84 The Discarded Pawn

White Night’s single sentence made me feel as though I had been shoved to the edge of an abyss. He was actually asking whether my police friend would be coming. It was an outright provocation. So all my petty schemes had long since been laid bare before him. The only thing I could not tell was whether he had discovered my bug back when we were at Asura’s place, or whether he had only found it later, after arriving in City X.

But instinct told me it was the former. The last time he searched me while I was stripped bare, he had already noticed it.

Then why had White Night not exposed me back then? Was he helping me conceal things from Asura, or was he playing the long game, deliberately using me to draw out the police, running a double-agent scheme all the way to this final moment, waiting to tear me open and cast me into an endless abyss? Was he even planning to deal a crushing blow to the police through me?

While I was still tense and thinking it through, White Night’s voice sounded again in my ear. “A-Mu, it’s time to begin the killing.”

The instant he finished speaking, he surged forward. The force of his movement was so abrupt that I could even hear the sharp scrape of his soles against the floor.

I froze. Why wasn’t White Night punishing me? Why wasn’t he making things difficult for me?

But I had no time to dwell on it. No matter what, we had to deal with the people under Kong Yu first. From the moment they showed their killing intent, they had been out for our lives.

So I immediately rushed after White Night. My skills were not especially outstanding, but I possessed an instinctive reflex and a natural talent for fighting. When one of them lunged at me with a dagger, I raised my long blade by reflex and blocked the strike. Then I pushed upward with the blade, jerked it down hard, and like a rope in a tug-of-war, I threw his balance completely off.

I gave him no chance. Lifting my blade, I brought it down in one clean motion and struck his arm. His arm was severed at once, though it did not fall completely to the ground; a strip of skin and flesh still held it on, leaving it hanging grotesquely from his body. Just looking at it made my own arm ache.

What shocked me even more was that the man suddenly raised his left hand, then violently tore off his own left arm. He even held it beneath his nose and sniffed it, then licked it. It was a mangled, bloody mess, sickeningly horrifying to see. He seemed not to feel pain at all.

And soon I noticed something else: the blood flowing from him was a very deep color, almost a purplish red.

I was still reeling from it when White Night suddenly called out from not far away, “A-Mu, do not let your guard down. These are death warriors who have taken drugs. They may have swallowed a pain-numbing serum and no longer feel pain. You must kill them completely, or we will be the ones to die.”

At his words, my heart lurched. On pure instinct, I raised my blade and drove it straight into the man’s heart. Yet this fellow truly seemed to know little about pain. He actually clamped his hand around my blade, blood immediately spilling from his palm, but he still refused to let go, all while staring at me with a crazed grin, like a lunatic.

That made me suspect they really had taken drugs. Their minds were probably already clouded, maybe even hallucinating. It reminded me of those fake zombies from the time we rescued Fang Lin and hijacked the vehicle.

Thinking about it, the Dawn organization was truly demonic. Human life meant nothing to them. It seemed I really had to follow White Night’s lead and make every strike fatal.

At the same time, another thought kept circling in my mind: White Night was still worrying about whether I lived or died. He really had no intention of killing me?

As I was thinking that, another one of Kong Yu’s men came charging in from the side.

Their eyes were all blurred and unfocused, bloodshot to the point of redness, clearly swollen from drug use. I imagined they might still think of themselves as butchers on a battlefield, blood splashing every three steps, killing a man every ten.

I decided to show no more mercy. This was a world where the weak were prey and the strong devoured them. Either you died, or I did. I had to transform into the true pervert that was Chen Mu.

Then I let out a furious roar and yanked the long blade from the man’s grasp. The edge was so sharp that as soon as I pulled it free, all five of his fingers were neatly severed and dropped to the floor.

He collapsed with a thud.

Without the slightest hesitation, I felt my own killing intent rise to another level. I spun sharply, arcing the long blade through the air, and the steel came down upon his throat. With a wet slicing sound, I cut his windpipe. Blood gushed out in a spray, his eyes widened, and then he toppled to the ground.

By the time I had finished him off, White Night had already turned into a human reaper and hacked down the remaining few. In his hands, those men were no different from the wax figures we had seen before, utterly unable to resist.

Looking at the scattered heads rolling across the floor and the various tools strewn everywhere, I felt a surge of rueful dread. Thank goodness they were all using melee weapons. If even one of them had had a gun, White Night and I would probably have been shot dead long ago.

