Hunter

Lan Mu had figured it out. Wang Jinghu really was a police officer; his identity was genuine.

But Wang Jinghu was also someone connected to Boss Zhao, so he had exploited Lan Mu's trust in the police to trick him into their lair.

This Boss Zhao was very likely the owner of the villa, perhaps even one of the Poaching Gang's masterminds.

At the very least, the poachers' supposed connections in Fuzhou definitely had something to do with Boss Zhao.

"We're finished... I'm screwed this time."

Without changing expression, Lan Mu slipped his hand into his pocket and started recording on his phone. He had done this sort of thing often enough that he could do it with his eyes closed.

Sure enough, he was led inside the villa, where he immediately saw several familiar faces—the poachers he had remembered from when his life had been threatened.

Huang Sheng and the Old Hunter were among them, chatting with a middle-aged man seated at the head of the room.

When they saw Lan Mu being brought in, everyone fell silent. Huang Sheng stared at him coldly and even reached up to touch his neck and ears.

Huang Sheng had been bitten and mauled by Lan Mu and Leopard Cat Cat. His ears had been bitten to shreds, and now, wrapped in bandages like some bandage-crazed maniac, he looked even more vicious and insane.

"Hah..."

Lan Mu knew he would get no mercy after falling into these people's hands. They would never let him go.

Though fear filled Lan Mu's heart, he remained calm and kept thinking of a way out.

"Boss Zhao, this is the reporter!" The Old Hunter pointed at Lan Mu, confirming they had caught the right person.

Boss Zhao smiled. "I've heard of your group's reputation. You actually got beaten by him? I heard he was just some little reporter from out of town."

"He's not that simple. He survived alone in Fanli Mountain for seven days with nothing on him. We threw him down from the mountainside back then, but it seems he didn't even suffer any serious injuries," the Old Hunter said.

Huang Sheng chimed in, "That's right. What's even stranger is that the wild leopard didn't hurt him—it even helped him attack me!"

Boss Zhao said, "This little reporter has nowhere to go. You can question him slowly."

"That leopard will be released into the wild in a few days. Fanli Mountain will be watched very closely for a while. What a shame—I really wanted that leopard."

"But let it go if it must! It isn't that important. The most important thing is that White Lion!"

Boss Zhao leaned forward and said without any concern for Lan Mu's presence, "I looked into it. No one in the country keeps this kind of white lion. You don't need to worry about anything. That lion may not even have an owner."

The Old Hunter said anxiously, "It can't be wild. There couldn't possibly be a wild White Lion in Fanli Mountain."

"I don't care! I'm getting that White Lion no matter what! Whether it has an owner is none of your concern!"

They spoke openly in front of Lan Mu, and the more he heard, the heavier his heart became. He knew that no matter what happened afterward, there was no chance they would suddenly grow a conscience and let him leave.

"Watch that reporter carefully. Without him as a witness, the people you had arrested will be released soon enough. Two trucks and a few empty cages can't serve as evidence. I'll have lawyers handle it."

"Take him to the basement. As for the White Lion, I only want results." After saying that, Boss Zhao directly led some people out of the villa.

Lan Mu froze, secretly thinking that Boss Zhao was quite cautious. Even if this villa belonged to him, he probably did not come here often. It was likely a place specifically meant for shady business.

Boss Zhao took half the people with him when he left. Besides the eight poachers, only four burly men belonging to him remained behind.

As soon as they left, Huang Sheng lunged at Lan Mu and kicked him to the ground.

Pain flashed across Lan Mu's face, but he did not resist. Instead, he immediately reached into his pocket and shut off his phone.

Sure enough, the poachers dragged him toward the garage, where a door led down to the basement.

Huang Sheng searched him roughly and took everything he had. Seeing that his phone was off, he paid it no attention and tossed it, along with the other miscellaneous items, into an iron barrel in the garage.

When Lan Mu entered the basement, he saw quite a few crude Hunting Rifles, along with some poaching equipment. Clearly, they had hidden the evidence here.

"As long as this place is exposed, none of them will get away! And the evidence is conclusive! Then I won't have to worry about them coming after me anymore."

"But... I can barely protect myself right now!"

He lowered his head in thought, only to suddenly receive a slap. Huang Sheng bound him with rope. Lan Mu still had a gunshot wound in his arm, and when the rope tightened, the pain pierced straight to his bones.

