Killing the Wrong Person (Large Chapter)

"Gurgle..."

On the stove, a large pot was steaming. Chunks of meat in the pot bobbed up and down in the boiling broth, which was a milky white, like mutton fat.

An unusual aroma permeated the air. Beside the pot was a bowl with pre-mixed seasonings and chopped scallions, waiting for the broth to be poured in. The thought alone was unbearable.

However, neither Chen Jing, nor Qi Liang, nor even Zhao Ke, had any appetite. Qi Liang and Chen Jing sat on the ground, bound by hemp ropes, their mouths gagged with cloth, unable to make a sound.

A gash on Qi Liang's thigh was deep enough to see bone. He sat there, large cold sweat dripping from his forehead, his face frighteningly pale.

As for Zhao Ke, he was prostrate on the ground, his hands tied behind his back with hemp rope, his back a bloody mess, looking utterly mangled. The blood had already soaked through his shirt.

"Moo moo..."

Chen Jing kicked Zhao Ke with her foot, her large eyes blinking at him, seemingly asking how long they had to wait.

She then glanced at Qi Liang's leg wound. Although Zhao Ke had assured her the injury wasn't fatal, seeing the blood, Chen Jing couldn't help but worry for Qi Liang.

Zhao Ke understood Chen Jing's meaning. He shook his head and closed his eyes. He knew best where he had struck. Without even looking, he knew the feeling of the blade piercing flesh and blood, and he knew it had avoided vital organs and bones. Such a wound could be healed with a little treatment, so there was no need to worry.

"Bang!"

At this moment, Zhao Ke's eyes snapped open, and he whispered, "They're here!"

Footsteps outside grew closer, each one heavy, as if stones were stuffed in their soles.

"Buzz..."

The door creaked open. Due to the angle, Zhao Ke could only see a foot step inside first. It was bare, and the sole was caked with a layer of scarlet mud. As the person walked, Zhao Ke could smell the strong scent of blood.

At the same time, his peripheral vision quickly swept over the person's feet. The joints were thick, and the feet were at least a size 47, much larger than an average adult's.

"Wuwuwu..."

At this point, it was unclear what Qi Liang and Chen Jing saw, but their expressions changed. Qi Liang's eyes widened in terror.

A large foot stepped towards Zhao Ke. With a "clang," something heavy was thrown onto the table.

Zhao Ke remained still on the ground. After a while, he felt a cool sensation on his head, as if something was flowing down, dripping onto his neck. It was viscous and unpleasant, carrying a strong smell of blood.

Zhao Ke tilted his neck and glanced sideways. Two severed hands lay on the table, blood dripping continuously from them.

"It's her!"

Zhao Ke's heart leaped. He could tell from the severed hand that it was a woman's hand. It belonged to the female office worker he had thrown into the bushes. Zhao Ke remembered her nails were painted pink and adorned with rhinestones, so there was no mistake.

He looked again and saw another severed hand beside it. However, the bones of this hand were thick, unlike the female office worker's palm. It looked more like a man's hand.

At this moment, the burly man squinted his eyes and surveyed the three people on the ground. A look of confusion and annoyance crossed his rugged face. His triangular eyes scanned Zhao Ke and the other two carefully. With a hint of doubt, he tossed the axe from his waist onto the table and then glanced at the large iron pot.

His gaze swept over to the pot on the stove, where the boiling broth emitted a rich fragrance. He had been drawn by the smell even before entering the room.

The burly man strode to the pot. After looking at the seasonings in the bowl beside it, he frowned.

He picked up a ladle, scooped out some meat chunks from the pot, and finally poured a spoonful of broth over them. The distinct red and white meat chunks, nestled in the broth sprinkled with scallions, made the burly man swallow involuntarily. He eagerly grabbed the bowl and began to eat heartily.

"Sizzle sizzle..."

In the large room, only the sound of the burly man eating could be heard. The three of them were on the ground and couldn't see what was happening on the table, but from the sounds, they knew the burly man seemed to be enjoying the meat soup Zhao Ke had hastily prepared.

After finishing one bowl of meat and soup, it seemed not to be enough. The burly man stood up, preparing to get another bowl.

Seeing this, Qi Liang couldn't help but quietly kick Zhao Ke's foot, winking at him, signaling, "Why hasn't it worked yet?"

Zhao Ke shook his head, indicating for Qi Liang not to rush.

He didn't know what medicine the old woman had put in the kettle, but even the smell made him feel slightly dizzy. Zhao Ke deduced that the medicine must be very potent.

Li Hongbing must have drunk the old woman's drugged water and fainted, leaving him completely defenseless when the old woman killed him.

He had added the entire kettle, so the potency would definitely be significant.

"Clang!"

Just as Zhao Ke wondered why the burly man wasn't collapsing, the bowl in the burly man's hand suddenly slipped and fell heavily. He stumbled forward less than two steps before collapsing face-first onto the ground with a "thud."

"It worked!"

Zhao Ke and the other two rejoiced. Chen Jing and Qi Liang struggled and quickly broke free from their hemp ropes. Their ropes had been loosely tied, and they could easily break them with a little effort.

Zhao Ke also got up from the ground, picked up the fruit knife, and walked over to the middle-aged burly man. The burly man lay on the ground, snoring soundly. He had to admit the old woman's medicine was exceptionally strong. It seemed Li Hongbing hadn't died unjustly.

