MMPS Ch. 15

Chapter 15: Carrying the Boss

“?!” Yu An froze, stunned. Was it really possible for just a hand to be this powerful in combat?

There was no time to think further. Yu An dove towards the X-ray machine, hitting the floor to search for the buttons on the machine.

In the lower-right corner, a metal plate was screwed into place with a tarnished copper tag. The sign had aged over time, and the surrounding dampness had left it covered in verdigris, making the text nearly illegible.

“I found it.” Yu An muttered, quickly pressing the red button, but the rusted button gave no response. The switch key was firmly stuck in the lock, unable to be pulled out or turned. The machine had been poorly maintained for years and could not be shut off the normal way.

At this point, the only option left was to disconnect the high-voltage cable. Yu An circled the X-ray machine, only to find that there were no visible cable connections. Most likely, it was directly wired into the underground network, meaning the only way to shut it down was to pull the main power switch.

Logically, the transformer and distribution panel in the X-ray room shouldn’t be far apart. There was still a chance.

“Hold on, buddy.” Yu An shouted as the right hand wrestled with the two enraged doctors, and he quickly slipped through the hole the female doctor had made in the wall, darting out in a flash.

The right hand hovered in the air, a gesture that seemed to beg him to stay: “…”

Yu An briefly escaped and recalled the rooms he had passed, noting that only the beauty room near Mr. Zhou’s office was left unchecked.

A cold shiver ran down his spine, and something seemed to be pressing against his back.

“Good evening.” a voice whispered close to Yu An’s ear.

It was the fake janitor worker from before. But now that he had a weapon in hand, there was no need to panic.

Just as Yu An was about to turn and strike, a chorus of greetings echoed behind him:

“Good evening.”

Yu An didn’t look back; instead, he sprinted ahead, with dozens of cleaning staff—each wielding a mop and bucket—hot on his heels. The footsteps were chaotic and scattered, as if an emergency evacuation was in progress, with people jammed together, creating a scene like a fire drill.

“Distribution room…” Yu An’s eyes skimmed the white doors he passed, and as he reached the end of the corridor, a solid wall blocked his path.

The cleaning staff, now closing in on him, seemed to recoil from one particular white door, avoiding it as they passed by.

Yu An glanced at the door they avoided. The sign read: “President’s Office.“

With no more room to run, Yu An raised his bat and smashed the lock. He swung the door open and slipped inside, wedging the bat against the doorknob to prevent the door from being opened from the outside.

That was close. Yu An wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned to face the computer desk in the principal’s office. His eyes widened in surprise.

Next to the desk chair stood a slender woman, her posture twisting into a seductive S-shape as she rested her hand on a large advertising board for a beauty clinic.

Yu An let out a sigh of relief—it was just a life-sized, hyper-realistic advertisement. He had seen the same display in the lobby when he took the elevator up.

In such an environment, emotions were easily affected, and his nerves were already on edge. Yu An closed his eyes for a moment, trying to calm himself, and scanned the room for other exits.

The principal’s office was not particularly distinctive. The walls were painted in a warm, flesh-toned pink, and framed promotional pictures for the beauty clinic hung on either side.

The pictures were framed in wooden frames, depicting the before-and-after results of various cosmetic procedures and weight-loss transformations.

One of the body-shaping photos was particularly striking.

In the “before” picture, the woman had reached an obese level, her face swollen with fat that compressed her features. She wore an oversized brown T-shirt, looking defeated as she stood in front of the camera.

The second photo beside it was labeled “After One Body Sculpting Session.” The woman had undergone a drastic transformation, shedding nearly 100 pounds. Though still a bit chubby, her body now had curves, representing a very healthy figure.

The results did look impressive.

In the “After Two Body Sculpting Sessions,” the woman had completely reinvented herself, her long wavy hair cascading over a slender neck and narrow shoulders, her body now a perfect S-shape, as if she had become a television star.

Honestly, the results from this beauty salon seemed worth it. As the guy in the yellow jacket from the bathroom stall had said, if you could sneak a body part out of the crematorium, you’d earn a spot for cosmetic surgery. Plenty of people would be willing to take the risk for such a chance.

It was possible that a hidden industry had already formed outside, with specialized teams stealing organs to supply customers seeking beauty services. Customers could trade money for “beauty currency”—the organs.

However, what puzzled Yu An was that the beautiful woman in the photos, having achieved a star-like appearance and body, still underwent a third round of body sculpting.

But after the third session, there was no noticeable change at all.

Perhaps there was a slight tweak, but Yu An couldn’t see any difference. This was normal—just as he couldn’t distinguish between lipstick shades, some details were insignificant to him but would mean the world to those who were meticulous.

