You Just Know You're Going to Die! (Two-in-one)

A little after nine at night.

A long, pitch-black alley.

After work, Brian wore a hood, his whole body hidden beneath his sweatshirt. He took out a disposable phone, pressed the pull tab from a can against his throat, and dialed that number.

A moment later.

The call connected.

A hoarse voice came from the other end. "Who is this?"

"You don't need to know who I am, but if you can't make it to the back alley of Husky Bar within half an hour, you'll never see your son again." The voice carried a trembling, metallic rasp that made the listener's blood run cold.

"Son!"

The person on the other end first sounded shocked, then as if he had heard something laughable, he snapped furiously, "My son died this afternoon. He's dead. Fuck your son. Who the fuck are you?"

Dead?

Brian was startled.

What a ruthless bastard.

He thought of the man's reaction when he had mentioned his son before, then shook his head. "Stop pretending. You know I'm not talking about that burden you've wanted to get rid of for ages. You can try contacting Shaina, but from where you live to where I am, you only have half an hour. One minute over, and you'll have nothing left."

He hung up.

Brian silently lit a cigarette.

He did not like seeing the ugly side of human nature.

But he seemed to have become addicted to the thrill of personally executing those pieces of trash.

For what many victims had suffered.

Even sentences of several hundred years were far too merciful.

Let alone the fact that, many times.

Because there was no complete chain of evidence.

Some criminals who were willing to spend money on good lawyers were still walking free to this day.

Perhaps.

After he dealt with the threat that was his uncle.

Los Angeles also needed a bloodthirsty Batman of their own?

Mm, a legal law-enforcement, darkened version!

Half an hour later.

A short, middle-aged Asian man, not even five foot three, with a square face and a slightly chubby build, came rushing into the alley where Brian was.

He swept his gaze around, but found no one in the alley. All he could do was roar, "Bastard, come out! You told me to—"

The next instant.

From the shadows in a blind spot, a hand suddenly clamped over the man's nose and throat.

The man struggled twice, then went limp and sagged weakly.

The neon lights of the bar overhead flickered.

Under the faint red glow.

The middle-aged Asian man's face was revealed. It was none other than the Chinese chef Susan and Brian had questioned earlier—Li Sen!

Dragging Li Sen's body.

Brian followed the route he had planned long ago and vanished into the shadows.

More than an hour later.

Inside a shabby wooden cabin in the suburbs.

Under the bright moonlight, Brian was digging a pit with effort, puffing and huffing.

Behind him, muffled struggling suddenly sounded.

He put down the shovel in his hand, wiped the sweat from his forehead, walked over to Li Sen, squatted down, and yanked the stinking sock out of his throat. "Want to talk?"

"It's you?"

Once Li Sen saw Brian's face clearly, he recognized him at once. "You're that cop who speaks Chinese! What are you doing? You're breaking the law!"

His impression of Brian was very deep.

"Breaking the law?" Brian's gaze turned strange. "Since you know it's breaking the law, why did you blow up and injure so many people?"

"I—"

"Just because some bitch said she was pregnant with your child?"

"You bastard—"

"I forgot to tell you. That bitch actually didn't know whose child it was either. She only wanted to use you to get a large amount of money and freedom."

"Fuck your—"

Smack~

The shovel whipped hard across Li Sen's fat face, beating the rest of his words back into his mouth.

One shovel strike.

Brian still wasn't satisfied. "All because of some bitch, you fucking swore on Mazu and lied?"

Smack~

Another shovel.

"All because of some bitch, you fucking killed your own son?"

Smack~

Another shovel.

"All because of some bitch, you fucking blew up an innocent woman and innocent, hardworking Kenneth?"

Brian wanted to raise the shovel and keep hitting him.

But then he saw that because he had struck too hard, not only had Li Sen's teeth sprayed out of his mouth, but blood was also gushing uncontrollably from his nose and lips. He only had one breath left in him.

Only then did Brian let Li Sen off, seething with hatred.

From his waist, he pulled out a morphine injector and jabbed it straight into Li Sen's neck.

About a minute passed.

Li Sen regained consciousness.

He stared blankly at Brian. After a long while, he finally slurred, "The child really wasn't mine?"

"Yeah."

Brian told this poor bastard the truth. "At the police station, she said it was Kenneth's. After she got high, she said she didn't even know whose child it was. After all, she took that many clients a day. Some clients weren't afraid of getting sick and didn't use umbrellas. That's pretty normal too."

