But Su Ze didn't panic. He laid into him without mercy. "You idiot! You brainless fuckwit!"
"Drain my blood, kill me—have you even thought about how you're going to open the gate to this confinement area?"
The vampire chuckled. "Didn't you tell us we just had to..."
His voice trailed off as he spoke, as if he'd choked on his words.
The gate to the confinement area was indestructible and could only be opened from the outside. The Prison Guard captain on duty outside had to verify a fingerprint and enter a password to open it.
And the Prison Guard captain had a habit of observing the situation behind the gate before opening it.
Su Ze's original plan was to have the sickly-looking man use his Corpse Control Skill on Zhao Lingxiao's body to trick the guard into opening the gate. But now, Zhao Lingxiao's face was caved in, and the vampire had drained so much blood that he was practically a shriveled husk. That plan was clearly out of the question. The only alternative was for one of the three of them to impersonate Zhao Lingxiao.
However, neither the vampire nor the sickly-looking man had a build that matched Zhao Lingxiao's. Su Ze, on the other hand, was practically a carbon copy.
But that was only if Su Ze was in a normal state. If the vampire sucked him dry into a shriveled husk, he definitely wouldn't be able to fool the Prison Guard captain either.
Realizing this, the vampire immediately stopped draining Su Ze's blood.
Su Ze didn't want to waste any more time either. "Let's open the cell doors first," he said in a low voice.
Killing Zhao Lingxiao was a crucial step in Su Ze's escape plan, as they needed a corpse to press the button and open the cell doors.
The control panel for the cell doors was a full fifty meters away, so they had to rely on the sickly-looking man's Corpse Control Skill to get them open.
The sickly-looking man's Corpse Control Skill came from a rare tier-three variant beast, the Nether Cat. This black-furred feline beast had a bizarre ability: any corpse it touched would reanimate and fall under its control.
The sickly-looking man had been lucky enough to acquire this ability after absorbing a vial of Nether Cat extract.
However, the ability required him to make physical contact with the corpse. From inside his cell, the sickly-looking man obviously couldn't touch Zhao Lingxiao's body on the floor.
Su Ze had already devised a countermeasure for this. The sickly-looking man bit his own finger and stuck the bleeding digit out through the small window of his cell door.
The vampire immediately manipulated the blood welling from the man's wound, drawing it out into a thin line. One end remained connected to the wound, while the other stretched out until it touched Zhao Lingxiao's body on the floor.
Since blood was a part of the sickly-looking man's body, this counted as him making contact with the corpse. In the next instant, the dead Zhao Lingxiao slowly began to rise from the floor, its movements somewhat stiff.
It worked!
Joyous expressions appeared on the faces of the three escapees.
They had already collected the Prison Guard captain's fingerprint. Now that they had control of the corpse, they had everything they needed to open the cell doors.
The vampire grabbed one of Zhao Lingxiao's fingers, scraped off the fingerprint with a nail, and then manipulated the flowing blood to reform into a new print—the exact fingerprint of the Prison Guard captain.
Under the sickly-looking man's control, Zhao Lingxiao's corpse strode with quick but rigid steps straight toward the control panel inside the prison.
After Zhao Lingxiao's corpse fiddled with the control panel for a moment, the cell doors of the sickly-looking man, Su Ze, and the vampire opened one after another. The three of them couldn't wait to scramble out of their cramped cells.
The first thing Su Ze did was snatch the Head of the Wailer up from the floor. A vicious glint flashed in the vampire's eyes upon seeing this, but he didn't act on it.
The sickly-looking man had Zhao Lingxiao's corpse walk back over to them before releasing his control over it.
Su Ze immediately took over, dragging Zhao Lingxiao's body back into his own cell.
Up close with the corpse, Su Ze could more clearly smell the pungent perfume on Zhao Lingxiao's body. And beneath that perfumed scent... Su Ze could faintly detect a foul stench!
'Did the body start to stink this quickly?'
No, that's not right!
