Chapter 32: Biochemical Transformation

Chapter 32: Chapter 32: Biochemical Transformation

Snapping a finger-thick iron bar with his bare hands?!

Is that something a human can do?!

This guy is a monster!!

Zhou Yuan couldn’t believe his eyes. He was scared stiff, convinced he was going to die today.

"Get out!"

The man, now completely free from the iron bars, let out a cold shout, his expression blank. He raised a hand and slapped at Zhou Yuan.

With a single blow, Zhou Yuan, who weighed over one hundred and sixty pounds, was sent flying. He slammed hard into the side wall, the pain leaving him unable to get up.

His body suddenly grew a size larger...

His body hair became abnormally dense...

He radiated a savage, violent, and oppressive aura...

Then his strength multiplied, and he easily snapped all the iron bars on his body while enduring the biological toxins...

’What in the world is going on with this guy?’

Gu Qing stared intently at the man before him, his expression graver than ever before.

This was the first abnormal human he had encountered since awakening his ’golden finger’ and its labeling ability.

As Gu Qing stared at the man, the man stared back.

A cruel smirk twisted the man’s lips. His voice was hoarse and low, laced with a bone-chilling malice.

"You think you’re tough?"

"Like to torture people?"

"Next, I’ll let you experience what real torture is!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the man took an Instant Step forward. His massive hand shot out, fingers curved like iron hooks, clawing for the top of Gu Qing’s head.

The attack was lightning-fast. An ordinary person wouldn’t even be able to follow it with their eyes, let alone dodge it.

However, in the eyes of Gu Qing, who possessed Lightning Reflexes, the attack was as slow as a snail.

The man’s movements were slowed down infinitely. Every tensed muscle, every detail of his arm’s swing, the curve of his fingers—it was all perfectly clear.

With just a slight shift of his feet, Gu Qing casually sidestepped, easily avoiding the fatal grab.

’How is that possible?!’

’He actually dodged my attack?!’

The man’s face was a mask of disbelief.

Before he could recover, Gu Qing countered with an eagle claw, viciously grabbing the man’s head and lifting his entire body off the ground.

"AHHH—!"

As Gu Qing applied a bit of pressure, the man felt like his skull was about to crack, and he screamed in pain.

His eyes filled with terror. He couldn’t understand why, even after transforming, he still couldn’t beat a tall, skinny-looking college student.

SLAM!

Gu Qing casually flung the man away. He slammed hard onto the ground, the pain causing him to curl up on the floor like a shrimp.

Before the man could recover, a shoe sole descended on his head, grinding viciously into his rough, downy-haired face with increasing pressure.

Zhou Yuan, still collapsed by the wall and unable to get up, watched Gu Qing easily crush the monster-like man. His eyes were filled with utter disbelief.

He had originally thought Gu Qing was just good at video games; he never expected Gu Qing to be even better at fighting people.

All he could say was, you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

"Talk. Who are you, and what was your purpose in attacking Brother Yuan?"

Gu Qing pressed down hard on the man’s cheek with his foot, his left arm resting casually on his bent knee as he looked down and interrogated him.

The man clenched his jaw and remained silent, refusing to utter a single word.

Just then, Gu Qing’s gaze swept over the man’s shirt, which was torn open by his bulging muscles, and he noticed a strange beast tattoo on his chest.

It wasn’t a ferocious beast like a lion, tiger, or leopard.

Instead, it was a rat with a grotesque form and a sinister aura.

The rat in the tattoo was fat, with an arched back and claws as sharp as hooks. The tip of its tail was bizarrely split into three lobes, making for an incredibly ugly image.

’I’ve seen tiger tattoos, I’ve seen lion tattoos, and even snake tattoos aren’t uncommon.’

’But a rat tattoo? This is a first.’

’Rats are disgusting and ugly. What kind of normal person would get a rat tattooed on themselves?’

Gu Qing stared at the man’s rat tattoo, completely baffled.

