Painkillers… rotting flesh…
In just a few short sentences, a truly horrifying story came together.
Su Zhisheng could walk into the interview room right now and take Gao Lijian away directly. But a human life was at stake. Instead, he strode quickly toward the door. Even so, he felt that if someone’s body was already rotting and oozing pus, things were likely grim.
As he walked, Su Zhisheng called Gao Lijian, who answered promptly as agreed.
“Something’s come up. We need to head back to school.”
This was their pre-arranged signal. Since they didn’t know what the interview location would be like beforehand, Su Zhisheng might not be able to barge in.
If Su Zhisheng discovered something was wrong, he would call. This made-up excuse gave Gao Lijian a good reason to leave immediately, without raising the bad guys’ suspicions.
Su Zhisheng always thought things through so carefully—no wonder Gao Lijian wanted him to come along to the interview.
Between the interview storefront and the Ronghua Beauty Salon, there was a narrow alley.
Less than two meters into the alley stood a massive trash bin.
These rows of buildings had storefronts facing the streets on both sides, with rental units in between. The commercial street was crowded with pedestrians, but the alley itself was quite quiet.
Su Zhisheng hung up the phone with one hand while pulling some jerky from his bag with the other, then headed into the alley.
Still some distance from the rats, he began speaking so they wouldn’t just run away.
“Little rats, this jerky is for you. Can you tell me more about what’s happening at the beauty salon?”
Under the streetlight, the rats stopped eating and stared at Su Zhisheng in astonishment.
“A human—you can understand rat talk?!”
“Humans hate rats the most. Is there poison in that jerky?”
“Squeak.” One rat sniffed. “There’s no smell of poison. Plus, this jerky is factory-sealed—it wasn’t made in someone’s kitchen. It should be fine.”
“Human, we smell more jerky in your bag. Each of us rats wants a pack as payment…”
Although rats in the city were never well-liked, there was no denying their intelligence.
Unlike squirrels, they were smart enough to haggle proactively.
“Deal.” Su Zhisheng took out more jerky and handed it over.
“I want to know the exact location of the patient inside the beauty salon. Also, when I call the police in a moment, they might ask unexpected questions. I’ll need you to cooperate.”
“Okay.” The rats, knowing he wanted to save someone, laid out the key information in just a few sentences.
Su Zhisheng quickly dialed the police station. “Hello, I’d like to report a crime. I overheard that the lead surgeon at Ronghua Beauty Salon isn’t on the premises, and a patient with a festering body is begging for help. They aren’t taking the patient to the hospital. I’m worried they might not make it…”
“The address of Ronghua Beauty Salon is… The patient’s room is in the basement, first floor below ground…”
The police officer said, “Okay, my colleagues will head there immediately. I’ll also contact 120 and have them send an ambulance to meet you.”
“Do you know what procedure the patient had and more about their current condition? I’ll relay the information to the doctors so they can prepare treatment in the ambulance…”
Good thing Su Zhisheng had been forward-thinking. He had already factored the cost of answering the police’s questions into the beef jerky.
When it came to shrewdness, humans still had the upper hand.
The rats kept their promise as well. “Squeak—the fat guy had liposuction on his thighs. Now the incisions are infected and oozing pus. He’s starting to ramble. I don’t think he’s gonna make it…”
By coordinating with the rats, Su Zhisheng successfully filed the report.
The alley reeked of garbage, so few people were willing to step inside. That went for passersby, and for Gao Lijian as well.
The noise from the busy street also provided good sound insulation. That was why Su Zhisheng, standing in the alley talking to rats, hadn’t been mobbed by pedestrians and gawked at like a madman.
Su Zhisheng put down his phone and walked out of the alley.
Gao Lijian was waiting in front of the interview storefront. He rushed over when he saw Su Zhisheng.
“Why on earth did you go to the trash can to make a phone call? It stinks back there. I’m amazed you lasted that long.”
Su Zhisheng chuckled. “I wasn’t even there for that long.”
Gao Lijian didn’t dwell on it and immediately got down to business. “You helped me dodge a bullet. I’ll buy you milk tea. This street is full of tea shops—which one do you want?”
The interviewer from earlier had just packed up and was about to clock out. When he heard Gao Lijian’s words, his expression immediately darkened.
Something came up at school? You seem pretty free to me—free enough to buy milk tea and hang around our storefront badmouthing us!
“Hmph. You’re young and ungrateful. You’ve missed a golden opportunity. You’ll regret this.” His gaze shifted to Su Zhisheng—the one who had successfully helped his friend avoid the trap.
Thinking about the commission he had just lost, the interviewer’s opinion of Su Zhisheng couldn’t have been lower.
“And you—you pretty boy. Afraid that your handsome, rugged friend might soar to greatness, so you deliberately sabotaged his path to fame. You’ll get what’s coming to you. He could change his fate with just a nose job, but you’ve forced him to stay stuck in the mud…”
Su Zhisheng raised his hand and pointed at the Ronghua Beauty Salon next door.
“This ‘fate-changing’ place you’re talking about—you don’t mean this beauty salon that treats human life like dirt, do you?”
“Treats life like dirt? That’s slander…”
Just then, the pedestrians on the street suddenly grew noisy.
“Look! Police cars are coming! They’re stopping! Did someone die here?”
The interviewer shuddered in fear. “…”
No way?
That’s Mrs. Su’s beauty salon. Her husband’s family runs one of the top entertainment companies. How could she possibly…
Su Zhisheng gave him a sidelong glance. “That poor person who got hurt today—you didn’t refer them there, did you?”
The interviewer broke out in a cold sweat, his legs turning to jelly.
Even if the surgery failed, it wouldn’t come back on him. But his own hands weren’t exactly clean. If the police dug deeper, who knew what they might uncover.
