36. Sucking Fingers

Let him go.

When Bai Ye finished these three words in a calm voice, a surge of emotion welled up in the depths of my heart, bordering on shock. I truly never expected that Bai Ye, under such circumstances and in order to protect me, would speak to the assassin Chen Mu in this manner.

The assassin Chen Mu immediately turned his head to look at Bai Ye. Because they were standing quite close, I felt a flash of anger cross his eyes, accompanied by a hint of murderous intent.

Yet, for some reason, I vaguely caught a trace of tension in his gaze as well.

Soon, he spoke to Bai Ye: "Bai Ye, do you dare to betray us?"

Bai Ye slowly walked toward us. When he was only about three meters away, he spoke again: "I said, let him go."

If Bai Ye hadn't kept his gun pointed directly at the assassin Chen Mu, I would have been scared out of my wits. The assassin Chen Mu was a madman, a demon; if he were provoked, he could throw me into the incinerator to melt away in a matter of minutes.

However, everyone in this world fears death, and the assassin Chen Mu was certainly no exception. Therefore, instead of pushing me further into the incinerator, he smiled sinisterly at Bai Ye and asked, "Bai Ye, do you want to die?"

Bai Ye stood there just as calmly and replied, "We will talk about everything else after you let him go."

The assassin Chen Mu was not intimidated by the muzzle of Bai Ye's gun. He immediately reached out, pinched my face, and said, "What, Bai Ye? You don't recognize me anymore, but you recognize him?"

Bai Ye did not answer. I only saw his finger on the trigger twitch slightly, ready to fire at any second.

In the end, the assassin Chen Mu backed down. With a sudden, fierce shove, he knocked me to the ground. Disregarding everything else, I immediately rolled a few times on the floor to distance myself from that terrifying corpse-burning machine.

As soon as I was safe, Bai Ye lowered his weapon.

At that moment, the assassin Chen Mu lunged forward fiercely, delivering a vicious right hook straight to Bai Ye's face.

His movements were exceptionally fast, and Bai Ye made no attempt to dodge, taking the punch squarely on the chin. Instantly, blood trickled from the corner of Bai Ye's mouth.

"Damn it."

Having drawn blood from Bai Ye, the assassin Chen Mu rebuked him harshly.

Seeing that Bai Ye did not fight back, the assassin Chen Mu kicked off the ground once more, leaped high into the air, and delivered a powerful kick straight to Bai Ye's lower abdomen.

Bai Ye's body swayed slightly, but his ability to absorb physical blows was truly extraordinary. Had it been an ordinary person, let alone standing, taking a kick like that from the assassin Chen Mu would have left them clutching their stomach and wailing. Yet Bai Ye stood firm like a towering green pine.

"Good. Since you're not afraid of death, I'll grant your wish today. If you dare to betray me, Chen Mu, you must bear the consequences."

With that, the assassin Chen Mu leaped once more, kicking the gun out of Bai Ye's hand and sending it sliding to the side.

Just as the assassin Chen Mu prepared to continue beating Bai Ye, Bai Ye suddenly spoke: "Have you had enough?"

The assassin Chen Mu froze for a moment, then stopped his assault and said to Bai Ye, "Bai Ye, do you really not even recognize me? Are you going to betray the Avengers?"

Bai Ye replied flatly, "That Bai Ye is already dead, blown to pieces along with the Dawn underground base."

Hearing this, I began to understand why Bai Ye had intervened to stop the assassin Chen Mu. Perhaps it wasn't purely to save me; rather, he must have been furious, with the seeds of hatred planted deep in his heart. Being treated as a disposable pawn by the organization was one thing, but the crucial point was that the assassin Chen Mu—the person he cared about most—had been colluding with the organization to use him all along. Knowing full well that I was an undercover agent, Chen Mu had still ordered him to fight side by side with me. This must have completely enraged Bai Ye.

When Bai Ye finished speaking, the assassin Chen Mu let out a cold snort and said, "In a killer's life, this kind of thing amounts to nothing. You want to betray the organization over this? That is not like you. Bai Ye, are you betraying us for his sake? Do you think it's worth it?"

With that, the assassin Chen Mu disdainfully pointed a finger at me on the ground.

Bai Ye simply stated quietly, "This life of mine was carried out of the base on his back; I owe him a life. In the future, however you wish to kill him, I won't interfere. But if you dare to kill him today, I dare to kill you."

As soon as Bai Ye finished speaking, the assassin Chen Mu burst into laughter.

After laughing, he turned his gaze back to me and said, "I won't kill you today, letting Bai Ye settle this debt. Next time, no one will be able to save you. Your body will ultimately belong to me."

