Mild cw: description of corpses

"Hey!" A hushed voice exclaimed from the side at the same time as He Juan’s foot broke the door open. It was Ma Ping who had come to offer assistance once he noticed that the second floor was utterly silent and devoid of any chaos. "What’s wrong?"

However, He Juan had no time to answer him – he could not take his gaze off the scene in front of him.

A sharp inhalation sounded from Old Liu, who was similarly petrified in place. "What the hell is going on here...?" He whispered more to himself, aghast.

The room in front of them was an utter mess with broken and overturned beer bottles, a bunch of cigarette butts crammed into ashtrays, and a few small puddles of suspicious yellow liquid on the floor which He Juan hoped was only liquor.

There were more than ten people inside – all dead. Seven were sprawled over the long couch, still with their arms hooked on the back. Three had collapsed to the ground in a messy heap.

However, there were two main similarities between them.

First, blood was seeping out from their ears, eyes, nose and mouth, drenching almost their entire body in crimson. He Juan suspected that the white viscous liquid trailing down their bodies was brain matter that had dribbled out together with the blood.

Second, their eyes were bulging unnaturally as if they were going to pop out of the sockets, and their faces still retained traces of vivid, malicious grin during their last moments. But now that it was paired with the bloodstains on their face and the thick aura of death that lingered in the air, it made a horrifying and uncanny spectacle instead.

Somehow, He Juan could very well imagine the tragedy that had transpired. A few hours ago, they were still laughing, chatting and having fun while enjoying cold beers. Yet in a blink of an eye, something – or someone – launched an attack and killed them simultaneously. Not physical attack, but... mental attack; a pressure so great that it crushed their brain in an instant without giving them any chance to retaliate.

He Juan was terrified yet intrigued in equal measure. He had stumbled upon tens if not hundreds of murder scenes, each was more brutal than the other, but never before had he seen something like this. For a few seconds, he and Old Liu was frozen on the doorway and it was not until Ma Ping peeked in, cursing ’fuck!’ that both of them snapped back to their senses.

"Boss, this is..." Ma Ping was rendered speechless. Of all things, they did not expect to stumble upon a purgatory. How could such a thing happen when all they wanted was to catch a single person?!

"Oh!" Old Liu pointed at one of the men on the couch, his face paled between anger and fear. "That is the other man who came with Blue Lotus last night! Damn it, so both of them are dead!"

"What about Blue Lotus himself?" He Juan asked darkly.

Old Liu and Ma Ping examined the corpses’ faces one by one, frowning, and eventually shook their heads. "He’s not here."

If Blue Lotus was not here, then where was he?

Pressing his lips tight, He Juan finally took one step past the doorway and he instantly froze when he detected a faint scent in the air, mixed with the stinging odor of beers, cigarette smoke and metallic blood. An Alpha, he noted. And not an ordinary Alpha either. He Juan had never sensed such a horrid and aggressive aura before. It sent unprecedented chills down his spine that had his Alpha snarling and raging in agitation.

A low growl rumbled from within his throat, startling the other two.

"Boss?!" Old Liu and Ma Ping were shocked. They had been with He Juan for years, but they had never seen He Juan act so defensive before!

He Juan bit the inside of his cheek in an attempt to suppress his Alpha’s aggression. "An Alpha," he told them. "The culprit is an Alpha and... it is most likely a superior Alpha." Even though He Juan said that, only he knew that something did not add up. He had met a few superior Alphas in the past, but they had never given him such terrifying shivers.

He knew deep down that the one who did it was someone with a level higher than superior Alpha.

That’s right, it was a similar feeling to when he was face-to-face with Boss Xuan...

"A superior Alpha?!" The two men were shocked. They could not sense the lingering pheromones in the air because they were Betas, but it did not stop them from being terrified. "Damn, we’ve got the list of all superior Alphas in the country, right? Can we lock in on the culprit by process of elimination?!"

He Juan wordlessly shook his head. He had a hunch that the person they were looking for was not officially recorded on the list and had been hiding under the radar instead. Who was it? And why... would they choose to kill Black Lotus’ men? And most importantly, where was Blue Lotus right now?

Amidst the deafening silence, the ticking clock sounded particularly loud and jarring.

Old Liu and Ma Ping spread across the room and tried to search for evidence that could lead them to the culprit, leaving He Juan standing in the middle as he thoughtfully gazed at the bloody corpses in front of him. Even if he tried his best, he was not certain that he would crush someone’s brain with his mental power alone. This was no longer something that a common Alpha could achieve. And to think that they managed to pressure He Juan so much with their lingering pheromones...

It seemed like he had to go back to the headquarters to ask Boss Xuan some things.

After planning his future course of action, He Juan had just wanted to retreat when behind him, Old Liu gave a loud cry. He Juan turned around in reflex to find that the man had managed to find a secret compartment behind the wall and hidden inside... was a crate of bombs!

He Juan’s pupils dilated sharply as a sinking realization dawned on him.

— The ticking sound he had been hearing did not come from the clock at all, but the timer of the bomb!

"BOSS–!" A powerful force tackled He Juan from the side at the same time when the bomb was down to its last second.

Eyes widening, He Juan only had time to protect his vitals when a destructive explosion erupted in front of him, sending him crashing to the opposite wall which soon collapsed under the pressure.

Crimson pillars filled his line of sight and soon morphed into the clear blue sky as his body flew out of the bar into midair. A sense of weightlessness wrapped around him and in the next second, he plunged straight to the first floor like a fallen kite, his back slamming against a car hood with a loud bam, shattering the glass and making a large dent on the surface!

"Ugh..." He Juan drew in a breathless gasp, blood gurgling out of his throat. He felt as if all the bones in his body were breaking apart, narrowing his world into a blinding surge of pain. Black rapidly dotted his vision as shrill screams of passersby, the loud rumble of collapsing building and the car’s sharp alarm echoed in his ears.

’The one who covered me earlier... Ma Ping... how is he?’ It was the last thought in He Juan’s mind before everything turned dark.