As he kept staring, he wondered if it was his imagination. Gu Qing felt that the edges of the rat tattoo were seeping a faint, grayish-black haze, as if a living thing were squirming slowly under the skin, giving off a foul, bizarre, and evil energy.

The design was just too abnormal; looking at it made him feel a little uneasy.

’Hm? Wait!’

Suddenly, Gu Qing’s heart jolted as he remembered something very important.

A while ago, the school had a rat infestation. Rats were everywhere on campus.

Many of them were abnormally fat with thick fur, looking as if they had mutated.

And those fat rats bore a strange resemblance to the man currently pinned under his foot.

First, their bodies were far larger than those of their peers.

Second, their fur was abnormally dense.

’Then there’s Brother Yuan, who’s passionate about biochemical research, being tailed and ambushed by this man...’

A bold theory instantly formed in Gu Qing’s mind.

Namely—

both the fat rats at school and the man under his foot were all products that had been deliberately modified by some kind of biochemical agent.

And Zhou Yuan was one of the researchers involved with this biochemical agent.

Then, for some reason, he was targeted by the man under his foot, leading to the ambush just now.

As for the two people who went missing from school, they might have been silenced or imprisoned for discovering some hidden secret.

For example, seeing someone secretly performing biochemical modifications on rats at school.

After sorting out this line of reasoning, Gu Qing immediately looked at Zhou Yuan by the wall, his tone earnest and serious.

"Brother Yuan, the man under my foot is no ordinary person. He’s most likely an Assassin."

"If I’m not mistaken, he attacked you for your research. After getting what he wanted, he would have most likely killed you."

"Seeing as I saved your life, please tell me everything about your research experiments, without leaving a single detail out. I need to know the truth."

"..."

"You know about my research... it’s to develop a universal anti-toxin vaccine."

Zhou Yuan’s body trembled as he struggled to his feet, using the wall for support. His voice was weak. "As for the results... they’re pretty limited right now. It can only increase a person’s resistance to toxins a little."

"For example, it can help resist ordinary mosquito bites, but it has a lot of side effects and isn’t very valuable."

At this point, to prove he wasn’t lying, Zhou Yuan looked up to meet Gu Qing’s gaze. "So, junior, I really don’t know why this person would attack me."

Gu Qing stared into Zhou Yuan’s eyes for a moment. Seeing that he didn’t seem to be lying, he didn’t ask any more questions.

Before long, the sound of sirens grew closer, and Security Officers arrived at the scene.

When questioned by the Security Officers, Gu Qing gave a clear and organized account of the entire incident.

He explained that the man had been tailing Zhou Yuan, and Gu Qing had noticed. When the man moved to attack Zhou Yuan, Gu Qing seized the opportunity to ambush him from behind, successfully saving Zhou Yuan.

Then came tying the man up and poisoning him.

After that, the man suddenly transformed, growing a size larger. His combat power multiplied, and he broke free from his bonds in an instant.

And finally, the toxin took effect, and Gu Qing subdued him again.

Gu Qing recounted all of this. Everything up to the end was true; only the last part—about the toxin taking effect—was a lie.

He currently knew nothing about the other Extraordinary individuals in this world. To avoid unnecessary trouble, he needed to use the biological toxins as a cover for his own Extraordinary Power.

After hearing his account and looking at the man on the ground—with his bulging muscles and body covered in thick, downy hair—the Security Captain’s expression changed slightly. He immediately turned, walked to the side, and made a phone call.

Not long after, two men in black trench coats arrived at the scene.

Gu Qing curiously sized up the two men.

But they ignored him completely, walking straight toward Zhou Yuan.

He watched their backs as they went, his gaze falling on the [Night Court Member] label floating above their heads.

’Night Court Member?’

’This Night Court... is it some kind of special department?’

’The kind that investigates Extraordinary incidents?’

Gu Qing was a little curious about it.

...