Chapter 9: Predator
Chapter 9: Predator
Lan Mu finally understood. Wang Jinghu really was a policeman; his identity was not fake.
However, Wang Jinghu was also a person called Boss Zhao, so he used Lan Mu’s trust in the police to trick him into coming to their base.
This Boss Zhao was very likely the owner of the villa, and might even be one of the masterminds behind the poaching group.
At the very least, the so-called “connections in Fuzhou” the poachers talked about definitely had ties to this Boss Zhao.
“I’m done for… I’ve really fallen for it this time.”
Lan Mu quietly placed his hand in his pocket and turned on his phone’s recording function. He had done this sort of thing many times before; he could do it with his eyes closed.
Then, he was indeed led inside the villa. He immediately saw several familiar faces—poachers he remembered from when his life had been threatened.
Huang Sheng and the Old Hunter were among them, chatting with a middle-aged man in the main seat.
When they saw Lan Mu being brought in, they all fell silent. Huang Sheng stared coldly at Lan Mu, reaching up to touch his own neck and ear.
Huang Sheng had been bitten by Lan Mu and the leopard, Mao Mao; his ear was torn and now wrapped in bandages. He looked like a bandage-covered madman, appearing even more vicious and fierce.
“Huu…”
Lan Mu knew that falling into this group’s hands meant no good would come of it; they would definitely not let him go.
Though Lan Mu felt fear inside, he remained calm, constantly thinking of a way out.
“Boss Zhao, this is that reporter!” The Old Hunter pointed at Lan Mu, confirming they had caught the right person.
Boss Zhao smiled. “I’ve heard about you all, how could you end up tricked by him? I heard he’s just a small-time reporter from out of town.”
“He’s not simple at all. He survived alone in the wild on Fanli Mountain for seven days with nothing. We threw him off the mountainside before, and it seems he didn’t break any bones either,” said the Old Hunter.
Huang Sheng chimed in, “Yeah, and what’s even stranger is that wild leopard didn’t hurt him and even helped him attack me!”
Boss Zhao said, “This little reporter isn’t going anywhere. You can question him slowly!”
“That leopard will be released back into the wild in a few days. Fanli Mountain will be under tight watch during this period. What a shame; I quite wanted that leopard.”
“But release is fine! It’s not too important. The most important thing is that white-maned lion!”
Boss Zhao leaned forward, speaking without any regard for Lan Mu’s presence. “I’ve checked, no one in the country keeps this kind of white lion. You don’t need to worry about anything; that lion might not even have an owner.”
The Old Hunter said worriedly, “It can’t be wild. Fanli Mountain couldn’t have a wild white lion.”
“I don’t care! I want that white lion! As for whether it has an owner, that’s not your concern!”
These people spoke right in front of Lan Mu. The more Lan Mu listened, the heavier his heart sank. He knew that no matter what happened later, he could never count on them having a change of heart and letting him go.
“Keep an eye on this reporter. Without him as a witness, your arrested men will be released soon. Just two trucks and a few empty cages can’t be used as evidence. I’ll find lawyers to handle it.”
“Take him to the basement. About the white lion, I just want results.” After saying this, Boss Zhao directly left the villa with his men.
Lan Mu was stunned. He thought to himself that this Boss Zhao was very cautious. Even if this villa was his, he probably didn’t come here often. It was likely a place used specifically for shady business.
When Boss Zhao left, he took half the people with him. Besides the eight poachers, only four strong-looking men of his remained.
As soon as they left, Huang Sheng lunged at Lan Mu and kicked him to the ground.
Lan Mu showed pain on his face but did not resist. Instead, he immediately reached into his pocket and turned off his phone completely.
Sure enough, the poachers dragged him toward the garage. There was a door in the garage leading to the basement.
Huang Sheng roughly searched him, taking everything he had. Seeing the phone was off, he didn’t pay it any mind and threw it into a metal bucket in the garage along with other small items.
Lan Mu entered the basement and saw many old hunting rifles and some poaching equipment. Clearly, they were hiding evidence here.
“If this place gets exposed, none of them will get away! And the evidence is solid! Then I won’t have any worries either; I won’t have to be afraid of them causing trouble for me later.”
“But… I’m in danger myself right now!”
