Killed the Wrong One

"Gurgle, gurgle..."

A Great Iron Pot on the stove steamed away. Chunks of meat bobbed constantly in the rolling broth, which was milky white, like mutton fat.

An unusual fragrance filled the air. Beside the pot sat a bowl containing prepared seasonings and chopped scallions, waiting for the broth to be poured in. Just thinking about the taste was unbearable.

Yet Chen Jing, Qi Liang, and Zhao Ke had no appetite at all. Qi Liang and Chen Jing sat on the floor with hemp ropes tied around them, cloth stuffed over their mouths so they could not make a sound.

A bloody gash in Qi Liang's thigh went almost to the bone. He sat there, cold sweat beading on his forehead, his face frighteningly pale.

As for Zhao Ke, he lay facedown on the floor with his hands bound behind his back by hemp rope. His back was drenched in blood, a mangled mess of flesh, and the blood had soaked through his shirt.

"Mmph, mmph..."

Chen Jing nudged Zhao Ke with her foot, her big eyes blinking at him as though asking how much longer they had to wait.

Then she glanced at the wound on Qi Liang's leg. Though Zhao Ke had assured her it was not fatal, the sight of all that blood still made her worry for Qi Liang.

Zhao Ke understood what Chen Jing meant. He shook his head and closed his eyes. He knew exactly how hard he had struck. He did not even need to look; merely from the sensation of the blade piercing flesh, he knew what sort of wound it was. He had avoided the vital areas and the bone. A wound like that would heal after a little treatment. There was nothing to worry about.

"Bang!"

Zhao Ke's eyes snapped open. "He's here," he said quietly.

Footsteps outside drew closer and closer. Every step was especially heavy, as though stones were stuffed beneath the person's feet.

"Bzz..."

The door opened. Because of his angle, Zhao Ke could only see one foot step inside first. It was bare, and a layer of crimson mud clung to its sole. Even from there, Zhao Ke could smell the intense stench of blood.

At the same time, he swiftly swept his peripheral vision over the foot. Its joints were thick and sturdy, and it was at least a size 47—far larger than an ordinary adult's foot.

"Mmph! Mmph! Mmph..."

No one knew what Qi Liang and Chen Jing had seen, but both of their expressions changed. Qi Liang's eyes widened, terror filling his gaze.

The huge foot strode toward Zhao Ke. Then, with a clang, something was tossed heavily onto the table.

Zhao Ke remained motionless on the floor. Before long, he felt something cool running down from above and dripping onto his neck. It was unpleasantly sticky and carried a powerful smell of blood.

Zhao Ke tilted his neck and glanced sideways. Two severed hands had been thrown onto the table, blood continuously dripping from them.

It's her!

Zhao Ke was startled. He could tell one of the hands belonged to a woman. It was none other than the white-collar woman he had thrown into the bushes. Zhao Ke remembered that her nails had been painted pink and decorated with rhinestones. There was no way he could be mistaken.

Looking again, there was another severed hand beside it. But its bones were thick, unlike the white-collar woman's hand. It looked more like a man's.

At that moment, the burly man narrowed his eyes and examined Zhao Ke and the other two on the floor. Confusion and annoyance showed on his rough face. After his triangular eyes carefully inspected the three of them, he tossed the axe from his waist onto the table and looked at the Great Iron Pot nearby.

His gaze swept over the pot on the stove. The boiling broth had already released a rich fragrance, and he had been drawn in by that scent before he even entered the room.

The burly man walked to the pot and frowned when he saw the seasonings in the bowl beside it.

He scooped chunks of meat from the pot, then ladled a spoonful of broth over them. The red-and-white meat floated in the scallion-sprinkled soup, making the burly man swallow hard. He immediately hugged the bowl and began wolfing it down.

"Slurp, slurp..."

In the spacious house, only the sound of the burly man eating could be heard. The three on the floor could not see what was happening on the table, but from the sounds alone, they knew the man seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the meat soup Zhao Ke had hurriedly prepared.

One bowl of soup and meat did not seem to satisfy him. The burly man stood up, intending to serve himself another.

Seeing this, Qi Liang could not help secretly kicking Zhao Ke's foot and repeatedly winking at him, asking why the drug had not taken effect yet.

Zhao Ke shook his head, telling Qi Liang not to panic.

Though he did not know what medicine the old woman had put in the kettle, merely smelling it had made Zhao Ke feel slightly dizzy. He deduced that it must be potent.

Li Hongbing must have drunk the water drugged by the old woman earlier, passed out, and then been slaughtered by her without any chance to defend himself.

Zhao Ke had poured in an entire kettle's worth. The effect could not possibly be weak.

"Clang!"

Just as Zhao Ke wondered why the burly man had not collapsed yet, the bowl in the man's hand suddenly slipped and smashed onto the floor. He staggered forward two steps, then fell face-first to the ground with a thud.

"It worked!"

Zhao Ke and the other two rejoiced. Chen Jing and Qi Liang twisted their bodies and quickly broke free of their ropes. The hemp ropes had only been tied loosely, and a slight struggle was enough to free them.

Zhao Ke climbed up from the floor as well. He picked up a fruit knife and walked over to the middle-aged burly man. The man lay on the ground, sleeping soundly. The old woman's drug really was extraordinarily potent. Li Hongbing had not died unjustly.

"That easy?"

Qi Liang could hardly believe it. Based on their earlier deductions, this Xiong Er was likely the bear that had pursued and tried to kill them. Yet such a simple trick had actually succeeded.

