Bai Yulao: The Night Watcher's Debt to the King of Hell

Chapter Seventeen: The Scheme to Steal Heaven and the Bait of Blood

The night in Nandu was deep. There were no neon lights to disturb the peace, and the moon seemed to be hiding behind the thick clouds early on, as if it were wary of something.

Only the wind, passing through the dark window frames of those unfinished buildings, made a mournful, sobbing sound.

The black Maybach, like a silent behemoth, turned off all its lights and glided silently across the dirt road strewn with broken bricks and tiles, finally coming to a stop in the shadow of a half-built building.

"arrive."

Su Jing's voice was very low. He turned off the engine, and the car instantly fell into a deathly silence.

Lin Shoumo sat in the back seat, not getting out of the car immediately. His hand was pressed tightly against his chest, his brow furrowed slightly, and an extremely strange expression appeared on his face—three parts pain, seven parts excitement, and even a trace of…greed?

That was the emotion emanating from the small bronze bell he always wore on his chest.

This bell is usually lifeless, and only when it encounters an extremely fierce or malevolent treasure, or a treasure that can greatly replenish its "spiritual essence," will it tremble violently like it is now, burning hot like a red-hot iron.

"What? Is there something dirty?" Su Wantang noticed his strangeness and tightened her grip on the gun handle.

"It's not filth." Lin Shoumo took a deep breath, pushed open the car door and got out. "The feng shui of this place has been ruined. Yin and Yang are reversed, the five elements are broken, and it has an aura of extinction."

The three stood in front of the entrance to Building B. The dark entrance resembled a gaping mouth.

Lin Shoumo stood at the door, took out a handful of old copper coins from his pocket, and scattered them on the ground. "Clink-clink-clink—" The sound of the copper coins hitting the ground was crisp and melodious, but strangely, none of the copper coins landed heads or tails. They all stuck vertically into the cracks in the ground, neat and tidy, as if someone had measured them with a ruler.

"Hiss..." Lin Shoumo gasped. "Reversing Yin and Yang, reversing the Five Elements. Someone here is forcibly reversing the order of life and death; this will incur divine retribution."

Su Jing, dressed in an expensive custom-made trench coat, stood in the cold wind, looking at the copper coins standing upright on the ground, his brows furrowed so deeply they could trap flies.

"Lin Shoumo, can you stop acting like a charlatan all the time?" Su Jing glanced impatiently at his watch. "I hired you to solve problems, not to watch you perform magic tricks. I'm sick and tired of hearing 'reversing Yin and Yang and the Five Elements,' can't you come up with something else?"

Lin Shoumo shrugged, looking helpless: "Then how am I supposed to explain it? That's how my master taught me. Are you suggesting that the local thermodynamic arrows here have been forcibly reversed, and that the so-called 'yang' is the establishment of order in a universe with decreasing entropy, while 'yin' is the collapse of matter in a universe with increasing entropy?"

Is the "evil aura" in this place because it owes a debt to the order of the mortal world and hasn't repaid it, and the law of cause and effect has come knocking to force a settlement?

Su Wantang rolled her eyes with a look of disdain and snorted coldly: "If you had said so earlier, I wouldn't have called you a charlatan! This sounds so professional, why all the fancy stuff?"

Lin Shoumo was speechless after being retorted, and could only shake his head with a wry smile: "Fine, fine, you rich people are always right. Let's go, Young Master Su. Don't touch anything indiscriminately once we're inside. The 'rules' here are a bit different from outside, or you might get 'settled'."

The three people and one dog entered the building.

The building's interior is a massive concrete cavity. A flashlight beam pierced the darkness, illuminating the dense markings on the walls. It wasn't graffiti at all; the walls were crying. The originally rough cement surface had become smooth as a mirror in some areas, even exhibiting an eerie translucency.

"Dahuang, search." Su Jing commanded in a low voice.

Normally lively and energetic, Dahuang was unusually quiet at this moment. It stayed close to Lin Shoumo's legs, its tail tucked between them, and made low whimpering sounds.

As you climb the stairs, the oppressive feeling in the air intensifies with each step. It feels like being crammed into a shrinking metal box, making even breathing difficult.

Third floor. Heng'an Biotechnology.

The door was wide open. Inside, there was no smell of blood, nor the pungent odor of chemicals, as one might expect. There was only one smell—the smell of ozone after a thunderstorm, the lingering aftermath of a violent collision of the forces of heaven and earth.

"Look over there." Su Wantang pointed her flashlight to the center of the hall.

There were rows of specially made glass cases, like some kind of eerie sculpture exhibition. They were people, or rather, people who were once people. Some were wearing white coats, some were wearing security guard uniforms, but now they were frozen in various poses, frozen in the last moment of their lives.