He lowered his head, thinking, when suddenly he was slapped. Huang Sheng took a rope and tied him up. Lan Mu still had a gunshot wound on his arm; the rope tightening around it sent sharp pain through him.
Lan Mu glared at Huang Sheng with hatred, unable to stop himself from growling, “You bastard, I shouldn’t have let you all go back then!”
After beating Lan Mu some more, Huang Sheng said, “Let me go? If I hadn’t been careless, could you have escaped?”
Lan Mu shut his mouth. What he meant was back when he was the white-maned lion, dealing with those six poachers, he shouldn’t have let them go. At the very least, he should have injured them badly, so that after turning back into a human, later events wouldn’t have happened.
Now it was too late for regrets. Saying anything was useless. Lan Mu was questioned desperately by them, especially by Huang Sheng, who was particularly cruel, thinking up various ways to torture him as if only this could ease his hatred.
All the poachers asked about was where the white-maned lion was, why the wild leopard helped him, and things like that.
Lan Mu couldn’t answer any of these questions. The white-maned lion was him; how could he answer?
Therefore, his silence was taken as him keeping his mouth shut, and soon he was tortured until he was barely alive.
These people showed no mercy at all, each strike darker than the last. After all, in their eyes, Lan Mu was a dead man sooner or later!
As Lan Mu’s body grew numb and his consciousness blurred, the sound of questioning kept ringing in his ears.
“Where is the white-maned lion? Where is the white-maned lion? Where is the white-maned lion?”
Lan Mu’s spirit was pushed to its limit under the questioning. Finally, he roared, “I am the damn white-maned lion!”
In his blurry consciousness, a flash of bloody light appeared. Lan Mu’s eyes suddenly snapped open. All the cells in his body began to boil, then renewed like dominoes falling. An internal genetic transformation started and finished in the blink of an eye.
He felt a surge of comfort all over his body. All the injuries from the continuous torture vanished. Strength seemed to well up in him like layers of waves.
His five senses were sharply enhanced. Even his sixth sense naturally emerged, allowing him to sense every living creature in the entire villa area.
Each creature appeared in his vision through the walls as a bloody human-shaped figure, like prey…
The poachers questioning him now were all dumbfounded, as if seeing something unbelievable.
Lan Mu involuntarily took a step forward, instantly breaking the ropes binding him. Familiar power flowed through his body.
“This is the feeling! I… I changed again?” Lan Mu looked at himself. Sure enough, he had turned into the white-maned lion again.
However, he felt a bit weak, and there was a small hole in his abdomen—the gunshot wound from when the Old Hunter shot him.
“After transforming, injuries on my human body heal, but the white lion’s wounds stay as they were before I turned back into a human?”
Lan Mu was lost in thought when sudden loud noises snapped his attention back.
It turned out the poachers had all started scrambling to escape, rushing toward the basement door.
Huang Sheng ran faster than anyone, his face full of terror.
Lan Mu gritted his teeth in hatred. He charged forward, knocking everyone aside, and blocked the doorway.
This charge held nothing back. They were all knocked down, bones and muscles injured, wailing on the ground.
Lan Mu’s terrifying beastly form unfolded. He stood upright on two legs like a beast-man, his bloody eyes fixed on them, and he spoke in human words.
“Weren’t you looking for the white-maned lion?”
“I’m right in front of you!”
Lan Mu held nothing back, fully releasing the natural predator’s killing intent toward its prey.
And those poachers, like the person in the story who claimed to love dragons but was terrified by a real one, were now scared out of their minds!
One second ago, he was a tortured human. Suddenly, as if in a dream, they watched him turn into a white-maned lion.
He even walked upright, possessed immense strength, and spoke human words.
What the heck was this? A monster?
Looking at the poachers now at his mercy, Lan Mu finally felt a sense of security he had never had before. Compared to the past, the transformed him was better.
Strength far beyond that of a human meant he at least had the power to protect himself.
Counting it up, he had transformed into the white-maned lion-man twice now, and both times he had crawled back from the edge of death.
“So I still had the ability to transform all along. I was just being clever thinking it was all over…”
“But this is good! This feeling is good!”
Lan Mu first grabbed Huang Sheng, lifting him up like a little chick.
Huang Sheng was so scared his legs trembled wildly, he even lost control, shouting, “Monster! You’re a monster!”
