Chapter 156: Dark Boundless Realm 11
Su Rong leaned back in terror, trying to distance herself from Kui Xin, but behind her lay a bloody corpse, and she was covered in Dmitri’s blood. Her mind was on the brink of collapse, and the black mud coiling at her feet seemed eager to launch an attack on Kui Xin.
“He’s dead,” Kui Xin stated coldly. “You killed him; you will die.”
Su Rong heard the voice filtered through a voice changer. She clutched her dress tightly, and a dark shadow suddenly gathered in front of her, hovering without attacking. Though the figure was vague, its body outline resembled Su Rong’s, and it seemed to have faint self-awareness. It hesitated, sensing a powerful threat emanating from Kui Xin.
Kui Xin took a step towards Su Rong, and the shadow instantly lunged forward like an agitated hedgehog. Just as the sharp spines in the shadow were about to pierce Kui Xin’s body, she clenched her right fist, and with the enhancement of her iron bones, she struck the shadow, causing it to explode like a popped bubble.
The black muddy substance at Su Rong’s feet twisted a couple of times but failed to form a new double.
Her ability had just awakened and was not very strong; the shadow’s combat power was merely slightly above that of an ordinary person.
“Who are you?” Su Rong asked, trembling.
Kui Xin replied, “You can call me Maotoufu.” She glanced at the corpse beside Su Rong. “He has an electronic watch on his wrist that monitors his vital signs. The moment you killed him, the Popov Clan was alerted. The vehicle you were in has a positioning device. The Investigation Bureau’s security officers and the Popov Clan’s bodyguards are on their way here.”
Tears brimmed in Su Rong’s eyes as she tightly gripped her dress. After two or three seconds of silence, she suddenly said, “You’re not on their side, are you?”
“Hmm, you’re quite clever,” Kui Xin acknowledged. “I’ll give you two choices: either come with me, or be captured, interrogated, and retaliated against by them.”
Su Rong took a deep breath, filled with the metallic stench of blood, and, trembling, she leaned against the car door, moving away from Dmitri’s corpse. Overwhelmed with fear, her legs were weak, and as soon as she stepped out of the car, she collapsed onto the ground.
Kui Xin crossed her arms and watched her.
Su Rong knew she had to make a choice. The only option laid out before her was to leave with the ambiguous and unknown “Maotoufu.”
Maotoufu was incredibly strong and could have forcibly taken her away, yet she stood there speaking to her calmly…
Su Rong looked up at Maotoufu’s face but could see nothing except for her cold blue eyes and dark iron mask… A faint sense of familiarity emanated from Maotoufu, and she realized she knew to whom this scent belonged…
But Sister Xin was only eighteen, with a youthful form, while the Maotoufu in front of her clearly exhibited the traits of a mature woman.
Just then, faint sirens echoed from outside the parking lot, signaling the arrival of the Investigation Bureau’s security officers.
“Shall we go?” Kui Xin asked, looking down at her.
Su Rong pressed her lips together and nodded.
Kui Xin pulled out a syringe from her waist pack, tore off the packaging, startling Su Rong into a shiver. She watched as Kui Xin leaned into the car and drew a vial of blood from Dmitri’s corpse.
Since taking the “Blood Spirit,” Kui Xin had developed the habit of carrying a syringe.
After pulling Su Rong up from the ground, Kui Xin made her turn around, removed her communicator and other electronic devices, and ensured there were no extra tracking devices. Then, she snapped her fingers, and a deep blue spatial vortex opened.
“Get in,” Kui Xin commanded.
Su Rong hesitated before walking towards the vortex, glancing back at Kui Xin, only to see her slicing off the arm of Dmitri’s corpse that held the electronic watch and then discarding the arm into the car. She hoisted the corpse onto her shoulder and suddenly pulled out a… bomb?!
Kui Xin casually ripped off the fuse and tossed it into Dmitri’s luxury car, holding the corpse with one hand while dragging the stunned Su Rong into the spatial vortex.
In the final second before the vortex closed, Su Rong heard a deafening explosion from the other side.
Dazed, Su Rong looked around at her surroundings. “Where are we?”
After passing through the vortex, they weren’t in the parking lot anymore. From the architectural style, it was clear they were still in White Whale City, having arrived at an open corner of the street, a location also out of the monitoring range.
Kui Xin said nothing, opened another spatial vortex, seized Su Rong’s arm again, and led her inside.
After performing this procedure five or six times, Kui Xin reached the open coastline, standing at its edge before opening a spatial vortex once more.
This time, the vortex was parallel to the ground. Instead of jumping in, she tossed Dmitri’s corpse into it. The vortex relocated Dmitri’s body to the seabed, a hefty 1.8 kilometers from the shoreline. By the next morning, the fish and predatory sea life would have consumed the body completely.
After disposing of the body, Kui Xin wasted no time in leading Su Rong away.
They arrived at their destination—Boris’s villa’s underground rest room.
Kui Xin let go of her hand, and Su Rong swayed slightly, nearly falling. Her legs had not yet regained their strength.
“It’s safe now; you cannot leave this room unless you want to be caught,” Kui Xin said, stepping aside to grab a tissue to wipe the blood from her gloved hands and removing her blood-soaked outerwear.
She tossed the blood-stained tissue into a smart trash can that automatically decomposes waste without leaving traces. As for the clothes, she would handle them with chemical agents.
Su Rong was covered in blood, her white dress stained with it, her hair sticking together.
She crouched on the ground, hugging her arms and trembling, unable to believe she had just narrowly escaped disaster.