Su Zhisheng stepped toward him, a mocking expression on his face. “That patient is about to be in the spotlight—pretty famous, don’t you think? Go on, go claim credit for it.”
With that, he raised a hand and shoved the interviewer.
The interviewer stumbled. Though he wasn’t sick, panic made him forget how to control his limbs, and he fell straight to the ground!
Even as his palms scraped against the pavement, picking up grit and dust, he didn’t seem to notice.
“No, no—it must have been my coworker who referred them. I didn’t, I didn’t…”
Scrambling to his feet, terrified of having to face the bleeding or possibly dead patient, the interviewer fled without looking back.
The police car stopped in front of Ronghua Beauty Salon. The officers entered immediately and announced they were there to investigate.
The salon’s young assistant, who had just stepped out to buy painkillers, was dumbfounded at the sight.
“Someone reported that you’re treating a patient’s life like dirt—leaving them in the basement to die without a doctor present,” the officer said sternly.
He had revealed the location of the operating room right off the bat, clearly indicating that an insider had filed the report.
The assistant was so terrified she could barely stammer out a response. “No, that’s not true! The doctor said he’s on his way back. I just bought the painkillers. We wanted to help—”
“When is the doctor getting here?”
“…He said tomorrow.”
At that, the onlookers couldn’t help but curse.
“Tomorrow? Why doesn’t he just wait until the seven-day mourning period is over?”
“Is the beauty salon thinking that even if this person survives, they’ll need lifelong treatment, so they might as well drag it out and pay less in compensation?”
“Shady beauty salon! Pfft, disgraceful!”
Soon, an ambulance arrived and took the patient to the hospital.
The crowd that had been gawking moments ago turned away in discomfort.
The white gauze was stained with blood and pus—a gruesome sight. The stench of rotting legs mixed with the sterile smell of hospital disinfectant washed over them, making the spectators suffer for their curiosity.
Only a few people in the crowd continued to watch. Among them was Su Zhisheng.
His gaze landed on the victim’s face, and a flicker of surprise crossed his eyes.
“It’s actually him…”
He still remembered Zhou Jiale’s face. Though the younger brother was heavier, his features were quite similar to Zhou Jiale’s—Su Zhisheng recognized him at a glance.
The guy had been at the police station not long ago, spouting nonsense about how his older brother wasn’t as likable as him.
And now, just like that, he was lying on a hospital bed. No need to guess—this liposuction surgery was being paid for with Zhou Jiale’s death compensation.
But given the younger brother’s critical condition, the chances of a successful resuscitation seemed grim.
Even Gao Lijian, a big burly guy, was frightened by the gruesome scene. He swallowed hard.
“Zhisheng, thank god you stopped me. If I’d ended up at a shady salon like that, who knows what would have happened to me. The Su family runs a well-known entertainment company—how did their beauty salon turn out to be such a fly-by-night operation?”
Su Zhisheng thought about his stepmother’s status in the family, which was only above his own, and guessed that she had set up this shoddy operation using the Su family’s name as a cover.
The Wei family was above the Su family’s station, so naturally, they were in charge of organizing the engagement banquet. His stepmother was just helping out, handling only part of the arrangements. He hadn’t expected her to be doing so much underhanded work just to line her own pockets.
“We’ll have to wait for the police to investigate before we know the full story. You head back to the dorm first. I was the one who filed the report, so I need to go to the station to give a statement.”
Gao Lijian nodded. “Got it. No wonder you hid by the trash can to make the call—you were afraid the bad guys would come near and find out you were the one who tipped them off.”
No—the ones with secrets were the rats, and they were right next to the trash can.
Su Zhisheng silently remarked to himself.
Once again, in that familiar police station statement room, Su Zhisheng sat in the reporter’s seat.
And the people taking his statement were, again, the warm and cheerful young officer and the aloof Captain Xing Tianwei.
Xing Tianwei’s dark eyes settled on Su Zhisheng.
His brow furrowed slightly, as if he were pondering something.
“All the beauty salon employees we’ve taken statements from said they never saw you. Did you sneak into the salon?”
Xing Tianwei’s tone was probing. Though he raised the possibility, he felt the truth was probably otherwise.
Their current plan was to take statements first, then check the surveillance footage. But even without seeing the footage yet, Xing Tianwei had a vague suspicion.
This likely had something to do with what Su Zhisheng had been hiding all along.
Su Zhisheng picked up his cup and took a sip, calming his nerves.
He knew that he had never come into contact with anyone from the beauty salon, nor had he ever entered Ronghua Beauty Salon. Once the police reviewed the surveillance footage, he would definitely be exposed.
The moment he chose to file the report, he had already decided to reveal his ability.
Even though he had only met these officers a few times and didn’t have a deep relationship with them, the thought of working alongside them in the future, investigating the truth together, actually seemed quite nice.
With him asking small animals for clues, cases would probably be solved faster.
Su Zhisheng took a deep breath and finally spoke. “No. I didn’t enter the beauty salon.”
The young officer nodded. “Oh, I didn’t think so either. You’re not a secret agent—you don’t have that kind of skill. Your stepmother owns this salon, so your information came through family channels, right?”
He was cheerful by nature and was practically buzzing with gossip at this point.
“Your stepmother set you up with such a terrible marriage prospect. It’s only natural that you’d turn her in.”
“No, it didn’t come from my stepmother. I hardly talk to her.”
Su Zhisheng lifted his cup and took another sip. “After my last fever broke, I woke up able to understand animal speech. The rats in the alley told me about what was happening at the beauty salon.”
The young officer shot to his feet, his tone more serious than ever. “I’ll go prepare a urine test!”
Su Zhisheng: “…”
No, he wasn’t on drugs. He really hadn’t taken anything crazy!