147: Rats in the police station basement

Two hours later.

Southern suburbs, abandoned waste treatment plant.

It was piled high with the city's household waste, and the air was filled with a fermented, sour stench.

Gurgle.

A jet of black water suddenly erupted from a massive sewage pipe opening.

Immediately after, four figures slid out of the pipe Li Ke sludge, crashing onto the trash heap.

"Cough, cough, cough... I never want to see water again for the rest of my life."

Ninth Master lay sprawled on a broken sofa, spitting out a mouthful of black water, completely exhausted.

Li Ke had passed out completely, still clutching that hard drive tightly to his chest.

It was already dark.

The heavy rain had stopped, but the sky remained low and oppressive, devoid of stars.

In the distance, the city was ablaze with lights; it was the night view of Jiangcheng.

Under those neon lights, countless people were enjoying their nightlife, unaware of the massacre that had just taken place in the city's sewers.

"The car is gone," Su Qingxue said, checking the surroundings. "We are still thirty kilometers away from the city center."

"Hijack one," Chen Mo said, wringing the water out of his clothes.

"I am a police officer!" Su Qingxue glared at him.

"Right now, you are a wanted criminal," Chen Mo said, pointing to a garbage truck parked on the side of the road in the distance. "Besides, it's to save the world."

Ten minutes later.

A garbage truck filled with a foul stench rumbled onto the national highway.

Ninth Master drove, as he had worked in this line of business before.

Chen Mo sat in the passenger seat, holding the hard drive, his fingers unconsciously stroking its cold metal casing.

"What are you thinking about?" Su Qingxue asked, sitting in the back row while cleaning Li Ke's wounds.

"I am thinking about Old Lin."

Chen Mo watched the streetlights flying past outside the window. "In that MP3 player, he said he was an 'Observer.'"

"What does that mean?"

"It means that for the past twenty years, he has been watching me."

Chen Mo's voice was very soft. "Watching me grow up, watching me get into the police academy, watching me get mocked because of my 'scene phobia'..."

"He could have cured me, but he didn't."

"Because that was part of the experiment."

Su Qingxue fell silent.

She didn't know what to say.

The feeling of being observed for half a lifetime Li Ke a lab rat was something only Chen Mo could truly understand.

"So, I am going to ask him."

Chen Mo turned his head, his eyes terrifyingly calm. "Even if I have to burn his files to ashes, I will get an answer out of him."

"I don't just want the key."

"I also want an explanation."

The vehicle entered the city.

Sirens wailed one after another.

There were noticeably more patrol cars on the streets, and there were even armored vehicles from the SWAT Officers setting up roadblocks at intersections.

"Checking this strictly?" Ninth Master pulled his cap low. "These bastards are playing for real."

"Take a detour," Chen Mo said, staring at the checkpoint ahead. "Take the back roads to the alley behind the Municipal Bureau."

"How do you plan to get in?" Su Qingxue asked. "The front entrance must be swarming with people."

"Who said I was going to use the front entrance?"

Chen Mo pointed to a manhole cover on the side of the road. "The Municipal Bureau's archives are on the second basement level, right next to the main ventilation ducts."

"We are going to crawl in Li Ke rats."

"And then..."

He pulled the fire axe from his coat, the blade flashing with a cold light under the streetlamp.

"Give them a surprise."

The garbage truck turned into a dark alley.

It was only one wall away from the Municipal Bureau building.

Chen Mo pushed the door open and hopped out.

His broken leg still throbbed with piercing pain, but he seemed to have grown accustomed to it.

Pain was also proof of being alive.

B-002 had no sense of pain, which was why he died.

"Li Ke, stay in the car to provide backup. Ninth Master, you too," Chen Mo instructed. "If we don't come out in half an hour, take the hard drive and run. Run as far as you can."

"What about you?" Ninth Master asked.

"Captain Su and I are going in."

Chen Mo glanced at Su Qingxue.

This police beauty who had disliked him from the start had now become his only comrade-in-arms.

"Are you ready?" Chen Mo asked.

Su Qingxue checked the magazine; it was a spare gun she had picked up from the trash heap earlier, containing only three bullets.

"I've been ready for a long time."

She took a deep breath. "From the moment you dragged me into that a specific van model, I never intended to turn back."

The two walked to the depths of the alley.

Chen Mo pried open the manhole cover.

Below was a pitch-black sewer, leading to the heart of the Municipal Bureau.

"Let's go."

Chen Mo jumped down first.

The darkness swallowed him instantly.

Just Li Ke twenty years ago, when he was locked in that laboratory.

Except this time, he was not a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

He was a vengeful ghost coming back to claim lives.

The air in the sewer was thick Li Ke glue.

Biogas fermented from rotting food scraps, excrement, and rat carcasses drilled straight into his nasal cavity.

Chen Mo dragged his broken leg, his knee rubbing against the moss-covered pipe walls.

With every crawl, his nerve endings sent a wave of burning spasms.

But he didn't make a sound, only biting down on his collar, which had long since been soaked in blood.

A splashing sound came from ahead.

Su Qingxue stopped.

She turned off her flashlight and pressed her body against the pipe wall Li Ke a startled gecko.

"What's wrong?" Chen Mo lowered his voice, his throat tasting entirely of rust.

"There's movement above." Su Qingxue pointed overhead.

That was the No. 3 manhole cover, directly facing the boiler room on the second basement level of the Municipal Bureau.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

His auditory nerves spread out Li Ke radar.

Drip. Drip.

That was the sound of sewage dripping.

Squeak, squeak.

That was rats gnawing on bones.

Thump... Thump...

Heavy, slow, and rhythmic.

This wasn't the sound of police dress shoes stepping on floor tiles; this was the sound of anti-slip rubber soles unique to tactical boots.

And, it was too heavy.

"Three of them," Chen Mo opened his eyes, his pupils contracting in the dark. "One at two o'clock, two at four o'clock. Heart rate is fifty-five beats per minute, breathing interval is four seconds."

"SWAT Officers?" Su Qingxue tightened her grip on the gun, her knuckles turning white.

"No," Chen Mo shook his head, cold sweat sliding into his eyes and stinging painfully. "The SWAT Officers' heartbeats wouldn't be this steady. These people have just killed someone, or are about to, and there isn't even a flicker of fluctuation in their heart rates."

"They are people from 'the Company.'"

That is, the pack of black dogs raised by Professor Qin.

The Municipal Bureau had indeed fallen.

"We can't bypass them," Su Qingxue glanced at the manhole cover. "This is the only entrance; the other ventilation ducts have been welded shut."

"Then we force our way in," Chen Mo reached behind his waist and pulled out the dull-edged fire axe, the cloth wrapped around the handle long since turned black. "I'll go first, you provide support."

"Your leg is broken."

"It's precisely because it's broken that they will underestimate me."

Chen Mo didn't waste any more words, hooking his hands into the rusted iron ring on the edge of the manhole cover.

He took a deep breath.

The stench actually made him feel incredibly clear-headed at this moment.

Click.

The manhole cover was pushed up a crack.

The dim, yellow light cut into the darkness Li Ke a blade.

The footsteps above stopped.

The three heartbeats also stopped.

They were listening.

Now!

Chen Mo exerted force suddenly, his muscles springing open Li Ke taut bowstrings.

The tens-of-kilograms heavy cast-iron manhole cover whistled as it flew out, smashing toward the pair of combat boots closest to him.