Chapter 199 Major Event : Blood Clan Hunter (Part )
On July 7, in the Hongdeng Commercial District in Huanjing City, in a remote and secret basement.

The light bulb on the ceiling cast a pale light, covering an operating table underneath. On the cabinet at the head of the bed, there were some blood-stained dissection tools.

God knows what Anti-Dog has done here.

At this moment, Ke Mingye was sitting on the bed, hunched over, holding a black spare cell phone. He took a deep breath, and cold sweat oozed from his palms.

At this moment, twenty minutes had passed since the Blue Owl was abducted by the vampire hunter.

During these twenty minutes, the blue owl's vision was black, his hearing was likewise silent, and his body was unable to move.

It was like being locked in a cramped and dark box, unable to make any sound and unable to see anything.

Ke Mingye turned on his mobile phone and stared at several contacts on the interface: Ke Xiaomo, Bai Qiuwu, and Bai Zini.

"We must act quickly. Today may be our only chance." He thought, "The puppet only lasts for 6 hours, which means it will explode around o'clock at night. By then it will be too late."

Twenty minutes ago, in the Super Hero Building, the trickster puppet pretending to be Blue Owl did not really faint.

Ke Mingye only pretended to be dizzy so that the archer could take him away without any worries. But he never expected that the doll would be sucked into a box of unknown origin.

But there is no need to guess, to know that it is most likely a prop used by vampire hunters to capture vampires.

Since she didn't kill Blue Owl directly, then Gastro must have her own intentions. She probably wanted to force something out of Blue Owl, so she let the archers take him away.

This was exactly what Ke Mingye wanted. He needed this vampire hunter to bring the blue owl to Gastro.

Then, relying on Blue Owl's perspective and the information gap between the two sides, he tried to find out Gastro's location, and then caught all the vampire hunters today.

"The puppet's hearing finally responded. It seems that the archer has already released it from the box." Ke Mingye thought, "Twenty minutes of coma should be enough. Waking up now won't be too abrupt."

Thinking of this, Ke Mingye ordered the blue owl to slowly open its eyelids and slightly raise its eyes.

He looked at his body and saw that Blue Owl was tied to a thick pillar with layers of iron chains, his hands and feet unable to move. His body was suspended in the air.

Blue Owl was still wearing the combat uniform, but he didn't have a mask on his head. Looking down, he saw his red and blue helmet tilted on the ground, with his beak touching the edge of the pillar.

He shifted his gaze away from himself and looked up, and what came into view was a floor that looked like it had been abandoned for a long time.

The blue owl's nose twitched slightly, and a stale, musty smell came towards him.

The air was filled with years of accumulated dust. The walls had long lost their original color. The mottled wall skin peeled off in pieces, revealing the yellowed bricks and stones inside. Moss even grew in the corners of the wall.

Hanging from the ceiling were several old, non-functional chandeliers, some of whose lampshades had broken, revealing their rusty lamp bases.

The ground was covered with a thick layer of dust and debris, and apart from that there were some scattered footprints.

All the windows were broken, and without the protection of glass, the warm midday breeze fell into the floors.

There were some furniture scattered around the floor, most of which had fallen apart. The wooden tables and chairs had decayed and deformed due to long-term exposure to wind and rain, and the metal products were covered with rust.

There were some tattered papers and sundries piled up in the corners, and occasionally a few open but unread books could be seen, their pages yellowed and curled, and the words blurred.

At this moment, a few rats were running quickly through the ruins, making slight rustling sounds. The sun shone in through the broken windows, casting mottled shadows on the ground.

The only person on this floor was a girl in a wheelchair, with long red hair and a pale face, but her sculpture-like features exuded a transcendental beauty.

Like a statue made by God himself, it stands beautifully in the center of the dirty and messy world.

Is this... Gastro's true form?
Ke Mingye was stunned for two seconds, thinking to himself, the red-haired girl in Blue Owl's eyes is exactly the same as the figure in Che Zhengchen's brain imaging picture.

At this moment, Gastello was looking down at a fairy tale book quietly, with the corners of her mouth slightly raised, like a girl immersed in a story.

Just as Blue Owl was observing her profile, a cold voice suddenly reached his ears.

"So you're awake."

Gastro said this without even looking up.

Hearing this, the blue owl opened its mouth slightly and made a slightly hoarse sound.

"You've discovered all this... So, red-haired lady, why did you hire someone to bring me here? Could it be that you're my crazy fan and want to chat with me alone?"

He paused, then continued, "If that's the case, you should just tell me directly. There's no need to be so rude. I'm a bad guy and I accept everyone, especially such a beautiful lady."

Gastro didn't care about his nonsense. He just kept his eyes down and quietly flipped through the fairy tale.

Amid the rustling sound of her fingers rubbing against the pages of the book, she said, "Like others have said, you talk a lot."