A researcher was holding a test tube, his face filled with terror, but his gaping mouth contained no tongue, only a mass of grayish-white, rock-like solidified matter. His eyes were no longer clear, translucent vitreous bodies, but two cloudy, dull porcelain spheres.

Su Wantang took a deep breath and approached one of the "dolls" to examine the features on the surface of the corpse.

"Don't move!" Lin Shoumo suddenly shouted and grabbed her wrist.

"What's wrong?" Su Wantang was startled.

"Your hand!" Lin Shoumo stared at Su Wantang's fingertips.

Su Wantang looked down and was horrified to find that she had only just approached the "doll" and the skin on her fingertips had begun to turn gray, the lines of her fingerprints were rapidly disappearing, and a layer of ceramic glaze-like sheen had appeared on the surface of her skin.

"This is 'Yin Fire' burning you!" A fierce glint flashed in Lin Shoumo's eyes. He grabbed Su Wantang's pulse point, and a warm stream of Yang Qi flowed into her body through her meridians. "The 'life force' here is locked up. This thing wants to turn you into its 'collection' as well. The so-called 'objectification' is to drain the 'variables' from a living thing, leaving only an eternal 'shell'."

With his low shout, Su Wantang felt a warm current wash over her fingertips, and the grayish-white layer quickly faded away.

"The space here has been 'contaminated'." Lin Shoumo released his grip, his face extremely grim. "This is neither poison nor disease! Someone is forcibly reversing the 'Way of Heaven'!"

All things that are born must die, but in this place... there is only the illusion of 'birth,' not the liberation of 'death.' These people, made into 'dolls,' have their souls nailed to their bodies, unable to even reincarnate."

Su Jing frowned as she listened, but refrained from interrupting. She simply pointed to the inner room and asked, "Is that thing that makes you tremble with excitement inside?"

The inner room is the control room. In the very center is a huge metal experimental table. The table is empty except for a laptop that has been "cut open".

When the flashlight beam shone on it, everyone gasped.

Only the left half of the computer remained. The right half had vanished into thin air. The cut was extremely smooth, as smooth as a mirror, even reflecting Lin Shoumo's distorted face. There were no jagged marks, no charred black from high-temperature melting, and not even burrs at the break.

Circuit boards, chips, keyboards, and even the copper wires inside are perfectly exposed on the cut surface, as if they were born to be half of this shape.

"What is this? Molecular gastronomy?" Su Jing moved closer and reached out to touch the cut. "It's too smooth. This is not a technique from Earth."

"Don't touch it!" This time, Lin Shoumo didn't stop her, but stood aside with a flicker in his eyes.

Su Jing's fingers touched that cut surface.

boom--!

The moment his fingers touched it, the bronze bell on Lin Shoumo's chest trembled violently, emitting a soul-stirring chime that only he could hear!

At that moment, the world before Lin Shoumo's eyes changed. In his "divine eye," the cut was no longer a flat surface, but a huge, bottomless vortex.

He witnessed a horrifying scene.

There, the Five Elements shattered. Metal was no longer metal, and wood was no longer wood. The most fundamental force that sustains matter—gravity—the "glue of heaven and earth" that binds all things together, was drained away in an instant.

This is not "cutting," this is "annihilation." This is the supreme means of severing cause and effect and erasing existence!

"hiss--!"

Su Jing jerked his hand back as if he'd been electrocuted. He looked at his fingers; there were no wounds, but the temperature at his fingertips seemed a few degrees lower than the rest of his body.

"This feeling..." Su Jing's voice trembled slightly, "It's like something has carved a piece out of 'existence' itself."

Lin Shoumo stepped forward, reached out, and pressed his hand directly onto the smooth, mirror-like cut surface.

The bronze bell on its chest was burning hot; it was cheering and roaring! Because it sensed that behind this incision lay an unimaginably vast "power of order"!

"Su Jing, you're right, this isn't a potion at all." Lin Shoumo's voice became somewhat hoarse, carrying a strange excitement. "This is 'Immortal Slayer'."

"Slaying Immortals?" Su Jing frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Ancient books record a kind of throwing knife called 'Immortal Slayer.' It kills enemies without piercing flesh or severing bones. It only needs to point at the person, and that person will turn to dust, their soul scattered, and they will completely disappear from cause and effect." Lin Shoumo stared intently at the cut. "I used to think it was just a myth, but now I believe it."

He turned his head and looked in the direction of the ventilation duct, his eyes becoming incredibly sharp.

