Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Shen Hanzhou lowered his right hand.

Eighteen.

The alley is now open.

Jiang Yubai stood up from the recess in the brick wall.

She looked at the ruins on the east side of the alley—a whole precast slab was stuck diagonally into the wall, fragments of the wooden awning were scattered all over the ground, the heads of two rapid response team members were tilted in the pile of broken bricks, and the liquid nitrogen ice layer was still emitting cold mist.

Her voice was relatively steady when she spoke, but there was a slight, barely suppressed tremor at the end: "Is this the scale you always take action on?"

"It wasn't like that before."

Shen Hanzhou said in a very flat tone, "When I was working in the lab disassembling molecules, the most I ever exploded was a petri dish. Then my senior colleague died, and the scale changed."

Jiang Yubai paused for a moment in silence.

She picked up her bag and stepped over the broken bricks: "Let's go. Before you tear down the whole alley."

The two stepped over the rubble of the precast concrete slabs and walked east out of the alley.

When Team Leader Fang chased after them from the west entrance of the alley, the beam of his flashlight swept across the middle of the alley and illuminated the ruins.

The entire second floor of the old building collapsed diagonally, and most of the surrounding wall crumbled.

The two team members' heads were slumped over the pile of broken bricks, their faces ashen white from the liquid nitrogen frostbite.

Zhou Yan's hand holding the gun trembled violently.

He was twenty-six years old and had worked in the Xiongbei Lieyang Division for three years. He had seen fires and dead people, but he had never seen a death like this before—his entire body was sealed in the cement ruins, with only his head sticking out.

"Team Leader Fang—"

Zhou Yan's voice trembled, "Old Li and Xiao He are dead—just now—he tore down the floorboards from upstairs—"

Team Leader Fang's face turned ashen.

He didn't stop, but squatted down to examine the bodies of the two team members who had been sealed off.

The cement seals it tightly, leaving no gaps from ankle to head, and its density is much higher than that of ordinary concrete.

The bodies looked exactly like those in the photos of Fang Li's factory site.

He stood up.

"He just left. His footprints point east."

Team Leader Fang shone his flashlight on the ground—the cement powder footprints were still fresh, the edges not completely dry, stretching eastward. "The east side is the old town, with dense alleyways, cars can't get in. He and Jiang Yubai could only walk. Chase after them."

"If they catch up, can we defeat them?"

Zhou Yan's voice suddenly rose, "Team Leader Duan and the liquid nitrogen crew are all dead—"

Even if we can't beat them, we have to chase them.

Team Leader Fang interrupted him, his voice cold and hard, "Mr. Zheng said that if we let him escape again this time, neither of us can stay in Xiongbei. Of the nine people in the rapid response team, only the two of us are left. How are we going to explain ourselves when we go back? The only thing we can explain is Shen Hanzhou's corpse."

Zhou Yan's lips were pressed into a thin, pale line.

He gripped the submachine gun handle tightly and followed Team Leader Fang eastward along the narrow alleys of the old city.

Team Leader Fang and Zhou Yan chased after them eastward along the narrow alleys of the old city.

The alleys are as dense as a spider web, with numerous branching paths, and each alley is lined with old brick and concrete buildings on both sides.

There were fresh cement powder footprints on the ground, stretching eastward.

After chasing through three alleys, the cement powder footprints disappeared at the entrance of an abandoned public bathhouse.

Team Leader Fang raised his hand to signal them to stop.

The bathhouse is a brick-and-concrete building constructed in the 1980s, with white ceramic tiles on the exterior walls and wooden strips sealing the main entrance.

However, a notch was cut open from the inside of the wooden strip. The broken wood fibers at the notch were very fresh and had a pale yellow color that had not yet oxidized.

Team Leader Fang lowered his voice: "He's inside. The footprints have disappeared, which means he sealed off the ground from the inside. He might be inside the bathhouse now, or he might have slipped out through the back door. Split into two groups—Zhou Yan, you go around to the back of the bathhouse and block the back door, I'll go in from the front. Keep the walkie-talkies on, and shoot anyone you see."

