At the end of March in Wanghai City, it should have been the season of warming spring and blossoming flowers, but the weather was abnormal this year. Suddenly, a blizzard lasted for three consecutive days, and it just cleared up last night.
At the west gate of Wanghai University, Wu Chang shivered in the cold wind, tightened the hood of his down jacket, and walked toward the Nanshi Station at the school gate.
It's not cold when it snows, but it's colder when it melts. If not for an interview, he wouldn't have left his warm bed for anything.
In the current era, company bosses are all masters of time management.
To solve the problem of fresh graduates lacking work experience and the high salaries for skilled workers, the recruitment information became a mix of wanting fresh graduates but requiring two to three years of work experience.
This is how the workplace is: the workhorses need to work day and night, while being a boss involves much more complexity.
Beside the bus stop, several sanitation workers were cleaning up the accumulated snow. Less than a meter away from them, a puddle of pale red blood slowly flowed on the ground.
Many pedestrians had stepped over it multiple times, yet no one stopped to take a look. Only Wu Chang's gaze lingered for a moment when he glanced over, as if only he could see it.
In fact, only he could see it.
When he stared at the bloodstain on the ground, it flowed like a water screen, projecting a brief image.
On an ice and snow-covered street, a speeding car rushed by. Suddenly, one side of its wheels skidded, and the car uncontrollably crashed into the roadside. The scene went black amidst violent shaking.
He took out his phone and opened the local news.
"At 11:15 last night, Zhao was driving a motor vehicle through Nanshi Road when the vehicle lost control and an accident occurred. One person died and two were injured in a family of three. Police determined the accident was caused by driving under the influence."
It matched.
Wu Chang put away his phone and saw a line full of sighs appear after the image in the bloodstain ended.
"Driving improperly leads to tears from loved ones."
This was Zhao's last words.
A deep realization, but where were these thoughts earlier?
About a month ago, Wu Chang woke up one day and started seeing these bloodstains from time to time.
He called these bloodstains grievances.
The stronger the deceased was in life, the heavier the grievance, and the deeper the color of the grievance left behind.
Like the grievance Zhao left on the snow, its color was pale red, which would dissipate in no time.
If one encounters deep red, or even dark red grievances, it indicates the deceased had intense resentment, which wouldn't vanish easily. Fulfilling the deceased's dying wish is necessary to make the grievance disappear.
Getting rid of resentment isn't for nothing. Just like in strange novels where exorcising unjust spirits results in them returning the favor, eliminating dark red grievances would also bring benefits to him.
He once exorcised a dark red grievance. The grievance owner was a basketball athlete. After clearing the browsing history in the grievance owner's phone browser, he "inherited" the owner's physique and basketball skills.
In just one week, he transformed from a skinny guy with no training marks to having a sharply defined muscle structure comparable to fitness influencers.
With such muscle mass and his looks above eight, as long as he can withstand the steel wool, he could avoid thirty years of detours.
Just when he was about to have an epiphany, the 17-bus he was waiting for entered the station.
The bus operated as usual, but just as the door was about to close, a flash of glaring red caught his attention.
A man wearing a wool hat, an old leather jacket, and carrying a black backpack boarded the bus.
The man had a thin face, oily hair, messy stubble, looking like an ordinary, disheveled middle-aged man. Few memorable points were the sunglasses he wore even on cloudy days and his right hand which was always tucked in his sleeve.
Others just thought the man was shabby, but in Wu Chang's eyes, the man was carrying twelve to thirteen grievances, the bloody hue illuminating the entire bus compartment.
Among them, there was also a deep red grievance, so red it was almost purple.
Wu Chang wrinkled his nose and, looking at the overwhelming bloody air, he seemed to smell the scent of blood on the sunglasses man.
Not everyone can condense a grievance after death. Twelve to thirteen grievances hint at no less than a hundred lives lost.
Particularly the deep red grievance suggests a heavy resentment. The victim at least encountered a situation as horrific as a human centipede, and was at the very tail end.
Interesting, let me take a closer look.
He stared at the man with sunglasses, as the deep red blood flowed, opening a crack in the abyss-like chaos, and a hellish scene unfolded before him.
Dozens of human corpses, their torsos and limbs twisted, disassembled, and nailed to a large tree stripped of its bark, resembling flesh and blood branches. Human heads were embedded among them, like large fruits ripening on the tree.
Under the tree, the thin man held a short knife, carving intricate patterns on the tree trunk with blood as paint.
Judging from the figure, the knife bearer was the sunglasses man.
He gazed with deep concentration, but in the next moment, a bullet shot into his skull from behind and exited through his left eye socket.
His fluids splashed all over, not looking any better than the scene on the tree.
A young man appeared, holding a silver revolver, dressed in a camouflage tactical suit. He fired several more shots into the sunglasses man's corpse, each bullet transforming into explosive fireballs.
