“I see.” Another somewhat thin campus police officer nodded and said, “Lingyun, the security at Jinghua University has always been very good. However, there are some students of low quality and mixed up with shady characters from the outside world, which seriously damages the reputation of the school. We will definitely investigate this matter thoroughly and give you an explanation, as well as an explanation to the school.”
"Oh." Ling Yun nodded. "I trust the police. They won't wrong an innocent person, and they certainly won't let a bad person go unpunished."
“That’s right, Lingyun.” The burly campus police officer chuckled. “But we’ll have to trouble you to come with us to the campus police station to explain this fight. We need to keep a record.”
“No problem, cooperating with the police is my duty.” Ling Yun agreed without hesitation.
The two campus police officers were surprised by his quick agreement. After a slight pause, they both smiled with satisfaction. After exchanging a glance, the thin campus police officer smiled and said, "Thank you for your cooperation, Lingyun. Don't worry, as long as you explain the situation clearly, we can take your statement."
Ling Yun nodded silently. Then, two campus police officers, one in front and one behind, led Ling Yun towards the school gate. Ling Yun had never been to the campus police station at Jinghua University before, so even though the two officers were leading him towards the gate, he didn't ask any questions.
The three walked quickly, and in less than fifteen minutes they were far from the school gate. After turning a few corners along the streets outside the school, they followed a small path to a secluded two-story building. A crooked iron sign hung in front of the building, reading "Campus Police Station." It was unexpected that a prestigious university like Jinghua University would have such a dilapidated place as its police station. The thin policeman opened the worn-out door and gestured for Ling Yun to go inside.
Chapter Forty-Three: I Lied
As soon as Ling Yun stepped inside, two campus police officers followed him in. Then, the thin campus police officer closed the door tightly, and with a click, he actually locked the old iron door.
The ground floor of the small building was a spacious hall, completely empty except for a pile of dusty and whitewashed wooden crates in the corner. The ceiling and walls were pitted and uneven, with whitewash scattered all over the floor. The corners were covered with damp, green spots, and wisps of dust hung from the ceiling in a net-like pattern. A pungent odor permeated the entire room. The bluish-gray wooden windows had clearly been sealed shut for years, covered with specks of various colors of paint, making it impossible to see out from the inside, and of course, the same was true when looking in from the outside.
Ling Yun walked a few steps in the hall, then turned around to face the two campus police officers who were slowly drawing their batons: "Shall we make our move here?"
The two campus police officers exchanged a glance, then looked at the unassuming student in front of them with surprise: "Do you know what we're going to do?"
"Of course, you disguised yourselves as campus police to lure me here, didn't you?" Ling Yun retorted.
"You knew all along that we were imposters?" The burly campus police officer's eyes turned cold. "Then why did you follow us?"
"Hurry up and do it, I don't have that much time," Ling Yun said blankly.
The two campus police officers exchanged another glance, both seeing a hint of surprise in each other's eyes. For any other student, the most normal reaction would be a mixture of panic and fear, or frantically trying to hide their unease. But this seemingly ordinary student behaved quite differently; his calm and collected demeanor made the two disguised officers uneasy. Perhaps things wouldn't go too smoothly today, the thin officer thought with some worry.
The burly campus police officer gripped his baton and slowly walked up to Ling Yun, his professional smile completely gone. "Ling Yun, you're a real worry for me." He raised the dark baton high and began to strike Ling Yun's head repeatedly.
Ling Yun remained motionless, not even making an instinctive blocking motion, calmly watching the baton strike his head hard.
With a loud thud, the burly campus police officer felt as if he had struck a steel statue with all his might. His hand clenched and cracked from the shock, and the hard plastic baton lined with alloy steel flew out like a dart, striking the wall of the hall with a thud, leaving a deep dent and falling to the ground along with a shower of white ash.
The burly campus police officer felt no pain in his hand, only staring incredulously at the unharmed boy, as if looking at a monster. The thin campus police officer had only raised his baton halfway when he froze in mid-air, his expression stiff, just like his colleague.
Ling Yun stepped forward, took the baton from the thin policeman, and with a seemingly weak flick, struck the officer. The officer was immediately sent flying, as if hit head-on by a truck traveling at 100 kilometers per hour. Without uttering a sound, he slid five meters across the less than 100-square-meter hall before crashing heavily to the ground like a broken sack. A clear line of blood ran from where he flew to where he fell. Due to the immense inertia and centrifugal force, several drops of hot, salty liquid splattered onto the still-shocked face of the burly policeman.
The thin campus policeman didn't utter a sound; he had already passed out when the baton struck him. His body lay curled up unnaturally on the ground, indicating that several bones in his body had been broken or bent.
"No, no, don't kill me." The burly campus police officer suddenly realized what was happening. He looked at the devilish Ling Yun in horror and trembled as he backed away until his body hit the wall. The crumbling white ash on the wall stuck to his dark blue uniform, and he slid down.
Ling Yun walked up to him expressionlessly, raising his baton high: "Speak, who ordered you to kill me?" These two campus police officers had lured him to this deserted building and locked the door, clearly intending to kill him to silence him. If they just wanted to beat him up, why bother bringing him here?
"I'm telling you, you promise you won't kill me?" The burly campus police officer was still terrified, his voice trembling slightly, but he had regained some semblance of rationality in the negotiation. In reality, his fear stemmed more from the inhuman resilience of the boy before him. The burly officer was no ordinary person; his attack on Ling Yun's head had been delivered with full force. Even the world's strongest special forces soldier could not possibly emerge unscathed from such an attack. This boy's monstrous behavior could only prove one thing: he was not human.
