Chapter Thirteen: The Urban Legend Belonging to Feng Tianlin

Since he could upgrade his team members’ skills, could he also learn new skills himself?

On Long Mengting’s attribute panel, Feng Tianlin opened the skill menu and spent a thousand terror points in the system to redeem an invisibility skill for her. Everything went smoothly.

To his surprise, it worked!

If only he’d known earlier—he wouldn’t have squandered so many terror points...

With the six thousand points remaining, Feng Tianlin upgraded Long Mengting’s invisibility skill to Level 3, leaving only one thousand points. The higher the skill level, the more effective the invisibility: at Level 1, only her form disappeared and the effect lasted half a minute; at Level 3, some of her aura was erased as well, and the duration extended to a minute and a half.

Now, Feng Tianlin exuded an overwhelming aura of terror. Looking up from the sewer at the city above, the smile on his lips was chilling. “Let my terror blanket the entire city.”

...

Inside the Strange Investigation Bureau of Tianjing City.

All the bureau’s combatants had gathered, forming a circle around two corpses—one with a gaping hole in its body, the other missing half its head. They belonged to Feng He and Lü Li.

Chief Xiao Buyu’s expression was grim. He slowly lifted his gaze to Li Juetian. “Is there nothing you want to say?”

Li Juetian swallowed, also looking at Xiao Buyu, his eyes resolute. “At the time, that doll couldn’t kill even an ordinary person in one blow, which is why I classified it as Grade G. Besides, it was incredibly good at running away; I never managed to catch it...”

He was abruptly cut off by Xiao Buyu’s furious interruption. “Enough! I don’t want to hear any more excuses!”

Li Juetian was at a loss, bowing his head, unsure what else to say.

From the intelligence they’d gathered, they deduced that the doll was at least Grade E and possessed skills related to controlling corpses. They already knew that the young girl who had slaughtered alongside Feng Tianlin was the same girl whose corpse had disappeared the first time.

Everyone now believed that Li Juetian’s initial classification of the doll as Grade G was due to laziness; if the threat was low, he wouldn’t need to deal with it. His failure to capture Feng Tianlin these past days was likewise blamed on negligence. All accusations pointed at him.

The atmosphere was tense. Yuan Ren, ever sarcastic, chimed in, “Oh, you can’t blame Brother Tian for everything. After all, he’s a genius transferred from Lingcheng. Geniuses aren’t meant for investigations. The fault was mine, really—forcing him to take part led to all this trouble.”

He emphasized the word “genius,” casting sidelong glances at Li Juetian, his ridicule unmistakable.

“Yuan Ren! Don’t go too far!” Han Zhen couldn’t hold back any longer, raising his hand and pointing angrily at Yuan Ren.

However, before Han Zhen could finish, Li Juetian, his face dark, stopped him. “Han, don’t get so worked up.” He turned to Xiao Buyu. “At this point, there’s nothing left to say. Their deaths may very well be due to my faulty intelligence. Han and I take full responsibility!”

“Hmph!” Xiao Buyu snorted and walked away. The others followed suit, leaving the hall empty except for Li Juetian, his brother, and the two corpses.

Li Juetian stared grimly, his eyes bloodshot. “That doll is definitely not simple!”

He recalled the earlier scenes—the doll always acted according to a plan, never starting to kill immediately upon arriving somewhere, nor lingering after a murder. It was as if everything was orchestrated.

“What do you mean?” Han Zhen was puzzled. He couldn’t grasp what his brother meant by “not simple.” If it was about strength, the doll was only Grade E—Han could defeat it himself. If it was about instinct, that meant nothing against overwhelming power.

“I mean, it’s killing with a strategy!” Li Juetian looked up, tapping a report on the table.

Han Zhen was stunned. Strategy? That was unique to humans. Why could humans face the threat of strange creatures so calmly? Because they had strategy, while the monsters could only mindlessly kill.

But now his boss claimed a monster had a strategy... Han Zhen struggled to accept it.

“No... That’s impossible, isn’t it?” Han Zhen’s lips twitched in disbelief.

Having strategy and intelligence were two different things. Intelligence meant knowing how to kill and escape; strategy meant planning the murders, the escape routes... That would make things much harder for the two of them.

“I hope I’m just overthinking it.” Li Juetian shook his head, picked up the report, and tore it to shreds. A fragment dropped to the floor, bearing the terrifying face of a doll and a line below it:

“Strange creature: Nightmare Doll!”

With that done, Li Juetian donned a brown trench coat, swung his arm. “Let’s go! Time to settle the score with that doll!”

Han Zhen followed closely, and the two drove toward the city center.

...

Meanwhile, Feng Tianlin was frantically spreading his urban legend to expand his influence.

In this era, what spreads information fastest? Without a doubt, short videos. Feng Tianlin was well aware of this.

He had Long Mengting dress in a red skirt, so that from then on, every well-known blogger in Tianjing City uploading videos would mysteriously feature a red-dressed girl holding a doll.

Li Juetian scrolled endlessly through videos and images on his phone, speechless.

The first photo was taken by an outdoor blogger, showing himself with his freshly pitched tent. When he uploaded the photo online, sharp-eyed netizens spotted a faint red-dressed girl holding a doll in the forest behind him.

The second photo was from a beauty blogger sharing her makeup routine. In a ten-minute video, the red-dressed girl appeared for at least three seconds, and the doll for five seconds.

The third photo was from a gaming blogger—this one was even stranger. He was playing a horror game, and an unexpected plot unfolded: in the original storyline, the protagonist should have cleared the level, but a red-dressed girl suddenly appeared, holding a doll, and knocked out the protagonist. The game save was mysteriously deleted.

The fourth was caught by a food blogger, the fifth by a science blogger... Some were real, others just riding the trend.

Now, the entire forum dedicated to strange phenomena across China was filled with one thing: the red-dressed girl and the doll!

Li Juetian was now convinced—the doll possessed intelligence. But what was its purpose? Amusement?

He shook his head; unable to figure it out, he stopped trying. On his phone, he mapped out the doll’s movements over the past few days, connecting the locations with colored lines according to their timeline.

“This... This...!”

He stared at the connected lines, so angry he couldn’t speak, because the lines combined to form a pattern—a middle finger.

Looking at the middle finger, Li Juetian’s face twitched uncontrollably, then he burst out laughing, genuinely amused by his own anger.

“Hahaha, a strange creature with higher intelligence. Fascinating, truly fascinating! Only you are worthy to be my adversary, Li Juetian!”