"Scumbag."
"My will is the edge of her blade. If dying could raise Ling Qi's place in my heart, she wouldn't hesitate. I understood her, so I fulfilled her wish. From today on, she will live in my heart forever. But you, Jing Shu, you're cold and detached. What's the point of your life?"
Lin Yi moved with unhurried poise, pressing in on Jing Shu in the cramped living room. She felt herself about to fall into his rhythm at any moment, the steady cadence of his movements drawing her in.
Hypnosis that depended on props and cooperation was the low tier. A hypnotist like Lin Yi only needed to speak. His voice carried a strange power that drew people into a mysterious state where, after listening to him, they had no idea what they had done. The silken thread of his tone wove through the silence, pulling at the edges of her consciousness.
"No wonder he could walk through danger without fear." Jing Shu finally understood why, in the previous life, Zero had been an ordinary man who was captured many times yet always managed to escape.
Of course, his hypnosis had limits. He couldn't easily use it in crowds or noisy places. That's probably how Yang Yang had captured him with a team before.
Whether it worked on the deaf is hard to say. A good hypnotist could also lay the groundwork ahead of time, planting suggestions like seeds in fertile soil.
This was a showdown between a master hypnotist and the illusions of the Rubik's Cube Space. The air in the narrow apartment felt thick, charged with the mental pressure of two opposing forces clashing in the dark.
Jing Shu tried several times to seed him with false perceptions and illusions to sway his decisions, but each attempt failed, her mental nudges sliding off his focused mind. Meanwhile, Lin Yi's usually unstoppable hypnosis had been greatly blunted here and was outright resisted.
"What a nuisance," Lin Yi finally said, giving up on hypnotizing her, his expression tightening. "I really like it here, you know. I liked chatting with Grandma."
"You're out of chances." Jing Shu had barely finished when surprise flashed in his eyes. He collapsed with a thud, his body hitting the floor like a lead weight. She stepped forward and found a small trigger button in his pocket, the metallic device cool to the touch.
After studying it for a while, she figured out the trick. Press the hidden button first, then walk to one specific floor tile. It would turn into a suspended trap. Anyone stepping on it would vanish in an instant, and the tile would immediately reset, never to open again.
It was the same mechanism as the one beneath Xishan. An escape device.
So that's it. The switch was on him. No wonder she couldn't find anything in the basement earlier. He had intended to use the same routine as Fei Zhuzai, and she had almost missed it. Dealing with people like this was exhausting. One moment they're bluffing or pleading, the next they're slipping away to freedom.
If Lin Yi had blended into the crowd, even a door-to-door sweep of Banana Community would have been a needle in a haystack, especially with people secretly shielding him.
Seeing he couldn't hypnotize her, he had been about to bolt. He was a psychology major after all, trying to keep hypnotizing her to divert her attention, making her think he had some ultimate move.
Thankfully, Jing Shu stayed sharp. Without spooking him, she sprinkled knockout powder she had collected at the wedding of her Paternal Eldest Aunt's son, when robbers had used it there. She released it from her space, the fine, odorless dust drifting through the still air of the apartment. Lin Yi's attention was fixed on her, his gaze intense, and in the dark room he couldn't see the microscopic particles. A few seconds later, his eyelids fluttered and he went under.
"Wake up." Jing Shu patted the wooden-statue-like Yang Yang on the shoulder. No response. She layered powerful suggestions from the space's illusions several times before he snapped back, his eyes clearing as if a veil had been lifted. "What happened? Where's Zero?"
She rolled her eyes and explained, her voice echoing in the bare room. Yang Yang pressed his lips in a tight line. "So that's it. No wonder the last incident felt so muddled. But how did you avoid being hypnotized?"
He looked at her with suspicion, his brow furrowing. Even after all this time, he still couldn't see through her. Jing Shu was a mystery, always full of new surprises.
"I have strong mental fortitude and a stubborn will. Even Zero was shocked he couldn't hypnotize me. Look, he even tried to run."
Yang Yang pulled out handcuffs, an electric ankle shackle, tape, and more. He bound Lin Yi from head to toe, the metallic clinks of the chains sounding loud in the silence. He sealed Lin Yi's mouth with the tape, the adhesive sticking firmly to his skin. "Let's see how he hypnotizes anyone when he can't speak. This time we won't let him escape. Now that we know his secret, we can guard against it. He's out of tricks."
Jing Shu hadn't expected her involvement to change Zero's fate so drastically. In the previous life, it had taken years before he was caught, and even then no one knew his ability. Zero had guarded this secret for many years, using hypnosis with extreme caution. He hadn't expected it to fail against her.
Still, curiosity pricked at her. Zero had said there was one other person he couldn't hypnotize. Who was that, and what's special about them?
Whatever the case, Zero was finally taken down. The thorn in her heart was pulled. From this moment, she was done with the Shading-the-Heavens organization. No more hitting the small fry to summon the elders, then the ancestors.
"When will he be sentenced to death?" she asked.
"I don't know. If we follow procedure, a week or a month maybe. But," Yang Yang lowered his voice, the sound a low rumble, "he probably won't die that easily. He stole data from China and even core data from the United States. He knows too much. They'll have to make him talk."
Every minute this man stayed alive made people's hearts pound with dread, the knowledge of his power a constant, lurking shadow.
"Update me if there's any news."
"Will do. You're owed a first-class merit for this. Interested in joining our First Unit? Wang Dazhao just got another promotion. He says he needs to climb faster to meet your standards."
"I just want to enjoy life in my villa. If you find something good, call me."
Yang Yang left with the unconscious Lin Yi, the heavy thuds of their boots fading down the hallway. His stockpile was confiscated too. Jing Shu wouldn't touch it, afraid of hidden surveillance.
The troops withdrew from Banana Community, the armored vehicles rumbling as they moved out. Li Yuetian had Jing Shu sit for a bit to take her statement, then, seeing she was in poor shape and her face was pale, sent her home. "Alright, come record the full statement when you're feeling better."
Before dinner, Su Mali sent a message, the screen glowing in the darkening room. All fifty or sixty of Lin Yi's people seen in the underground casino, alive or dead, had been found and brought to justice. She also reported the day's losses.
As for Su Mali's father, the gas cylinders are the least of it. More than thirty people had died. It turned out that when they went into the underground passage to look for Su Mali, a group ambushed them in secret, swapped into their clothes, and went topside to blow gas tanks and sow chaos. Those saboteurs were all killed in the ensuing firefight.