The mention of body shaping immediately made Yu An think of the secret files he had seen at Officer Ye’s office.

It all began with the decline of the busiest pedestrian street in Jiu’an City.

The incident started with a cosmetic surgery dispute. The victim, Bo Ruzhi, was a highly respected fashion designer and a model.

Miss Bo was particularly selective about the body shapes of her models, believing only those with the perfect proportions were worthy of wearing her designs. Though the industry knew how picky she was, everyone still respected her because her designs always made a statement on the catwalk and red carpets.

Bo Ruzhi was obsessed with fashion design. Her house was filled with sketches of breathtaking garments, with colorful illustrations of dresses worn by elegantly drawn figures. She herself was tall and beautiful, and trying on her own creations brought her incomparable joy.

“Beauty is the meaning of my life.” became Miss Bo’s motto, and she frequently graced the covers of major fashion magazines, flaunting her exquisite designs.

But this bliss didn’t last. Six years ago, Bo Ruzhi fell seriously ill, and though she recovered, the medication left severe side effects, causing her to rapidly gain weight.

In pain and despair, she tried to take her own life multiple times, but failed. Then, through a referral, she found a private, well-regarded beauty clinic in Jiu’an City—Xiliu Beauty Salon.

However, upon learning of her complex condition, the clinic initially refused her request for body shaping surgery.

Undeterred, Bo Ruzhi found her way to the clinic’s leading doctors— a husband-and-wife duo—paying them a hefty sum to perform full-body liposuction and gastric bypass surgery.

Though initially hesitant, the doctors were swayed by the exorbitant fee she offered.

It turned out the clinic’s initial concerns were justified—the surgery caused severe complications, leading to Bo Ruzhi’s death. The couple of doctors faced criminal charges for their illegal procedures, and the police investigated, but Bo Ruzhi’s body was never found. The couple disappeared around the same time.

The Xiliu Beauty Salon was shut down, and people believed the doctors had disposed of the body before fleeing to avoid prosecution.

However, this wasn’t the only reason the pedestrian street closed down.

Shortly after the incident, the security guards reported seeing Bo Ruzhi standing on the street corner just past midnight.

At first, the police dismissed the security guard’s claims, attributing them to work-induced stress and hallucinations.

Yet, just three days later, the guard was found dead at his post, his body grotesquely mutilated. His skin had been completely peeled off, his body slumped in a way that made it look like a deflated balloon or a kite without a frame.

The coroner confirmed that the guard’s bones had been removed using some unknown method, yet there were no external wounds.

Rumors spread that Bo Ruzhi’s restless spirit had become trapped in the pedestrian street, and more people began claiming they had seen her standing by the roadside after midnight.

From that point on, the once-bustling pedestrian street of Jiu’an City was abandoned, now regarded as a ghost town. To prevent accidents, the entire street was cordoned off and remains so to this day.

There were many theories about the guard’s mysterious death, but one thing was clear: no wounds, but his bones were gone. This closely resembled the actions of the doctor couple.

When the female doctor had gone berserk, she muttered a few indistinct words, and one of them seemed to be “Bo Ruzhi.” Could it be that her vengeful spirit hadn’t left? Was she still haunting the beauty salon?

Yu An shook his head and approached the desk. He bent over and opened the drawer, sifting through old items to see if there was anything useful. Dust and discarded objects filled the drawer, but amidst the clutter, a shiny set of keys with a blue elevator tag caught his eye.

Not bothering to think further, Yu An took them.

“A beautiful gem brooch,” he murmured as he distractedly searched through the drawer, only to notice something strange.

At first, Yu An stood facing the beautiful advertisement stand, the sleek, seductive image of a woman frozen in a curve as perfect as the letters of the brand. But, without realizing it, his body shifted, turning ninety degrees until he was staring directly at the life-sized figure before him.

“…” His fingers fumbled with the brooch in his hand, his breath shallow. Slowly, he stepped backward, unease creeping up his spine.

His eyes flicked back to the wall behind him, comparing the glossy advertisement with the woman on the stand. The face—gorgeous, flawless—was the same as the one in the photo of the woman who had, miraculously, lost weight. The transformation was clear. And yet, Yu An’s chest tightened. Something felt off.

Sweat began to bead on his palms, and his throat went dry. His mouth felt parched as he whispered in disbelief, “…Miss Bo?”

He turned his gaze back to the advertisement figure, and that’s when he saw it. The stand had moved closer, a full meter, now almost pressing against his chest. Its eyes—those eyes—sparkled with a deliberate, slow wink.

Yu An’s heart skipped a beat as the horrifying realization hit him. The woman who had “slimmed down” three times was no longer human in the traditional sense. After the third round of weight loss, Miss Bo had stripped away her bones. From the front, she appeared no different, but from the side, she was as thin as cardboard—lifeless, hollow.

