Tentacle Detective

The next morning.

Pale sunlight spilled over the streets of the Central District as a white dragon swam through the sky with a long cry. The market was bustling, vendors leaning forward as they haggled to better enjoy the rare sunshine.

Clear weather was a rarity in Dragon's Return City, and two straight days of sunlight was something seen only once in a year or half. Over the past two days, quite a few people from the Jade Marsh District had come to spend their days in the Central District. A handful of bolder ones had even gone up to the workshop district above just for the sunlight. The butchers were delighted by such lively scenes. People had to eat wherever they went; restaurant business boomed, and naturally, meat sellers earned more as well.

"Hey, young man, buying duck or goose? Slaughtered fresh this morning, all fresh."

The young man in a green coat was picking through the offerings. "Got any beef or mutton?"

The butcher took offense. "Look at that poverty-stricken face of yours. Go buy it in your dreams!"

"I was just talking about it because I'm craving it. No need to get worked up." The young man smiled. "Half a duck, chopped into pieces. No duck head."

"Coming right up!" The butcher changed faces as quickly as turning a page and immediately swung his cleaver with gusto. His knife work was excellent and his strength abundant; he finished chopping half a duck in half a minute, shook it into a bag, and packed it up without wasting a moment. As he chopped, that irritating customer kept yammering on. "Sir, I'm from the lower levels. How's public security around here?"

"Only a little better than the swamp." The butcher did not even raise his head. "Forget farther back—there's still no news on those random murder cases from a few years ago. That unlucky bastard whose wife died has stopped crying lately. The cops are fucking useless."

Rarely, he had said a little more. Mentioning the matter made him want to mock the useless fools of the Resurrection Corps. The customer picked up the duck and left, and the butcher flared up. "Hey! You forgot something!"

"Hold on."

The petty crook whose attempt to skip the bill had failed rummaged inside his coat and pulled out a strange long case. He opened it, revealing a thin, sharp blade gleaming with cold light.

A boning knife.

The butcher's heart skipped a beat, his gaze nailed to the knife. Unhurriedly, the man placed it on the chopping block. His left arm was a silver tentacle.

"Careless of you," Chu Hengkong said. "You left behind the knife you used to kill someone."

The butcher still gripped his cleaver. He suddenly exerted force through his wrist, but the meat cleaver would not rise. Chu Hengkong's right hand formed a claw and struck straight for his throat. The swift blow sent the butcher flipping up like a fish!

[Boning Knife]

[Rating: Below the Lowest Tier]

[Remembrance: Fa Kana Tanci loved the thrill of cutting people down. Nearly caught, he did not dare take another risk, so he vented his urges by swinging his knife at poultry.]

Two days later, Old Bear Bar.

Bang! Bang bang!

The sound of shattering bottles rang without end, cheap liquor flowing through the glass shards like filthy water. Thugs cursed and swung their knives, only to be firmly pinned to the ground by helmeted team members. Behind the counter, the bar owner was furious and alarmed. "Is there no justice left?! You smashed up my place for no reason at all! You're violating citizens' rights! I'll sue you in court!"

Not one team member paid him any attention. The squad's temporary commander stood backlit in the doorway, looking at him as though he were a terrible actor. Black light flashed at his fingertips, and a bizarrely shaped dart nailed the bar owner's collar to the wall. The instant the owner saw its shape clearly, his whole body went limp.

"You built your fortune on blood money from robbery and murder, yet you want to see who'll sue whom?"

[Dart]

[Rating: Below the Lowest Tier]

[Remembrance: The owner of Old Bear Bar had once been a performer who made his living with dart acts. After the night he performed at the home of a wealthy family in the city, he began plotting to steal their wealth.]

One week later, Lotus Pedestrian Street.

"Stop! Hands up!" The helmeted men surrounded an innocent citizen. "Aah! Why?!" The innocent citizen let out a scream! But icy gun barrels pressed against his head!

Dragon's Return above... what a savage abuse of authority. Had even the Resurrection Corps finally become snakes and rats in the same hole? Yet people hurriedly stepped aside, and suspicious gazes instead converged on that utterly harmless-looking ordinary citizen. Because the man with silver tentacles stood behind the team members. With a sweep of his tentacle, he actually "peeled" the ordinary citizen's face away. Beneath the human-skin mask was an inhuman face with purple skin—what a grotesque creature!

"How is this possible..." The purple-skinned creature stared wide-eyed. "This was made by the Black Workshop..."

"A mask can't fool people forever." Chu Hengkong held another mask in his hand. "Take him away."

"Yes, Detective!"

