Free Web NovelTang Erda was so furious he looked ready to pass out. “Lu Yizhan, let go of me! You have no idea what kind of monster Bai Six is!”
Lu Yizhan’s expression abruptly turned serious. “I’ll stake my life on it—Bai Liu has never committed a single illegal or criminal act.”
“So far!” Tang Erda’s bloodshot eyes widened. “That’s only ‘so far’! Don’t you understand? Bai Six is a born criminal!”
“As long as he’s given even the slightest opportunity, the tiniest bit of room to grow, he’ll commit crimes beyond redemption! You’re an investigator too—don’t you know how people like him are supposed to be handled?!”
“...Prevent the crime, control the behavior, and observe the motive,” Lu Yizhan answered after a brief silence.
“You can skip the ‘control’ and ‘observe’ parts.” Tang Erda’s breathing turned heavy, his voice cold as ice. “At the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau, when we deal with heretics too dangerous to control, there’s only one method left: prevention through extermination.”
The instant Lu Yizhan’s grip loosened, Tang Erda tore his arm free.
He struck Lu Yizhan’s forearm aside with a backhand blow, wrenching it backward hard enough to force a pained release. In the same motion, Tang Erda reversed their positions, hooked an elbow around Lu Yizhan’s neck, and locked him in place. His left hand flicked upward—
BANG!
Without the slightest hesitation, he fired straight at Bai Liu.
Pinned by the throat, Lu Yizhan struggled with all his strength. Grabbing Tang Erda’s restraining arm with both hands, he kicked off the corridor wall and twisted his waist violently, flipping Tang Erda over together with the gun.
Tang Erda’s aim shifted.
The bullet missed Bai Liu and slammed into the metal wall of the corridor. Sharp ricochets exploded through the hallway as Lu Yizhan roared himself hoarse:
“Bai Liu!! Get down!!”
The bullet grazed Bai Liu’s earlobe before crashing into the door marked [0001] behind him.
Strangely, the impact made no sound at all.
The bullet simply dropped limply to the floor.
A bloody violence had crept into Tang Erda’s eyes and movements alike. “Do you even know what you’re trying so desperately to protect?!”
His fingers tightened.
Using his index and middle fingers, he locked onto the spot just above Lu Yizhan’s Adam’s apple and jerked upward. Choking, Lu Yizhan instinctively loosened his grip. Tang Erda immediately swept his leg over Lu Yizhan’s right arm and drove his knee down into the back of Lu Yizhan’s head.
A sharp ringing exploded through Lu Yizhan’s skull.
He crashed to the ground, pinned beneath Tang Erda’s knee pressing against the base of his skull. The impact was so brutal it felt as though his front teeth had been knocked loose.
Tang Erda really had been holding back before.
Now that he was fighting seriously, Lu Yizhan couldn’t resist at all.
A sour ache filled his mouth. Blood seeped from between loosened teeth, dripping across the floor and staining half his face red.
At the end of the corridor, Bai Liu stood trapped with nowhere left to retreat.
Tang Erda raised his gun toward him again.
Without a word, Bai Liu wrapped his fingers around the coin hanging against his chest. He glanced sideways at Lu Yizhan, who was being restrained on the floor.
Although he’d promised not to summon those monsters casually anymore...
This situation probably didn’t count as “casual,” did it?
Still, the last time he’d used them, Bai Liu had clearly felt something draining away from him—as though his life itself were being siphoned out, leaving him weak at terrifying speed.
If he used it again now...
He didn’t know what would happen.
Lu Yizhan noticed Bai Liu’s movement and immediately cursed.
“Bai Liu! Don’t use that!” he shouted as he struggled desperately to rise. “Don’t summon those monsters again!”
At that exact moment, a black shadow burst from the darkness behind them.
Tang Erda reacted instantly. He swung his gun up without hesitation and fired directly at the incoming figure. But the shadow moved too fast. Realizing the other party was aiming for his weapon, Tang Erda changed tactics mid-motion and smashed the butt of the gun toward them instead.
