Chapter 096: Majestic in Bearing, Handsome Beyond Compare

The duration of the Combat Training Card, Su Jingxing had roughly figured out, was tied to how long the body had been under control.

Just like those barbarians controlled by Duan Feihong’s gang.

The longer the control lasted, the more years of training could be obtained from the card.

And the reverse was also true.

Yet this Combat Training Card came from the corpse puppet at Cloud Sea Plaza. That corpse puppet had appeared for less than five minutes, so why did the card yield sixteen years?

“Could it be that this corpse puppet, while alive, was also controlled by someone else for years on end?”

Like the student who jumped to his death, Wang Yuning, who had never once been free.

So were the years added together, producing sixteen years of combat training?

Su Jingxing put the card away as he thought and hurried to the intersection.

After waiting there for half a minute, he got onto the corpse transport vehicle and headed straight for Cloud Sea Plaza.

...

The dead.

Bodies everywhere.

The corpse puppet’s sudden attack had killed more than five hundred people in just a few minutes.

And in the chaos of more than a hundred thousand people fleeing in panic, the number trampled to death or crushed to death also exceeded five hundred.

Thus, when Su Jingxing arrived by vehicle at the center of Cloud Sea Plaza, his eyes were filled with the wounded and the ground was strewn with mutilated corpses.

More than a dozen ambulances were overwhelmed, and five corpse transport vehicles were coming and going nonstop.

The members of the first team who had not been injured, including Gu Bo and Feng Tiejian, had no time to rest. Together with Su Jingxing and the crematorium’s body-recovery crew, they threw themselves into the work of gathering the dead.

Their main task was to collect a complete body and place it into a body bag.

The corpse puppet had been swift and savage; one charge had torn a dozen people apart.

What Su Jingxing and the others had to do was recover as many scattered pieces as possible and reassemble them whole.

Then they would be loaded into the corpse transport vehicle, sent back to the crematorium, given a brief registration of information, and fed into the furnace to be reduced to ash.

At such a time, there was no room for a farewell ceremony.

No one knew how many incubation worms remained hidden in the mall at Cloud Sea Plaza.

Those translucent little things, like tadpoles, needed only one of them to turn a corpse into a corpse puppet.

If any of the worms were still lurking in the mall, and they caught the scent of blood and crawled out to burrow into the bodies on the plaza, it would become a catastrophe.

Thus the City Guard Office issued an order: all corpses had to be cremated within thirty-six hours.

There were two crematoriums in Riverbank City, one large in the western suburbs and one smaller in the east.

Originally, the eastern crematorium had only handled corpses from the eastern district and the university town.

This time, both crematoriums worked together. Body-recovery teams, registration desks, customer service, transport crews...

Everyone was mobilized.

After a day and two nights of frantic labor, every body had finally been sent into the furnaces and turned to ashes, which were then taken home by the families, whether for farewell or burial.

As for whether there had been any mistakes among them, that no longer mattered.

Since the descent of the outer-world demonic insects, each year the nations and great cities of Earth had seen tragedies caused by corpse puppets.

Some claimed thousands dead, others at least hundreds. The public had long since grown used to it.

Why did everyone on Earth worship the strong and hope to become martial artists themselves?

The reason was here.

When a corpse puppet appeared in a city, if an ordinary person could not flee in time, the only thing left was to await death.

Martial artists were different. Even if they were outmatched, they could still resist for a moment and escape in time.

A corpse puppet’s speed was comparable to that of a cheetah; ordinary firearms could not hit it at all.

And even if they did hit, they could not break through its hard body.

...

“This time is different.”

In the dormitory, Su Jingxing, Feng Tiejian, and the others from the first team were visiting Kong Dabao, who had injured his ankle and was lying in bed on leave, when someone suddenly walked in through the door.

Wu Shouhan.

