Chapter 56.4: Fire and Trap

He lunged at Zheng Haiyang’s grandfather and knocked him down with a single punch. Then, facing Zheng Haiyang’s grandmother and Zheng Haiyang himself—both leaping at him to bite—he just as swiftly sent them flying.

His moves were clean, ruthless. If he’d been the one who attacked us in the dark house earlier, the three of us wouldn’t have made it out alive.

On the concrete terrace, it looked like four frenzied beasts were brawling. But one of them—the Beast King—overpowered the other three.

Zhu Changyong pried open Zheng Haiyang’s mouth and shoved his hand in deep. When he pulled it out, he clutched a tiny, squirming creature.

Snap!

Zhu Changyong yanked it free and tore it apart.

Then he turned to the grandparents. The elderly couple, gripped by terror, tried to flee. He caught and toppled them both again.

From the grandmother’s mouth, he retrieved another living thing—and broke it.

Finally, the grandfather straightened up stiffly. A fleshy lump swelled on his neck.

From our distance, we still saw it clearly. A creature slipped from his mouth: a baby turtle.

But this was no ordinary hatchling. Its shell was an eerie gray-purple, glinting under the moon with sinister patterns.

As soon as it emerged, Zhu Changyong leapt forward, caught it, and with a forceful yank, pulled its head far out of its shell until—snap—he tore it off.

Then Zhu Changyong dashed into the house. Moments later, he burst out holding the ding.

He raised the ding high and smashed it hard against a sharp corner of the cement railing.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With a few fierce blows, the ding cracked.

A turtle, the size of a large bowl, shot out and clung directly to Zhu Changyong’s chest.

His shirt shredded instantly, revealing the way his chest caved inward.

He tried repeatedly to rip the turtle off, but it clung to him like a suction cup. It knew, somehow, what fate awaited if it let go.

“Aaaargh!!!”

Zhu Changyong threw his arms wide, howling like a wolf to the sky. His skin split open, muscles ripping.

But he didn’t stop. He dropped from the terrace and bolted again.

He followed the same route back, retracing every step.

As he passed us, he turned and looked at me.

“Runsheng, go after him!”

“Got it!”

Runsheng crouched. I jumped on his back.

And he ran.

He was fast, shoulders slamming against my knees so hard it hurt. Still, we couldn’t catch Zhu Changyong. The gap between us only widened.

Zhu Changyong no longer moved like a human.

No person could twist joints like that.

Then I heard a motorbike start up. I turned—it was Tan Yunlong.

We’d done all the prep work, but even so, nothing could prepare you for this.

I remembered what Tan Yunlong said yesterday: strange cases don’t come from strange crimes, but from the people behind them.

Yet they always seem to spiral back onto a set “track.”

Tan Yunlong had finally found his man—Zhu Changyong.

But Zhu Changyong wasn’t fleeing down the road. He veered off into the woods.

I looked ahead—he was heading for the river!

Tan Yunlong’s motorbike couldn’t handle the terrain for long. He abandoned it and took off on foot.

In the woods, Zhu Changyong only picked up speed. By the time we broke through the trees, we saw him far below at the riverside sand quarry.

Back then, environmental protections weren’t strict. The sand pits ran all night, machines still roaring.

Zhu Changyong stood at the gate of a machine and turned to face us.

He wasn’t trying to escape. He’d led us here.

And now, the turtle that clung so stubbornly to his chest was suddenly trying to flee.

But Zhu Changyong wrapped his arms around himself, trapping it.

“Must… must…”

He forced the words out, rasping like a night wind.

His single eye locked onto me. He kept shouting, trying to say something.

I thought he was warning us—telling us to stay away from that seabed.

But no. What he said was:

“Must… must go there… and take it!”

Then he jumped into the machine’s inlet.

In an instant, chunks of flesh and fluid sprayed out.

Even with all his experience, Tan Yunlong froze. He knew: Zhu Changyong had come here to die like this.

He’d hunted many fugitives before. Never seen anything like this.

Two quarry workers approached at the noise. Tan Yunlong ordered them to shut the machines down.

The engines stopped. But Zhu Changyong was already scattered.

Runsheng and I returned to Zheng Haiyang’s home, to the terrace.

Tan Wenbin knelt there, staring blankly at Zheng Haiyang’s body.

When he heard us, he looked back and pointed at the three corpses on the ground:

“Xiaoyuan-ge… he’s dead.”

He’d eaten the blanched shrimp, but had never actually seen someone being skinned.

He’d seen death, even corpses in the river—but never the bloody process itself. And this time, it was his good friend.

“Binbin-ge, this is the other side of the world you wanted to see. It’s not as fun or exciting as you thought.”

“Yeah…”

“You can still quit, you know.”

Tan Wenbin said nothing.

“Runsheng, go get our stuff. Gather the yellow talismans too.”

Just then, Tan Yunlong walked up. He looked down at his son, eyes full of pain, but held back from comforting him. Instead, he turned to me:

“Xiaoyuan, tell me—what happened?”

“Uncle Tan, if I don’t tell you, what would you report?”

“I’d report what I saw: Zhu Changyong killed someone and then killed himself.”

“Then do that. But leave us out of it.”

“That’s not the truth, is it?”

“Uncle Tan, after your report, others will come asking for the truth. Then you can share your theories with them.”

Tan Yunlong immediately thought of Yu Shu, who had recently dragged him around multiple places. That man clearly wasn’t part of the criminal investigation team.

“Xiaoyuan, will they come?”

“They will. Just report Zhu Changyong’s name and what he shouted before he died. Leave out everything else—except us three.”

“I understand.”

Tan Yunlong realized: sometimes, knowing the truth makes it harder to be questioned properly.

The kid wasn’t hiding things from him—he was protecting him.

I patted Tan Wenbin’s back:

“Binbin-ge, we’re going home.”

Runsheng had loaded the tricycle already. I climbed on.

But we hadn’t gone far before we stopped.

Someone had grabbed the back of the cart.

I turned.

It was Tan Wenbin. He’d caught up. His eyes were resolute—he’d made up his mind. He knew now that the thing that really killed Zheng Haiyang came from the seabed.

For the first time, when he used the nickname Grandpa Sanjiang had given him, he didn’t smile.

He said, seriously:

“Why didn’t you wait for me? Zhuangzhuang wants to go home too.”

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