Monster - Chapter 109
Chapter 109: Dream Castle - Guilty
The moment Cheng Gui stepped into the Dream Castle, the rain began to fall, as if intentionally avoiding him.
By the time the downpour started, those who had been heading directly for this place of amusement had already arrived. As for the serious players, not many hunters remained after the morning's explosion in the ghost town. They had scattered throughout the park for one reason or another and were in no hurry to rush over in the rain.
To get to the first-floor hall from the entrance of the Dream Castle, one had to walk through a covered passageway. Cheng Gui's appearance at the hall's entrance didn't attract anyone's attention. The people reveling inside continued their unrestrained merrymaking. The decadent melancholy Cheng Gui had when he met Lou was gone; he had become sharp, his gaze sweeping coldly over the scene before him. He opened the notebook in his hand and spoke:
"Guilty, death penalty!" As these solemn, concise words were uttered, the tourists enjoying themselves in the hall were suddenly hoisted into the air by invisible ropes. Amid a series of sharp cracks, the necks of the suspended people were all twisted and deformed by the unseen cords, and they died violent deaths on the spot.
In an instant, the vast first-floor hall went from lively to deathly silent, with only the sound of the torrential rain lashing against the windows.
This act caught the attention of the Madness Material members who were monitoring the castle. Upon receiving the information, Enzo immediately dispatched his thugs.
Having seen Cheng Gui's method of killing on the surveillance footage, the thugs approached with caution. While still some distance from the first-floor hall, they raised their guns and fired a volley of shots at Cheng Gui, who was still in the hall.
"Guilty, death penalty!" Seeing the men raising their guns at him from afar, Cheng Gui once again recited the words, which sounded like a verdict. In front of him, figures like an execution squad materialized. Like the invisible ropes, these gunmen didn't truly exist, yet the sound of gunfire erupted around them.
"Bang, bang, bang!" The orderly gunshots mingled with the chaotic firing. Miu, who had flown in through a window to escape the rain, saw the thugs from Madness Material all get shot in the head and collapse. Although their shots were wild, some of the still-powerful bullets struck Cheng Gui.
First hanging, then a firing squad—both methods related to legal executions… Miu watched the scene, mentally analyzing Cheng Gui's abilities. It seemed the latter only needed to scan with his eyes, open his notebook, and declare someone guilty for the target to be instantly attacked by an invisible force. Furthermore, all those sentenced to death were killed in a single blow, with no intermediate state.
It seemed Cheng Gui hadn't been lying when he said he was the personification of Leviathan's law. But for the law itself to roll up its sleeves and personally "sentence and kill" people… it just went to show how twisted Tree had made this Tower World.
Miu grumbled internally, as was its habit. It saw Cheng Gui continue toward other parts of the castle. His body had just been hit by bullets, and blood was steadily flowing from the wounds, but his expression remained unchanged as he walked forward with determination.
Behind him, the hall had been hung with countless corpses, but as Cheng Gui moved on, the bodies all fell to the floor at once, turning a perfectly fine hall into a living hell. Miu glanced around and noticed that Cheng Gui treated everyone equally. In this castle, whether they were oppressors or the oppressed zombies, the vast majority had been killed. His judgment of sinners did not absolve them of past crimes just because they were currently oppressed. Presumably, they had also killed people and taken lives as zombies, so Cheng Gui still sentenced them to death.
When Cheng Gui left the hall, the only one left alive was a young boy who had been tied to a chair and assaulted. Apparently, in the eyes of the law, he had committed no evil and was thus acquitted.
While Cheng Gui was judging everyone he encountered and unleashing a massacre, Saya and Xing Meilu, who were resting in a utility room somewhere in the castle, were also startled.
"Could it be people from Bite Mark?" Xing Meilu asked Saya in a low voice. Bite Mark had arranged to meet Saya here for a task, but Saya had arrived first, and Bite Mark was late. Although this gave the heavily injured Saya some time to catch her breath, it also put them in a passive position, which was uncomfortable for the swift and decisive Inspector Xing.
"No, the people from Bite Mark are still on their way."
Hearing Saya's reply, Xing Meilu sighed softly but made no further move. Ever since accepting the brooch from Sui Xi, she hadn't had a single day where she felt in control of her own life. And upon discovering that her familiar colleague, Saya, was the very serial killer she had been hunting for years, her fate had been overturned. After arriving in the Disorder Land, she was no longer a high-ranking inspector from the Inspectorate who punished evil and promoted good; she was just a weakling.
"Does your phone still have a charge?"
"Just charged it. Are you going out?"
