131: Your mentor is a good dog.

The rain poured down like knives.

Li Ke fixed the half-human-height cabinet onto a rusty handcart he’d found rummaging through the junk pile in the hallway.

One of the wheels was missing a rubber ring, so it squeaked as he pushed it, like an old man with asthma.

"Slow down! Slow down!"

Li Ke wiped the rain from his face; his glasses had long since fallen off. He squinted his highly myopic eyes, desperately clutching the strap.

"If this thing gets bumped, the… senior inside might get a concussion."

Chen Mo ignored him.

He stood at the dark entrance of Unit 3, holding the surgical scissors, leaning against the mold-stained wall like a still-wet clay sculpture.

His ears twitched slightly.

The rain was heavy, the thunder loud, but amidst these noisy background sounds, he heard something that shouldn't have been there.

Very faint.

Like a snake's belly rubbing on grass.

Not footsteps.

It was heartbeats.

Twelve… no, thirteen.

Their heart rates were astonishingly slow, only forty beats per minute, perfectly synchronized, like a group of cold-blooded animals surrounding their prey.

"Li Ke."

Chen Mo's voice was low, fragmented by the rain.

"Don't use the front door."

"Huh?" Li Ke had just pushed the handcart onto the doorstep and froze at the words. "If not the front door, then where? There's a stinking ditch behind this building; the cart can't go down there!"

"Then ditch the cart and carry it."

Chen Mo turned around, grabbed the canvas strap tied to the cabinet, and exerted force with one hand.

The hundreds of pounds of equipment were lifted by him, but his bandaged leg suddenly gave way, and his knee hit the concrete floor with a teeth-grinding crunch.

"Boss!"

"Shut up."

Chen Mo gritted his teeth, cold sweat mixed with rain streaming down his forehead.

He hoisted the cabinet onto his uninjured left shoulder, his right hand tightly gripping the scissors.

"Climb to the second floor, to the fire escape."

"Why?" Although Li Ke asked, his body instinctively obeyed, supporting the bottom of the cabinet.

"Because a group of debt collectors has arrived."

No sooner had he spoken.

Whoosh—

An extremely faint whooshing sound pierced through the rain.

Chen Mo sharply turned his head.

A black long nail grazed his earlobe and embedded itself in the iron door behind him, its fletching still buzzing.

It was a tranquilizer dart.

An enhanced version, powerful enough to take down an adult elephant.

"Run!"

Chen Mo let out a low growl, carrying the jar with the dead man's brain, and charged into the stairwell like a startled wild ox.

Li Ke scrambled behind him, still clutching the laptop with the black screen.

The stairwell instantly became lively.

Those shadows, previously as quiet as snakes, shed their disguise at this moment.

Three figures in black rubber raincoats burst through the doorway, holding silenced submachine pistols.

Pfft, pfft, pfft!

Bullets struck the concrete steps, kicking up a spray of stone dust.

"Don't look back!"

Chen Mo kicked open the second-floor fire door, shoved the cabinet inside, then turned and slammed the fire door shut.

He didn't go in.

He left himself outside.

"Boss?!" Li Ke yelled in terror from behind the door.

"Take Old Lin and go first, head to the roof!" Chen Mo pressed his back firmly against the door, "I'll have a chat with these friends."

The fire door had no lock.

Chen Mo made himself the lock.

Footsteps from below the stairs drew closer.

Three black-clad figures crept up in tactical formation, muzzles pointed at the corner.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

The world in his mind transformed into a giant sonar map.

The one in front, heartbeat below the third rib on the left, frequency 42, very steady.

The one on the left, breathing a little rapid, fluid in the lungs, an old smoker.

The one on the right… Chen Mo suddenly opened his eyes.

The one on the right had no heartbeat.

Or, the heartbeat was shielded by something.

"Interesting."

Chen Mo's lips curved into a sinister smile.

He suddenly released the hand pressing against the door, and his entire body slid along the wall like a gecko.

The guy with no heartbeat had just rushed around the corner.

The surgical scissors in Chen Mo's hand made no fancy moves, just a direct upward slash.

Pfft.

The sharp blade pierced the rubber raincoat, but there was no sound of blood gushing out.

The feel was wrong.

It was like stabbing into a hard lump of Kevlar fibers.

The black-clad man reacted extremely quickly, raising his gun stock to smash Chen Mo's head.

Chen Mo didn't retreat but advanced, his left hand clamping onto the opponent's mask, fingers exerting force, digging directly into the gap of the goggles around the eye sockets.

"Get down here!"

Crack.

The goggles shattered.

Half the mask was ripped off.

What was revealed wasn't a human face.

Instead, it was a semi-mechanized face, with the mandible completely replaced by metal. Only the eyes were still human, now staring intently at Chen Mo, exuding a deadly stillness.

"A modified monster?"

Chen Mo snorted, kneeing the opponent sharply in the abdomen.

Clang!

It was like hitting a steel plate.

This thing had been reinforced all over.

The other two black-clad men also reacted at this point, turning their gun muzzles.

But in the narrow stairwell, Chen Mo's close-quarters combat became an advantage.

He used the semi-human as a shield, pulling the opponent by the neck to block in front of him.

Pfft, pfft, pfft!

The bullets all hit the semi-human's back, sending up a shower of sparks.

Chen Mo leaned close to the "shield's" ear, his voice like a demon crawling out of hell:

"Go back and tell Professor Qin that his toys are of terrible quality."

With that, the surgical scissors plunged savagely into the exposed soft flesh of the semi-human's neck, and with a twist of his wrist, he severed the carotid artery.

This time, blood spurted out.

Hot and reeking.

Chen Mo pushed the corpse forward, knocking down the two people behind, then turned, pulled open the fire door, and slipped inside.

The second floor connected to the outdoor open-air corridor.

The rain grew heavier.

Li Ke was shivering at the end of the corridor, pushing the cabinet. The kid hadn't run; instead, he was dismantling a power distribution box.

"What are you doing?" Chen Mo rushed over, wiping blood from his face.

"This… this lift still works!" Li Ke pointed to the old-fashioned iron cage used for moving goods nearby. "I just connected the power; it can go directly down to the back alley!"

"Well done."

Chen Mo shoved the cabinet into the iron cage, then kicked Li Ke in, and was about to step in himself.

Boom!

A loud bang.

The fire door was blown off.

Seven or eight black-clad figures rushed out. This time, they weren't holding pistols.

They were holding net guns.

A large net carrying an electric current flew over.

Chen Mo rolled on the ground, dodging the first net, but the plaster cast on his leg shattered completely. Bone fragments stabbed into his flesh, making his vision go black from the pain.

"Go!"

Chen Mo slapped the lift's descent button.

The iron cage clanked into motion, slowly descending with Li Ke and Old Lin's brain.

"Boss!!!" Li Ke roared, gripping the iron bars.

Chen Mo didn't look at him.

He turned around, facing the approaching monsters, and twirled the surgical scissors between his fingers.

"Come on."

He beckoned to the group of black-clad figures.

"Let's see who dies first."

Just at this critical moment.

A sound suddenly came from the cabinet that hadn't fully descended.

It wasn't the cold electronic voice.

But a gentle, somewhat smiling male voice.

"Chen Mo, don't be so irritable."

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