Su Shan didn’t know what had happened to her. Since yesterday, she had suddenly found herself on the street, her memories fragmented as if broken.
She distinctly remembered dying in a game. According to what she’d heard from Qin Dingdong, after death with an “Echo,” one should wake up in the real world. Yet here she was, standing on the streets of the “Land of Finality,” with her own corpse lying nearby.
With no other options, she wandered aimlessly, spent the night in a nearby building, and then set off again the next day.
Not long after, as she passed another building, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure inside—a tall, muscular man in a black T-shirt.
Su Shan quickened her pace, stepped inside, and focused her gaze. Sure enough, it was someone she had met before.
“Ah!” she exclaimed with a hint of joy, then quickly saluted. “You’re Captain Li from Inner Mongolia!”
“Huh?” Captain Li turned around, his expression stiff. “You… you’re that forensic tech from Hunan… Xiao Su?”
“Yes!” Su Shan nodded with a smile. “It’s so good to see you! Running into you is really—”
Her words cut short as she froze.
Her eyes had landed on Captain Li’s left hand, gripping something dark, foul-smelling, and oddly familiar.
His fingers were caked with dried blood, and his pants and arms were smeared with bloody handprints.
She frowned, studying it for a long moment before cautiously asking, “Captain Li… what is that…?”
Captain Li looked visibly uneasy. He stood abruptly, instinctively hiding his left hand behind his back. But Su Shan was a cop—even if he concealed it, her suspicion had already been roused.
“N-Nothing… Xiao Su… I…” Captain Li seemed caught off guard by the sudden appearance of an acquaintance and stumbled over his words.
Su Shan narrowed her eyes slightly, and in that moment, her pupils shimmered like diamonds.
A ripple passed through her vision, revealing two characters glowing brilliantly around Captain Li—far more radiant than any she had ever seen before.
After a few seconds, she murmured, “‘Pocket Raid’…?”
“You… how did you know?”
Su Shan withdrew her ability and asked solemnly, “Is this your ‘Echo’…? But what exactly is that thing in your hand…?”
Captain Li stared at her, hesitating, before letting out a bitter laugh. “I… I might have gone a little mad in this place… I’m afraid you’ll be scared if I tell you…”
Su Shan swallowed dryly and subtly shifted half a step toward the door.
She had initially thought running into a familiar face would be a stroke of luck, but something was clearly off. Captain Li was much larger than her, and as a fellow police academy graduate, he was undoubtedly skilled in combat. If things turned violent, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Captain Li…” she asked calmly, “Did you just kill someone? Is that a heart in your hand?”
“I didn’t kill anyone, but yes, this is a heart.” Captain Li nodded, pulling it from behind his back and opening his palm to show her.
Despite being a forensic specialist, this was the first time Su Shan had seen a human heart up close—cases where a killer was cruel enough to dig out a victim’s heart were rare.
Admittedly, it was smaller than she had imagined—about the size of a fist, shaped like a peach, but one that had been crushed, its form slightly deformed.
To Su Shan’s trained eyes, the heart was riddled with red flags.
First, all the vessels had been cleanly severed, as if surgically extracted, yet each one showed signs of bleeding, suggesting the heart had still been beating when removed.
Second, the blood on its surface had dried, meaning it had been outside the body for some time—yet Captain Li’s fingers, nails, and even forearms were smeared with fresh blood.
Putting it all together, the conclusion was obvious: he had ripped this heart from a living person and had been carrying it around, playing with it. Judging by the dryness of the blood and the stains on his hands, he’d been doing this for at least a day.
The sheer horror of it sent a chill down Su Shan’s spine.
This was the kind of act only a dangerously deranged, antisocial killer would commit—something a young officer like her had never encountered before.
Seeing her step back, Captain Li quickly explained, “Xiao Su, I don’t know if you’ll believe me… but I really didn’t kill anyone. This heart… I’ve been using it to train my ‘Pocket Raid’…”
“Train ‘Pocket Raid’?” Su Shan blinked, her instincts as an officer kicking in. “Training with a heart… is the goal to kill someone?”
“I…” Captain Li hesitated, then shook his head helplessly. “Xiao Su… I’m not trying to kill a person. I’m trying to kill something… far worse.”
“Worse… ‘things’?”
“I’ve seen those things use ‘Pocket Raid’ before,” Captain Li said. “I used to think this ability was just for retrieving objects… but I never imagined it could pluck out a person’s organs. This heart belonged to one of ‘Cat’s’ brothers. He was killed right in front of me—his heart torn out and crushed in the thing’s hand. And as humans… we were powerless to stop it.”
The sheer weight of his words left Su Shan struggling to process it all.
“I thought… if I could get used to the feeling of pulling a ‘heart’ from a pocket… maybe I could do the same. Maybe I could rip out their hearts…” Captain Li let out another bitter laugh. “But I’m losing it… I don’t even know if what I’m doing is right…”
He slowly placed the fist-sized heart into his pants pocket, then pulled it out again with practiced ease.
Su Shan could see clearly—his pocket was stiff with dried blood, and with the slightest movement, blackened flakes of it fluttered down like snow.
“I’ve repeated this motion thousands of times in the last two days…” Captain Li said despairingly. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore… I…”
“You’ll succeed.” Su Shan’s voice softened with sympathy. “Captain Li… I’ve been through this. The state you’re in right now… is exactly right.”
“Exactly right…?”
“Mm.” She offered a faint, pained smile. “Qi Xia once taught me—the more desperate a person is here, the stronger they become. The ripples of your ‘Pocket Raid’… they’re incredibly clear now.”
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