As the head of the crematorium strode in, he said in a grave voice, “This corpse puppet has now been confirmed to be of the middle level. Compared with a low-level corpse puppet, it was faster and its body was harder. Being able to kill it, we can only say our luck was very good. There happened to be a fourth-grade expert near Cloud Sea Plaza. Hearing the disturbance, he rushed over and suppressed the corpse puppet in time. Otherwise, the number of people who died this time would have been far more than a thousand!”

...

The dormitory fell silent.

Kong Dabao, Feng Tiejian, Gu Bo, and the others were shocked.

A middle-level corpse puppet?

No wonder its killing power had been so terrifying, tearing apart more than a dozen people with one charge.

So the incubation worm controlling it had been of a higher grade!

That was right. Incubation worms also differed in rank.

In most cases, the incubation worms that appeared were low-level.

For instance, the so-called "Mei Jinzhu" that Su Jingxing and Gu Bo had encountered before was a low-level corpse puppet.

Above low-level there were also middle-level and high-level corpse puppets.

Against a middle-level corpse puppet, a martial artist of the lower three grades was no match at all.

Only a martial artist in the middle three grades, one who had cultivated true qi, could deal with it.

If not handled in time, a single middle-level corpse puppet could kill or injure over ten thousand people.

As for high-level corpse puppets, none had yet appeared in Yu Country, though they had shown themselves in other nations.

One appearance had caused casualties numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Only after several second-grade experts joined hands was it finally brought down.

So.

For a middle-level corpse puppet to appear at Cloud Sea Plaza and be dealt with within five minutes truly was luck.

A “fourth-grade expert” had just happened to be nearby!

...

“So it was fourth grade. No wonder he was so powerful. One punch was all it took to suppress the corpse puppet.”

Feng Tiejian came back to himself and murmured in admiration.

“Yes. A middle-level corpse puppet can at most be delayed by a sixth-grade, held down by a fifth-grade, and only a fourth-grade can suppress it with one punch!”

Gu Bo sighed sincerely.

“That fourth-grade expert, I saw him at the time,” Kong Dabao said with excitement, his legs crossed. “You had no idea, I was only ten meters from him! I saw with my own eyes as he descended from the sky and killed the corpse puppet with a single punch! That bearing, that momentum, that presence—it was simply incredible!”

“Really? Come on, tell us what that fourth-grade expert looked like.”

At this, Feng Tiejian’s eyes lit up. “Was it a man or a woman? Tall or short? Fat or thin?”

The others were equally curious, all pricking up their ears.

“A man! Very tall! Built like an ox!”

Kong Dabao gestured with both hands as he explained excitedly. “As for his looks, he was not merely distinguished and commanding, handsome beyond compare, and carefree to the point of unruliness. I can guarantee that any woman who saw him, even once, would fall in love with him instantly!”

“Seriously or not...”

“Cough cough.”

Su Jingxing could not help coughing to interrupt. “Ahem, the director has arrived. Aren’t you going to greet him?”

As the “distinguished, commanding, handsome beyond compare” fourth-grade expert, Su Jingxing felt obliged to remind them.

“Haha, no need, no need.”

Wu Shouhan waved a hand with a smile after hearing this. “This is private; there’s no need for formalities. I came not only to see Dabao, but also to tell you that the origins of this corpse puppet have been investigated.”

“Great!”

Feng Tiejian clapped his hands and asked, “Uncle Wu, hurry and tell us who it was. Who was the corpse puppet in life? And who killed her?”

“Ke Wenji.”

Wu Shouhan said in a deep voice, “The corpse puppet’s name in life was Ke Wenji. She died by suicide.”

“What? Suicide?”

Gu Bo, Feng Tiejian, and the others were stunned.

Su Jingxing’s brows lifted slightly.

“That’s right, suicide.”

Wu Shouhan continued, “Ke Wenji left behind a video that recorded in detail the process of her suicide, as well as the reason behind it.”

“The reason? What reason?” Kong Dabao could not help asking.

“Revenge!”

...

(Please vote for me with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets.)