Replace the Murderer
“@#$%……”
Wang Hongsheng felt like screaming ‘motherf*cker’ a thousand times in his mind. He suddenly turned around. Just then, there came a short sound of something breaking the air, and Wang Hongsheng reacted rapidly, just as he had done when he dodged Su Bai’s surprise attack. His reaction was indeed amazing.
However, he wasn’t able to dodge this one because it was a bullet coming to him. And it came from a silencer, so the sound was next to nothing. No matter how fast Wang Hongsheng was, he would not be faster than a bullet.
“Plop……”
Wang Hongsheng was shot in the chest. He fell onto the ground, but immediately clapped on the floor, stabilized his body and took out his gun with the other hand.
“Bang！”
He only felt a numbing sensation from his palm. His gun was struck off. Then the door of the wardrobe was kicked open, a man rushed out and immediately kicked Wang Hongsheng.
He raised his hands to grab the attacker’s ankles, but the attacker changed his kick into a stamp on Wang’s chest, where he was just hurt by the bullet. Blood splattered from Wang’s mouth.
Next, the man turned over.
“Bang!”
Su Bai had also just arrived and shot a bullet, but missed him.
Then Su Bai rushed into the bedroom and lifted his gun again. The man also lifted his gun. They stood there, gun to gun.
Wang Hongsheng was shot first and stamped on the wound later. If he was not a martial artist, he would have passed out already. Now he was so weak that he could only lie there breathing heavily.
Su Bai looked at the man in front of him. His body was wrapped up in a raincoat, with a mask of the Monkey King[1] covering his face. But there was a cruel insanity in his eyes.
“You’re under arrest,” Su Bai said something useless.
“Bang！”
“Bang！”
The man pulled the trigger and so did Su Bai.
Su Bai got hit in the shoulder and had to lean against the wall. The other man was hit too, and fell onto the bed.
But neither of them stopped shooting.
“Bang！”
“Bang！”
“Bang！”
The man didn’t seem to be affected at all. He just bounced up from the bed and moved easily. But Su Bai was staggering after taking two shots. Especially when the man came near Su Bai. Su Bai’s gun was grabbed and twisted, and it fell off his hand.
Then a blade appeared in the man’s right hand and quickly cut through Su Bai’s neck. Su Bai covered his neck with both hands and crouched down.
The man kicked Su Bai to the ground.
However, in the next moment, the dying Su Bai suddenly jumped up, held the man’s waist with both arms and threw him onto the dresser.
“Crash…………”
The mirror on the dresser broke into pieces. There was astonishment in the man’s eyes; apparently, he had thought that Su Bai must have lost his capacity for actions after taking multiple shots and could only wait for death. But right now, Su Bai had shown an incredible capability.
Su Bai grabbed a piece of glass and stabbed it into the man’s chest.
However, with a crisp sound, the glass broke.
F*ck!
He’s wearing a body armor!
The man had finally understood the situation. He kicked Su Bai in the underbelly and then ran out of the bedroom after Su Bai fell onto the bed. He was trying to escape.
“Go, go after him……”
Wang Hongsheng raised his hand and shouted to Su Bai with the last gasp.
Then he saw Su Bai stare at him with red eyes. Immediately, Wang Hongsheng felt as if his heart missed a beat.
Su Bai closed his eyes, shook his head hard, took a deep breath, growled from deep down his throat and rushed out after that man.
Wang Hongsheng felt as if he had just come back from hell again. He lowered his head to the floor. With gunshots fired, his colleagues would come soon. The man had missed his vital part; though the bullet hit his chest, it just hurt his flesh instead of the vital organs. But the following stamp on the wound had made it worse for him because it almost stopped his breath. As described in Kung Fu novels, his Internal Energy was scattered, and he could not move in a short time.
…………
Everything in Su Bai’s vision had turned scarlet, but as a result, he was faster, like a starving beast chasing his prey.
