Crime Time

"Patter!"

His tongue fell onto the ground.

The camouflage guy wasn’t prepared for this; he was shocked and frozen.

And the sunglasses guy shouted in rage: "Guo Gang, step back!"

With this sharp warning, the camouflage guy threw himself forward awkwardly like a rolling donkey.

The sunglasses guy had taken off his sunglasses at this moment. His eyes were white; not like a dead fish but with a faint light. Just then, under his eyesight, at the position where Guo Gang was standing, there appeared a hand. It was a pale hand that seemed to be frosted.

In the hand was —a pair of scissors.

"No way! How come it appeared ahead of schedule!"

The sunglasses guy murmured to himself in panic, looked keenly at Guo Gang on the other side and immediately turned around and ran out of the room.

Seeing his partner escape without himself, Guo Gang opened his mouth to scold, only to find that he could make no sound since his tongue was cut off.

And soon, Guo Gang felt a prickling on his waist. He looked down and was surprised to find a dagger into his waist.

Su Bai went directly for vengeance after he got up, in spite of that hand or the scissors in it.

He didn’t care about that thing ahead which was obviously so deadly that even the arrogant sunglasses guy was scared away without his partner, and he didn’t care about whether he would be able to escape safely by that time either; the first thing he did was to stab him for vengeance!

After the dagger was stabbed into Guo Gang’s body, Su Bai tried to turn it around. But he found that Guo Gang’s muscles were shrinking to an extent beyond human imagination. His dagger was stuck there; he couldn’t even pull it out, let alone turn it around.

"You…coo…coo…"

Guo Gang couldn’t understand this newbie; facing unknown danger, this guy’s first thought was not to escape but to stab him?

Well, he should remember that he was about to kill this newbie.

Guo Gang quickly reached out his hand, grabbed Su Bai’s neck and strengthened with his wrist. Su Bai felt a fierce pain immediately, as if his neck was about to broken.

These two guy started an internal conflict facing the thing that could scare the sunglasses guy away.

Trying to kill each other in front of that horrible thing!

Guo Gang was inhumanly strong and his muscles were like stones; these were not ordinary muscles but like the legendary Cocoon Skill[1].

Su Bai held Guo Gang’s arms with both hands, then pushed up by his waist, pulled his legs up in the air and caught Guo Gang’s neck with a scissor-kick[2]. They both fell down, sticking to each other.

Guo Gang’s tongue was cut off, then his waist was stabbed, so only half of his strength was available; falling onto the ground like this with Su Bai, he couldn’t do anything to Su Bai for the moment. The two were like roosters in a fierce game, not aware of the approaching knife of "the Cook".

"Buzz!"

The temperature dropped at once, or to put it in a more apt way, there suddenly appeared a feeling of extreme cold all over their bodies.

Next, the hand with scissors showed up in front of Su Bai and Guo Gang, who were still fighting against each other.

Like the judgement of death.

"Clack!"

The scissors came and cut off a large piece of flesh from Su Bai’s arm!

Guo Gang’s face was filled with extreme excitement. That thing was going to kill Su Bai; as long as it killed Su Bai, he would definitely have some more time because of a participant’s death, according to the rhyme and pattern of the stories.

Su Bai almost passed out because of such pain. Since his neck had been caught by Guo Gang, he could hardly breath and even couldn’t shout out when he watched a large piece of his flesh neatly cut off from his arm. He could only watch it happen with his bloodshot eyes.

This was an extreme torture, a terrible brutal punishment!

Guo Gang was laughing; even with his mouth bleeding after his tongue was cut off, he was still laughing.

However, his smile froze.

A firefly came in and lightly landed on Guo Gang’s arm, which was now around Su Bai’s neck.

Guo Gang’s eyes widened at once; he knew the firefly’s background, and the man who let out this firefly!

"Crack!"

The firefly burst, causing no harm but only created a splendid firework as small as a fingernail.

But that hand seemed to be irritated by something; the second cut towards Su Bai was about to reach him, but it was shifted and went directly into Guo Gang’s arm.

"Crack!"

It was clear and cold, without any resistance.

When Su Bai’s dagger stabbed into Guo Gang’s waist by surprise he was able to resist after a sudden reaction, but facing this scissor, he could never resist nor hold on!

Half of his arm fell down with the scissors.

Su Bai felt as if he was amnestied; he fell on his knees, touched his neck and greedily breathed.

Guo Gang tried to stand up and run away with anger and fear. But when he had just stood up and was ready to run towards the door, one of his legs left his body, and he fell down with blood running out and spreading all over the floor.