True to his word, he turned and walked away.

Once the assassin Chen Mu vanished, Bai Ye came over to my side. Bending down, he produced a sharp blade and, with a swift movement, sliced through the ropes binding me.

Restoring my freedom, I sprang up in a single, fluid motion.

Looking at Bai Ye's clean and refined face, I licked my dry lips, wanting to say thank you, but the words caught in my throat.

Without missing a beat, Bai Ye told me, "Your police friends should be coming for you soon."

Having said that, he turned and left, departing with absolute decisiveness.

I gazed at Bai Ye's slender back, wanting to call out to him, but I held myself back. He was a criminal, a fugitive; I could not become friends with him, even though he had saved my life.

Just as he was about to disappear from my line of sight, Bai Ye suddenly turned his head and said, "Chen Mu, saving you was not to settle any debt; in my world, there are no debts of gratitude. I simply haven't figured out yet who the real A-Mu is."

With those final words, Bai Ye disappeared. Yet his remark landed on my heart like a heavy boulder, leaving me momentarily breathless.

What did Bai Ye mean? Could he not tell the difference between me and the assassin Chen Mu, unable to determine which one was the real Chen Mu, his true master?

Clearly, that psycho was his A-Mu, while I was merely an undercover police officer. How could he fail to see it?

Yet, upon further reflection, it made sense. After all, Bai Ye had just escaped from police custody, and the information at his disposal was still insufficient. Suddenly encountering two Chen Mus, he probably couldn't sort them out right away or tell who was acting.

As I pondered this, a phrase Summer had told me earlier suddenly popped into my head: "He is he, you are you, and you are simply you."

What on earth did Summer mean by those words?

I couldn't quite figure it out, yet it felt as though I grasped a glimmer of it.

Not long after Bai Ye left, just as I was planning to follow the direction they had taken to see if I could find a way out, I suddenly heard a deafening explosion not far away that nearly shattered my eardrums.

It turned out that Jin Ze had quickly tracked me down with the police and blasted open the ground above. Consequently, I was rescued in a very short time.

Upon returning to the police station, I recounted everything that had just transpired to Jin Ze. Based on the subsequent police investigation of the underground cemetery, it was virtually confirmed that this was likely a secret base of the Avengers in City X, where much of the training and murders took place.

With Chen Tianming's accidental death, the Avengers might not have been completely eradicated, but they were at least cleared out of City X, much like the Dawn base in the Murder Game case.

We then held an urgent meeting. The Return of the Dead case remained unsolved, but with the exposure of the secret underground cemetery, we were drawing close to its conclusion. What remained was the apprehension of the assassin Chen Mu.

However, when only the three of us were left, Jin Ze raised a perplexing question. He pointed out that the Avengers had suffered such a massive setback entirely because of the assassin Chen Mu. It was the assassin Chen Mu who, impersonating Bai Ye, had provided clues to the police, ultimately leading to the destruction of the Avengers. Therefore, theoretically, the assassin Chen Mu—who should have been the Avengers' trump card—was playing a bizarre role between these two cases and factions. Why such intense contradictions?

Yet, over the next few days, the entire world seemed to fall into an eerie silence. There were no murders, no news whatsoever regarding Chen Mu or Bai Ye; they seemed to have vanished into thin air.

I wasn't idle during those days either. Under Fang Qinghe's arrangement, I underwent brief training in police procedures, forensic traceology, and criminal psychology.

On the fifth day, long-awaited a clue finally arrived.

In a private room at the Sunshine KTV in the city, a female corpse was discovered. She had died a bizarre manner: the entire forearm of her right arm had been reduced to bare bone, the flesh having been gnawed off by someone. Upon autopsy, fragments of flesh matching her own arm were found in her stomach, and bite marks corresponding to her own teeth were discovered on her arm.

In theory, this meant the woman had eaten her own arm. Under normal circumstances, this would have been classified as a bizarre suicide case, especially since the deceased had ingested a large amount of drugs prior to death, likely inducing severe hallucinations.

However, everything changed after reviewing the surveillance footage, tying the incident closely to the Return of the Dead case.

We checked all the security footage of people entering the KTV during the few hours leading up to the discovery of the deceased, and ultimately, we spotted a familiar figure: the assassin Chen Mu. Of course, it could potentially have been me, but I had never been to that KTV, and both Fang Qinghe and Jin Ze trusted me unconditionally.

Furthermore, a critical piece of evidence emerged: semen was detected inside the deceased's body, and DNA profiling matched it to me—which, of course, meant it matched the assassin Chen Mu as well.