Caught Red-Handed

The tent was splattered with blood. Most of the bloodstains on its walls radiated outward.

Several army-green blankets were soaked through with blood. Even after all this time, they could still be wrung out. The whole scene looked as if some deranged killer had gone to great lengths to set it up, and it made one's scalp tingle.

One thing was clear: the human body was about 70% liquid. Not all of that liquid was blood, though. Normally, blood made up only 7% to 8% of a person's body weight.

To set up a scene like this, they'd probably need close to thirty pounds of blood.

In other words, the blood of all six people who'd lived in the tent was probably here.

"How vile! Seal off the area first. Make sure you find the bodies."

The calm voice sounded even icier. "Also, Xiao Li, take some men and gather the civilians nearby for questioning. Hah, I refuse to believe six living people could just vanish into thin air."

Soon, several sets of footsteps approached the tent where Lu Bai was staying.

Rustle~

Someone forcefully lifted the tent flap.

Two fully dressed soldiers hurried inside and rapped on the tent with their rifle butts.

"Get up. Now."

Gao Pangzi jolted awake and squinted as he cursed, "What the hell are you doing? Can't a guy get any sleep around here?!"

No one paid him any mind. His outburst did, however, help wake everyone else in the tent.

Lu Bai silently got up and sat upright.

One of the dark-skinned soldiers waved a hand. "Get dressed. Move it."

"Sir, did something happen?" The Frail Youth rubbed his eyes, his voice still weak and timid.

"Less talk. Hurry up."

The sky was only just beginning to lighten.

A dozen or so civilians stood scattered in a ring around the open area. There were men and women among them, but everyone looked somewhat irritated.

It couldn't be helped. Anyone forcibly dragged out of bed like this would be in a bad mood.

Especially when no one had even told them what was going on.

Inside the yellow caution tape, Zhou Zongming smoked with a grave expression.

He pointed at a few nearby tents with the hand holding his cigarette and asked, "These, these, and the ones over there—has everyone arrived?"

Six people were missing. Half a platoon of soldiers had searched the area for ages, but they'd found nothing.

There weren't any other clues in the tent, either. They couldn't even determine how many killers there had been, let alone find a suspicious footprint.

Surely no one could actually haul six bodies around?

"Company Commander, everyone's here."

The soldier giving the report seemed a little disappointed, too.

If any civilians had suddenly gone missing, they could at least have narrowed down the suspects.

Zhou Zongming tossed his Cigarette Butt onto the ground. "Have you questioned them all?"

"Yes. When it happened, no one heard a thing."

"Six people were killed without making a sound."

Zhou Zongming shot the soldier a sidelong glance. "Could you do that?"

The soldier smiled stiffly. "Honestly, if they were all asleep, it shouldn't be difficult."

"And after that? They drained the blood and packed up all six bodies to take them away."

"Uh, that part might be a problem."

The soldier thought it over, then added, "Company Commander, do you suspect there was more than one killer?"

"Whoever it was, they were definitely experienced... Damn it!"

Zhou Zongming stopped mid-sentence as he noticed someone craning his neck beside the tent flap, straining to peer inside.

That someone was, naturally, Lu Bai.

He'd been staring into the tent for quite a while.

The blood had soaked into the blankets unevenly. Some of it had congealed into clots, while some had been naturally squeezed into bubbles, leaving the surface lumpy and uneven.

It looked just like a stack of multigrain pancakes slathered in ketchup.

It didn't look like the work of an ordinary person at all.

"Hey! What are you doing, kid?"

Zhou Zongming hurried over and tried to pull him back.

He couldn't budge him.

Lu Bai turned around and smiled innocently. "I was just looking around."

Zhou Zongming assumed he hadn't pulled very hard. He waved a hand, signaling Lu Bai to get out of there.

"Can't you see the caution tape? Whatever you saw, forget it all."

Zhou Zongming glanced at the others. Because Lu Bai had lifted the tent flap, nearly all the residents gathered there had seen the scene inside. Cui Qing had even been so frightened that his legs gave way and he plopped onto the ground.

Zhou Zongming hadn't suspected Lu Bai. After all, a boy who looked like a high school student didn't usually seem dangerous, especially when he had such a bright smile.

Wait? Such a bright smile?

Zhou Zongming folded his arms and gave Lu Bai another look. "You're not scared?"

"Scared of what?"

Lu Bai replied casually, "Maybe I'm the killer. Doesn't everyone say that, psychologically speaking, killers usually like to return to the scene of the crime?"

Zhou Zongming was starting to get a headache. He didn't think Lu Bai was the killer. He was just a high schooler who behaved strangely.

If he had to pick someone from the civilians in the nearby tents, Gao Pangzi and his gang were actually more suspicious.

"All right, get back to bed."

Gulp, gulp, gulp~

At dusk, Lu Bai sat by the tent entrance and finished a bowl of egg-drop soup with seaweed. He smacked his lips and narrowed his eyes as he watched people coming and going.

The neighboring tent was still surrounded by caution tape, but the blood inside had long since been cleaned up.

All the daily necessities had been packed up and taken away as evidence.

Everyone who'd been taken in for questioning that morning had also been warned not to tell anyone about it.

Even if a few scraps of information had leaked out—no one knew whose doing—they'd be treated as no more than dinner-table gossip.

From the perspective of most residents, it had been an utterly ordinary day.

Lu Bai, however, had stayed on guard all day.

He knew perfectly well that a deathmatcher was nearby.

He didn't know why the other person had chosen to target ordinary people, but their ultimate goal would surely return to hunting deathmatchers.

"At this point..."

Lu Bai picked up his tray. "...I'd better eat first."

Time moved on regardless of anyone's wishes, and night fell once more.

Since they'd been dragged out of bed before dawn, they were tired early.

Gao Pangzi didn't even chat with his two lackeys as he usually did. His head had barely touched the pillow before he started snoring.

One after another, everyone in the tent drifted off to sleep.

Military tents were extremely good at blocking out light.

After the lights went out, it wasn't quite pitch-black, but it was close.

In the darkness, a groan that set one's teeth on edge rang out.

The faint light filtering through the gap in the tent flap was just enough to make out a silhouette.

It was someone holding a burly figure upside down.

Just like when slaughtering a chicken: first, you cut its neck, then grab it by both legs and hold it up to make it bleed faster.