New Beginning

Around 2 a. m., all of the other party's companions were already dead. Who would call the gang leader at this time?

He walked to the car, gently took the other person's phone out of their pocket, and pressed the call button.

The number displayed is "Unknown Caller".

Throughout the entire process, Qing Chen used the fingers of his other hand to press on the phone's camera, preventing anyone from taking a picture of his face through the phone, even though he was still wearing a mask.

The other end of the phone remained silent, seemingly waiting for the leader of the criminals to speak first.

However, Qing Chen remained silent on the other end of the phone.

The person on the other end realized what was happening and chuckled, "They're already dead, aren't they?"

Qing Chen remained silent.

The voice on the phone continued laughing, "Since they're already dead, why don't we have a chat?"

Qing Chen didn't linger. He used the gang leader's trench coat to wipe the fingerprints off his phone, then imprinted the other man's fingerprints on it, stuffed it into the trench coat, and then slowly walked into the night.

He was thinking that these were just seven thugs who couldn't even afford bionic skin, yet they were already nearly taking half his life.

At this moment, Qing Chen suddenly realized that his wonderful life seemed to have just begun.

The fire on Laojun Mountain was brought under control in the early morning, leaving the guesthouses along the entire street in a dilapidated, gray-black state.

Some tourists were crying in the street, while others squatted by the roadside, looking bewildered.

Seven black SUVs sped up the mountain. They made a brief stop at the accident scene on the mountain road, then left one car with people to conduct a thorough search while the others continued up the mountain.

Lu Yuan arrived at the Cloud Inn, looking at the charred building, lost in thought.

Before him lay the corpses of two Kunlun members, and beside them were the bodies of several gang leaders.

Lu Yuan resisted the urge to look at his comrade-in-arms, and instead squatted down to perform a preliminary autopsy on the perpetrator.

"There were a total of eight criminals. The one on the mountain road was probably the mastermind. He had his spleen punctured during his escape. We found other people's footprints on the mountain, but what's a bit puzzling is that the killer didn't seem to be wearing shoes."

"We found bloody footprints on the ground, and the blood has been extracted for DNA comparison."

"There were seven thugs near the inn. One of them had his knee crushed in the parking lot, but he's still alive. The other person clearly had the ability to kill him but didn't, as if they were keeping him alive specifically for us to interrogate."

"Of the remaining six criminals, two were burned beyond recognition, one was shot, and the remaining three all had their spleens pierced with extremely precise techniques, suggesting they were likely professional killers."

"Lu, some students said that Wrench and Hawthorn helped open the gate before they died, otherwise more than forty students wouldn't have been able to escape... They didn't disgrace Kunlun."

Lu Yuan listened silently to his subordinates' report. A mountain breeze blew by, and his nose suddenly felt sore.

The wind howled and wailed, stirring up the ashes from the fire.

Lu Yuan rubbed his nose; now was not the time to be sentimental.

He squatted down to examine the assailant's wounds and the location where the body had been found, marked by his men.

The first body was found next to the Cloud Inn, but that was not the scene of the crime.

Kunlun members found bloodstains and drag marks on the road outside the gate.

Lu Yuan calmly said, "Someone must have killed him on the road under the cover of night, and then dragged him to the neighbor's yard. The fire burned the building but did not spread to the yard."

Looking at the assailant's wounds, Lu Yuan was increasingly astonished.

The subordinate's analysis was absolutely correct; all of these thugs were killed with a single blow.

Moreover, regardless of whether the knife was inserted from behind or from the front, the tip of the knife ultimately pierced the spleen with pinpoint accuracy.

"Strange, why only puncture the spleen?" Lu Yuan wondered. "Is there some special fetish or habit involved?"

He followed the marks his men had made and walked to the back of the courtyard.

This should be the second crime scene, where the killer murdered the second assailant before entering the courtyard.

Lu Yuan asked, "How are those students doing?"

The subordinate said, "Three of them are seriously injured. Two of them Hu Xiaoniu and Zhang Tianzhen, were shot in the abdomen by the thugs. Fortunately, they were only hit in the intestines. They've been taken down the mountain for surgery, and their lives will definitely be saved."

The subordinate continued to report, "There's another one named Wang Yun, but the girl's injuries are very strange. According to her, she was shot in both legs by a masked thug, and was eventually dragged out of the inn by a student named Nan Gengchen, otherwise she would have burned to death inside."

Lu Yuan frowned. "Masked?"

"Hmm," the subordinate nodded, "I suspect this isn't the thug, but the one who killed him."

"No doubt about it, it's definitely him. And keep an eye on Wang Yun; there's something fishy about her. The person who helped us kill the thugs wouldn't have shot her twice for no reason," Lu Yuan said. "By the way, why is Nan Gengchen in the inn?"

"It's said he was dragged into the inn by thugs to commit the crime," the subordinate explained. "But he looked neat and tidy, so he didn't seem like he'd been in any trouble."

"Then he must have met the murderer, or perhaps the murderer saved him on a whim," Lu Yuan analyzed. "Did he find out anything?"

The subordinate replied, "He said the killer was about 176 cm tall, barefoot, and had slight crow's feet around his eyes, looking like he was in his thirties."

Lu Yuan nodded. "Then let's search within this area for now. Nan Gengchen is the first eyewitness, and his testimony is the most reliable."

Everyone returned to the front door, to where the bodies were laid out.

Lu Yuan looked at the dilapidated street and pondered deeply. Of the eight thugs, seven were dead: one was shot, one was kneeling in the parking lot, and one was killed by his Kunlun teammates.

The remaining four people all died from ruptured spleens, meaning that the opponent attacked four times and succeeded each time.

This person is very dangerous, but Lu Yuan suddenly didn't want to investigate further because this person had avenged his teammates.

On the way to catch the murderer, the Kunlun team members found countless bloody footprints. They could hardly imagine what kind of willpower the other party had to carry out and kill the criminals one by one with sheer courage.

Lu Yuan at the other corpses and suddenly noticed a detail. "Only the thug at the door was missing his walkie-talkie. He should have been the first to die... No other walkie-talkies were found at the scene, so the missing walkie-talkie should still be on the killer."

The next moment, Lu Yuan suddenly picked up the walkie-talkie from another thug. He took a deep breath and then pressed the call button, "Hello, this is Lu Yuan from Kunlun."

However, no one answered him in the mountain wind.

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