Chapter 35: The Arsonist of Hearts

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The trench-coat man remained at the scene, agonizing over the matter for a full three minutes.

It was not that he needed to confirm the fat man’s death. Looking at the bathtub completely filled with blood—so much that the water level had risen by an inch or two—he could be absolutely certain that the man had become a thoroughly dead fat man.

What troubled him was something else.

He looked at the little jack-o’-lantern in his hand. Its twisted, agonized expression seemed to contain a peculiar artistic quality: a hint of Miller’s Classicism, a touch of Monet’s Impressionism, Matisse’s Fauvism, Munch’s Expressionism, Balla’s Futurism, Picasso’s Cubism, and Dalí’s Surrealism all seemed to have found expression in that tiny pumpkin. In short—

“This pumpkin is hideous…”

He stared at the lantern, conflicted, for a long while. He could not for the life of him understand why he had suffered a momentary lapse of reason and bought such a thing on the street. Once placed at a murder scene, it might well attract the police’s attention before the dead fat man in the bathtub did.

Still, he had indeed bought it from a nearby street vendor, and the person wearing the abstract pumpkin head had not exchanged many words with him. There was therefore no need to worry about exposing himself.

But this pumpkin really was hideous.

Why hadn’t he gone to the convenience store on the roadside and bought a jack-o’-lantern? It would have meant going a little farther, but at least that thing would not have been so conspicuous at a murder scene.

And surely this would diminish the style of a psychopathic killer, wouldn’t it? Absolutely, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t everyone mistake the killer for an ordinary idiot instead of someone truly extraordinary?

After wrestling with the matter for quite some time, he finally sighed and placed the ugly jack-o’-lantern on the ground, along with a handgun and a broken pacifier.

So be it. He could hardly leave, buy another jack-o’-lantern, and come back.

…

Ma Zhaodi walked through a dark alley, feeling somewhat conflicted.

He had put away his eye-catching pumpkin costume. To be honest, he was beginning to understand those superheroes and supervillains who were always wearing masks. It might look as though they had merely put on a pumpkin head, but once their faces were hidden, they realized that they could do anything they normally would not dare to do—and suffer no consequences for it.

It appeared that they had put on a mask, but in reality, they had taken one off.

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In any case, at that moment Ma Zhaodi could not help feeling, “I can do whatever the hell I want,” and he had even seriously considered snatching a group of children’s candy. But he had managed to restrain himself, because bullying children was simply too classless.

Besides, he had tried that brand of candy before. It was awful.

In any event, the pumpkin head was far too recognizable, which would not be helpful for the next odd job he intended to take.

He selected one of the most common types of costume on the street, purchased a pure-black robe through the system, and put on a white ghost-face mask. With so many monsters and ghouls roaming the streets, he blended into the crowd with ease.

Ma Zhaodi threaded his way through the crowds. When he reached the vicinity of a warehouse in the Burnley district, he saw the system notify him that he had arrived at the location of his second odd job.

The warehouse doors were firmly locked, but that was not much of a problem. Ma Zhaodi spent one hundred dollars’ worth of Asset Points to obtain an unconventional route into the building—one that involved climbing over the wall. Since the route also required a certain degree of climbing ability, he purchased a Basic Climbing Skill for one thousand Asset Points.

Looking at the winding, complicated route, he could not help sighing. If he had not earned so much in tips over the past few days, he truly could not have afforded all those points.

“I’ll see what’s inside first.”

Following the route provided by the system, he circled the warehouse and took one convoluted turn after another. Fortunately, once he removed the white mask, the black robe supplied by the system was sufficiently inconspicuous at night. As a result, no one on the street saw a long, ghostly figure writhing and twisting its way up the warehouse.

The climbing skill was remarkably useful. The posture it produced was a little ugly, but it was quiet and well concealed. On top of that, Ma Zhaodi’s relatively slender build allowed him to haul himself up directly in many places.

Bang!

A heavy object struck the ground. Ma Zhaodi rolled with the impact, managing a fairly decent landing. Apart from a slight ache in his back and legs, the only thing that concerned him was the noise.

He quietly held his breath and observed his surroundings for a long while. The warehouse did not seem to have anyone stationed there. Even though the sound of his landing had echoed rather loudly through the empty building, he heard no footsteps approaching from that direction.

“No one would be best. As long as there’s no one…”

Muttering words of reassurance under his breath, Ma Zhaodi’s eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. In the dim light of the scattered stars faintly shining into the warehouse, he could vaguely make out what appeared to be a small black mountain in the very center.

“Holy crap, why is it so huge?” His eyes widened. “What the hell kind of mission is this? Wasn’t it supposed to be the Heartfire Arsonist?”

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He took out his old cellphone. It did not even have a flashlight function, so he could only use the faint glow of the screen to search the warehouse for the light switch and electrical breaker. He had noticed while climbing down that there were electric lamps installed on the warehouse ceiling.

“Where is it? Where…”

He moved carefully through the warehouse, afraid that something strange might suddenly dart out of the darkness—or that he might trip over something, crack his skull open, and bleed to death. At last, in one corner of the warehouse, he found the large breaker switch he had been searching for.

“Let me see what this is all about first.”

Click.

He pulled down the breaker, and the warehouse lights suddenly blazed to life. Ma Zhaodi’s eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, and the sudden, dazzling brightness left his vision a complete blur.

“Holy crap… So the warehouse lights can really be this bright.”

Once he could see the small mountain inside the warehouse clearly, the system’s explanation appeared above it as well.

“Heartfire Arsonist: Burn all the illicit currency in the warehouse. For every one percent burned, you will receive a reward of two hundred dollars’ worth of Asset Points.”

“Holy crap! Why does ‘Heartfire Arsonist’ actually mean setting something on fire? Why would Harvey Dent come here at night to do this extra job? Was he already this insane before he became Two-Face? Hey!”

Ma Zhaodi vented his shock with three consecutive complaints. The sight before him had far exceeded his limited knowledge and life experience.

Stacks upon stacks of green hundred-dollar bills had been arranged in neat, tightly packed rows. They filled the warehouse and formed a small green mountain, while loose banknotes lay scattered across the floor. Picking up just a few would have been enough to match Ma Zhaodi’s earnings from an entire day of work.

“Good Lord, there’s this much counterfeit money… Does Batman not care about this?”

Looking at the enormous reward displayed in the mission prompt, Ma Zhaodi began to struggle violently with himself.

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