Chapter 66: Lu Chan's Patrolling Tour 1

I closely observed the man standing before me who called himself Lu Chan, the patrol officer of Luoshan.

His appearance was handsome and unrestrained, easily rivaling those in Chang'an. His walking posture was full of vigor, and he stood tall and upright. Even though he was the former Wuchang who had rescued Agent Kong from a bizarre incident twenty years ago, he did not look as mature as I had imagined. Judging solely by his face, he was at most only a few years older than me, and it would not even be impossible for him to disguise himself and infiltrate Saltwater University as a student.

After all, the other party was a demon hunter. It was nothing strange for someone in their twenties to possess the soul of a forty- or fifty-year-old. In reality, there were also so-called "eternal youths" who used makeup and health-maintenance techniques to keep themselves looking youthful. Compared to all sorts of supernatural abilities, this level of specialness could only be described as a well-kept youth.

"Hello, I am Zhuang Cheng." I shook hands with him.

The Luoshan patrol officer's gaze shifted between Zhushi and me, and he asked with a smile, "You two have a very good relationship. Are you dating?"

I said with a straight face, "She is my guide."

"I see. Master and disciple, then." Lu Chan seemed to take it seriously.

"No, I am not!" Zhushi's face flushed red, and she quickly clarified, "I haven't reached the level where I can impart knowledge and teach!"

"The one who excels is the master," I said.

"Alright, let's leave the jokes at that for now. Zhuang Cheng, I hope you won't harbor any misunderstandings about me because of what Zhushi said earlier. I honestly didn't mean to put any obstacles in your way." Lu Chan withdrew his hand and explained to me, "Kong falling into a fallen demon hunter and ultimately being subjugated by you... that can only be described as cause and effect. While I feel extremely regretful for his fall, I will definitely not vent my anger on you."

"Who knows what you're really thinking?" Zhushi looked at him coldly. "If you truly have no objections to Zhuang Cheng, why did you interfere with him becoming a Luoshan Wuchang?"

"Isn't this your problem?" Lu Chan shifted the blame.

Zhushi was startled. "Ah, me?"

"You clearly left out many vague details in your report concerning Zhuang Cheng. As a Luoshan patrol officer, I cannot turn a blind eye to that," Lu Chan first pointed out, and then said to me, "You can rest assured. Regardless of the outcome of this assessment, I will approve you to become a newly appointed Heterodox Wuchang. After all, the 'traces' left by your power are still sitting right there at that abandoned construction site. However, I have a responsibility to monitor civilian demon hunters, so I must understand your true proficiency."

After a brief pause, he added, "Besides, I personally have some interest in you."

"What kind of interest?" I asked.

"An ordinary fire-attribute ability user, no matter how powerful their offensive range might be, would find it difficult to defeat that kind of flawless fallen demon hunter in a one-on-one fight," he said meaningfully. "At least in other cities, such a case has never occurred before."

"You said 'other cities'..." I made another association. "Are there fallen demon hunters like Agent Kong operating in other places as well?"

He first nodded, and then uttered words that felt like a thunderclap.

"Luoshan currently refers to this type of fallen demon hunter as a 'Freak,'" he said.

For a moment, I doubted whether I was experiencing auditory hallucinations. "'Freaks'?"

Freak was another name for a Demon of Calamity. And a Demon of Calamity was a survivor who appeared in the apocalyptic era, transformed into a monster due to madness.

Wasn't this a special product that should only appear in the apocalyptic era? Or were the Freaks he mentioned and the Freaks I had in mind merely a coincidence in name, while actually being entirely different entities?

No, I should not treat it purely as a coincidence. Just like in the foggy dream, where I suspected Number Two was Mazao's friend even before she stated her identity, I should now connect this clue to Mazao. If for no other reason, it was because I was still currently caught in a vortex centered around Mazao.

Reviewing the past battle with Agent Kong, he had indeed transformed into a monster-like form. Although he didn't "forget his name and past" as Mazao described Demons of Calamity doing, I figured it was safe to assume there was a connection between him and the "omens of the apocalypse."

Based on this, Mazao taking Agent Kong's charred finger became a rather intriguing action.

From her perspective, that might not be an ordinary charred finger, but rather "the remains of a Demon of Calamity that for some reason appeared in this era." Combined with the clue I had given her about recently fighting a "human who turned into a monster," she would likely think she ought to search Saltwater City for evidence that the apocalypse was approaching.

No wonder she was still active in this city. Honestly, not being able to find her silhouette these past couple of days had even made me worry whether she had returned to the apocalyptic era. After all, she had accidentally arrived in the modern era due to spatial transfer previously; who could guarantee that she wouldn't encounter that kind of accident again after transferring away from me last time? At last, I could finally set one of my worries aside.

"We shouldn't talk by the roadside. Let's find a place to sit down," the patrol officer suggested.

-

We headed to a nearby teahouse.

