I Came to Collect the Price

Only Wang Defa had the warehouse key.

Only Wang Defa could access the computer used to view the surveillance footage.

When the police came that day, the surveillance cameras had not been switched on.

When Qin Siyang failed to find any footage from the morning of January 3, he was already ninety-nine percent certain he could deal with Liu Dazhi.

But he still confirmed it with Wang Defa several times, determined to leave nothing to chance.

He could not afford to overlook anything, misjudge the cards Liu Dazhi held, and expose himself to trouble.

In the end, all the evidence pointed Qin Siyang toward one conclusion.

Liu Dazhi was bluffing.

The so-called "surveillance screenshot" did not exist.

Liu Dazhi probably would never have dreamed that Qin Siyang could find the hole in his story through Wang Defa.

After all, in Liu Dazhi's eyes, Qin Siyang was just a desperate little nobody.

Qin Siyang gazed at the stars and gods filling the sky as he walked along the dim streets, feeling relaxed and cheerful.

At last, he could sentence Liu Dazhi to death without any worries.

Only two days had passed since Liu Dazhi first threatened him.

But every day had felt like a year to Qin Siyang. He had long since run out of patience.

He sprinted toward Liu Dazhi's home, determined to get there as fast as possible.

He approached Liu Dazhi's door quietly. The place was a dilapidated two-story wooden building with four or five households on each floor.

Liu Dazhi lived behind the fourth door on the left upstairs.

When Qin Siyang arrived, he saw a pile of garbage outside Liu Dazhi's door.

The stinking garbage had attracted swarms of flies. Each had three or four eyes, as though they had mutated after the apocalypse.

The sight outside the door immediately reminded Qin Siyang of Liu Dazhi's slovenly appearance.

Qin Siyang stepped up to the door and knocked with his sleeve covering his hand.

Knock, knock, knock!

"Who is it? Do you know what time it is? Why are you knocking so early?"

Qin Siyang lowered his voice, pretending to be a man in his thirties. "Your neighbor. The garbage outside your door stinks. Get rid of it!"

Liu Dazhi's impatient voice came from inside. "Are you nuts? What's it to you? The garbage isn't blocking the hallway. Just walk past!"

When Liu Dazhi refused to open the door, Qin Siyang shouted, "Fuck you, open up! If you don't throw that garbage out, I'll burn your place down!"

"Go ahead! We live on the same floor. Burn my place down, and yours will go with it! What, is your home going to sprout legs and run away?"

Liu Dazhi's shameless attitude left Qin Siyang in a bind.

Of course, with his strength as a Sequence Ability User, he could break straight through the door.

But that would leave evidence telling the police that a Sequence Ability User had committed the crime. Every Sequence Ability User in the surrounding area would then come under close scrutiny.

That would complicate his plans to reveal his own identity as a Sequence Ability User later. It might well draw the Police Bureau's attention to him.

So he needed to make this look like a murder committed during a home invasion.

"If you don't open up, I'll camp outside your door and wait you out! Let's see how long you can stay inside! You have to go to work sometime! When you do, I'll complain to your boss!"

In this poverty-stricken neighborhood, finding a job was no easy task. Even being a lowly attendant at the Internet Cafe provided a decent income.

Liu Dazhi might not care about anything else, but he certainly cared about that job.

It was not just the wages.

More importantly, if he could no longer work at the Internet Cafe, where would he go to demand money from Qin Siyang?

From beginning to end, there had only ever been one place where the two could meet: the Internet Cafe.

Sure enough, Qin Siyang had hit Liu Dazhi where it hurt.

Inside, Liu Dazhi immediately lost his bluster.

"All right, all right, you win. I'll throw the garbage out in a bit."

"I gave you an inch, and now you're taking a mile! In a bit? Now! Right now!"

"Okay, give me a second. I'll get dressed and come out to throw it away."

After some rustling as he got dressed, Liu Dazhi came to the door and unlocked it.

"I'm just going to-"

Before he could finish, he lost consciousness.

