Chapter 97: Blood Lake

“Only those Disease Supremacists who have joined them are qualified to be called comrades.”

He Ling glanced at Nan Qiang, who was playing Monster Hunter, and then at Xie Liusheng, who was playing Sudoku. He hesitated, wanting to speak. “Then since you already knew something was going to happen, why did you let them go in—”

“Look out the window,” Nan Qiang finished her hunt, put down her red-and-blue console, and said to He Ling. “Don’t you think the street is a bit too quiet?”

He Ling paused. After Nan Qiang spoke, he realized the street was indeed eerily quiet. There wasn’t a single moving vehicle. Instead, quite a few cars like their own were parked along the street. Through the anti-spying windows, it was impossible to see who sat inside—but he wasn’t unfamiliar with the license plate of one of those cars. It was the vehicle of Bai Sangnan, the Eldest Son of the Bai Family.

“The Bai, Su, and Song Three Families are all here,” Nan Qiang said. “This is a show of loyalty. A man of wealth does not sit under the eaves. Since these Young Masters and Eldest Misses dared to come, they must know some inside information.”

“He Ling, relax,” Xie Liusheng patted his shoulder. “Remember what I told Qi Ran earlier? New World’s members are brainless madmen, but the person leading them is a smart one. Nan Qiang, if it were you, how would you manage this group of madmen?”

“Damming is not as good as diverting. Paint them a grand vision, then tell them that to accomplish that glorious cause, they must first temporarily endure. Then, continuously set them small goals to give them space to vent,” Nan Qiang tapped the car window glass with her knuckles, speaking slowly. “Just like today. If I’m not mistaken, it’ll be the same as before: much thunder, little rain. The Bai, Su, and Song families all know this too, so they came specifically to show their faces and go through the motions. After all, a major reshuffle of the Zhongnan Executors is coming next. No matter what, getting familiar and proving their stance is never wrong.”

“So, they won’t actually start fighting?” He Ling asked.

“They will fight, but not here,” Xie Liusheng said with certainty. “Remember that the Forum went offline?”

“Doing one thing under cover of another?” He Ling felt he was roughly starting to understand.

Xie Liusheng nodded and sighed. “Let me take a guess. Maybe they’ll create some small disturbance, then draw attention…”

Before he could finish, several thunderous explosions, one after another, shook the entire street block.

He Ling, already on edge, reacted quickly enough. A translucent film, hazy like a Bubble Shield, rapidly expanded from him as the center, protecting Nan Qiang and Xie Liusheng beside him. Yet, even so, an earth-shattering cacophony reached them before the film did, briefly deafening the three for a moment, followed by a massive, tangled tinnitus.

All four car windows shattered almost simultaneously, the fragments all blocked by the seemingly soft film. He Ling strained to look out the window. In his slightly narrowed eyes was reflected the tragic state of the building now—glass completely shattered, fragments and flames raining down together. A fierce wind swept up thick smoke and dust. Pitch-black flames shot into the sky, the air burning and distorting. The once-peaceful street was thrown into chaos. Smoke gradually diffused, like a curtain of deep black ink, slowly swallowing the entire building whole.

Due to the shockwave, no vehicle on the entire street was spared, all reduced to miserable wrecks. Ear-piercing alarms blared one after another, merging with the roaring sound of the collapse and fire to create an apocalyptic scene.

“Brother Liusheng, is this what you call a small disturbance?” He Ling roared out, for only this way could his voice be heard by Xie Liusheng and Nan Qiang. He held his breath. The air was saturated with the thick smell of gunpowder and burning. “What do we do now? Those madmen seem serious! Should we charge in directly to rescue the two of them now?”

Xie Liusheng just stared blankly at the building engulfed in black smoke, completely ignoring He Ling’s words. He Ling was about to ask again when he noticed blood trickling down from Xie Liusheng’s ears—his hearing seemed temporarily damaged by the explosion.

As He Ling was about to find pen and paper, Nan Qiang had already handed over her phone, the memo app open. But Xie Liusheng didn’t take it. He simply flipped from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat, moving frantically. Before he was even seated properly, he started the car, floored the accelerator, and reversed. He Ling was about to say something when he suddenly saw the wrecked vehicles on both sides of the street, as if sharing a psychic link, simultaneously start backing away from the burning building.

Only one white van did the opposite. It was the cheapest kind of cargo truck commonly seen on construction sites. Compared to the other retreating luxury vehicles, that old, beat-up little van drove straight towards the smoke-shrouded building. Honestly, the sight was somewhat absurd. That small truck was like Don Quixote charging at windmills, as valiantly brainless as a porcupine.