"Yeah. Here, take this. It's a communication earpiece we use for cases. Stay in touch." Xing Meilu gave Saya a deep look. The latter always appeared so composed, but while her methods were ruthless and insane, and she couldn't be called unintelligent, she didn't give off the same sense of terrifyingly profound calculation as Lin Sandie and Lou.
Perhaps it was due to her blood loss or the effects of her strange items, but she seemed a bit foolish at that moment.
"I have a wristband. I'm a legitimate tourist. I'll go check out what's happening." After handing the earpiece to Saya, Xing Meilu put on the other one and got up to leave.
"I'll go with you." Saya immediately grabbed Xing Meilu's hand.
"No need, I'll be back soon." Xing Meilu tried to pull her hand away. If she didn't get moving and gather some useful information, she felt like she would go crazy.
But Saya held tightly to Xing Meilu's wrist. In the dimness of the utility room, her expression was unclear, but Xing Meilu could sense that Saya's emotional state was abnormal.
Suddenly, a sound of grinding teeth filled the darkness, and Xing Meilu's wrist was gripped even tighter, to the point of pain.
"I will come back."
"Really?" Saya's voice was as grim as if she were about to murder someone.
"Then why didn't you say a word to me before you went to the Salai Building?"
"Do you have any idea how long I looked for you?"
"Do you know how it felt to finally see you, only to watch you being killed in a video leaked on the dark web?"
"I saw you, so small, being stabbed over and over with a dagger while the people around you cheered…"
"Do you know how I felt? Xu Yao."
Saya seemed to have lost her mind, mistaking Xing Meilu for Xu Yao, who had been dead for years, and rambling on with her complaints.
"I can accept that you don't like me."
"But you shouldn't have been so cruel to me, Xu Yao."
…
Xing Meilu listened quietly to Saya. At first, she was impatient, but then Saya's usually smiling voice began to crack with sobs. She clutched Xing Meilu's arm frantically, pouring out her sorrow and humiliation. Xing Meilu slowly calmed down, patiently letting her vent.
She was such a composed, elegant, and capable woman. How did she end up like this?
Just as Xing Meilu was lost in thought and Saya was in the throes of her breakdown, the utility room door was suddenly thrown open. Light flooded in, and a dark figure appeared in the doorway. Backlit, Xing Meilu, snapping back to her senses, could still make out a man wearing a black judge's robe.
Cheng Gui's gaze swept over Xing Meilu and Saya, quickly locking onto Saya. He delivered his cold judgment, "Guilty, death penalty!"
Almost simultaneously, Saya, who was already in a frenzy, lunged forward with incomprehensible speed. As Cheng Gui's verdict landed, an invisible rope instantly tightened around her bandaged neck, and blood quickly soaked through the dressings. At the very same moment, a violent explosion erupted at the doorway, sending Cheng Gui flying.
With that, the rope around her neck vanished. Saya's face was flushed, her neck seemingly stretched a little. She didn't have time to worry about it; she grabbed Xing Meilu and ran outside.
In the process, Cheng Gui's gaze, despite him having been blown away, followed them. Both his legs had been blown off by the bomb, so he could only sit amidst the collapsed rubble. He watched Saya's retreating back and, unfazed, continued to judge the sinner. "Guilty!"
"Bang, bang, bang!!" Execution bullets rained down on Saya's back and head.
Acting purely on instinct, Saya dodged the bullets aimed at her head, but one still grazed her ear, tearing half of it off.
But Cheng Gui's judgment could go no further. Saya, pulling Xing Meilu along, had already rounded a corner, disappearing from his line of sight.
The dismembered Cheng Gui expressionlessly surveyed his surroundings. He saw a teenage zombie girl in a nearby corner, stunned by the blast. He tilted his head back slightly. Soon, the male body, no longer usable, slumped to the ground. The girl opened her eyes, moved her joints to acclimate to the new body, then stood up and walked over to the male corpse, picking up the large, leather-bound notebook.
"Saya McConaughey, guilty, deserves to die." The girl's childish voice held a steely resolve. The one who had escaped was now on Cheng Gui the law's judgment list.
Miu, who had been observing Cheng Gui the whole time, felt as if more of this world's bizarre mysteries had been unlocked for it.
"It seems that while Cheng Gui's attack power is high, his defense is only at the level of an ordinary person. But he can switch bodies at will, though only one at a time, unlike Tree's Trojan Horse, which spreads like a plague."
At that moment, Cheng Gui, now in the girl's body and preparing to continue his great work of judgment, glanced back at the unusable male corpse. The cigarettes he always carried had fallen out.
"…Right, minors can't smoke." Cheng Gui scratched his head in frustration, left the cigarettes where they were, and turned to leave.
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