She had become the perfect model in his sketches, but more disturbingly, she had also become the new owner of the Xiliu Beauty Salon, offering “beautifying” services to guests when the midnight bell tolled. The stories of passersby who claimed to see her on the midnight pedestrian street—perhaps they weren’t so far off after all. Those who saw her might have seen this unsettling, moving mannequin.

It dawned on Yu An that Miss Bo had been standing there, waiting for him, the moment he stepped out of the elevator. He had been so blind to her beauty—so oblivious. The thought of ignoring her presence must have made her furious. He could practically feel the wrath of her hollow stare.

It made sense now: if doctors could extract a segment of one’s bones from an X-ray to use as a weapon, surely they could remove an entire skeleton. The doctors who performed the surgeries on Miss. Bo, according to the files, matched the grotesque X-ray technicians perfectly. The image of those hideous, mutated figures emerged in his mind. Was this transformation a consequence of the X-ray machine? It was the only thing that seemed to tie everything together.

He stood there, feeling the weight of it all, the truth settling like a stone in his stomach.

“I understand now.” The words slipped from his lips with quiet certainty, as though a veil had been lifted. He watched Miss Bo’s eyes, unblinking, cold—almost predatory—and began retreating. His hand moved instinctively toward the baseball bat caught in the door handle, twisting it free as his gaze stayed fixed on the mannequin.

Without warning, the stand moved once more—closer, faster. Its arms, once posed to hold the advertisement, now reached for him like spectral, trembling tendrils, snaking around his neck.

Yu An was already calculating his next move before his body could even react.

He ignored the fake smiles of the cleaning staff, who were crowding behind him, watching his every move. Instead, he charged forward, thrusting his hand down on Miss Bo’s impossibly light head, forcing it down with all his might. He laid his body across the mannequin, pressing it into the ground, using his weight to crush it, and with a swift motion, pulled the heavy bat free. It felt absurdly light in his hands, as he used it like a rolling pin to flatten her—folding her, until she was nothing but a stack of cardboard.

The entire motion was seamless, like an expert at work. Even the grizzled old scrap collector would have nodded in approval.

With the beauty stand folded in his hands, he lifted it high above his head, declaring to the smiling cleaning crew: “Your boss is in my hands! Make way!”

The workers stared, their brains scrambling to process what had just happened. They couldn’t move, couldn’t think—dazed and stunned. Then, with a quick glance exchanged between them, they parted, fear evident in their eyes.

Yu An didn’t break his stride as he carried the beauty stand, now nothing more than a collapsed figure, back toward the X-ray room.

Miss Bo’s face had twisted into something monstrous—an obscene mask of rage as she howled at him. Yu An remained calm. He took a match from his bag, struck it, and brought the flame toward her face. “Move again, and I’ll burn you,” he warned, the words colder than ice.

For a moment, Miss Bo’s screeching faltered, replaced by a look of terror as she shrank away from the fire.

A sudden vibration from his pocket—the phone call he had been waiting for. Yu An extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist and answered the call, his movements precise and deliberate.

The caller ID flashed: Interviewer.

He answered with a hushed voice: “What’s the situation? Find somewhere to hide and wait for me.”

The connection was weak, the interviewer’s voice cutting in and out, but Yu An pieced together enough to understand. His response was steady:

“The Xiliu Beauty Salon is on the seventh floor of an old office building. There are mannequin workers who actively attack me. They’re a problem, but I’ve found the core of their operations—an X-ray machine. It doesn’t run on electricity; it’s something more similar to the Aberrant Core used in the mechanical eagle. I’m going to take it apart. No need to rescue me. I can handle it.”

Down on Jiu’an City’s pedestrian street, an eerie silence blanketed the area. In the center, a sleek black motorcycle sat, its rider unmoving.

Zhao Ran sat astride the motorcycle, phone pressed to his ear. His brow furrowed as he listened to the static-filled words filtering through the poor connection.

“… crackling Old… static… Worker… beep… Rescue… me.”

Zhao Ran’s grip tightened on the phone, his face flushing as a he covered his mouth.

*

At the building’s entrance, the old revolving door shattered under a single, forceful kick.

Zhao Ran stepped inside, his presence as commanding as ever. In the dimly lit corner, a security guard stood behind a registration desk, his smile stretching unnaturally wide as he said: “Hello young gentleman, please come register.”

Without so much as a glance, Zhao Ran reached for a pen on the desk and flicked it like a dart.

The hollow pen barrel sliced through the air with a sharp whistle, embedding itself in the guard’s skull, pinning his body to the wall. The smile never left the guard’s face, frozen in place, as if death itself had taken a twisted delight in his demise.