Translator: CinderTL
The human heads varied in size. Some were as large as volleyballs, others no bigger than coffee cups, hanging near the other heads like grotesque tumors.
Most of them belonged to children, but there were also younger men and women. Every face was contorted beyond recognition, as if struggling to claw its way out from within.
Jiang Cheng spotted a familiar face among them.
It was a woman's head.
Her brow was furrowed, her eyes squeezed shut in agony, and her mouth hung open as if she couldn't believe she was being murdered even in her final moments.
Of course she couldn't believe it.
After all, the one who had killed her was the mother she had always believed had died unjustly.
This was Zhao Ru's head.
Not long ago, Yu Yu had reported finding Zhao Ru's body in Ward 624, her head missing.
Jiang Cheng never imagined it had been grafted onto him by a ghoul.
The word "graft" felt strange. Perhaps it had been consumed in some way, then grown onto his body.
But none of that mattered now.
Thinking back, the missing heads of the children in those files now had an explanation.
Was this a ritual, or the Multi-headed ghoul's ability?
Jiang Cheng wasn't sure yet.
Just as Huai Yi came running over, Jiang Cheng pushed an unlocked bicycle from around the corner and hurled it at the Multi-headed ghoul.
Huai Yi sidestepped the bicycle, which was an old-fashioned model made of sturdy materials and thrown with all Jiang Cheng's might.
Even so, it only made the Multi-headed ghoul pause for a moment.
But that was enough. Jiang Cheng turned and sprinted upstairs, with Huai Yi biting his lip and following close behind.
After running for an unknown amount of time, they finally lost the Multi-headed ghoul. The rhythmic "thump-thump" of its footsteps faded away. Jiang Cheng pulled Huai Yi into a room and they huddled together in the darkness, neither daring to turn on the lights.
"We... we lost it?" Huai Yi gasped, trying to catch his breath without making too much noise. He looked utterly ridiculous.
Jiang Cheng peered through a crack in the door, frowning. "I don't think so."
"What do you mean?" Huai Yi asked, startled.
"It's like it let us go on purpose. At its speed, it shouldn't have been so easy to shake off."
Jiang Cheng had witnessed the Multi-headed ghoul's speed while chasing Huai Yi earlier.
By borrowing the power of the door, Huai Yi's entire body, not just his arm, had been drastically enhanced.
An ordinary person would have been caught and torn apart long ago.
After a moment's thought, Jiang Cheng decided that ripping off the ghoul's head would have been more appropriate. The thought of ripping off a head reminded him of Fatty.
If Fatty were here, Jiang Cheng wouldn't have minded giving him a good scare.
Jiang Cheng had revealed Fatty's information to the middle-aged man. He couldn't directly confront Fatty's backers, but the middle-aged man could.
There was no doubt that the faction behind Fatty had sent him to infiltrate Jiang Cheng's inner circle. Though Jiang Cheng couldn't understand why they'd chosen such a dimwit for the task.
If Jiang Cheng had been ruthless enough, Fatty would have died countless times over by now, his corpse long since rotting.
Yet, in the end, they had succeeded.
What truly drove Jiang Cheng to send Fatty away wasn't the threat he posed. Quite the opposite: Jiang Cheng realized his feelings for Fatty were changing.
From initial wariness, he had gradually grown to trust him.
Jiang Cheng couldn't explain why, but the moment Fatty first showed up at his studio, he knew something was off.
He'd deliberately kept him around, curious to see what those who'd sent him were really up to.
But instead of uncovering any clues from Fatty, Jiang Cheng found himself subtly changed by the man.
This Fatty was actually changing him!
That was what truly terrified Jiang Cheng.
It hadn't been obvious at first, but lately, the feeling had grown stronger. He'd become indecisive, increasingly distracted by people and things that had never mattered before.
The world that had once offered only cold detachment suddenly seemed to have changed its face.
It felt like an abandoned child suddenly realizing there were many things in the world he couldn't bear to let go of, and many people and things he couldn't bear to let go of him.
It sounded good, but it was detrimental to him.
The more emotional attachments a person had, the more vulnerable they became.
It was Fatty who had enriched his emotions, and in doing so, made him increasingly fragile.
He found himself enraged by Chen Yi's death, and he even lowered himself to embrace the lost and confused Nan Jin.
Though they were mere passersby in their own world, they had become his concern, at least for that moment.
It was almost unimaginable.
Perhaps this was exactly what the people who sent Fatty wanted.
They wanted to use this Fatty to destroy him!
Realizing this, Jiang Cheng felt a surge of panic for the first time—a panic born from the seemingly harmless, slow-witted Fatty.
Sitting and waiting for death wasn't in his nature. He immediately devised a countermeasure.
There was no more direct solution than killing this meddling Fatty himself.
The thread connecting him to this world, woven by Fatty, would be severed only by Fatty's own death.
With his target set, all that remained was to choose the right moment.
Midnight.
Between 1:00 and 2:00 AM.
Killing him during this window would leave ample time to dispose of the body.
The body would be taken to the city's landfill outside the city limits.
Transportation method...
Jiang Cheng had planned everything meticulously, with a clear flowchart in his mind. Now, he was simply waiting for Fatty to become a corpse.
He had never killed anyone in the real world, but that didn't mean he didn't know how.
It was just that few people had ever made him feel it was necessary.
At one in the morning, he opened his eyes precisely on time. Without putting on shoes, he crept out of his bedroom and stood before Fatty's sofa bed.
Fatty's sleeping posture was utterly unrestrained, drool spilling from his mouth.
Whether he was dreaming or not, he mumbled things like "Don't run, you can't escape me!" and let out occasional "Heh heh heh" giggles.
Jiang Cheng suddenly felt his earlier preparations were foolish. This Fatty had no sense of danger whatsoever, sleeping soundly even in a nightmare.
He could snap his neck right now, and Fatty would die silently in the night.
No pain, no consequences.
When dawn broke, he would open the Gate as usual. No one would notice the world was missing a Fatty—except the people who had sent him.
But Jiang Cheng stood there for a long time, unable to raise his hand. Finally, he turned and returned to his bedroom, emerging again holding a sharp knife upside down.
The blade glinted menacingly in the darkness.
A knife would work too.
Though cleaning up the blood would be troublesome, at least he wouldn't have to touch Fatty's body directly.
(End of the Chapter)
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