Chapter 29 Part 1

In Ode’s best-case scenario, direct conflict was never at the top of the list. Ghouls were the sort of creatures where spotting one in an area meant the entire region was crawling with countless more of them. The smartest move was to tail one back to its nest and wipe the whole colony out in a single stroke.

But with the unexpected already in motion, all he could do was damage control.

Ode swiftly holstered his pistol—safety disengaged—tucked it into the waistband holster at his back, slammed the windows shut, and dragged the thick bedding from the bed to wrap up the Old Ghoul. This would contain the stench of death and keep it from wafting out to summon its kin.

At the same time, he pulled out his phone and fired off a text to Little Qianning: “Find an excuse to get out of the residence.” Then he strode straight out of the room. Following the unhappy voices of Qian Ning and his sons, he rapped on the door of the master’s study and pushed it open without waiting for permission.

“Sorry to barge in,” he said. “I heard Mr. Old Qianning was back and wanted to pay my respects. Do you remember me? We met once at the banquet at Mida University.”

If Ode had more time, he could have made the introduction flawless and casual. But that corpse in the guest room was ticking like a time bomb, and the bedding and sealed windows would buy him only two or three minutes at most.

Big Qianning froze for less than half a second before erupting in fury. He shot up from his seat and stormed toward Ode. “You! You fickle little opportunist! You saw I had more power than that idiot downstairs, so you ditched him to throw yourself at me. And now that my father’s back, you want to climb into his bed?!”

“Enough.” Old Qianning’s voice came from behind the desk, listless and restraining. His face—almost identical to Little Qianning’s, save for faint lines at the corners of his eyes—lurked behind delicate wisps of incense smoke, oriental and elegantly faint. A air of refined weariness clung to him.

He carried the scholarly aura of a man steeped in books, something Little Qianning might never quite cultivate no matter how many years passed. Even his speech was languid, as if expending any extra effort was too much trouble.

“For something this trivial to get your blood boiling… How do you expect to take over the bank and deal with those old foxes in my stead? Get out.”

“You…!” Big Qianning showed little outright respect for Old Qianning—more like a wary tolerance.

Ode watched the father-son exchange with cold detachment, his suspicions mounting.

The incense in Old Qianning’s study wasn’t overpowering; it seemed more for calming the mind than masking any corpse stink.

Old Qianning himself wore no gloves. His exposed fingers had neatly trimmed nails, pale with a faint flush—signs of frailty, but well within human norms.

It didn’t add up. How could a truly refined, sickly ordinary human hold such unchallenged authority in a house full of ghouls? How could he claim the main residence and summon Big Qianning from the front lines with a single word?

Combined with Little Qianning’s earlier remark—”Don’t look at me, Father”—could it be that the ghouls infesting this house were bound by some contract, kept as Old Qianning’s private menagerie?

No. Not quite. There was still a missing piece to this puzzle.

He hadn’t yet figured out what Little Qianning meant by “Don’t ask me, I know nothing.” What was Old Qianning trying to pry from his son’s lips?

Little Qianning had brought Ode here, which meant the monsters in the house weren’t some deadly secret he’d die before revealing. So what was the real secret? Was that what Old Qianning wanted to uncover?

A hazy shadow flickered deep in Ode’s mind, like a reflection shimmering on water. He felt as if he’d grasped the final piece at some point, but it wouldn’t settle long enough for him to see it clearly.

Fortunately, he only needed to clarify one thing to decide his next move: What exactly was Old Qianning’s attitude toward Little Qianning?

Under Big Qianning’s blazing glare, Ode stepped forward, his expression anxious as he seized Old Qianning’s hand where it rested flat on the desk. He was about to explain that he’d run into Little Qianning by chance today, catching him in the act of scoring drugs from a dealer—

“Blake!!! Enemy attack—someone killed Blake!!”

The maid’s shrill scream shattered the oppressive silence throughout the entire residence.

Ode’s eyes flickered. He yanked the pistol from his waistband in an instant. The next moment, Big Qianning lunged at him with a roar of rage. The hulking, wolf-like body—more grotesquely transformed than before—slammed Ode’s lower ribs hard against the sharp corner of the desk.

Thud!

The bullets struck Big Qianning’s abdomen with that dull impact. But Big Qianning merely let out a pained howl before sinking his teeth viciously into Ode’s neck!

The study door crashed open with a bang. Three or four ghouls disguised as servants scrambled in on all fours like hyenas, one even skittering across the ceiling.

