"I should have killed you back then." The middle-aged man unfastened the top two buttons of his shirt, then rolled up his sleeves, revealing wrists covered in scars. "Today, I'll make up for my past mistake."
At his words, Zhou Jinwu's corpse laughed even more wildly. His eyes rolled eerily upward, showing wide swaths of white. "You really won't give up until you're staring death in the face, Director. Do you still think things are the way they were back then? I'm S-rank now, too. Today... I'm going to dig that door out of you!"
Before he'd even finished speaking, several more figures rushed out from the end of the corridor. There were guards with rigid expressions, as well as a woman with short hair and a no-nonsense look... Just like Zhou Jinwu, they had all been turned into puppets, and now they charged toward the middle-aged man with eerie strides.
"Hee hee hee..."
Without another moment's hesitation, the middle-aged man suddenly drew a pistol from his coat.
It was an old-fashioned revolver with a terrifyingly large caliber and a badly worn ivory grip.
"Bang!"
The muzzle flash lit up the man's stern face. The bullet, carrying tremendous force, didn't fly toward the puppets charging at him. Instead, as if he'd missed, it shot toward the distant ceiling.
A scream rang out, and a figure fell from the pitch-black ceiling.
He was a short, stooped fellow dressed in the sort of colorful costume street performers used to wear.
A severed arm lay beside him.
The puppeteer curled into a ball, clutching his severed arm and crying out in pain. The large-caliber bullet had torn through his limb. If he hadn't reacted quickly, it would have blown his head apart.
With the puppeteer gravely wounded, the puppets lost control and toppled