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墨書 Inktalez
Zhong Kui's Diary
Zhao Ting took out her phone and found there was no signal. She stood up to leave but noticed Tong Tong on the sofa. Frowning, she pulled us aside and quietly asked, "What should we do about Tong Tong?"
Fatty raised his palm and brought it down sharply, indicating to dismantle him into pieces, crush him, and then sell him.
I made a gesture as if making a phone call, suggesting we should contact Lou Wei again. The research value of this Golden Puppet that merged with a person far exceeded that of the Number One Puppet.
Zhao Ting frowned, "I feel a bit reluctant; his actions are no different from those of a child."
"In the face of national interests, put away your sympathy. This is a Doll, not a child. Even if his original body was that of a child, after such a long time, his brain has already been taken over by the Doll," I said with a dismissive smile.
Fatty agreed with this point: "After all, this is just a Golden Puppet created by Li Yunfan and others. If we take it for research, we might find a way to deal with Gu Quan!"
Hearing our words, Zhao Ting lowered her head in silence. I patted her shoulder, "Let's do it this way; you are working for the country! You have the National Emblem above your head!"
Zhao Ting nodded and walked over to say a few words to Tong Tong, essentially telling him not to run around. I was puzzled; wasn't she just a girl? Why was her maternal instinct so overwhelming?
Back on the ground floor, Zhao Ting took out her phone and found the duty phone number for the funeral home through a directory search. She kept dialing the number until someone finally answered. Clearly, a round of complaints was unavoidable. Zhao Ting asked about the situation but received the reply that no corpses had been brought into the funeral home.
With so many corpses, if they weren't at the funeral home, where could they be stored? In such an environment, corpses left outside would definitely rot. I didn't believe that decaying bodies could still merge with Dolls.
To keep the bodies fresh, they would need to be placed in an extremely low-temperature environment, like Antarctica. Only in such conditions could corpses be left on the ground for years without decaying. Another method would be to put them in freezers. I chuckled bitterly; was that even possible? Over three hundred corpses—how could there possibly be enough freezers for Gu Quan and his team?
Wait a minute—freezer. A term suddenly popped into my mind: cold storage.
Cold storage is essentially a giant freezer or more plainly put, a large warehouse with temperature control. Such refrigeration facilities exist in any third or fourth-tier city; the larger the city, like Sun City, the bigger the cold storage would be. Freezing hundreds of corpses wouldn't be an issue at all.
That's right; only cold storage could hold so many bodies and freeze them effectively.
Suddenly, my mind became active. That night when we clashed with the Flying Swallow Gang in Lion's Hall, Liu Jinhang was giving a speech on stage, and two big men beside me were chatting quietly about this:
"Today's pork is really disgusting, it has a foul smell."
"You don't know anything. I heard they suddenly got a huge order from the cold storage, and there was no place to store all the pork!"
"What kind of big order is that? It can't be human meat, right? Haha!"
Thinking of this, I quickly shared my guess with Fatty. The two of them nodded immediately, and Zhao Ting led us out of Mao Family Alley, calling a car to head straight to the cold storage.
When we arrived at the cold storage and asked the security guard on duty, he scratched his head and said, "Yeah, some time ago this place was booked at an extremely high price. They replaced everyone inside and out with their own people. Just last night, several trucks came and took away all the bags inside the cold storage. They wouldn’t even let us near the main gate; who knows what was in those bags."
It seemed Gu Quan had already moved all those bodies away. As for where they were taken, it was obvious—they were headed to the underground Doll warehouse where they planned to use Golden Puppets to resurrect these corpses.
The three of us exchanged glances. Finally, Fatty and Zhao Ting both turned their eyes toward me. I could only clear my throat and say, "Looks like we need to make another trip to the Underground of Yangshan."
Without delay, we returned to the hotel and started packing our things. Zhao Ting also called Tian Zhiyong over and explained the situation. Tian Zhiyong's expression changed slightly as he looked at Zhao Ting with a strange look before turning around to leave.
The next morning, Zhao Ting woke us up without caring about any hotel front desk matters and bluntly declared, "I quit! I don’t want my salary!" This drew exclamations from Zhou Li and another member of the Iron Blood Gang.
Before long, Tian Zhiyong arrived in an off-road vehicle, honked twice, and signaled for us to get in.
Fatty unceremoniously took the passenger seat while Zhao Ting and I sat in the back. I sat behind Tian Zhiyong, while Zhao Ting sat behind Fatty.
Casually glancing around, I noticed a large cardboard box in the back of the vehicle; I had no idea what was inside. There was a faint fragrance in the car, seemingly from some perfume or air freshener.
"Who would have thought that Tian is part of the car-owning crowd? This car must be worth quite a bit," Fatty began to chatter as soon as we started driving. Japanese cars aren't worth much anyway.
"Hey, I'm driving Boss Xiao's car. Even if I had money, I wouldn't buy a Japanese car. Forget about national pride; the most important thing is that these Japanese bastards are not honest. The cars they sell to Europe and America are solid, but the ones they sell to us in China are shoddy. Damn it!" Tian Zhiyong seemed to have some aversion to Japan. As soon as the topic came up, he became passionate and started ranting. In his eyes, Japan was only serious about making adult films; everything else was garbage.