Lan Mu glared at Huang Sheng with hatred and could not help growling, "Bastard, I shouldn't have let you go back then!"

Only after giving him another savage beating did Huang Sheng say, "Let me go? If I hadn't been careless, do you think you could have escaped?"

Lan Mu said nothing. He had meant that when he had still been the White Lion, dealing with those six poachers, he should not have let them leave. At the very least, he should have crippled them. Then, after returning to human form, none of this would have happened.

But it was too late for regrets. Nothing he said would matter now. Lan Mu was interrogated in despair, especially by Huang Sheng, who was particularly vicious and came up with all sorts of ways to torture him, as though nothing else could ease the hatred in his heart.

All these poachers wanted to know was where the White Lion was and why the wild leopard had helped him.

Lan Mu could not answer a single one of those questions. The White Lion was himself—how was he supposed to answer?

Therefore, his silence was taken as stubborn secrecy, and before long, he was tortured until he was barely alive.

These people showed no mercy at all. Each one was more ruthless than the last, because in their eyes, Lan Mu was someone bound to die sooner or later!

As Lan Mu's entire body went numb and his consciousness drifted, the sound of their interrogation kept echoing in his ears.

"Where is the White Lion? Where is the White Lion? Where is the White Lion?"

Lan Mu's mind was pushed to its limit. At last, he roared, "I'm the fucking White Lion!"

A flash of bloody light streaked through his hazy consciousness. Lan Mu's eyes snapped open, every cell in his body began to boil, and then, like dominoes toppling one after another, a genetic transformation began from within. It ended in the blink of an eye.

He felt incredibly refreshed. All the pain from his repeated torture vanished, while strength surged through him in wave after wave.

His five senses were sharply enhanced, and even his Sixth Sense naturally spread out, allowing him to sense every living thing throughout the villa grounds.

Through his gaze, which seemed to penetrate the walls, each living creature appeared as a bloody silhouette, like prey...

The poachers interrogating him were all stunned, as though they had witnessed something impossible.

Lan Mu unconsciously took a step forward, instantly snapping the ropes around him. Familiar power flowed through his entire body.

"This feeling! I... I changed again?" Lan Mu looked himself over. Sure enough, he had become the White Lion again.

Only, he felt somewhat weak, and there was still a small hole in his abdomen—the gunshot wound the Old Hunter had inflicted back then.

"After transforming, the injuries on my human body are healed, but the White Lion's wounds remain as they were before I turned back into a human?"

Lan Mu was lost in thought when a burst of commotion suddenly snapped him back to attention.

The poachers had begun scrambling to flee, charging toward the basement door.

Huang Sheng ran faster than anyone, terror written all over his face.

Lan Mu gritted his teeth in hatred. With a sudden charge, he crashed through everyone and blocked the doorway.

He had not held back with that impact. Every one of them was badly injured and knocked to the floor, howling in pain.

Lan Mu stretched out his terrifying beastly body, standing upright like a beastman. His blood-red eyes fixed on them as he spoke in human words.

"Weren't you looking for the White Lion?"

"I'm right in front of you!"

Lan Mu held nothing back, fully releasing the killing intent that this born Hunter felt toward prey.

The poachers were like Lord Ye's Love of Dragons—every one of them collapsed in terror!

One moment ago, he had been a human being tortured before their eyes. The next, as if in a dream, they watched him turn into the White Lion.

He could even walk upright, possessed immense strength, and could speak human language.

What the hell was this? A monster?

As Lan Mu looked at the poachers now completely at his mercy, he finally felt an unprecedented sense of security. Compared to before, he was much better after transforming.

Strength far beyond that of humans at least gave him the ability to protect himself.

Counting it this way, he had transformed into the White-haired Lionman twice, and both times he had clawed his way back from the brink of death.

"So I've always retained the ability to transform. I was just too clever for my own good and thought everything was over..."

"But this is good! This feeling is good!"

Lan Mu first grabbed Huang Sheng and lifted him up like a chick.

Huang Sheng's legs trembled wildly. He had even ** himself, screaming, "Monster! You're a monster!"

"A monster? Maybe... maybe I really am a monster..."

