The tattooed man felt that he must have offended someone.
Since that day when he came home, finding a toy cat covered in ketchup on the bed, the suspicious patterns on the wooden closet that resembled some sort of animal footprint, and the deep scratches on the closet, the tattooed man had begun to ponder about whom he had offended.
There were too many suspicious subjects. After all, people like him that crush other people's places were bound to be in Dutch with someone. Especially with the recent conflicts between the few forces, all of them were possible suspects. Nevertheless, who would do such a thing was not something that could be made sure of in a jiffy. When all was said and done, those people's means were much bloodier and certainly would not only use tomato sauce.
People around here?
The tattooed man shook his head. He had been living around here for many years. Most of the people around here were soft-tempered. Those who were temperamental had already been beaten by the men he had gathered. After being harassed, no one dared to challenge him again.
But, that was not completely impossible.
So who was it really?
The tattooed man couldn't comprehend. He stabbed that ketchup-covered toy cat into shreds with a knife and chucked it inside the trash pile. As for the marks on the wooden closet, after wiping it off, he covered the spots with scratches firmly with multiple layers of newspaper.
Other than that, the tattooed man also changed the lock of his house. He thought that somebody had gotten his keys for sure, or had some ways to open the lock.
The next day, the tattooed man returned home at the same time as previous. When he prepared to unlock the door, another hand clenched an iron bar. He was afraid that there would be someone inside the house. However, before he had the time to insert the key into the lock, he felt that he had stepped on something under his foot.
There was no light outside the door. At this time of the day, other residents were already in their slumber. It was pitch dark around him. Only the light on the lock from the torch he held in his armpit was bright. He was only paying attention to the lock just then and didn’t even notice that there would be something on the ground before the door.
The tattooed man had a bad feeling.
Tucking the keys inside his pocket, he pointed down with the torchlight.
On the ground in front of the doorway, there was a furry toy cat doll, smaller than the one yesterday. The color of the fur was probably white, but there were some red stains on it, especially around the corner of the mouth.
The tattooed man's hands trembled, but after being in the gang business for so long, he was not somebody you would call timid.
Hence, he opened the door and walked into the house.
The house was in the state it was when he left the house. There were no scratches on the wooden closet and no suspicious marks on the nearby floor.
The tattooed man felt much more at ease. It looked like changing the lock had worked.
In fact, Zheng Tan did enter the house this time, but he saw that the lock on the door had changed so he didn't put the stuff inside or do any tricks to the room. Otherwise, what would happen if the tattooed man in desperation sealed up the broken window?
For this reason, Zheng Tan now processed the cat doll before bringing it over, placing it in front of the tattooed man's house door.
The tattooed man patrolled the house. His courage was once again plucked up. He walked over to the door and picked up the toy cat. He looked, sniffed and then extended his tongue to lick at it, tomato-flavored.
"Ufff!" The tattooed man twitched his lips. He felt for sure that someone was playing a prank on him.
On the third day when the tattooed man returned home, he checked the doorway first with the flashlight. There was indeed a toy cat doll just like yesterday, covered in much more redness.
With yesterday's experience, the tattooed man was less frightened and didn’t open up the door. He walked over to pick up the toy cat on the floor, but this time, when he touched the toy cat, the tattooed man got goosebumps all over him.
That's not right!
This sticky texture…
The tattooed man's actions were stiff, bringing the toy cat doll in his hand closer as he sniffed.
Smell of blood!
The tattooed man immediately reacted like his hand was burnt, hurling the toy cat in his hand away.
There was still an unwavering smell of blood between his nose so sharp that it made the tattooed man remember the cruel and gruesome scenes he saw at the club.
After a few deep breaths, the tattooed man pointed the torch onto the lock on his house door again. His hand that was searching for the keys stopped.
There was a long red slash across the door lock as well as claw marks, like the movement tracks of a cat scratching downwards from the lock. But the traces left behind was red as blood.
This time, Zheng Tan didn't use ketchup. While he was wandering around at the biology department, he saw some students collecting some rabbit blood samples from the elementary lab. They were each stored inside a plastic tube. The collected samples had heparin sodium solution added to it, preventing the blood from solidifying. Zheng Tan had often strolled around here, that was why he had heard these facts.
Thereafter, Zheng Tan "obtained" three tubes when the students had left. They were taken on three separate trips. Zheng Tan could only take one tube at a time and had to be cautious not to be caught. There were security cameras in the corridor outside the lab, so Zheng Tan had to go through the windows. A few tubes in a single trip would make Zheng Tan's movement rather inconvenient.
