Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

The two turned and rushed toward the stairwell at the same time.

The tactical boots made a series of muffled thuds as they stepped on the profiled steel plates.

When he reached the corner on the sixth floor, the terrazzo step under his jacket suddenly crumbled and collapsed.

His right foot sank into the powder, his entire calf sinking in, the cement powder spreading from his calf to his thigh.

He clung desperately to the edge of the steps, his fingernails splitting against the cement ridges, his blood mixing with the cement powder and turning a dark brown.

He threw his head back and screamed, his voice echoing in the narrow stairwell: "Help me—Old Hu, help me—"

Hu Yuan turned around and reached out to pull him.

The moment my fingers touched the sleeve of the jacket, the entire staircase beneath my feet collapsed.

The five-tiered terrazzo staircase shattered into powder in a fraction of a second, and Hu Yuan plummeted downwards, his back slamming onto the terrazzo floor of the fourth-floor platform. The impact forced all the air out of his lungs.

He opened his mouth but couldn't breathe; a metallic taste of blood welled up in his throat.

Shen Hanzhou walked down from the eighth floor.

His bare feet trod on the intact steps, his pace neither fast nor slow, the soles of his shoes making a slight rubbing sound on the terrazzo floor.

As he passed the corner on the sixth floor, his jacket was covered in cement dust from the waist down, which was spreading towards his chest.

He glanced down at the jacket, which was still squeezing out sounds, no longer words, just muffled sobs.

Shen Hanzhou stepped over his body, whose jacket was sealed inside the steps, and walked to the fourth-floor platform.

Hu Yuan struggled to get up.

He tried to prop himself up by placing his palms on the terrazzo floor, but the cement floor suddenly crumbled into powder where his palms were pressed, and his hands sank into the powder and grasped nothing.

He fell back to the ground, his chin hitting the terrazzo floor, his teeth biting his tongue until blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

He lay on the ground and looked up, watching Shen Hanzhou squat down to look him in the eye.

The cracks in Shen Hanzhou's glasses reflected the pale halo of the broken light tube above his head, obscuring the gaze behind the lenses.

"You killed Lao Wu and the others—all four of them are dead—" Hu Yuan roared, his voice muffled by the blood bubbles in his throat, "Mr. Zheng won't let you get away with this—"

"I never intended to let Zheng Daoyuan off the hook when he installed a GPS tracker on his motorcycle."

Shen Hanzhou's tone was flat, exactly the same as when he told Lao Yan three years ago, "Next time, give me the real price." "If you all die here tonight, Zheng Daoyuan will find out. He'll find out even sooner after I've killed everyone at Cui Ting Yuan."

He placed his right hand on the ground.

Cement dust surged up from the fourth-floor platform, enveloping Hu Yuan's legs, waist, chest, neck, mouth, and head.

Hu Yuan was trapped on the fourth-floor platform, with only his face lolling to the side on the ground.

His mouth was wide open, his eyes bulged out, and his expression froze at the moment of his roar.

Shen Hanzhou stood up and said to Hu Yuan's corpse, "You are the fourth. There's no one downstairs anymore, but there are still six left in Cui Ting Yuan."

He turned and headed towards the exit of the commercial complex.

As he passed the step where the jacket was blocked off, his gaze lingered for a moment on the head of the person whose jacket was leaning against the edge of the step.

Jacket's eyes were still open, his pupils dilated, and his mouth was agape, revealing half of his tongue.

Shen Hanzhou added in his mind: You're the third. The four of you waited in the commercial complex for three days, waiting for me. Now that I'm here, you don't need to wait anymore.

As he walked out of the back door of the commercial complex, he took out Lao Wu's walkie-talkie from his pocket.

The walkie-talkie was still stained with blood that had seeped from Lao Wu's tiger's mouth; the bloodstains had dried and turned dark brown.

He pressed the call button and heard a deep voice come from the other end: "Old Wu, reply. Old Wu, reply."

