Turning the Tables

The electric scooter stopped at the mouth of the alley. A man in a black cap, looking like a food delivery rider, walked in. He was nearly thirty, lean and fit, with an efficient air about him. Yet he was a foreigner—a white man whose appearance was clearly worlds apart from Fang Xiu's.

He walked toward the corpse lying in the garbage heap, half-buried beneath the trash. Fang Xiu's face was a bloody blur, and the back of his head was soaked in blood. He looked horrifying, as if he could not possibly be any deader. The stench of garbage masked the smell of blood and made Fang Xiu's corpse filthy. The White Killer covered his nose, as though he had a slight obsession with cleanliness.

The white man grabbed Fang Xiu by the collar and lifted him out of the garbage heap.

At that moment, Fang Xiu, who should have been thoroughly dead, suddenly opened his eyes. A cold, razor-sharp gleam flashed from them. At the same time, the small knife concealed in his right hand emerged, slashing across the other man's throat with all his strength.

The sharp knife sliced deeply through the flesh of the man's neck. The man was holding Fang Xiu with one hand, and at such close range, he did not even have enough time to react or dodge.

Blood splashed out with a rush, spraying Fang Xiu's face. It trickled down his face drop by drop, staining both his clothes and eyes red. At that moment, Fang Xiu's gaze and expression were so vicious that he looked like an Evil Ghost from hell.

The white man's other hand did not instinctively move to cover his wound. Instead, he reached for the pistol at his waist, intending to fight back.

But the instant he drew it, Fang Xiu kicked him away. The gun fell to the ground with a crisp clatter. The man clutched his neck as he staggered back, eventually leaning against the wall.

He stared at Fang Xiu in disbelief. Just as he had not understood earlier why Fang Xiu had called the police, he could not understand now why Fang Xiu had not been shot, why it seemed Fang Xiu had known all along that he was going to snipe him.

"How is that possible? Urgh... urgh... how can..." He used all his strength to cover his neck, but he still could not stop the blood from spilling out. He was speaking English. His words came too fast for Fang Xiu to catch, but Fang Xiu did not care what he was saying. He simply admired the desperate expression on his face as he confronted death.

The man's vitality seemed unusually strong. Blood continued to gush out like a fountain. Anyone else would have died on the spot from such a wound, yet he somehow held on without dying immediately.

His eyes were filled with terror and disbelief. He could not accept that he would die here, at the hands of someone who had been nothing more than an ordinary office worker just one day ago.

"Oh dear, oh dear! Dying, dying, dying!"

Fang Xiu picked up the man's pistol, a gloating smile appearing on his face—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a smug one.

"This time, it's your turn!"

He found the safety and flicked it off with his finger, then aimed at the White Killer's head.

"Sayo... nara!"

An exaggerated smile spread across Fang Xiu's bloodstained face. The scarlet blood and his stark white teeth set each other off, while his brows rose in a frivolous arch.

"Urgh... urgh..."

That mocking smile and those punchable words drove the man's resentment and fury to their peak. The hatred in his eyes seemed as though it could shine out and tear Fang Xiu apart. But his body had lost its strength from the massive loss of blood, and with his throat slit, he could not even speak. All he could do was make strange noises.

Then, a startling transformation suddenly occurred in the dying white man's body. He swelled up like a balloon, his features turning savage and ugly. Streams of green fluid seeped from his skin, while black scales grew out from beneath it.

Gills began to appear on his face, and his eyes turned a nauseating green. Webbing grew between his fingers. He completely lost his human appearance. Even his wounds began to heal, and his voice became terrifyingly hoarse.

"Damn it! I'll butcher you!"

"Butcher you!"

Although Fang Xiu did not understand what was happening, he knew the man was transforming!

Villains died from talking too much. Fang Xiu would not do something as idiotic as standing around and waiting for someone else to finish transforming, only to let them turn the tables and kill him instead.

The instant Fang Xiu noticed something was wrong, he pulled the trigger without hesitation. Retreating while gripping the gun in both hands, he fired at the man. Just as the creature tried to pounce, its head was blown apart like a rotten watermelon, and it crashed to the ground.

Still not entirely at ease, Fang Xiu fired two more shots into the ground, afraid that this monster might pull the same trick he had earlier—playing dead.

After confirming that the man was truly dead, Fang Xiu began searching the body, taking the wallet, watch, and phone from it.

"What do I do with the corpse?" Fang Xiu looked at the creature's body. It was nearly two meters tall and no longer looked human at all. This completely shattered Fang Xiu's common sense about modern society. How could such a monster exist?

Fang Xiu looked around and happened to spot a sewer cover. He strained to lift it, shoved the corpse inside, then covered it back up.

After making sure nothing had been left behind, Fang Xiu took off his blood-soaked shirt, wiped the other man's blood and the tomato ketchup he had smeared on earlier from his face, then roughly wiped away the blood on the ground.

At that moment, Fang Xiu noticed the black cap the white man had worn. He picked it up and put it on, then mounted the man's electric scooter. Opening the delivery box at the back, he tossed his shirt inside—but then happened to see the sniper rifle in the box.

"What the hell happened to me today?"

Fang Xiu shut the delivery box and rode off shirtless on the electric scooter. With the brim of his cap lowered slightly to hide his face, he sped away, leaving behind the place that, to him, felt like a turning point in his life.

At a small hotel near East Gate District, Fang Xiu rented a temporary room. He did not dare go home for the next few days. At the very least, he had to figure out what was going on and make sure there was no danger before returning.

After showering, Fang Xiu leaned against the window and lit a cigarette. Watching the traffic flow below, he finally felt a wave of lingering fear and pressure rush over him.

Fang Xiu had never realized he possessed such courage—to make such a crazy move, then carry it out steadily without the slightest panic.

When he had pretended to be shot while facing the gun, he had felt the bullet graze past his neck, yet he had not felt the slightest emotion. It had been as though the person controlling his body then was not him, but someone else.

He had killed a terrifying, bloodthirsty killer as easily as slaughtering a pig or dog. When facing death, he had remained so calm that it was as though the person who had died was not him.

Then came the shooting, pushing the corpse into the sewer, and leaving. Everything had gone so smoothly that Fang Xiu could hardly believe it. He felt as though he had been dancing on a knife's edge, and the crucial thing was that he had danced flawlessly, like a born dancer.

Fang Xiu took a deep drag from his cigarette and exhaled. "Was I possessed by an Evil Ghost at the time? Or have I always craved the extraordinary deep down, always pursued this feeling of excitement and tension?"

Fang Xiu stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, then straightened up from beside the window.

"Now, let's sort out my thoughts. What should I do next?"

"First, figure out why that Killer wanted to kill me, and who he really was."

"Second, find out what exactly is going on with this ability of mine to keep being reborn!"