THUD!
The shadow took the hit head-on and let out a low curse before retreating rapidly back into the darkness.
Lu Yizhan froze on the floor.
“?!” he shouted. “Didn’t I tell you not to summon monsters?!”
Bai Liu shrugged innocently. “I didn’t. I haven’t even had the chance yet. These ‘monsters’ came out on their own.”
Mu Shicheng stepped out of the shadows.
Using his thumb, he wiped away the blood left by the gun butt across his face. His brows lowered impatiently as he looked toward Bai Liu at the end of the corridor.
“Who are you calling a monster?”
A gun rested in his hand, aimed directly at Tang Erda.
Even with a gun pointed at him, Tang Erda remained perfectly calm.
“As expected,” he said flatly. “The thief, Mu Shicheng.”
The moment he’d seen that hook-like gun-snatching move, Tang Erda had recognized it instantly.
That was the signature technique of the [Capuchin Thief] from Bai Six’s team.
In countless pursuits from his memories, Tang Erda had once lost his weapon to that move in a single exchange.
After stealing the gun, the other man had spun it lazily around his finger—
Then used Tang Erda’s own weapon to execute every member of the team chasing him.
Another figure emerged from the darkness, gun raised.
Mu Ke.
Beside him stood Liu Jiayi, expression blank as she stared at Tang Erda.
The Dealer Mu Ke.
The Little Witch Liu Jiayi.
The Capuchin Thief Mu Shicheng.
Tang Erda slowly swept his gaze across them.
Old acquaintances.
Only one core member remained before Bai Six’s [Wandering Circus] would finally be complete.
Five years later, Bai Six would personally shape these people into his most useful hounds—monsters burned permanently into Tang Erda’s memories.
The thief who could disarm him in a single exchange.
The Little Witch who would one day rank fourth on the King’s Leaderboard.
And Mu Ke, whose wealth would eventually swell to a degree beyond imagination by the time Tang Erda began investigating the Bai Six hiding behind him.
Then there was the most insane of them all—
The [Joker Shooter].
The man who had slaughtered Tang Erda’s entire team inside the league arena.
Outside the game, he had originally been the son of an arms smuggler—a global fugitive connected to multiple terrorist organizations before ever entering the game itself.
And in the original timeline, it was this very [Joker Shooter] who had joined forces with Bai Six to kill Su Yang using a silver bullet.
But none of it had happened yet.
These future monsters—these creatures destined to commit every imaginable evil—were still only cubs.
They hadn’t yet grown into beings whose crimes would be written in blood across countless lives.
They hadn’t yet grown into the reason grieving families collapsed sobbing before tombstones.
Right now, all of these embryonic monsters stood trapped together inside this bottomless cage.
All Tang Erda had to do was pull the trigger lightly—
And those unbearable futures would never come to pass.
His unfocused gaze swept across the drenched and disheveled Liu Jiayi, then to Mu Shicheng’s bloodstreaked face and sloppy grip on his gun, before finally landing on the tense Mu Ke aiming directly at him.
At last, he looked toward Bai Liu standing before the door of Heretic [0001].
None of them matched the monsters in Tang Erda’s memories.
They were too weak.
Too young.
Too fragile.
For a fleeting moment, it almost felt as though those memories of slaughter and despair had merely been hallucinations he’d invented to torment himself.
Then he saw Bai Liu.
And that illusion shattered instantly.
Only Bai Liu had never changed.
In every timeline buried within Tang Erda’s memories, Bai Six always looked exactly the same—
A cheap white shirt.
Simple suit pants.
A thin frame.
And those black eyes that reflected no light whatsoever.
Bai Liu lowered his gaze calmly toward Tang Erda.
His eyes were dark enough to resemble a night sky that would never see dawn.
He looked at Tang Erda the way an abyss might look upon a foolish hunter.
It was an indescribably strange feeling.
Tang Erda carried too many memories.
He no longer remembered how many timelines he had lived through. His mind was overflowing with pain to the point that most events had begun blurring together.
