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35, capturing the culprit alive
Several rats scurried along at tremendous speed, leaving gray-black afterimages in the night.
But in Gu Qing's eyes, their movements were as slow as snails, and he followed them easily.
They passed through one landscaped strip after another.
They skirted one academic building after another.
The rats finally stopped near the campus gates and plunged into the shadows behind a building.
Gu Qing looked up and recognized the university's administration building.
Without thinking further.
He immediately lowered his body and followed the rats around to the back of the administration building.
He stepped into a small grove overgrown with weeds.
The moment he entered.
The sight before him made Gu Qing pause slightly.
Dozens of unusually fat rats with abnormally thick fur were gathered around a pile of raw meat on the ground, devouring it ravenously.
Their tiny teeth tore at the chunks of meat.
They let out greedy squeaks.
[Meat, meat, meat...] [Smells good, smells good, smells good...] [Eat, eat, eat...]
Gu Qing glanced over the text that automatically appeared before his eyes, and his gaze soon fixed on the pile of meat on the ground.
The meat was unnaturally vivid in color, its red almost dazzling.
A faint, slightly pungent chemical smell lingered in the air.
The pile of meat on the ground had clearly been loaded with chemicals and additives.
Was this meat what had made the university's rats so fat and strange, with such abnormally thick fur?
What was the purpose of doing this?
Gu Qing was full of questions.
Before long.
Footsteps came from the direction of the administration building.
A man in a security uniform emerged from the building at an unhurried pace, carrying a large basin of glaringly red lean meat. He walked straight up to the rats, stopped, and tipped all the meat onto the ground to continue feeding them.
A security guard from the administration building?
The one in charge of surveillance?
Could... this man be the rumored deranged cannibal?
Gu Qing frowned slightly, his eyes fixed on the guard feeding the rats as thoughts raced through his mind.
He did not act rashly, but continued watching in secret.
A moment later.
He quietly backed away a little.
He discreetly took out his phone.
He called the public security department.
He told the operator everything he had seen, along with every suspicion he had, leaving nothing out.
He knew very well that he could not be completely certain the guard before him was the deranged cannibal.
Rushing forward to subdue him would not only be pointless, but might also tip him off.
Professional matters should be left to professionals.
Notifying the public security department and letting them handle it was the right choice.
He ended the call.
He put away his phone.
Gu Qing returned to his original position and continued his silent surveillance.
Completely unaware that someone was watching him, the guard stood quietly in front of the rats the whole time, smoking as he waited for them to finish the raw meat on the ground.
Just as Gu Qing was watching intently, soft, rustling footsteps suddenly came from behind him.
The sound was extremely faint.
So faint that even in the silence of the late night, it was barely audible.
An ordinary person probably would not have noticed until whoever it was came right up behind them.
But Gu Qing's senses had long since surpassed those of ordinary people.
While the person was still over ten meters away, his extraordinarily sensitive ears had already picked up those exceedingly faint footsteps with precision.
An accomplice?
The deranged cannibal wasn't acting alone?
Was it a whole gang?
Gu Qing's brow instantly furrowed.
If one person was committing the crimes, then at most, someone was psychologically twisted, and the danger was still relatively manageable.
But if a group was responsible, that changed things entirely, and the level of danger rose sharply.
So...
Was the criminal organization those two men in black had mentioned when warning Zhou Yuan this group feeding the rats?
Was the mysterious killer who had attacked Zhou Yuan also a member of this organization?
In just a brief instant.
Countless conjectures flashed through Gu Qing's mind.
It was as though he could see an invisible hand quietly looming over all of Haicheng University.
The footsteps behind him drew closer, now less than three meters away.
Without thinking further.
Gu Qing instantly cleared his mind, pushed off hard, and abruptly turned to lunge at the person behind him.
The man was in his early forties.
He wore a security uniform.
He gripped a stun baton tightly.
He was sneaking up from behind, intending to catch Gu Qing off guard and ambush him with the stun baton.
When Gu Qing suddenly spun around and lunged, the man was so startled that his whole body jolted, and the stun baton nearly flew out of his hand.
Before he could react at all, Gu Qing had already reached him and thrown a punch at his face.
Bam!
A dull, heavy impact rang out.
Without so much as a grunt, the man was knocked flat by that single punch. He lay limp and motionless, knocked unconscious on the spot.
And that was with Gu Qing deliberately holding back.
Otherwise, a full-force punch would have burst his head on the spot, splattering blood all over the ground.
Meanwhile.
Hearing the commotion, the guard feeding the rats immediately hurried over.
But the moment he rounded the corner, a powerful fist met him head-on. A single punch knocked him unconscious, leaving him slumped motionless on the ground.
Having easily dealt with the two guards.
Gu Qing did not pause for a moment. He immediately rushed into the administration building at top speed, heading straight for the surveillance room.
Bang!
He kicked open the surveillance room door, only to find it empty.
It seemed the only guards on surveillance duty tonight were the two he had knocked unconscious outside.
He left the administration building.
He returned to the grove.
Gu Qing stared at the rats gnawing on the fresh meat before him, considering whether to kill them all.
But after some thought, he realized he might need to obtain clues from their squeaks in the future, so he merely went over and drove them away, preventing them from eating any more of the raw meat loaded with chemicals and additives.
After driving away the rats.
Gu Qing went back to keep watch over the two unconscious guards.
He waited quietly for the public security officers to arrive.
While waiting, bored with nothing to do, he picked up the stun baton and jabbed himself with it to test his resistance to electric shocks.
He shocked himself several times.
Each shock lasted over ten seconds.
To his astonishment, Gu Qing found that not only did his body feel no discomfort, but the tingling sensation actually felt quite good, even a little addictive.
A few minutes later.
Public security officers arrived at the scene and quickly took control of the two unconscious guards.
"Wait, what exactly did we do? What right do you have to arrest us? He was the one who attacked us!"
"Is feeding rats a crime now? Aren't we allowed to like rats?"
The two guards began protesting their innocence as soon as they woke up.
"Enough!"
The public security captain barked, "The investigation will determine whether you've committed a crime. Right now, both of you will cooperate!"
Then he turned to Gu Qing beside him, his tone softening somewhat. "Sorry for the trouble, young man, but you'll need to come back to the public security station with us to assist with the investigation too."
Gu Qing nodded. "No problem."
The captain gave him a long look, silently pondering.
During the day, when the mysterious killer attacked Zhou Yuan, Gu Qing had appeared at the scene as the rescuer.
And now, late at night, Gu Qing had appeared again, this time as the person reporting the rat-feeding incident at the administration building.
Both cases were connected to rats.
Getting involved in two rat-related cases in a single day could not possibly be a coincidence.
Could this university student have been secretly investigating incidents involving rats all along?
Once we're back at the station.
I'll have to question him thoroughly.
The captain thought to himself.
Before long, Gu Qing and the two guards were all taken back to the public security station.
As criminal suspects, the two guards were handcuffed and placed under escort in the back seat of a police car.
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