140 Cause of Death

As usual, a threefold plea! Votes, recommendations, collections, collections, collections, please collect, please collect, please collect, please collect!

After a moment of thought, Yang Tang had no choice but to take another detour, carrying Tao Youfei and silently sneaking into the boiler room. Taking advantage of the emptiness, he secretly cast a spell of Immortal Sound Purification on her. Hiding to the side, he watched her chubby face gradually deflate and her consciousness return before leaving with peace of mind.

Returning to the spot where he had hidden his shoes, Yang Tang put on Liu Tong's boots, dismissed his internal energy circulation, bought a large bag of popsicles at the small store, and headed back to the dormitory.

To his surprise, not only was the entire class in the dormitory, but the instructor had arrived as well.

"Oh, Instructor Li, what wind blew you here? Come, come, have some popsicles!" Yang Tang held out the entire bag of popsicles, opened it right in front of him, and acted with a generous, take-your-pick attitude.

Instructor Li rolled his eyes and said with a dark face, "Did you not hear the alarm go off from the base just now?"

"I heard it."

"Then why weren't you staying in the barracks? What were you doing running outside?"

"Wasn't I out buying popsicles?" Yang Tang laughed foolishly. "By the time the alarm sounded, I was already at the edge of the parade ground. I wanted to come back to the dormitory, but then I thought, wouldn't it be troublesome if something happened on the way back? So I just huddled in the bushes behind a tree by the roadside. I only came back after the alarm stopped and the gunfire ceased."

Instructor Li: "..."

"By the way, Instructor, which platoon fired those gunshots just now? Were they blanks or live ammunition?" Yang Tang deliberately asked another question.

Instructor Li rolled his eyes again. "Fine, even if all your explanations make sense, why did you stomp Liu Tong's foot until it swelled up?"

"Oh, Instructor, that was entirely a misunderstanding. When I jumped down from the upper bunk, Liu Tong happened to be standing there like a pair of big dice without moving out of the way. As a result, I went *crunch* and stepped right on the back of his foot, almost spraining it."

"You—" Liu Tong wanted to chime in and defend himself.

Yang Tang, of course, would not give him the chance to speak, interrupting him with the eagerness of a rooster crowing. "And Instructor, before I stepped on Liu Tong's foot, he smashed a thermos and flooded my newly issued military training boots with water—just like the Water Flooding of the Seven Armies."

"The Water Flooding of the Seven Armies?!" Instructor Li had never heard of this idiom and was completely bewildered.

Yang Tang was also momentarily stunned, quickly changing his phrasing. "It means the same thing as Water Submerging Jinshan. Instructor Li, if you don't believe me, you can ask the others in the dormitory."

Instructor Li's expression remained as dark as night. "I've already asked, but they all said you were the one who smashed the thermos, soaked your own boots, and then vented your anger on Liu Tong, who happened to be closest to you. First, you viciously stomped on Liu Tong's foot, and then you pushed him down, causing his hands to be filled with countless glass shards!"

Upon hearing this, Yang Tang almost laughed out of anger. He had seen people distorting right and wrong, but he had never seen a group of beasts distort it so thoroughly.

This was pushing him into a dead end!

One had to know that university military training grades were recorded and even entered into one's official file. Once Yang Tang received a disciplinary record here, it would likely become a lifelong stain!

Seeing Yang Tang pondering in silence, Instructor Li asked, "What? Nothing to say?"

Yang Tang cast a sidelong glance at Liu Tong, who met his gaze with a look of fleeting triumph that he quickly buried, and then scanned the circle of somewhat guilty freshmen. Suddenly, he sneered, "Since everyone came for military training today, you must have all taken a bath and changed your underwear last night, right?"

Everyone, including Instructor Li, was taken aback.

Yang Tang walked over to Instructor Li's side and whispered in his ear, "Bright red, right?" Then, he moved to the nearest boy. "Light yellow!" Next one. "Pure white."

Finally, it was Liu Tong's turn. Yang Tang merely stared at him with a cold smile without saying a word.

Silence descended upon the dormitory for about ten seconds. Then, Yang Tang spoke up again, "Look at the expressions of those around you. I suppose my deductions should be correct, no?" He paused, then continued, "Since you all testified for Liu Tong, claiming I broke the water bottle and hurt him, then please swear on the premise that your parents go out to buy groceries and won't encounter fatal traffic accidents, swearing that you haven't given false testimony. If you do that, I, Yang Tang, will accept my defeat! But if any of you are unwilling or too afraid to swear, then I curse your future children to be born without an asshole! Well, enough said. Black-rimmed glasses, you, first!"

The boy with the black-rimmed glasses instantly gave a start. Sitting on the edge of his bed and hesitating for a few seconds, he suddenly raised his head and said, "Instructor, I confess. I lied earlier. The thermos was smashed by Liu Tong, and the water soaked Yang Tang's boots. That's why Yang Tang jumped down from the top bunk and stepped on Liu Tong's foot. Then Liu Tong tried to hit Yang Tang, but he accidentally slipped, fell, and got his hands full of broken glass!"

"Right, right, right! Glasses is telling the truth, Instructor!"

"Things happened just the way Glasses described."

"It was Liu Tong who promised to give each of us ten thousand yuan after it succeeded, so we were blinded by greed and wanted to help him testify."

Once the first defector appeared, the other freshmen successively changed their testimonies.

