Liang Wenbin

A young police officer hurried forward and respectfully reported to the middle-aged officer. "Captain Liang, all exits have been sealed!"

Only when Chen Mochuan heard the title "Captain Liang" did he remember who the middle-aged officer was.

Liang Wenbin! Captain of the Special Situation Brigade of the Antu City Police Department, a Martial Artist in the Third Realm, the "Inner Scene" Realm, and one of the pillars of Antu City's police force.

Chen Mochuan followed local news every day and had seen Liang Wenbin handling major incidents on television more than once. He had also watched interview clips. At last, he put the name to the face.

He hadn't expected a few Ferocious Rats to alarm such an important figure.

But then he reconsidered. Ferocious Beasts posing a serious threat had been found in a bustling downtown area. The situation was extremely serious, so it made sense for Liang Wenbin to come in person and take command to ensure nothing went wrong.

Seeing that the student before him, despite his pale face and disheveled clothes, remained composed and recounted events clearly, Liang Wenbin's tense expression eased slightly.

He then gestured for a young officer who had been waiting nearby to step forward. In a safe spot just beyond the police cordon, the officer quickly took a concise statement from Chen Mochuan.

As the young officer recorded Chen Mochuan's account of the danger he'd faced, the special police officers searching the alley reported to Liang Wenbin over their radios one after another:

"Captain Liang, we found two Ferocious Rats. Both have been killed!"

"Report! No other people trapped inside!"

"Report! No further signs of Ferocious Rat activity so far. We're expanding the search and conducting a thorough sweep!"

Just as everyone thought the threat had been mostly dealt with—

BOOM!!!

A muffled, thunderous impact suddenly rang out from deep in the alley!

Liang Wenbin's hawk-sharp gaze snapped toward the source. His expression turned grave in an instant. He blurred forward like a black arrow loosed from a bow, a fierce gust trailing behind him as he shot into the alley.

He moved so fast that Chen Mochuan's vision blurred. Liang Wenbin had vanished into the darkness, leaving only the fading rush of air in his wake.

Barely more than a minute later, Chen Mochuan saw Liang Wenbin emerge from the shadows of the alley.

In his left hand, he carried the carcass of an extraordinarily large rodent. It dwarfed ordinary Ferocious Rats, standing about as big as a calf. Its sleek fur was black as pitch, and its savage fangs jutted out.

"This definitely isn't an ordinary Ferocious Rat," Chen Mochuan muttered, furrowing his brow.

The Ferocious Rats described in his Martial Arts General Knowledge textbook and online were no bigger than adult border collies at most.

He had never heard of one this huge.

Liang Wenbin casually dropped the giant rat's carcass on the ground. It landed with a dull thud.

His expression cold, he said to the young officer who had just finished taking the statement, "This one was the culprit. It evolved into a Ferocious Rat King and reached second-tier strength. It also mastered a special technique for concealing its presence. That's how it slipped past the layers of security around the perimeter and led this pack of little rats into the city without anyone noticing..."

"Hand its body over to the research institute properly. Have them study its concealment ability in particular and see if they can develop countermeasures as soon as possible."

"Understood!" the young officer replied, quickly recording Liang Wenbin's instructions on his terminal. They were all crucial details for the incident report.

Nothing else major happened after that. Every so often, a brief, faint noise came from inside the alley, but it soon died away.

On one occasion, Liang Wenbin darted into the alley, but he returned not long afterward with a livid expression and empty hands. He'd found nothing.

After the officers repeatedly combed every inch of the alley and confirmed there was nothing else amiss, the team began to regroup. They had killed and collected a total of three ordinary Ferocious Rats.

However, one team of officers brought back a man and a woman who looked disheveled and alarmed, with a dazed, hazy air about them.

From the officers' additional reports, Chen Mochuan finally learned the full story behind the muffled, thunderous impact:

The officers had found the Ferocious Rat King during their thorough search. Perhaps sensing the threat Liang Wenbin posed outside the alley, it hadn't tried to ambush anyone. Instead, it had smashed through a manhole cover in an attempt to escape into the sewers.

But the sewer entrance was too small to accommodate its enormous body. Liang Wenbin caught up and killed it.

Meanwhile, as the officers searched deeper into the alley, they had stumbled upon the pair in the open courtyard of a shop that had closed for the night, in the middle of an illicit tryst.

At the same time, a Ferocious Rat that hadn't been found earlier was startled and suddenly darted out of the shadows.

With protecting the public as their sworn duty, the officers put themselves between the terrified pair and the rat.

In the confusion, the Ferocious Rat had one leg broken, but while the officers were busy shielding the pair, it slipped through the manhole the Ferocious Rat King had smashed open earlier.

Though Liang Wenbin had been commanding the operation, the moment he heard the radio call and sensed something was wrong, he gave chase. But he was a step too late and failed to stop the Broken-Legged Ferocious Rat from escaping.

Though Liang Wenbin had already learned what happened while directing the operation, his expression remained sour.

The pair's outrageous behavior had not only put them in danger but also marred what had otherwise been a flawless operation, leaving behind the serious safety hazard of a Broken-Legged Ferocious Rat on the loose!

One short-tempered officer, his anger bottled up, strode over and barked at the pair, "After we sealed every entrance and exit, we used a high-powered loudspeaker to make three rounds of announcements, asking over and over whether anyone inside needed rescuing! Are you deaf?! You didn't react at all, and you were still in a place like this..."

He swallowed the cruder words that had nearly escaped him. He was clearly furious.

The disheveled woman bowed her head and trembled, mumbling without answering.

The man, however, shifted his eyes and weakly replied, "We... were... too... too caught up in it. We... didn't hear the announcement..."

At that, the hot-tempered officer's forehead veins bulged. He instinctively raised a foot to kick the man, but someone beside him hurriedly held him back.

"That's enough!" Liang Wenbin said, his voice low but commanding. "Take them both to the station and question them separately! Find out whether they took any illegal drugs and whether they were in a normal state of mind at the time!"

His sharp gaze swept over their dazed, unfocused expressions. He already had his suspicions.

He knew that reaction all too well from his more than ten years working in a department tasked specifically with cracking down on illegal drugs: they were high as kites!

Watching the pair get hustled into a police car rather roughly, Chen Mochuan couldn't help sighing.

They looked even younger than he was, probably still high school students, yet they'd done something so outrageous in an alley late at night.

If the police notified their school and confirmed what had happened, the minimum punishment would be probation at school. If things were bad enough, they might even lose their student status.

Liang Wenbin forced down his anger and instructed the officers to contact the city's drainage authority for assistance at once. They had to organize a force as soon as possible to capture the Broken-Legged Ferocious Rat that had escaped into the sewers.

Then he casually took Chen Mochuan's statement from the young officer and began reading it.