"That easy!"

Qi Liang couldn't believe it. According to their previous speculation, this Xiong Er was likely the bear that had been chasing them. He hadn't expected such a simple trick to succeed.

Thinking about it, Qi Liang felt indignant. "Damn it, if I had known it would be this easy, why did you stab me?" The more Qi Liang thought about it, the more it felt like a waste.

Zhao Ke didn't bother to explain in detail about Qi Liang's accusation, but Chen Jing understood clearly. From the moment the man stepped into the room, he had walked right into Zhao Ke's meticulously laid trap.

A wounded prey, tied up before him, the aroma emanating from the large pot, the simmering meat soup, and even the pre-arranged seasonings in the bowl – everything was as if waiting for the master's return, full of suggestion.

When a hungry master returned and saw this, their psychological defenses would lower. Most people would choose to feast first before dealing with their prey. Of course, Zhao Ke dared to do this for another reason.

Freshness! Here, even lighting relied on an oil lamp; there was no electricity, let alone refrigerators. So, preservation was a serious issue. Before the food in the pot was finished, Zhao Ke was certain that, subconsciously, they would choose to keep the prey alive. Since they couldn't escape anyway, it was better to leave them to be killed later.

Of course, there were risks. If they encountered a psychopath who didn't want to eat first but wanted to kill them first, Zhao Ke could only consider himself unlucky. Following the principle of "letting a fellow Taoist die rather than myself," he would have immediately gotten up and fled.

This was why he had stabbed Qi Liang's thigh instead of simply stabbing him to death.

The two, Qi Liang and Chen Jing, felt a surge of relief seeing the large man collapsed on the ground. His physique was as strong as an ox, and he was half a head taller than Qi Liang.

His arms were almost as thick as Chen Jing's thighs. If a fight had broken out, let alone turning into a bear, even without that ability, the three of them wouldn't have been enough to even fill his teeth.

Zhao Ke picked up the fruit knife, his face cold as he walked up to the large man. He pressed the blade against the man's throat and made a swift cut!

"Splat..."

Blood spurted from the throat with a thump. The large man trembled, as if regaining some consciousness. His eyes opened and he looked at the three of them with a complex gaze, seeming to want to say something, but that flicker of light quickly dimmed.

"YSI! Mission accomplished! Can we go back now?"

For some reason, seeing the scene of blood spraying from the man's throat, Chen Jing didn't feel the usual cruelty. Instead, she felt a sense of ease, even release.

It wasn't just her; even Qi Liang beside her felt a sense of relaxation. It had only been a day and a night, but it felt like an inescapable nightmare. Now, all he wanted was to wake up quickly.

"Wrong!"

However, the strings of relaxation in their hearts hadn't even fully settled before a cold shout interrupted their thoughts.

Qi Liang looked up and his heart skipped a beat when he saw Zhao Ke's stern expression. Zhao Ke's eyes were fixed on the corpse of the large man, his face terrifyingly grim.

"What is it??"

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

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

Chen Jing and Qi Liang froze, staring blankly at the corpse on the ground. A shiver ran through their bodies, and a chill crawled up their spines, from head to toe.

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

Qi Liang found it hard to accept this fact. After all their hard work, they had killed someone who wasn't Xiong Er. Where was the real Xiong Er?

Zhao Ke squatted down and began searching the large man's corpse. He pulled out a crumpled map from the man's embrace. Examining it carefully under the oil lamp, he saw it was a hand-drawn map of the area. In one corner, a circle was drawn in red ink.

Continuing his search, he found a dagger, some dry rations, and a bottle.

When he opened the bottle, a peculiar scent wafted out. Upon closer inspection, it was a powder of a very unusual color.

Zhao Ke brought it close to his nose and sniffed a few times. It smelled like some kind of pollen, not pungent, but not pleasant either. Other than that, he couldn't detect anything else.

"Did you find anything?"

Chen Jing stepped forward, wanting to see what Zhao Ke had found. Zhao Ke, without hesitation, placed everything on the table and said, "Just these."

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

His fingers gripped the blade, and the dark, lustrous surface reflected an unusual cold light under the oil lamp. A dark groove ran along the spine of the blade, emitting an eerie red glow.

"Two feet long, three fingers wide, weighing eight taels and three qian. A good knife!"

As the saying goes, an expert's touch reveals their skill. Having handled blades for years, Zhao Ke was intimately familiar with them. This seemingly unremarkable, all-black dagger was undoubtedly a lethal weapon.

However, what displeased Zhao Ke was that the previous owner of the knife apparently didn't like to clean it. The blood in the groove had completely solidified, causing the dagger to emit a pungent smell of blood that anyone with a decent sense of smell could detect.

"What a waste of a good item." Glancing at the corpse on the ground, Zhao Ke sneered, silently lamenting the dagger's fate.

"What do we do now?"

Qi Liang looked at the large man's corpse on the ground, feeling a bit annoyed. He muttered to himself, "Since this guy wasn't Xiong Er, why didn't he just let us go? And what about those two severed hands on the table? It's really..."

Mid-sentence, Qi Liang subconsciously glanced up at the window behind them. His voice trailed off as he saw a pair of blood-red eyes staring coldly at him from outside the window!