Ba ethnic group's bewitching charm - the executioner

Chapter 26

"Captain Qin, go out and arrest them immediately," He Lan said with a grin, clearly in a good mood.

"Arrest people? Who are you arresting?" Qin Ge didn't understand.

"That woman with the black mole on her neck, have you forgotten that before the New Year, I went with you to that small street to investigate the route Xu Li took home and found the disposable syringe that Xu Li used to inject drugs. Later, we also busted a pyramid scheme in a nearby house, and the leader was this woman."

Upon hearing Helan's words, Qin Ge remembered. He perked up and immediately recalled that the woman indeed had a similar mole on the left side of her neck.

Just then, he suddenly heard Ma Nan let out a strange "Huh?" He quickly looked down at the computer screen and saw Ma Nan checking his QQ account information. In the personal description section, an address was filled in:

Room 302, Unit 1, Building 126, Fenglin Street

“This space was originally empty, but now this line of text has appeared,” Ma Nan said.

Without a doubt, besides Ma Nan, only the Detective knew this QQ password. The Detective didn't log on at the agreed time because he had already left clues in his QQ profile.

Upon seeing the address, Qin Ge paused for a moment, then strode to the door without a word, called out the names of two colleagues, and said emphatically, "Get ready, come with me to the scene immediately, Fenglin Street!"

Police cars sped through the streets with sirens blaring.

In the car, Qin Ge told Ma Nan that he and He Lan had found the syringe last time and met a woman with a black mole on her neck in a building on Fenglin Street.

"Could the address the Ba people left me be the home of that woman with the black mole on her neck?" Ma Nan asked hesitantly.

The question was quickly answered. When their car arrived at No. 126 Fenglin Street, there were two police cars parked at the entrance of the alley, with the number 110 in large letters on their bodies, and a crowd of onlookers had gathered in front of the building.

Qin Ge and Ma Nan's hearts sank immediately; they realized almost simultaneously that something had happened.

Act III

Scarlet Heart

Chapter 17

Time was immeasurable in the secret chamber, so Yang Zheng had no idea how much time had passed. His last memory was hearing Luo Bin let out a piercing scream, and he couldn't help but tremble slightly as he stood beside him.

Just then, darkness descended once more. The sudden darkness made them both hold their breath, subconsciously anticipating something, as if they were convinced that something evil lurked in the darkness.

In fact, nothing happened. Yang Zheng only remembered that the darkness lasted for far too long this time.

In the darkness, he could only hear Luo Bin's heavy breathing beside him, occasionally punctuated by gagging sounds. He tried to say something to Luo Bin, but Luo Bin wouldn't give him a chance; whatever he said was met with a harsh growl. He understood Luo Bin's feelings at that moment; anyone who witnessed such a brutal murder would suffer immense psychological trauma. But Luo Bin seemed more fragile than he had imagined; those images were pushing him to the brink of collapse.

The reality of murder is so different from what I imagined.

Yang Zheng leaned against the corner of the wall, letting his thoughts wander—in the darkness, thinking seemed to be the only thing he could do. He knew he was in a predicament, but he couldn't blame anyone; it was all his own choice.

He hated the power within his body, which had driven him to a dead end.

Sometime later, Yang Zheng lay in the darkness, his arms wrapped around his calves, curled up like a baby in the womb. This position was comfortable; he could even feel a warmth within him. In his dreams, he could even feel those warm liquids caressing his body, soft and enveloping him. He murmured something, as if expressing a longing for the outside world.

No one can remember what it felt like to be in their mother's womb, but Yang Zheng could. He stubbornly believed that the countless times he dreamed of being submerged in a warm ocean were actually because he was immersed in his mother's life.

That wonderful feeling made Yang Zheng languid in the darkness; he knew he was about to fall asleep. He didn't want to sleep because of the predicament he faced, but sleepiness overwhelmed him, and like a helpless child, he was powerless to resist.