Shen Hanzhou didn't say anything, but crushed the walkie-talkie.

The plastic casing shattered into pieces in his palm, exposing the metal contacts, which reflected a faint, cold light in the moonlight.

The fragments slipped through my fingers and clattered onto the terrazzo floor.

He stood behind the construction fence of the overpass and glanced back at the dark outline of the commercial complex.

The windows on the ninth floor were completely dark, the windows on the seventh floor were completely dark, and the entire building was exactly the same as when he broke in three hours earlier.

The only difference was that there were four more corpses sealed in cement inside.

"Senior sister," he said, pointing towards the commercial complex, "these are the fourth and fifth. I'll kill Zheng Daoyuan's men one by one. When I get to Zheng Daoyuan himself, I'll offer his head as a sacrifice to you."

He turned and crossed the overpass, moving towards the Emerald Garden.

Zhang Desheng and Zhao Ping had been staking out the top of the old water tower in the northwest corner of Cui Ting Yuan for three consecutive days.

The water tower is forty meters high, the iron ladder is badly rusted, and the top platform is less than ten square meters in area, where a parabolic microphone and a modified high-powered telescope are placed.

The microphone was pointed at the window of apartment 902, building 3, Cui Ting Yuan, and it could even capture the sound of turning pages behind the curtains.

With the telescope mounted on a tripod, the windows of Room 902 were so clear in night vision mode that it looked as if they were looking through a layer of glass.

Zhao Ping stared at the microphone screen, yawned, and rubbed his red eyes.

He is 25 years old this year and has been working in the Xiongbei Lieyang Division for two years as a technical monitoring officer. This is the first time he has been sent to the front line.

I haven't slept well for three days, and there's a dark circle under my eyes.

He turned to Zhang Desheng and said, "Brother Zhang, Lao Wu from the commercial complex was five minutes late in contacting us this time. He's never been late before."

Zhang Desheng put down his thermos.

He worked in Xiongbei for nine years, transitioning from fieldwork to technical roles, and was temporarily reassigned to oversee the water tower monitoring point.

Zheng Daoyuan valued his experience—a nine-year veteran of security who had seen all sorts of emergencies.

He picked up the walkie-talkie and pressed the call button twice, but there was only static on the channel.

"Wait for another round."

Zhang Desheng said in a relatively calm tone, "Old Wu worked in Xiongbei for fifteen years. His liaison discipline is stricter than mine. He wouldn't delay reporting without a reason."

The two waited for five minutes.

Zhang Desheng pressed the call button again, but the channel still had static.

He opened an encrypted channel, switched to the frequency of the business entity inspection team, and pressed the call button: "Hu Yuan, reply. Jacket, reply."

Both frequencies fell silent.

Zhang Desheng placed the walkie-talkie on the table and tapped his fingers on the surface twice, the rhythm slow and deep.

Zhao Ping's voice tightened: "Six minutes have passed. Brother Zhang, this isn't a late report."

Zhang Desheng did not answer.

He picked up his binoculars and looked towards the commercial area.

The ninth floor was pitch black, with no lights and no human movement.

He adjusted the focus and scanned the windows of the seventh floor, but all he saw was pitch black.

He put down his binoculars, and the composure on his face finally faded, replaced by a tense and cold expression.

"The commercial complex has fallen."

Zhang Desheng said in a very low voice, "All four of Lao Wu's men are gone."

Zhao Ping's lips turned pale, and his fingers unconsciously gripped the edge of the microphone control panel: "He killed four people by himself? Without even a gunshot—how did he do that?"

"No matter how he did it."

Zhang Desheng began packing up his equipment, his movements quick and steady. He folded the microphone and stuffed it into his waterproof backpack, zipping it up tightly. "If the commercial complex is lost, we'll be next. The water tower is too isolated, with only one iron ladder for going up and down. If he manages to sneak up, we'll have nowhere to run."