Next, those scissors cut Guo Gang piece by piece as if they were totally focused on him. Guo Gang’s flesh were separated little by little as a noodle-maker slicing noodles. The flesh slices were even turning in the air with a strange harmonious beauty.

Guo Gang was struggling with all his strength. He wanted to leave here, but when his hand was about to touch the doorsill, his only remaining hand was cut off as well.

"Coo… Coo…"

Guo Gang roared with unwillingness; then the light of life in his eyes began to disappear. At last, he was lying on the floor, powerless, lifeless and motionless. Obviously, he was as dead as a doornail.

The pale hand had apparently been tainted with too much blood when it killed Guo Gang. It seemed that Guo Gang’s blood had something special that even the hand could not shake it off; it became soft, and the scissors were twisted, as if they were worn and blunt, but there was something odd.

Su Bai looked at that hand which had just killed a man. He didn’t move at all, because he knew if it wanted to kill him, he would never be able to escape. When that hand and those scissors were to cut you, you would have no chance to avoid; Guo Gang was fast when he was running just now, but in such a short time, he was cut into pieces.

But that hand just held those scissors, retreated slowly and finally disappeared into darkness.

"It’s gone?"

Su Bai couldn’t believe it. He managed to stand up; a large piece of flesh was cut off from his left arm and the pain was so severe, but he had to bear it.

Tentatively, Su Bai slowly walked towards the door with caution. When he passed Guo Gang’s body, Su Bai looked at him. Even till this time, Su Bai still couldn’t understand why the camouflage guy and sunglasses guy had to lure him here to kill him. They seemed to be the same type of people as him, but they also seemed to be different. The difference was that they knew something he didn’t know.

Finally, Su Bai walked out of the door. His back was already wet with cold sweat. This was indeed a life-and-death situation.

And it came without rhyme or reason.

After he had gotten downstairs, his face became even more pale due to excessive loss of blood. But luckily, it was not life threatening. It was the only mercy in so much miseries.

At the entrance of the building, there stood a man. Su Bai instinctively reached out to his dagger but found nothing. Must be left in that room.

The man was chewing a gum and playing a coin at will among his fingers, with one foot stepping against the wall. But what attracted Su Bai was the flashes in the man’s sleeves.

Those were fireflies! A flock of fireflies!

Without the firefly that showed up just now, he would have been dead instead of Guo Gang.

"What, no kowtow[3] as gratitude to the one who saved your life?" The man seemed frivolous. Under the moonlight, he seemed to be very tall, with an unconventional and unrestrained feature and long hair.

As far as Su Bai was concerned, this kind of man should better be singing with a broken wooden guitar under a bridge with a bowl in front of him.

"Thank you."

Kowtow was impossible, but a "thank you" was deserved.

The man seemed only to be joking. He just took out a handkerchief from his pocket, spit his chewing gum into it and looked at Su Bai.

"Those two stupid guys wanted to reduce danger and avoid disaster by the most original principle, killing one audience at the crime time and on the crime spot, so they could accomplish their mission.

"But they were kind of silly and naive. They forgot what day it is today."

The man shook his hand while turning around for leaving. When he left he stretched out a finger and waved it:

"I didn’t mean to save you. The method they chose before...I would make the same choice if necessary."

Su Bai didn’t know what he was talking about and also had no idea about what the camouflage guy and the sunglasses guy had been doing. But according to what he had gone through, it seemed that if one of the audience died, then the ongoing danger would pause, which should be the reason why the camouflage guy and sunglasses guy had to lure him here and kill him.

Su Bai took off his clothes and bound up his arm. He left the block, planning to go back to school and get some medicine from the clinic.

When he was walking across the street, he saw a familiar figure: it was Chen Chu!

At this moment, Chen Chu was walking into a theme hotel for lovers with a BBQ takeout.

Su Bai suddenly understood what the Long-hair man meant:

This night, Chen Chu and his girlfriend didn’t go back to their rented apartment, but lived in a lover's hotel instead, which meant… The crime time was not tonight; he, the camouflage guy and the sunglasses guy…

…had all been wrong!

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cocoon Skill: One of the skills of traditional Chinese Martial Arts, which can make a person as strong as iron or steel and can resist any physical attack from outside.

[2] Scissor Kick: One of the skills of traditional Chinese Martial Arts, which means to nip something with both legs like a pair of scissors.

[3] Kowtow: Kowtow, which is borrowed from kau tau in Cantonese (koutou in Mandarin Chinese), is the act of deep respect shown by prostration, that is, kneeling and bowing so low as to have one's head touching the ground. —Wikipedia