But no matter how much he forgot, he always remembered Bai Six’s eyes.
Among the endless fragments of memory flooding his mind, those eyes remained terrifyingly clear.
Bai Six was like an immortal evil god.
No matter the timeline, he always stood at the very end of the story, deep within Tang Erda’s memories, watching him with that calm gaze and faint smile.
As though pitying him from a height forever beyond reach.
As though saying:
“Look. No matter how hard you struggle, you’ll never obtain what you want.”
“You’ll never save the people you want to save.”
Countless dead hands clawed at Tang Erda’s wrists and ankles, dragging him toward the abyss.
Their shrill screams echoed in his ears.
“Captain!! Kill him!! Avenge us!!”
The memories replayed endlessly through every part of Tang Erda’s mind capable of feeling emotion, until all that remained was a gray-black mass of hatred impossible to distinguish from one another.
At some point, it had stopped being merely Tang Erda’s memory.
It felt as though countless dead people were living inside his head at once, standing beside him every second of every day, their faces drenched in blood and tears as they whispered into his ears:
“Captain... why haven’t you avenged us yet?”
“Have you forgotten us?”
“Have you forgotten the teammates who died for you?”
“Have you forgotten why you chose this path in the first place?”
This fury—an endless rage accumulated from countless people—always reached its peak whenever Tang Erda saw Bai Six in any timeline.
It felt as though those resentful spirits possessed him completely, screaming themselves raw at Bai Six:
“Why did you do it?!”
“How could you commit such monstrous acts against innocent people?!”
“How could you watch ordinary people suffer because of the disasters you created and feel nothing at all?!”
This was the very first question Tang Erda had ever asked Bai Six after capturing him.
Back then, he had been nowhere near as calm as he was now.
In truth, he hadn’t been calm at all.
At the time, the only thought running through his mind had been the urge to blow Bai Six’s brains out right there in the interrogation room.
Nearly two entire branches had died just to capture him.
And while Bai Six was being interrogated, the surviving members who had returned to base received continuous videos—
Videos of captured teammates being tortured.
Those taken alive suffered fates worse than death.
While they screamed in agony, they were filmed.
Then the footage was sent directly to the phones and computers of every surviving member at the base.
After watching those videos, no one felt lucky to be alive anymore.
Not the people who survived.
And not the ones who hadn’t.
The Joker appeared on-screen.
His face was painted in oil colors shaped like diamonds and clubs. Beneath his right eye stretched an enormous black tear. Red paint exaggerated the corners of his lips into a grotesquely wide smile.
Laughing cheerfully, he grabbed the head of a teammate strapped to a torture chair—a teammate so mutilated they were barely recognizable anymore.
“If you want your teammates back,” the Joker said happily, “trade your boss for them.”
Tang Erda would never forget that teammate’s face.
Not even in death.
The uniform on his body had been soaked completely red with blood.
His body twitched and convulsed uncontrollably.
Even the identification badge hanging from his chest was stained crimson, though the character [Su] could still barely be made out beneath the blood.
The Joker yanked him up by the hair, but the man’s eyes had already lost focus entirely.
Then the Joker seemed to remember something.
“Oh, right,” he said with a grin.
He shoved the dying man’s face closer to the camera.
“I forgot to introduce today’s victim. This is the Vice Captain of the Third Branch—Su Yang.”
Su Yang struggled weakly to lift his ruined face. freewёbnoνel.com
Blood streamed from the wound on his forehead, spilling over his eyes and dripping from his chin onto the floor.
The Joker’s rough movements had reopened his injuries.
The pain briefly restored a sliver of consciousness to him.
Looking numbly toward the camera, Su Yang spoke in a hoarse, broken voice.
“Captain... stay calm... Don’t... let them... control the pace...”
Tang Erda’s mind nearly went blank.
Standing before the footage of Su Yang’s torture, all he could see was a wash of bloody white exploding across his vision.
Stay calm.
Stay calm.
He repeated the words to himself over and over.
