Back into the Prison of Suppression

After dissecting Tai Sui, Li Fan had already given his family the clues about the subway.

After all that investigating, they had only managed to confirm that Unity Society's lair was inside the subway.

How was that any different from not investigating at all?

Auntie Zhang, on the other end of the phone, immediately grew flustered and replied in a trembling voice:

"Please forgive us. We're working as fast as we can to find them. We already have some leads, and we'll locate Unity Society's lair as quickly as possible!"

Li Fan said calmly:

"Find them. Take them out."

With that, he hung up.

Then he suddenly remembered that he seemed to have scolded that terrifying Blood Pearl earlier. He couldn't help feeling a little afraid.

He really needed to keep watching the big shots' movies. He couldn't stop learning how to project authority.

If all else failed, he could sign up for acting classes and practice...

Fortunately, they should find Unity Society's lair soon.

When they did, he could just have the Cleaning Association's people go in and fight.

Judging by the strength Blood Pearl had shown, his father, mother, and driver, Old Chen, were even stronger.

A mere bunch of Unity Society rats would be easy to deal with, wouldn't they?

As for him, of course he needed to do his own job in the Anomaly Bureau's Dissection Department.

After all, fighting Unity Society was the Collector's responsibility. What did that have to do with him, Li Fan?

Certain they could soon wipe out Unity Society and restore peace to Gu City, sparing him the misfortune of a promotion, Li Fan felt his spirits lift.

When he returned to the hospital room, Liu Dalong had already sat up on his own and was eating a banana.

He seemed much calmer than he had been at first.

But the look he gave Li Fan was still so gentle that it made Li Fan feel a little uneasy.

"Fan, I'm fine now. They were only superficial injuries to begin with. I'm going to get discharged and head back to the Bureau. We're short on people right now."

Li Fan was taken aback. Had Liu Dalong actually taken what he'd said earlier to heart?

He couldn't have Liu Dalong overwork himself or get scared into asking to step down as deputy director.

He hurriedly urged him, "Director Liu, you fainted too. You need to rest. You can't push yourself too hard. If you wear yourself out, it'll be a loss for the department—no, for the Bureau!"

Liu Dalong was determined. He got out of bed, put on his clothes, and was ready to leave the hospital.

There was nothing Li Fan could do but take a cab back to the Anomaly Bureau with him.

The entire Anomaly Bureau was brightly lit. The large-scale outbreak of anomalies in Gu City that night had clearly made a huge impact.

Fortunately, it had already been brought under control.

At the Dissection Department's office, a crowd of colleagues were rushing around with work. Even Zhang Hongbing and Ma Lihua had returned from the hospital.

As soon as Li Fan and Liu Dalong came back, everyone in the department gave them a rousing round of applause.

"Nice work, Section Chief Li!"

"Great job, Fan!"

"That was brave! Hahaha, Director Liu was impressive too!"

"To be honest, I wasn't convinced when you became section chief at first. But now, I can see you've earned it!"

"Definitely a second-class merit! Maybe even first-class!"

"Wouldn't a third-class merit put you ahead in the promotion queue? Your future's limitless!"

Wu Qian said with a smile:

"Fan, I already had Ke Ke submit the application for your commendation to the Bureau. You personally rescued a colleague from an anomaly, even at the risk of your own life! It reflects well on me as department head!"

Liu Dalong was naturally pleased to see Li Fan being treated this way. He even felt a second-class merit was too modest, and thanked Li Fan again.

Li Fan was caught off guard and hurriedly waved his hands.

"No, please don't, Director Wu. I only did something insignificant. How could that possibly earn me a second-class merit?"

He had never imagined that even after dodging Liu Dalong, another hurdle would be waiting for him here.

Ahead in the promotion queue? Wasn't that going to ruin everything for him?

Wu Qian clasped Li Fan's hands. The more he looked at this modest, cautious young man, the more he liked him. He spoke with heartfelt sincerity:

"Young man, was saving Director Liu's life an insignificant matter? There's a limit to how modest you should be. We didn't steal or cheat to earn this. It's entirely deserved. You have to get that second-class merit!"

The department's performance this year was bound to be outstanding.

They'd be able to hold their heads high even in front of the Investigation Department.

Liu Dalong was safe, Li Fan had earned a merit, and the entire Dissection Department was doing fine. On top of that, everyone had pulled together to work overtime. Wu Qian was deeply gratified.

It was just that Li Fan was too honest.

People who were too honest got taken advantage of in government offices. He'd have to talk to him about it later.

Raising a hand to stop Li Fan from saying more, Wu Qian turned to everyone.

"All right, let's get back to work."

Thanks to the lead-in from Xidelong, nobody had any qualms about working overtime this time. They quickly got back into the swing of things.

There were seven bodies in the Dissection Room. They all looked relatively intact and normal on the outside, nothing like the earlier, stranger cases.

In a tray nearby lay a small heap of things that looked like clumps of granulation tissue.

