"You... what are you saying..." The girl's face turned pale, shaking her head repeatedly, "I don't understand what you mean, what... them?"
"Your acting is too poor." Sun Hang stepped forward, holding the gun in his right hand to the girl's chin, while his left hand rolled up the sleeve on her left arm.
At the location corresponding to the corrosion on her right arm, there was a red tattoo.
At first glance, an ordinary person might think this tattoo looks like a smudged ink stain, or even mistake it for a bruise. But upon closer inspection, they'd notice these seemingly chaotic patterns are actually intricately designed — overlapping over twenty characters within a skin area of less than two centimeters square, yet the stroke trajectories of each character remain distinct and discernible...
A pattern like this is definitely not something a cheap tattoo parlor could design.
These characters are symbols that have never been used by any civilization in human history; they interconnect, embedding within each other, seemingly forming a bizarre and endless chant...
When Sun Hang rolled up the girl's left sleeve, she clearly intended to resist, but as Sun Hang lifted a leg and fiercely kneed her in the abdomen, the sharp pain immediately sapped her strength to resist.
"When you were pulling the sleeve on your right arm just now, you glanced twice at your other arm from the corner of your eye; you don't think I didn't notice, do you?" Sun Hang backed away with the gun's muzzle, delivering a firm elbow strike to her ribs, the girl let out a shriek, sliding down slowly against the door frame, collapsing onto the ground.
But her left arm was still held by Sun Hang, lifting it high above her head.
Sun Hang holstered the gun behind his waist, took out his phone, aimed the camera at the tattoo, and pressed the capture button.
Then, he entered the photo into the investigation bureau's internal search engine.
Soon, a heap of files popped up on the search page.
As Sun Hang had anticipated, this tattoo had records within the investigation bureau.
Seven years ago, during a crackdown on a cult organization in Jiangkou District, Celestial City, the cult was eradicated.
This cult worshiped mysterious creatures and secretly incubated their young within Celestial City; fortunately, the citizens reported them in time, resulting in the arrest of 148 people including the sect leader, with only nine being shot dead for their violent resistance during the operation, the remaining 139 were all captured.
These individuals should all still be confined within the "Special Prison for Abnormal Events" in the northwest corner of Celestial City.
The prison was built atop a solitary mountain over 200 meters high, surrounded by cliffs, with only one elevator for personnel to ascend and descend the mountain. Aside from that, the interior and exterior of the prison are guarded by the Xiazhou Federation's regular army forces, making escape virtually impossible.
Sun Hang held the girl's left arm in one hand, while her abnormally decayed right arm was pinned under his foot, her head hanging limply against her chest, clearly not yet recovering from the recent blow.
Sun Hang gently swiped the screen with his thumb, below the text files were photos taken by the case officers back then.
All those cult followers bore tattoos identical to this girl, with the tattoo's location determined by the followers' status within the cult — the higher the status, the closer the tattoo was to the heart.
As for the sect leader, who was nearly eighty years old, his tattoo was positioned right on the left chest, directly above the heart.
This group of cultists' incubated mysterious creature young also left visual records — it was a massive lump of flesh, indistinguishable in terms of limbs and organs, discovered soaking in the sect leader's massive ornamental fish tank.
At the bottom of the fish tank, there were still some scattered human bones.
At the end of the files, there was a photo attached, showing a large pit that had been dug open, filled with remains, roughly estimated at least one or two hundred deceased.
Next to the photo were several lines of text annotations — this large pit was located directly beneath the newly constructed gathering place of the cult organization, over four years, they killed nearly 500 people to feed the mysterious creature young. The remaining bodies from the creatures were directly buried within the foundation, covered in concrete... besides the remains within the pit, numerous human bones fused with concrete were also found at the foundations of several main leaders' residences.
Over four years, the majority of missing persons cases in Celestial City were eventually attributed to this group of cultists, with the sect leader and main leaders executed immediately, the remaining followers all sentenced to life imprisonment, without exception.
And the mysterious creature young was transported away and destroyed by the Celestial City Mysterious Creature Research Institute.
Following this sentence, there was also a line of smaller text — note: this mysterious creature young was temporarily designated as W-179, but since it was destroyed before maturing, the serial number was subsequently canceled.
"W-type... a fungal mysterious entity?" Sun Hang glanced at the photo again, the picture's pixel quality was low, if not discerning closely, it'd be easy to mistake it for a massive lump of flesh... but actually, this "lump of flesh" was composed of countless strands of fungi, with some broken strands still adhered to the bones at the bottom of the fish tank.
Sun Hang entered W-179 into the search bar, the search results showed it as a giant fungus growing in the dense forests of the Yundian Plateau, extremely colorful, apparently not the same thing as what was in the cult leader's fish tank.
"It seems, the operation from back then did not uproot this cult entirely..." Sun Hang pondered, "Not only are people still unaccounted for, but not all of their incubated creatures were eradicated..."
The most crucial point being, during the arrest operation back then, the sheriff and investigators checked every cult follower, none were found infected by the creatures — precisely for this reason, the massive lump of flesh was identified as an underdeveloped mysterious creature young.
Yet, the girl standing before him was indeed an infected individual.
"If this news is reported to the investigation bureau... they'll have their hands full."
Sun Hang crouched down, pinched the girl's cheeks between his thumb and forefinger, lifting her head up, and asked: "If you don't want to die, take me to your 'fellow believers'... and that thing you're keeping."
The girl glanced at him, nodded weakly, "Alright..."
Sun Hang cast a glance at the gunshot wound on the girl's leg, somewhat surprised to discover the wound was no longer bleeding, the copper bullet having been pushed out of the wound, lying on the ground.
He pulled out a small knife, sliced open the gunshot hole on her jeans, finding that where the bullet should have hit was now filled with fresh flesh, leaving only a coin-sized scar.