"Heh heh..."

Li Sen's head rested against the ground as he gave a meaningless laugh. Then it turned into whimpers, and he burst into loud sobs. "What did I do wrong? I just wanted a normal child to carry on the bloodline of my Li family. Was that wrong?"

As he cried, he spat out big mouthfuls of bloody saliva.

"Do you know how much pain I've been in for over twenty years, a grown man having to take care of that idiot, getting bullied outside, earning a bit of pathetic money?

"I thought about finding an undocumented woman from China.

"But those bitches would rather get ridden by black dogs and white pigs, would rather get beaten and cursed, than be with an honest cook like me, just because I had an idiot with me!"

Brian looked expressionlessly at Li Sen as he raved.

He lifted the shovel in his hand. "Tell me what exactly happened."

Though under the effect of the morphine, Li Sen temporarily couldn't feel pain, he still shuddered in fright and honestly said, "I was very jealous of Kenneth. He was popular in the kitchen, ambitious, hardworking, sunny and cheerful. I was so jealous of him!

"Then one time, when Kenneth was arguing on the phone, "I accidentally learned that his girlfriend was actually a bitch.

"Do you know how happy I was then?

"Haha.

"So I followed her, tailed her, and finally found the place where his girlfriend worked.

"For a long time after that, "I was a regular there.

"That bitch would do anything as long as you gave her some powder.

"Sometimes I'd even arrange to meet her alone, right next to Kenneth.

"I spent a lot of money on that bitch and got a lot of pleasure.

"Until she told me she was carrying my child.

"Do you know how excited I was then?

"A child!

"A healthy child!

"For money, "and also to get away from those gang animals, "I discussed this plan with her. She would deliberately tell Kenneth she was pregnant, then I would find a chance to keep teaching Kenneth some of my skills, and I even deliberately let him get hold of my secret seasoning.

"After that, you should know what happened.

"Kenneth had a conflict with that mad dog, and that bitch deliberately seduced the mad dog's younger brother while the mad dog was out making a deal, to carry out the explosive threat.

"Actually, it was only a firecracker.

"But I swapped it for a real one."

"That idiot thought he'd gotten high and taken the wrong stuff himself, so afterward he didn't dare say much."

As he spoke...

Li Sen felt the terrible pain surge back into his chest. His throat itched, and he wanted to cough, but what came out was a large amount of blood.

He stared at Brian in terror and pleaded, "Save me."

Brian looked down at him. "Black Audrin—was he killed by you too?"

"Yes. I knew him before, back at the vagrant camp.

But that was what that bitch wanted.

She knew Audrin and Mad Dog Ike had known each other before, and that they were still dealing in explosives, so I pretended to be a buyer and smothered him. I wanted to shift all the police's attention onto Mad Dog Ike."

Blood also began to seep from Li Sen's ears.

"Save me. I can't see," Li Sen wailed.

Brian remained unmoved. "But your technique was very practiced. It didn't look like your first crime."

"I just practiced a lot before because I wanted to kill my own son, but I really did kill someone for the first time—and he was a bad man. Please, let me go!"

"But on the phone, you said your son had already died this afternoon!"

Brian slowly raised the shovel.

Li Sen knew nothing of it. His eyes were dull and lifeless as he murmured, "That bitch's body was in terrible shape. She needed a lot of money to recuperate if she was going to keep my child. I had no choice. That bitch suggested I commit insurance fraud. I was wrong. I know I was wrong. Please, save—"

Smack~

The ground trembled slightly.

Everything came to an abrupt end.

Brian wiped the blood that had splattered onto his face and said expressionlessly, "You didn't know you were wrong. You just knew you were about to die!"

Before Li Sen died, he still hadn't realized that he, too, was nothing more than a pitiful worm being played with.

Shaina, that woman, was terrifying.

She had used almost everything that could be used.

She used Mad Dog Ike to take the blame while also removing the restrictions he placed on her.

She used Kenneth's love for her as the fuse to ignite all of this, while also obtaining a huge legal insurance payout.

She used Li Sen's obsession with his child as the catalyst for this plan. Afterward, if the plan didn't go smoothly, Li Sen would be the best scapegoat. If the plan did go smoothly, she could even make another sum from the insurance on Li Sen's son.

Once everything was done, Li Sen would most likely be killed by Shaina too.

She was a completely selfish woman.

To be honest, Brian couldn't figure it out either.