Along the way, I sensed the "firefly" I had dispatched to the Zhu family residence. I didn't know whether to call it "expected," but that "firefly" had now lost all contact. Zhushi had mentioned that the Zhu family residence possessed specialized barriers to alert and defend against external enemies, and my "firefly" was ultimately just an insignificant spark. Perhaps it had been intercepted and destroyed by that barrier like a mosquito crashing into an electric grid.

As it happened, I had also been worrying whether my "firefly" might bring bad luck to Chang'an, so this was fine—it effectively severed that thought right at the right moment.

At the same time, Lu Chan briefly introduced me to the progress of the investigation regarding fallen demon hunters over at Luoshan.

Regardless of his true opinion of me, at least on the surface, he spoke quite politely and his attitude was conscientious, making it difficult to harbor any ill will toward him.

First, regarding the matter of fallen demon hunters (hereafter uniformly referred to as "Freaks"), Agent Kong had kept many things hidden from Zhushi.

The biggest concealment among them was that Freak crimes were not merely incidents occurring exclusively in Saltwater City, but events that had happened all over the country. Although they weren't frequent enough to be common knowledge, when tallied up, there were dozens or even hundreds of cases, with the earliest tracing back to eighteen months ago. If someone bothered to connect them, they could certainly be linked together.

Agent Kong's previous mission had been to provide the relevant materials to Zhushi, but he had intentionally withheld this portion of the information. His purpose was likely to prevent Zhushi from realizing that "more Freaks existed." Such a concealment was certainly not a long-term solution. Perhaps he had already planned to abandon his identity as an agent and leave Saltwater City.

It wasn't until Lu Chan took over that work that the complete documentation finally reached Zhushi's hands.

As a side note, it was also Lu Chan who had used divination abilities to gather those photographic clues. This kind of investigative skill seemed to be his specialty.

However, Zhushi didn't seem to hold much affection for Lu Chan, and it apparently wasn't just because Lu Chan had interfered with my becoming a Heterodox Wuchang.

Lu Chan walked at the very front, while I took out my phone at the very back. Like passing a secret note in class while hiding from the teacher, I stealthily sent a text message to Zhushi:

"You hate Lu Chan?"

Zhushi took out her phone, glanced at it, and then cast a sideways glance at Lu Chan. She began typing, and after tapping away for quite a while, she replied:

"In the organization, Lu Chan belongs to the faction that believes 'demon hunters should become gods among mortals and turn all ordinary people into slaves.' We don't get along."

Seeing this reply, I couldn't help but look at Lu Chan's back once more.

Looks can certainly be deceiving!

Then again, Agent Kong had mentioned that his faction belonged to the "radical ideology" camp, and Lu Chan was Agent Kong's superior—how could he possibly be someone with a fair and peaceful ideology?

Yet, I currently needed Lu Chan's help.

Mazao's photograph had also been obtained through his divination abilities. Over the past two days, I had realized that relying solely on my own skills was not enough to find Mazao. Although, with his assistance, even if I eventually found Mazao, she would most likely end up exposed to his vision—this was no longer a time to worry about such things.

We sat down inside a private booth at the teahouse. Lu Chan took the photographs out of his pocket and spread them out in a row like playing cards. They were precisely the same photos Zhushi had shown me earlier.

"Currently, there are two demon hunters responsible for the Freak incidents in Saltwater City: Zhushi, who is in charge of combat, and myself, who am in charge of investigation," Lu Chan said. "Now, we must add a third person, and that is you, Zhuang Cheng. So next, please join us in analyzing the case."

"Alright," I nodded.

"Over the past five days, two more local elites have been killed by Freaks in Saltwater City. Or to be precise, it's actually four..." Lu Chan pulled out two of the photographs, which corresponded to two different crime scenes.

One of the scenes was outdoors; the victim should have been a plump elderly man during his lifetime, but his entire body had been torn out of human shape as if attacked by a fierce beast, and he had fallen messily into the outdoor grass.

The other scene was indoors; the victim was a robust middle-aged man, whose body had likewise been torn apart, conveying the hysterical emotions of the assailant. Nearby were two more corpses belonging to a middle-aged woman and a young boy, who appeared to be mother and son.

Unlike the old man and the middle-aged man, the mother and son had both been killed with a single blow. Their cause of death looked as though their skulls had suffered a heavy impact, with the bones visibly deformed. They were presumably the middle-aged man's family members, casually eliminated by the killer along the way.

There were also many messy, blood-stained footprints at the indoor scene—not human footprints, but rather those of a large wild beast. I compared Agent Kong's transformed state in my mind—that's right, these were definitely a Freak's footprints.

Lu Chan briefly introduced the situation he had investigated. Just like the information revealed in the photos, on a day that seemed completely ordinary to the victims, a Freak had suddenly broken in, brutally murdered them, and then strode away. The process of how both crime scenes came to be was just that simple.

Next, he produced a third photograph—the picture of Mazao walking down a street in the middle of the night.

"Zhuang Cheng, do you know who she is?"

"I know a little," I said.

"Zhushi probably told you," he said. "So, what are your thoughts on this amnesiac girl?"