"These are the people who died after being infected by anomalies tonight. Three were killed in legitimate self-defense by other people, three were shot by the police while committing violent crimes, and one fell from a building and died."

There hadn't been enough time tonight. The Investigation Department hadn't even put together the case files and had sent the bodies straight over.

Wu Qian had to explain things himself.

"This pile in the tray consists of anomaly infection sources pulled out of other infected people. They've all lost their vitality. The Investigation Department wants us to dissect them and take a look."

Six bodies had already been dissected, so it was clear the others had started working earlier.

Li Fan immediately took over the last body and teamed up with Ke Ke.

The body belonged to a middle-aged man. He was covered in blood and had several broken bones. He was clearly the one who had fallen from the building.

"Li Fan, I was going to ask you to see a movie tonight. I'd already bought the tickets, but unfortunately..." Ke Ke said softly, regretfully, as she recorded the details.

"Tonight's the premiere of Legend of the Dian King. I heard it's pretty good. It's even premiering in theaters and online at the same time..."

Li Fan was surprised. "Is that movie popular? I also saw a TV series called Ancient Dian Dynasty. Are they part of the same series?"

His voice was a little loud, and Hu Zhengqi heard him from nearby. He chimed in:

"Yeah. Ever since they discovered the Ancient Dian King Tomb while building the subway, our city built a museum and created all kinds of cultural spin-offs around it. Everyone in Gu City knows about the ancient Gutuo Kingdom and the Dian King. People feel a special connection to them."

The subway?!

Li Fan suddenly felt as if he'd noticed something. He followed up with a question:

"Did they completely excavate the Ancient Dian King Tomb in the subway? Could anything have been left behind?"

Hu Zhengqi waved his hand. "How could they have? It was one of the year's top ten archaeological discoveries. The people at the Cultural Relics Bureau acted like they hadn't seen food in ages. They didn't leave so much as a brick in the Dian King's tomb. They moved everything to the museum."

Li Fan nodded and said nothing more.

Liu Dalong hadn't been assigned any work. Seeing Li Fan busy, he came over to help out.

With a skilled dissector like Liu Dalong lending a hand, the work went much more smoothly.

In Liu Dalong's hands, the body seemed to have come with its own anatomical diagram. He opened it up bit by bit.

He didn't even need Li Fan's lighter to find and remove a small nerve and blood vessel adhesion around the sternum.

They finished faster than at any of the other dissection tables.

Li Fan tossed the thing into the pile of granulation tissue, then walked over to take a closer look.

Some of the pieces still had unclotted blood on them. They looked as if they'd been cut straight out of living bodies.

He had no idea who could be so cruel.

He could sense that all these clumps carried anomalous mental radiation similar to that of the Human-Faced Snake.

There were over a thousand of them.

That was far too many...

Thinking back to the Spider-Legged Monster he'd encountered earlier, there had also been hundreds, if not a thousand, Human-Faced Snakes inside its body.

If these infection sources were released all over Gu City, it would cause an absolute disaster.

Tonight alone had already sparked panic.

But that was all it had done.

Li Fan felt something was off again.

It was just too strange.

What exactly was Unity Society up to?

From the earliest Shell Currency infection cases to the archaeological team merging with a tree, the Human-Faced Snakes, Tai Sui, and tonight's panic...

If they really had some grand plan targeting Gu City, why not release everything at once? Why squeeze it out bit by bit, like toothpaste?

Just to cause small-scale panic?

Other than making the people of Gu City uneasy and giving them something to talk about over dinner, it served no purpose.

Well, aside from making Li Fan work overtime.

Li Fan left the Dissection Room, changed into his own clothes, and went to the break room to look up information about the ancient Gutuo Kingdom online.

Soon, countless rumors about the ancient Gutuo Kingdom appeared before him.

Some said the corpses in hospital morgues came back to life at night because the ghosts of the ancient Gutuo Kingdom had awakened.

At one in the morning, a subway train from the underworld supposedly appeared and took anyone waiting for the subway at that hour into the tombs of the ancient Gutuo Kingdom.

If a couple watched Ancient Dian Dynasty together and then broke up, King Dian Li would claim their lives.

Some people had seen ghosts crawling out of the ground beneath Gu City and climbing up tall buildings. They were supposedly from the Dian King's tomb beneath the city.

If you played Pen Immortal on a Tuesday night, you'd encounter the ghost of King Dian Li.

And so on.

These rumors were mostly based on the idea that King Dian Li's tomb lay beneath Gu City, then spun off into a whole series of bizarre urban legends.

They were a little like viral marketing for the movie Legend of the Dian King.

But deep down, Li Fan felt that he might have grasped something.

Perhaps he still needed to search for answers in the Spider-Legged Monster they'd just captured...

With that thought, Li Fan stood and headed for the nearest door.

He remembered that the Spider-Legged Monster had already become a corpse. He'd been too hasty... Hopefully there was still a breath of life left in it...

As he thought this, his hand had already found the doorknob.

He closed his eyes, silently recited "Prison of Suppression," and opened the door.

The musty smell unique to a prison drifted into his nostrils.