Ding Shi switched off the electric scooter's headlight to keep from making himself a target. Drawing his Wildcat crossbow, he loaded a bolt and used the scope's night-vision function to scan his surroundings before examining the ground. The rain was not particularly heavy, leaving obvious trails of blood visible where someone had dragged the Butcher into a shanty house.
The shanty was a two-story structure with severely peeling walls that exposed the broken bricks underneath. Its front door hung wide open, a single shoe sat on the threshold, and streaks of blood led deep inside.
Ding Shi despised the Grim Reaper. God only knew whether the bastard had rigged traps indoors, but now that he was already here, he had to go in for the sake of the points.
Crossbow raised, Ding Shi stepped slowly through the front door. Through his night-vision scope, he spotted a woman holding a sharp knife, hiding beside the wall by the foot of the stairs. Seeing that Ding Shi had not switched on a flashlight, she hadn't bothered to conceal herself further, merely waiting for him to head upstairs so she could plunge the blade into his back.
Ding Shi strolled toward the stairs, casually shifted the angle of the Wildcat, and drove a bolt into her skull from three meters away. Without making a sound, the woman collapsed dead to the floor. Ding Shi walked up beside her and spotted the Butcher's corpse.
Ding Shi looted the bodies, obtaining twenty yuan in cash, a gold necklace, half a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and three crossbow bolts. Along the way, he noticed numerous bruises from beatings across the woman's body.
He deduced the story: The Butcher beat his wife whenever he had nothing better to do. Suffering from Stockholm syndrome, she helped her husband cover up evidence and fence his stolen goods. Upon discovering her husband's body, she had been consumed by grief, dragging the corpse away to lure Ding Shi into pursuit in a desperate bid to avenge him.
System notification: *Rainy Night Butcher killed. 20 points earned. Accomplice of the Rainy Night Butcher killed. 10 points earned. Feathering your own nest: 50 points deducted.*
"Wait, no! I was just holding onto them for safekeeping!" Ding Shi explained to the empty air, pulling out the cigarettes and other stolen goods in a frantic defense. "It's raining outside; I was afraid the evidence would get soaked! The gold necklace definitely has the criminal's fingerprints—leaving it out would interfere with the subsequent investigation! In reality, I'm a police officer, a total professional! Not only have I never touched dirty money, I don't even take a salary! I run entirely on the power of justice! If you don't believe me, look it up—you can check!"
System notification: *Attempted nest-feathering: 30 points deducted.*
*Damn dog system. You'd better never let me learn your dog name, or I'll build you a gravestone on my island and take a dump on your head every single day.*
Ding Shi called it in. Plainclothes detectives arrived with patrol officers, searched the premises, recovered the stolen goods, and handled the aftermath while Ding Shi resumed his patrol.
Summoning an ordinary bicycle, Ding Shi pedaled leisurely toward the Giant Mushroom. It was already midnight. Barely a soul could be seen on the streets, and even the lights from residential windows were pitifully sparse.
Just as he returned to the Giant Mushroom to take a breather, another scream rang out. Ding Shi sprinted toward the sound. Under a porch light outside a residence, a scantily clad woman lay on the ground amid splatters of blood and a fruit knife, while a man wrestled with her over a shoulder bag.
Setting aside the difference between a dagger and a fruit knife, the scene was virtually identical to the previous one, leaving Ding Shi momentarily stunned.
Ding Shi drew his Wildcat crossbow, loaded a bolt, and walked forward.
The man shouted anxiously, "Officer, I'm the good guy! She tried to rob me!"
"I know." Lightning didn't strike the same spot twice; given the system's cheap tendencies, it wouldn't pull the exact same trick. Ding Shi signaled the man to back away, then crouched down to look at the woman. "You've got four flaws. One, that's a man's shoulder bag. Two, you've bled so little that a nosebleed would be worse. Three, you never called out to me for help. Four, that shoulder strap is flimsy as hell—why haven't the two of you managed to snap it?"
With that, Ding Shi jerked the Wildcat upward. A meter away, the man was already lunging with a knife.
*System, have some shame, will you? Two robbers putting on an act to mug a cop? Is this really the best plot you could come up with?*
A bolt shot straight through the man's head. The woman gave up all resistance. After a professional frisk turned up no weapons, Ding Shi flipped her over, snapped handcuffs onto her wrists, and hauled her up from the pavement.
*Huh?* The wind suddenly seemed to pick up. *Not good. The Grim Reaper's up to his tricks again.*
Darkness enveloped everything, obscuring his vision. Without a shred of shame, Ding Shi ducked right beneath the woman's buttocks, scanning left and right. A flowerpot plummeted from a sixth-floor balcony. Ding Shi yanked the woman, pulling her backward as the pot smashed directly into her collarbone with a crisp crack of breaking bone.
Wrenched free by the wind and rain, an old signboard came whipping out of the darkness toward Ding Shi. It was made of thin plastic and theoretically posed little danger, but its edges were razor-thin, turning it into a flying blade.