Holding back his strength, Qin Siyang had delivered an uppercut to Liu Dazhi's chin the instant the door opened, knocking him out.

He immediately slipped inside and caught Liu Dazhi, preventing the sound of his bulky body hitting the floor from alerting the neighbors.

He shut the door behind him and dragged Liu Dazhi into the inner room, all in one smooth motion.

After tying Liu Dazhi up and stuffing his mouth with his own filthy socks, Qin Siyang began searching the room.

Liu Dazhi had little of value at home, only a few hundred copper coins.

Qin Siyang pocketed the money to make it look like a home invasion.

After he had been at it for a while, muffled whimpers came from behind him.

He looked back. Liu Dazhi had woken up and was staring at him in terror.

Noticing that Liu Dazhi's jaw looked a little crooked, Qin Siyang shook his head.

Apparently, he still had not controlled his strength well enough. That single punch had broken Liu Dazhi's jaw.

That was not ideal.

He spotted a baseball bat in Liu Dazhi's room, picked it up, and walked over to him, aiming at his jaw.

Liu Dazhi shook his head frantically, trying to beg for mercy. Then his eyes turned vicious, as though he were threatening Qin Siyang.

Qin Siyang said casually, "I had a chat with Wang Defa today. Guess what?"

Liu Dazhi froze, the corners of his eyes twitching uncontrollably. Looking at Qin Siyang's smile, he might as well have been looking at the King of Hell.

"Mmph! Mmph!"

Liu Dazhi shook his head desperately, his face stricken with panic. Even with the filthy socks stuffed in his mouth, Qin Siyang could guess what he wanted to say.

Nothing but empty pleas like "I was wrong," "I won't do it again," and "Spare me."

Qin Siyang glanced around Liu Dazhi's home again. Comic books and novels were piled everywhere.

He shook his head and sighed. "You don't even have a computer at home, yet you dared to feed me that bullshit."

With that, Qin Siyang stopped paying attention to Liu Dazhi.

Holding back his strength, he swung the baseball bat and smashed it into Liu Dazhi's jaw again.

This time, Liu Dazhi's jaw became even more distorted, the bone breaking into several pieces.

"Good. That should hide it."

Liu Dazhi nearly fainted from the pain, tears filling his triangular eyes.

Qin Siyang went to the kitchen and brought out a container of cooking oil and a knife.

"If you're going to be greedy, you'd better be ready to pay the price."

"I came to collect that price."

To avoid getting blood splattered on himself, Qin Siyang used a method he had been thinking about for a long time.

He picked up several books, wedged the knife between them, and stood it upright on the floor.

Then he gauged the distance and pulled Liu Dazhi to his feet.

"Mmph! Mmph!"

Liu Dazhi was still begging for mercy.

Qin Siyang braced against Liu Dazhi's feet and shoved his back. The tremendous force sent Liu Dazhi toppling forward, his heart landing directly on the knife standing on the floor.

"Mmph..."

Qin Siyang lifted Liu Dazhi again, poured cooking oil all over his body, and set the room ablaze.

Only after watching the flames engulf Liu Dazhi's corpse and piling the bloodstained books that had held the knife, along with all the other books in the room, onto his body to burn did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Once the whole room was burning, Qin Siyang left and went downstairs, shouting, "Fire! Run for your lives!"

At his shout, people immediately came out to investigate and discovered that Liu Dazhi's home was already engulfed in flames.

"Fire! There really is a fire! Put it out!"

"Put it out, my ass! How are we supposed to save a wooden building? Grab your valuables and run!"

He hid in the shadows and watched until everyone had run out of their rooms. Only then did he leave with his mind at ease.

He silently told himself, To evade a [Scent Seeker], I had to set the fire. I couldn't help dragging innocent people into it. Keeping you from dying here was the most I could do.

To avoid leaving too much of his scent behind, he grabbed his bag full of food and activated [Violence], sprinting toward the school as fast as he could.

He deliberately took narrow alleys to avoid attracting the attention of passersby.