Using the blood inside the plastic tube, he smeared it over the toy cat. Zheng Tan's paws were stained with blood from this, so he might as well get some more blood and wipe it over the tattooed man's lock. After he had finished, Zheng Tan went over the sink in the restaurant kitchen and used detergent to wash his paws. Since there weren't many vegetables that the kitchen needed to wash at the time, there wasn't anyone near the sink.
The fourth day was the same situation, plus the climate had begun to warm up recently. Those cats that had cuddled at home and was not kidnapped pranced out again, howling in the middle of the night. There weren't many cats; most of it didn’t belong to the alleyway residents. They just ambled here for fun and probably didn’t know that after the new year celebration, there was no cat around here anymore.
Lately, the tattooed man had already become quite sensitive to the word "cat". When he saw cats running around while coming home at night, he would pick up things and throw at them to drive them out. Sleeping at home was not peaceful either. He began to continually have nightmares.
When the tattooed man went out during the day, his eyes were bloodshot.
The residents around the old building area had also realized that the tattooed man was acting strange recently. This person used to walk around arrogantly with his nostrils pointing towards the sky. But now, when he looked at people, he was baffled as if suspecting something, weird and incomprehensible. If you opened your mouth and asked, the tattooed man would yell back at you with an unfriendly complexion. Like at the next second, he would run up and punch you.
Therefore, the people in the old building area alleyway would turn away whenever they saw the tattooed man, never encountering him face to face. There must be something wrong with that person's mind. There was no assurance that he might do something.
On the fifth day, Zheng Tan didn't bring the toy cats, only a little bag wrapped in many layers.
This time, Zheng Tan didn't hold the bag in his mouth but had worn a wide elastic band around his neck. The little bag was attached to the band. Zheng Tan tried to test run with it. It didn't fall off.
Although it was uncomfortable to be constricted, Zheng Tan seriously didn't want to touch that thing with his mouth. Zheng Tan was scared of that thing as well, so even with the bag wrapped around it, he still felt uneasy. It was better to not let it touch his mouth. Zheng Tan's hands-on skills weren't really strong. This was the only way he could think of to carry it around.
Inside the bag were some small mushroom-like things, gotten by Zheng Tan from Lan's greenhouse. Planting this kind of things required the shed to be strictly controlled by factors such as temperature and humidity, so normally the door of the shed would be tightly shut. However, because Zheng Tan had gone there quite often, he knew that there was a day in the week when Lan would test the pH and change in the mineral composition of the soil sample in the shed. He would lock all the doors systematically after he had taken samples from all the sheds.
And Zheng Tan had entered while Lan had gone to another shed to take samples.
Zheng Tan found out about this stuff while he was playing over here and had unintentionally overheard Lan teaching his students. Only then did he know about the things planted inside some special shed.
Zheng Tan had obtained this kind of mushroom-like things. The place of origin was not in China but imported. Lan had gotten some from his friend. Due to the symbiotic nature of this plant, Lan had intentionally planted some other tree species inside the shed. The trees couldn't be large in size due to the dimension of the shed. Afterward, Lan had realized that despite how he regulated the temperature and growth environment, this exotic species had not grown well, always tiny, and unable to grow, though still toxic nevertheless.
It contained neural hallucinogen toxin. Those who accidentally consume it would hallucinate and feel that the surrounding objects had been magnified. This was the "macroptic hallucination" that Lan had explained to his students. There weren't many cases that caused death. A small amount of consumption wouldn't be lethal.
The effect would show within thirty minutes to two hours after consumption. The patient would display signs like dizziness, nausea, hallucination and etc.
At that time, Zheng Tan lied on top of the shed. He felt that this stuff was truly amazing while listening to Lan's explanations. So when he decided to teach this tattooed man a lesson, Zheng Tan remembered the different species of toxic flora including Belladonna in the numerous greenhouses with warning signs that Lan had owned. These plants had many medical uses, but if used inappropriately, it could still kill.
In the end, Zheng Tan finally picked this type. Lan called it something umbrella. Who cares? As long as he knew its effects, everything would be fine.
Seven in the night, Zheng Tan brought the bag over to the tattooed man's house.
The tattooed man would leave and head to his workplace at around seven thirty to nine. But before that, he would take a shower, eat a bowl of instant noodles, drink a cup of tea, and then leave. Every day the same.
Zheng Tan waited outside for a while when he arrived, then he heard the sound of the tattooed man taking out a bowl of rameon in the kitchen.
The tattooed man poured the boiled water in from the electric kettle next to him. He took out the half-empty bag of braised pork he ate at the club yesterday, picked a few pieces of meat into the bowl and stirred.
After he had poured the water into the noodles, the tattooed man went to the bathroom to take a shower.
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