Ignoring the woman's agonized wails, Ding Shi kept his eyes peeled and his ears sharp. Catching the sound from the east, he shoved the woman in front of him. A sudden shift in the wind turned the signboard from edge-on to flat against her body. The impact did virtually no damage. The signboard dropped to the pavement, pinned down by the puddles, unable to take flight again.
A nearby telephone booth clicked open a sliver, and a venomous snake that had escaped from a neighborhood pet shop slipped quietly inside, coiling itself into the warmest spot behind the telephone.
Ding Shi dragged the woman over to the booth, forced her to stand facing the wall, produced a coin, and walked toward the booth.
Ding Shi stood outside staring at it for a long while before speaking to the empty air: "Do you take me for an idiot, or are you an idiot? The booth's outer shell is glass, and there's a light inside. Do you not understand glass, or do you not understand light?"
Shaking his head speechlessly, Ding Shi entered the booth. He flicked the snake to the floor with his baton, struck it right behind the head, and ground his leather boot onto its skull. Dropping a coin into the slot, he dialed the police station. "This is Patrol Officer Ding Shi. Opposite the Nightingale Hair Salon in the Night Rain District, two robbery suspects were discovered. One shot dead, one arrested. Understood."
Ten minutes later, plainclothes officers arrived with two patrolmen.
System notification: *Rainy night male robber neutralized. 10 work points earned. Rainy night female robber captured. 20 work points earned.*
At two in the morning, his shift came to an end. Eight hours yielded eight points, along with twenty work points, bringing his total for the first day to twenty-eight points.
Mounting his bicycle, he headed home. Not a single person was left on the street. In the dead of night, a telephone suddenly began to ring.
Ding Shi stopped his bicycle and looked toward a telephone booth less than five meters away. The phone inside rang incessantly.
After a moment's thought, Ding Shi continued pedaling forward. The ringing from the booth behind him abruptly ceased, only for the phone in the next booth up the road to start ringing.
And so it went—wherever Ding Shi rode, the phones rang.
Finally, Ding Shi pulled open the door of a public booth and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
He had no choice; there was a telephone at home, too.
A gender-neutral voice came from the receiver: "I am the Grim Reaper."
Ding Shi fell silent for a beat, then replied, "And I'm your dear departed darling."
The voice paused for several seconds. Though it strove to maintain an even tone, a flicker of irritation leaked through: "I hear you're quite arrogant."
Ding Shi blinked. That sounded suspiciously like the opening line a petty punk used when extorting schoolkids. In humble inquiry, Ding Shi asked, "Who'd you hear that from?"
How was one supposed to answer that? The voice lapsed into silence once more before finally saying, "I would like to invite you to my home as a guest." A brute-force change of subject.
Ding Shi immediately asked, "What's in it for me?" Treating someone to a meal didn't necessarily mean they owed you a favor; you might very well owe them one. Besides, if you claimed to be the Grim Reaper and invited someone over, wouldn't it be embarrassing not to show some sincerity?
This time, the silence stretched even longer before the voice said, "It's my treat."
Ding Shi refused. "Not enough. I want an A-grade playing card."
"What on earth is that?" the voice asked, baffled.
Ding Shi scoffed, "You don't even know that, and you have the nerve to call yourself the Grim Reaper?" Since the entity had already targeted him anyway, he might as well score some cheap verbal points.
The voice hesitated for a long while before finally compromising. "What benefit do you want?"
Ding Shi replied, "Stop targeting me."
Staying on guard against the Grim Reaper around the clock was frankly exhausting.
"Impossible," the voice replied. "At most, I promise to try to kill you only three times a day."
Ding Shi retorted, "What? No confidence you can finish me off at your own place?"
A very, very long pause followed before the voice said, "Once. As long as you come to my home tomorrow as a guest and leave alive, I will try to kill you at most once a day from then on."
Ding Shi said, "Gee, thanks. Still not enough! Nowhere near enough."
"Don't push your luck," the voice warned.
"Goodbye," Ding Shi said.
"Wait." The voice hesitated. "I can share a secret about Ham Town with you—the secret behind why so many homicidal maniacs have suddenly appeared here. If you eliminate one maniac, another will simply take his place. You should solve the problem at its root."
Ding Shi said, "The secret, plus one attempt."
"The secret, plus three attempts," the voice countered.
"One."
"Three."
"One."
"Three."
"One."
The voice gave up. "Fine. One attempt on your life per day, plus the secret. To build more factories and force the residents to move out of Ham Town, the mayor purchased a large number of homicidal maniacs from his cousin's prison." Terrified that Ding Shi would cook up more nonsense, the voice blurted out the entire secret in a single breath.
Ding Shi asked, "Isn't that secret a bit too cartoonish?" Why did this Grim Reaper feel so un-Grim-Reaper-like? A genuine Grim Reaper ought to be aloof, ruthless, wise, pretentious, ready to slap people down, and all-seeing. Yet this one had actually haggled with him—and had lost, no less. He came across like a total idiot.