The successive explosions blasted deep pits in the ground, raising clouds of dust.
The camo man holstered his gun, took out his phone, and filmed the horrifying bloody tree. Pity he was still young, knowing to finish off the target, but not aware of the rule of harmless smoke.
As he was taking pictures, the man with sunglasses leaped out from the smoke and plunged a dagger into the back of the man in camouflage. The camouflage man, on the brink of death, retaliated fiercely, heavily injuring the sunglass man before escaping. He died before he could send out the intel he had seen.
The information he couldn't convey in life appeared in the dying message left by his resentment.
"Bloodthorn is a Veteran, possessing regeneration abilities, immune to fatal injuries. Only severing limbs, organ destruction, and widespread damage can harm him. Every time he recovers from injuries, Bloodthorn loses a part of his rationality. Excessive damage might cause Bloodthorn's Will to collapse."
The Bloodthorn mentioned in the dying message should refer to the man with sunglasses.
Apart from the ordinary dying message of resentment like Zhao's, there was also a blood-colored dying message in the resentment.
[Eliminate Bloodthorn.]
Wu Chang frowned, eliminate Bloodthorn, me?
Thinking carefully about it, it's not impossible.
In the resentment of the camouflage man, he shot off Bloodthorn's right hand during his dying counterattack. The injuries to the left eye and right hand coincidentally matched Bloodthorn's sunglasses and the right hand tucked in the sleeve.
Losing an eye severely impairs vision.
Losing his dominant right hand greatly reduces the speed and force of his attacks.
Healing injuries will deplete rationality, inevitably leading to Bloodthorn's mind becoming chaotic, impairing judgment.
Simply put, he's severely handicapped.
In a direct fight, he doesn't stand a chance, but by foreseeing Bloodthorn's weaknesses and aggressively attacking those vulnerabilities, there might be an opportunity.
But the risk is too high.
Encountering a crimson resentment is rare; life is but one. There's no need to risk it.
Just as he was planning to pretend he hadn't seen Bloodthorn and wait until Bloodthorn got off to call the police, he saw Bloodthorn unzip the backpack and grasp the handle of a knife inside.
Wu Chang knitted his brows, come on, buddy, doing this is just wrong.
I was ready to pretend not to see you, why are you pushing your luck?
I may not excel in physical combat, but I have some skill in ball games; don't force me to confront you physically.
Unfortunately, the man with sunglasses did not hear the admonition in his heart. He slowly drew out the short knife, preparing to stab the passenger next to him.
Wu Chang sighed and shouted, "Watch out ahead!"
Bloodthorn's movements halted, and he instinctively looked forward.
Wu Chang quickly approached, taking advantage of Bloodthorn's blind spot, closing the distance in two giant strides, and thrust his elbow out, shouting:
"Man!"
This elbow strike was unexpected, combining speed, precision, and power. As Bloodthorn turned his head back, he was struck in the face by the elbow.
Blood spurted out at once, blocking the only eye left to the man with sunglasses. A weakness surged from within, akin to being poisoned by Snake Venom, leaving him powerless and limp on the floor.
Seizing the moment, Wu Chang knocked the man with sunglasses down with an elbow, and while shouting "He's got a knife!" he grabbed a fire extinguisher and swung it hard at Bloodthorn's head.
The passengers in the vehicle hadn't even reacted before Bloodthorn had entered a sleep like a baby.
Daring to launch an attack in broad daylight, Bloodthorn's rationality was already exhausted by his regenerative abilities. Now, after several heavy blows, his rationality completely crumbled, turning him into a living dead.
The blood-colored will on Bloodthorn along with the resentment dissipated, and Wu Chang felt a weight in his down jacket pocket, as if something had appeared inside.
The reward for the exorcism had arrived.
When other passengers weren't paying attention, he reached into his pocket cautiously, and upon feeling the shape of the reward, he shivered and pulled his hand out as if electrocuted.
A gun!
A valuable item, but too hot to handle.
If found, his internship contents might switch to using a sewing machine.
Being discovered is unacceptable, and discarding it is even worse!
A crimson resentment had already brought him a near transformation; this gun, extracted from a crimson resentment, was no ordinary item. Moreover, it was a treasure he risked his life to retrieve; how could he not keep it?
He must quickly find a place to hide it.
The bus pulled into the station, and the passengers, dragging the unconscious man with sunglasses, discussed how to take him to the nearby police station.
With a severe contraband in his pocket, Wu Chang dared not go with them, making an excuse about having matters to attend to and left after a few words.
Not caring about the interview, he took a taxi back to Wanghai University, planning first to hide the gun in his bag and then figure out the next step.
If necessary, he might hide the gun first and then surrender at a nearby police station.
But the moment he stepped through the school gate, he felt a blur in front of him, and when he regained focus, he found himself in an unfamiliar room.
An emotionless electronic voice sounded in his ear.
"Welcome, new Player, to the Abyssal Game."