47: Excessive killing

Under Wang Qiang's steady and effective control, the chaos in the hospital corridor was gradually brought into an orderly track. Although the parents remained deeply worried and resentful, they were eventually ushered into the family consultation room to await the subsequent formal procedures. The tense atmosphere on-site finally eased a bit.

Taking a moment, Wang Qiang walked over to Lu Jianchuan, patted him on the shoulder, his face showing a trace of weariness but also gratitude: "Xiao Lu, we owe you a lot today. The situation here is temporarily stabilized. What's next is following procedure, waiting for the Inspectors and Station Leadership to handle it. You have a shift tomorrow, right? Go back and rest first. Xiao Li and I can keep an eye on things here."

Lu Jianchuan knew Wang Qiang was stating the facts. Staying here wouldn't really help any further, so he nodded: "Alright, Brother Wang. You guys have a tough job. Contact me anytime if you need anything."

Leaving the hospital, the chilly night air slightly refreshed Lu Jianchuan's spirits. He glanced back at the still-bright lights of the hospital's emergency department, but the fog in his mind concerning the invisible assailant hadn't dissipated in the slightest. As he walked along the sidewalk towards his rented room, he took out his phone and opened the chat interface with "The Forger."

Lu Jianchuan: Forger, do you have any information on the 'thing' that attacked those three students tonight? What is it?

After sending the message, he slowed his pace, waiting for a response.

[Consciousness Space]

Han Chengyu received the notification almost the instant Lu Jianchuan's message arrived. "System!" he immediately called out, "Quick! Retrieve all available surveillance footage, abnormal electromagnetic signal records, any data possibly related to that bizarre attack near XX Street Central Park tonight!"

[Command received. Accessing municipal security network, surrounding commercial surveillance Systems, and civilian frequency bands... Searching...] Azure-blue data streams surged like waterfalls, countless surveillance windows flashing and analyzing before Han Chengyu's "eyes."

[Search complete. Report: The interior of the target area park and the primary attack site are located in surveillance blind spots. Surrounding intersection cameras did not capture clear images of the attacker within the visible light spectrum.]

[Detected extremely weak, atypically frequency-specific bioelectric signal disturbances in the area during the incident timeframe. Partially aligns with known evo factor activity signatures, but signal strength is too low and duration too short for precise localization and feature analysis. Insufficient data, unable to establish an effective profile.]

"Even you can't find anything?" Han Chengyu was somewhat disappointed, but he immediately thought of a possibility. "Wait! Those three kids bullied Li Zhe at school during the day and were attacked by an invisible thing at night... Could it be related to that Orange Cat? The 'One-vehicle Cat'!"

He remembered the System had said that cat's evo factor concentration wasn't low.

[A logical association is possible.] the System analyzed calmly.

[However, direct evidence is lacking. Based on existing data, it cannot be proven that the attacker is that specific Orange Cat evolution individual. The match between its evolutionary direction, abilities, and the 'high-speed, invisible, sharp-weapon attack' characteristics exhibited in the current incident is only 37.2%. Multiple other possibilities exist.]

Han Chengyu fell silent. The System's analysis was objective. Without surveillance, without direct evidence, conclusions couldn't be drawn based merely on coincidence and speculation. He couldn't give Lu Jianchuan an uncertain hypothesis.

[Message review passed. Generating reply.]

.: I apologize, but I have been unable to obtain definitive intelligence regarding that attacker for the time being.

.: The incident area lacks effective surveillance coverage, so no direct visual capture was possible.

.: Only faint, atypical biological signal residue was detected, but the information is too ambiguous to be used for identifying the target's identity or origin.

.: Current clues are insufficient to determine its true form or motive. Please remain vigilant.

Receiving the reply, Lu Jianchuan looked at the few short lines on the screen, his brow slightly furrowed. Even "The Forger" couldn't find out?

This result disappointed him somewhat, yet also made his heart feel heavier. It meant that the invisible enemy was more troublesome than imagined. It was not only elusive but could even, to some extent, evade the detection of an entity like "The Forger."

He put away his phone and looked up at the night sky tinged reddish by the city's neon lights. The unknown threat still lurked in the shadows, and the power he could rely on was currently in a critical period of upgrading.

Carrying a bellyful of questions and a heavy heart, Lu Jianchuan returned to his cold, rented room. His body's transformation was still ongoing; the faint sense of abnormality in his abdomen was like a silent countdown, reminding him of the undercurrents beneath the calm daily life. He forced himself to rest, storing energy for the unknown tomorrow.

The next day, the Police Station's work continued in the cycle of receiving calls, mediating disputes, and patrolling. Just past 10 a.m., an Administrative Officer hurriedly pushed open the door: "Brother Wang, Xiao Lu, there's a call! West Mountain Park, the back hills. A civilian reported discovering a large number of animal corpses. The situation is very unusual, and the caller is extremely agitated."