"There are many twists and underlying reasons, but boiled down, that is the gist of it," the voice said.
"All right. Where's your place?" Ding Shi asked.
"The invitation has already been delivered to your home. I hope you'll like it."
*A veiled threat, huh.*
...
No. 99 Bell Street.
Ding Shi unlocked the door with his key and reached inside to flip on the first-floor light. Throughout the motion, half his body remained outside, his left hand gripping the Wildcat crossbow, ready to bolt or brawl at a moment's notice.
Everything appeared normal. Ding Shi stepped onto the ground floor, shut the door, and locked it from the inside.
*Damn it all. Jumpy as a cat in my own house.*
With a gentle kick, Ding Shi pushed open the kitchen door, turned on the light, and swept the room in every direction with his crossbow, checking every conceivable hiding spot.
He ascended to the second floor, where the study light was on. Moving along the wall with his back to it, Ding Shi spotted a red object resting on the desk. After checking both sides, he stepped inside, conducted a thorough sweep of the study, and then used the crossbow's prod to flip the notebook open. Inside lay an invitation:
*Mr. Ding Shi is cordially invited to stay for a day at the Count's Villa in the affluent district before twelve o'clock noon tomorrow. Signed: Count Liu Decai.*
*Liu Decai?* The name rang a faint bell in Ding Shi's mind, as if he had seen it somewhere before. *Aha, got it—Liu Dehua.*
Ding Shi picked up the phone in the study and dialed the station. "This is Ding Shi. I'd like to take tomorrow off. Wonderful, thank you."
The NPC colleagues were remarkably accommodating—except when it came to borrowing money. He gave them a mental thumbs-up.
A man wearing a mask cut from a pair of trousers crouched in the shadows between the second and third floors. His right hand held a dagger in a reverse grip, while his left carried a kitchen cleaver.
Seeing Ding Shi enter the bedroom and shut the door behind him, the man tiptoed down the stairs, slipped out the front door, and fled.
The roadside telephone rang immediately. The man picked up the receiver.
The Grim Reaper asked, "Why didn't you make a move?"
The man replied honestly, "I can't beat him. Do you know what he's holding? A Wildcat crossbow—a Wildcat crossbow that can punch through an elephant's skull! But that's not the point. The point is that I'm a man of principle. I would never harm a kindhearted person."
"You're afraid?" the Grim Reaper said.
A passing car swept its headlights across the telephone booth. Who else could the man be but Shabi?
Instead of answering, Shabi asked, "Why were Wang Meng, Ding Shi, and I matched into a hundred-player instance? Are you deliberately targeting me because of my stellar performance?"
"I don't understand your question," the Grim Reaper said.
"You don't need to. Don't worry, I'll attend tomorrow's party."
"Kill Ding Shi, and you will receive one hundred work points," the Grim Reaper offered.
"No, no. I'd rather grind twenty points at a time than lay a hand on such a kind gentleman." *I can't beat him—I really can't beat him!* Shabi wept inwardly. Whether in Eta or reality, a one-on-one against Ding Shi meant nine deaths to one life. Not to mention the man was packing a Wildcat crossbow.
"Don't forget," the Grim Reaper said, "you mortgaged your soul to borrow two hundred points before I agreed to invite the prey to tomorrow's party. If you cannot repay those two hundred points, I will take your soul. Believe me, compared to death, losing your soul is a terrifying fate."
"I'll borrow another fifty points if you take back Ding Shi's invitation," Shabi countered. Ding Shi had the Wildcat; the moment he saw Shabi, he would blow his soul to pieces with a single shot. Shabi wasn't Wang Meng—those two had spent six years together and saved each other's lives, so there was still a shred of brotherly affection between them. But he and Ding Shi were sworn enemies who would fight to the death on sight.
Try roping Wang Meng in against Ding Shi again? The problem was that with Ding Shi holding the Wildcat, Wang Meng would far rather rekindle his brotherly bond with Ding Shi. Even Shabi himself, staring down the barrel of that Wildcat, could praise Ding Shi as a paragon of virtue.
A wise man adapted to the times. Shabi only unleashed his wild nature when he could respawn and held complete control of the situation; normally, he played it safe as a coward.
The Grim Reaper laughed in sheer exasperation. *What kind of lunatic is this?*
Shabi asked, "Why did you put out such a massive bounty on him?"
"There's a light on him," the Grim Reaper replied. "It makes me desperately want to kill him."
"A light? Like Ultraman?" Shabi asked, utterly baffled.
Ding Shi never searched the third floor. There was no point. If an intruder were up there with foul intentions, they would inevitably enter his bedroom. The Wildcat crossbow in his bedroom had been rigged as a trap; the instant anyone opened the door, a bolt would pierce right through the door and whoever stood behind it. And if there was no intruder on the third floor, why bother searching it at all?
Chapter 87