Forge a path to success.

Chapter 17 Demon Dog Child (Part 2)

The blunt force trauma continued relentlessly, the pain indescribably intense. The agony threatened to burn his nerves, even radiating deep into his brain. Chu Hengkong gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, and spun around, trying to break free from the giant wolf's grasp, but this time he failed. His vision blurred, the scenery fading like a black, viscous soup. He was clearly in mid-air, yet "standing" on the ground. The stench was nauseating, and the air was thick with unpleasant laughter…

In the dead of night, in an alley, a woman with a bloodied head is buried in a pile of garbage bags, while men wielding sticks brutally kick her head. The barking of dogs breaks the silence of the night, tears blur her vision, and the world shakes as if an earthquake has struck.

"Mommy! Mommy!!!"

The barking of dogs. Cursing. Running into the garbage heap. Clutching the pitiful, mangled corpse. Heart-wrenching howls, but no one answers. When they come to their senses, men stand around, their sticks stained with red and white ink.

"What good luck!" the white-browed man grinned maliciously. "It saved me the trouble of searching one by one."

The stick fell, the pain, the sound of bones breaking. So painful. So painful.

"Brother White Eyebrows, are you really going to kill him?" his companion laughed.

"Nonsense! If you say kill her whole family, then of course you kill her whole family!" the white-browed man roared, as fierce as a wild wolf. "Otherwise, what will you do if that gossipy woman doesn't want to sleep with you anymore? Will you go sleep with the guests?! Is that it?!"

"Sleeping for a guest is fine, but accompanying a guest is not..."

"Damn it, this dog bit me!"

"To condemn someone outright, do we really need to teach them this?"

"Hurry up, the kid's still yelling."

They were even laughing and joking; taking a life was as easy for them as throwing away a bag of trash. They felt no guilt or fatigue, only thinking about finishing quickly so they could go back for drinks. The girl being beaten could no longer hear what they were saying; she only felt intense pain all over her body and a burning hatred in her heart.

It hurts so much. It's so painful. Nobody's coming to save me. Hau is dead too. Why don't you all die? Go die! Go die…!
"--roll!"

The roar dispelled the curse, the illusions in the alley dissipated, and the real scene emerged. The talisman inside Chu Hengkong's coat glowed faintly; its power dispelled the illusions, allowing him to see reality clearly.

Chu Hengkong had no injuries whatsoever; how could mere sticks possibly harm his body? The hallucination he had experienced earlier was the little female ghost synchronizing her "experiences" with his own, causing his enemy to suffer the torment she endured before her death. If it weren't for the city lord's talisman manifesting, he would have been killed by the evil spirit in the hallucination... But even now that he had regained his senses, the situation wasn't much better.

Dark night, rooftop, a gigantic wolf's head, howling wind. In the few seconds he was lost in his hallucination, he had already been rammed onto the rooftop by the giant wolf, and in another second he would have crashed six stories off. Wooden fangs tore through his sleeve, leaving long gashes on his arm. Chu Hengkong's arm wasn't bitten off thanks to his honed instincts; at the last moment, he raised his iron spear to block the gaping maw, helping him survive the most dangerous moment. Now, the spear was severely twisted; before he fell off the rooftop, he and the spear would be bitten to pieces.

"You die too! All of you, die!!"

The little ghost's venomous curse echoed in his ears. Retreating meant falling off the roof, while advancing meant facing the giant wolf's bloody maw. For a moment, Chu Hengkong had nowhere to escape. With the edge of the rooftop almost within reach, Chu Hengkong released the gun barrel with his right hand. He twisted his waist, took a lunge to the right, and the tentacle holding the gun on his left arm extended with the giant wolf's momentum. This extra length allowed him to continue blocking the wolf's bites and also enabled him to spin around to the wolf's side from an impossible angle.

From this position, the collar around the giant wolf's waist was within reach. Chu Heng clenched his fist into a palm and slammed it down. The little ghost girl saw it clearly and quickly shouted, "Haaaah, get out of the way!"

The giant wolf was startled and immediately released its grip, rolling away to create distance. Chu Hengkong's hand blade couldn't reach it, so he decisively changed his palm into a hook and swung it forward. The sticker on the back of his hand activated, and two transparent water bullets appeared between his fingers. With a series of whooshing sounds, the water bullets leaped out one after the other, smashing the collar inside the giant wolf's body to pieces!

The little ghost girl stood frozen, while the giant wolf froze, its crimson eyes revealing a human-like despair. Chu Hengkong flicked his spear and clicked his tongue.

It's that simple.

If he hadn't deliberately let the dog go, it would have been dead long ago. But that brat is unreasonable; she only learns to listen after being beaten. He glared at the little ghost girl, his tone laced with annoyance: "Shut up now? Come with me, so I can finish my 'moral education' and call it a day..."

Chu Hengkong stopped halfway through his speech, his expression turning serious for the first time. The evil spirits had indeed stopped moving, but their bodies, far from weakening, were subtly growing larger.

As the little female ghost's form grew, it became increasingly ethereal and blurry, like a low-resolution image from an old television. The giant wolf was being dragged into the phantom, appearing as if being devoured by the ghost. Her face was almost disappearing, and a pure black tornado swirled around the phantom. Instantly, sand and stones flew everywhere, and the wind was strong enough to uproot large trees. Chu Hengkong slammed the tip of his spear into the ground; otherwise, even he would be blown away!
"Kill! Die! All of you die! You! All of you, die!!!"

The sound of the wind was a cascade of countless tiny curses, its core being an ever-growing vengeful spirit. Chu Hengkong had misjudged the situation; he thought shattering the relic would strip the evil spirit of its fighting power, but he hadn't anticipated that the relic would also act as a restraint. If it weren't for the stone collar constantly acting as a "tether," this evil spirit would have long since left the abandoned apartment to wreak havoc in the city.

