Chapter 980: Choosing Sides

Chapter 981: Seeker of Hearts

Su Shan didn't know what was happening to her. Since yesterday, she had suddenly appeared on the street, and her memory seemed to have a gap.

She distinctly remembered dying in a game. According to what she had heard from Qin Dingdong, after obtaining "Hui Xiang," death should mean waking up in the real world with her eyes open. But instead, she found herself waking up on the streets of "Zhongyan Zhidi," with her own corpse lying beside her.

She could only wander aimlessly nearby, then spent the night in a building on the street, before getting up and continuing on her way.

After walking for a while, when passing by a building, she casually turned her head and saw a familiar back inside; the person was sturdy and strong, wearing a black T-shirt.

Su Shan quickened her pace, walked into the house, and took a closer look; it was indeed an old acquaintance she had met once.

"Ah!"

Su Shan exclaimed with a hint of joy, then hurriedly saluted,

"You are Captain Li from Nei Meng!"

"Ah...?"

Officer Li turned around, stunned, his face extremely unnatural,

"You... you are that criminal investigation technology department from Hunan... Xiao Su?"

"Yes!"

Su Shan nodded with a smile,

"It's great to see you! Meeting you is really..."

Before she could finish, Su Shan froze completely.

Because she inadvertently saw that Officer Li's left hand was holding a black, foul-smelling thing, which looked somewhat familiar in shape.

And the other person's fingers were stained with dried blood, with bloody handprints also on his pants and arms.

She frowned and stared for a long time before tentatively asking,

"Captain Li... what is that...?"

Officer Li looked extremely uneasy; he quickly stood up and subconsciously tried to hide his left hand behind his back. But Su Shan was a police officer, and even though Officer Li had put his hand behind him, she still grew suspicious.

"N-no... nothing... Xiao Su... I..."

Officer Li seemed unprepared for a familiar person to suddenly walk in from outside; he was completely tongue-tied.

Su Shan thought for a moment, and her eyes sparkled like diamonds at that instant.

A ripple passed through her vision, and two clear words appeared around Officer Li's body. To Su Shan's surprise, these two words shone more brightly than any she had seen before.

After a few seconds, she softly asked,

""Tan Nang"...?"

"You... how do you know?"

Su Shan suppressed the glow and asked seriously,

"Is this your 'Hui Xiang'...? But what exactly is that thing in your hand...?"

Officer Li stared at Su Shan in a daze for a moment before giving a bitter laugh and saying,

"I... might have been driven a bit crazy by this place... I'm afraid if I tell you, you'll be scared..."

Su Shan swallowed slightly after hearing this, then subtly shifted half a step toward the door.

She had thought running into an acquaintance in a roadside building would be a good thing, but the other person seemed too abnormal. Officer Li was much taller and larger than her, and as fellow police academy graduates, he was surely skilled in combat. If it came to a fight, she wouldn't have the upper hand.

"Captain Li... Did you just kill someone...?"

Su Shan asked calmly,

"Is that a heart in your hand?"

"I didn't kill anyone, but what I have in my hand is indeed a heart."

Officer Li nodded, took the heart out from behind him, and held it out in front of Su Shan.

Although she was a technician, this was Su Shan's first time observing a human heart so closely, as most cases didn't involve killers being vicious enough to remove the victim's heart.

The heart was smaller than she had imagined, about the size of a fist, shaped like a peach—but this peach looked as if it had been squashed, slightly deformed.

To Su Shan, as a criminal investigation officer, the heart was full of suspicious points.

First, all the heart tubes appeared to have been neatly cut, completely removed from the body, and each tube showed signs of bleeding, indicating that the heart was likely still beating when it was taken out.

Second, the blood on the heart's surface had dried, suggesting it had been out of the body for some time, while Officer Li's fingers, nails, and even his forearm were covered in fresh blood.

Combining these observations, it wasn't hard to deduce that Officer Li had dug the heart out of a living person and had been holding and toying with it ever since. Judging by the dried blood and the stains in his fingers, this had probably gone on for more than a day.

This bizarre situation made Su Shan's back break out in a cold sweat.

It was something only an extremely dangerous, psychopathic anti-social killer would do, and as a young officer, Su Shan had never seen anything like it.

Seeing Su Shan step back, Officer Li hurriedly explained,

"Xiao Su, I don't know if you'll believe me... but I really didn't kill anyone. I'm using this heart to train 'Tan Nang'..."

"Train 'Tan Nang'...?"

Su Shan was stunned, and her police instincts made her ask,

"Is the purpose of training 'Tan Nang' with a heart... to kill people?"

"I..."

Officer Li hesitated for a moment, then shook his head helplessly,

"Xiao Su... What I want to kill isn't people, but something even more dangerous."

"What...?"

Su Shan raised an eyebrow,

"More dangerous... 'things'?"

"I've had the misfortune to see those things use 'Tan Nang'."

Officer Li said,

"I originally thought this ability could only take out some items... I never imagined it could remove a person's organs. This heart came from one of 'Mao's brothers; he was killed by that thing not far from me... The enemy pulled out his heart and crushed it in their hand, and as humans, we were powerless."

What Officer Li said was so information-heavy that Su Shan couldn't process it all at once.

"I'm thinking... if I get familiar with the feeling of pulling out a 'heart' from a pocket... could I do the same thing...? Could I pull out those things' hearts...?"

Officer Li said with a bitter smile,

"But I'm going crazy... Is what I'm doing even right...?"

He slowly put the fist-sized heart into his pants pocket, then skillfully pulled it out again.

Su Shan clearly saw that Officer Li's pants pocket had been stiffened by dried blood; just a light touch made black-red blood flakes fall like snow.

"I've repeated this action thousands of times in the past two days..."

Officer Li said with a desperate expression,

"I don't know what I'm even doing... I..."

"It will work."

Su Shan replied somberly,

"Captain Li... I have experience. Your current state... it's right on track."

"It's right on track...?"

"Yes."