Era of Magic and Martial Arts

Chapter 389 - 373: Humanity’s Greatest Invention Is...

He stared at the phone screen, his fingertips pausing slightly just as he closed the browser.

A moment later, he looked up, leaning back in the seat, lost in thought. The sound of raindrops hitting the car window seemed like a kind of urging, yet also an unspoken warning, making one increasingly restless.

In the end, Zhao Xing couldn’t suppress the unease in his heart.

He slowly exhaled, picked up the phone, hesitated for an instant, scrolled through the contacts, and dialed Lou Duan’s number.

The signal waiting to be connected buzzed inside the car, weighing increasingly heavy on the heart.

Meanwhile, Lou Duan was standing by the window, staring blankly at the curtain of rain falling from the distant sky.

He didn’t hear the ringtone, or rather, he heard it but chose to ignore it.

His gaze penetrated the dense lines of rain and fell on the torn mechanical innards of Upper City — those chrome-plated drains rhythmically contracted and expanded, as if the digestive system of some giant creature performing its final writhing.

The rainwater flowed along the edge of the pipes, reflecting a cold light on the metal surface.

This reminded him of the dead bodies seen on the dissection table, the skin lifted by tweezers, revealing the beating innards.

Only now, it was a steel deity being dissected.

His throat moved slightly, his gaze wandered over those neatly arranged drains. The layout of those pipes strangely reminded him of the star maps from the Ancient Era.

Only, the star maps before him no longer had the constellations like Scorpio, Libra, Cancer, etc., instead, they were replaced by an abstract "toilet seats."

Scorpio transformed into a toilet seat, Lyra into a smart toilet lid seat, the belt of Orion was replaced with three rowed squat toilets.

Various toilet seats gradually formed an alternative starry sky in Lou Duan’s mind.

Lou Duan’s lips curled slightly. His thoughts were drawn back by this peculiar association, back to that simple and distant childhood.

He saw his father holding him, standing in front of that old-style flush toilet, the ceramic surface glowing warmly like a moon.

"Watch carefully, son."

His father’s voice carried a certain solemnity,

"This is one of mankind’s greatest inventions. It can wash away the filth our bodies don’t need, making everything clean again."

The young Lou Duan watched wide-eyed as the whirlpool-like water swallowed the filth.

At that moment, he understood his first "basic human knowledge":

Dirt will disappear as long as it’s flushed away by the toilet, and you will become clean again.

His father smiled and patted his head, the sound like a hammer, driving this sentence deeply into his memory.

Lou Duan’s face showed a look of nostalgia as he lowered his face to the flashing name on the phone, murmuring two words between his teeth:

"Toilet!"

The call finally connected, Lou Duan placed the phone close to his ear, the nostalgic expression on his face gradually fading, replaced by a growing, shadowy coldness.

However, when he spoke, his voice was completely different from his expression, deep and warm, enveloping a reassuring strength:

"... I’ve been observing the development of the situation as well, you don’t need to be too worried, Qian Huan’s cards have all been played, he won’t last long."

"This is just the darkness before dawn, hang in there, to prevent Qian Huan from lashing out in desperation, like a trapped beast, don’t have conflicts with him recently."

In the car, Zhao Xing listened to the assured voice coming from the receiver:

"Here’s the plan, this week don’t go to the prison, find an excuse to take sick leave, rest well at home, avoid the limelight during this period.

Don’t worry, what’s meant for you won’t run away. When the storm subsides, the position of Prison Chief will naturally be yours."

Zhao Xing took a deep breath, impressed by Station Chief Lou’s wisdom. An hour later, he drove slowly into the underground garage.

"Target has arrived!"

"Target has arrived."

The Master of Ceremonies’ voice seemed to ring from deep within the skull, processed by the sound card embedded in the back molars, carrying subtle electrical noise, directly transmitted to the cochlea of every member of Team 103.

Standing in the shadows of the underground garage, droplets rolled down the black raincoat.

Behind the glasses, his eyes bizarrely rolled white, the pupils diffusing into a pale expanse, reflecting the entire scene of the underground garage like a projection on the surface — every raindrop’s trajectory, every tire’s tread, even the dust floating in the air, all clearly visible.

At the door of the unit, a bald man in slippers, his feet soaked in a puddle.

He lowered his head and walked into the corridor, as he lifted his foot, steam rose from his whole body, a wisp of white smoke floating on his bare forehead, as if just taken out of a steamer.

"Keep it light, the mission requires it to be an accident!" The bald man’s voice was hoarse, like sandpaper friction.

"Received!"

"The dead is Destiny’s destination, living is the accident, hmph—, received."

"Received!"

Zhao Xing didn’t take the elevator.

As a fourth-grade Martial Artist, his speed could outpace the elevator by a second. In the safety corridor, his figure turned into a afterimage, eleven flights of stairs passing in an instant.

The key turned, the electronic lock emitted a soft "beep."

The advanced security door slowly opened, three sets of safety locks were sequentially disengaged.

As a former chief of Death Row, Zhao Xing’s security awareness was quite good.

Zhao Xing took off his coat, barefoot on the mahogany floor.

In the study, the dim desk lamp automatically turned on.

Zhao Xing drew back the curtains, standing before the floor-to-ceiling window, the glass reflecting his image, furrowed brow, still pondering Station Chief Lou’s words.

He pressed the computer’s power button, yet did not notice, above the glass outside, in the blind spot of his view, a red-clad figure was hanging upside down there.

Her limbs twisted in a bizarre pose, like a giant spider clinging to the glass.

Her head hung downwards, long hair drooping, revealing a ghastly pale face, the corners of her mouth stretched to the ears, a slender tongue slowly extending, growing longer, the tongue’s surface vibrating with a layer of luminescent patterns.

Zhao Xing sat back at the computer, fingers reaching out to the mouse.

At the instant of clicking, the Master of Ceremonies in the underground garage simultaneously tapping lightly on the frame of his glasses.

An invisible electromagnetic wave rippled through the air, like a stone thrown into water, stirring up circles of ripples, in an instant, darkness surged like tide from the garage upwards, engulfing the entire building.

The computer screen immediately went dark, the room plunged into pitch black.

Zhao Xing froze for a moment: "Power outage?"

From light to darkness, pupils require 1-2 seconds to regain vision.

Zhao Xing instinctively blinked, ears lightly trembling, picking up a faint, strange sound.

The sound seemed to come from the living room in front, yet also appeared to come from the window behind, eerily distinct in the darkness.

Zhao Xing’s eyes suddenly widened, like seeing a ghost, vaguely seeing a human silhouette appear in the living room, the silhouette seemed to condense from the darkness, edges indistinct, yet exuding an eerie aura.

"Who?!"

Zhao Xing stood up in terror, the chair pushed over with a loud "bang."

As he rose, the human silhouette sharply enlarged within his pupil.

It flowed towards him in a way defying physical laws, like a fast-forwarded video tape image.

Zhao Xing’s retina still retained the afterimage before moving, yet a bald head was already pressed against the tip of his nose, a mouth full of dark teeth brushing over with an indescribable bizarre odor:

"Lightly, if the chair is bumped and damaged, it wouldn’t look right."