Chapter 3

Chapter 3

When I returned to the apartment, I could hear faint sobbing coming from the room next door.

I had originally bought this flat for myself, but later I took in Fang Yi when she had nowhere else to go.

“What happened?”

She was shaking so hard from crying that I had to slip two sleeping pills into the hot milk I poured for her.

“Someone followed me when I came back tonight. He… he even touched me…”

“Where?”

“Near the trash cans downstairs…”

Fang Yi huddled under the covers, trembling twice more as the lingering fear gripped her.

I listened quietly. Once she fell asleep, I picked up the trash by the door to take it downstairs, grabbing a hammer on my way out.

As I reached the third floor, I saw a man kneeling in the hallway under the dim lights.

His face was haggard, tears and snot streaming down as he slapped himself hard across the face.

“Honey, I was wrong! I didn’t mean to hit you, it was just the alcohol talking…”

“I swear I’ll never lay a hand on you again! If I do, may I die without heirs and suffer a miserable death! Honey, please give me one more chance!”

Heh.

Just a dog barking.

Carrying the trash, I kept my eyes down and continued walking.

This area wasn’t exactly bustling. The streetlights in the small alleys downstairs had been broken for a long time, and no maintenance crew had ever come to fix them.

Guided by the moonlight, I reached the mouth of an alley when a girl’s scream drifted from the distance.

I dropped the trash and moved toward the sound.

A massive man wrapped in a padded coat was dragging a young girl deeper into the shadows.

I recognized him.

He was a local vagrant who had been reported and arrested several times for stalking women, only to be released every time due to insufficient evidence.

“Please, let me go… my grandmother is waiting for me to bring her medicine back…”

Li Han struggled desperately, her youthful face filled with the gray, hopeless agony of despair.

The man acted as if he hadn’t heard a word, obsessively raising his large hand to cover her mouth.

*Thwack!*

A thick mist of blood exploded as the man slumped over.

More than half of the corpse’s cranium had caved in, and murky white brain matter mixed with blood spread toward the girl’s feet.

She looked up, saw the hammer in my hand stained with bits of flesh, and fainted on the spot.

“Someone is unconscious in Lane 289, Changping Road. Her grandmother also seems to be unwell.”

In the interval while I called for an ambulance, the corpse on the ground conveniently vanished.

The alley was silent and peaceful; even the splattered blood had disappeared without a trace.

This was a game mechanic of City of Desire.

It was originally designed to help men hunt better without exposing their Player identities, but now it was working in my favor.

[Congratulations! You have obtained a Superpower: Crime Evidence Erasure]

[Character: Stalking Pervert has gone offline]

[Player Xinyi: Record 3]

[Role: Midnight Butcher. Fatality rate at night increased by 50% (Upgraded)]

At the moment the new superpower appeared, the murder weapon in my hand vanished instantly.

The call log on my phone to the emergency services was also automatically deleted.

Hearing the sirens in the distance, I picked up a piece of cardboard from nearby and laid it over the girl to shield her from the wind, then I left.