Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 4
Chapter 4: All Of You Are In Cahoots
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Huai Shi screamed as he woke up in bed and saw the mess in his bedroom.
It was a nightmare.
Still, his tragic death in the nightmare was so vivid and realistic that he could still feel the phantom pain of his neck being torn apart.
He touched his neck, still shaking with fear. All he found was a handful of cold sweat. At the same time, he was terribly sleepy, so after he drank a sip of water, he lay back in bed and closed his eyes.
In his daze, he seemed to turn into a security guard on night duty who was taking a cigarette break outside the door. Suddenly, he heard footsteps coming from the stairwell.
Someone was gradually approaching in the darkness.
As he extinguished his cigarette and was about to turn around to ask “whassamatter”, he saw a gruesome blood-covered mask— that of a vicious ape. The Vicious Ape’s face split into an eerie grin. It was smiling.
The next instant, he died again.
Huai Shi jumped out of bed screaming once more. Again, he looked around at his messy room, and at the dust that was falling from the ceiling after his scream jolted it.
He panted heavily, touching his stomach.
It was another nightmare. This time, his stomach was torn open, and then from the bottom upward, his neck was pulled right out…
“F*ck… I must be haunted.”
He panted for a long time and lay back in bed. At first he had wanted to stay up all night, but the moment he closed his eyes, he fell asleep again.
This time, he turned into a dumb fatty that was about to go home after a fun time out. He washed his hands, singing to himself, and he was about to change his clothes and go home when he saw the blood seeping through the crack underneath the door.
Footsteps approached him slowly, stepping in the blood.
Someone pushed the door open.
Then he died again.
“F*ck, I really must be haunted!”
Huai Shi opened his eyes angrily and wrapped himself up in his blankets again, turning in bed. “I don’t believe this!”
He closed his eyes and… had nightmares for the rest of the night.
It was only around daybreak when everything finally returned to normal. He drifted into a deep sleep, and before he finally lost consciousness, he dazedly saw, in the deepest depths of the shadows in the layers of his dreams, a pair of blood-red eyes watching him quietly.
…
At three in the morning, Ai Qing heard the sound of the telephone ringing downstairs. Soon, the phone went silent, and not long after that, someone knocked on the door.
“Miss, it’s a Grade C alarm.”
Ai Qing sighed. “Help me change.”
A woman in a skintight suit entered the room and helped her sit up in bed. After that, the woman helped her take off her nightdress and put her lingerie on her fair naked body.
The thin girl was propped up and finally, she stood in front of the mirror, leaning on her crotches.
“Which outfit do you want to wear today?”
“That black one I bought a few days ago. Match it with a long skirt, and remember to bring a blanket.”
“Alright.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ai Qing sat in a wheelchair as a woman holding an umbrella pushed her into the car. Amidst the pouring rain, the car traveled all the way to the cordoned area, where they showed their ID and were allowed to drive right to the scene of the crime.
The heavy rain had long since washed all the blood outside clean away. All they saw was a white sheet resting on top of the corpse. Whatever remained of the crime scene inside, however, was perfectly intact.
When they saw the car approaching, someone came to greet it.
The car window wound down, revealing the girl’s side profile, rather pale from the lack of sleep. “What happened?”
“It’s a special crime,” the person outside said. “According to the rules, we have to inform the Astronomical Association’s local invigilator ASAP so they can handle this.”
“I knew it…”
Ai Qing sighed wearily and patted the armrest on her wheelchair. The lady who had been driving then held up an umbrella and brought the girl out of the car, wheelchair and all, with a single hand. She carefully put the girl and her wheelchair down somewhere the rain would not reach them.
“How’s the scene?”
Ai Qing asked calmly, as though this had nothing to do with her, “Were there any survivors?”
“No.”
The person on the scene shook his head. “It’s a newly-opened club under Luxury Spa. Nobody survived, not the clients or the prostitutes or the security guards. Not inside or outside. A food delivery man discovered the scene, but by the time we arrived here, an hour had passed… Also, a small police station in Qingpu District was attacked, but there were no casualties.”
“I understand.”
Ai Qing did not say anything else. She just raised her head and spoke to the professional-looking lady driver behind her, “Bring me around for a look. I’ve never toured a brothel before.”
The place was not big. It was just four floors and a basement.
There was nothing but blood and the mercilessly tormented bodies, lying in pieces. The few beautiful bodies in the dressing room were still covered with the horrible proof of the heartless treatment they received.