Su Ze suddenly realized that Zhao Lingxiao must have been dousing himself in so much perfume to cover up that foul stench on his body!
'Could it be because of a promiscuous lifestyle? Did he catch some disease recently?'
Su Ze shook his head, not dwelling on it. He deftly stripped the clothes off Zhao Lingxiao's body, then took off his own prison uniform.
He wasn't doing this because he'd gone stir-crazy in his cell, of course; he was going to swap their clothes.
That's right. Su Ze wasn't just going to put on Zhao Lingxiao's clothes—he was also going to put his own prison uniform on Zhao Lingxiao. He was going to take his place!
"You can rest in peace now. I'll be sure to inherit those hundreds of millions for you..."
Su Ze took off Zhao Lingxiao's sunglasses and put them on himself, then gently closed Zhao Lingxiao's wide, staring eyes.
While Su Ze was changing clothes in the cell, a murderous look flashed in the vampire's eyes. He made a throat-slitting gesture at the sickly-looking man.
His meaning was clear: kill Su Ze now and have the sickly-looking man control his corpse to trick the guard into opening the confinement area's gate.
The sickly-looking man shook his head. The corpses he controlled were stiff compared to living people and couldn't talk. There was a risk of being found out. The escape plan was already more than halfway to success; he didn't want to take that risk.
Seeing the sickly-looking man disagree, the vampire had no choice but to drop it.
A moment later, when they saw Su Ze walk out wearing Zhao Lingxiao's clothes, surprise and confusion flickered in their eyes. Zhao Lingxiao's outfit fit Su Ze so perfectly it was as if it had been tailored for him.
At first glance, they almost thought Zhao Lingxiao had come back from the dead.
It was a good thing Zhao Lingxiao had been hiding his face with a mask and sunglasses. Otherwise, if the two had discovered that Zhao Lingxiao and Su Ze had identical faces, who knows what conclusions they would have drawn.
"The resemblance is uncanny! Fooling the Prison Guard will be no problem at all!"
The sickly-looking man and the vampire felt a renewed surge of confidence in their escape.
Zhao Lingxiao's clothes were all intact, and the vampire had taken care of all the bloodstains. The only blemish was a small, inconspicuous hole in the mask where the blood arrow had pierced it, unnoticeable without close inspection.
"Let's hurry." Su Ze called out and took the lead, walking toward the confinement area gate.
The vampire and the sickly-looking man crouched down and followed behind Su Ze.
Both of them had many questions about what had happened tonight, but now was clearly not the time to satisfy their curiosity.
The three walked down the corridor for a moment, rounded a corner, and after a few more steps, they were at the gate to the confinement area.
The vampire and the sickly-looking man both stopped at the corner. If they went any further, the Prison Guard captain would be able to see them through the transparent glass on the gate.
The two of them hid around the corner, waiting only for the gate to open so they could charge out.
Su Ze walked with steady steps to the gate and knocked lightly.
The Prison Guard captain outside peered in, first looking at Su Ze, then glancing behind him. The sound of him pressing keys to input the password followed.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP...
With every beep, the tension for the three of them ratcheted up another notch.
Finally, the sound of the lock core turning echoed, and the gate slowly began to open.
The vampire and the sickly-looking man, who had been coiled and ready, sprang into action. They leaped up and pounced toward the half-open gate like cheetahs.
Once they were through this gate, their escape would be a success. It was the middle of the night, and among the Prison Guards on duty outside, only one was at the Cocoon Stage—not nearly enough to stop the two of them.
As for Su Ze, who was currently blocking their path, they couldn't care less.
With their physical prowess and explosive power, if they ran into Su Ze, it would be no different from him being hit by a speeding car. He'd be dead or crippled.
But so what?
In their eyes, Su Ze had completely outlived his usefulness.
But it was only then that they saw it. Su Ze, his back to them, had one hand held behind him the entire time. Clutched in his palm was a small skull, its two empty eye sockets staring right at them.