Chapter 111: Enforcers Are Nothing Special

Hanyu Street.

"Mom, Mom...?"

A girl covered in blood and grime walked slowly forward, leaning against the wall. Her left leg was twisted unnaturally, and her eyes scanned the deathly silent fog, her face full of fear and despair.

An eerie screeching sounded from the front of the street. The girl's face turned deathly pale, and she curled into a ball against the wall, her body trembling uncontrollably.

Just then, a hand gently patted her shoulder.

The girl let out a cry and instinctively shrank forward. She looked up in terror, only to find that the person behind her wasn't a monster, but a young man in a black trench coat.

"Little one, what's wrong?" Xi Renjie forced a gentle smile onto his pale face.

Perhaps because of that smile, the terror on the girl's face dissipated slightly, and she whispered:

"I... I got separated from my mom."

Xi Renjie scanned his surroundings; there wasn't a single person to be seen on the misty street.

"When did you get separated?"

"Just now..."

"Which direction did she go?"

The girl reached out and pointed toward the empty street ahead.

Xi Renjie sighed and bent down. "I'll take you to find her, okay?"

The girl nodded. Xi Renjie carried her on his back, holding a blood-stained steel sword in one hand, and walked unsteadily into the thick fog.

After several hours of searching and fighting, Xi Renjie's body was reaching its limit, but he couldn't rest yet. With Han Meng gone, he was the pillar of the Third District; he absolutely could not fall until all the streets were cleared.

Xi Renjie walked slowly with the girl on his back. The storefronts on both sides of the street were covered in blood, and mangled corpses were exposed to the air, the blood already dried...

"What's your name?" Xi Renjie suddenly asked.

"Xiao Qi."

"Xiao Qi, close your eyes first. Don't open them until I find your mom, okay?"

"Okay." The girl obediently closed her eyes.

Xi Renjie walked through the deathly silent street for over ten minutes when a series of noisy sounds came from afar.

There were still people!

Xi Renjie immediately quickened his pace.

As he got closer to the noise, he saw a group of people in a house at the corner of the street, gathered around a mangled body, discussing something anxiously.

"I told you he can't be saved... Let's go!"

"Yeah, if we don't leave, those things will catch up again!"

"But he's still alive! We can't just leave him here; he saved our lives just now!"

"I think it's more dangerous the further out we run. Maybe hiding in the house is the safest."

“……”

There were about six or seven people in the house, all covered in dust and blood, as if they had fled from other streets. At that moment, two or three of them were gathered around a severely injured man, urgently bandaging him.

Hearing their voices, Xiao Qi, who was sitting on Xi Renjie's back, suddenly opened her eyes and shouted in surprise:

"Mom!"

Everyone in the room turned at the same time.

They saw Xi Renjie in his black trench coat outside the door and froze. Then, a middle-aged woman stood up abruptly and ran toward the door anxiously.

"Xiao Qi!! Where did you go just now? Mom has been looking for you so..."

"Stop!"

Xi Renjie's low roar suddenly rang out.

This shout startled everyone in the room. The middle-aged woman, who had run halfway, stopped in her tracks, looking at him with confusion.

Xi Renjie grabbed the arm of Xiao Qi, who was about to jump off his back, and protected her as he retreated step by step... He gripped his steel sword tightly, staring fixedly at the people in the room. In the thick fog, their shadows were writhing in the darkness.

This group of people had all been targeted by Calamities.

"Mom..." Xiao Qi reached out toward her mother, but could only move further and further away, her eyes filled with confusion.

"Officer, what do you mean by this?"

The middle-aged woman frowned, anxiously trying to get her child back, but Xi Renjie reached back, opened the door of the opposite room, pushed the little girl inside, and locked the door.

"Mom!"

Whoosh—

The moment the middle-aged woman stepped out of the room, pitch-black shadows suddenly erupted from inside. In the narrow space, they instantly pounced on the figures within reach. In an instant, screams and the sound of tearing flesh intertwined frantically!

Seeing this, Xi Renjie's eyes turned red. His body was stained with a touch of black, like steel armor, and he rushed into the room without hesitation, steel sword in hand!

He tried to save the middle-aged woman closest to him, but by the time he slashed his sword at the shadow centipede, most of the woman's head had already been bitten off. Even though Xi Renjie crippled the shadow centipede with one strike, it was too late to save her life.

The bloody massacre was completed in an instant. All the centipedes crawled along the walls, completely sealing the doorway. The figure in the black trench coat was trapped in the narrow room, with centipede legs crawling everywhere.

Xi Renjie gripped the hilt of his steel sword tightly and took a deep breath. The blade was stained with the same black as his body, and a cold aura radiated outward.

After such a long battle, his stamina was already at its limit, but things had come to this; he absolutely could not retreat...

The eight shadow centipedes within reach erupted simultaneously. At this instant, the steel sword in Xi Renjie's hand swept an arc around him, and a fine black line swept out from the tip of the blade, cutting the three closest centipedes in two!

Xi Renjie tried to dodge, but two centipedes had already bitten his shoulders. At such close range, he had no room to dodge at all.

At the same time, the remaining centipedes swarmed up, wrapping around him like a writhing black ball. They bit into Xi Renjie's body; even though most of his skin was covered in black and hard as steel, there were always small areas being gnawed, and scarlet blood stained his trench coat...

Xi Renjie's eyes widened. Just as he prepared to fight to the death, a figure like a fluttering red butterfly landed lightly outside the door.

At this moment, all the shadow centipedes stopped their movements. They turned their heads toward the outside simultaneously. In the churning fog, a figure holding condiments in his left hand and a raging torch in his right was squinting at the room.

"Who?!" Xi Renjie spoke instinctively.

Chen Ling casually spun the torch in his hand like a sword flourish and chuckled, "Enforcers are nothing special."

As his voice fell, he flashed and disappeared outside the door. At the same time, the shadow centipedes clinging to Xi Renjie acted as if they had gone mad, scrambling out of the doors and windows to chase after the rapidly departing trail of fire!

……

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Today is the first offline signing event for "Under the Night Curtain," and Sanjiu is going offline to meet everyone~ There will be two updates today and tomorrow~