“What's the meaning of this?” exclaimed Wong Kar Wai as the captain turned him around and placed handcuffs on his wrists.
There was no reply, however, from either of the enforcers in the room.
“There will be time for questions when we are back at the enforcer’s office,” said Captain Yue.
Tian Yi clutched a talisman tightly in her hand, wary of anything that might happen next. However, the coroner’s assistant appeared compliant, if a little bewildered.
“Please, at least tell me why I’m being arrested,” Wong Kar Wai pleaded.
“Let’s go, Tian Yi. I’ll get the boys outside to keep everyone away until we’ve finished the interrogation and gotten what we need. We can explain the situation to the Malay Union once we’ve gotten his confession.”
Tian Yi carefully collected her things and prepared to leave the house when a sudden scream came from outside the door. It was one of the enforcers.
Captain Yue suddenly jerked his hand back and shook it violently. His skin shone with a bronze gleam as he quickly muttered a spell. The spider that had failed to penetrate the captain’s skin was flung to the ground and crushed under his boot.
“Tian Yi!”
Tian Yi looked down and saw a centipede crawling up her pants. In a panic, she shook her leg and smacked it against the closest wall she could find. The creature let go of her clothes, seemingly dazed.
She turned around to look at the captain, only to see a swarm of insects overwhelm him, clinging onto every inch of his clothes and trying to sink their venomous fangs and stingers wherever they could.
Behind him, the sickly coroner’s assistant was taking off the handcuffs he had somehow managed to unlock. There was an ill, uncanny smirk on his face. He reached into his bag and dropped a vial onto the floor, which instantly shattered and released a noxious, foul-smelling gas.
A single whiff of the gas made Tian Yi light-headed. She immediately held her breath.
Wong Kar Wai sneered and headed for the window.
Suddenly, high-pitch shrieking filled the entire room. Swathes of insects crumpled and fell off Captain Yue’s body. The insects dropped to the ground, where they curled up into lifeless balls. The captain of the enforcers was glowing dark red now, steaming rising off of his skin as he swatted the disgusting creatures from his body.
Wong Kar Wai clicked his tongue in disdain and hissed, “My babies!”
The captain lunged at the coroner’s assistant without another word. He was several times larger than the scrawny man, but he moved with the explosiveness of a leopard. Wong Kar Wai abruptly stopped in his tracks. His unimpressive frame suddenly bulged with unnatural muscles as he turned around and delivered a vicious sidekick to the captain’s stomach.
Captain Yue was sent flying back and crashed into the ground rolling. He gasped in pain, but immediately placed a hand over his mouth to avoid inhaling the poison gas.
He motioned at Tian Yi to leave the house, right before Wong Kar Wai threw a wild haymaker. The captain was just barely able to dodge his blow and the air howled from the force of the punch.
The coroner’s assistant looked nothing like what he did before. He was almost twice as tall now and twice as wide as well. His muscles were larger and overdeveloped, bulging with veins all across. Strange protrusions and lumps would appear under his skin, squirming as they crawled across his body. Most of his clothes had been torn to pieces by the sudden transformation, leaving only a small piece of cloth around his waist to protect his modesty.
Keenly aware that he was running out of time, Captain Yue opened his mouth and muttered a spell with the last of his breath. A loud explosion blasted the rickety wooden house apart, sending debris sailing through the air and into the crowd waiting outside. People gasped and cried in shock as they scrambled to dodge the pieces of wood raining from above.
Captain Yue Ran emerged from the fog of poisonous gas and inhaled greedily, only to be interrupted by a giant fist that pummelled him to the ground.
The captain held his hands up to cover his face and quickly scrambled back onto his feet. The Steel Body Enchantment he placed on himself protected him from the brunt of these attacks, but the repeated impacts were adding up. The enemy’s superhuman strength and speed didn’t seem to be wearing off any time soon. However, they were in open air now. There was no more poisonous gas to slow him down.
Captain Yue collected himself and got into a combat stance, facing off against Wong Kar Wai as the brute prepared for another onslaught.
