"Someone who could kill Shangguan Jun fainted so easily from hypoxia?" Lin Yi asked. His voice was a low rasp that echoed against the damp concrete walls. He thumbed the safety on the gun at his chest and aimed at Jing Shu's head as if lost in thought. His eyes narrowed as he weighed the risk of keeping her alive.
Her heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird. Not this unlucky, right? Come on. She still had some value to his plans. They could talk if only she could open her mouth. Poor Jing Shu could not move a muscle. Her limbs were heavy and unresponsive as if they had been cast in lead. If the Rubik's Cube Space had overlapped the real world completely right now, she might have been able to control a gun inside the space and shoot Lin Yi dead before he could pull the trigger.
"Heh. You're not faking," Lin Yi murmured. Whatever crossed his mind made him lower the weapon. The metallic click of the safety being engaged sounded sharp in the silence. He crouched and rolled Jing Shu onto her back with a rough, impersonal shove.
He examined her closely in the dim, flickering light. The blood on her face had dried into dark, flaking crusts. She was even more bedraggled than Su Mali. Her clothes were torn and covered in the dust of the underground passage. He pressed two fingers to her neck and nose to check the thready pulse and shallow airflow. Then he pried open an eyelid. His frown deepened as he observed her unresponsive state.
It was not simple hypoxia.
"What's it, boss? Want me to finish this witch? Let me do it," Fei Zhuzai said, drawing back his foot for a kick toward her. He was halted by a single, icy look.
Lin Yi waved him off with a sharp gesture. "This woman is still useful to me." He began to search her, his hands patting down her clothing with clinical efficiency. Besides a military knife, a sharp dagger, and some basic tools, he found nothing of value. His brows pinched together in frustration. "No gun? No dangerous toys? Impossible. Didn't she drop them along the way?"
Jing Shu exhaled slowly in the privacy of her mind. Thank goodness for the habit of stashing valuables in the Rubik's Cube Space and only miming a reach into her pocket before pulling them into her hand. Her phone held too many secrets as well. Everything had stayed in the space. Reaching for her pocket had become pure reflex before taking things out.
No, the real luck was that she was still useful. He had not killed her yet.
"Forget it. Chain them here. Keep an eye on them. And have someone clear the corridor outside. Don't affect what comes next," he said, rising to his full height. After a pause, he added, eyes narrowed at the fat man, "Be careful with her. She is the one who killed Shangguan Jun. You know who that is."
Fei Zhuzai's teeth chattered with an audible rattle. Of course he knew the terrifying reputation of such a man.
"Rest easy, boss. I'll be careful. This time they are not going anywhere," he swore. His voice was oily with false bravado. Inwardly, he grinned. Once the boss left, he would do as he pleased. Su Mali was a hostage, but this little shrimp beside her…
Heh heh heh.
He could already taste the good times he would have.
Lin Yi had nodded, collected all the guns with a metallic clatter, and walked to the heavy door at the end of the underground passage. Before leaving, he palmed two micro surveillance bugs and stuck them just inside the doorway against the rough stone. Only then would he go.
"Let's see what secrets you're hiding," he hummed to himself. The sound disappeared into the darkness. He loved using an enemy's way against them. If he had not been vigilant, living on a strict schedule and under constant watch, this woman might have discovered something by now.
He knew exactly what kind of man Fei Zhuzai was. Leaving him here was deliberate. He wanted trouble to brew. He wanted to see what Jing Shu would do with no outside help at all.
He was genuinely curious about her limits.
He left, but his quiet motion at the threshold did not escape Jing Shu, who hovered in an out-of-body state.
What stunned her even more was that her field of view matched the unfolded sightline inside the Rubik's Cube Space. Within that panoramic view, there were no blind spots to hide in.
She wondered if this was a new ability as the Rubik's Cube Space upgraded to the seventh tier.
In short, in the area where the space overlapped reality, she possessed the same god's-eye perspective she had inside the space. She could zoom and rotate it at will. When she wanted a clear look at what Lin Yi had stuck to the door, the mental image snapped closer. It was a pinhole surveillance bug, a tiny black speck against the frame.
A new hypothesis formed in her mind. When the Rubik's Cube Space fully overlapped the real world, she might gain absolute control over the overlapped zone, just as she had absolute control inside the space.
This god's-eye born from overlap might be only the beginning of her new power.
As in the space, this "god view" seemed to be a projection reflected into her mind. She was not truly out of her body, but was watching the Rubik's Cube Space's projection of the room.
As the space expanded, her view expanded with it.
Lin Yi was gone. Fei Zhuzai summoned men to chain Su Mali and Jing Shu to the thick, damp pillars in a transfer hall of the underground passage. The place had once stored things. It smelled of old iron and wet rot. Aside from pooled, stagnant water, black residue littered the floor. What had they been doing here in this forgotten vault?
To prevent escape, he locked them with heavy chains. The cold iron bit into their wrists. He rubbed his hands together. "Wait for me. Once the corridor is fixed, we will have some fun."
He reached to stroke Jing Shu's cheek, then recoiled, disgusted by the dried blood and filth on her skin. He turned away to work on the broken tiles. She let out a tiny breath.
Time trickled by in the silence. In the corner, Da Mao's corpse drew the apocalypse's bugs, which began to devour him. A rhythmic crunching sound filled the room. At this rate, in under two hours, the body would be stripped to a bare skeleton. Even the blood would be gone from the floor.
Her vision slowly fuzzed at the edges. The projection of the Rubik's Cube Space fractured and fell apart into white noise. She lost her final sight and her consciousness.
Streams of glowing system messages poured into her mind. The new vision had been only one branch of the Rubik's Cube Space's new abilities.
"Today's killing me," Fei Zhuzai panted later as he walked back, looking pleased with the Swiss watch on his wrist. He was dog-tired, yes, but the haul had been decent. Pity the guns on the man who had been flattened had been ruined. Otherwise the take would have been better.
He swaggered to the captives, his boots scuffing the floor, grinning and rubbing his hands. "Sweetheart, I'm back. Miss me?"
The noise roused Su Mali from her stupor. She opened her eyes to find his huge, greasy face inches away and screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Ah! Ah!" Her shrieks finally jolted Jing Shu awake. Pain throbbed everywhere in her stiff muscles. She was freezing on the cold floor. Her stomach growled with a fierce, hollow ache. The upgrade must have eaten a mountain of her body's energy.
As she blinked herself to awareness, Fei Zhuzai's piggish face loomed closer. That greasy hand reached for her throat.