I am the Clone of a Death Row Inmate

Chapter 170: Chapter 157: Beheading Plan

February 23rd. Exactly half a month had passed since Su Ze absorbed the Mutated Electric Eel Extract.

After grinding day and night, Su Ze had finally, on this day, completely digested the Mutated Electric Eel Extract in his body.

The past few days had been quiet at Dongli University and in Dongping City as a whole. No major incidents had occurred.

With the extract fully digested, Su Ze decided it was time to begin his ”decapitation plan.”

That day, he went to Liou Wenxin’s laboratory first thing in the morning.

Liou Wenxin was also prepared for this day. She and Su Ze had long since agreed that she would use her Spiritual Power to control a weapon and take his head.

For this purpose, the two had even specially borrowed a Tier 3 anomalous object, a Bone Blade, from the Dongli National Treasury. It was incomparably sharp, ensuring that a single strike would send his head rolling.

With all preparations complete, Su Ze lay on the operating table.

Liou Wenxin, however, did not want to watch what happened next. She stood outside, controlling the Bone Blade and levitating it above Su Ze’s neck.

With a sharp blade hanging over his neck, Su Ze’s expression remained unchanged.

’As long as I don’t have to cut my own head off, anything is fine.’

”Go ahead,” Su Ze urged.

Outside the door, Liou Wenxin took a deep breath. The next second, the Bone Blade fell.

Su Ze felt a chill on his neck, followed by a violent spray of blood.

He immediately willed the Regeneration Core in his brain to shatter. A surging torrent of life energy burst out like a flood, rushing toward the stump of his neck.

’My neck is so itchy... I think I’m growing a body!’

Before long, a new body rapidly grew from the stump of Su Ze’s neck.

Su Ze moved his new body around. It didn’t feel uncomfortable; it was exactly the same as before, just a little weak.

But this was normal. Losing his entire body caused a great loss of evolutionary power.

However, evolutionary power could be replenished over time.

The greatest loss, really, was that the Regeneration Core in his brain was gone and would take time to reform.

When he first obtained the Regeneration Body skill, it took about a month to form a Regeneration Core. Now, however, after completing his second evolution and upgrading the skill, his overall strength had improved, so the core formed somewhat faster.

Su Ze gauged the formation speed of the Regeneration Core in his brain and estimated it would take about half a month to complete.

Liou Wenxin walked in from outside, just in time to see Su Ze standing there naked. Her face flushed slightly, but as an evolutionary scientist, she wasn’t overly flustered. She tossed Su Ze’s clothes to him and said, ”Get dressed. How do you feel?”

”Not bad. Besides feeling a little weak, there’s no other discomfort,” Su Ze said as he got dressed.

Next, the two of them looked at the blood-splattered room and Su Ze’s discarded ”corpse,” both falling silent.

How to clean up was a problem, especially what to do with Su Ze’s ”corpse.”

Su Ze said, ”Let’s just cremate the body. As for the bloodstains and all that, I’ll pay Han Xiaoke to come clean up. She’s good at this.”

Su Ze remembered that Han Xiaoke had the Cleaning Skill from a Little Raccoon beast, making her an expert cleaner.

He then packed up his ”corpse,” stored it in his Storage Pendant, and sent a message to Han Xiaoke, asking her to come to the lab after class to clean up.

He wasn’t in a hurry to deal with the ”corpse.” He lay down in the lab and rested for a good few hours. By the time his evolutionary power had mostly recovered, Han Xiaoke had arrived at the laboratory.

”Professor Liou, Su Ze.” She greeted them in a crisp voice, then asked, ”What needs cleaning?”

When Su Ze led her into the blood-soaked room, Han Xiaoke was stunned.

’What happened here?’

’A murder scene?’

’A dismemberment?’

Scenes from various gory movies flashed through her mind... ’Why is it always this kind of job whenever Su Ze calls me?!’

The thick, metallic smell of blood made Han Xiaoke’s face turn pale, and she felt a little sick.

Su Ze gave an apologetic smile and explained, ”It’s all my blood. I was just testing a healing skill, and it got a little out of hand. I’ll clean up the blood on the floor; I’ll need your help with the stains on the walls that won’t wipe off.”

Liou Wenxin also came over to help.

With the three of them working together, the room was clean in no time.

Successfully replacing the heart that had belonged to Zhao Lingxiao was one less thing for Su Ze to worry about, and he felt a great sense of relief.

Now, he had to worry about his next vial of extract. Several days had passed, and there was still no news from Atago.

...

Not long after Su Ze left the lab, he suddenly received a call from Mr. Ya. He was back from his dung-collecting trip!

The two arranged to meet at a barbecue restaurant off-campus. When Su Ze arrived, he found Mr. Ya accompanied by a tall, dark, and powerfully built man.

”And this is?” Su Ze asked.

Mr. Ya introduced him. ”This is Shi Qiang from our school’s combat department, class of ’00. Thanks to him, we came back with a full haul!”

Su Ze’s sense of smell was enhanced, so he could clearly detect an indescribable stench coming from Shi Qiang. He immediately guessed this must be the ”dung beetle” Mr. Ya had hired to help collect dung. Apparently, he had absorbed a giant dung beetle extract and was an expert at finding shit.