That was what puzzled me most. With Dawn’s capabilities, there was surely no shortage of firearms. So why had they forced these death warriors to face us with blades? Was it because, in their drugged state, they could not use guns?

While I was still wondering, White Night had already come up beside me. “A-Mu, if you can avoid breathing, then do not breathe. There may be poison gas in the air here.”

At his warning, I immediately realized something was wrong with the air. Looking over at Kong Yu not far away, I saw that at some point he had already put on an oxygen mask.

Soon Kong Yu said to us, “As expected of the so-called super-avenger, Mu Bai. But all of you are going to die in the trap I prepared for you, haha...”

His voice was shrill. The moment he finished speaking, I suddenly heard what sounded like a burst of footsteps overhead.

At once, Kong Yu pressed a remote control. A projection appeared nearby, and on it was a live feed from the world above us.

I saw a number of armed special police officers charging into the room above. They looked magnificent and imposing, but it did them no good at all.

Before long, Fang Qinghe appeared with Jin Ze and Miao Miao. Seeing that, I let out a slight breath of relief. It seemed I had been overthinking it; the police were simply waiting for the safest moment to strike.

But Fang Qinghe and the others apparently had no idea we were underground. So I shouted at the top of my lungs, trying to draw their attention, but it seemed they could not hear me.

Then at that very moment, Kong Yu suddenly picked up a tiny microphone in his hand and shouted outward, “Damn police, you’re awfully late. Kong Yu is right here. What can you do to me?”

Hearing that, I thought he had gone mad. They were already surrounded, and he still chose to expose his position and provoke them? If that was not insanity, what was?

Sure enough, not long after, countless police muzzles were aimed toward the underground. It would not be long before the demolition team arrived as well.

But Kong Yu continued, “Do not act rashly. I have bacteria beneath you that I have studied painstakingly for years. If it leaks out, it will bring disaster to the entire city. And the moment it meets an open flame, this place will erupt in a massive explosion, affecting a radius of dozens of miles and spreading the virus even farther. You’d better stay obediently where you are up there!”

At his words, Fang Qinghe immediately frowned. Soon he waved his hand, signaling the police not to move.

Seeing that, White Night said coldly to me, “So these are your police friends? It seems they do not care much whether you live or die. You are nothing but a disposable pawn.”

I felt awkward and did not know how to answer him. I also had no idea what he was really planning.

At that point, seeing that the police had stopped moving, Kong Yu suddenly swung both arms again. The racks around us, each holding different human organs, all toppled over at once, spilling hearts, livers, spleens, stomachs, and kidneys across the ground.

At the same time, a dozen or twenty more people rushed out of several small rooms. It was obvious that Kong Yu had truly laid a murderous trap here and been waiting for us to walk into it.

The police were right above us, yet could only watch as we died below ground, unable to act. Thinking about it, it was almost comical. As White Night had said, calling me a pawn abandoned by the police was not entirely wrong, because my undercover mission had already ended. The police had already achieved their goal.

At that thought, my heart trembled. I suddenly felt drained of all strength. I felt this world was terribly unfair to me. I had unknowingly played the villain, and in the end I was going to die underground for the crime of having once been a villain. Was that what my life amounted to?

While I was burning with grief and fury, White Night suddenly asked, “A-Mu, are you afraid?”

Since he already knew I was undercover, I no longer bothered to pretend. I said directly, “Yes. Anyone who says they’re not afraid is an idiot.”

He went on, “I had planned to die with you. But you do not want to die? A-Mu, do you want to live, or die?”

Without hesitation, I said, “Live.”

White Night said calmly, “In truth, the mission the organization gave us this time was a dead end. We, too, are abandoned pieces. Luring the police to wipe out Dawn’s research base was never a path to survival for us. It was a road to death. But since you want to live, then I will use death to carve out a way for you to live.”

Only then did I suddenly understand why he had never exposed me. What they wanted was to destroy Dawn’s base, and once I and White Night accepted this mission, whether the police got involved or not, our ending was already death.

The police were using me to deal with the avengers, while the organization was using the police to destroy Dawn.

As I was still shaken by this realization, White Night licked the tip of his blade and said coldly, “A-Mu, you are a castaway to everyone else, but not here, not with me.”

With that, White Night had already surged out like a god of slaughter.