"damn it……!"

Chu Hengkong rarely cursed so loudly. The little female ghost now seemed illusory and blurry to him, much like the phantoms of demons. This was probably just a nascent, unreal demon! What a waste of time! She was already a demon infancy, what was the point of criticizing and educating her? He should have just killed her with a talisman and sent her to the afterlife, and even gotten a high-level relic for free!
But then he remembered the girl's eyes—so stubborn, so full of resentment, as if she had been steeped in hatred for ten years, so different from her weak father. Her father's eyes were empty, completely hollow, filled only with sorrow. One was vengeful in solitude, the other was waiting in solitude.

—Chu Hengkong, let me remind you, spirits have all sorts of tricks up their sleeves. Remember to clean up afterwards, don't leave any loose ends.

Jie An's parting words echoed in his mind, a rare seriousness in the usually slick middle-aged man. Chu Hengkong almost lost his balance; a strange black wind blew bricks and tiles away, and it looked as if the cement on the rooftop was about to fly up. He took one last look at the female ghost; her illusory eyes were no longer stubborn, only filled with dark resentment.

Even assassins who have been in the business for a long time will eventually encounter difficult situations, and the same is true in this other world. Hein's pleas, Jie An's instructions, the little girl's cries, the female ghost's venomous wrath—the images in his mind shifted one after another, finally settling on the initial sentence: Clean things up, leave no loose ends.

Chu Hengkong put on the power-charging bracelet, drew his spear, and attached the faintly glowing talisman to the tip. His last foothold was blown away; he leaped across the large fragments in the air, plunging alone into the dark wind, heading towards the female ghost and the giant wolf within it.

The man roared and drew his gun. The power within the relic erupted with his surging emotions. The talisman on the tip of the iron spear pierced through both the man and the dog in one shot!
·
The clock struck 11:30, the windows rattled loudly in the cold wind, and the noise made it impossible to sleep. Hein stared at the moldy ceiling, wide awake.

He had to leave for work in half an hour, and he should have been out the door long ago, but Hein felt very tired today, so tired that he couldn't even lift his arms. Usually, he lived on the hope in his heart, telling himself over and over that he would find it eventually, but the detective's words before he left shattered that false hope.

He'd known for a long time that there was no hope after half a year; continuing to search would only be a way to survive. He struggled to get out of bed, preparing for work, but it was pointless; he felt like a walking corpse whose actions had become stagnant.

The door slammed shut with a loud bang, the sound so fierce it seemed it would smash the iron gate apart. Hein instinctively opened the door, and a man with a gun strode in, his menacing aura chilling to the bone.

“Detective Chu…?” Hai En almost didn’t recognize the man.

"Open your safe," Chu Hengkong said hoarsely. "Quickly!"

Hein felt dizzy. Was this a robbery? The detective in the newspaper was a robber? He thought this city was absurd; he didn't even realize he was laughing when he opened the safe. The small iron door opened, and inside lay the most precious things in the house. The money he had painstakingly saved, the property certificate, the marriage certificate, the birth certificate… all those little treasures were thrown out with a single, forceful gesture. After emptying the safe, Chu Heng slapped a piece of paper inside; Hein vaguely saw that it was a talisman.

Chu Hengkong closed the safe door, sat on the floor, and let out a long sigh. Haien stared at the certificates scattered on the floor, his fingers trembling uncontrollably. The shocking turn of events had completely broken this honest man: "What are you doing?! What did our family do wrong?! I—"

"……dad?"

Hein's scream stopped abruptly. The little girl in front of the safe looked up at him, her bright black eyes, jet-black hair, and fair, delicate face framed by her obedient little dog. She hadn't changed at all; everything was exactly as he remembered from the last moments.

He suddenly knelt down, his trembling hand touching his daughter's hair. It was a little cold, but real, and he could feel it.

"Tina?" Hein smiled. "Where have you been? Dad has been looking for you."

"I'm lost..." the girl whispered.

"Why don't you come home! Dad is so worried about you! So worried about you..."

The father hugged his daughter tightly, tears streaming down his face. The little black dog, Hawu, lay quietly to one side, wagging its tail vigorously.

Tina's father searched for people during the day and worked far away at night. The two lived only a block apart but never saw each other again. This naturally made Tina very desperate, because before she died, she heard the thugs' threats and never saw her father again. She thought that her parents had been killed and that they would destroy this heartless city.

Now she's locked in a safe, not just a collar that can be easily removed, but a heavy block of iron. She can't go very far; at most, she can walk around the building, waiting for her father to come home.

I wonder what level of relic this safe with the talisman is now?

Chu Hengkong stretched his shoulders and looked at the little girl: "Your father is still alive. If you misbehave again, you'll cause trouble for him."

"I won't make a fuss anymore!" Tina cried. "Daddy, I'm sorry, I won't make a fuss anymore..."

Then she apologized again. What was there to apologize for? Kids are such a hassle. Chu Hengkong stood up and patted Hai En on the shoulder: "Move the money and certificates somewhere else. From now on, these are your family's most precious treasures, so take good care of them."

As if waking from a dream, Hai En was so bewildered that he didn't know what to do. In desperation, he picked up the tears that had fallen to the ground and cried out, "Detective Chu! Please!"

Chu Heng glanced at it and suddenly revealed a rude expression like that of a thug.

"Do you even know the rules of the underworld?"

Hein flinched in fright: "It wasn't intentional, please give me some more time—"

"Why give so much when you're helping the child accumulate good karma?" Chu Hengkong returned to his usual calm expression. "Reimbursing travel expenses is enough."

He picked up the smallest of the beads, shouldered his gun, and went out into the night.

(End of this chapter)