Wong Kar Wai swung his right arm back for another powerful haymaker. The captain stood still and waited. Just as the punch was about to land, he stepped forward with his right foot and pivoted his entire body. He grabbed Wong Kar Wai’s muscular arm with both hands as he muttered something. Using the man’s own momentum against him, he threw him violently to the ground.
There was a loud crack as Wong Kar Wai slammed against the magically hardened earth. The unmistakable sound of a shattered spine.
It wasn’t over yet. The coroner’s assistant showed no signs of pain and was still flailing wildly. Captain Yue chanted several spells in succession as he took out a handful of seeds from a pouch and scattered it across the ground.
The hardened earth turned soft as mud and engulfed the enemy, before hardening once more, trapping him in the ground itself. Then, the seeds cast into the ground started sprouting, their roots wrapping themselves around Wong Kar Wai tightly as they rapidly grew.
The captain panted in exhaustion. He had immobilized the suspect. He had started chanting another spell and was prepared to knock Wong Kar Wai unconscious and neutralize him for good when he noticed something strange.
Wong Kar Wai had returned to his original size and appearance. The transformation seemed to have taken its toll, however, as there were odd lesions and unhealthy patches all over his body. His face was somehow even more sickly white than before, with a hateful sneer painted across it. A mocking sneer, as if he was the one with the upper hand.
It was only then that Captain Yue saw the throbbing flood of insects and other vile creatures emerge from the gaps between the earth and the roots. Spiders, scorpions, centipedes, cockroaches, flies, ticks, fleas, and parasites of all sorts scattered across the ground and air, heading straight for the crowd.
Captain Yue froze as he realized Wong Kar Wai’s intention. He was planning to take out all these civilians with him. If these insects were half as lethal as they seemed to be, the consequences would be catastrophic. Not to mention the diplomatic issues that would follow an incident like this in Malay Union territory.
He moved quickly, delivering a swift and accurate punch to Wong Kar Wai’s jaw to knock him unconscious. He then leapt to his feet and recited a long and wordy spell. When he uttered the final syllable, a wall of fire burst forth between the crowd and the insect swarm. The insects screeched at the sight of the fire and backed off.
Unfortunately, some of the bugs had already made their way through, spreading panic and pain across the crowd. The Malay Union’s men leapt into action, swinging their weapons about and killing as many of the cursed creatures as they could. However, they were woefully unprepared for this sort of enemy. Their sticks and swords, even in the hands of their most skilled fighters, were ineffective at best against the creepy crawlies.
For every tenth spider they crushed, a centipede would find its way onto a fighter’s arm and bite down. The fighter would start bleeding profusely from the tiny wound, which would sizzle and burn as the venom intensified. Others would be paralyzed or outright knocked unconscious, leaving them even more vulnerable to the other insects. One man even seemed to have gone into hysteria from a venomous sting and was wildly attacking his own allies.
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The panic spread like a wave and in a matter of minutes, the situation was on the verge of running completely out of control.
Captain Yue had fired a magical signal into the air right after conjuring the wall of fire. He then put all his effort into squashing as many of the bugs as he could. Meanwhile, there was nothing Tian Yi could do as she watched the insects wreak havoc amongst the crowd. She stayed by the other two enforcers and did her best to keep the insects away. One of the enforcers was bitten earlier, at the very start, and was convulsing violently while unconscious.
Just then, a familiar figure appeared in the air, hovering on top of a sword. The mayor frowned when he saw the scene playing out underneath, but he immediately went into action. He chanted several complicated spells in a matter of seconds. The air on the ground suddenly turned warm and humid as the air above turned cold and dry. The contrasting temperatures of the air resulted in strong air currents that quickly built into a strong but contained vortex.
Many people lost their balance amidst the strong winds, but even more of the insects were ripped away and sent flying into the storm. The mayor brought his hands closer together and the storm slowly shrank in size, still with all the insects trapped inside. At last, when the vortex was only twice as wide as normal person, the mayor recited one last spell. He snapped his fingers and the vortex was ignited with flames. The firestorm burned every disgusting bug into cinders, reducing them into ashes.
