Liu Shang

After the crossroads, nothing else happened.

Perhaps even the system thought it would be going too far to throw another jump-scare minigame at him along the way. In any case, Zhou You didn't see another Sinister Object before reaching his next destination.

As for Chang Song Slope... Calling it a slope was generous; it wasn't even as tall as a small hill. It was just a massive mound of earth, completely bare and almost devoid of vegetation. In the moonlight, it looked especially bleak.

Construction seemed to be underway at the foot of the slope. Building materials and tools were scattered around, but there wasn't a single worker in sight. Nor was there a night-shift security guard. The people in charge seemed unconcerned that anything might go missing, leaving everything piled carelessly to one side.

Of course, they were right.

After all, Zhou You couldn't imagine what kind of thief would brave such a hellish environment just to steal some tools.

Past the construction site, a path along the foot of the hill led to a villa district.

It seemed to have been developed alongside the construction site. Most of the buildings weren't finished, and only one opulent house stood at the very end of the road. From the looks of it, the company must have given someone special treatment and built it ahead of schedule.

"But who would go out of their way to come to a place like this, put up with the construction noise and the complete lack of amenities, and pay a fortune to have a villa built early? What a sucker..."

But Zhou You soon got his answer.

It was a gold-plated nameplate, with exquisite carvings and an unusual design. Anyone could tell it had been custom-made by hand at considerable expense.

Two conspicuous characters were engraved on it:

"Liu Shang."

The man who was probably the richest person in the city—and the mastermind behind everything.

"...All right, now I know who the sucker is. And I've got a feeling this place is the end of my patrol, too..."

Zhou You took a deep breath, raised his head, and looked over the villa again.

It exuded wealth, but not a single light was on. There wasn't even a security guard in sight.

"Is nobody home?"

Zhou You gently pushed the outer iron gate.

...It wasn't locked.

The inner door wasn't locked either.

The whole house seemed to be wide open, welcoming anyone and everyone without discrimination.

"Seriously? It's so obvious. Could it be a trap?"

Zhou You took a step back and examined the villa once more.

But there was nothing wrong with it.

Unlike the apartment buildings, the house didn't give off even the slightest sinister aura. He couldn't see any ghostly faces or shadows, either.

Everything was perfectly ordinary, like a typical home.

In the end, Zhou You could only shrug and push his way inside.

The villa's interior was just as lavish as its exterior. The entrance hall alone was at least a hundred square meters, and every detail spoke of incomparable extravagance. Just standing there made him feel as though he were in a palace built entirely of money.

But Zhou You didn't look at the decorations.

He lowered his head and gazed at the floor.

A thin layer of blood had been spread evenly across the expensive, jade-like stone.

And it wasn't confined to one spot. Every inch of the floor was coated in dark red blood, making the place look like the legendary Sea of Blood and Purgatory—

But Zhou You had more or less grown used to sights like this. It was even less shocking than the rotten stench of the pickled herring in Gui Po Shop. So he simply crouched down and lightly touched the blood.

Then he froze.

"Why is there only such a thin layer of blood?"

Still unconvinced, Zhou You tested it several more times. The blood was cold—extremely cold—which meant it had been outside the body for some time. He couldn't figure out why it hadn't clotted, though. More importantly, it was incredibly thin. The sight of it coating the entire hall was dramatic, but if he did the math...

There was probably only enough blood for one person.

Zhou You furrowed his brow. Finding no clues, he decided to set it aside for the moment and head upstairs.

But the moment he stepped onto the stairs, his foot suddenly slipped, and he nearly fell backward!

Luckily, he had always had good balance. After an impromptu burst of breakdancing, he managed to grab the railing and steady himself. Then he looked at what had caused him to slip...

His gaze went blank.

It was a length of intestine.

A very long length of intestine.

It stretched from behind Zhou You all the way to the foot of the stairs, lying there in a slimy trail. It was fresh... almost warm to the touch.

Zhou You estimated that it was about six or seven meters long.

He liked reading medical books, so he knew that the intestines of a healthy adult were about six or seven meters long in total.

Zhou You fell silent for a moment. Then he carefully stepped around the intestines and went upstairs.

The first thing he saw was a pair of kidneys.

When he opened the next door, he saw a spleen.

After that came the stomach, lungs, liver, gallbladder...

It was as if someone had taken a person apart piece by piece and laid the remains out as a path, specifically to guide someone to a certain place.

At last, when he reached the spot where the heart lay, Zhou You found himself standing before a large, gilded door.

By then, except for the bones, flesh, and head, he had seen enough to piece together a complete person.

Judging by the condition of the organs, the person had been old and extremely obese.

...He already had a guess as to who it was.

So he raised his hand and pointed the bell at the door. When it made no sound, he simply pushed the door open.

The room was even worse than the rest of the house.

Red and white covered every inch of his field of vision. The red was flesh—drained of blood and specially ground into mince. The white was fat, scattered around the room by someone.

There was nothing else in the room. No decorations, not even a bed. The only thing standing in the middle was a grotesque Bodhisattva Statue.

Zhou You recognized it.

It was the same one he'd seen at the orphanage, the thing the system had called the "Jixiang Jimiao Guimu Bodhisattva."

"Looks like... it all fits together now."

Carefully avoiding the fat and chunks of meat scattered across the floor, Zhou You walked around behind the statue. There, just as he'd expected, he found something.

It was an incredibly old face, sickly and twisted, yet unmistakably pampered and cruel.

At that moment, Zhou You met the person's eyes.

The pupils were still moving.

The man was alive.

And although they had never met before, Zhou You instantly recognized him.

Liu Shang.

Boss Liu.

The man who'd grown rich without conscience, withheld the poor sanitation workers' wages, and sacrificed countless children from the orphanage—the city's greatest...

The culprit behind it all.