The last traces of color drained from Old Qianning’s face amid the chaos. He stared breathlessly at Ode, whose neck was now clamped in those jaws. Old Qianning lurched to his feet; his chair screeched across the floor. For a split second, even Ode—despite his own predicament—worried the man might hyperventilate into shock.

But the next instant, Old Qianning yanked open the drawer beside him and fired at the floor-to-ceiling window behind.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The glass shattered with a sharp tinkle. Old Qianning, face ashen, gripped his gun without hesitation and leaped out the window!

“Set it on fire! Burn everything!”

“Hurry! Torch it all—especially the study!!”

Shouts poured into the room from outside the door and window, carried on fierce night winds.

A low, rumbling growl vibrated from Big Qianning’s throat, right against Ode’s neck. The other ghouls reinforcements lunged in, snapping and biting.

They became a writhing tangle of limbs, rolling from under the desk to the side of the coffee table.

Ode ignored the blood gushing from his neck. He jammed the gun barrel into Big Qianning’s chest from behind and fired several rounds in quick succession, the impacts shoving the brute—who was tough as Dagon himself—back. Then, with one hand on the coffee table, Ode vaulted the obstacle and leveled the pistol at the three incoming ghouls.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

They dropped. Ode scooped up the unused crystal ashtray from the table, planted his right foot on the edge, and kicked off backward. This blocked Big Qianning’s charge while propelling him out of the study.

The entire residence now crawled with spider-like ghouls. Ode arched a brow, ignoring Faust’s sudden chatter in his earpiece—urging him 【Eat up! Look at all these desserts delivered right to the door!】. Instead, he deliberately slowed a step, letting Big Qianning pounce onto his back—

Crack! The wooden balustrade splintered under the weight of two grown men.

Thud—Ode let Big Qianning slam him down the stairs, crashing into the swarm of ghouls on the first floor.

Faust tsked through the earpiece: 【Clever kid.】

The next moment, nearly every ghoul inside the residence—busy setting the fires—turned toward the seemingly helpless prey. They surged toward where Ode had fallen. No one spared a thought for “Enemy breach—run while the fire’s small,” even though no one guarded the outer gates of Qian Ning Mansion.

Layer upon layer of ghouls piled on, forming the perfect barrier.

Protected by his custom-tailored suit, Ode steadily emptied the remaining fourteen rounds from the Beretta’s magazine with precise shots. As fresh ghouls bared their fangs in sneers, he raised a brow and flicked the gun.

A eerie crimson glow trailed the Beretta’s barrel. The next instant, under the enemies’ suddenly widened stares, Ode hefted an FN MAG machine gun in place of the pistol.

Bratatatata…

If the ghouls pierced through the skull by those special bullets could still speak, they’d probably curse “Fuck me” in their dying breaths.

But under the onslaught of raw violence and gunfire, the ghouls simply fell wave after wave. Only when the outer layers finally sensed something wrong from the collapsing human pyramid did some try to leap away and flee. Then Ode shouldered the low-velocity grenade launcher tube and aimed upward at the tower.

Boom!

The heavy round punched a tunnel straight through the pyramid, incidentally blasting a hole through the Qian Ning Mansion’s ceiling—shrouded in flames and smoke—right up into the night sky.

Only then did Ode discard the launcher and agilely climb free from the passage. His green eyes flashed in the flickering firelight. In a blink, he dashed from the front door around to the back, devouring the last fleeing ghouls.

“Urgh…” Big Qianning dragged his machine-gun-riddled, tattered body groggily from the corpse pile. He lifted his head and saw a red-haired young man perched elegantly on the cabinet by the back door. The youth’s suit was pristine save for some staining. He sat with legs crossed, languidly sucking the marrow from the skull of one of Big Qianning’s kin.

The line between light and shadow fell precisely on the young man’s elegant, lean hand braced on the cabinet. The erratic firelight made the blood droplets trickling down his pale fingers gleam like rich wine.

Hearing the noise, the red-haired youth suddenly turned. With a casual toss of the skull—”clack”—he flicked out a pale tongue to lick the blood from his fingertip. Demonic green light rippled in his lake-like eyes.

“Still want to fuck me?”

“……!!” Big Qianning’s hair nearly stood on end in shock and rage. He tried to move, but a modified AW sniper rifle was already trained on his chest, the red dot pinned to his heart like a death sentence. “I should have…”

He gnashed his teeth in hatred.

“Should have what?” Ode hopped lightly down from the cabinet, stepped over the carpet of corpses without a change in expression, and crouched before Big Qianning. “Should have fucked me back in the bedroom?”

Ode sighed in genuine regret. “It’s a shame—you’re not up to it. I actually rather like your face.”