Finally, he waved his hand and the sword he was standing on slowly landed on the ground. He immediately went about disposing what remained of the venomous insects that had survived his extermination.
When all was said and done, only a few people were left standing. Most of the crowd had been injured one way or another, either poisoned by the insects or bruised by the panicking people shoving each other.
The mayor shouted instructions at the reinforcement of enforcers that were arriving at the scene, yelling for them to get all the doctors they could find. He then strode over to where Captain Yue Ran was standing.
Before they could say anything to each other, a loud and indignant voice boomed from behind, “Wei De Xin! What is this? You had better explain yourself! Your enforcers march into Malay Union jurisdiction, force us to stand down for their investigation and now I have dozens of civilians injured and dying in my district?”
Mufti Aziz stopped in front of the mayor and stared at him. The mufti was much taller than the mayor and had to tilt his chin down to do so. His trimmed beard was fraying and split at the ends. His nice clothes were torn in several places.
The mayor didn’t back down.
“I am only just learning about this, as well, Aziz, but I assure you, we will have our explanation once we talk to the captain,” he said.
The mufti grunted but said nothing more. The two men turned to look at the captain of the enforcers.
Captain Yue let out a deep breath and explained the situation. The string of mysterious deaths, the arson of the funeral house, Mrs. Shaffi’s attack on Tian Yi; all of which led to the arrest of Wong Kar Wai and the current circumstances.
The mayor frowned a little when he heard that the captain had appointed Tian Yi as a provisional enforcer, but he let the issue slide.
“So what you’re saying is that the person responsible for all this destruction is the same person responsible for all those incidents before? And he did all that with these…bugs?” Mufti Aziz questioned skeptically.
The mayor scrunched his nose and said, “Gu sorcery. Poison and venomous insects. I always thought of it as folklore or just misunderstood home remedies. Horrible rumors spread around to demonize the minority tribes of South China. I didn’t think there were actual practitioners of this craft.”
“And it allows the user to take control of people?”
“I have to consult a few books on the matter, but it’s not impossible. If the insect hijacks the nervous system or the brain, it could possibly influence or even take over the host human. Very vicious stuff, this is. I can’t believe we let it go on for as long as it did.”
Mufti Aziz paused for a moment, before asking, “But if this culprit is so good at evading notice, how did you realize his identity? Why the coroner’s assistant?”
“She can explain that,” Captain Yue said as he motioned at Tian Yi.
Tian Yi was doing her best to help the other enforcers and the doctors arriving on the scene administered first aid to all the victims when she heard her name called out.
She quickly walked over and greeted the three men.
“Mayor. Mufti. Captain.”
“You were right about the assistant, Tian Yi. Tell them how you knew,” said the captain.
Tian Yi was still a little shaken over the whole incident, but too tired to feel any real emotion over it. She took a breath and explained.
“The first inkling I had that something was wrong was the multiple unexplained deaths occurring across the Undercity. The profiles of the victims were similar: most of them were working men in the mines and the factories. At first, I suspected some sort of poisoning, whether accidental or intentional—that would explain why the victims were so similar. It could be a result of a gas leak, or a contamination of a water source or the wine jars of certain taverns. However, the autopsy reports yielded no substantial results that could explain these deaths. That was the first dead-end we ran into.
However, the arson of the funeral house gave us another lead. The suspect in that case died of very similar causes to the previous victims, which would imply a mastermind. A question then comes to mind: why burn down the funeral house? The fire was started not with the intention of killing anyone, which means it was meant to dispose of something. A key piece of evidence, possibly. We sat down with the funeral house and discovered that two other bodies at the funeral house had died of the same causes as all the other victims— acute organ failure.
Which was why I came here to interview the wife of the victim, Mr. Shaffi. Only to be attacked by her in a frenzy. She seemed bent on killing me. It was irrational, too crazy and fervent for someone I had only met for the first time. Almost like the suspect in the arson case.
