Chapter 033: Someone in the Heavens
“Yes!” Su Jingxing responded first, picking up the card.
Then, driven by intense curiosity, he slipped into the large hole.
The prompt pointed to a barbarian’s corpse, suggesting this barbarian was already dead. A dead barbarian posed no threat. The hole was made by breaking through a wall, and inside lay fallen bricks and several collapsed metal racks.
After entering, Su Jingxing quickly scanned the area, focusing his gaze on a pile of bricks mixed with broken metal racks.
More precisely, what caught his attention was the object beneath the bricks.
On the surface, it looked much like the fractured metal racks. But with the prompt, Su Jingxing knew that the object hidden beneath the bricks and metal was the barbarian’s corpse!
He drew closer, shifted aside the metal racks and bricks, and soon uncovered the object's full form.
A suit of armor!
A nearly four-meter-tall mechanical armor, covering every inch from head to toe, with sharp blades installed on the arms, hands, calves, feet, and head. On the chest, a clear palm print was stamped.
The dead barbarian was clad in mechanical armor?
Judging by the joints, shell, and weaponry, the technology level of this armor was quite high.
Of course, Su Jingxing could tell it wasn’t the kind of powerful mech seen in animated films, but rather something akin to an exoskeleton, only more tightly wrapped.
The palm print on the chest of the armor was most likely left by Ouyang Feihu.
In other words, Ouyang Feihu, before his death, had fought fiercely with this barbarian.
Was this Black Tiger Gang branch destroyed by the same faction as the young man who chased the barbarian last time?
Were “Duan Feihong” and that young man allies?
Standing still, Su Jingxing’s eyes gleamed with insight.
“Xiao Su, what are you standing there for? Come and help!” came Kong Dabao’s call from outside the hole.
“Dabao, there’s something wrong here,” Su Jingxing snapped back to his senses and turned, calling out, “This corpse is a bit odd.”
“Odd?” Kong Dabao walked in, puzzled and curious. “What’s odd about it? Isn’t it just—holy shit, what is that?”
The sight of the mechanical armor startled Kong Dabao.
He rushed forward, crouching on the ground to examine the armor and the palm print on its chest, exclaiming in shock, “Wait… is there someone inside?”
“Of course,” Su Jingxing replied seriously. “But who, exactly, I don’t know. Judging from the palm print, this person must have fought someone and was killed by a powerful palm strike.”
The armor was undamaged, yet the person inside was dead—proof enough that the force of that strike penetrated…
“Wait!”
Suddenly, Kong Dabao remembered something and cried out, “Wait, maybe the person inside isn’t dead yet!”
“...Not dead?” Su Jingxing feigned confusion, raising an eyebrow. “You mean the person inside is still alive, and might be the survivor…”
“Or maybe the murderer!” came a stern voice from behind.
Wu Shouhan, Qi Zhaocheng, and their group entered the hole with grim faces.
They had overheard Su Jingxing and Kong Dabao’s conversation and came to check for themselves. Their expressions shifted dramatically at the sight.
“Mechanical armor? Since when did the Black Tiger Gang develop such technology?”
“Stop pretending, this is obviously left by the killer! The person inside is the murderer!”
“Incredible, truly incredible—the killer actually has such advanced tech.”
“Open the helmet and see for yourself. With a physique like that, the killer can’t be a nobody.”
“…”
As they talked, they used brute strength to remove the helmet, revealing a rugged face, blood streaming from every orifice, life already extinguished.
Seeing the face, everyone, including Kong Dabao, was stunned.
The next moment, Wu Shouhan quickly checked the corpse’s pupils and teeth, his eyes filling with horror.
“This… this is a barbarian?”
“A barbarian wearing mechanical armor? Where did they get mechanical armor?”
“Damn, the killer is a barbarian? This just got interesting—the murderer is a barbarian!”
“…”
Except for Su Jingxing, everyone present was shaken.
Qi Zhaocheng’s expression shifted again and again, until finally, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number.
“Chief, the case just got even more complicated—there’s a barbarian’s corpse at the scene!”
“…”
A moment of silence.
After a while, Su Jingxing heard an echo from the other end of Qi Zhaocheng’s phone.
“Understood. I’ll report to the Lord Commander right away.”
With that, the call ended.
Su Jingxing blinked, tugged at Kong Dabao’s sleeve, and the two quietly left the room.
The rest was no longer their concern.
Now that the barbarian’s corpse had been exposed, others would follow up.
If Su Jingxing guessed correctly, the “Lord Commander” mentioned by Qi Zhaocheng’s superior was none other than the Town Martial Bureau’s Imperial Commander of Qinghe, the city’s foremost expert, Li Linzhou!
With Li Linzhou stepping in, “Duan Feihong” and the faction behind the young man would surely be kept busy.
As a humble corpse collector, Su Jingxing knew that diligent work was still most important.
So, he first visited the room where Ouyang Feihu’s body lay, making a round and picking up a card.
Afterwards, Su Jingxing continued working with the exhilarated Kong Dabao to move bodies.
“Tsk tsk, who’d have thought—really, who’d have thought—a barbarian involved in this case, and not just any barbarian, but one wearing mechanical armor!”
“Xiao Su, what kind of grudge does the mastermind have against the Black Tiger Gang, to send a barbarian in mechanical armor to slaughter them?”
“That armor is tough. If Ouyang Feihu hadn’t been here tonight, there’s no way Huang Boyi could have taken down the barbarian!”
“Ouyang Feihu was a sixth-rank martial artist, and yet he perished together with the armored barbarian.”
“This case is solved!”
“The bodies at the headquarters of the Little Knife Society this afternoon, and those here—none are intact. Isn’t that how barbarians always operate? They love to tear corpses to pieces, splitting them into seventy or eighty fragments!”
“…”
Kong Dabao kept muttering all the way, talking to himself even when Su Jingxing didn’t respond.
Though perhaps a bit overexcited, his analysis was mostly accurate.
The truth was within reach—only the mastermind’s identity remained unknown.
…
On the street.
Outside the cordon, the crowd had not dispersed; instead, it grew larger.
They ignored the Security Squad’s attempts at persuasion, chatting excitedly on their own.
The Town Martial Bureau’s follow-up staff arrived, sparking another round of pointing and discussion.
The corpse transport vehicle went back and forth, prompting more speculation.
Other leaders of West District factions arrived, and the crowd continued to gossip.
Until—
“Look! There’s someone in the sky!”
A sudden cry sent the atmosphere soaring.
“Hiss~ There really is someone!”
“That’s… Li Linzhou, Lord Commander Li!”
“No way—even Lord Commander Li showed up. Just how deep does the Black Tiger Gang’s conspiracy run?”
“…”
The scene boiled over, the crowd in an uproar.
Even the Security Squad members couldn’t help but look up.
Under the night sky, a figure streaked across the heavens like a wild goose, stepping on the moon, flashing back and forth, finally landing at the entrance of the Hongyun Tavern…