Zhou Zhengde felt like his head was about to explode! He hurried through the bustling hall of the thirteenth-floor security office, his face dark with anger. The clerks who had been whispering about the shooting immediately lowered their voices when they saw him.
Fortunately, as the captain of the thirteenth-floor security team, Zhou cared about his image. He didn’t just yell at anyone he saw. Instead, he held back his anger and took a few turns until he reached the witness protection room, kicking open the alloy door.
Wei Na, who was in a swimsuit and taking a bath, was startled. The two security officers at the door quickly looked down... then sneaked glances with the corners of their eyes.
"Hmm," Wei Na smiled, "What’s up with my ex-boyfriend? Do I have to be handed over? Can I at least wait until I pick out a nice outfit?"
"Those bastards from the Black Fire Gang don’t dare touch me!" Zhou Zhengde spoke with a strong hint of anger. He shot a glare at the officer at the door, who quickly closed the alloy door.
Zhou Zhengde took off his hat, loosened the top button of his inner lining, and went to a corner table to turn up the lights to the brightest setting. He drank several big gulps of cold water and paced for a while to calm himself down.
"Who exactly is Mu Liang?" Zhou Zhengde asked, his voice filled with barely contained rage.
"Wei Na, I know you’ve been in the military and even got kicked out! I also know you have a few friends who are psychics from the thirteenth office!"
"Wei Na! You have to tell me the truth now! Who is he really?"
"What do you mean, who? Just a pretty interesting young guy?"
Wei Na climbed out of the makeshift bathtub, wrapped herself in a towel, and her long hair gave off a mature charm. She wondered, "Did something happen? I don’t have much interaction with him. You know I got a report about someone self-harming in the area, so I went to provide medical support, and then I ran into the scum from the Black Fire Gang... You need to tell me what happened so I can help you figure it out."
"He killed two gunmen from the Black Fire Gang, unarmed, with just a folding knife! He took them down! Two trained gunmen from the Black Fire Gang!" Zhou Zhengde’s voice was strong and forceful.
He paced for a while. Wei Na was clearly stunned, then her eyes lit up, and her sexy red lips murmured, "Wow, he’s that amazing?"
Zhou Zhengde became even more agitated. He shouted, "Just now, I activated the alarm for Mu Liang! I sent people over and brought back a dozen injured thugs! That scumbag was captured! I checked the surveillance and saw that Mu Liang had him hostage! Only one camera caught a blurry shadow! Now they’ve vanished into thin air! They likely went down to the lower city!"
Wei Na crossed her arms and laughed lightly, "Really? Are you sure? A handsome but weak young man killed two gunmen and took down a group of thugs? Is he really that cool?"
Zhou Zhengde: ...
He needed to calm down. "I know you’re interested in this young man, but you need to understand, it’s me, Zhou Zhengde, who is protecting you!"
Zhou Zhengde scolded, "Mu Liang is very likely a psychic! Those disgusting, dirty, shameless psychics! Just thinking about the possibility that I might have helped a killing machine trained by the thirteenth office makes me sick! Sick!
"You know why I was pulled from the law enforcement team! You know how much I hate those bastards!"
"Okay, okay, I suggest you calm down first. Your voice is really too harsh," Wei Na said, her tone becoming much softer. "I thought you were jealous of him."
Zhou Zhengde looked speechless. Wei Na winked at him, sitting cross-legged in her chair, her fair legs glowing.
She smiled, "Tell me about the injuries of those two gunmen and the thugs, and the statements from the survivors. Although I’ve been away from the military hospital for a few years, I should be able to tell if the injuries were caused by a psychic."
"The shooting site had surveillance, which captured the whole process..." Zhou Zhengde quickly recounted the intense battle from the surveillance footage, then shifted the topic, "But the scumbag's territory had no proper surveillance. And those thugs basically saw nothing; they just heard whistling sounds and then felt pain in their necks and difficulty breathing. Some even lost consciousness, and the lack of oxygen to their brains might leave some aftereffects."
Zhou Zhengde pondered for a moment before continuing, "Some... nuts were found at the scene, standard repair parts that can be exchanged for a pack with a universal quota. The thugs were all hit in similar spots, right around their necks. My shooting skills are good, as you know, but if I had a standard-caliber sniper rifle and took the right position, it would still be hard for me to hit the same spot on multiple targets from fifty meters away. The only explanation I can think of is a psychic, one who can use telekinesis to move objects.
"But that doesn’t make sense either. Even the lowest-level E-grade psychics are extremely valuable resources... Mu Liang has lived in this area for years. He has a cowardly personality and has been bullied by thugs, even to the point of attempting suicide. His life trajectory is traceable."
Wei Na asked, "Could he be a psychic that hasn’t been discovered by the thirteenth office yet? Did he awaken some ability on his own?"
Zhou Zhengde immediately replied, "Impossible! I can say with 100% certainty that psychics are cultivated! They are not mutations of human individuals, nor are they an evolution of humanity! Plus, he took that thug leader, Scumbag, hostage. His goal might be to use Scumbag to take revenge on the Black Fire Gang in the lower city. Now the Black Fire Gang is directly threatening his life."
Wei Na countered, "If he’s a psychic, would the Black Fire Gang threaten him? Would they be stupid enough to offend the thirteenth office? Did he use a slingshot or some homemade kinetic weapon?"
"No, I need to find his whereabouts! I can’t let him run around with a gun!" Zhou Zhengde's expression turned fierce. "The Black Fire Gang firing a gun on my turf is a serious violation. I’ve already scheduled a meeting with the Black Fire Gang’s boss in three days at the 46th floor of the Happy City.