Along the way, he found a filthy drainage ditch and threw in all the copper coins he had taken from Liu Dazhi's home. Only after seeing them disappear beneath the sewage did he leave, reassured.

When he was almost at school, he returned to the main road and walked onto campus as though nothing had happened.

Thanks to his extraordinary physical abilities and the threefold agility boost from [Violence], escaping from Liu Dazhi's home to the area near the school had taken only five or six minutes.

Qin Siyang looked perfectly composed. There was not even any sweat on his forehead.

Only twenty minutes had passed between leaving home and arriving at school.

"Pretty good timing."

Qin Siyang smiled faintly.

Twenty minutes was a little longer than his usual trip to school, but it was still reasonable.

An almost perfect alibi.

Hopefully, the Police Bureau would classify this as a home-invasion robbery as soon as possible.

In a few more days, once things died down, it would be time for him to register at the Sequence Ability Management Bureau.

"Having someone hold me by the throat like this was worse than suffocating. From now on, I have to be careful. I can't let anyone get something on me again."

When he arrived at school, his expression remained calm.

No one could have imagined that just over ten minutes earlier, he had killed someone.

Instead of going straight to his classroom, Qin Siyang went to the Library.

Teacher Zhu was already sitting in the Library, drinking hot water.

"Oh, Qin, what brings you here so early again?"

"I came to have a look. Just stay seated. Some students might come to borrow workbooks this morning, so I'll help check them out."

"That won't do! Studying is what matters most for you right now! I don't need your help here. Go to your morning study session!"

Qin Siyang grinned. "Teacher Zhu, you know what my grades are like. Does it really make any difference whether I study?"

"Instead of wasting time in the classroom, I might as well help you clean the Library. Don't you think?"

"You really... oh, dear."

Qin Siyang had settled everything he needed to settle. All that remained was to wait for things to develop.

After asking about admission policies for Sequence Ability Users yesterday, there was no useful information left for him to learn in the classroom.

Sitting there spacing out again would not bring him any sudden inspiration.

He might as well help lighten Teacher Zhu's workload.

Qin Siyang set down the bag containing his lunch boxes and stood at the checkout desk, waiting for students to come borrow workbooks.

"Hello, I'd like to borrow..."

Hearing a muffled female voice, Qin Siyang looked up. To his surprise, it was Wen Shu.

Her face seemed a little more swollen than yesterday.

Qin Siyang frowned. Li Jingwen dared to hit her again? Did she really want things with Zhou Yang to end?

But after taking a closer look, he realized Wen Shu's face was swollen from bruising, not fresh injuries.

Wen Shu also looked surprised to see Qin Siyang. She lowered her head and avoided his eyes.

As Qin Siyang recorded the workbook she was borrowing, he asked casually, "Your grandmother must be worried, right?"

Wen Shu raised her head and glanced at him. Qin Siyang could not tell what that look meant.

Was she looking at him as though he were some kind of weirdo?

Wen Shu shook her head. "She doesn't know."

"She doesn't know?"

Wen Shu did not answer any more of his questions. She picked up the workbook and left.

After she left, Teacher Zhu said, "Her grandmother is very old. I heard she went blind two years ago. She can't see anything and depends on Wen Shu to look after her, so she might not know about her swollen face."

"Oh, I don't know who could be so cruel, beating even a sweet, well-behaved student like Wen Shu. This school gets worse every year."

Teacher Zhu went on complaining to Qin Siyang about the school's declining atmosphere, clearly feeling deeply about it.

She had taught at this school since before the apocalypse, dedicating more than half her life to [Ju'an School]. Her attachment to it ran deep.

So watching its students give up on themselves more and more was painful for her.

Qin Siyang comforted Teacher Zhu for a while, then sighed as he thought about what she had said about Wen Shu's family. His own life was miserable enough, yet he still did not want others to suffer.

Then he remembered the people he had just left homeless by burning down their homes, and guilt suddenly flooded his heart.

He had no choice, either. In the end, people had to live for themselves.