Night had fallen. Eleven p.m.
The Resting Mausoleum, packed with people during the day, was now completely deserted and silent.
A figure arrived quietly.
Bai Zhou held a bouquet of flowers and slowly crouched before Section Chief Liu's grave.
—He had not come to lay flowers in remembrance.
It was just that if anyone discovered him and asked what he was doing here, Bai Zhou could produce the flowers and say he had come to visit Section Chief Liu.
He could even say that visiting deceased old acquaintances at night was an Evening City tradition.
—Though Evening City did not actually have such a tradition.
But in reality—
Bai Zhou had come to dig up a grave!
He could not see any last wills anywhere, and a huge question had been hanging over Bai Zhou's heart.
Who had moved Section Chief Liu's corpse?
There had to be something wrong with this.
If it had been someone else, Bai Zhou could have let it go.
But this was Section Chief Liu, so he could not.
...Before coming here, Bai Zhou had also put his recent studies into practice and drawn a concealment ritual on his chest with red ink.
It was a very small ritual. Its main effect was to reduce one's presence, making it harder to be discovered while hiding.
It was a pity he had already turned in his wristband. It would have worked even better with optical invisibility.
"Can't wait any longer..."
The surroundings were utterly silent. Bai Zhou set down the bouquet and slowly pulled a brand-new bench leg from behind his back.
After getting over his initial resistance, he had begun to realize that this thing was actually quite useful.
It was easy to obtain, and no one would suspect him whenever he took it out. It was naturally the best disguise.
—Yet he could use it for just about anything.
He could use it to chop people, and with a little modification, it could also serve as a crowbar.
Like now.
"Crack—crack—"
Using the bench leg, he slowly pried open the gap in the cement slab sealing the ash urn. After shifting one corner of the slab away, Bai Zhou reached inside and fumbled around.
Soon, he pulled out a small box covered by a Federation Flag.
He removed the flag and set it aside. On the heavy black box, Brother Liu's black-and-white photograph stared at Bai Zhou with an awkward smile.
The two of them faced each other like that.
Staring wide-eyed at the square-faced man in the photograph, Bai Zhou could not help recalling their last meeting.
Was this the surprise you wanted to give me too?
"Brother Liu, no offense..."
As he muttered, Bai Zhou forcefully pried at the ash urn with a series of cracks.
...Honestly, Bai Zhou had regretted it the moment he took out the box.
Because he could tell from its weight that there really was something inside.
But what else could be in here besides ashes...
Stealing corpses in the dead of night—if the Special Management Department found out, being dragged to the hospital would probably be the least of his problems.
What he was doing was more abnormal than anything a Blood Worship Cultist would do!
But things have come to this. He could not come all this way for nothing.
At least let him take a look.
—He was already here!
With a crack!
Bai Zhou successfully pried open the ash urn.
With a clatter, Bai Zhou dropped the bench leg, shoved the lid aside, and looked inside.
There really were ashes inside. Looks like I—
Bai Zhou's expression suddenly froze, and he blinked in disbelief.
Where were the ashes?!
All he saw was damp, filthy sand, carelessly stuffed into the ash urn.
The grains of sand were moving.
Several scarlet earthworms were churning and wriggling through the sand, leaving behind slick, sticky trails.
There were also even more black beetles whose names he did not know, darting through the gaps in the sand and crawling all over the inside of the small ash urn.
"...What is this?"
Just holding such a disgusting, horrifying "bug box" made goosebumps rise all over Bai Zhou's arms. He nearly threw it away.
His stomach churned, followed by a powerful sense of absurdity and humiliation.
Beneath the Sanctuary of Rest, where Hero Commissioners were buried, there were no ashes—only a pile of worm-infested sand?
All of them had spent half the day saluting and mourning this thing?
How ridiculous.
It looked like someone had simply grabbed a handful of dirt and tossed it inside!
No wonder he could not see any last wills. It would have been stranger if he could see a last will from this thing!
Then... what about the others?
Bai Zhou looked around.
Were all the other graves like this too?
The question was, where had Section Chief Liu's ashes gone?
And where had everyone else's ashes gone?
Bai Zhou could not understand.
Confusion and anger battered him.
He wanted to know who was desecrating Section Chief Liu's corpse.
But he truly could not imagine what kind of person would steal a box of ashes, or why.
What could ashes possibly be used for?
They could not be mixing them into formula to drink for calcium, could they?
But after thinking for a moment, a sliver of unrealistic hope arose in his heart...
What if Section Chief Liu was not actually dead?
Perhaps he had merely faked his death, assumed a new identity, and been sent to carry out some difficult mission.
Bai Zhou had read stories like that in Evening City.
In one story, someone called Ms. Snow White faked her death, lay inside a coffin, and had herself mailed to the famous terrorist organization known as the Seven Dwarfs.
