Chapter 99: 11:45

The enormous black beetle before him left Li Tianque truly stunned. Its glossy black shell rippled slowly under the pink light, resembling the deep, peering pupil of a demon watching over the mortal world. It was the first time Li Tianque had ever seen a bug of such absurd proportions. Had he not seen it moving with his own eyes, he never would have believed it was a living creature.

However, before Li Tianque could study the beetle properly, his attention was drawn elsewhere. He quickly realized that the room he was in, which faced the street, was the very same room where the strange face had appeared earlier. Now, the window was wide open, and cold wind roared in, chilling him to the bone.

Something was wrong. Why would the window suddenly be open? Could that strange face he saw earlier have opened it? Feeling a sense of bewilderment, Li Tianque hurried to the window. There, he saw something even more surprising: a long rope hanging from the window frame, one end tied to the bed leg inside the room, the other dangling toward the ground below. It was easy to deduce that when the two of them had knocked on the door, the person inside must have immediately escaped down the rope.

With this in mind, Li Tianque tugged on the rope. Finding it sturdy enough, he immediately gripped it firmly, preparing to climb down. Yet, the moment his hand touched the rope and he prepared to swing his body out, he felt something amiss. The rope was slippery, and he nearly lost his grip and tumbled. After struggling to regain his balance in mid-air, a searing, intense pain shot through his palm. It felt as if he had pressed his hand against a red-hot iron stove, causing him to instinctively let go.

Li Tianque lost his hold and nearly plummeted to the ground. Fortunately, he managed to adjust his body in mid-air and grabbed the rope again. At that exact moment, the agonizing burning sensation returned, even more intense than before, causing him to cry out in pain. What was going on? Did the rope heat up on its own?

Before he could fathom an answer, he fell flat onto the ground. The impact was heavy; the thud echoed deafeningly through the silent courtyard, kicking up clouds of dust and startling a few scavenging rats into flight.

Meanwhile, Liang Zhichao, who had gone around the alley to check the other side of the earthen building, came running back. He had been searching another street when he heard the sound of the fall and rushed over.

"Officer, are you alright?"

Liang Zhichao was thin, and his physical stamina was failing him; the back-and-forth had left him panting. Li Tianque frowned, the pain in his hand growing increasingly unbearable. He immediately took action, channeling the cancer cells within his body to spread rapidly and cover his palm. Even so, the pain did not subside; instead, it intensified, showing signs of spreading further.

Liang Zhichao shone his flashlight on Li Tianque and, seeing the pitch-black substance squirming on his hand, asked in alarm, "Officer, what happened to your hand?"

"My hand... I don't know what burned it!"

Liang Zhichao immediately directed the flashlight beam toward Li Tianque’s hand. One look was enough to make him gasp in shock. "My god, these are fire ants! Why are there fire ants here?"

Li Tianque followed the light and looked at his hand. Indeed, it was covered in a dense mass of small red ants—dark crimson in color with faint black spots on their abdomens. Not wanting to reveal his cell-augmentation ability in front of Liang Zhichao, Li Tianque cut off the spread of the cancer cells, allowing a layer of blackened, withered tissue to flake off his injury. The fire ants, now feeding on the discarded tissue, seemed to be gorging themselves.

It was only then that Li Tianque realized why the rope had felt slippery: it had been coated in a thick layer of honey. It seemed that after the monster escaped from Grandma Drolma’s room, it had slathered the rope in honey and then poured a swarm of fire ants onto it. The ants had climbed the rope to feed on the honey. Anyone attempting to slide down would inevitably be stung by the feasting swarm. The earthen building was quite tall; even at three stories, it was nearly ten meters high. An average person falling from that height would be lucky to escape without a permanent disability.

"How... how are there so many fire ants? This isn't their natural habitat," Liang Zhichao remarked, bewildered.

"These ants were on the rope. It seems that creature intended to kill us! What about you? Did you find anything?" Li Tianque asked, flicking the remaining ants off his hand.

"I ran to the room on the other side, but I didn't see anyone come out. However, the noise we heard when we first arrived must have been a bag of trash thrown from the old chieftain’s room. It was very heavy, sounding like bricks and rubble," Liang Zhichao replied.

Li Tianque looked up at the old chieftain’s residence, confused. "It’s so quiet here. We’ve been making such a commotion, yet no one has come out to check. It’s highly irregular."

"Actually, that’s normal," Liang Zhichao explained. "The houses of the old chieftain and Grandma Drolma are duplexes where the first and second floors are connected. Grandma Drolma lived alone, and the chieftain’s son’s family lived with him. Usually, during this season, the family is away at the pastures and rarely returns to the city."

"What about the old chieftain’s hearing? We’ve been making all this noise downstairs; surely he should have heard it?"

"Well, the old chieftain is over eighty. He is a bit hard of hearing, but I feel like he couldn't have missed the sound of you falling. Besides, he just threw out the trash."

"Right. Since you saw him throw the trash, he must be awake. Let’s go up and check!" Li Tianque said.

"Agreed. And your hand needs to be treated with soapy water," Liang Zhichao added.

Li Tianque didn't care about his hand. The series of bizarre events had given him a profound sense of foreboding. At that moment, a faint light flickered on the second floor of the eastern side of the building; it seemed there really was someone in the chieftain's house.

The two returned to the hallway. Li Tianque knocked on the first-floor door, but there was no response. They quickened their pace toward the second floor. After another round of knocking yielded nothing, Li Tianque didn't hesitate; he placed his hand near the hinge and used his cancer cells to manipulate the lock.

"How did you do that?" Liang Zhichao asked, astonished.

"Let's just get inside!" Li Tianque urged without explanation.

As they pushed the door open, a pungent smell of blood hit them instantly. In the second-floor living room, a dim wall lamp cast a faint light, making it difficult to see the room's interior clearly. They rushed in, and Li Tianque immediately saw a horrific scene in the room facing the street:

Under the moonlight, a hunched man stood with his arms stretched out to their absolute limit. His head was tilted back at an impossibly unnatural angle, his entire body stiff and rigid.

"The old chieftain!" Liang Zhichao cried out and ran toward him.

Li Tianque felt a chill in his heart as he glanced at the time on his phone: "11:45!"

It was the same time of death again.