He couldn’t use illegal torture on a prisoner without evidence.
He had to uphold justice.
That was what Su Yang was trying to tell him.
Su Yang wanted him to hold onto the final line separating humans from monsters.
The moment a law enforcer lost control and began torturing prisoners, he became no different from the Joker tormenting his teammates.
Tang Erda wanted nothing more than to kill the smiling Bai Six sitting casually across from him.
But Su Yang’s blood-covered face and broken words became invisible restraints, binding Tang Erda tightly to his chair.
All he could do was glare at Bai Six with bloodshot eyes and roar questions at the mastermind behind everything.
Veins bulged violently across Tang Erda’s forehead.
“You already have enough money and wealth to squander for several lifetimes!” he shouted viciously. “Then why keep hurting people?!”
“Just for profit, you actually smuggled evil itself into the human world?!”
Bai Six curled his lips.
He rested his elbows on the chair’s armrests and laced his fingers together before him, silver handcuffs hanging from his wrists.
Leaning back lazily, he tilted his head slightly and looked at Tang Erda with a faint smile. “Why did I smuggle evil into the human world?”
He repeated Tang Erda’s question softly.
Then he leaned forward over the table and rose to his feet, looking down at Tang Erda, who seemed pinned to his chair by an invisible pressure. The coin and inverted cross pendant slipped from Bai Six’s shirt, swaying irregularly before Tang Erda’s eyes.
Tang Erda’s hand moved warily toward his lower back as he looked up at him.
Bai Six lowered his eyes.
“Officer, the reason I smuggled evil into the human world is, of course, because there are so many people in the human world willing to buy evil from me.”
“I don’t do anything without profit. But strictly speaking, I am merely one link in the supply chain of evil.”
“The ones you should truly punish are not smugglers like me, but those humans who greedily, endlessly purchase evil from me.”
“Without them, there would be no me.”
Tang Erda held his breath as he stared at Bai Six.
Bai Six slowly sat back down.
“So why don’t you go punish them?”
“Is it because there are too many of them? So many that they make up more than half of the ordinary citizens you’re trying to protect?”
“The law does not punish the masses, Officer. Surely you understand that principle.”
Bai Six lifted his eyelids.
“When cigarettes first became popular, many people opposed them as well. From governments to ordinary citizens with a clear understanding of what the substance was, countless people objected.”
“But no matter how high the taxes were raised, no matter how severe the restrictions became, even after the words ‘Smoking is harmful to your health’ were printed on every cigarette pack, this stimulant—with its mild addictive properties and significant health risks—still became the most widely circulated everyday leisure product on the market, providing substantial tax revenue to most countries in the world.”
As Bai Six spoke softly, his gaze swept across Tang Erda’s chest pocket.
Half a pack of cigarettes was peeking out from inside.
Feeling Bai Six’s light glance fall there, Tang Erda subconsciously tightened his grip around the pack.
“See?” Bai Six chuckled and spread his hands. “Even you are obsessed with this kind of thing.”
“Senior Officer, don’t you think that makes you terribly hypocritical?”
“You yourself can’t resist the charm of cigarettes, so how can you expect ordinary citizens to resist the charm of Dried Rose Leaf Gas?”
“There is no fundamental difference between the two. Both are stimulants with mild addictive properties and significant health risks.”
“They’re not the same thing at all!” Tang Erda roared. “Don’t twist the concept, Bai Six! I can quit smoking whenever I want, but quitting that thing costs people their lives! They wither!”
This time, Bai Six laughed with genuine amusement.
He looked calmly at Tang Erda.
“Do you know something? When cigarettes first became popular, many people tried to educate others the same way. They said cigarettes couldn’t be quit, so people should never touch them in the first place.”
“Have you ever seen someone who could truly quit smoking?”
“Your current confidence that you can quit is nothing but self-deception, isn’t it? An excuse to make your smoking feel safe.”
“They wither if they stop using Dried Rose Leaf Gas.”
“But won’t you?”
“Won’t you become irritable and unable to focus because you crave a cigarette?”
