As Gu Zhuo walked back into the bar, a low female voice stopped him:
"What happened to you?"
He glanced sideways and saw Amamiya Chihiro in a red dress leaning against the outside wall, arms crossed. She lowered her gaze and continued to ask without turning her head:
"Could it be the usual problem... has your superpower lost control again?"
"There’s a bug among your guests."
"A bug?"
Amamiya Chihiro was slightly taken aback and turned to look at Gu Zhuo.
This underground bar was established by the cri syndicate behind her; every guest was carefully selected and had to be a person of certain status in the underworld, and they had to sign a strict confidentiality agreent beforehand.
How could a bug possibly sneak in here?
Who would be so bold?
"Help investigate that man in the floral shirt from earlier; contact with the results."
Leaving these words in a hoarse and icy tone, Gu Zhuo walked toward the bar’s exit without looking back, under the puzzled gaze of the proprietress.
Gu Zhuo never glanced at her even once.
"Does he... cry too?"
Amamiya Chihiro whispered while hugging her shoulders, taking another look at Gu Zhuo’s retreating figure.
He walked unsteadily, his back like a mad dog that had its spine removed.
Just after exiting the underground bar, the morning light spilled from above the sky. Gu Zhuo raised his hand to shield his eyes from the light, squinting as his blood-colored pupils trembled.
A mont later, he slowly raised his head and suddenly saw a shadow in the alley being suspended mid-air by black band-like objects, surrounded in a massive sphere of black straps, motionless.
Through the gaps between those restraint belts, he saw a man unconscious inside.
The man’s appearance and the floral shirt on his body were identical to the one who had given him the recording pen earlier. At this mont, the man’s sunglasses fell off his face, slipping through the gaps of the restraint belts and making a crisp clatter as they hit the ground.
"Black Cocoon..."
Gu Zhuo murmured the na with a gloomy expression, a hint of savagery passing through his eyes. He passed beneath the man in the floral shirt and slowly vanished into the sunlight at the end of the alley.
......
......
Ten minutes earlier, after handing the recording pen to Gu Zhuo, the Restraint Incarnation left the underground bar.
After returning to the alley, it imdiately climbed up to the rooftop of a residential building, found the unconscious elder brother, and dutifully returned the floral shirt, suit pants, and sunglasses, embodying the spirit of a thrifty prodigal son.
Then Ji Minghuan controlled the Restraint Incarnation to extend its right arm from the railing, peeling off a piece of "Restraint Trap" from the top of a costics billboard endorsed by Aragaki Yui.
In an instant, the pitch-black restraint belts intertwined like snakes around one corner of the billboard, covering Aragaki Yui’s beautiful face, but they soon turned transparent, and the billboard quickly restored its original appearance.
[Active skill "Restraint Trap" has been released, with a cooldown period of: one day (one restraint trap is generated daily, with a maximum storage of two restraint traps)]
[The current number of usable restraint traps is: 0]
Subsequently, Ji Minghuan had the incarnation throw out the man in the floral shirt who had put his clothes back on.
At the mont the trap was triggered, the man’s body was instantly engulfed by the erupting restraint belts, and the whole person swung like a swing in mid-air, eventually coming to a slow halt in the alley.
"With this, when Dad gets out, he won’t waste ti investigating the underworld but will co straight to ... Surely he can’t be foolish enough to think I’m actually part of the underworld, right?"
With this in mind, Ji Minghuan contentedly let the Restraint Incarnation on the rooftop disperse into a scorching gas.
The essence of the Black Cocoon had already reached ho, lying idly on the hotel bed. And co the night, Ji Minghuan would use the Black Cocoon to et Gu Zhuo on a building near the Tokyo Bay Bridge. He assud that, having been threatened this way, Gu Zhuo would have no choice but to co and investigate.
So at this mont, the only one still busy is our second machine.
At this ti, on the other side of Tokyo, Ji Minghuan is controlling the second machine "Xia Pingzhou" to reach the eting point ntioned by Ayase Origami.
He looks up at the abandoned amusent park in front of him and walks past the "No Entry" sign to go inside.