When those people curiously opened the coffin, Ms. Snow White leaped straight out and boldly detonated the explosives strapped to her body, perishing together with them.
—It turned out that Ms. Snow White was an elite of the Black Robe Organization, and she had come up with this clever plan to preserve Evening City's peace.
Bai Zhou had read this little story in the recruitment handbook for the Black Robe Youth Training Corps, and he still remembered it vividly.
Apparently, faking one's death was not especially rare in certain secret organizations...
"Tap—"
Suddenly, a faint sound came from beside him.
It sounded like footsteps, but they were exceptionally light.
In such an unnaturally quiet environment, the sound made the already-alert Bai Zhou jolt in fright.
Who would come to the Resting Mausoleum at this hour?
Bai Zhou immediately closed the ash urn and looked toward the source of the sound.
A silent gravestone stood not far away.
"?"
Bai Zhou almost thought he had heard wrong.
Because the sound from earlier seemed to have come from there.
A corpse rising?
Surely not. They were colleagues, after all.
The next moment,
Several more extremely faint sounds came from below, along with the vague sound of people talking.
Then the cement slab sealing the ash urn before that silver-white gravestone began to shake.
"Something's wrong!"
Bai Zhou immediately rose to run, but there was nothing around him to hide behind. The only place he could conceal himself was...
He snatched up the Federation Flag from the ground and, still clutching the ash urn, leaped without hesitation into the grave pit where Section Chief Liu's ash urn should have been placed.
Then he reached up and pulled the cement slab back over himself, sealing it tightly.
The Resting Mausoleum returned to silence, with no further abnormalities.
—But the next second, the cement slab was quietly pulled open again.
A hand reached out and fumbled around. Once it found the bench leg left outside, it snatched it away with a whoosh and withdrew.
The cement slab closed again, and everything returned to normal.
Only a narrow crack remained.
A pair of eyes hid in the darkness behind the crack, carefully observing the outside.
"..."
Bai Zhou crouched with his arms around the ash urn, tense in the pitch-black, cramped pit.
The pit for holding an ash urn was neither too large nor too small. It was difficult to lie down in, but just right for crouching.
A space unusually roomy for an ash urn became incredibly cramped when it had to fit an entire living person.
Probably no one would have imagined that a single grave pit could one day become a double room.
After all, no matter how much someone missed the deceased, they would not climb in and sleep beside them...
It was dark, cramped, but warm and a little cozy. The experience was not bad—he would absolutely never come back again.
Before long, a crisp sound outside caught Bai Zhou's attention.
The cement cover before a nearby gravestone was completely opened.
A group of people emerged from beneath it.
First came their heads, then their shoulders.
Then their heads and shoulders rose and fell at different heights as they slowly ascended.
—There were stairs down there?
Bai Zhou was dumbfounded and looked down at the very real pit beneath him.
It was completely different.
Why was there an underground passage beneath the Resting Mausoleum?
In the blink of an eye, all those people had emerged.
Several of them carried enormous briefcases and spread out warily among the rows of gravestones.
Others wore sunglasses and squatted on the ground with their legs spread wide.
Although they all wore the same suit uniforms, they wore them in wildly different ways.
Some had rolled their sleeves high, revealing Red Spider Tattoos on their arms.
Some had their suit collars open to reveal their bare chests, while others had simply cut off half the lower portion of their suits...
They had somehow turned black suits into bizarre outfits.
Only the man leading them wore his suit properly, but the bald head on top of him was also the most conspicuous.
—They were from outside!
The instant he saw them, Bai Zhou confirmed it.
Had the Blood Worship Cult infiltrated early?
But the Blood Worship Cult did not seem this... sloppy?
Bai Zhou hugged the ash urn tightly inside the pit, hunching over and holding his breath, every nerve stretched taut.
But how could outsiders know about this secret passage...
"Boss, we sneaked through that tunnel for so long just to come here?"
One of the underlings grumbled unhappily. At the same time, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket and respectfully offered it to Baldy with both hands.
"Why make it so mysterious and keep us waiting this long..."
"Who is it that has such a big reputation?"
Smack—
The cigarette flew to the ground.
A heavy slap struck his forehead, knocking him straight to the ground.
"What the hell do you know!"
Baldy glared furiously and growled in a low voice:
"About this matter, ask less, talk less, and just do your job!"
"If you keep whining, even I won't be able to protect you!"
The underling clutched his head and rose with a whimper.
"Yes..."
Everyone immediately turned solemn, and even the underling squatting in an Asian squat stood up.
"—They're here."
Suddenly, Baldy turned serious.
Everyone instinctively straightened their backs. The Suit Uniform sleeves they had rolled up were lowered again, covering the Spider Tattoos on their arms.