Ai Qing saw everything and then yawned, her expression unchanged. “Are there any surveillance cameras?”
“They were taken apart, and all the camera lenses were destroyed, but we just found a hint in the traffic cameras nearby.”
“Let me see them first, then.”
Ai Qing tapped the armrest on her wheelchair unenthusiastically.
The person on the scene sighed helplessly but did not lose his temper. Instead, he waved at the engineer to bring the footage over.
Anyone who saw Ai Qing would definitely look at her face, first and foremost. Their attention would be pulled away by those eyes, so calm they were almost cold.
After that, they would look at her wheelchair, and their hearts would be filled with sincere pity. For such a pretty girl to have infirm legs was such a waste.
Even if she was an eccentric and cold character, no one had ever laughed at her before.
They had worked together so many times now, so the person in charge of the crime scene had long since gotten used to her cold nature. He was not even surprised anymore.
There were not that many clips in the camera footage. Most of the time, all they would see was a flash of a black shadow, after which the victims were torn apart. It was only at the end, when that shadow walked out of the main entrance, that the traffic camera on the opposite road caught a direct frame of the person’s face.
However, they could not discern anything at all.
“It’s all useless. There’s no need to watch it anymore.”
Ai Qing turned her eyes away and looked at the person in charge of the scene. “What happened at the police station, then? There were no casualties?”
“That’s right, because that thing attacked the evidence room, so it came straight through the wall. The place was locked up at night and no one was on duty, but there was some footage.”
The person on the scene started playing the footage he had received, his actions slow and steady.
In the footage, the person facing the camera directly wore an ape mask. Their body was bent over, and they were even holding something in their arms…
“Zoom in on this.”
Ai Qing’s eyes widened slightly and she moved in closer, staring at the magnified image and at the box the person was carrying.
“What’s this?”
“I don’t know… A Rubix cube?” The person on the scene was confused too, and he immediately found his ridiculous guess utterly absurd.
Ai Qing mused it over for a moment before asking, “Are there any records of the things in the evidence room?”
Soon enough, they brought over an inventory list that was locked in a shelf. Once they flipped to the last page, they saw a picture of the strange metal box. There was even a police report and a file describing the scene.
“A corpse?”
Ai Qing frowned. “Who’s the corpse discovered on the scene of the report?”
“A local ex-convict who was released after completing his sentence. His name was Liu Eryou, and he has a history of drug abuse… Here’s his file. We spotted him in the club’s earlier surveillance footage.”
They sent all of the files to Ai Qing’s phone.
First, an addict with a history of abuse died in an alley after frequenting a prostitute, and later, the entire club was massacred. Even the station where they kept the evidence had been raided.
Finally, the attacker left with a small box…
Ai Qing massaged her brow somewhat frustratedly.
“Another border relic?”
She tapped her armrest crossly. “What are the border patrols doing? Why do they keep throwing this trash into the interior? This is the sixth such case this year… Also, if that’s the case, then the explosion at the port during the day must be related to this, right? Why didn’t anyone inform me?”
“…”
The middle-aged man cooperating with her at the scene blinked for a moment, but his expression quickly turned bitter. “I don’t know either. Maybe it’s still tied up in red tape.”
“If you like red tape so much, why don’t you spend more time wrapping yourself in it after this huge incident tonight?”
Ai Qing was not completely unsarcastic. She had always known all about the local authority’s distrust of the Astronomical Association. “It’s fine. I can understand what you’re feeling if I put myself in your shoes. After all, who would be fine with taking orders from a crippled girl less than twenty years old?”
“…”
The middle-aged man continued to grimace and fake a smile, but inwardly he had already cursed all the idiots in the higher ranks above him.
After Ai Qing asked the on-scene correspondent to buy her some hot coffee, she frowned and took a sip before throwing the cup to the ground in disgust.
“It’s instant.”
“It’s just too late at night now, so we couldn’t get a coffee from the shop you wanted…”
“That’s enough, stop the pity act.”
Ai Qing gave him a bored glance before she tapped the screen and said, “There weren’t many cameras left during the incident, but there’s some footage from before that, right? Who was the one who reported the case when you discovered the first body?”
Soon enough, the footage of the large door on the screen was rapidly rewinded until it eventually froze on a young man with somewhat messy hair.
On the screen, he turned around to look at the police station, revealing his face.
