been installed.

As soon as he entered the villa, he heard rustling sounds coming from above, as if his footsteps had disturbed something inside.

The second floor.

Cheng Ren walked towards the second floor, his steps neither hurried nor slow, until he finally stopped at the last step of the stairs.

Before him, on the second-floor platform, Lu Wenying held a gun in one hand, aiming it at him.

"Why are you pointing a gun at me?" Cheng Ren looked at Lu Wenying and asked, "You're a police officer, and a special one at that, you know about unusual things."

"Then you should know as well as I do that all anomalies should be eliminated and contained. Why are you protecting an anomaly?"

Lu Wenying's hand holding the gun trembled slightly. She was still recovering from serious injuries, and the intense running around these past two days had made her feel dizzy.

"Aren't you... a monster too?" Lu Wenying forced herself to remain calm and said, "I saw it, the flesh, the blood, the fragments..."

""

"Yes, I'm abnormal too." Cheng Ren seemed quite calm. He nodded and said, "After I've done what I had to do, I'll naturally die."

"Is all you're supposed to do to hunt down a girl?" Lu Wenying's left index finger trembled slightly as it gripped the trigger.

"It's an anomaly, it's no longer human," Cheng Ren repeated. "Finding it and killing it are necessary steps to eliminate all anomalies."

"She could think, she had emotions, she never committed a crime," Lu Wenying said through gritted teeth. "She was even helping with the investigation, wanting to help more people... You killed her because of a monster that possessed her even though she didn't want to?"

"A monster is a monster, you've just been deceived." Cheng Ren lowered his eyelids and said, "If you've been brainwashed that deeply, then there's nothing I can do."

Cheng Ren took a few steps forward.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

Lu Wenying pulled the trigger directly, but the bullet only exploded into a few drops of blood when it entered Cheng Ren's body. The splattered blood landed on the cement ground and burned a hole in it.

Lu Wenying retreated repeatedly, but soon bumped into the wall behind her.

Cheng Ren looked at the other person with a hint of pity on his face. His expression seemed to have been bitter from the very beginning.

"I hope that after the restart, you can live the ordinary life you want." Cheng Ren spoke as if he were both speaking and praying. He reached out, grabbed Lu Wenying's head, and slammed it against the concrete wall behind her.

With a muffled thud, Lu Wenying collapsed, bloodstains on the back of her head, her body pressed against the cement wall as she slumped to the ground.

After dealing with Lu Wenyin, Cheng Ren headed to the other rooms on the second floor of the villa.

But there seemed to be no sign of the two girls anywhere until he received a phone call.

"Do you really think Sister Lu is okay?"

"Don't talk about that! Didn't you say you could ride a bike?! Wait! Wait!"

"Stop arguing! Stop arguing! This is crucial! I really will in my dreams!"

On the road, a woman's scooter was wobbling and crawling along at a snail's pace.

Shen Yuan clung tightly to Wu Xiaoting's waist, while Wu Xiaoting seemed to be exerting all her strength to control the handlebars.

On the side of the road ahead of them, a blue metal van opened its doors.

Two gaunt men with wooden clocks hanging on their heads stepped off the car.