Chapter Eighty-Five: The Trap

The woman convulsed all over, her blood spreading across the uneven ground.

Her face had already twisted beyond recognition. The veins on her forehead stood out in angry knots, and her lips, fluttering faintly, had turned half white, half gray, flecked with spattered blood.

In the deathly still moonlit night, the woman was still struggling to breathe. From her choking throat came a faint, hoarse sound. The words she forced out were blurred and chaotic, impossible to make out, and only made the listener’s heart clench with dread.

“Stop!”

After Li Tianque got to his feet, he blurted out those two most useless words by reflex.

His voice was so loud that it echoed for a long while through the dark alley.

But the killer had long since vanished and, of course, would not stop because of a single shouted warning.

The city of Wutumuren rose and fell with the terrain, its lanes laid out without any sensible plan, crisscrossing in a tangled maze.

Li Tianque was unfamiliar with the local streets. In a place like this, it was all too easy to be shaken off.

By then the killer had fled, the victim was on her last breath, and Li Tianque had no choice but to abandon the pursuit and rush back to save her.

When Li Tianque reached the woman’s side, her pupils suddenly widened and froze at an almost impossible degree. It seemed she wanted to say something, but only her teeth chattered; no sound came out.

Her body arched and straightened in turns, while her trembling legs kicked wildly in the blood and filth.

Li Tianque tried to lift the woman up, but at that moment he saw something horrifying and bizarre:

Under the pale moonlight, strange pustules began to swell across the woman’s skin. They appeared with alarming speed, growing more numerous by the second, sharper and more pronounced.

“Aaah... ahh...”

The woman’s eyes were bloodshot, her gaze even more rigid. Her mouth opened to its widest.

The next moment, more than a dozen pustules on her face burst at once, sending blood splattering outward.

She gave a miserable scream, then stopped breathing.

She had actually been tortured to death.

Then more pustules split open all over her body. Blood gushed from the cracks, and one pea-shaped caterpillar after another broke free from the blood bladders. Their twisted bodies were smeared with sticky threads of blood and pus.

Once the caterpillars left the woman’s body, they swiftly crawled toward the powder the killer had thrown at Li Tianque.

The powder seemed to have a powerful attraction for them. Those greedy things arched their bodies and wriggled forward at speed, their movements ugly and eerie. Once they reached the powder, they immediately began to gorge themselves.

Li Tianque’s scalp prickled at the sight of it all, and he stood there holding the split-open corpse, momentarily at a loss.

Only then did Li Tianque realize that the powder the killer had scattered had not been meant to attack him at all, but to lure the caterpillars out from inside the woman’s body and thereby kill her.

Soon, the woman’s entire face had been torn apart by those dreadful insects, and there was clearly no hope of saving her.

Li Tianque finally came back to himself and was about to look for the local police station to report the crime.

Just then, a blinding beam of light suddenly appeared from ahead, shining straight onto Li Tianque’s head.

After that first beam, more lights gradually appeared, and the street grew noisy as well.

Li Tianque shielded his eyes from the glare and could dimly make out five or six sturdy Khampa men running toward him menacingly from the distance, shouting something as they came.

And so Li Tianque continued to hold the female corpse, his hands and body already covered in blood.

When those men drew near, the leader shone a flashlight into Li Tianque’s face and barked angrily,

“Who are you?”

Li Tianque studied the man before him.

He had dark skin, a cropped haircut, brows black as ink, and eyes like torches. A scar ran from the bridge of his nose to his right cheek, lending him a trace of roughness, yet he still looked vigorous and alert.

The man had spoken in the local tongue, but Li Tianque could roughly understand him. He slowly set the woman down and said,

“I came here looking for someone and happened to come across a murder scene. Unfortunately, the woman is beyond saving...”

The five sturdy men behind the scarred man were all stunned. The woman’s death had been far too gruesome.

Li Tianque stood up. The six of them watched him warily, all of them raising the batons in their hands.

“I warn you, don’t move. Take out your identity card!” the scarred man shouted.

This time, he switched languages and spoke in somewhat unsteady Mandarin.

Li Tianque looked at him coolly and said in a deep voice,

“Who are you people? On what grounds are you demanding my identity card?”

“I’m the local public security director. We’re the township patrol team from Urkolo. You’re now suspected of murder. Hand over your identity card, then come with us back to the township police station for questioning!” the scarred man said sternly.

Li Tianque shrugged. He had never intended to resist or run. What he could not understand was this: not long ago, the whole city had been eerily silent, like a dead place, with not a single person in sight.

And yet now, in less than ten minutes, how could these people have suddenly appeared out of nowhere? Something about it felt deeply wrong.

