Tattoo

"You... what are you saying..." The girl's face turned deathly pale, and she shook her head repeatedly. "I don't understand what you mean. What... them?"

"Your acting is terrible." Sun Hang stepped forward, pressing the gun in his right hand against the girl's chin. With his left hand, he rolled up the sleeve of her left arm.

Opposite the festering wound on her right arm, there was a red tattoo.

At first glance, an ordinary person would think the tattoo was just a smudge of ink, perhaps mistaking it for a bruise. But upon closer inspection, one would realize that these seemingly messy patterns were actually exquisitely designed. Over twenty characters were layered within a skin area less than two centimeters square, yet the stroke trajectory of each character remained clearly discernible...

A pattern like this was definitely not something a cheap tattoo parlor could design.

These characters were scripts and symbols never used by any civilization in human history. They connected, nested within each other, seemingly forming an endless, eerie incantation...

As Sun Hang rolled up the girl's left sleeve, she clearly intended to resist. But at this moment, Sun Hang raised a leg and forcefully drove his knee into her abdomen. In pain, she immediately lost the strength to resist.

"When you were pulling up the sleeve of your right arm just now, you glanced at your other arm twice out of the corner of your eye. Did you think I wouldn't notice?" Sun Hang moved the gun away and violently slammed his elbow into her ribs. The girl let out a scream and slid slowly down the doorframe, collapsing onto the ground.

But Sun Hang still held her left arm, lifting it high above her head.

Sun Hang reinserted his pistol into the holster behind his waist, took out his phone, pointed the camera at the tattoo, and pressed the shutter button.

Immediately after, he uploaded the photo into the Investigation Bureau's internal network search engine.

Before long, a large number of files popped up on the search page.

Just as Sun Hang had predicted, this tattoo pattern was on record within the Investigation Bureau.

Seven years ago, a cult organization in the Jiangkou District of Tianfu City was dismantled in a case.

This cult organization worshipped Anomalies and secretly cultivated Anomaly Larvae within Tianfu City. Fortunately, a citizen reported them in time. The entire organization, including the Cult Leader, numbered 148 people. Excluding the nine who were shot and killed for violently resisting arrest during the apprehension, the remaining 139 were all apprehended.

These individuals should still be imprisoned in the "Special Prison for Anomalous Events" located in the northwest corner of Tianfu City.

That prison was built on a solitary mountain over two hundred meters high, with sheer cliffs on all sides. Only one elevator was available for personnel to ascend and descend. In addition, the prison was guarded by regular troops of the Xiazhou Federation, making escape virtually impossible.

Sun Hang held the girl's left arm with one hand, while his right arm, with its abnormal festering, was pinned under his foot. The girl's head hung limply against her chest, clearly not yet recovered from the recent blow.

Sun Hang gently swiped the screen with his thumb. Below the text files were photographic materials taken by the case officers at the time.

The cult followers all bore the exact same tattoo as this girl. The location of the tattoo was determined by the follower's status within the cult – the higher the status, the closer the tattoo was to the heart.

As for the nearly eighty-year-old "Cult Leader," his tattoo was located on his left chest, directly above his heart.

There were also image records of the Anomaly Larvae these cultists had cultivated – it was a massive blob of flesh, indistinguishable in limbs and organs. When the Investigators discovered it, the blob was submerged in a large ornamental fish tank in the "Cult Leader's" home.

At the bottom of the fish tank, some fragmented human bones remained.

At the end of the file was an appended photograph. The photo showed a large excavated pit filled with skeletal remains. A rough estimate suggested at least one to two hundred deceased individuals.

Next to the photo were a few lines of text annotation – this pit was located directly beneath the cult organization's newly built meeting place. Over four years, they had killed nearly five hundred people to feed that Anomaly Larva. The remains left after the Anomaly fed were directly buried in the foundation and covered with concrete... In addition to the remains in this pit, a large number of human bones, fused with concrete, were also discovered in the foundations of the homes of several key cult leaders.

Most of the missing person cases in Tianfu City over the past four years were ultimately attributed to this cult. The Cult Leader and main leaders were executed on the spot, and all remaining followers were sentenced to life imprisonment, without exception.

The Anomaly Larva was transported and destroyed by the Tianfu City Anomaly Research Institute.

Below this sentence was another line of text in smaller font – Note: The temporary serial number for this Anomaly Larva was Wu Yi Qi Jiu, but as it was destroyed before maturing, this serial number was later canceled.

"Type-Wu... a fungus-type Anomaly?" Sun Hang glanced again at the photo. The image quality was very low, and if one didn't look closely, it was easy to mistake it for a giant blob of flesh... But in reality, this "flesh blob" was actually composed of countless hyphae intertwined. Some broken hyphae were still attached to the skeletal remains at the bottom of the fish tank.

Sun Hang typed "Anomaly Wu Yi Qi Jiu" into the search bar. The results showed a giant fungus that grew in the dense forests of the Yundian Plateau, with extremely vibrant colors. It was clearly not the same thing as what was in the cult leader's fish tank.

"It seems the operation back then didn't uproot this cult completely..." Sun Hang mused. "Not only were not all the people caught, but even the Anomalies they raised weren't entirely eliminated..."

And the most crucial point was that during the apprehension operation, Peacekeepers and Investigators had examined every cult follower. None of them were found to be infected by an Anomaly. It was precisely for this reason that the large flesh blob was deemed an immature Anomaly Larva.

But the girl in front of him was a genuine infected individual.

"If this news is reported to the Investigation Bureau... they'll have their hands full."

Sun Hang squatted down, pinched the girl's cheeks between his index finger and thumb, and lifted her head. He asked, "If you don't want to die, take me to find your 'fellow cultists'... and, the thing you people raised."

The girl glanced at him and weakly nodded. "Okay..."

Sun Hang glanced at the gunshot wound on the girl's leg. He was somewhat surprised to find that the wound was no longer bleeding. The copper bullet had been squeezed out of the wound and had fallen to the ground.

He pulled out a small knife and cut open the bullet hole on her jeans. Where the bullet should have hit, new flesh had already filled the area, leaving only a coin-sized scar.