After Clearing the Infinite Flow, I Tamed the Mad Dog Boss - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Huang Quxie left with the little girl in his arms, still cursing under his breath, leaving Qin Xian alone in the shadows.

Before he left, he had questioned the girl and gotten a rough idea of what her brother looked like and how he dressed: early twenties, short black hair, pierced ears, liked wearing white T-shirts.

Which was about as useful as saying nothing at all. Pick ten young men at random, and six of them would probably fit that description.

Qin Xian sighed. He could only hope the other party was still in good enough condition to give his name directly.

He looked up at another long row of temporary prefab rooms on the earthen slope. Every room was lit, which meant they were very likely livestreaming. Qin Xian planted both hands on the slope and vaulted up with ease.

Several surveillance cameras had been installed outside the sheds. After carefully observing their coverage, he found one pointing straight at the shed windows.

Qin Xian lowered his head and picked out a pebble from the ground, neither too large nor too small. He set it against the side of his index finger, then snapped his thumb forward with sudden force. The pebble shot out like a bullet and struck the camera lens dead-on.

With a crisp crack, the red light on the camera flickered stubbornly twice before going dark.

Now he could be a little bolder in approaching to scout the situation. Qin Xian darted soundlessly up the slope like a cat and went first to the window of the westernmost room.

The cramped room was filled with racks and props for livestreaming, but what drew the eye most was the set dressing.

Yellow clay bricks commonly seen in old houses had been pasted onto the walls, and the floor was covered with compacted dark brown earth. At a glance, it looked almost exactly like the inside of an old rural home.

A crude wooden bed sat on the packed dirt floor. On it lay an old-fashioned quilt with red floral patterns. An elderly man with a face full of wrinkles gaped with a mouth that had only two teeth left, staring blankly at the ceiling. His face was severely withered, and vague, indistinct mumbling came from his mouth.

Beside the bed, a young man in worn-out clothes was facing the camera, considerately wiping the old man’s body. His expression was patient and gentle, and as he worked, he chatted with the viewers in the livestream. But if one looked down carefully at the old man’s expression, they would see his hand weakly gripping the young man’s arm, desperately refusing. That feeble resistance did nothing.

The young man ignored him, rambling on about the hardships of life, touching stories between him and his parents, and so on. From an angle the camera could not see, disgust flashed across his face for an instant whenever his hand touched the old man’s body. Clearly, the man on the bed was very likely not his father at all.

Qin Xian narrowed his eyes slightly. He saw that the livestream chat was flooding with messages, while gift effects kept flying across the screen.

Frowning, he moved to the second window. The scene inside had changed. It had been arranged to look like a country kitchen, complete with a very convincing old-fashioned stove.

A person who appeared to have an intellectual disability sat on a low stool facing the camera, drooling, while a hunched old woman spooned food into his mouth bite by bite.

The camera only aimed at his upper body, but his pant legs were already covered in spoiled, foul-smelling leftovers. Some had been stuck to the fabric for who knew how long, turning blackish brown. Even from the window, Qin Xian could smell the stench.

The rooms that followed were each more horrifying than the last.

In one, someone was facing the camera, speaking to the same girl who seemed to be autistic, but behind the camera, he was holding a long needle against her thigh.

In another room, two physically disabled people were kowtowing toward the camera, while opposite the camera stood two burly men holding long sticks.

Qin Xian quickly looked through every room. Roughly thirteen rooms were currently livestreaming. The content was basically all the same: exploiting illness, disability, the elderly, and the vulnerable to sell misery and win sympathy. Some earned money directly through tips, while others also pushed products on the side.

A dozen or so livestream rooms was not considered a large scale. If the number increased to more than twenty, the danger level of this place would probably skyrocket.

Of course, even at this stage, getting one person out safely would not be easy.

Qin Xian moved quickly, circling the building for a short while until he successfully found the main electrical switch. He smashed it apart with a stone without hesitation.

In an instant, the entire row of rooms plunged into darkness, and the people inside were startled.

“Huh? The power’s out! The livestream cut off!”

“What’s going on? Why would the power go out?”

“The villa’s still lit up. Maybe the switch for this building has a problem. Come on, let’s go out and check!”

After smashing the switch, Qin Xian immediately changed positions and crouched beneath the window of one room.

He had confirmed it earlier. Inside, there was a person missing all four limbs lying on the bed, a man in his twenties with short black hair. It was very likely the little girl’s brother.

Qin Xian climbed up to the window, kicked out with one leg, and shattered the glass directly.

Because the livestream set needed scenery, the windows here had no iron bars, which made things much more convenient for Qin Xian. The moment he flipped into the room, someone pointed a stick at him and demanded,

“Who the f-”

But before the man could finish the word, Qin Xian kicked him in the jaw in the darkness, knocking him down so hard that he collapsed stiffly without making another sound.

Qin Xian turned and hoisted the person on the bed over his shoulder. A wave of sour stench hit him in the face, but he did not even blink. He only felt that the person on his shoulder was truly shockingly light.

A human body missing all four limbs was even lighter than the little girl from earlier.

Qin Xian carefully held onto him and climbed back through the window, then rushed through the darkness to the back of a cattle pen.

He set the man down on the ground and let out a breath, pressing close to the wall as he checked the movements around them.

“You… who are you…?”

The man suddenly spoke, his voice extremely weak.

