Chapter 106
Chapter 106
The crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling was like a golden waterfall of shimmering light.
And beneath that waterfall, the pool of blood congealing on the floor gleamed like pigeon-blood rubies.
Qin Ying sat in the best seat in the house, wearing a racerback tank top.
Yin Minmin and the others sat behind her. Zhang Lang got slightly worse treatment-his wrists were locked in a pair of iron handcuffs.
In the arena, where a hole had been torn through the spiked iron cage, Huang Zezhong crouched in a corner with his arms over his head.
The suit on his body was so filthy it looked like it had been dragged out of a dog’s ass.
Filthy and stinking.
Surrounded by five or six fighting dogs, he curled up like a shrimp.
The wound on his shoulder had torn open again, but above even the pain was the very real terror of death.
Who could have imagined that just a few hours ago, he had been calmly introducing the merchandise to guests and pressing the electric shock button?
Corpses lay densely scattered around the fighting dogs’ iron cage.
There was one thing that was fair between the rich and the poor-they each only had one life.
When they were gored to death on the horns of a Monstrous Beast, their guts spilled out all the same.
As far as the eye could see, there were bodies.
Some had been bitten to death. Some had been impaled by the unicorn.
Some had been torn apart after the fighting dogs took their limbs in their jaws like it was a game.
There was no one left alive on the entire second floor.
After the power came back on, the air conditioning was running, and the room was filled with a sweet, fishy stench of blood so thick it seemed almost tangible.
The huge dog with a single horn between its eyes was drenched in blood, sitting beside the sofa like a pet.
And the mastermind behind it all sat with one leg crossed over the other, one hand resting on the armrest of the sofa.
Like some dissolute playboy trying to hit on her, his eyes swept over Qin Ying’s bare arms and waist.
“You’re hurt.” Smiling, he took a first-aid kit from the small of his back and handed it to Qin Ying.
Qin Ying glanced at him, then accepted it with one hand.
Inside the kit were gauze, alcohol, bandages, and two butterfly closure strips.
Qin Ying also saw a fluorescent green needleless injector.
The man gestured expectantly at Qin Ying, indicating that she could use it.
Qin Ying ignored him completely and poured out the alcohol to rinse the wound on her hand.
It hurt like hell, but now was exactly the time to tough it out.
Cursing inwardly, Qin Ying treated the wound with the blank expression of a hardened tough guy.
She even had the presence of mind to carefully read the instructions on the closure strips before applying them to herself.
Throughout the whole process, the man held a rifle of some unknown model in one hand and propped his chin up with the other.
He watched Qin Ying tend to her wound like he was watching a stress-relief video.
When she was almost finished, the man curled his lips and gave a whistle.
It wasn’t loud, but countless barks answered him.
The fighting dogs surrounding Huang Zezhong moved at the same time.
They clamped their jaws around his hands and feet, then shook their heads and tore backward.
Huang Zezhong’s screams echoed through the room, only to stop abruptly a moment later.
Each fighting dog carried a chunk of flesh to a corner. Whether they ate it or did something else with it, no one knew.
Qin Ying was all right, but Yin Minmin and Lin Yicheng were so frightened their faces had drained of all color.
But with gun barrels pointed at the backs of their heads, they didn’t dare look away.
This wasn’t twenty years ago. Anyone who could get their hands on firearms these days was definitely no ordinary violent criminal.
They were practically rebels.
There were six people in this group, all well-equipped and well-trained.
Among the bodies on the floor, quite a few wore famous watches and expensive jewelry, but those things lay in the pools of blood with their owners, and no one cared.
So they were not here for money.
With a setup this big, they couldn’t just be doing it for fun either.
Qin Ying tugged at the corner of her mouth and asked the thing she wanted to know most right now. “Are you going to kill us?”
The man smiled when he heard that. “That was the original plan, but…”
He held up two fingers. “Two hundred thousand. Two mutts that should’ve been sent into the furnace and cremated.”
“A good deed. It earned you all one chance to live.”
Qin Ying could distinguish lies, and this man was not lying.
For the time being, he really did not intend to kill them.
Qin Ying let out the slightest breath of relief. She hadn’t expected one unintentional act to be traded for a way out.
“Then what is that chance?” she pressed.
The man stood. “Bring your little dog and follow me.”
When Zhang Lang and the others also tried to get up, the man’s face darkened. “You stay seated.”
