The Labyrinth of the Monsters

The three of them lifted the blue cloth and walked out of the arcade room.

Wu Dahai reached out and pulled down the rolling shutter. "Officer Huang, don't blame me. I'm just a worker in the organization. The rules are set by the big shots."

At this moment, Qing Ling was standing silently on the side of the road outside the house.

"Qing Ling? Or Qing Ning?" Gao Yang asked cautiously.

"Qing Ling." She turned her head and looked back. "Did you win?"

"I won." Gao Yang smiled bitterly. "But this was just a warm-up. There's still a second assessment."

Qing Ling had an expected expression on her face. "I thought so."

"I thought all I had to do was win the game." Officer Huang felt a bit hurt.@@novelbin@@

"Actually, it doesn't matter if you're good at the game or not. I mainly wanted to test your patience and observe your character. In our organization, strength is not the only measure of worth." Wu Dahai proudly rubbed his nose.

"Now that we've passed the character test, are we going to be assessed on our strength?" Gao Yang asked.

"Of course, our organization doesn't accept weaklings. Those who haven't ranked in the top 100 in talent serial numbers will all fail."

Gao Yang's heart sank. It seemed like they were talking about him. It seemed like he could only pass by pretending. If things didn't work out, he could let Qing Ling and Officer Huang join the organization first. After all, he could slowly earn lucky points by hanging out and then comprehend new talents.

"Can I take this?" A hoarse and elderly voice came from nearby.

Gao Yang glanced over and saw a ragged old man with a hunched back. He was carrying a dirty trash bin and holding a rusty pair of tongs in his hand.

The old man stood next to Officer Huang's police car and pointed the tongs at an empty cola bottle on the hood of the car. "Can I have this?" the old man asked again.

"Oh, sure, no problem." Officer Huang walked up enthusiastically, poured out the last bit of cola, flattened the bottle with his bare hands, and threw it into the trash bin behind the old man.

"Hehe, young man, you're strong." The old man had wrinkles all over his face, but he had a content smile.

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"Of course, I graduated from the police academy and train every day." Officer Huang took out a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket. "Grandpa, want one?"

"Sure." The old man's cloudy eyes brightened.

Officer Huang skillfully took out a cigarette and put it in the old man's mouth, then took out a lighter and lit it for him.

"Mmm... not bad." The old man took a puff and enjoyed it, but didn't express any gratitude. He turned around and walked away slowly.

The four of them watched the old man's figure as he left.

"It's not easy for him to be picking up trash at such an old age." Officer Huang sympathized.

"If you had seen Grandpa Zhang when he was young, you wouldn't think that way." Wu Dahai sneered. "I grew up in this area. All the kids on this street were afraid of him."

"Is that so?"

"Grandpa Zhang was a butcher, and he was fierce. He always resented his wife for not giving him a son, so he would beat her every day. Several times, he beat her so badly that she ended up in the hospital. Later, his wife couldn't take it anymore and committed suicide by drinking pesticide. On the day she committed suicide, their daughter had just finished the college entrance examination. His wife didn't want to affect their daughter's performance, so she endured it until the college entrance examination was over."

The three fell silent.

"After his daughter went to college, she cut off all ties with him and never came back. After Grandpa Zhang's wife died, his life became dull. He stopped slaughtering pigs and started drinking every day. He drank himself into ruin and then got involved in gambling, losing his house. After that, he has been living on welfare and picking up trash."

Wu Dahai changed his previous frivolous image and his gaze became deep. "This Grandpa Zhang has lived his whole life, and now I feel like even though he looks the least human, he is the most human."

Speaking of this, Wu Dahai sneered, "Of course, he's actually a beast."

"Lower your voice." Officer Huang reminded him. "He hasn't gone far, he can hear you."

"It's fine, he's a lost one. Even if he hears it, he'll automatically ignore it."

"He fell down." Qing Ling interjected.

Wu Dahai turned around and saw that Grandpa Zhang had already fallen to the ground without him noticing.

"Grandpa Zhang?" Wu Dahai quickly walked up. "Are you okay?"

The night wind blew, and Gao Yang looked at Grandpa Zhang, who was lying on the ground not far away, and suddenly felt that something was wrong. He couldn't pinpoint what was wrong, but it seemed like an instinctive alertness brought about by his heightened "perception."

"Wait! Don't go over there!" Gao Yang shouted to Wu Dahai.

Wu Dahai was less than three meters away from the old man, but he stopped. "What's wrong?"

The next second, everyone except Wu Dahai saw it—Grandpa Zhang stood up!

He didn't slowly climb up like a normal person. Instead, he ignored gravity and his stiff body was instantly supported by some invisible force.

Qing Ling drew her long knife, and Officer Huang quickly pulled out his gun.

Gao Yang didn't stand idle either and immediately stepped back. He knew very well that he was useless now, and not being a burden was the biggest contribution he could make to the team.Upon noticing the three's defensive actions, Wu Dahai immediately realized something was wrong. He quickly turned around, only to see Grandpa Zhang with his head tilted, his limbs rigid and tense, resembling a "chopstick" with a broken head. His mouth was twitching rapidly, frothing at the mouth, and he kept repeating unclearly, "Human, human, human, human..."

Next, Grandpa Zhang's skin seemed to be scorched by some invisible flame, rapidly melting and evaporating into a mist of blood, revealing the bloody muscle tissue underneath. At the same time, his body was shaking violently, and chunks of blood exploded from within.

Grandpa Zhang's voice changed from a painful moan to a frenzied wail: "Human! Human! Human!" His chest rapidly expanded, his ribs broke through the flesh, opening wide like the gaping mouth of a man-eating flower. A disgusting tumor grew in his chest, covered with human facial features.

If one had to describe it, it was as if someone had wrapped countless eyes, mouths, ears, and noses in thick plastic, stuffed them into an oven, and after a chaotic roast, they combined into a melted mass.

This tumor bloomed slowly like a bud.

Grandpa Zhang's upper body turned into branches and vines wrapping around the "bud", while his lower body corroded and melted, deeply rooted into the ground.

In just half a minute, Grandpa Zhang transformed from a human into a deformed, bloody "man-eating flower".

"What kind of beast is this?" Qing Ling frowned.

"I don't know." Officer Huang's voice dropped.

"Kill or run?" Qing Ling asked.

"Run, he doesn't seem to chase people, and he's lost his intelligence..." Before Officer Huang could finish his sentence, Grandpa Zhang's intestines had turned into several bloody "vines", one of which was flying towards Wu Dahai.

Startled, Wu Dahai turned and ran.

"Snap." The vine wrapped around his ankle, pulled hard, and Wu Dahai fell heavily to the ground.

"Don't touch me! Get away, get away..." Wu Dahai writhed frantically on the ground, his hands trying to grab anything, but all in vain.

He was about to be dragged under Grandpa Zhang's feet, to become its food.

"Bang!"

A bullet was fired, breaking the vine that was wrapped around Wu Dahai's ankle.

The vine sprayed a cloud of blood and immediately retracted. The broken part of the vine also released Wu Dahai's ankle. It slithered back quickly like a nimble snake, plunged into Grandpa Zhang's body, and merged with it again.

Soon, the broken vine grew back.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh--"

This time, three vines flew towards Wu Dahai at once.