Taking the Blame (Please Keep Reading)

The deaths of these two people before them were far too bizarre. By that logic, even if they had been thrown from a balcony, they could not possibly have been flung this far.

The victims' homes had also been surveyed, but the result was nothing—there were no extra traces left behind.

The culprit's seasoned methods gave the man the illusion that he was facing an old criminal detective with decades of experience.

With such awareness of counter-forensics, the murderer's identity was definitely not simple. There was a strong chance he had once worked in a similar field.

Perhaps they could use that as an entry point for screening, but even then, it would never yield results in a short time.

If this case involved those kinds of beings, then it was no longer within their jurisdiction.

Just as he was mulling it over.

"Boss, we found something!"

At that moment, a young officer ran over from the side.

He held a tablet with a black cover in his hand.

"While pulling the surveillance footage, we found the suspect."

"Hm? Good work."

The square-faced man's expression shifted slightly as he took it and looked.

On it was a video filmed from the side.

The clip was short, only three or four seconds long, but fortunately, most of the man's face had been captured with perfect clarity.

The vicious knife scar that nearly ran across his entire face, starting from his brow bone, was exceptionally striking.

"This is Zhao Shi..."

The square-faced man wore a strange expression.

Zhao Shi, thirty-four years old.

He had once served in a Federal Special Forces unit. After being wounded in a campaign, he had been forced to retire.

Later, he married and had children. Pressured by the need to make a living, he obtained the Federation's Gold Fist level professional certification.

He became a professional boxer.

He had always been described as honest and simple, inarticulate but kind-hearted.

Yet such a man had committed a horrifying murder.

The reason was that his elderly mother back home had been beaten to death, while his wife, who had only recently given birth, had been violated by several men.

After being violated, she could not bear it for a time and directly took her baby, only a few months old, and killed herself.

After learning of this, Zhao Shi said nothing. He caught a ride home overnight and slipped into the homes of those murderers under cover of darkness.

He slaughtered all forty-one members of their families, young and old alike, not even sparing infants in swaddling clothes.

After that act, it seemed he had completely opened Pandora's box within his heart, going on to commit several more atrocities that made gods and men alike weep.

Although those he killed were hardly good people, murder was still murder, and he remained wanted.

Unfortunately, due to his past experience, his counter-investigation methods were extremely strong, and he handled crime scene traces flawlessly.

He basically left no clues behind, which was why they still had not caught him.

"If it was him, then it does make sense. Unfortunately, no matter how capable this guy is, he's still an ordinary person. If he takes that step, we can hand him over to those people..."

The middle-aged man sighed.

Bang!

A tremendous force reverberated!

Sunlight streamed into the room through the gap in the curtains, and the fine dust floating in the air could clearly be seen billowing to either side.

The numbers on the force tester's screen flickered, finally settling on an astonishing value.

396 kg!

Converted, that was 792 jin.

That figure had already far surpassed the Gold Fist level.

"Unfortunately, it's still quite a ways from the true limit of the human body."

Hu Qi frowned and withdrew his fist.

No wonder Chen Wu had said that a thousand jin of force was only a theoretical value. Normal people could only get infinitely close; they could never truly reach it.

Several Combat Techniques at mastery had stacked upon his body, yet he was still some distance from that goal.

Then he let out a soft breath.

"I'm being a little too greedy."

From 211 kg to 396 kg, only a dozen or so days had passed.

That kind of speed could only be described as riding a rocket.

And the reason Hu Qi had been able to accomplish this was naturally thanks to the Scarlet Panel and his own hard work.

After all, without his diligent practice to get the skills started,

without his painstaking collection of Modification Points, and without him giving the commands, no matter how powerful the Scarlet Panel was, it could not possibly function.

A dead thing was, in the end, only a dead thing.

"I need more Combat Techniques!"

Improving Combat Techniques could drive the growth of his physique.

For ordinary people, this method was practically impossible.

After all, no matter how talented one was, bringing a Combat Technique to mastery was absolutely not something that could be achieved in a short time.

But Hu Qi was not included among them.

As long as he had enough Modification Points, he could use the panel to stack Combat Techniques and rapidly improve without end.

"Besides, I need more Exotic Beasts. Although the Camphor Tea Duck can provide a duck egg every day or two, that's still too slow. Not to mention that I already put Modification Points into Forensic Technique and Makeup."

The former, Combat Techniques, was easy to solve. All it took was money.

But he had no leads on Exotic Beasts so far. He could only leave it to luck.

"What a pity. If I'd transmigrated as a rich second-generation heir, I could spend money to hire people to search for them. That would be far more efficient than waiting around like this."

Hu Qi grumbled.

He glanced at the force tester, reached out and pressed the reset button, then turned to leave.

However, just as he was about to reach the door, a series of heavy footsteps sounded in the distance.

He looked up, and a burly figure entered his sight.

Jet-black skin, a Martial Arts Uniform stretched tight over his body.

It was Sims, whom he had met once before.

His shoulders were broad, and the muscles on his exposed arms were taut, their lines rising and falling like mountain ranges.

Hu Qi stepped aside and waited for the other man to pass first.

Sims said nothing in response. He merely swept Hu Qi with an indifferent glance, brushed past him, and walked into the force-testing room.

Hu Qi gave him a look, then turned and left.

Inside the force-testing room.

Sims walked up to the force tester, raised his hands into a fighting stance, and took a deep breath.

"Hah!"

He gave a low shout, slightly raised his arm, clenched his fist, and struck!

Whoosh!

His fist slammed directly into the impact pad, producing a dull thud.

323 kg!

Once he saw the number on the display, the corners of Sims's lips lifted in a faint smile.

Compared to last time's 315 kg, he had improved by 8 kg—roughly 16 jin.

Sims was quite satisfied with this improvement.

It was the result of his hard training these past days.

The farther one progressed in strength, the harder it became to improve.

His speed was not slow.

"This time, I will definitely be first among this batch of newcomers in the Core Class."

His tone brimmed with powerful confidence.

As he thought this, he reached out and swiped across the screen, habitually bringing up one of its pages.

It was another function of the force tester.

Punching Power Rankings

It recorded the power data of everyone who had tested their strength on the force tester, arranged from low to high.