Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

He had personally witnessed the state of a test subject after being injected with this drug—the originally thin man, under the influence of the drug, managed to bend a steel bar as thick as a thumb and worked continuously at high intensity for nearly six hours.

Multiple organ failure only appeared after the effects of the medication wore off.

"Have you set your next goal?" Zhang Zhaoqing asked.

Zhou Xie nodded, took out a folded map from his pocket, and unfolded it in front of Zhang Zhaoqing.

His finger pressed heavily on a coordinate in the seventh district.

"Here. That little girl named Duoduo, she was a witness in the Su Xiao case. She suffered severe psychological trauma, and her brain has been in a state of high-intensity stress protection for a long time, and she is still mute."

Zhang Zhaoqing's lips curled into a sinister smile: "Duoduo... what a good name. This extreme emotional threshold is exactly the testing environment that the 'Ning Shen' series of drugs craves. Go and pick this flower and plant it in my lab. Perhaps the breakthrough for the next generation of 'Ning Shen' drugs will fall on this little girl."

……

At the same time.

In the seventh district, downstairs in an old residential building.

Li Rui held a cigarette in his hand, his gaze passing through the security window and landing on the slightly dim light on the fourth floor.

That's Duoduo's home.

Duoduo was the last child Su Xiao wanted to protect before she died.

That noon, Su Xiao carried Duo Duo and got into Zhang Ziqian's car.

If it weren't for Duoduo, if it were just for herself...

Li Rui had wondered more than once if Xiaoxiao, with her vigilance, might not fall for the scam at all.

But she still carried Duoduo into the car.

Because Duoduo was scared, because Duoduo needed her.

That was Su Xiao's choice.

In her final moments, she chose to protect that trembling little figure.

Duoduo is not only a witness.

In Li Rui's heart, Duoduo is the continuation of Su Xiao's untainted gentleness and responsibility.

Xiaoxiao could no longer protect her.

But he can.

This is not about revenge, or rather, it is more than just about revenge.

This is the only warm fragment of Xiaoxiao that he still wants to hold onto tightly on his path to becoming a dark demon.

He stubbed out his cigarette, strode over, and knocked on Duoduo's door.

The sound of slippers scraping the floor came from inside the door.

When Duoduo's grandmother's worried face appeared through the crack in the door, she was stunned for a moment when she saw that it was Li Rui. Then she trembled and opened the door.

"It's...it's Teacher Su's lover. Come in quickly."

The room was small, and the air was filled with the smell of herbs.

Duoduo curled up on the small bed in the corner.

She was holding the rag doll that Su Xiao had given her; the skirt of the rag doll was already a little frayed.

The little girl had big eyes, but her pupils looked like a stagnant pool.

She stared at a point in the void, showing no reaction to Li Rui's entry.

From the perspective of Karmic Fire Perception, Li Rui could not see any sinful blackness on Duo Duo; she was a pure, heartbreaking white.

But in the middle of that white, there is a hideous void, a mark left by trauma, the aftershock of darkness forcibly tearing the soul apart.

Li Rui walked over and slowly squatted down in front of the sofa.

He didn't try to guide the wound with words like a typical police officer or social worker would, because he knew that words were ineffective against that kind of wound.

He simply gazed at her silently, carefully concealing the two dark red dots deep within his pupils.

The grandmother wiped away her tears and said, "This child screams in his dreams every night. But when he wakes up, he can't say a word, he just stares blankly... If only Teacher Su were still here."

Li Rui reached out and gently stroked the top of the little girl's head.

At that moment, he felt the ruby ​​brooch on his chest warm slightly, a gentle warmth.

"It will be alright," Li Rui said softly, not only to his grandmother and Duoduo, but also to himself.

……

When leaving Duoduo's house, Li Rui did not leave immediately.

He stood in the shadows by the building entrance, his fingers stroking the brooch in his pocket.

For some reason, the flame brooch he kept in his heart pocket was slightly warm.

wrong.

Li Rui raised his eyes, his gaze sweeping across the entire street.

The detective's instincts told him—something was wrong.

The gray bread truck on the street corner was parked in a way that seemed too deliberate.

Facing the entrance to the apartment building, the car lights were off, but the engine was still running, and a faint red light could be seen in the driver's seat—someone was smoking, but deliberately covering it with their hand.

That's not the kind of action a normal person would take while waiting in a car.

Deep within Li Rui's pupils, two dark red dots twitched slightly.

He closed his eyes and immersed his senses in the perspective of the karmic fire.

The perspective has changed.

Darkness is no longer darkness, but a chaos of countless shades of gray.

In that chaos, the black traces of sin were faintly visible, like flames in the mist.

Inside the gray van, a few fine strands of black fabric were swirling around.

Those black shapes resembled knives—the "sin of subordination" that people, as tools, acquired while carrying out orders.

Just then, the car door opened.

After getting out of the car, the leader walked to a street lamp and lit a cigarette.

By the dim light, Li Rui could make out the face—Zhou Xie, Zhang Zhaoqing's most capable underling.

His killing intent surged like a tidal wave for a moment, but he quickly forced himself to calm down.

This is a residential area, and it's not late yet; occasionally, neighbors pass by on their way home from get off work.

If the attack were to take place here, even if the karmic fire could burn everything, it would still be impossible to explain the sudden burst of flames and the disappearance.

More importantly, he couldn't cause trouble for Duoduo, and he couldn't let the fear add insult to injury for the child.

Under the cover of darkness, Li Rui quietly made his way to the corner behind the building.

Shortly afterward, Zhou Xie got out of the car with three burly men.

They stopped behind an old locust tree downstairs, where no one passed by and there were no security cameras.

Zhou Xie unfolded the tactical tablet in his hand, pointed to the lit window on the fourth floor, and made a "capture" gesture to his subordinates.

"Be quick," Zhou Xie said in a low voice. "We need the smaller one. Chairman Zhang said it has to be alive and responsive."

Li Rui hid at the corner behind the building, watching the group of people and listening to their talk about taking back the child Xiaoxiao was desperately protecting.

The dark red in his eyes had completely lost its restraint.

That was the roar of karmic fire, that was justice dancing wildly after transgressing the rules.

While Zhou Xie and the others were still finalizing their plan under the old locust tree, four dark red flames suddenly appeared out of thin air beside them.

Zhou Xie's pupils suddenly contracted; he instinctively sensed extreme danger.

As one of Zhang Zhaoqing's key protégés, he reacted extremely quickly, pulling out the "Tranquilizing V-shaped" potion from his pocket and preparing to plunge it directly into his neck.

He wanted to fight back by relying on the effects of performance-enhancing drugs.

But he was too slow.

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