Liu Tong's expression shifted drastically, yet he still intended to argue to the end. "Instructor Li, you saw it too! Yang Tang used crooked methods to threaten his classmates, forcing them to collectively commit perjury to frame me!"

"Is that so? Floral underwear—" Yang Tang cut in before Instructor Li could speak. "Liu Tong, do you dare swear before me?"

"I won't swear! I won't swear, I just won't swear!" Liu Tong behaved like a rogue.

The crowd looked at him with disdain.

Instructor Li had already seen through the truth. With a dark face, he said to Liu Tong, "Liu Tong, come with me to the platoon office. Yang Tang, you come too!"

After dinner, Yang Tang and Liu Tong, each given fifty strokes of the board (metaphorically speaking), returned to the dormitory.

Both of them had received a harmless warning.

Yang Tang knew very well that Instructor Li was biased toward Liu Tong, but while in the platoon office, he hadn't uttered a single word of objection. However, he had etched this grudge into his heart. The mountains are high and the rivers are long; Liu Tong still had several years to study at Peking University anyway. He had plenty of opportunities to deal with him and completely ruin his entire family.

Right at this moment, back in the dormitory, the other eight freshmen intentionally or unintentionally isolated both Yang Tang and Liu Tong.

As darkness fell, the group of instructors who had entered the forest finally returned to the base, carrying the corpse of the wild man. The leader, Qin Yijian, was extremely frustrated. According to previous intelligence, the wild man had also abducted a female student. However, after discovering the wild man's corpse and searching the forest for another two hours, they failed to find a single trace of the female student being abducted.

"Chief Qin, the female dormitory has already taken a headcount of the girls, and not a single one is missing!"

"What?!" Qin Yijian was horrified upon hearing this. "Are you certain not a single one is missing?"

"Yes. Not only did they take a roll call on the girls' side, but every female student even signed their name next to their roster."

"What about the boys? Could it be that they are missing someone?"

"No. Every platoon secretly conducted a headcount, and not a single one is missing either!"

"Now that is strange!"

Just then, another guard knocked on the door of Qin Yijian's office. "Reporting, Chief, the people from the Seventh Bureau of Security have arrived. They said—"

"They said they want to examine the corpse!"

"Right now?" Qin Yijian asked in surprise.

"Right now."

"Then lead them to the morgue. Coincidentally, I've also been wanting to witness the Security Bureau's supreme skills and clever methods!"

In the cold, bleak room lay four corpses.

Two corpses of Security Bureau personnel.

One corpse of a base sentinel.

Finally, there was the wild man's corpse brought back by Qin Yijian and his men.

Two Security Bureau operatives, one tall and one thin, shook hands with Qin Yijian and introduced themselves. "I'm the thinner one, so my nickname is Dried Radish. He's the taller one, everyone calls him Intestines!"

"Intestines as in someone tall?!"

"No, like a fatty pork intestine."

Qin Yijian was speechless, choking on his words for a long time before saying, "I'm decent with cold weapons. My codename is Blade Wolf!"

"Alright, since everyone is acquainted now, let's get down to business!"

While Dried Radish was speaking, Intestines had already removed the white cloth covering the two Security Bureau corpses. He flipped the bodies left and right, inspected their teeth, and concluded, "It's indeed Little Zuo and Old Zou. Old Zou had his neck snapped. As for Little Zuo, his cause of death seems to be excessive blood loss?!"

"Excessive blood loss?! Where is the wound?" Dried Radish asked.

"Look at Little Zuo's neck on the side. He was bitten, a chunk of flesh was torn off, and his carotid artery was severed—"

"But that shouldn't be the reason for his excessive blood loss, should it?" Qin Yijian said.

Hearing this, Intestines gave Qin Yijian an eerie smile. "That might not necessarily be true!"

Dried Radish glared at Intestines and said, "If you don't speak, no one will treat you as mute. Look at the next corpse. Hmm, this sentinel was shot in the chest, nothing much to see."

"The last corpse—" Qin Yijian introduced it himself, "has nine wounds all over its body, none of which hit a vital spot, yet they somehow sent this wild man to a dead end!"

"No, you're wrong, Blade Wolf!" Intestines refuted Qin Yijian's deduction, pointing at those wounds. "Have you ever considered what kind of thing could cause wounds this thin and narrow?"

Qin Yijian slowly shook his head. Skilled as he was with cold weapons, he still couldn't imagine what kind of object could cause such bizarre wounds.

At this moment, Dried Radish seemed to have noticed something. He lifted the hem of his shirt to reveal a neat array of throwing knives at his waist, ranging from wide to narrow, large to small. Casually drawing a medium-sized throwing knife, he spun it on his fingertips, then swiftly sliced into the wild man's already stiff corpse, cutting horizontally along one of the wounds. "Just as I thought!"

"What is it?"

Dried Radish remained silent, continuing to cut and carve until he finally sliced off a piece of human flesh the size of two palms and the width of one.

Intestines and Qin Yijian stared foolishly at the piece of meat in Dried Radish's hand.

Dried Radish said irritably, "Don't look at the meat in my hand, look at the corpse I just carved open!"

The two of them immediately peered inside, horrified to see that the wild man's internal organs seemed to have been churned by a washing machine.

Even more terrifying was that amidst that paste-like mess of organs, there was strikingly a piece of azure-green tree leaf.

Plucking flowers and leaves can injure people!

Dried Radish and Intestines exchanged glances, both of them filled with shock and awe!

New week, seeking collections, seeking collections, seeking collections!!