“Monster? Maybe… maybe I really am a monster…”
Seeing Huang Sheng still struggling wildly, Lan Mu directly used his sharp claws to cut off Huang Sheng’s arms. Blood splattered down, and the others went crazy, all squeezing into the corners of the basement.
Huang Sheng howled in agony. It seemed the intense pain stirred his ferocity instead. Unafraid, he raged, “You’re looking for death! I’ll kill you! I will definitely kill you! You’re not a monster! You’re Lan Mu, right? It’s you, right?”
“You were like a dead dog to me…”
Thump! Lan Mu just extended one finger, and the sharp claw pierced straight into Huang Sheng’s heart, meeting no resistance.
“Huang Sheng, you hunted so many wild animals. Did you ever think a monster would hunt you? You took pride in killing people. Did you ever think you’d be killed one day too?”
Lan Mu pulled out his finger and casually threw Huang Sheng’s corpse down. The expression on his face at death was still fierce, still full of hatred.
The other poachers looked at him in terror, but the Old Hunter seemed to calm down, suppressing his fear. He actually shouted, “Don’t be afraid! He’s not a monster! He can be hurt if we shoot him!”
After saying that, the Old Hunter picked up the shotgun from the basement and fired a shot at him!
Lan Mu, who had just thrown down Huang Sheng’s body, was caught off guard. He was hit by the shot, grunting as it struck his chest squarely.
Seeing the bullets were effective, the poachers picked up their shotguns and started firing.
After a round of shooting, the bullets shattered the basement door, but Lan Mu’s figure was nowhere to be seen, as if he had vanished into thin air.
“Where did he go?”
“He suddenly disappeared!”
“He really is a monster! Let’s run!”
At that moment, the iron door was kicked open. Boss Zhao’s men, who were staying in the villa, rushed in, roaring, “What are you doing? Shooting randomly!”
But then he froze too, because he saw Huang Sheng lying in a pool of blood on the ground!
“This! What happened?”
The poachers ignored him. Each one was terrified by Lan Mu’s sudden disappearance. They used all their lifelong speed to rush out of the basement, as if staying here one more second was dangerous.
Lan Mu watched them escape but did not show himself immediately.
He had been hit by a shot just now. It hurt and made him angry, but he still stayed calm enough.
He turned invisible right away to dodge, so he wasn’t hit by the random gunfire.
None of these people would escape. The White-maned Lion was a born Predator. Its greatest skill wasn’t frontal hunting, but staring at prey from the shadows, delivering a fatal blow, chasing them down like in a hunt!
The poachers ran out of the basement one by one. As the last one was about to step out, suddenly a sharp claw pierced through his chin. His spine shattered instantly, and he died on the spot.
Lan Mu’s first hunting target was the last poacher to run out of the basement. One fatal strike, attacking instantly from his invisible state, piercing through the back of the other’s neck.
After dealing with him, Lan Mu had automatically become visible because of the fight. But then he turned invisible again right away. The fleeting white beastly figure scared the other poachers even more.
The poachers, holding their guns, ran out of the basement and immediately sprinted wildly through the villa, heading straight for the yard.
The four men left behind by Boss Zhao didn’t understand what was happening. They hadn’t seen the White-maned Lion and thought these guys had gone crazy!
“What are you doing? Stop for me! You can’t just charge out like this!”
“Get out of the way! Don’t block us!” The Old Hunter had truly gone mad, directly pointing his gun at the four men.
“You’re crazy! Boss Zhao won’t let you off easy when he finds out!” Those four actually pulled out their guns too.
“Hmph! Even if Boss Zhao were here himself, it wouldn’t help! Now get out of my way!”
The Old Hunter roared. He felt his life was threatened every single second.
When he discovered the other could turn invisible, his intuition from years of hunting immediately warned him.
He understood what this kind of monster meant. The other was a born Predator. You didn’t know where he would pounce from, killing you in an instant. This kind of invisible death threat was the most terrifying thing!
The Old Hunter was experienced. The more he knew, the more afraid he became! The more he felt there was little chance of survival!
He looked around everywhere but couldn’t see any trace of the White-maned Lion. Not only that, he couldn’t even hear any footsteps.
But his intuition told him the other was nearby! Even getting closer bit by bit!
The God of Death-like Predator kept getting closer, but there were no footsteps. That sturdy White-maned Lion body was as silent as a night cat.
An invisible killer was truly the God of Death.