At least not a normal person.
At this moment, the burly school police officer had no time to imagine what kind of person Ling Yun was. His companion's fate was still vivid in his mind; clearly, this boy could kill him with almost as little difficulty as crushing a grasshopper.
"I promise," Ling Yun said calmly.
“A guy called Old Demon sent us to impersonate campus security guards to find you at school. He said if we killed you, he'd give us 300,000 each,” the burly campus security guard said urgently, adding at the end, “I’m telling the truth!”
"Old Demon? Who is that?" Ling Yun frowned. He had never heard of this name before, and what the burly policeman said was quite different from what he had guessed. Things seemed to be getting more complicated.
"Yes, his nickname is Old Demon, I don't know his real name. He's a skinny guy in his forties." The burly policeman tried hard to recall his impression of Old Demon. "This person is very mysterious, I don't know much about him either, I just heard that he seems to have close ties with some well-known international drug dealers, and occasionally he also works as a middleman for underworld hitmen, earning brokerage fees. He's a pretty well-off person."
"What else do you know? Like where you met the old demon?" Ling Yun asked after a moment of silence, hefting the baton in his hand.
The burly policeman stared fearfully at the baton dangling in front of him, involuntarily swallowing hard. "People like us, if we want to find shady work, usually go to the bar street in the western suburbs. People like Lao Yao don't have fixed whereabouts or fixed ways to contact us. We can only meet underworld brokers at night in bars, then contact them through coded messages to discuss the specifics of the mission."
Ling Yun thought for a moment and asked, "Will there be any guarantee of benefits? For example, if you really kill me tonight, how can you guarantee that you will get that 300,000 yuan?"
“Definitely.” The burly policeman said confidently. “It’s an unwritten rule in this business. If Lao Yao wants to stay in the underworld, he has to keep his word. Otherwise, as long as we spread the word, he won’t be able to survive.”
"Oh." Ling Yun nodded as if he understood. "By the way, what were the codes you mentioned earlier?"
The burly policeman briefly mentioned a few points, which Ling Yun noted down. Then, he casually asked, "Is there anything else you want to say?"
The burly policeman's heart skipped a beat. He wasn't a rookie; he immediately grasped the subtext in Ling Yun's words. The fear that had just subsided surged back into his mind like a runaway horse. He didn't know where the strength came from, but he sprang to his feet and lunged menacingly at Ling Yun: "You said you'd let him go..."
He couldn't utter the last word. The dark black baton covered with countless rubber particles filled his vision before being plunged deep into his mouth and then out through the back of his head. The spurting blood mixed with white brain matter sprayed powerfully onto the wall, instantly soaking a large area.
"I was lying to you." Ling Yun muttered to himself as he watched the burly policeman's body slump to the ground.
Chapter Forty-Four: Destroying the Corpse and Covering Up the Evidence
Ling Yun's face was slightly pale, but he quickly recovered. Just a few days ago, Ling Yun wouldn't have resorted to such ruthlessness. Although he had become a superhuman, deep down, Ling Yun was still that kind and honest boy at heart. Although he had killed a psychic before, that was only out of desperation in a life-or-death situation, and his nature hadn't changed.
After a month of arduous training in supernatural arts, Ling Yun underwent a complete transformation on his first night inside Yu Xiujie's fifth-level barrier.
The simulated reality described in the first paragraph taught Ling Yun a lesson in bloodlust. Strictly speaking, it couldn't be called a simulation of reality anymore; it was a simulation of hell. As soon as Ling Yun entered the barrier, he found himself in a desolate wasteland littered with corpses. There was no sun, no moon, no stars, only boundless darkness and an extremely harsh environment. Countless alien creatures discovered him the moment he entered and pounced on him like hungry wolves, wanting to tear him apart.
In the first few battles, Ling Yun was quickly torn to shreds by the alien creature, every part of his body turning into bloody flesh and being devoured by the creature. The extremely bloody scene made Ling Yun, who considered himself to have a fairly resilient nerve, feel nauseous even in a world of pure mental energy.
Once the barrier deems him dead, it will restore him to his original state, placing him in the same environment but replacing him with a group of even more powerful alien creatures to attack him. If Ling Yun cannot kill all the alien creatures in return, he will be trapped in an endless cycle of bloody life and death, unable to escape.
Driven to the brink, Ling Yun had no choice but to fight back. He gradually learned to slaughter, to use the environment to evade the alien creatures' search, to hide among the rotting corpses for surprise attacks, and to use more bloodthirsty and ruthless methods to scare away the alien creatures with a certain level of intelligence. When he emerged from the first section of the simulated reality with heavy, weary steps, he could clearly feel the enormous changes that had occurred within him, both mentally and physically. In Xiu Jie's words, he had become like a true superhuman.
Therefore, when Ling Yun killed two campus police officers today, he was able to remain calm and composed, without feeling disgusted or awkward.
Unscrewing the dilapidated lock, Ling Yun stepped out of the two-story building disguised as a campus security guard's office. "Where did those two campus guards find this place?" Ling Yun thought to himself, "it's a perfect spot for murder and dumping a body." He then retraced his steps back to the school.
There should be someone waiting for him at the school. After experiencing the training of the fifth layer of the barrier, even though it was only for a few nights, Ling Yun has grown a lot. Things that he couldn't see through before, he now understands clearly.