How had such a scheming woman fallen so low as to become a gang's cash cow?

Could it be that before, it was because her drug addiction controlled her?

And later, Shaina attained enlightenment in the brothel and only then set up this whole scheme?

With death, all debts were settled.

Brian was too lazy to waste brain cells thinking about all the grudges involved.

He had come to like solving problems with violence.

It saved worry and effort.

Straightforward and direct.

Schemes and tricks? So what?

As long as there was a problem, just kill it!

In a cheerful mood, Brian began to sort through his gains.

The instant Li Sen breathed his last, the warm current representing the gift of obsession surged through Brian's body.

What he had completed this time was Mad Dog Ike's second obsession: find the bastard who framed me and kill his whole family!

Unfortunately, Li Sen had killed his own son that afternoon.

And that night, Brian killed him.

That counted as his whole family being gone.

The warm current from this gift was very small.

Almost symbolic.

Aside from completely restoring the stamina Brian had expended, its strengthening effect was not obvious.

As if he had thought of something, Brian immediately sank his consciousness into his mind.

A distinctive little golden orb appeared in his perception.

The moment he saw the orb, understanding rose in Brian's heart: Skill orb. While digesting it, his consciousness would fall into sleep.

It had actually dropped a skill?

Brian was pleasantly surprised!

He had not expected a skill to drop this time!

It was just that neither the time nor the place was suitable right now.

Brian also did not know what skill this golden skill orb contained.

But considering that Mad Dog Ike had been able to break out despite being surrounded and hunted by so many police officers, the skill could not be too bad, right?

With a trace of anticipation, Brian began dealing with the scene.

This time, he had prepared thoroughly. First, he sprinkled his homemade thermite into the pit he had dug, then threw the corpse inside. He used sulfuric acid and other reagents to corrode and contaminate the body, then shoveled all the surrounding dirt in, and finally ignited the thermite.

Clothes, gloves, shovel—he threw them all in.

The burning process smelled terrible.

Brian returned to the car and rested for a long while before going back to the cabin and starting to spray luminol test spray around the area.

This stuff could react with blood and release a faint blue glow.

It was a very common method in crime-scene investigation.

But it was also top-tier useful for cleaning up a crime scene.

After all, blood could only react once.

After that, he would clean it away.

It could prevent any bloodstains from being left behind at the scene.

Brian still had not made much progress in autopsies or crime-scene investigation.

But when it came to handling crime scenes, he was getting more and more practiced.

At daybreak, after changing the tires, Brian returned to the apartment.

This step was the most troublesome.

He secretly swore that once he had money, he would definitely prepare several more secret bases to store necessary items, keep dedicated vehicles, and also use the secret bases as early-warning lines of defense.

Otherwise, doing this every time was truly exhausting.

Because the bombing case had been solved, the follow-up reports and the like had all been completed as well.

So he was off today.

This also gave Brian a deeper understanding that the authority of the NW Department (Night Watcher) organization was truly extraordinary.

Otherwise, just the fact that Susan had blown the heads off so many gang members would not have been an easy matter to resolve.

Including Brian.

He had shot and killed five criminals.

Even according to the police detective bureau's previous procedures, after killing criminals, to ensure his physical and mental health, he would have needed to undergo a psychological evaluation, write a report, and then take a period of administrative leave.

Now?

Nothing happened to him at all.

Sometimes, Brian would also speculate.

The establishment of this NW Department organization was publicly called the Criminal Experiment Team, while internally they called themselves Night Watcher, a name with such a Cthulhu Mythos flavor. Could it have been because of the Blood Moon phenomenon?

Whether it was the coincidence in timing, or the unknown secret his uncle had obtained by having him join the NW Department, all of it fit far too well.

And there was his uncle!

The other party had seemed very eager to have him bathe in the moonlight of the Blood Moon.

In the end, he really had awakened a cheat.

Considering all the strange things about his uncle...

Brian suspected that his cheat was probably something completely different from the cheats and systems he had read about in novels in his previous life.

These mysteries

troubled Brian greatly.

Fortunately, all of this was finally about to have an answer.

Susan had said

that tomorrow, Saturday, everyone would go to Ace Base again for onboarding training.

The secret his uncle had mentioned—

he would know it soon!

Sorry. I originally said I'd update as soon as midnight passed, but because I'm writing this on the spot, I'm a little late.

It won't happen tomorrow.

I'll write it in advance and schedule it to update at midnight.

Good night.