Mrs. Shaffi was a victim of the same mastermind, but why her? Why a woman this time? Because she knew something about the case, something that would have been enough to tip the enforcers off. Or perhaps she was a trap, meant for me.
That was when I put the pieces together and came up with a theory. There were too many unknowns in this case. Why these particular victims? Why the funeral house? How did they die? Why were we completely unable to determine a cause of death?
Then, it struck me. Across all of these incidents, there was only one constant— the morgue. Every victim was sent to the morgue for processing. All except for one, who had been sent to the funeral house instead. And suddenly, it all made sense. If the person conducting the autopsies was responsible for all these murders, they would be able to cover up the cause of the deaths. They could remove any incriminating evidence and provide false diagnoses to the enforcers.
And they would be unable to do so if the victim was no longer sent to the morgue. Which was exactly what happened with Mr. Shaffi. Being a Muslim, his body was sent to the funeral house for burial instead of cremation, which meant the funeral director would have found the smoking gun when he conducted his autopsy— an insect embedded in his body.
That gives us the motive for the funeral house arson. It also possibly explains the means by which he planted these insects in all of his victims. I believe the victims ingested the insects while they were drinking. Wong Kar Wai probably slipped his insects into the drinks of his unsuspecting victims at the tavern, poisoning their cups and wine bottles—”
“But Muslims don’t drink. So Mr. Shaffi couldn’t have been a victim,” Mufti Aziz interrupted out of the blue with an offended tone.
Tian Yi continued calmly, “Exactly. Mr. Shaffi was an accident. A miscalculation on the culprit’s part. He had been going after Chinese workers exclusively because he knew their bodies would be brought to his morgue, where he could manipulate the evidence.
So what happens when, for example, Mr. Shaffi decides to try a little of his colleague’s alcohol during a work break? You end up with a problem that needs to be disposed of.”
“But that’s all just conjecture. You have no actual evidence. Sure, this particular version of events fits nicely within your assumptions, but you can’t prove it,” the mayor protested.
“No, I had no evidence. But it was a firm enough conjecture to try and take action. I convinced Captain Yue to bring the coroner’s assistant here and we made sure to observe the autopsy closely. Just as we suspected, there was an anomaly. We found an insect at the base of Mrs. Shaffi’s spine.
Still circumstantial evidence, but it was strong enough to warrant an arrest of Wong Kar Wai. What I didn’t expect was for this to happen,” said Tian Yi sadly as she looked at the chaos all around them.
Mufti Aziz scowled as he listened to everything.
“How many enforcers were on the scene when you tried to arrest the culprit?” he asked.
“Four,” replied Captain Yue.
“So the enforcers tried to apprehend a high-risk target in the heart of the Malay Union, without taking any precautions whatsoever, with only four members and no other reinforcements?”
“We had no idea how powerful the enemy would be, or we would have—”
“That doesn’t change anything! If the enforcers had cooperated with us from the very start, we would have been able to help subdue Wong Kar Wai before he went on a rampage!”
Captain Yue scoffed and rebutted, “What do you think your response would have been if you walked in and saw four enforcers and a dead Malay woman in the house?”
The mufti was about to explode in rage when the mayor stepped in between the two men.
“Enough. Aziz, we will talk about the enforcers’ role in this problem later. Let us deal with this mess first and we can discuss everything else later. More importantly, I still have a pressing question in my mind.”
“What is it?” Mufti Aziz said harshly and impatiently.
“It’s good that we know who the culprit was and how he killed people. But why did he go after the workers in the first place?”
Captain Yue looked at Tian Yi, but she simply shrugged. It was the only thing she hadn’t figured out either.
The captain looked at the mayor and said, “We will have to ask the person in question.”
At that, everyone turned and looked at Wong Kar Wai, imprisoned under the earth and the mass of roots. The coroner’s assistant was oddly quiet.
A bad feeling crept up everyone’s spine. Captain Yue immediately hurried over to the criminal’s side and put two fingers on his neck.
He looked up at the others and declared coldly, “He’s dead.”