“Fine, I can cooperate with your investigation, but please show me your credentials first,” Li Tianque said.

The scarred man froze, then snapped angrily,

“Why are you full of so much nonsense? If you won’t take out your identity card, you’re coming with us! Come on, restrain him first!”

As soon as he finished speaking, the other sturdy men lunged at Li Tianque.

These Khampa men were tall and powerfully built, with a bold, vigorous bearing and a fierce air about them.

Though their physiques were intimidating, with Li Tianque’s inhuman strength and the basic combat techniques he had learned in the testing chamber, bringing them down was no different from child’s play.

Li Tianque moved like lightning, quickly slipping past the two men who rushed him first, then swept their legs and sent them both tumbling with ease.

Seeing the situation turn bad, the other three immediately raised their batons and swung at him.

Before they could even make contact, Li Tianque had already flashed to the nearest man’s side, chopped the weapon from his hand, then rushed to the other two and snatched both batons away. He said,

“Show me your credentials, and I’ll naturally cooperate with you. Otherwise, don’t blame me for being rude!”

Seeing that all five of his companions had been knocked down, the scarred man immediately became wary of the unremarkable Li Tianque.

Still, the scarred man gave a cold snort, rubbed his nose disdainfully, then spread his arms and assumed a wrestling stance.

Although Li Tianque’s performance had indeed been astonishing, the scarred man was not afraid. On the contrary, it only stirred his fighting spirit even more.

He was one of the finest wrestlers in Urkolo Township. Khampa wrestling, also called Nega, is a traditional sport of the Khampa people and one of the ways they display their strength.

The scarred man had repeatedly taken first place in various Nega competitions in the county, and pride in his own skill made it impossible for him to believe Li Tianque could defeat him.

Thus, the scarred man struck first, spreading his arms wide like a great roc opening its wings as he lunged toward Li Tianque.

Li Tianque had thought this scarred man would be as easy to handle as the others, but to his surprise, the man’s speed was clearly much greater than those before him.

Li Tianque failed to evade in time, and the other man seized his belt.

Fortunately, Li Tianque’s reactions were just as quick. He immediately wrapped both arms tightly around the scarred man’s neck, then concentrated all his weight in his waist and forced it downward with full strength.

One of the scarred man’s hands clamped onto Li Tianque’s belt, while the other gripped his waist tightly, trying to heave him straight up.

One man pressed down from above, the other tried to lift from below.

Li Tianque wanted to force the other man to the ground.

The scarred man wanted to hoist Li Tianque into the air.

For a moment, they were deadlocked, locked in a true test of brute strength.

Li Tianque was not using cellular enhancement at the time, but even so, his body and strength far exceeded those of an ordinary person by more than double. And yet this scarred man could still match him evenly. His strength was terrifying indeed.

Veins bulged on the scarred man’s forehead as he made grunting sounds in his throat. Both arms locked around Li Tianque’s waist, he used every ounce of strength he had to lift him.

The other sturdy men had originally intended to help the scarred man, but he barked them back.

The two of them remained deadlocked for about three minutes. The scarred man’s face was now red with exertion, and his breathing had turned ragged.

After all, Li Tianque had kept his hold around the man’s neck the entire time, severely hampering his breathing.

With breathing so difficult, the man’s grip gradually weakened.

In the end, Li Tianque successfully threw the scarred man down, while the other five once again picked up their batons at the same time and swung at him.

This time, Li Tianque could not dodge them all, but the batons landing on him might as well have been nothing at all.

Just as Li Tianque was about to strike back, a gunshot suddenly rang out from not far away.

Then three uniformed police officers also arrived at the scene.

This time, Li Tianque did not retaliate. He shook the filthy blood from his hands and stood to one side with his head held high.

The officers showed him their credentials and asked him to cooperate with the investigation.

After confirming their identities, Li Tianque readily agreed.

At that point, the Khampa men no longer made things difficult for him. These sturdy fellows admired martial valor and courage, so although they had been beaten, they only came to respect Li Tianque all the more for his ferocity, and naturally did not press the matter further.

Li Tianque followed the officers back to the police station, where he learned that the sturdy Khampa men from earlier were in fact the local patrol team, that is, auxiliary police, and that the scarred man was the public security director, named Dorje Nyima.

After Li Tianque finished his statement, the police wanted to verify his identity card.

Li Tianque had left his identity card in another backpack and was not carrying it, so he could only give them the number.

At present, Li Tianque was the only eyewitness found at the crime scene, and all the evidence there pointed to him as the chief suspect.

And so Li Tianque was taken into police custody, waiting for further interrogation.