"In these three days, the Black Fire Gang should behave themselves. If things escalate, higher-ups will notice, and that might be beyond my control! Don’t worry, I’ll handle this matter quickly."
Wei Na frowned and said, "Don’t take risks for me, my ex-boyfriend."
"It’s not just for the friendship we’ve had since childhood." Zhou Zhengde picked up his military cap, bowed his head to put it on, and straightened his clothes in front of the mirror, his mouth slightly turned down. "There’s also that damn hypocrisy and false justice you mentioned!"
Zhou Zhengde turned to leave, but Wei Na suddenly called out to him. "Hey, do you want to stay a few more minutes?"
"Huh?" Zhou Zhengde frowned and asked, "What’s wrong? Do you need me to chat with you more? I don’t remember you being this fragile."
"Not that," Wei Na pointed to the door and then to the clock on the wall, clicking her tongue lightly. "I heard your officers discussing earlier that you only stayed here for five minutes last time. Excluding taking off and putting on clothes and fixing your appearance, the main task probably took less than fifty-five seconds..."
Zhou Zhengde’s forehead was filled with black lines as he stormed out, cursing, "The gangs from the lower city are already bullying us! You all have no shame, and I still want to!"
"Everyone, get moving! Let me know who took benefits from the Black Fire Gang, and I'll take care of him!"
Then, he turned and walked back inside, locked the door, and calmly took a seat in the corner. He picked up a paper book to read and sent a message to his assistant Lin Tao, who was up in the upper city, using a simple communication device.
[Don’t contact me for at least half an hour.]
Wei Na smiled and reminded him, "Won’t your current girlfriend mind?"
"I secretly broke up with her before coming down. She won’t let me announce it; she has her lofty political ideals," Zhou Zhengde said with a hint of disdain. "Women are just stumbling blocks to achieving my ideals... Stay away from me! Stumbling blocks! We’re done!"
Wei Na rolled her eyes, smiling wryly, and returned to the makeshift bathtub to continue her beauty soak.
...
There were actually many paths down to the lower city. At this moment, Wang Jixuan found himself in an abandoned fire escape. This was a common route to enter the lower city, leading directly to the 46th floor.
The zigzagging stairs made of reinforced concrete had noticeable areas of collapse, and one had to be very careful while walking. Since the power was out here, sufficient lighting became the threshold for entering this path.
Though Wang Jixuan had become a small practitioner in the Qi Refining stage again, he didn’t yet have night vision abilities, so he spent a bit of the universal quota he had to buy a few flashlights.
Captain Zhou didn’t notice one thing. Wang Jixuan not only took Blue Yuzai hostage but also raided his hideout, taking all the emergency food the thugs had collected over the past few days.
At this moment, the food and various valuable items were packed into two large bags, slung over Blue Yuzai's shoulders. Wang Jixuan had his right hand in his pocket, aiming a gun at Blue Yuzai, while holding a flashlight in his left hand to light the way.
The fire escape wound down, with a steel platform every thirty meters. Wang Jixuan looked down and saw dim lights far below on a steel platform, where some people were resting.
Each layer of the fortress was more than thirty meters high, and going from the thirteenth floor at the top to the bottom of the fortress was nearly fourteen hundred meters in vertical height.
The two of them descended almost twenty floors down the fire escape, reaching an area over thirty floors up in the fortress. Blue Yuzai's legs were shaking uncontrollably.
He pointed to an empty platform and whispered, "Boss, can I take a break up there? I really can’t walk anymore."
"Sure, you go ahead."
"It’s fine, it won’t collapse... Alright, I’ll go up first."
Blue Yuzai trudged up, relieved to drop the two large bags off his shoulders. The steel platform had a few simple folding chairs, two dim oil lamps, and a few barrels of water that might not have been changed for years.
"The water here is undrinkable; it’s all gone bad, and some has even been urinated in," Blue Yuzai skillfully unfolded a chair, lit the oil lamp, and sat down, starting to massage his legs.
Wang Jixuan pulled a folding chair to the corner and closed his eyes to rest. The earlier "intense battle" had drained more than half of his energy, and now he needed to absorb some spiritual energy to prepare for the possible fierce battles ahead.
Although Wang Jixuan was resting with his eyes closed, he was still aware of every move of the thug leader three meters away.
Blue Yuzai watched Wang Jixuan, his expression complicated, and his gaze gradually became clearer. He kept replaying in his mind the scene of the nuts flying through the air, the thugs collapsing after being hit, and how this boss snapped his fingers and directly blew up a camera dozens of meters away.
How did he do that? Blue Yuzai touched the new bruise on his face, feeling increasingly bewildered.
After a while, Blue Yuzai tried to mimic the finger snap action, making "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" sounds with his mouth, then lowered his head to think.
Was it his posture that was wrong?
After a long time, Wang Jixuan said without opening his eyes, "Rested enough? Let’s keep moving."
"Okay... Boss, can I ask a question?"
"Ask."
"How did you do that? Was that nut really shot out by you? How did you have so much power? Are you a legendary psychic? Wow... Can you teach me, boss? I can pay tuition!"
Wang Jixuan suddenly raised his hand, signaling Blue Yuzai to be quiet.
Blue Yuzai immediately shut up.
He looked down and saw several new light sources about ten meters below them, as four or five people walked out of the fire door into the abandoned fire escape.
With the flashing light, he could see a man and a woman whose hands were tied and wearing lighted miner's hats, followed by three young thugs holding flashlights, spouting vulgarities.
Just then, a beam of light shone directly on Blue Yuzai's face.
(End of Chapter)