Following their gazes into the distance—
Several Muscle Men in Black Suits, their presence clearly different from those here, escorted someone toward them.
As the distance closed, that person's figure gradually became clear.
A twitching beard, an oversized head, and bright, lively eyes...
The round, righteous Black Cat Detective Doll was held in that person's arms.
A Military Uniform man with a face as delicate and feminine as a woman's appeared before them.
"...?!"
Bai Zhou, hiding in the shadows, was startled.
Deputy Han?
Why was he here!
Deputy Han, Section Chief Liu's trusted "backer" and longtime colleague, who had told Bai Zhou during the day that he thought highly of him and had secured him a promotion opportunity...
Why was he meeting a group of outsiders here at a time like this?
Could it be that he had betrayed the Major and intended to sell out the organization?
But... why?
He held a position of great power within the base, second only to one person. Was what the organization had given him still not enough?
Bai Zhou covered his mouth, not daring to make even the slightest sound. He did not even dare breathe too loudly.
He realized that he might have stumbled upon an extremely crucial secret by accident.
"..." Deputy Han casually looked over the leading Baldy, his brows knitting slightly.
"Where's Little Li?"
"Brother Li was assigned elsewhere by the higher-ups. I'm the newly promoted Little Wang. I'll be handling these kinds of handovers from now on."
Baldy smiled as he handed over a business card, looking extremely respectful.
Deputy Han casually glanced at the card, neither approving nor objecting, then put it away.
"What are you standing around for?"
Baldy turned and shot his Subordinates a glare.
"Yes!"
The Subordinates immediately carried over several Briefcases, which Deputy Han's own Subordinates carefully accepted.
"...No problem."
They opened the Briefcases and performed a simple count, then nodded crisply at Deputy Han.
"Very good."
The corner of Deputy Han's lips lifted slightly as he handed over the Black Cat Detective Doll in his arms.
"This is the Human Material for this transaction."
"Inspect the goods."
He spoke softly and concisely, looking quite practiced.
Baldy held out both hands and carefully accepted the Black Cat Detective Doll.
This cute yet righteous Black Cat Detective, with its swollen, round appearance, looked...
Somehow terrifying in the Man in Suit's eyes.
He held his breath, swallowed, and used trembling hands to pull open the zipper on the Doll.
With a rip—
There was no stuffing inside as imagined.
Within Black Cat Detective's abdominal cavity was a transparent glass window with unusually smooth edges.
Through the window, a suffocating sight came into view:
In pale yellow Nutrient Solution, a fist-sized heart beat steadily and powerfully. Countless Blood Vessels connected to the heart and extended downward, linking to many organs.
These organs, seemingly streamlined and modified, were crammed densely into Black Cat Detective's abdominal cavity, yet they continued functioning normally.
Together, they formed a miniature, precise circulatory system. Through repeated blood transfusions and metabolism, they absorbed nutrients and processed metabolic waste.
—And above the heart, numerous Blood Vessels ran straight into the Doll's head.
Looking upward from below, one could vaguely see a living human brain at the very top of this container.
Its gray-white folds and grooves crisscrossed one another. Sparks occasionally flickering over those grooves seemed to prove that... this brain was still thinking.
—Inside this cute Doll, so sharply black-and-white and symbolic of justice, was a "living person."
His life was still being sustained. His brain could still think and feel. His biological systems were still operating, yet he no longer needed food or air.
Beneath the quiet Nutrient Solution hid the most vibrant torrent of a life.
It was difficult to imagine that Deputy Han had been holding something like this all along.
But Baldy knew that this was the subject of his transaction.
—Human Material!
Baldy's stomach suddenly churned, and he raised a hand to cover his mouth.
At that moment, a pale-faced lackey gagged softly and could not help muttering:
"This thing is so disgusting..."
"Hm?"
Deputy Han's gaze fell upon him.
His calm eyes looked as though they were gazing at a dead man.
Behind him, several Men in Suits stirred restlessly.
The atmosphere dropped to freezing point.
Only when Baldy stepped forward and bent at the waist with a placating smile did it ease.
"The higher-ups asked me to send you their regards. Take the Human Material back today, and the Magic Potion you requested will be delivered tomorrow!"
Only then did Deputy Han's gaze soften.
"It isn't disgusting, and it isn't some 'thing.'"
With a soft smack,
A hand gently patted Black Cat Detective's round, oversized head.
Deputy Han's caress was exceedingly gentle, his voice carrying a trace of intoxication.
"Actually, I don't even like the name Human Material that you people have always used."
"Because it is the most perfect Art Piece, one that symbolizes the miracle of life."
"...So, when you address it, please call it by its name."
Deputy Han's voice carried a trace of nostalgia, as though he had seen an old friend.
He said:
"—His name is Liu Zhen."
Before you continue