[Mask-Type Basic Relic—Disguise]

[Rating: Lowest Tier]

[Remembrance: Kong Xuan·3 bought two masks from the Black Workshop. One was for framing others while committing crimes, and the other was for replacing a well-off victim.]

Two weeks later, Resurrection Corps Headquarters, break room.

More than ten copies of the Tuanli Daily were piled high on the square table, their headlines all featuring someone's full-color photograph. Jie An casually picked up several and read the headlines with dramatic rises and falls. "<New Recruit Solves Five-Year Cold Case; Market Butcher Turns Out to Be a Murderer!> <Three Major Accomplishments in One Week! Young Team Member Solves Theft Mysteries in Succession> <Four Years Hiding in the Swamp, Yet Still Cannot Escape Arrest; Detective Hengkong Wins Battle After Battle>..."

He set down the papers and took a gulp of tea. "Just reading the front-page headlines is enough to dry out my mouth. Who bought this morning's newest edition?"

"Brother Jie, I've got one!" A crew-cut team member enthusiastically raised his hand. "<Tentacle Detective Scores a Perfect Thirty Cases, Justice Shall Ultimately Prevail>!"

"Brother Chu is incredible!" "Dragon's Return City's great detective, holy shit!" "Brother Chu, stop fooling everyone. An assassin? You used to be a master detective, didn't you?"

The break room erupted with praise. This time, nobody teased him; everyone sincerely admired him. It had only been three weeks since Chu Hengkong joined the Corps, but over those three weeks, every one of them had witnessed his astonishing efficiency.

Chu Hengkong's crime-solving was nothing short of miraculous. He only had to bring his book to the evidence room and stand there for a few minutes, then flip through the files, and he could pinpoint the culprit with perfect accuracy. Nor was that all. If he took a walk around a former crime scene, he could deduce almost exactly the route an old fugitive had used to escape, even where they had gone into hiding afterward. The precision of his scene reconstruction made it seem as though he had personally committed the murders back then!

Then again, perhaps he really had killed under similar circumstances before...

Everyone tacitly ignored where that experience had come from and instead applauded the detective's seasoned skill. It had been a long time since the squad had felt this festive. Even team members biased against Chu Hengkong were happy inside. If he could solve cases, then he was unquestionably a great detective.

Chu Hengkong, seated on the sofa and flipping through cold-case files, felt a little awkward at this. "I'm just using Relics to check information. What do I know about solving cases myself?"

"Listen to him, getting all full of himself. A Relic that only you can use is your own unique ability, isn't it? Don't you all agree?"

Ji Huaishu entered the break room carrying two cups of iced lemon tea, and the team members chorused their agreement. She handed one cup to Chu Hengkong and leaned over. "Still reading files during your lunch break? That dedicated?"

"There's still an old missing-person case. Once I finish it, I'm done for today."

Ji Huaishu snatched the file away without giving him a choice. "I'll take this case first. Go get some sleep, great detective. Eighteen consecutive days of high-intensity investigations, and your tentacles have gone soft as silver worms."

Chu Hengkong's tentacles were currently limp and wilted, looking as though they had not had water in ten days. He hurriedly stiffened them. "I've been writing too much these past two days..."

Ji Huaishu planted one hand on her hip. "That's why I'm telling you to rest. A case that's been cold for years won't suffer from another day or two, right?"

"Thanks for your concern, Captain." Chu Hengkong went with the flow. "Then I'll take half the day off today. Everyone, please understand."

The Tentacle Detective left the break room. Before long, the team members whose breaks had ended also returned to their dorms one after another. They had been running all over the place with Chu Hengkong these past few days, and they were exhausted too.

Jie An carefully folded the newspapers and placed them in chronological order in the "Hall of Honor" cabinet in the corner. Ji Huaishu, seated on the sofa, raised a brow at him. "What do you say, Cook?"

"Aiyo! Look at the time, I need to hurry and deliver medicine to the City Lord..." Jie An immediately headed for the door.

"I'll be blunt, so don't take offense." Ji Huaishu ignored him. "He's done this much. For these thirty cases alone, we ought to show him something. Otherwise, it'd be too damn ungrateful."

Jie An stopped at the door and fell silent for a moment. "Girl, you're thinking too simply. If the City Lord hadn't shown that move, he wouldn't be this dedicated."

Ji Huaishu countered, "He arrived less than a month ago and works himself to the bone without seeking benefits. What, is he doing it for feelings?"

"That's exactly why we can't rush." Jie An emphasized his words. "He's an assassin! A desperado who licks blood off a blade for profit has never had anything to do with 'trustworthy.' He's staying because he's satisfied with our price. But if the Black Factory and the club offer more, why wouldn't he stand against us?"