"clear."

Zhou Yan walked along the outer wall of the bathhouse towards the back door.

Team Leader Fang, carrying a full polymer submachine gun, crawled into the bathhouse through a gap in the wooden planks.

The bathhouse was spacious inside.

Sunlight streamed in through the broken window, illuminating the half-collapsed wardrobe and the corroded water pipes.

The floor is made of cement terrazzo, and the surface is covered with dust and broken glass that have accumulated over the years.

Half of the wall was covered with white ceramic tiles, and black mold grew in the gaps between the tiles.

Team Leader Fang stepped on the broken glass.

With each step, the sound of shattered glass echoed through the empty bathhouse.

He walked slowly, his gun barrel sweeping across the gaps in the lockers, the edge of the bathtub, and the iron stairs leading to the second floor.

Infrared scanning was useless—the temperature difference in the bathhouse was huge, and the cold air coming in through the broken window mixed with the area under direct sunlight, resulting in a screen full of noise.

You can only rely on your eyes.

When I got to the edge of the bathtub.

Cracks suddenly appeared on the terrazzo floor beneath my feet.

Team Leader Fang reacted extremely quickly, jumping backward the instant the crack appeared and firing in the direction of the crack at the same time.

The bullet struck the concrete floor, sending up debris, and the bullet itself became embedded in the terrazzo.

Shen Hanzhou walked down the iron stairs from the second floor.

With his right hand outstretched, the eyes behind the cracked glasses stared straight at Team Leader Fang.

He waited in the bathhouse for two minutes until Team Leader Fang walked to this dead corner by the bathtub—there were no windows around the bathtub, only a narrow corridor, and the only way out was the wooden door he had just come in through.

Team Leader Fang turned his gun and aimed it at Shen Hanzhou.

Shen Hanzhou waved his left hand.

The iron staircase handrail disintegrated, and iron atoms reformed into an iron plate to block the way.

The bullet hit the iron plate, and the ceramic core bullet embedded itself in the surface of the iron plate but did not penetrate it.

Shen Hanzhou pressed down with his right hand.

The terrazzo floor beneath Team Leader Fang's feet collapsed.

Team Leader Fang wanted to jump to the side, but the edge of the bath was too narrow—to the left was a collapsed area, and to the right was an abandoned bath that was 1.5 meters deep.

He slipped on the bathtub with his left foot, and the moss on the tiles caused him to lose his balance and fall into the sinkhole.

Cement powder surged up from the bottom of the pit.

Wrap your legs up.

Wrap it around your waist.

Before his chest was covered, Team Leader Fang raised his submachine gun and pulled the trigger on Shen Hanzhou.

The bullet struck the ground at Shen Hanzhou's feet, sending up fragments.

Shen Hanzhou did not dodge.

He looked at Team Leader Fang and said in a flat tone, "You're the last one. The other eight are all dead."

"Mr. Zheng will not let you get away with this—"

Team Leader Fang roared, his voice distorted by the increasingly dense cement powder.

"What a coincidence."

Shen Hanzhou said, "I won't let him off either."

Cement powder engulfed the team leader's chest.

It swallowed up the neck.

It swallowed the mouth.

It swallowed the head.

Team Leader Fang was trapped in the terrazzo floor next to the bathtub, with only his face tilted to the side.

His expression froze at the last moment—his jaw clenched, his brows furrowed, and his eyes glaring in Shen Hanzhou's direction.

Zhou Yan went around to the back door of the bathhouse.

He heard a muffled thud coming from the bathhouse, and froze on the spot.

The beam of the flashlight shone on the back door, but the iron door was tightly closed, and not a single ray of light could see through the cracks.

He shouted into the walkie-talkie, "Team Leader Fang—"

There was no reply on the walkie-talkie.

Only Shen Hanzhou's voice came from inside, its tone as calm as if he were reporting experimental data after the intercom signal was converted: "Team Leader Fang is dead. You're alone, and you still want to chase after him?"

Zhou Yan stood there, stunned.

He pointed his gun at the back door, his finger on the trigger, but the muzzle was shaking.