"The 'handle' of this knife is hidden in that ventilation duct. Someone tried to borrow 'divine power' here, but they went too far. This cut is proof of that. But this knife... isn't fully formed yet."

Before he finished speaking, a faint blue light suddenly appeared inside the inconspicuous ventilation duct.

The light wasn't from a light bulb; it was the air itself emitting light. Then, a suffocating suction force erupted from the pipe opening!

This suction doesn't suck in wind or dust; it sucks in—life!

"Ah!" Su Wantang felt as if the blood in her body was flowing backward, and the cells on the surface of her skin were aging and hardening frantically. She was horrified to discover that the back of her hand was rapidly turning like the "doll" from before, taking on a grayish-white ceramic texture!

"This is a 'body-fixing spell'! It's forcibly freezing our life force!" Lin Shoumo shouted.

Su Jing also felt it; his legs felt as heavy as if they were filled with lead, and his once nimble fingers began to stiffen. It was the loss of his life force, a sign that he was being forcibly incorporated into that "static order".

"Big Yellow!" Su Jing exclaimed.

Big Yellow was closest to the pipe. It barked wildly, trying to back away, but the force was too strong. Its long golden fur instantly turned snow-white, then stood up one by one, transforming into crystal-clear ice needles!

"You wretched child! How dare you act so disrespectfully in front of me!"

Lin Shoumo roared. This time, he neither used the talisman nor the peach wood sword.

He suddenly ripped open his collar, revealing his chest.

In the darkness, an ancient bronze bell radiates a dazzling golden light, as bright as the sun!

"when--!!!"

A crisp bell rang out in the cramped control room.

The sound of the bell carried a profound weight from the ancient wilderness, and a scorching pressure like that of the core of a star.

Wherever the bell rang, the orderly force field that had been leaking from the pipes and trying to "freeze" everything was instantly dispersed by a violent burst of chaotic energy!

"Sizzle sizzle—"

A piercing electrical overload sound came from the ventilation duct. The eerie blue light flickered a few times under the impact of the bell's chime, then suddenly dimmed, as if some kind of protection mechanism had been triggered, forcibly severing the connection.

The control room fell into darkness and silence once again.

Lin Shoumo clutched his chest, his face pale. The hot current was surging through his body; it was the enormous energy transformed by the bronze bell.

"This..." Su Jing stared at the small bell on Lin Shoumo's chest, his eyes wide with shock. "You turned this thing off?"

"No, I just stopped the bleeding," Lin Shoumo said, panting. "That pipe is a scar, connected to the sky. Someone tried to steal fire from the sky and ended up setting the house on fire. My clock only temporarily plugged that leak."

He looked at the vent, his expression becoming more serious than ever before.

"Su Jing, our previous assumptions were all wrong. The physical agent wasn't the key point at all. It was just 'radioactive dust'."

Lin Shoumo pointed to the half of the computer that had disappeared.

"The real focus is in that ventilation duct. Someone is trying to create a 'knife,' a knife that can physically erase existence. The machine may be broken, but the person who created this knife... has succeeded."

The beams of everyone's flashlights swung wildly around the room, trying to find more clues.

Suddenly, Su Wantang's beam of light stopped in a gap in the corner of the experimental table.

"What is that...?"

Deep within that dark, damp, and dusty crevice, lay a red candy.

The candy was only the size of a thumb, its wrapper faded and bearing a few blurry ancient seal characters, exuding an indescribable sense of antiquity. It looked like the cheapest fruit candy sold at roadside stalls decades ago, even with a few specks of dust clinging to it.

But this candy seemed completely out of place in this laboratory filled with death and high-tech fears, and was extremely eerie.

"A piece of candy?" Su Jing frowned. "What's the big deal?"

"Something's not right..." Lin Shoumo stared at the candy and swallowed.

Before he could speak, the bronze bell on his chest suddenly began to vibrate again!

This time, it's not for defense, nor is it a warning.

It was a frenzied hunger that nearly broke his ribs!

The bronze bell is longing for that piece of candy!

That wasn't ordinary candy. It was an "inanimate object" that had existed in this world for who knows how many years, yet it exuded an "aura" that was even purer and more alluring than the "Immortal-Slaying Flying Knife" from before.

It's like a piece of meat thrown into a pack of wolves.

"Don't touch it!" Lin Shoumo shouted suddenly, his voice trembling slightly. "This thing... is 'bait'!"

But the bronze bell vibrated more and more violently, as if it were about to burst through his chest and swallow the candy itself.

The red candy lay quietly in the dust. In the dim light of the flashlight, the ancient seal characters on the wrapper seemed to distort slightly, like a closed eye slowly opening.