“Especially you. You’re with the Cultural Preservation Bureau’s Action Team, aren’t you? Armadillo? A little weak!”
The man was clearly very familiar with the Cultural Preservation Bureau. He could even name the type of Monstrous Beast Zhang Lang had fused with, and he threw in a jab for good measure.
Fortunately, Zhang Lang wasn’t exactly hot-tempered in this form. After being cursed out, he actually found the man’s words rather reasonable. He really was pretty weak.
Lin Yicheng and Yin Minmin sat down with guns pressed to their heads.
The man snapped his fingers twice. The dozen or so fighting dogs on either side instantly abandoned their frenzy and, obeying his command, closed in around them.
“You’d better sit still if you don’t want to die.”
Then his gaze shifted to Qin Ying. “Miss, bring your puppies and come with me.”
Only then did Qin Ying realize that by “puppies,” he meant the pair of dogs she’d bought for two hundred thousand.
She rose to her feet and picked up the two dogs wrapped in Zhang Lang’s long trench coat.
The mother dog’s muzzle was still tied shut with Yin Minmin’s hair ribbon, while the charred little puppy nudged into Qin Ying’s arms.
Qin Ying had carried it while running all this way, and it had already grown somewhat used to her scent.
After turning back to give Yin Minmin and the others a reassuring look, Qin Ying followed the man all the way to the third floor.
There were still a few scattered fighting dogs wandering around here.
At the sight of strangers, they began to stir restlessly, but the single-horned dog beside the man was extremely intimidating. With just one sweep of its gaze, the fighting dogs tucked their tails between their legs and fled.
They passed through the long corridor and arrived before a pure white door.
Huang Zezhong had once said this place was some kind of confidential department, and that he didn’t have the clearance to enter.
But the man leading Qin Ying here easily opened the door with his fingerprint and iris scan.
Clearly, he was-or had once been-an employee here.
A strange odor wafted from behind the door. Beyond it was another long corridor.
The difference was that both sides were lined with enormous jars. Inside them were hairless dog corpses soaked in formalin.
At first, they still looked normal, but after a few steps, it became obvious that the dog corpses soaking in the jars were deformed.
Their limbs became increasingly twisted the farther she went.
Qin Ying suddenly stopped in front of a tank as tall as a person.
The thing floating inside was hard to describe.
In the old days, there had been rumors about humans and dogs giving birth to deformed fetuses.
The half-human, half-dog thing in this tank fit that kind of absurd fake news perfectly.
Seeing her stop, the man clasped his hands behind his back and smiled. “You’re with the Cultural Preservation Bureau, so you should know about the Cultural Preservation Bureau’s Monstrous Beast Gene Fusion Experiment, right?”
Qin Ying looked at him expressionlessly and answered honestly, “I’m a temp. Strictly speaking, I’ve only been on the job for one day.”
“No, not even a day. Two hours.”
The man choked slightly at her words. “From what I saw on the surveillance footage, you don’t act like a temp.”
At that point, Qin Ying was completely certain this dog bastard had indeed been watching them from behind the surveillance cameras the whole time.
That was how he had been able to cut off their escape route with such precision.
The man didn’t dwell on the subject. He led Qin Ying into a place that looked like a laboratory.
There were quite a few dead bodies lying on the floor here as well.
Documents were scattered everywhere.
Moving with practiced ease, the man took out a blue reagent that looked bizarre no matter how Qin Ying looked at it.
Pinching it between his fingers, he said to Qin Ying, “They’ve been using dogs for gene fusion experiments here all along.”
“This reagent was extracted from a certain Monstrous Beast.”
“Inject it. If you don’t die, I’ll let you go.”
At his words, Qin Ying’s heart sank.
This dog bastard was lying!
If she injected the reagent and ended up fine, there was even less chance he would let her leave.
After a brief pause, Qin Ying said, “Compared to leaving, I’d rather know who you are.”
“What are you doing? What’s your goal?”
Under Qin Ying’s gaze, the smile on the man’s face gradually widened.
In a tone that was almost a sigh, he said, “People from the Cultural Preservation Bureau are always like this. So curious, so desperate to pursue the truth, even at the cost of their lives.”
“But that’s good.”
Smiling, he handed the reagent to Qin Ying. At the same time, he tossed a file onto the table in front of her. “Deal.”
The file was printed in standard size-three FangSong font.
Written on it was the document number: G-CP-0001
Project codename-Gate