"Yeah, that's right." Fatty surprisingly didn't engage Tian Zhiyong in a discussion about island nation films but instead absentmindedly agreed. This surprised me; had Fatty changed? I looked up and saw Fatty tapping away on his phone. A moment later, my phone beeped, and it turned out to be a message from Fatty.
"Ghost Brother, something's off!"
"What is it?" I replied.
"Look at Tian Zhiyong's right hand!"
I slightly shifted my body, pretending to check the road ahead, and my gaze swept over Tian Zhiyong's right hand.
Huh? Tian Zhiyong's right index finger was wrapped in a piece of gauze. I instantly understood what Fatty meant. In the underground parking lot, Zhou Yaodong had jumped up and kicked one of the Dolls' guns away, and at the same time, he also kicked off one of that Doll's finger joints. Based on our speculation, the kicked-off finger joint was very likely the one used to pull the trigger—specifically, the index finger.
And the gauze-wrapped spot on Tian Zhiyong was precisely his right index finger.
Could it be that Tian Zhiyong was the Golden Puppet? The Easily Water Cold whose head we couldn't see? The real-life version of the strange person from my notebook? Thinking this made my heart tremble. I lightly coughed and said, "Hey, Mr. Tian, could you pull over for a moment? I need to take a leak!"
I internally despised myself for using such vulgar language in front of a beautiful woman. I should have at least said something like wanting to shake hands with my brother or something similar.
Tian Zhiyong paused for a moment: "There's no restroom around here. Just find a place without people up ahead; I'll let you out."
I smiled sheepishly: "Alright!"
Before long, Tian Zhiyong parked the car. I exchanged glances with Fatty, who immediately understood and said, "Just in time; I also have a strong urge to relieve myself!"
After getting out of the car with Fatty and moving aside, I was about to hand him the gun when I noticed Tian Zhiyong also got out of the car. He smiled at us and walked to the back of the vehicle, lifting the trunk door and reaching for a cardboard box with an odd expression on his face.
My first reaction was that this guy was going to pull something on us. I quickly drew my shotgun and rushed forward, pressing the barrel against Tian Zhiyong's head while shouting, "Don't move! Raise your hands!"
"Damn, that line is so cheesy."
Tian Zhiyong's face suddenly turned pale, his mouth opened slightly but no words came out. He slowly raised his hands above his head, remaining silent.
Zhao Ting, hearing the commotion from the car, was taken aback and hurriedly got out, shouting at me, "Zheng Nan, what are you doing?"
"He is Easily Water Cold from Golden Puppet!" I shouted back in anger, poking Tian Zhiyong's head with my gun. "Stay calm if you don't want to get your head blown off."
"I'm not a Doll," Tian Zhiyong raised his hands but spoke cautiously, knowing that any sudden movement could make me pull the trigger.
"On what basis do you say he is Easily Water Cold?" Zhao Ting frowned.
Fatty pulled out a piece of the yellow Golden Finger from his pocket and waved it at Zhao Ting. "This is the Doll's Finger Joint that was kicked away by Zhou Yaodong in the underground parking lot, and Tian Zhiyong's right hand Index Finger is wrapped in bandages. Is that just a coincidence?"
"Can I unwrap the bandage?" Tian Zhiyong tried to speak calmly.
"I'll do it!" Fatty rushed forward and tore off the bandage from Tian Zhiyong's right hand Index Finger. Once the bandage was removed, a perfectly intact finger was revealed. At that moment, Tian Zhiyong quickly curled his Index Finger, but I still saw two Chinese characters tattooed on it: Zhao Ting.
"Now do you believe me?" Tian Zhiyong said with a bitter smile.
Fatty remained skeptical and punched Tian Zhiyong lightly. Clearly, this Tian Zhiyong was just flesh and blood; there were no metallic sounds coming from him.
"What were you sneaking around back here for? What's in this cardboard box?" I reluctantly lowered my gun.
"Today is Zhao Ting's birthday; I wanted to give her a surprise," Tian Zhiyong said, looking at Zhao Ting with infinite admiration as he opened the box to reveal a large bouquet of roses, a wave of fragrance wafting through the air.
Zhao Ting stood there stunned for a moment before breaking into a smile. "Thank you, Senior Brother!"
Fatty and I exchanged glances and shook our heads with wry smiles. Clearly, this was what they called unrequited love—deeply moved yet ultimately rejected. Zhao Ting's words were meant to clarify things: "Hey, I only see you as a Senior Brother."
As soon as those words were spoken, the atmosphere became awkward. I nudged Fatty, and the two of us walked far away to give Tian Zhiyong some space to confess properly. We could only help so much.
While taking a leak, Fatty asked me, "Why did he tattoo Zhao Ting's name on his right index finger?"
"I have no idea!"
"Could it be that every time he... you know, he thinks of Zhao Ting?"
"How can you be so vulgar!"
"Who’s being vulgar? When you play Mobile Game and shoot planes, don’t you use your index finger?"
"..."
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