He had only just died, and blood was still flowing out.
Huai Shi crouched down, studying the corpse before him in confusion. He casually pulled a stick from the garbage pile and poked at it a few times. One arm was broken, there was a stab wound in the back that had punctured a lung, and the fatal injury was at the throat.
Clean and decisive, almost split in two with a single blow.
Before long, Huai Shi set down the stick and the door panel, covered the corpse again, then glanced back at the ventilation window behind him. After walking forward a few steps, he turned around, judged the distance to be about right, sprinted forward with all his strength, leaped up, and pushed himself thirty centimeters higher along the wall.
Just enough to reach the pipe on the wall.
But when he looked down, he discovered that his footprint overlapped with another faint print left there. When he raised himself toward the window, he saw fingerprints pressed into the dust beside it.
Someone had gone inside.
And that person had a physique similar to his own—an Ascender who had undergone a second growth spurt. Otherwise, they would have had to be some domestic racewalking or long-jump champion, probably with an indoor climbing award to boot.
The warehouse was utterly silent.
There was not a single unnecessary sound.
Huai Shi landed silently and looked around. All he saw were piles upon piles of crates, along with electrical wires on the floor. The wires stretched forward and disappeared into the wall. Huai Shi saw only a huge iron door, behind which an endless stream of frigid air blew out.
He took a deep breath and confirmed that it really was cold air. This damn thing was a freezer.
After gathering