Thinking of that, Qi Liang could not help fuming. "Fuck, if I'd known it was this easy, why did you have to stab me?" The more he thought about it, the more it felt like a waste.

Zhao Ke did not bother explaining Qi Liang's complaint in detail, but Chen Jing understood clearly. From the instant the other party stepped into the room, he had already entered the trap Zhao Ke had carefully designed.

A wounded prey animal, tied up right before him. The aroma spreading from the Great Iron Pot, the boiling meat soup, even the carefully prepared seasonings in the bowl—everything suggested that the master of the house had returned and was being awaited.

When a hungry master returned home and saw that scene, he would relax mentally. Most people would choose to eat their fill before dealing with the prey in front of them. Of course, Zhao Ke had another reason for daring to do this.

Freshness! Even lighting here depended on an oil lamp. There were no electric lights, much less refrigerators. Preserving food was therefore a serious problem. Before the food in the pot was finished, Zhao Ke had concluded that they would subconsciously choose to keep their prey alive. They could not run away anyway, so it was better to save them until it was time to eat.

Of course, there was still a risk. If they encountered a psychopath who did not intend to eat first but wanted to kill them before anything else, Zhao Ke could only consider himself unlucky. Following the principle of sacrificing others to save himself, he would decisively get up and flee for his life.

That was why he had stabbed Qi Liang in the thigh instead of simply killing him with one blow.

Looking at the burly man lying on the ground, Qi Liang and Chen Jing both felt a surge of relief. The man's physique was as powerful as a bull, and he stood half a head taller than Qi Liang.

His arms were nearly as thick as Chen Jing's thighs. If they had truly fought, forget about him turning into a bear—even if he could not, the three of them would not have been enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

Zhao Ke raised the fruit knife and walked coldly to the burly man. He aimed the blade at the man's throat and swiftly slashed!

"Pfft..."

Blood spurted from the man's throat. His body twitched as though he had regained a little consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked at Zhao Ke and the others. His complicated gaze seemed to say something, but the light in his eyes quickly faded.

"YSI! The mission is complete! We can go back now, right?"

For some reason, watching blood spray from the burly man's throat did not make Chen Jing feel cruel as it once would have. Instead, she felt relieved, even liberated.

It was not just her. Qi Liang also felt the tension in his heart ease. Just one day and one night had felt like a nightmare he could not wake from. Now, he only wanted to wake up as soon as possible.

"Something's wrong!"

The tension in their hearts had only just loosened and had not yet fully settled when a cold shout interrupted their thoughts.

Qi Liang looked up. Seeing Zhao Ke's stern expression, his heart skipped a beat. Zhao Ke stared fixedly at the burly man's corpse, his face so grim it was frightening.

"What is it?"

"He... isn't Xiong Er!"

Zhao Ke pointed at the corpse on the floor. "If he were Xiong Er, then his body should have turned into a bear, just like the old woman's. Besides, we haven't received any notification that the mission is complete."

Chen Jing and Qi Liang froze, blankly staring at the corpse. A chill ran through their entire bodies, crawling up their spines and freezing them from head to toe.

"Damn it, how could he not be Xiong Er? Was all that effort for nothing?"

Qi Liang could not accept it. After going to all that trouble, the person they had killed was not Xiong Er. So where was the real Xiong Er?

Zhao Ke crouched down and searched the burly man's corpse. From his chest, he pulled out a crumpled map. Examining it carefully by the oil lamp, he saw that it was hand-drawn and clearly depicted this area. A corner of it had been circled in red ink.

He continued searching and found a dagger, some rations, and a bottle.

When he opened the bottle, a peculiar smell seeped out. Looking closely, he saw it contained some unusually colored powder.

Zhao Ke gently brought it to his nose and sniffed it a few times. It smelled like some sort of pollen—not pungent, but not pleasant either. Other than that, he noticed nothing unusual.

"Did you find anything?"

Chen Jing stepped forward, wanting to see what Zhao Ke had found. Zhao Ke straightforwardly placed everything on the table. "Just this."

As he spoke, Zhao Ke handed his fruit knife to Chen Jing and took the heavy black dagger for himself.

Pinching the dagger's blade between his fingers, he watched its jet-black edge reflect an unusual cold gleam beneath the oil lamp. A dark groove ran along the back of the blade, radiating an eerie red light.

"Two feet long, three fingers wide, eight liang and three qian in weight. A fine blade!"

They said an expert could tell the quality at a glance. Having handled blades for years, Zhao Ke was intimately familiar with them. This completely black dagger looked unremarkable, but it was undoubtedly a deadly weapon.

However, Zhao Ke was dissatisfied that its previous owner apparently did not like cleaning it. Blood had completely congealed in the blood groove, leaving the dagger with a pungent bloody smell that anyone with a halfway decent nose could detect.

"What a waste of such a fine thing." Zhao Ke glanced sidelong at the corpse on the floor and clicked his tongue, silently mourning the dagger.

"What do we do now?"

Qi Liang looked at the burly man's corpse, feeling frustrated. He muttered, "Since this guy wasn't Xiong Er, why didn't he untie us first? And what were those two pairs of severed hands on the table about? Really..."

Qi Liang trailed off halfway through. He subconsciously looked up at the window behind him, and his voice abruptly stopped. Outside the window, a pair of crimson eyes stared coldly at him!