He Ling guessed the unlucky driver had probably been knocked unconscious by the blast wave and then happened to fall onto the accelerator. There was no other explanation for behavior so indistinguishable from suicide.

Just as the small truck smashed through the front glass door and crashed triumphantly into the smoke-belching building, less than five seconds later, the already tottering structure suffered another massive blast. But this blast was strange—very silent, with only thick black smoke and flames shooting from the windows. Not a single sound. If it weren’t for the car alarms still piercing his ears, He Ling might have suspected his own hearing was the problem.

After the successive blasts on all sides, something bizarre happened. The entire tall building, on the verge of collapse, suddenly distorted, froze mid-air, and began rotating counterclockwise, as if a giant hand was twisting the building like putty. Before everyone’s eyes, it simply vanished into thin air.

He Ling subconsciously rubbed his eyes. The uncanny scene before him somewhat exceeded his comprehension.

On the street, there were only the shrill car alarms and a massive, deathly silent crater where the Executor’s building had once stood.

Nothing else.

Trembling, Xie Liusheng opened the car door and stepped out. The moment his legs left the seat, he nearly stumbled and fell. Steadying himself, he walked forward to the edge of the enormous crater.

He Ling followed behind him, his mind blank. He couldn’t react to what had just happened at all. Everything before his eyes had occurred too fast. In less than fifty seconds, the entire building had vanished from the face of the earth. He shivered violently. Was this the means those madmen now possessed? The situation had careened wildly towards an unpredictable direction. He couldn’t imagine what would happen next. A crackdown on crime? Counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency? Was what happened to the Tao Family thirty years ago about to be repeated? These madmen had dragged the entire Circle into the mire. No one could escape this.

He stood at the edge, peering into the deep, massive crater. It was nearly half a football field in size and much deeper than he had imagined, about three stories deep.

Xie Liusheng stared intently at the bottom of the crater, as if waiting for something. He Ling quickly understood what Xie Liusheng was waiting for. Deep red water was slowly seeping out from the bottom, the liquid’s surface gradually rising, forming a lake sunken within the crater.

Its depth reached roughly the first quarter of the crater’s depth, still about six meters below ground level.

“What is this?” He Ling subconsciously spoke, then realized Xie Liusheng’s hearing was impaired.

“Blood Lake.”

But Xie Liusheng answered the question, his voice hoarse. He Ling had never seen Xie Liusheng so agitated, as if the water in the pit wasn’t water, but something utterly terrifying.

“Every time the water level rises a little, it means new deaths have been born,” Xie Liusheng said in a low voice. “When the lake is filled, it means the Blood Lake is complete.”

He Ling suddenly understood what the lake in the deep pit signified. It was an hourglass. Never had there been such a brutally violent method of counting, nor such an arrogant demonstration. He cast his gaze upon the gigantic crater. How many people had to die to fill it with blood?

“Fifty meters in diameter, eight meters deep, that can hold about thirteen million liters of liquid,” Nan Qiang murmured after a mental calculation. “An adult human body contains roughly five thousand milliliters of blood. That means… about two hundred sixty thousand people.”

“But it’s already a quarter full…” He Ling stared at the crater, suddenly feeling dizzy. A quarter of two hundred sixty thousand was six hundred fifty thousand people—how could this building possibly house six hundred fifty thousand people?

“Remove the ‘ten thousand,’ and it’s much more reasonable,” Nan Qiang said softly. “That is to say, there were two hundred sixty people in this building. In the earlier explosion, a quarter died, around sixty-five people.”

“Don’t dwell on the specifics. It’s just a symbolic gesture,” Xie Liusheng stood up, dusting the dirt off his knees. “Get in the car. I hope Liu Xu’s car can still start. We’ll go back, grab our things, and then head for the mountains—hopefully before everyone else catches on.”

“What about them?” He Ling lowered his voice. “Are we… not going to do anything? Just leave like this?”

“Staying here will only mean waiting in vain. Only when the Blood Lake is filled, or the master of the Blood Lake dies, can the others inside the building safely leave,” Xie Liusheng said flatly, his tone returning to calm, as if discussing a matter of no concern to him. “We’ll go do what we need to do first. If they die, we’ll come back later to collect the bodies. If they don’t die, they’ll contact us after they come out, and we’ll come pick them up. It’s that simple.”

“Is that it?” He Ling found it somewhat hard to accept leaving just like that, glancing at Nan Qiang, who was staring at the Blood Lake.

“You’ve reminded me. There is indeed one more thing I can do for them,” Xie Liusheng chuckled lightly. He reached out, touching his forehead, his chest, then his left shoulder and right shoulder. Clasping his ten fingers before him, he bowed his head slightly, his tone compassionate. “May God—or Buddha, whoever—bless them a little.”