In the silence, Ai Qing bit her finger but did not say anything.
“Tch…”
The middle-aged man heard her little noise of extreme discontent, but it sounded like an illusion.
…
The dawn after the raging storm.
He could still hear the birds singing outside the window, and he could smell the fresh fragrance of trees and leaves blowing in through a crack in the window. After an entire night of nightmares, Huai Shi finally awoke from his long-awaited sweet dreams.
He opened his eyes.
He saw the pitch-black nozzle of a gun.
His room was filled with soldiers dressed in bulletproof vests and face masks, all armed to the teeth. All of their guns and cannons were aimed right at his face.
“Don’t shoot, Big Bro. We’re all on the same side…”
Huai Shi stared for a good long while before he swallowed his saliva and raised his arms slowly.
Who-tf-is-on-the-same-side-with-you.jpg
Although the man in charge did not say anything, his gaze dripped sheer contempt. Immediately after that, Huai Shi felt someone jab a needle into his neck.
After that, his vision turned dark, and he was lost to the world…
…
“Name.”
“Huai Shi…”
“Age.”
“Seventeen…”
Inside the interrogation room, Huai Shi lowered his head dejectedly, his hands cuffed to the chair. Inwardly, he was wondering if this crazy place was also looking to hire gigolos.
What the heck was this?!
What the heck was happening?
Who the heck were they playing?
Huai Shi felt as though his expressions were enough to make an entire page of classic emojis now, and finally, his face settled into the Confused Nick Young meme.
What the flipping f*ck was going on?
He had seen an entire roster of interrogators by now, and they interrogated him over and over again. Each time, they asked where he had been yesterday, what he had done, who he really was, and which underworld faction he had supporting him.
They had clearly taken Huai Shi for some irredeemable villain.
The interrogators took turns, going from solo to a party raid. They threatened him, tempted him, and chatted with him; they play good cop, bad cop, and even intimidated him with detailed explanations of all sorts of inconspicuous torture techniques…
In the end, Huai Shi was close to breaking down.
“Please get it over quickly, gentlemen.” Huai Shi fell forward onto the table, tears in his eyes. “I confess, I confess to all of it, but at the very least, could you tell me what I did? I’m a good citizen, I really am, and I even freaking called the cops after I stumbled across a murder scene last night! Don’t accuse me of something I didn’t do…”
Behind the one-way mirror.
Ai Qing watched the entire process unfold expressionlessly. She only spoke when the middle-aged man in charge lost his patience and waved at his men to begin the torture.
“If a border relic is really involved, I don’t think he’ll spill even if you do torture him. Besides, can’t you tell if he’s telling the truth or not?”
“But he’s the only lead we have…” The middle-aged man was at a loss now too. “So what do we do now?”
Ai Qing shook his head and took out her phone. She flipped through her contacts and eventually settled on a number. “Although there aren’t many Ascenders registered here, many of them are willing to cooperate with the authorities. Still, since this incident happened because your internal machinery took too long, the Astronomical Association won’t foot the hiring fee. You understand, right?”
“I do.” The middle-aged man sighed. “It’s only halfway through the year, so we still have most of our budget left. I’ll pay you double that, is that enough?”
The call went through.
Ai Qing went straight to the point. “Special Affairs Bureau in fifteen minutes. Okay?”
Soon after that, the call was disconnected.
Fifteen minutes later, the guards led someone in. That person had clearly been here before, greeting Ai Qing with an air of familiarity. “It’s been a while, Lady Ai. Why don’t you ever visit my place?”
“It’s too dirty.”
Ai Qing stuffed a file at that person expressionlessly, and then she pointed at the young man who was splayed across the table behind the one-way mirror, yelling that he would post this all on Weibo. “Could you make him spill?”
“Piece of cake.”
The new arrival grinned and flicked his hair before pushing the door open and going in.
When he saw Huai Shi’s face, however, he froze.
Huai Shi was stunned too.
“Wait, why is it you?”
He stared at First Brother, the host who had talked about teaching him the rules outside the club. Finally, Huai Shi wailed at the people outside the room furiously, “I get it now, all of you are in f*cking cahoots! And you said you aren’t looking for a gigolo! All I did was refuse to sell my body, did you really have to go this far?”
In the awkward and absolute silence, the only sound was the young man’s howl of indignation.
“—You’re forcing an innocent into the flesh trade here!!!”
‘All of you are in cahoots!’