"Isn't it?"

"My name is Stro," she said. "Someone asked me to kill you, so I had no choice but to bring you here."

"Who?" Blue Owl paused, "Could it be... that weird thing?"

"I don't know who the weird thing you're talking about is. But if I'm not mistaken... it should be the dice monster, right?"

"What else?" Blue Owl sighed.

Stro said casually: "He is such a strange man, dressing himself up in such a shabby way."

"Indeed, it's very strange."

After saying that, Blue Owl thought for a while, then said belatedly, "Wait, so you are planning to hand me over to the Dice Freak now?"

Stro said, "Of course. I'm waiting for him to show up, although I don't know when he will show up."

Hearing this, Blue Owl sighed softly and said unhappily, "Let me put it this way. Although I don't know what your purpose is, you have been fooled by him... He will not show up. I know his character very well."

"Actually, I'm not just interested in you, Dice Freak. I'm also personally interested in you."

"Uh... so it's really a fan meeting?"

As Blue Owl spoke, he tried to move his head, but failed. His neck was bound by the chain and he was almost suffocated.

Stroll turned the pages and said, "You know, when you put on that mask, a panel appears on your head; and when you take off the mask, the panel disappears. This is very strange. This is the first time I have seen this."

"I don't understand what you are saying." Blue Owl said, "Although this is not polite, are you sober now, or are you out of your mind?"

"You really don't understand?"

"I don't understand." Blue Owl sighed again.

"In short, you are not a normal person," Stro paused, "but you are not a player either, because I tried to send you a friend request, but failed."

Hearing this, Ke Mingye in the basement widened his eyes slightly, thinking, "Sure enough, she is Gastro herself, otherwise how could she send a friend request to Blue Owl... That's right, as long as my second brother and dad find this place, it will be enough. Those vampire hunters should be ambushing nearby, but they can't be a match for dad."

He controlled Blue Owl and said, "Player, now I understand. So you are the organization that wants to exterminate parahumans within a year?"

"To be precise, I'm just one person, I don't have any organization." Stro raised his lips, "Other players don't want to play with me."

"You know, when they heard that you were going to exterminate superhumans, many heroes in the association were laughing." Blue Owl said, "Laughing at your lack of self-awareness, laughing at the fact that those senior executives were actually worried about this kind of thing: in order to detect whether there are any superheroes mixed in, the authorities asked us to test a helmet here and there. To be honest, it's quite troublesome. Do you know how much trouble you have caused to others? Turn back from your mistakes, lady. Since you are so cute, let me go now, and I can withdraw the lawyer's letter against you."

"Exterminating superhumans is indeed ridiculous."

"Right?" Blue Owl asked back, "So you still want to do this?"

"No, just them." Stro said, "I have never thought about exterminating superhumans, even if the price of not doing so is that I will die."

Hearing this, Blue Owl was stunned for two or three seconds, and then he said in a long voice: "Uh... are you kidding?" He paused, "If the superhumans are not exterminated, they will die. What kind of evil cult is this?"

"No kidding."

Stro said calmly, his eyes looking at the ugly duckling in the fairy tale book, his slender fingers touching his chin, "If you want me to describe my feelings, it would probably be... the ugly duckling grew into a white swan, and the white swan ate the ugly duckling." "Sorry, I don't quite understand."

The blue owl squinted slightly and looked at her with a strange look.

"What I mean is, I should have been a girl dying in a hospital bed, but I chose to be who I am now," said Stro. "I chose to acknowledge the people around me, so..."

She paused and said softly, "I strangled that girl to death on the bed with my own hands."

"I still don't understand. Can you speak human language?"

Stro said: "It's normal that you don't understand. You can think of it as me killing time and talking to myself."

The blue owl lowered its head and took a deep breath.

"Okay." He said after a while.

"Then can I continue talking to myself?" Stro asked politely.

"Please do as you please," said Blue Owl. "I'm still tied up."

"What shall I say?"

"You're the one asking me?"

"Oh... I see." Stro stared at the fairy tale book intently, his fingers running across the pages, and said slowly, "You know, I really like reading fairy tales."

“Who wouldn’t like that?”

Blue Owl said nonchalantly.

Stroh said, "Yeah, who wouldn't like that?"

She gently turned the pages of the book with her fingers and said, "I have two memories in my mind. In one memory, I was a girl from the slums, hugging a tattered fairy tale book to sleep every day; in the other memory, my situation was not so bad or dirty, but I was abandoned by my parents because I had a terminal illness. I sat on the hospital bed every day, and the only thing I could do was to flip through the fairy tale book that I had read many times."

After thinking for a while, she continued, "I like 'Cinderella' very much. I often think that one day I will have crystal shoes on my feet, a carriage will take me out of the ward and go to a party, a prince will hold my hand and kiss the back of my hand, and there will be a brilliant crystal chandelier above my head instead of that boring and depressing ceiling."

