"Bloody Mary"

Sun Hang had originally wanted to come up with some excuse to brush her off, but for some reason, when the words reached his lips, they became the very line 0401 had just said—

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"Are you threatening me?" 0398 raised a brow, a hint of wariness entering her gaze.

"I was just saying. Don't get so tense." Sun Hang smiled, stopped paying attention to 0398, and followed Captain Huang onward.

A strange feeling arose within him. The person who had stepped forward to slap that middle-aged woman, and the one who had just threatened 0398, seemed as though they had not been him at all... Or perhaps they had been another personality inside him.

Or was that the real him from before he lost his memory?

Carrying that doubt, Sun Hang walked on in silence... But as they ventured deeper into the passage, they gradually caught a strange smell.

It was a mixture of rusty iron, sour rot, and stench. Just one whiff was enough to make the contents of their stomachs churn, and even the Peacekeepers could not help covering their mouths and noses.

Fortunately, they soon reached the end of the passage, where a wooden door with peeling paint stood before them.

And the unbearable smell had reached its strongest concentration here.

The trace expert's face had turned extremely unpleasant. After hesitating for a moment, he still walked over to Captain Huang and said in a low voice, "It's the smell of corpses, and a very strong smell of blood... Those missing women were probably killed long ago... And the method may have been exceptionally cruel..."

"I know." Captain Huang reached for the wooden door, but could not bring himself to push it open.

"Maybe we should get out of here..." 0401 looked frightened. "I just feel like... there might be some, uh, very bad things inside."

"Captain Huang, the kid's right. At this time, the 'Hunter' should be arriving soon." A Peacekeeper also urged him, "Whatever happens next has nothing to do with us."

Captain Huang stood before the door, caught in a dilemma—on one hand, the truth he had been pursuing all this time was most likely behind it. All he had to do was push open the door, and he would have his answer; on the other hand, he was afraid to face that truth.

Just as Captain Huang wavered, Sun Hang walked over and placed his hand on the door.

Somehow, Sun Hang vaguely felt that something inside the door was tempting him.

To him, beneath the initial reek of blood and decay, that nauseating smell somehow concealed a rich, fragrant sweetness, like the scent of nectar emanating from a blooming flower's core.

He suddenly felt a little hungry.

While the others were not paying attention, he shoved the door open.

Beyond it was a hall spanning more than three hundred square meters. The floor descended gradually in steps, and the thick, suffocating stench of blood could not be blocked even by covering one's mouth and nose. Tension seeped into everyone's nerves through every remaining pore in their bodies, as though even the air had turned viscous.

Sun Hang walked down the steps. At the far end of the hall, he saw a square pool of blood.

The pool, as large as a swimming pool in an amusement park, was filled with scarlet, viscous blood plasma. Fragments of broken, deformed bones floated within it, appearing and disappearing from view.

Suspended above the blood pool was a naked young woman. Her body was swollen, like a specimen that had been soaked in formaldehyde for many years.

Her skin was an eerie bluish white, and her body was covered in horrifying wounds. Blood slowly seeped from the turned-out flesh around them, flowed down her body, and eventually dripped into the blood pool beneath her feet.

Several thorn-covered vines extended from the blood pool and coiled around the young woman's body.

Those sharp thorns pierced her skin and burrowed into her flesh, as though feeding on her body and draining what little life force she had left.

On her shoulder, a vividly colored rose was blooming in full splendor.

The young woman was still alive. Sun Hang could sense her faint breathing.

But with every passing second, the woman grew weaker, while the rose on her shoulder became more vivid.

Footsteps sounded behind him, followed by a shocked, trembling cry. "X-Xiao Jun?"

Clearly, the young woman hanging above the blood pool was the last missing trainee Peacekeeper.

As for the other missing young women... Sun Hang glanced at the bones floating in the blood pool.

But in the end, Sun Hang's attention was still drawn to that rose... A strange desire grew deep within him: he wanted to tear the flower off, stuff it into his mouth, and chew it hard...

The thought grew wildly in his mind, almost beyond his control. Just as Sun Hang was about to act on it, 0401's despairing voice rang out. "Bloody Mary?!"

Sun Hang's mind cleared again.

Bloody Mary?

Was that the name of the rose?

Sun Hang suddenly remembered who the person in the oil painting outside was.

She was Countess Lee Kester from European legend. It was said that, to preserve her youth, she constantly bathed in the blood of pure young girls.

Every time she bathed, she would kill two girls and bury their bodies beneath the bathroom floor.

So those young women had disappeared solely to nourish this gorgeous "demon flower"?

"Is it an anomalous object?" Sun Hang turned to look at 0401 and asked.

"Of course it is..." 0401 said with a bitter expression. "Serial Number D37, 'Bloody Mary.' More than a decade ago, its appearance was the chief culprit behind turning over half of the southern city development zone into ruins... Why is it still alive? Didn't the Investigation Bureau already deal with it?!"

"It's just a flower. Can it really destroy half a development zone?" Sun Hang was somewhat doubtful.

"The thing that truly destroyed the southern city development zone was people," 0398 continued from where 0401 had left off. "Bloody Mary's thorny vines spread through every street and alley, burrowing into every building with living creatures inside and wantonly draining every scrap of flesh and blood it could reach... To eliminate it completely, the Xiazhou Federation had no choice but to airdrop large quantities of napalm into the southern city development zone, burning Bloody Mary and the streets it occupied to ashes."

"So that's how it was... No wonder so many of those ruined walls we passed earlier had burn marks." Sun Hang nodded. "So this thing is afraid of fire?"

"No... This isn't the Bloody Mary from more than a decade ago." Captain Huang's voice sounded. "That Bloody Mary was burned to death long ago. I took part in that operation too. I watched it turn to ash with my own eyes."

"Then what are we looking at now?" 0401 waved his arms almost hysterically. "It can't be my hallucination, can it?!"

"Seeds, it's seeds... That Bloody Mary left behind its seeds." Captain Huang muttered. "Bloody Mary's seeds need to be watered with blood before they can sprout, and now..."

And now, it had bloomed.