Monster Reappears

The five of them lay sprawled on the ground. The entire process had taken less than a minute.

Even after they had recovered somewhat, they still could not believe it. They had undergone strict, professional training; ordinarily, even two or three burly men would not be able to get near them.

Yet now, they had been knocked to the ground by a single person in an alleyway—a complete rout, without even the slightest chance to fight back.

"Cough, cough!" Zhou Yaning had taken a kick to the stomach and could not help coughing.

Lu Chengchuan waited for a while. Once they had recovered a little, he spoke again. "Can you talk now?"

"We're investigators from the Investigation Bureau. We came here to search for clues about the monsters." With no choice but to bow her head, Zhou Yaning gave in.

She could not believe it either. Not one of them had lasted even a single exchange against him; every one of them had been knocked down at first contact. No wonder he could kill monsters barehanded—his combat ability was truly terrifying.

"Investigation Bureau? I don't know any Investigation Bureau. Are you an official organization?"

"We belong to a classified national agency. We generally do not appear before the public, and no reports mention the Investigation Bureau," Zhou Yaning explained.

"Why were you following me?" Lu Chengchuan already knew the answer. They had come because of the monsters.

Zhou Yaning slowly raised her head. "Can we talk somewhere else? This isn't a place for conversation."

The alley was fairly secluded, and few people usually came here. It was private enough to talk here, but since she had asked, Lu Chengchuan did not refuse.

He knew the authorities would find him sooner or later. The power of the state machine was terrifying. Unless he fled deep into the mountains and forests or became powerful enough, there was no way he could hide forever.

"Where?"

"The tea house across the street. We can talk there." Zhou Yaning stood up despite the pain.

The other four had recovered as well and slowly got to their feet, though fear still lingered in their eyes.

The Investigation Team staggered out of the alley, with Lu Chengchuan following behind them. He followed their captain, Zhou Yaning, into a modest tea house.

They entered a private room, all six of them squeezed inside.

"Captain Zhou, can you tell me why you were looking for me?" Lu Chengchuan asked again after sitting down.

In response to his question, Zhou Yaning took out a laptop. She opened a slightly blurry video and placed the screen before him.

Chen Jingxing looked at the screen. The video had been recorded in a plaza, where a masked person was fighting a monster.

The person in the video was him. These people really had come because of the monsters. Lu Chengchuan watched the video without changing expression, then turned his gaze to Zhou Yaning.

"You seem not to know that there are surveillance cameras all over the roads. We spent an entire night tracking you down."

Yesterday, they had seen the surveillance footage of a mysterious person killing three monsters with his bare hands. They had found it hard to believe as well. If there had not been bodies as proof, they would have thought the police had fabricated the footage.

After the police spent an entire night reviewing surveillance recordings, they finally found traces that led them to Lu Chengchuan's location.

She had originally planned to simply question him, but she had wanted to know how strong he really was, so she tested him midway. The result was that she had been knocked to the ground in one move.

"That person is me. So what do you want?" Lu Chengchuan nodded and admitted it.

The person in the surveillance footage was indeed him, but so what? He had merely killed a few monsters. He had not hurt anyone or done anything that endangered society.

On the contrary, he had helped maintain social order. The police ought to give him an award for bravery.

"We want to know—do you know where the monsters came from?"

The question struck him as strange. Lu Chengchuan shook his head. "How would I know? I was just wandering around the streets that day. I heard some commotion ahead and went over to take a look."

Before that, he had not believed monsters existed in the world either.

Zhou Yaning seemed to know what he would say. She asked again, "Have you practiced martial arts?"

There were quite a few formidable people in the Investigation Bureau. Each of them could take on ten men alone, and in a fight, they could knock her group down within two moves. But Lu Chengchuan was even stronger than those people.

Even those masters could not defeat them so easily.

"A little," Lu Chengchuan answered casually.

The people around him immediately began muttering inwardly. He was this powerful after practicing only a little—if he practiced a little more, would he be able to catch bullets barehanded and kill people from a distance?

"What do you think those monsters are?"

"What do you mean?" Lu Chengchuan asked.

"We reviewed the surveillance footage. No matter which camera it was, whenever a monster appeared, it suffered interference. The footage went black for a few seconds. Then the monster appeared and attacked pedestrians, and the cameras returned to normal."

"I want to hear what you think. Do you think the monsters were man-made, or did they come from some other cause?"

The monsters had appeared suddenly, and not just in one city. Monster attacks had occurred in other cities too. The Investigation Bureau had deployed on a large scale, sending people to every city where monsters had appeared to investigate.

In the other cities, the police had dealt with the monsters. Only in Anyang City had a powerful martial artist appeared.

"I don't know. Haven't you seen anything like this before?"

How could he, someone who had been seriously ill for years, know something that even a secret national agency did not understand?

"Various mysterious incidents were always reported before. We investigated them, and they were all fake. Ghost villages, zombies, vengeful spirits claiming lives—either they were man-made or completely fabricated. None of them were real incidents."

Before seeing the monster corpses and surveillance footage, Zhou Yaning had not believed it either.

"If even you don't understand, then I definitely won't know anything about this."

Lu Chengchuan vaguely had an answer in his heart. The system and the monsters... what exactly was the connection between them? He had a guess, but he could not say it. It concerned his own secret, so he could only keep it buried inside.

"Monsters! The monsters are back!"

While they were drinking tea, pedestrians outside the tea house began shouting. The people on the street suddenly panicked and ran in the other direction.

Hearing that monsters had appeared outside, Zhou Yaning and the others immediately got up and ran out. Lu Chengchuan ran out as well.

They ran back to their vehicle, grabbed their weapons, and prepared to see what kind of monsters had appeared. Zhou Yaning readied her pistol and walked over to Lu Chengchuan. "Please come with us and take a look."

She wanted to bring Lu Chengchuan along. With an expert like him present, they would be more confident about dealing with the monsters.

Lu Chengchuan was naturally willing. Monsters represented lifespan. It would be best if he could kill a few himself and accumulate a few more days of life.

The six of them pushed forward against the flow of people. After running about a hundred meters, Lu Chengchuan was the first to spot the monsters.

Several crawling monsters were slaughtering pedestrians. They looked somewhat human, except they had no skin. Their crimson flesh was exposed, and they had sharp fangs and claws.

This was the first time the five members of the Investigation Team had seen living monsters. They were so shocked that they could not speak.

Several pedestrians had been pounced on by the monsters, while even more people fled in every direction.

The crowd had fallen into chaos. The Investigation Bureau members recovered their senses but did not dare fire recklessly. They trusted their marksmanship, but they could not guarantee that someone would not run into the line of fire.

Anxious, they wanted to draw their sabers and swords and charge forward.