"You really do think far ahead. But isn't a boss who refuses to part with a single hair even more likely to force people to quit?" Ji Huaishu sneered.

Jie An was briefly rendered speechless. Ji Huaishu softened her voice. "Cook, think it through. Not everyone can join the squad just to fight evil forces without seeking fame or profit. I've watched him for over half a month too. Chu Hengkong isn't some gentleman, but he's a man who values loyalty. People like that are the easiest to deal with. So long as you treat him well, he'll never harm you."

"Loyalty, my ass, you little girl," Jie An muttered, turning away to avoid Ji Huaishu's vicious glare. He roughly rifled through the pile of documents and pulled out a file from this year.

"That's going too far." Ji Huaishu recognized the file.

"Not too far." Jie An spoke flatly. "Isn't this an extraordinary time? Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. Since none of you want to wait that long, we'll use one case to see whether he's the person we need."

Chu Hengkong rarely slept in.

Over the past three weeks, the workload had truly ramped up. Getting enough rest after exhaustion was being responsible for oneself. After getting up, he practiced boxing for a while. Rather than rush to breakfast, he sat at his desk and flipped through the Silver-Eyed Tome page by page.

After discovering the book's true ability, he had not hesitated much before deciding to reveal the information to Ji Huaishu and the others. He would certainly need to use the book to appraise things often in the future, so hiding it had no meaning whatsoever. If clues were urgently needed at a scene to pursue a criminal, was he supposed to carry the book and evidence away while saying, "Hold on, I need to use the bathroom"?

When making a living on the streets, the most important thing was trust and loyalty. If you hid and dodged over every little matter, even brothers who lived with you day and night would not dare trust you. Being open and aboveboard might get you mocked for having no schemes, but even enemies would respect you threefold. Chu Hengkong did not consider himself particularly smart. Rather than spend time figuring out how to hide the book, he might as well spend it exploring how to use it.

Over the past three weeks, he had basically figured out the mechanism of the appraisal book. It was very picky about what it recorded and could only appraise Relics. If something did not even reach the "below the lowest tier" grade, placing it on the book would leave it a blank page—his dead phone, for example, had no text at all.

After corroborating it through several cases, he found that the book's records were basically true. The records under "Remembrance" sometimes took a few twists and turns, but they were always intelligence related to the Relic's original owner. Through appraising those Relics, Chu Hengkong had gradually grasped the situation within the city. His prior guesses had been completely right; from every angle, the city's condition was terrible...

And that was exactly the environment where he could truly spread his wings!

Chu Hengkong put away the book, threw on his coat, and jumped straight out the window, swinging away by hooking his tentacles onto the railings outside the rooftop. Any protrusion inside or outside the building could serve as a temporary foothold for his tentacles. He swung all the way into a third-floor cafeteria window. Behind the stall, Jie An's brow twitched. "If you don't start using the front door, I'll put up a sign by the window saying, 'For Wild Pigeons and Detective Chu Only.'"

"As if there are pigeons in this city." Chu Hengkong stretched lazily. "A bowl of plain congee and fried dough sticks."

"Eating the cheapest stuff again. Great Detective, can you stop being so miserly?" Jie An said helplessly.

Chu Hengkong wanted to eat something better too, but he truly had no spare money... For three weeks, he had been busy tackling old, dust-covered cases every day, leaving him no time to catch any wanted criminals whose names were on the lists. And he had chosen flexible pay himself. Without catching wanted criminals or criminal gangs, he did not get a single Flow Pearl. If not for the staff benefit of three Flow Pearls' worth of meals three times a day in the cafeteria, he would have run out of money for food long ago...

"Don't mention it. The only cold drink I've had this week was the lemon tea Ji Huaishu treated me to." Chu Hengkong sighed. "Speaking of which, where's my partner?"

Jie An turned to ladle out congee. "The girl went on a business trip to the workshops today. She said you've worked for three weeks already, so you can try going out on a job by yourself."

"I see." Chu Hengkong paused. "A new job today?"

"An absolutely excellent job, guaranteed to earn you at least one first-tier Relic!" Jie An set down the bowl of congee and mysteriously handed him a "talisman."

The thing was about palm-sized. Crimson incantations shaped like ancient bells and tripods ran across the paper in one unbroken stroke. No matter how he looked at it, it resembled a common prop from old zombie films. Chu Hengkong stared at the talisman for two seconds, then looked up into Jie An's sly grin.

"Comrade Assassin, have you ever exorcised ghosts before?"

Finally finished the first five days of 4,000 words every day... Starting tomorrow, updates will return to once a day! (shouting)