Before Yang Zheng fell asleep, he seemed to smell a faint fragrance.

In another room, two people were watching Yang Zheng and Luo Bin through a monitor.

The room was dark, so only the dim light from the monitor allowed one to vaguely make out the two figures. The person in the wheelchair wore a bronze mask with a grotesque face and a pair of wings on each side, resembling bird wings. These wings extended backward, completely covering the person's head.

Beside this person stood another person, who seemed to be deliberately hiding himself in the darkness, so his appearance was completely obscured. However, he was tall and slender, with long, white hands hanging at his sides.

The monitor in front of them showed a blurry image, with only a faint white shadow visible—Yang Zheng and Luo Bin were in the dark, so monitoring them required an infrared camera.

In the image, Yang Zheng is curled up with his eyes closed, seemingly sleeping peacefully. On the other side, Luo Bin stares wide-eyed into the boundless darkness, his body trembling slightly.

Time passed quietly, and the situations of Yang Zheng and Luo Bin gradually changed.

Luo Bin's tense body seemed to relax more and more. Finally, his eyes closed limply, and he collapsed. Yang Zheng, who had been sleeping peacefully, suddenly felt his eyelids twitch twice, and the muscles on his face began to tremble violently. Then, his whole body began to twist.

A masked person in a wheelchair remotely controlled a camera, and the image slowly zoomed in on Yang Zheng's face.

“He’s dreaming again,” said the standing man. Judging from his voice, he was a man.

“I’m curious to know what he was dreaming about,” the masked man said in a hoarse voice.

“That must be a nightmare.” The standing man actually smiled. “He has always lived in a nightmare. What we need to do now is to make his nightmare a reality, so that he can become a useful person to us.”

"I hope your method works, and I also want to see what kind of person he can become."

"Don't worry, he won't keep us waiting too long. The real show is about to begin."

After the standing man finished speaking, his gaze subtly shifted from the monitor to the mask on the man in the wheelchair. It was less a mask and more a bronze veil, worn on the man's head, making him resemble the Man in the Iron Mask from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

The standing man was eager to see what the person in the wheelchair would look like after the bronze mask was removed. But he dared not; the man gave him a strange feeling. Sometimes he seemed very weak, even panting after eating a little food, but other times he appeared very strong, as if he could take a life with a mere gesture.

The standing man was clearly dissatisfied with his perception. He thought it must be the bronze mask on the man's head that was causing these illusions. The mask's grotesque features were extremely menacing, especially the wings, which were sculpted with lifelike detail. They weren't feathered wings in the conventional sense, but rather fleshy wings like those of a bat, with veins bulging beneath the thin, fleshy flaps.

The standing man found himself inexplicably filled with awe at the sight of the bronze mask.

The standing man had specifically researched the pair of fleshy wings on the mask. Now, he knew that the image on the bronze mask was the monster depicted on bronze vessels from the Yin and Zhou dynasties. Those fleshy wings, resembling ears, were called "Taotie." Some books described Taotie as a hairy creature living in the southwestern wilderness, with a pig's head, inherently greedy and vicious, fond of accumulating wealth but unwilling to spend it, disliking work itself but instead robbing people of the fruits of their labor.① Therefore, Taotie also carries the connotation of insatiable greed. However, the appearance of Taotie on either side of those ferocious features carries another layer of meaning.

Legend has it that the monsters depicted on bronze vessels from the Yin and Zhou dynasties were Chi You.

Those fleshy wings were the wings that grew on Chi You's back, allowing him to fly and roam freely without restraint.

The standing man initially did not understand why Chi You, who was said to be a traitor to the divine kingdom, and whose descendants of the Fuxi clan had guarded his head for generations, would wear such a mask.

Later, he found in historical records that the Yellow Emperor cut off Chi You's head, and later rulers carved the imagined head of Chi You on bronze vessels to warn greedy and ambitious officials and feudal lords. So, did the leader of the Ba tribe in this generation also have a warning in mind when he wore such a mask?