Seeing him still struggling wildly, Lan Mu directly slashed off both Huang Sheng's arms with his claws. Blood sprayed down, and the others went mad, all of them squeezing into the basement corners.

Huang Sheng howled in agony. Perhaps the intense pain instead stirred up his viciousness. Rather than fear, fury filled him as he shouted, "You're fucking dead! I'll kill you! I'll definitely kill you! You're not a monster! You're Lan Mu, aren't you? It's you, right?"

"You were like a dead dog when Laozi—"

"Squelch!" Lan Mu merely extended one finger, and his claw pierced straight into Huang Sheng's heart without the slightest resistance.

"Huang Sheng, after hunting so many wild animals, did you ever think that one day, a monster would hunt you? You take pride in killing people, but did you ever think that one day, you would be killed too?"

Lan Mu withdrew his finger and casually tossed down Huang Sheng's corpse. Even in death, his expression remained twisted, still filled with venomous resentment.

The other poachers stared at him in horror, but the Old Hunter seemed to have calmed down. Suppressing his fear, he actually shouted, "Don't be afraid! He's not a monster! He can still be hurt by bullets!"

With that, the Old Hunter picked up a hunting rifle from the basement and fired at him!

Lan Mu had just dropped Huang Sheng's corpse and was caught off guard. He took the shot with a muffled groan, hit squarely in the chest.

Seeing that bullets worked, the poachers grabbed Hunting Rifles and began firing.

After a barrage of gunfire, the basement door was riddled with bullet holes, but Lan Mu was nowhere to be seen, as though he had vanished into thin air.

"Where did he go?"

"He disappeared!"

"He really is a monster! Run!"

At that moment, the iron door was kicked open. Boss Zhao's men, who had remained in the villa, rushed in and roared, "What are you doing? Why are you firing guns everywhere?!"

But then they too were stunned, because they saw Huang Sheng lying in a pool of blood!

"This! What happened?"

The poachers ignored them. They had been terrified by Lan Mu's sudden disappearance and rushed out of the basement at the fastest speed of their lives, as if staying there one second longer meant danger.

Lan Mu watched them flee but did not reveal himself immediately.

That shot had hurt badly enough to make him furious, but he still remained calm enough.

He had immediately turned invisible and dodged, which was why he had not been struck by the hail of bullets.

Not a single one of these people would escape. The White Lion was a born Hunter. What it excelled at was not killing head-on, but watching prey from the shadows and delivering a fatal blow—pursuing its prey like a hunt!

One by one, the poachers ran out of the basement. Just as the last person was about to step outside, a claw suddenly thrust up through his chin. His spine shattered instantly, and he died on the spot.

Lan Mu's first target was the last poacher to leave the basement. He killed him with a single strike, attacking instantly from invisibility and piercing the back of his neck.

After dealing with him, Lan Mu automatically became visible because of the fight, but he immediately turned invisible again. The fleeting white beastly silhouette terrified the other poachers even more.

The poachers ran wildly through the villa the moment they escaped the basement, charging straight for the courtyard with guns in hand.

Boss Zhao's four men who remained behind had no idea what was happening. They had never seen the White Lion and thought these people had gone mad!

"What are you doing? Stop right there! You can't just rush out like this!"

"Get out of the way! Don't block us!" The Old Hunter had truly gone mad and pointed his gun directly at the four men.

"You've lost your mind! Boss Zhao won't let you off if he finds out!" Those four men also drew their guns.

"Hmph! Even if Boss Zhao himself were here, it wouldn't matter! Move aside!"

The Old Hunter roared. Every second, he felt the threat of death hanging over him.

The moment he realized his opponent could disappear, his instincts, sharpened through years of hunting, immediately warned him.

He understood what that kind of monster meant. It was a born Hunter. You never knew where it would pounce from and kill you in an instant. That invisible threat of death was the most terrifying thing of all!

The Old Hunter was experienced. The more he knew, the more terrified he became! The more he felt that survival was hopeless!

He looked around wildly, but he could not see even a trace of the White Lion. Not only that, he could not even hear its footsteps.

Yet his instincts told him that it was nearby! It was even drawing closer, inch by inch!

The deathly Hunter kept approaching without making a sound. That massive White Lion body moved like a night cat, utterly silent.

An invisible killer—truly death itself.