Seeking the Culprit!

[Skill Book: Blood Sickle Flying Blade]

[Quality: Fine]

[Requirement: 220 Ghost Power]

[Active Skill: Imbues a weapon with baleful blood energy. Upon activation, it can project Blood Sickle Flying Blades through the air. Up to three blades can be released in succession, dealing damage and inflicting a bleeding effect upon impact. It also knocks the target back five meters, though the knockback effect only triggers once.]

"Damn, talk about ask and you shall receive. Deng Zhiwei, are you here to play delivery boy?"

Li Ran decisively learned the skill book.

Soon, the method of execution and the description of the effects for Blood Sickle Flying Blade flooded into his brain.

Li Ran was lacking in every department, so he would take anything that could boost his combat power right now.

Blood Sickle Flying Blade was a versatile skill for both melee and ranged combat. The baleful blood energy attached to the weapon provided bonus damage, while the ranged release could fire three blades—perfect for knocking back enemies if they tried to close the distance too quickly.

"If used well, that knockback is basically a life-saver."

Li Ran continued to search the corpse, but unfortunately, he didn't find anything else.

"This monster ran out from the back kitchen of the Mutton Restaurant..."

Li Ran had an ominous premonition.

He stood up and walked into the Mutton Restaurant, his expression gradually turning grave.

He caught the scent of an incredibly thick, metallic stench of blood.

Reaching the back kitchen, Li Ran slowly pulled back the curtain.

His pupils contracted violently.

"Ugh!"

Li Ran nearly vomited on the spot.

Fortunately, everything he had experienced over the past few days had tempered his mental fortitude.

In the kitchen, he found two mangled, bloody corpses. They were unrecognizable, as if they had been killed and then gnawed upon by wild beasts; the state of their deaths was horrific.

But Li Ran knew that these two corpses were likely Grandma Mi's son and daughter-in-law.

The air in the kitchen was thick with flies, and the floor was crawling with maggots, indicating that the bodies had been dead for a long time.

Usually, a corpse begins to emit foul gases after three days, followed by decomposition and maggot infestation, which then attracts flies.

Yet, Deng Zhiwei had only been infected by the virus yesterday.

This meant that Deng Zhiwei was not the killer!

It had merely been drawn by the scent of blood to gnaw on the corpses...

Thinking of this, Li Ran immediately recalled Grandma Mi's request.

Grandma Mi had asked him to deliver a letter to her son, and if he couldn't deliver it, to return it to her.

Did this mean...

"Grandma Mi already guessed it?"

[Task Completed: Grandma Mi's Request]

[Reward: Ghost Power +20, Points +200]

[Task Triggered: Find the True Culprit!]

[Task Reward: Ghost Power +100, Points +1000, Fine Equipment x1, Fine Skill Book x1]

The cold sound of the task trigger rang out again, and Li Ran raised an eyebrow.

"As expected, this is part of the task chain. The request was just a way to trigger the task through map exploration; the real task is here."

"This should be the final link in Grandma Mi's task chain. With such generous rewards, the risks involved must be immense."

Li Ran furrowed his brows. "Since I have to investigate the killer, I can't overlook any details at the crime scene."

An hour later.

Li Ran stood at the entrance of the shop, breathing in the fresh air.

He had used his phone to take photos of the crime scene.

"It looks like a sharp weapon pierced directly through their heads. Both of them had a bowl-sized hole in their skulls, and their brains were splattered everywhere."

Li Ran recalled the scene of the murderous Wang Gan standing by the window, his body opening up like a pitcher plant, a bloody tongue licking the glass as he wrote the word "Death."

"Could Wang Gan have killed this couple?"

"My Golden Finger hint previously stated that Wang Gan is a heinous criminal with five lives on his hands."

"No, that's not right. The timeline doesn't match. There is surveillance in the Mutton Restaurant, and Wang Gan is afraid of being exposed."

"It seems that to get to the truth of this, I'll have to find other clues."

Li Ran looked thoughtfully at the other surveillance cameras outside the shop.

"The surveillance in this instance only serves to intimidate certain NPCs; it's essentially just for show. Even if I went to the property management office, no one would check the footage, and I'd likely just run into more virus-infected monsters."

Li Ran scanned the shop's dining area with a puzzled look, and a few lines of a golden prompt panel immediately appeared.

(The scene is very chaotic; something horrifying must have happened here.)

(The cheap rooms on the second floor of the shop are occupied by many unemployed drifters who like to eat here.)

(The scattered document fragments on the floor can provide you with important clues.)

Li Ran frowned slightly, stepped forward, and picked up the paper fragments from the floor.

When pieced together, the scraps of paper revealed a formal statement.

Employee Termination Notice

Mr. Yu Peng.

During your tenure as a business executive, you violated the company's strict regulations against leaking trade secrets, causing significant losses and severely damaging the company's interests. In accordance with the sanctions stipulated by the Company Legal Department, it has been decided to terminate your employment!

Please complete your resignation procedures within seven days and compensate the company for the loss of 5 million.

The company reserves the right to pursue all legal responsibilities against you.

Notice is hereby given!

Back Street, a certain dark alley.

"Handsome, want to play?"

Yu Peng lifted his eyelids slightly, sizing up the heavily made-up woman dressed in flashy attire.

"Yeah."

He nodded expressionlessly, and the woman immediately stepped forward to hook her arm into his.

Yu Peng followed the woman into a residential building with an iron gate, then followed her up to a suite on the third floor.

To be precise, it wasn't a suite, but a room partitioned into several small cubicles by thin, poorly soundproofed wooden boards.

The environment was dim; the cubicle contained only a stained bed, a nightstand, and a wastebasket overflowing with toilet paper.

The woman took off his clothes and worked very hard.

Yet, he couldn't muster the slightest bit of interest.

Through a small window, one could see the most prosperous part of the city, where high-rise buildings stood in rows and traffic flowed like a river.

Once, he too had belonged to that bustling place.

Now, there was no longer a place for him in this city.

He had worked diligently for ten years, finally buying a house in this city and becoming one of the many "mortgage slaves."

However, a single termination notice had ruthlessly cast him into hell.

Overnight, he was saddled with five million in debt, his house was seized, his bank cards and credit cards were frozen, all his friends and colleagues distanced themselves from him, and even his girlfriend suddenly left him.

He dragged his few remaining belongings to this residential area 20 miles away, used his last bit of cash to pay a deposit and one month's rent of 1,200, and stayed up late cleaning before finally sleeping. When he woke up in the morning and went to put his clothes in the washing machine, he remembered he didn't have one. He finally broke down, crouched on the floor, and cried for a while.

He often fantasized that he was a Swordfish in the Ocean, able to soar freely through the vast sea with no natural predators; if anyone dared to provoke him, he would kill the enemy with the sword on his head.

But reality was the complete opposite.

Anyone could trample all over him!

Being a person is truly exhausting.