“You will be trapped in that state for the rest of your life. Every minute, every second, you’ll have to fight that addiction.”
“Do you truly think that counts as being able to quit?”
Bai Six smiled as he looked straight at Tang Erda.
Faced with those casual black eyes, Tang Erda couldn’t say a word.
Bai Six withdrew his gaze and continued unhurriedly.
“So, under the premise that it cannot truly be quit, as long as supply remains stable, this substance is no different from cigarettes.”
“It can refresh the mind, increase productivity, and bring cheap, effortless pleasure.”
“Do you think anyone would truly refuse something like that?”
“No.”
“Profit-hungry capitalists will promote it of their own accord to increase their employees’ productivity. Eventually, it will gain a status similar to coffee.”
Tang Erda’s breathing grew rapid.
Bai Six looked at him almost pityingly.
“Once this thing spreads, the people who have become accustomed to it will begin searching for reasonable excuses for its existence all by themselves. Just like cigarettes.”
“There are many countries in this world where marijuana is legal as well. People give marijuana as Christmas gifts. They use an evil item bestowed by demons to celebrate the birth of a god.”
“Perhaps, at first, they also felt that something was wrong with it.”
“But look at them now.”
“They have begun to believe that the freedom to enjoy such things makes them more noble than you. They have even begun to pity you instead.”
“I believe you’ve seen that before, Officer Tang.”
“Even if you print ‘Sniffing this will result in death’ on every container of Dried Rose Leaf Gas, they will simply tear the label off without a care and immerse themselves in the scent of roses.”
Tang Erda stared at the red warning printed on his cigarette pack—Smoking is harmful to your health.
His eyes looked ready to burst.
“The one you need to stop is not me,” Bai Six whispered. “It is these self-destructive humans.”
“I already warned them to beware of the rose. Yet they still stepped forward willingly and became puppets of evil, ready to wither for it.”
“How can you blame that on me, Officer?”
“Captain Tang!!”
The interrogation room door was slammed open.
A team member with an extremely grim expression glanced at the leisurely Bai Six before his gaze finally landed on Tang Erda’s face.
He spoke with difficulty.
“Something happened. You need to come out and see...”
The moment Tang Erda stepped out of the interrogation room, he saw the members outside lowering their heads as though in mourning.
Some of them had red eyes and clenched teeth.
“What happened?” Tang Erda forced himself to stay calm. “Did they send another video?”
One member gave a bitter smile.
“No. It’s worse than that, Captain.”
“Our operation to capture the producer of Dried Rose Leaf Gas was exposed online. Now... the topic has been picked up by a lot of people.”
“And we’re being boycotted.”
“Boycotted?” Tang Erda asked calmly. “What do you mean?”
“Boycotted means...”
The reporting member took a deep breath, his eyes beginning to redden as well.
“They don’t want us to capture the producer of Dried Rose Leaf Gas. They want this thing legalized.”
“Many people know how dangerous it is, but more and more of them are becoming obsessed with its fragrance...”
“They believe the producer is legitimate and that we shouldn’t capture him in such a ‘barbaric’ way.”
“They believe the harm caused by this thing is nowhere near as severe as we claim. On the contrary, they believe it brings enormous benefits...”
The member reported numbly:
“Workers can finish their tasks faster after using it.”
“Students can easily achieve better grades.”
“Women can become disciplined and beautiful.”
“Men can become strong and vigorous.”
“Even the elderly can find relief from certain illnesses.”
“They say that even if this substance has side effects, there’s no need to boycott it. They even think we are... we are...”
Tang Erda looked over without expression.
“They think we are what?”
“They think we’re preventing ordinary people from enjoying something only the elite class has access to.”
“They think we are... lackeys.”
The member clenched his teeth.
“Because many people the public perceives as ‘rich’ have been flaunting videos of themselves using this perfume online.”
“Even after the cyber police delete them, the public keeps circulating them privately. We can’t stop it at all.”
“And these people are steering public opinion, claiming that we could halt production of this perfume at any moment...”