"Animal corpses? What's the specific situation?" Wang Qiang put down his teacup, his expression turning serious.

"The caller is an elderly man doing morning exercises. He could barely speak coherently, just said... piled up like a small mountain, all kinds of them, blood all over the ground, too terrifying."

Wang Qiang and Lu Jianchuan exchanged a glance. Without any hesitation, they immediately grabbed their gear and stood up. An ominous premonition quietly crept into their hearts.

The police car soon arrived at the foot of West Mountain Park. The caller was a grey-haired elderly man wearing exercise clothes, but he now bore no trace of an ethereal, immortal demeanor. His face was pale, his lips trembling as he pointed at a dirt path half-hidden by weeds: "Up... up there, turn the corner and you'll see... It's horrible, a sin..."

"Sir, please rest here. We'll go up and take a look." Wang Qiang offered a word of reassurance. He and Lu Jianchuan, one after the other, gripped their police batons and cautiously proceeded up the small path.

The higher they went, the stronger the strange smell in the air became. Initially, it was the freshness of soil and vegetation, but it was soon overtaken by a sweet yet putrid smell of blood, mixed with the uniquely pungent stench of animal entrails and feces, nauseating. In the silent mountain woods, only the rustle of their footsteps on fallen leaves and the increasingly distinct, scalp-tingling buzz of flies could be heard, dense like some kind of low whisper.

Rounding a thicket of thorny bushes almost as tall as a person, the scene before them instantly froze the two experienced policemen in place, their pupils constricting sharply.

It was a small forest clearing. Sunlight filtered through sparse branches and leaves, casting mottled light, yet it couldn't dispel the eeriness of this place at all. Right in the center of the clearing, corpses of various small animals were piled into a shocking small mound in a manner that seemed almost random, yet carried a certain cruel sense of ritual.

The variety of corpses was terrifyingly diverse: stray cats with messy fur and necks cleanly severed;

small stray dogs with their bellies completely ripped open, entrails spilling out—looking at their size, they might even have been just a few months old puppies; dozens of rats gutted, their dark red blood saturating the soil below into a muddy mess;

even sparrows and turtledoves with scattered feathers and twisted bodies... They were interwoven and piled atop each other, congealed blood cementing them into a massive, collective entity of death. The intense odor emanated from here, almost forming a tangible barrier.

"Fuck..." Wang Qiang squeezed the word out through gritted teeth, instinctively taking half a step back. His right hand tightened on his gun holster as his gaze, sharp as an eagle's, swept over the unnervingly quiet surrounding woods, as if the perpetrator of this atrocity was hiding in the shadow of some tree.

Suppressing the churning in his stomach and the dryness in his throat, Lu Jianchuan took a deep breath, put on the evidence gloves he carried, crouched down, and began inspecting the horrific pile of corpses with a gaze like a scanner.

"Brother Wang, look here." His voice sounded slightly hoarse from suppression. With his gloved fingertip, he pointed at the wound on a black cat's neck. "The wound edges are extremely smooth, almost no tearing marks. It looks like it was severed in one stroke by an extremely thin, fast blade. And this dog's abdomen—the wound is abnormally smooth. This doesn't look like damage from ordinary animal fights."

Shifting his gaze, he pointed to different areas of the pile, his tone growing graver. "What's even stranger is the proportion. Look over here. At least seven or eight rats, two or three cats, and one small dog have been eaten extremely clean, almost down to just skeletons and fur, not a shred of meat left. That's a huge appetite."

His hand moved to another side. "But then look here. These birds, this calico cat, and those few dogs over there," he pointed at several relatively intact corpses, "aside from the fatal tearing wounds on their chests or necks, the rest of their bodies are almost untouched, completely unharmed. This is absolutely not normal predatory behavior!"

Wang Qiang also crouched down, his face so dark it seemed water could drip from it. He carefully examined the areas Lu Jianchuan pointed out, especially those picked-clean skeletons, his brow tightly furrowed. "This thing has a big appetite... But it killed so many and only chose to eat some of them? Just dumped the rest here? That doesn't make sense!"

"More like... Overkill." Lu Jianchuan uttered this term tinged with cold biological terminology, feeling a chill crawl up his own spine. "I've read in some materials that certain vicious predators will kill far more prey than they need to eat in a short period. This scene before us... fits that too well. This wasn't for sustenance. It's more like... venting, or practice."

He stood up, once again surveying the death-shrouded clearing. The woods under the sunlight now felt exceptionally cold and gloomy. "Ordinary stray animals absolutely could not create a scene like this. The wounds are wrong. This hunting efficiency is wrong. This kind of waste is wrong!"

Wang Qiang remained silent. The wounds that had appeared out of thin air on those three teenagers last night—precise and cruel—reappeared in his mind like ghosts. He rubbed the bridge of his nose hard, his voice carrying an unprecedented heaviness. "Damn it... First people, now animals... What the hell has come into the city?!"