Still observing their surroundings, Qin Xian asked, “Are you Lou Xingye?”
The man forced out an answer on a breathy whisper. “Yes…”

“Your sister sent me to save you. Don’t talk. Save your strength. I’ll get you out of here.”

“…You… you should go. I’m beyond saving. Hurry and leave… There are… ghosts here…”

Qin Xian turned his head and asked, “Ghosts? What kind? Can you describe them?”

But Lou Xingye couldn’t hold on. His head lolled to the side, and he lost consciousness.

Qin Xian quickly bent down to check him. Once he confirmed Lou Xingye was still breathing faintly, he let out a breath of relief. But in his current condition, they couldn’t afford to delay any longer. Qin Xian had originally planned to deal with the anomaly here, but now he had to change plans and get Lou Xingye out first.

Qin Xian tore his jacket into strips, tied Lou Xingye to his back, and charged out from behind the cattle pen.

Outside the pen was an open stretch of farmland with almost no cover. People had already started sweeping powerful flashlights back and forth, searching for them.

Qin Xian dropped flat to the ground and crawled through the abandoned fields.

The fishy-smelling mud nearly brushed the tip of his nose. Weeds scraped over his exposed skin, itching badly, and mosquitoes buzzed around him. None of it made Qin Xian so much as frown. Even with someone on his back, he moved with practiced efficiency, crossing one field in three or four minutes.

But the fields stretched on one after another. Crawling all the way out of the village like this wasn’t realistic. Qin Xian chose to crawl toward a nearby house, then hid in an alley to recover his strength.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out not far away, startling a group of people into rushing in that direction.

A gun? This village might be full of criminals, but with how strict gun control was in the country, these villagers shouldn’t have been able to get their hands on firearms.

The only one who would use a gun was Huang Quxie. Had he failed to escape?

Qin Xian found a dried-up drainage ditch and carefully hid Lou Xingye inside. Then he got up and walked out, naturally blending into the night as if he were a villager running toward the sound of the gunshot.

He didn’t get too close to the others, and in the darkness, it was hard to tell who was who. No one paid him any attention. After all, no one being hunted would look that relaxed…

The gunshot had come from near a two-story villa. Qin Xian observed the terrain, estimated where someone could hide, then slipped into the semi-open kitchen behind the villa.

He had barely felt his way to the stove when the pitch-black muzzle of a gun was aimed at his face.

Qin Xian crouched and dodged in an instant. “It’s me. Why didn’t you get out?”

Huang Quxie froze, then immediately put the gun away. “This place isn’t safe. We need to move.”

Behind him, the little girl poked her head out and nodded timidly.

Qin Xian pointed straight at the drainage ditch behind the kitchen. “There’s no water in there for now. Get inside and crawl to the right. Your brother is over there too.”

The little girl’s eyes lit up at once. Not caring whether it was dirty, she dropped into the ditch without another word.

Of the three of them, Huang Quxie had it the worst. His tall, broad frame could barely squeeze into the ditch, and every bit of forward movement scraped his skin against the rough cement.

But Huang Quxie didn’t make a sound and followed firmly at the rear.

This village had made plenty of money, and even its drainage ditches were well built. Possibly because they doubled as irrigation channels, they were deep and covered with lids. The people searching on the ground would have a hard time noticing that someone was hiding in the ditch right under their feet.

Qin Xian led the two of them to Lou Xingye, then climbed out of the ditch and found a small corner where they could catch their breath and sort out what had happened.

As soon as the little girl came out, she clung to her brother and refused to let go, silently shedding tears beside him.

Huang Quxie tugged at his own collar in distress, but Qin Xian remained calm. He asked directly, “Why didn’t you manage to escape? What happened?”

Huang Quxie answered, “It was pitch-black outside. We couldn’t get out… The moment we charged outward, we’d find ourselves back at the village entrance, like we were trapped in a Ghost Maze.”

Qin Xian’s expression grew grave. “Then it looks like escaping on our own is impossible. A Domain has already formed here. Unless we defeat the master of this place, we can’t leave. Of course, maybe it’s only like this at night, and in the daytime everything returns to normal and we can escape.”

“Domain? What does that mean?” Huang Quxie asked, confused.

Qin Xian gave a concise answer. “You can think of it as a ghost being here. This ghost is very powerful, so it has placed the entire village inside a sealed-off area, trapping everyone inside. This Domain probably isn’t that strong, so it may very well disappear during the day. But we’d have to wait until at least after nine, and Lou Xingye might not last that long. We need to get him to a hospital as soon as possible.”

Huang Quxie asked, “Do you have a way out?”

“Kill the master of this Domain.”

Huang Quxie and the little girl sucked in a cold breath at the same time.

“Just the few of us?! Against an entire village of people and one terrifying ghost?”

The little girl lowered her head in embarrassment. She and her brother not only couldn’t fight, they would probably become burdens.

But Qin Xian was so calm that he seemed utterly confident. “It can be killed. Are you coming or not?”

Huang Quxie’s scalp tingled. As a police officer, rationally speaking, he should suggest hiding until sunrise. Yet for some reason, at that moment, he found himself trusting the man in front of him.

He gritted his teeth. “Fine. I’m with you! Seriously, who the hell are you…?”

Qin Xian ignored the second half of his sentence and crouched in front of the little girl.

“From here on out, you have to be strong. Keep hiding here and protect your brother. If anything happens, use your size to squeeze into narrow corners. We can’t take you with us. Do you understand?”

The little girl wiped away her tears and nodded hard, tightening her arms around her brother.