Chapter 286 - 125: One-Life Clear (Part 2)

Chapter 286: Chapter 125: One-Life Clear (Part 2)

Zhang Shutong hung up the phone with Qingyi.

A minute ago, Qingyi had told him that they had found Lu Qinglian.

The two of them had met up in the middle of the island.

Lu Qinglian didn’t have Qingyi follow her. Ruoping’s little electric scooter wasn’t very fast, so Qingyi simply rode back to the hospital.

Zhang Shutong mentally calculated the distance. Lu Qinglian was a little over ten minutes from the camera’s location.

And it was already 11:55 PM.

He was about to ride right under the camera.

Zhang Shutong was very clear about his role: find the woman’s trail ahead of time and then stall. Stall until Lu Qinglian arrived. It was not his job to confront her head-on.

So he stayed on his motorcycle without moving, turned the headlight to its brightest setting, and kept one hand ready to twist the throttle.

It was a cub-style motorcycle, also known as a farm bike—one of the most common vehicles on the island. Zhang Shutong knew its top speed was limited, so he had to be prepared.

Tucked into his pocket was an entrenching tool that Qingyi had brought for him, for self-defense.

Zhang Shutong wasn’t optimistic about it.

He was thinking about something else now.

He finally knew the killer’s identity, but what exactly *was* that thing?

And why did it want to kill Gu Qiuyan?

Perhaps all his questions would fall into place once they caught it.

He quickly ran through the intel he had on this woman. ’She’s fast, can’t hear, has unbelievable flexibility, can "transform" into other people... The known forms are Song’s ex-girlfriend, Gu Qiuyan’s mother, and Lu Qinglian.’

His job was to obstruct it.

But that was easier said than done. How was he supposed to do that? What if the creature simply ignored him?

’Constant interference?’

Traps were useless, and he didn’t have time to prepare any. Even calling his buddies was out of the question. This time, there would be blood.

’Or should I hide in advance?’

An idea suddenly struck Zhang Shutong. He knew the woman couldn’t hear, so she wouldn’t notice the roar of the engine when he accelerated. Maybe he could circle around and ram her from behind.

He checked the time. He’d already waited for five minutes. It was now midnight on the dot. But "early morning" was a broad term; the woman’s arrival wouldn’t be precise down to the very second.

Zhang Shutong decided to ride ahead and set up an ambush. He was on a narrow path flanked by tall grass. If he rode into the grass and turned off his headlight, the night itself would be the perfect camouflage.

No sooner said than done.

He began to turn the bike around. A motorcycle wasn’t like a bicycle; it was heavy. The melted snow on the ground had turned to ice, so he had to plant his feet on the ground and inch the bike around.

Zhang Shutong turned the front of the bike to face north.

The headlight beam shifted with it, and at the far edge of the light, he saw the figure of a long-haired woman.

His heart skipped a beat, and he was instantly on high alert.

’How is that possible?’

’When did she get here?’

Zhang Shutong had been paying close attention to every movement around him, not even missing the sway of the wild grass in the wind. Yet this woman had just appeared, silent and unnoticed. His first instinct was to twist the throttle and put some distance between them, but he slowly relaxed his hand.

The woman wasn’t running.

She didn’t even look like she was in a hurry, her pace unhurried on the snowy ground. Zhang Shutong was certain she had seen him, but her head hadn’t even turned in his direction. ’Could it be that her only goal is to get to the villa and kill Gu Qiuyan? That she can ignore everything else along the way?’

Zhang Shutong slowly backed the motorcycle up. The headlight bleached the woman’s face white. Normally, on such a cold day, a person’s breath would form a white cloud in the air, but he checked again and again—there was nothing.

’Just as I thought.’

’Just like the dead.’

But Zhang Shutong had been wrong about one thing. He had been racking his brain for ways to stop her, or how to get away if she spotted him. It never occurred to him that the woman would act as if she hadn’t seen him at all.

The discrepancy left him stunned for a moment.

’Could things be much simpler than I imagined? Do I just need to follow her carefully from a distance and wait for Lu Qinglian to arrive?’

The distance between them was closing.

Her pace remained unchanged. Every step she took forward forced Zhang Shutong to back his motorcycle up.

A faint anxiety crept into his heart. He realized he wasn’t obstructing her at all.

She wasn’t posing any threat to him at the moment, but she was still moving forward. He, on the other hand, had retreated dozens of meters. What was the point of that?

’Should I get a little closer?’

Zhang Shutong flashed his high beams, trying to get a reaction out of her, but the woman’s pace didn’t falter.

Lu Qinglian still hadn’t arrived.

Maybe she was only five minutes away from saving the day.

But the problem now was how to survive these next five minutes.

He was on a narrow, remote path. The only effective light source was his motorcycle’s headlight.

His phone’s flashlight was too weak. By the time it illuminated her face, it would be too late to react.

If he faced her head-on with the bike, he wouldn’t even have time to pull away if something went wrong.

If he turned the bike around to face the same direction she was going, the darkness behind him would swallow her figure, and he would lose his line of sight.

The howling wind even drowned out the sound of her footsteps. Zhang Shutong had never expected to face such a dilemma—

Face her, and you have no escape. Turn your back, and you can’t see her at all.

Zhang Shutong could see the woman approaching step by step, but she still acted as if she couldn’t see him.

’If she chases me, I’ll just ride off and lose her.’