At this point, she paused.

“Although fairy tales are just fairy tales, they give a desperate girl hope. They allow her to imagine that perhaps there are still good things happening in this world.”

Blue Owl thought for a moment and said, "Uh... So, you are a schizophrenic?"

"Well...if you insist, then I feel like all players are schizophrenic." Stro whispered.

"Actually, I don't know much about the 'Players' organization. I only know a little bit about it from other people." Blue Owl said, "But I feel that you should not be a very bad girl."

Blue Owl thought for a moment, then said, "So among the players, are you considered a traitor, or something?"

"almost."

"Oh, no wonder those players don't want to play with you. It seems that you are a smart person. You are not brainwashed like them. This is a good thing."

"Well...it's not really brainwashing, because if the parahumans weren't exterminated, they would really die."

Blue Owl was stunned for a moment, then he sighed: "Okay, although this is ridiculous, I will try to accept it."

After saying that, Blue Owl was silent for a while, then asked: "What about you, does it matter if you die?"

"It doesn't matter." Stro said calmly, "I have died many times. The first time was when my parents gave up paying for my medical expenses. The second time was when I was lying on the hospital bed, watching the trees wither outside the window and my hair being shaved off by the doctor. The third time was when I saw the Arctic sky for the first time... At that moment, I strangled my past self to death with my own hands."

As she spoke, she raised her fingers to turn the pages of the book, lowered her face, and her profile was shrouded in mottled light and shadow, "So I'm not afraid of death."

"Because you don't want to do something against your will?"

"Not really." Stro pondered, "I just want some people to be alive, but they are superhumans, which means that if I want to survive, I have to hurt them."

"So, you're giving up your life?"

"No, if I kill them, I will give up my life." Stro said, "They are the meaning of this life for me. Even if it is only for one year, it is enough for me to be happy."

She paused and said, "So I want to protect them from other players."

"You're right." said Blue Owl, "But why did you kidnap me? I'm not a player, am I?"

"Because I'm dying." Stro said, "If I don't find a white-haired vampire, I'll die soon. I won't even be able to survive these few days, let alone a year."

"why?"

Hearing this, Stro gently lifted the sleeves of her dark red dress. Her arm was covered in blood, forming a hideous pattern, a devil's face.

With this pattern as the center, black blood vessels spread throughout her body.

"I need a heart, a vampire's heart." Stro said, "But I can't find her... So, before using more extreme means, I want to try to find her through the dice monster. This can avoid a lot of sacrifices."

She paused, turned her head, and met Blue Owl's gaze: "Although I am sorry, for my own purposes, I may have to kill you."

"So you told me all this just to explain why you wanted to kill me?"

"That's right, but there's also some boredom involved." Stro smiled, "You can think of me talking to myself, I won't feel guilty. Because I've died three times."

After the words fell, the air on the deserted floor was briefly shrouded in silence.

The blue owl did not speak again. Instead, it lowered its head and pondered quietly.

While Gastro was flipping through the book and not asking him any more questions, he took out the Anchor Sunglasses from his "Player's Bag" and put them in his mouth to avoid being discovered.

Then he pressed the button on the frame of his sunglasses with his teeth.

[With you as the center, the only person within an eight-meter range is Gastro (player). Do you want to set an anchor point on this person? ]

"set up."

Blue Owl responded in his heart.

[An anchor point has been set on the player "Gastro". In the next ten minutes, as long as you put on your sunglasses and press the button on the edge of the sunglasses again, you can get the player's location coordinates. ]

The system prompt sounded, and Blue Owl quickly put the Anchor Sunglasses into his bag, raised his eyes, and quietly observed Gastro to make sure she didn't notice his little move just now.

At the same time, in the basement of Hongdeng Commercial Street.

Ke Mingye let go of his phone, took out a pair of Anchor Sunglasses from his bag, put them on his face, and then pressed the button on top.

Then, a map of the Beijing-surrounding cities appeared on the lenses of the sunglasses, with a conspicuous red light spot flickering in a corner of the map.

"This location is..."

Ke Mingye paused and blurted out a place name.

“The old town of Lodi.”

Soon, he released another trick puppet in the basement, made this trick puppet keep its original appearance, put on a night belt, turned on the stealth mode and walked towards the exit.

Then he picked up his spare phone, opened the Caibing Design APP, and sent a message to Ke Xiaomo's email.

[Mr. Strange Thing: Oh, Mr. Ninja, you must be very anxious now. Your brother was suddenly kidnapped, but you don’t know where he is. ]

【Mr. Weird Thing: But don't worry, I have good news for you. 】

[Strange things: Old Town of Luodi, west entrance, the fifth abandoned building from left to right on the west side. You're welcome, there may be a lot of people lying in ambush there, so be careful.]

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(End of this chapter)