Tang Erda closed his eyes.
“Did we issue a statement explaining that many of these so-called ‘rich people’ are actually buyers and marketers of the formula, and that this is likely a promotional tactic designed to encourage impulsive consumption among ordinary citizens?”
“We did,” the member said bitterly. “But no one believes us at all.”
“There’s another important reason.”
“Once someone starts using this perfume, they can’t stop.”
“Many contaminated citizens are afraid we’ll shut down the factory, so they’ve begun spraying the perfume in public places on their own initiative, half-forcing others to become contaminated as well...”
“And once someone is contaminated, their judgment becomes severely impaired. They fall into an irrational obsession with it, almost as if they’ve gone mad, and then they join the ranks of those boycotting us...”
“Captain, there are many contaminated citizens staging a sit-in at the government gates, demanding the dissolution of our department...”
“Captain, they’re still sending videos! What do we do?!”
“Captain, the contaminated members have started to wither. Does that Bai Six really know how to handle this?!”
“Captain...”
“Captain...”
Tang ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) Erda’s vacant gaze passed over the anxious, fearful, resentful faces of the teammates surrounding him.
In a daze, he looked through them all and finally fixed his eyes on the calm face behind the small window of the interrogation room.
Through the window, Bai Six turned his head to look at him.
Those black, lightless eyes watched him without the slightest ripple.
Smiling, he silently mouthed:
“Captain Tang, does the rose... smell good?”
A sharp, piercing scream drilled into Tang Erda’s ears.
A member staggered over on the verge of collapse, clutching a laptop.
“Captain!! The Joker has started killing people!!”
Tang Erda felt himself being pressed down in front of the computer screen.
Almost unconsciously, he clicked open the small video that had been sent this time.
In the video, the Joker’s exaggerated oil-painted face wore an absurdly wide smile.
He held a gun aimed at a person slumped on the floor, covered in blood.
His mouth made a playful sound, like a mechanical announcement at the start of a game.
“Beat the Teammate Game—Ready, go!”
BANG!
The first shot struck the right palm.
The person on the floor couldn’t help jerking his head back. Clutching his hand, he let out a hoarse cry of pain.
BANG!
Left ankle.
BANG!
Right hand.
BANG!
Left hand.
BANG!
Shin.
Every time the man was shot, he trembled, unable to suppress his instinctive reaction to pain.
Anyone watching could tell he was doing everything in his power to stop himself from making a sound or reacting.
He didn’t want his response to pain to shake his teammates when the footage was sent to them.
Halfway through, almost all the members turned away with bloodshot eyes.
Only Tang Erda remained staring at the screen, as if possessed, unable to look away.
The Joker changed magazines twice.
Then he aimed the final shot at the man’s head.
He stepped onto the back of the man, who had already been beaten into a pile of mangled flesh, then grabbed his hair and forced his head up, turning that face with dilated pupils toward the camera.
Su Yang’s eyes, always gentle before, no longer held any light.
His eyelids drooped. His eyelashes were stained with his own splattered blood.
The always neat, gentle, reliable Vice Captain of the Third Branch, Su Yang, was now unimaginably disheveled.
Normally, even in pain, this man would rather endure long enough to shower first before going to the hospital.
But now, he no longer had that chance.
On the work ID hanging from his chest, the only visible character, [Su], had been completely dyed red by the blood dripping from his face.
“From now on, if you don’t release Bai Six, I’ll kill one of your members every hour, starting with him.”
The Joker giggled and aimed the gun at the back of Su Yang’s head.
Su Yang blinked very slowly.
His dry lips moved, his breathing so faint it was almost invisible.
“No matter what... don’t let him... lead you...”
“Captain... you must... save those contaminated people...”
BANG——!!
Blood bloomed before Tang Erda’s eyes.
—
Author’s Note:
Little Clown is not Lu Yizhan, and Bai Six is not Bai Liu. Everyone who does wrong in this book will receive punishment. This is a book that fully conforms to socialist core values!
