Siheyuan (traditional courtyard house): Starting with the Korean War, returning home to take charge

The stench from the sewer isn't something you can smell; it's like it's plastered all over your face.

He Yuzhu squatted in the sewage, the water reaching his knees, cold and slippery. Something swam past his legs, its tail fin brushing against his skin; he tensed, remaining motionless. A few rays of light leaked through the cracks in the manhole cover above, illuminating a layer of greenish oily film on the water's surface, shimmering gently.

The military dog's paws scratched at the manhole cover, clanging and banging.

Each sound felt like a knife scraping the back of his head.

He pulled the dagger from the water and gripped it tightly. The blade was cold and prickly against his palm. If the dog barked again, he would lift the well cover, rush out, kill the dog first, then the person walking it.

The dog didn't bark.

Voices could be heard coming from above the manhole cover; it was English, with the drawn-out, Southern American accent.

"What's wrong with this dog tonight?"

"Smell something, huh? Nearly two hundred people have died in this area. That thing might be hiding somewhere."

"Is that thing a person?"

"Who knows? The Metropolitan Police Department said there were no footprints, no fingerprints, only..."

"Only what?"

"There are only those four holes in the wall. They were from bullets, but I don't know what kind of gun it was."

The footsteps faded into the distance. The dog looked back and whimpered as it was being dragged away.

He Yuzhu leaned against the slippery wall and sheathed his dagger. His sewage-soaked trousers clung to his legs, cold and sticky. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, and then crawled down the sewer.

The explosion occurred at 11 p.m. the following night.

He Yuzhu crouched in an abandoned building in the east of the city, staring at the warehouse three hundred meters away. The explosives provided by the system were timed and had a large enough yield. He looked at his pocket watch; the second hand ticked away.

It's exactly 11 o'clock.

boom--

Flames shot skyward, illuminating half the sky. The shockwave rushed in from three hundred meters away, causing windows to vibrate and rattle. Sirens blared instantly, ringing out from all directions, while red and blue lights mingled on the streets.

He stood up and dusted off his pants.

There are still 128 people waiting for him in the west of the city.

The night in the west of the city was eerily quiet.

Police cars were all heading towards the explosion site; not even the dogs were barking in this residential area. He Yuzhu emerged from the alley and made his way to the door of his first target.

The 68th person on the list is named Watanabe, and he owns a printing factory. His grandfather was a war correspondent who took photos of the Nanjing Massacre.

The door wasn't locked.

He pushed open the door and went inside. The room was pitch black, but he could hear someone snoring upstairs. He crept up to the second floor, pushed open the bedroom door, and saw two people on the bed. He went around to the man's side, knocked the sleeping woman unconscious with the butt of his rifle, and dragged the man to the floor by his hair.

Watanabe woke up with a start and opened his mouth to shout.

A knife.

Blood spurted out, splashing onto his face; it was hot. He wiped it away and pulled his head back.

It took less than three minutes in total.

The 69st, the 70nd, and the 71rd.

He moved through the alley. He climbed over a wall, his knees buckling as he landed, and he braced himself to regain his balance. He tried to pry open a window, but it was jammed. He smashed it open with his elbow, shattering glass everywhere. He crept into the house in the dark. The person on the bed turned over. He covered their mouth and stabbed them.

Finish.

The 72st, the 73nd, and the 74rd.

He counted, like a machine.

When he reached the 80th head, he crouched in the shadows of the alley, panting, clutching the severed head in his hand. Thirty-seven years old, a kind-looking middle-aged man in the photo, he owned a small factory and had two children. System records showed that his grandfather had bayoneted seven infants to death in Nanjing.

He retracted his head into his spatial storage and stood up. His legs felt a little weak, not from fatigue, but something else entirely.

He dismissed the thought and continued walking.

The 81st, the 82nd, and the 83rd.

On his 90th attempt, he reached the door of a house. The window opened from the inside, and a face peered out.

Eyes facing each other.

It was a young woman, in her early twenties, staring at him in terror. She opened her mouth, as if to scream.

He Yuzhu covered her mouth and pushed her into the room. There was another man in the room who jumped off the bed and grabbed a pair of scissors. He rushed over, snatched the scissors from him, and pinned the man to the bed.

The woman struggled in his grasp, her tears smearing his hand.

He glanced at the system data.

Not the target. Tenant.

He let go.

The woman shrank into the corner, and the man stood in front of her, still clutching the scissors in his hand, which was trembling.

He Yuzhu climbed out of the window and disappeared into the night.

A terrified cry came from behind me.

It's almost dawn.

He climbed over a wall and landed in the backyard. He heard someone talking in their sleep inside the house, in Japanese, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He stood there and suddenly thought of Qin Huairu.

She should be fast asleep right now. Her belly is getting bigger every day, and He Yushui says she wants to make baby clothes for the child, and she's been measuring them out every day.

He shook off these thoughts and pushed open the door.

128th.

Finish.

He crouched in the alley, staring at the kneeling corpse. Four bullet holes in the wall let in moonlight, illuminating the headless body. It lay there, its head facing the mainland, as if kneeling.

He stored the last head in his spatial storage and leaned against the wall. A cat meowed twice from the other end of the alley and then ran away.

He looked at his two hands.

It was all blood. It had dried, layer upon layer, plastered on the skin, and the crevices under the fingernails were filled with black bloodstains.

He wanted to take a shower, but couldn't find water.

Inside the warehouse, one hundred and twenty-eight heads were neatly stacked on the ground.

He Yuzhu sat in the corner, looking at those faces. Some were ferocious, some peaceful, some died with their eyes wide open. The blood had dried, and the air smelled of rust, mixed with sweat, mud, and something else.

My mind was filled with a barrage of comments.

He scrolled past the comments and glanced at the score.

73, 811, 233 points.

It's reached 70 million.

On the twelfth day, the U.S. military sealed off the area surrounding the Yasukuni Shrine.

He Yuzhu squatted on the roof of a six-story building, watching the area with night-vision binoculars. The shrine was surrounded by guards every few steps, with police in black uniforms and American soldiers in yellow-green uniforms, forming an impenetrable cordon around the area.

The shrine was lit up, and shadowy figures could be seen moving about. He counted at least a platoon of American soldiers, with three machine guns positioned at the entrance to the main hall. There were still three hundred targets left on the list, all concentrated near the shrine.

He put down his binoculars and spread out the hand-drawn defense map.

The main hall, the side hall, and the US military base—the three explosion sites—had already been drawn. But he stared at the blank space on the drawing—the shrine's underground area.

System data shows there's another layer there. It's a wartime-converted air-raid shelter, large enough to hide people, with multiple exits.

Of the final three hundred targets, how many will be hiding inside?

He only had fifteen minutes after the explosion. If he couldn't find the underground entrance within fifteen minutes, those people would escape through another exit.

He looked up at the brightly lit shrine.

He hadn't figured out how to fill in that blank space on the drawing.