Two days had passed.
During these two days, Bundy had never once appeared before Jiang Ran and the others, as if he had vanished from the face of the earth.
Although Jiang Ran and the group had searched and patrolled the apartment complex multiple times over the past few days—covering both apartment buildings and the newly constructed structures—they had found no trace of Bundy.
This had even led Zeng Yan to suspect that Bundy had already left Alice Apartment long ago.
Day 6 of the 32nd round, 9:44 AM.
Old Fang, the man who had once disposed of the American woman Eileen’s corpse to plant a human tree, was now wandering around the apartment grounds.
With his hands clasped behind his back, he strolled slowly. The warm sunlight fell upon him, making him feel utterly comfortable all over.
“That Manager Mao Li Zhishu, that young man... is he dead or did he go somewhere? Why hasn’t he shown his face at all?”
As Old Fang walked, he thought of the apartment manager, Mao Li Zhishu.
Alive with no trace, dead with no corpse—not even a reply to messages.
Could he really be dead?
“If he’s dead, I don’t even know where the body went. If only he’d left it for me to plant a human tree, wouldn’t that have been wonderful?”
“I’ve never used a Cherry Blossom Country person to plant a human tree before!!!”
In Hua Country’s vast river of history, there were countless traditions passed down from one generation to the next.
Of course, many ancient traditions had long been lost to the passage of time.
But some had managed to survive.
The apartment complex had a few inheritors of these traditions.
For instance, Sherlock, the Lingchi Master.
Or that Mingguang Armor Man, the blacksmith.
Old Fang was no exception.
His family’s hereditary skill was planting trees and tending flowers.
You might think—what’s so special about that as a legacy?
Isn’t it just planting trees and growing flowers?
But in reality, any trade has its levels of mastery.
Not to mention his family’s expertise and insights into the art of planting and gardening.
His family’s hereditary human tree planting was a true marvel.
Human tree planting, as the name suggested, meant using a human to grow a tree.
Bury the person in the soil, plant a sapling on top—that was a human tree.
It sounded simple, but in truth, it involved many steps, special techniques, materials, and precautions.
Unfortunately, most of these had been lost in Old Fang’s family over time. Only half of the human tree method had survived; the other half had vanished.
According to Old Fang’s family ancestral texts, a fully grown human tree was extraordinarily magnificent and beautiful.
Different people used as the medium yielded different trees.
In other words, every human tree was unique.
Just like people.
Some human trees were as described—magnificent, spectacular, and beautiful.
But others had an eerie, terrifying appearance. Whether it was the flowers, the leaves, or the fruit—they were completely different from one another.
The two types didn’t even seem to belong to the same species.
In short, the hallmark of human trees was that a thousand people yielded a thousand trees.
The most glorious period for Old Fang’s branch of the family was the late Ming Dynasty.
Back then, Old Fang’s ancestor lived in the north. When the Manchus—also known as the Jiannu or the Tatars—raided the Central Plains, this ancestor was captured and taken beyond the pass, becoming a booi aha (household slave) to a Manchu Eight Banner noble.
Because of his mastery of the human tree skill, this ancestor’s fate underwent a dramatic transformation.
After all, even among those Tungusic wild boar hides, some had a taste for such peculiar novelties.
Thus, from the lowest booi aha, he was recommended step by step until he reached Shengjing of the Qing dynasty. There, he planted human trees for the imperial consorts in the palace and the nobles of the Eight Banners.
In the end, he was even incorporated into the Han Eight Banners.
As for Old Fang’s branch, he still had other siblings and relatives.
One after another, because of their ancestor’s connections, they all fancied themselves as Eight Banner descendants, as Manchus.
They spent their days fantasizing—If only the Great Qing were still around!
Old Fang held nothing but contempt for this.
“Huh, isn’t that person...?”
At that moment, he suddenly spotted someone and immediately stopped in his tracks, cutting off his reminiscence.
He had been walking along the innermost perimeter of the apartment complex.
Ahead of him, near a small swimming pool building, a man was reaching through the apartment fence to take a delivery order from a delivery guy.
Although the distance between them was extremely far, Old Fang had long since developed presbyopia at his age.
He could see distant things with perfect clarity, while up-close objects were a blur.
So he clearly saw the face of the man receiving the food.
It was a foreign white man’s face.
Male.
Decently good-looking.
Old Fang stared at that face and realized who this person was. Wasn’t this the man named Bundy that had been posted in the group chat?
And whoever reported him could get money?
“It seems the heavens want me to get rich.”
Old Fang wasn’t a warm-hearted person by nature. It was purely for the money that he was about to make a phone call.
Meanwhile... over there, Bundy.
He had taken a packaged trendy Chinese-style fried rice from the delivery guy.
Compared to himself from two or three days ago, Bundy now looked quite disheveled.
It seemed those two or three days of hiding had taken a toll on him.
After receiving his food, he heard the delivery guy’s complaint: “I don’t get it. Why can’t you just come to the main entrance, or let me deliver it to your door? You had to come to the fence! Makes delivering such a hassle!”
After grumbling, the delivery guy left.
Bundy ignored him.
After getting his food, he carefully looked left and right to check if anyone else was around.
Then, he spotted someone in the distance.
He couldn’t make out who it was.
Nor could he tell what that person was doing.
But he knew—he would have to find a new hiding spot again soon.
Over the past few days, he had been constantly moving.
He had originally thought that after failing to kill that female manager that night and fighting with a few men, things would soon blow over.
But he hadn’t expected them to be so shameless as to offer a reward in the group chat for information about his whereabouts.
Even so, he hadn’t been too concerned.
After all, he had seen plenty of wanted notices and bounties in his time.
He still thought this whole thing would die down soon—but then came the surprise!
He had been kicked out of the group chat! So he had no idea what those bastards were posting in there anymore!
Although he didn’t know what else they had posted, he had learned one thing: those deranged maniacs were actually searching the entire apartment complex for him.
There was even one time when he had hidden in a small mezzanine compartment of the Alice Apartment library.
With only one floor separating him from Manager Wu Meiling and her group, he had realized—these people were playing for real!
They actually wanted to catch him?!
“Want to catch me? In your dreams! In this world, I’m the one who does the catching!”
Bundy recalled how, back when he was arrested and put in prison in America, he had helped the police analyze other serial murder cases.
He had successfully helped the American police catch another equally notorious killer—the Green River Killer.
So these Hua Country people thought they could catch him?!
What a joke!
Inside the management office on the first floor of the apartment building.
Jiang Ran was manning the post alone.
The others had all gone out to search or were in Building No. 2.
As for catching Bundy, he had already given up hope.
After all, there had been no sign of him in two days.
But just then, Manager Wu Meiling called him over.