The giant doll at the entrance is torn and unrecognizable, probably needing a hundred stitches to restore it to its original state. Many amusent facilities are so old and dilapidated that they are unbearable to look at — the wooden hull of the pirate ship is full of holes, with wood chips piled on the ground like snow; the black sails have been weathered to a vague white by the wind.
He wandered around the amusent park and soon found a piece of amusent equipnt still in motion.
It was a carousel, a place often frequented by adults taking children to the amusent park.
But at this mont, what Xia Pingzhou saw was sowhat inappropriate for children: on top of the carousel canopy hung nine tall figures dressed in suits and leather shoes — their bodies rolled their eyes, turning slowly with the carousel, yet without any trace of blood leaking out; they died very cleanly.
The whole amusent facility was unusually clean, making the scene even more eerie.
Amidst the nine corpses was a red horse, on which sat a woman in a red dress with long pale golden hair. Her figure was graceful and tall, appearing to be about 1.79 ters, slightly taller than Xia Pingzhou. Her deanor was graceful and poised, yet with a faint hint of aggression.
The woman sat sideways on the horse, her pale golden hair gently undulating like waves in the wind blowing from above Tokyo.
She turned her red eyes towards Xia Pingzhou’s figure below, slowly curling her lips, and said, "You’re the newcor they’re talking about?"
"Number 12, Xia Pingzhou." Ji Minghuan replied calmly.
His gaze lingered on the bodies turning with the carousel. Upon closer inspection, so clues could be seen: their bodies appeared intact but were actually in pieces, roughly stitched together by so lines of blood in the air, making them look like complete corpses.
The most terrifying thing was that Ji Minghuan only realized after getting closer — these were not corpses...
They were still alive: the sound of breathing was clearly audible, but they could only maintain the sa posture, hanging motionlessly in mid-air, eyes rolled backward dramatically, their faces contorted, white foam sliding from their mouth corners, visibly enduring great pain.
A creaking sound and the carousel canopy suddenly stopped, the horses no longer moving, and the bodies of the suited n swayed twice and then went still.
Instead, the woman on the red horse opened her mouth and said:
"I’m ranked number 9 in the troupe, I don’t have a na, they usually call ’Bloodline’, so others call ’Vampire’. Don’t you have a code na for yourself?"
Ji Minghuan shook his head, "I don’t have a code na for now."
Bloodline curled her lips towards him, slowly saying, "I see, we usually call each other by na if we have one, by code if we don’t, and only use our number in the troupe when there’s no other option; however, generally, mbers who don’t have a good relationship will use their numbers to address each other."
"I see..." Ji Minghuan’s face was expressionless, "What’s going on with these people?"
Bloodline said nonchalantly, "They are superpower user bodyguards hired by the Yugong Clan, from their feel, each is roughly at the Juggernaut level. I just happened to run into them on the road, found it amusing, so I killed them offhand."
Ji Minghuan observed for a mont, withdrew his gaze from the nine bodyguards, and unhurriedly speculated:
"Your superpower should be controlling blood. You divided their bodies into countless pieces and yet manipulated the blood to stitch their bodies together while allowing their blood circulation to remain normal; thus, even though they’re in pieces, they won’t die imdiately."
"Oh? So you’ve noticed this." Bloodline arched an eyebrow, stared directly at Ji Minghuan, and curled her lips into an intriguing smile.
Ji Minghuan continued to ask, "So you could theoretically drain anyone’s blood?"
"No." Bloodline replied candidly, "I can only control soone else’s blood when my blood is in contact with theirs." She paused, cupping her cheeks with both hands, "It sounds like... you’re afraid I’d drain your blood dry?"
Ji Minghuan matched her aggressive gaze.
He suddenly asked politely, "Number 9, would you let have your toys?"
Saying this, he pointed his chin at the nine n hanging under the carousel canopy.
Bloodline paused, curiously asking, "Why?"
Ji Minghuan explained expressionlessly, "My Celestial Driver is rather special; it becos stronger by killing extraordinary beings."
He lied with a straight face, eting Bloodline’s crimson gaze directly.
The fact is, if the ones hanging under Bloodline’s carousel were indeed nine Juggernaut power users, putting them to rest could be fully counted towards the cultivation progress of the second machine–the "Winter of the Wild Hunt" developnt system. These nine heads wouldn’t go to waste.
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