Su Ze had to temporarily block his sense of smell, and only then did the air feel much fresher.

Mr. Ya then introduced Su Ze to Shi Qiang: ”This is my big bro, Su Ze.”

”Hello, Big Bro. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Shi Qiang looked rough and brawny, but his voice was surprisingly high-pitched.

Mr. Ya called Su Ze ”Big Bro” because Su Ze had once been his top-ranking supporter, and the name stuck. But Shi Qiang was technically Su Ze’s senior, so it was unexpected that he would also call Su Ze ”Big Bro.”

Su Ze ordered food for the two of them. After the dishes arrived, he watched Mr. Ya and Shi Qiang dig in heartily while he didn’t touch his chopsticks.

”Big Bro, why aren’t you eating?” Mr. Ya asked, puzzled.

”Oh, I ate a little while ago, so I’m not hungry. You guys go ahead.”

Then, while waiting for the meat to grill, Mr. Ya started telling Su Ze about their trip.

They first went to the Blood Earth Forest. There, using a combination of Shi Qiang’s shit-finding ability and Mr. Ya’s Escape Technique, the two of them quickly made a huge haul.

But Mr. Ya knew that for a Tier 3 dung-eater to evolve, food diversity was also very important. That dung-eater had lived in the Blood Earth Forest for many years; what kind of food hadn’t it eaten?

To find something new for the dung-eater, the two of them changed course and went to the Central Sea.

As a land-dwelling beast, the dung-eater had certainly never eaten food from the sea. Mr. Ya’s line of thinking was quite clear.

That Tier 3 dung-eater probably never imagined it would get to eat ”seafood” in its lifetime.

Collecting dung in the sea, the two of them were like fish in water, and their harvest was plentiful.

They only headed back when even Shi Qiang couldn’t carry any more.

”So it sounds like the dung-eater’s evolution is guaranteed?” Su Ze asked.

”Giving it a push to start evolving is definitely not a problem, but whether it can actually succeed in evolving is hard to say,” Mr. Ya said.

Su Ze stayed with them until they finished their meal. As they were parting, he warned them, ”Things aren’t safe around Dongli University lately. Something might be about to happen. Be sure to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble.”

...

Back at the villa, Su Ze first sent a message to greet Mr. Atago, without mentioning the Sand Blind Snake Extract.

But after they exchanged a few messages, Mr. Atago brought it up himself. He said he had a lead and told Su Ze to wait for his good news.

Su Ze had looked into Atago’s background. Although the Great Desert Kingdom had, if not ten thousand princes, then at least eight thousand, Atago seemed to be one of the more favored ones.

Since he said so, the matter should be as good as settled.

After finishing his chat with Atago, Su Ze had nothing else to do, so he browsed the internet for a bit. He checked the news and saw that there had been no new disappearances or murders in the past few days.

Finally, he logged into the Dongli University student forum.

The top-pinned post on the forum was a missing person notice!

Su Ze’s pupils contracted. He quickly clicked on the post.

The post was made by a student from the combat department this morning and was pinned by the administrator ”Dragonfly Captain.”

The post said that the deputy director of the combat department, a teacher named Huo Yuanzheng, had been out of contact since yesterday. He had missed all his classes, his family couldn’t find him, and they were hoping any students with information would come forward.

Su Ze went to the university’s official website to look up information on this teacher, Huo Yuanzheng. He was a fairly senior teacher at Dongli University, having taught for over twenty years. He was in his fifties and was a Butterfly Stage evolver.

Even though it was still daylight, Su Ze immediately forwarded this news to Ye Jin.

He had a feeling that this teacher, Huo Yuanzheng, had likely met with a terrible fate.

Ye Jin replied instantly: ”We received the news over an hour ago!”

’So the military already knew,’ Su Ze thought. ’But that makes sense. The military has been investigating this matter all along. It would be ridiculous if they were slower to get news than I was.’

[Ye Jin: The military recently assigned a lot of personnel to patrol near Dongli University, but we didn’t expect the killer to succeed anyway.]

[Su Ze: What’s the military’s plan now?]

[Ye Jin: Dongping City was placed under martial law a few days ago. Everyone leaving the city has to undergo a strict identity check, so the killer should still be inside Dongping. The military has now completely locked down the city and will begin a grid search to find the culprit as soon as possible.]

’They’ve already locked down the city?’ Su Ze thought. ’But it makes sense. A being that has mastered such a terrifying parasitic skill, whether human or beast, poses an immense threat. They’re also hard to catch. If they were to let it escape, the consequences would be disastrous.’

However, Su Ze also knew that Dongping, as the capital of the Dongli Kingdom, couldn’t be locked down for long. The government of the Dongli Kingdom would surely do everything in its power to catch the killer in the shortest time possible.

Sure enough, a moment later, Mrs. Yun came in from the courtyard. She had changed her clothes and looked like she was about to go out.

”Mrs. Yun, are you going out to catch someone too?” Su Ze asked in surprise.

”Looks like you already know. You’re well-informed.” Mrs. Yun nodded. ”This time, it’s not just the military. Evolvers from the Public Security Bureau and the Li Min Association have all been mobilized. My Secret Operations Department has also received orders. As the deputy director, I naturally have to answer the organization’s call.”