When she killed Dmitri, her mind had gone blank. It was only after that blankness that she belatedly realized the price she would have to pay for her actions.
First and foremost was the retaliation from the Popov Clan; crushing a small celebrity would be as simple for them as squashing an ant. They wouldn’t give her a chance to explain… In reality, there wasn’t much to explain—she was the one who killed him. Perhaps the Popov Clan would dispose of her before the Investigation Bureau could, as they indeed ruled this city with an iron fist, and no one dared oppose them.
But Maotoufu dared.
“Who… exactly are you?” Su Rong asked, raising her blood-stained face to gaze at Kui Xin.
“Your kind,” Kui Xin replied.
Su Rong parted her lips as hope erupted from her dull eyes, warming her hollow chest as her heartbeat quickened. Just as she prepared to ask more, she suddenly closed her mouth.
“Thank you… really,” she whispered, “thank you.”
With her head bowed, tears fell onto her blood-stained hands, and as she raised her arm to wipe her face, she stained the shoulder of her white dress with unseemly blood marks.
Kui Xin’s expression softened slightly as she replied, “There’s a bathroom here; go wash up.”
“Okay.” Su Rong obediently nodded.
In a little while, she anxiously asked, “What will happen with the Popov Clan?”
“Let them go insane; they won’t find anyone,” Kui Xin answered.
“Did I bring you trouble?” Su Rong murmured. “I must have brought you a huge hassle…”
Kui Xin gave her a sidelong glance.
She was already beset with troubles; each one could end her life. One more or one less wouldn’t make a difference; she was not missing this one.
Su Rong entered the bathroom and came out an hour later. She saw clean clothes with tags still on them placed in front of the bathroom door. After changing, she went to the rest room, where packaged food from a convenience store was laid out on the table.
Tentatively, she called out, “Maotoufu?”
No one answered.
At that moment, the robot in the corner suddenly spoke up, “The master has gone out; you can rest first.”
Su Rong jumped in surprise and looked around to find it was the robot speaking.
She stiffly moved to sit on the sofa; the robot rolled over to pour her a glass of water, asking, “Do you need the food heated?”
“No… it’s fine.” Su Rong replied awkwardly, “Can you tell me where she went?”
“I cannot,” the robot responded mechanically.
Su Rong’s head drooped in disappointment as she opened the convenience store bag and found a box of fried chicken, her favorite junk food.
Her eyes turned moist again, nearly spilling over with tears.
…
“You know her in your world,” Augus asserted, “just as you know the ‘Hunter Falcon.’”
The Hunter Falcon referred to He Kangshi.
“Yeah,” Kui Xin acknowledged. “I know them, but they do not know me.”
“So you need to conceal your identity in front of them?” Augus asked.
“Yes,” Kui Xin affirmed. “It’s just self-protection.”
Kui Xin intentionally hid her relationship with Su Rong from Augus. Unlike He Kangshi, who did not know what she looked like and assumed she was just another subordinate of Black Snake, Su Rong and Kui Xin’s relationship was too close and intimate. Su Rong knew all of Kui Xin’s information, and her mental maturity was still developing.
It would not be wise to expose this relationship to Augus. Augus could learn that she was related to Su Rong, but he couldn’t know their bond was this close.
After a long period of close interaction, Su Rong might eventually recognize her, so Kui Xin needed to send her a signal—she didn’t want to be recognized by her.
If Su Rong were smart enough, she would pick up on this signal and play along. She indeed proved clever, cooperatively pretending they weren’t too familiar with each other.
Kui Xin sighed, watching the mist disperse into the air.
It was now 3 a.m., and sirens echoed throughout the streets. She stood at the edge of the rooftop of a tall building, overlooking the city below.
“It’s quite lively,” Kui Xin remarked with a click of her tongue. “Opportunities to liven up this cold big city are few and far between.”
“Not many people can make the Popov Clan go crazy,” Augus responded. “They are about to issue a wanted poster for Su Rong, a bounty for a criminal.”
“Ah, didn’t I dispose of the body already?” Kui Xin mused, stroking her chin.
She severed Dmitri’s arm to disguise the situation as if he had lost it first, causing the electronic watch not to detect his pulse. Now that the body was gone, and the car burned, it meant the Popov Clan couldn’t determine whether their young master was dead or merely alive with an amputated arm.
They also couldn’t conclude that Su Rong was the murderer, as she had “disappeared” alongside Dmitri Popov.
That was the intention behind all of Kui Xin’s actions.
Augus said, “They won’t care about that. They simply want to find Su Rong.”
Kui Xin responded, “I’m most annoyed dealing with these elites… they don’t operate on logic.”
“They themselves are the rules and don’t need to explain logic to anyone; they do as they please,” Augus remarked.
“My data manipulation skills are too unrefined, and the applications are quite basic…”
As soon as Kui Xin said this, Augus’s flat voice asked, “What do you want to do?”
“Can you help me send an anonymous letter to the Popov Clan through an encrypted channel?” Kui Xin requested.
“What will the letter say?” Augus asked.
“Um, I need to confirm first. They can’t trace untraceable accounts, right?” Kui Xin inquired.
“They can’t, but they can pinpoint where the account has been used,” Augus said.
“Then help me set up an empty account,” Kui Xin said.
Augus fell silent. “What do you want to do?”
“Tell the Popov Clan to transfer 10 billion to the ‘Shadowless’ organization, or I will release their young master,” Kui Xin stated.
“…Are you seeking money, or provoking those top-tier financial elite?” Augus questioned.
“Both, I suppose,” Kui Xin replied. “Seeing them up high doesn’t sit well with me.”