Apparently, the man was very familiar with this place; he chose small paths and alleys and, to some degree, he was even more skillful than Wang Hongsheng. He could easily get over barriers that would stop ordinary people.
After about five minutes, Su Bai began to feel weak. He needed fresh blood desperately. He couldn’t continue the chase any longer; he would never catch that man.
The man got over a fence; it took Su Bai more time than before to climb up the fence. Then, just when he got out of that alley, he saw a lot of cops.
How was it possible?
The man just disappeared?
Su Bai was a cop, too. But he didn’t got out to meet them; instead, he turned over the fence on the other side.
…………
Wang Hongsheng was carried onto an ambulance. The car started and headed to the hospital, but stopped at a crossing.
A doctor was accompanying Wang Hongsheng. He immediately asked what was going on; the patient was badly injured and had to be sent to a hospital without delay.
The driver opened the small window behind him:
“There’s a cop.”
“Clash!”
Su Bai opened the rear door of the ambulance and took out his police ID.
“I’ve got something to say with Mr. Wang. It’s classified. You go sit in the front.”
“No! He’s badly hurt!” The doctor was quite devoted to his duty.
“Listen to him, doc. I’ll live for now. If our work gets delayed, more people will get hurt, and I’d have been injured for nothing!”
Wang Hongsheng helped to persuade the doctor.
The doctor then said nothing, just walked out of the ambulance with the nurse by his side and went to the driver’s cab in the front.
Su Bai got in and closed the door.
The ambulance started again and headed to the hospital.
Su Bai closed the small window between the driver’s cab and rear room and looked at Wang Hongsheng.
“You didn’t lose much blood, did you?”
“No. I clamped the wound with my muscles.”
“Good.”
Su Bai smiled and took off his hat. He had been wearing that hat all day, but now when he took it off, Wang Hongsheng saw an extremely pale face.
Ignoring Wang Hongsheng’s look, Su Bai just took off the blood bag that was transfusing blood into Wang’s body and sucked it up hurriedly and enjoyably.
Wang Hongsheng watched Su Bai with furrowed eyebrows. After Su Bai had drunk up a whole bag of blood, a trace of blood finally returned to his face.
“Ho…………”
Su Bai sighed with satisfaction.
He was sort of unlucky. He had gone through all the trouble to get a box of red beads, but it was not allowed in this story world. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so awkward with even one red bead.
“What did you exchange?”
“Vampire powers,” Su Bai answered. Then he went on looking and found another blood bag. This time he was drinking much more slowly; clearly, that strong craving had passed.
“Lost him?”
Su Bai nodded. “That man’s better than you.”
“Indeed.” Although Wang Hongsheng had fallen into Su Bai’s trap and was caught off guard, he did fight with that guy for a while. He was fast and fierce and was, apparently, also a martial artist; and his moves were kind of brutal, very different from those decent formal ones.
“A handgun with a silencer, and a body armor. Hem.” Su Bai started recalling.
Now Wang Hongsheng didn’t blame Su Bai for setting him up, because there was no point in that. Besides, Su Bai had arrived just in time, otherwise, he would be dead by now; Su Bai wasn’t so heartless after all.
“Any idea about his identity?” Wang Hongsheng asked.
Su Bai took out a piece of paper from his pocket and put it in front of Wang Hongsheng.
“You got this note, too, didn’t you?”
Wang Hongsheng nodded.
Everyone entering this story world should have this note; it must have been handed to every audience and experiencer as a clue from the Dreadful Radio in the beginning.
“Look at what kind of people the killer had chosen at that time.”
Su Bai pointed to the lines on the paper.
“All were women living alone or walking alone in the late night. What does that mean? It means the killer was a wretched psychopath with poor fighting capability.
“But, the guy we just met, does he look like that kind of coward?
“He’s beaten us down together, and he’s got a silenced gun and a body armor.”
“You mean…?” Wang Hongsheng understood, and there was astonishment on his face.
“Yes, I believe that someone— probably someone like us— is imitating or replacing the real murderer of this case by continuing to commit more murders!”