Chapter 084: The Bloody Incident in the Ancient City

Li Tianque stared at the cracked screen of his phone, his heart a tangle of bitter-sweet emotions.

Only a few days ago, he had been wandering happily from one shop to another, carefree and content. Yet now, for reasons he could not fathom, he had been flung to the grasslands beyond the frontier and had somehow become the so-called hero of the steppe.

If this had been ancient times, he might even have been written into an epic.

But what good were meat and wine if his phone could not be used? What could be more painful for a modern person than that?

Seeing the worry etched across Li Tianque’s face, Sua hurriedly beckoned him over for a drink.

Unable to refuse such warmth, Li Tianque could only nod, place the black sphere into the backpack on his back, and then carry the power supply over to the bonfire.

The feast began. The grassland herders sang and danced, drinking heartily and laughing together. Li Tianque ate meat and drank wine in great mouthfuls, thoroughly and unrestrainedly.

During the meal, he mentioned some amusing stories that had recently been trending in the news, but the people here all used old-style phones, the kind that could only make calls and send texts. Cut off from the wider world, they knew nothing of such things, and only Sua could occasionally chime in.

Because of the language barrier, and because Li Tianque was growing anxious, he prepared to leave before the feast had even ended.

By then it was already past nine in the evening. The clan chief invited him to stay the night in camp, but Li Tianque declined.

Right now, he urgently needed to reach Wuerkeluo Township, restore his phone’s signal, and preferably find somewhere that could repair it. If that was impossible, then at least an internet cafe, or a hotel with a computer.

Seeing how determined he was, the clan chief did not insist further. Instead, he lent Li Tianque a motorcycle and told him that once he arrived in the township, he could stay at his elder brother’s home.

Li Tianque nodded and memorized the address.

He mounted the motorcycle and sped along the riverbank. After crossing Weiwei Bridge, he entered the Gobi.

The battery on his phone had been fully charged. Though he could not use the map, he was barely able to make out the compass in the phone; the compass was only visible on half the screen, but it was still just readable enough. He did not lose his way.

The motorcycle engine roared like thunder, kicking up a vast cloud of dust. The sensation was exhilarating.

He pushed the bike to two hundred kilometers an hour and reached Wuerkeluo Township in less than an hour.

He had once come here before with his comrades. In ancient times, this had been one of the postal towns along the Silk Road.

Most of the other towns on the grasslands were dense clusters of yurts, but Wuerkeluo Township was different. It was an ancient city, with nearly a hundred second-story houses and buildings scattered throughout, large and small. Though the structures were worn and broken, they possessed a strange, distinctive charm.

Li Tianque pushed his motorcycle into the city. At night, the old town felt lifeless and desolate; the weathered city walls were coated in an inerasable black stain. The walls, once covered in green moss where erosion had stripped them bare, now looked like a mass of dark, writhing slime.

A harsh wind swept from behind him. The city was bleak and cold, filled with a sinister, eerie atmosphere.

The last time he had been here was in the daytime, and he remembered the residents being very lively.

But perhaps the herders had no nightlife to speak of. On this evening, everyone seemed to have tacitly agreed on the same custom: every household’s gate was bolted shut, and all nighttime activity seemed to take place within the privacy of their own homes.

In such a vast city, not a single person could be seen.

The bright moon hung overhead as Li Tianque walked along a deathly quiet lane in Wuerkeluo Township. The moonlight was cold, slipping past the edges of the houses and casting only faint traces of light and shadow, just enough to distinguish the path ahead.

He walked in haste, while everything around him took on a layered, wavering form, like little hills rapidly receding into the distance.

As he went on, a small pool of luminous light suddenly appeared on the black pavement. The glow was enticing, alive with a strange, alluring brilliance. Li Tianque paused, thinking it was merely a puddle of water.

But soon he realized that the glowing pool was continuing to spread, and the all-too-familiar scent in the air instantly filled his nostrils.

That smell caused the scene in the base to assemble itself once more in his mind, then condense into a surge of electricity so intense it nearly made him collapse.

Blood. It was a pool of flowing blood.

Li Tianque quickly understood that something was wrong. He immediately parked the motorcycle and drew a Tibetan knife from beside the seat.

Following the trail of blood, he soon spotted a woman not far away, convulsing all over.

Beside her, a shadow was crouching low.

It seemed to be a person.

Against the moonlight, Li Tianque could not make out the face hidden in the darkness.

But the other party seemed to have no intention of hiding. With a ghastly smile, that person snapped off the woman’s final tooth and placed it on the ground.

At that moment, the thirty-two teeth on the ground were arranged with perfect precision into a horrifying smile.

"When you are unhappy, you must smile more. Smile a little. Women who love to smile are the ones who have good luck, after all... heh heh heh... ho ho ho... hahahahaha..."

The voice was very low, but in this dark alley it sounded especially sharp and clear.

The woman was still gushing blood, and the sight was so tragic that Li Tianque could hardly bear to look.

Yet the figure hidden in the shadows never once lifted its gaze from the pitiful woman.

Li Tianque’s heart tightened, and he gripped the Tibetan knife even more firmly.

"Stop!"

Seeing such cruelty, Li Tianque could not stand idly by. He immediately prepared to intervene.

He was not only driven by a sense of justice. He also understood clearly that he was already in danger; even if he did not strike first, the ruthless killer before him would never let him go easily.

At the shout, the figure abruptly rose and charged toward him.

In its hand was a long, narrow steel awl, which looked to be some kind of insect-dissection needle used in experiments.

Li Tianque met the attack with a swing of his blade, though he did not put much force into it.

Uncertain of the situation, he intended only to intimidate the other party with a probing strike. After all, against an ordinary person, he was fully confident.

Unexpectedly, when he thrust his blade, the other party had already rushed close and seemed not to be guarding at all.

But just as the blade was about to touch the other’s body, that person vanished from Li Tianque’s sight in an instant.

At the same time, Li Tianque felt a sudden surge of cold behind him.

He sensed that the enemy had appeared at his back, but it was already too late to turn around.

Everything had happened too quickly.

The other party raised the dissection needle in hand and prepared to stab Li Tianque.

"Heh heh... are you thinking that this time, you’re definitely dead?"

That eerie voice sounded again behind Li Tianque’s head, like a cold wind slicing past his ear.

Li Tianque gave a cold snort and quietly amplified his cancer cells.

In almost the same instant, Li Tianque spun and swung his blade, while the killer simultaneously raised the needle to pierce his head.

Li Tianque’s cancer cells had already surged to one hundred and thirty percent, making him much faster than his opponent.

Within the span of a single second, he first knocked the dissection needle away with the blade, then slashed toward the enemy’s arm.

Yet the opponent seemed to be made of paper, slipping away from Li Tianque’s attack with absurd ease once more.

Li Tianque was slightly startled. At that very moment, a burst of medicinal powder shook loose from the other’s sleeve and scattered straight toward his face.

Li Tianque threw himself backward, then immediately fell to the ground and covered his nose and mouth.

If he had been an ordinary person, he would certainly have fallen victim to that ambush. But Li Tianque reacted quickly and did not inhale the powder.

Even so, the enemy still took the chance to flee.

By the time Li Tianque dragged himself up from the ground, the assailant had already vanished into the dark streets and alleys, leaving no trace behind.