VAP - Chapter 36
Chapter 36: The Sleeping Beauty Whose Words Are Law (35)
When Qi Jiu returned to the laboratory, she saw Yue Du sitting by a lab bench, staring at her own fair, beautiful hands with an unreadable expression, lost in thought.
Across from her, the evil, white-coated Xin Licheng was still handcuffed in the corner, but the lower half of his face was sealed shut with duct tape. A few strands of his hair were stuck to it, making him look exceptionally pathetic.
When Xin Licheng saw Qi Jiu suddenly appear, his already bloodshot eyes widened even further. He made a muffled sound, “Mmph! Mmph mmph!”
Qi Jiu asked, “...What's all this?”
Yue Du let out an “oh” and said nonchalantly, “Some people are too noisy. It's annoying.”
Hence the need for duct tape to shut his mouth.
Xin Licheng grew even more furious. “Mmph mmph mmph—”
“What did he say?” Qi Jiu's gaze turned cold.
Yue Du replied, “Probably the usual villain's tragic backstory. I wasn't listening.”
“I see,” Qi Jiu glanced at the unlucky mini-boss and sneered. “I figured as much.”
Xin Licheng was so angry he rolled his eyes.
They say villains die from monologuing too much, yet this particular villain didn't even have the right to bare his soul or complain at length about his suffering. It was truly a tale to make listeners grieve and onlookers weep.
“What about the people who were captured as test subjects?” Yue Du asked.
“The ones who were still lucid escaped quickly. A few who'd been tortured into madness tried to kill me, so I took care of them,” Qi Jiu said. After a moment's thought, she added, “There's no one else in this base now.”
Naturally, Xin Licheng wasn't the only one conducting research; otherwise, it would have taken him forever. He used to have assistants, but they were either eliminated by Xing Qingcang's group or turned into test subjects by Xin Licheng himself.
In short, not a single one was left.
Now that things had reached this point, it was time to wrap up.
The two of them looked at Xin Licheng in unison.
Xin Licheng was self-aware. He knew that in the eyes of espers, a person like him deserved death ten times over and would never be let go. Thus, he had no intention of making an ugly scene by begging for mercy.
However, judging by the stance of the two women opposite him, were they planning to just do away with him directly...?
“Mmph?! Mmph mmph!”
You can't possibly deny me the time to say my last words, can you?! Don't you need to hand me over to the state? Don't you need to write a mission report? Aren't you afraid of being disciplined for killing someone directly!
Of course, the Two-Person Rotation squad wasn't afraid. The absurdly lucky are fearless.
Therefore, the last thing Xin Licheng saw in this world was Qi Jiu extending her hand toward him, fingers splayed, and saying coolly:
“Kill him, and make it look like he committed suicide by poison.”
The Word Spirit took effect. Before Xin Licheng could even process the meaning of her words, he felt a stabbing pain in his abdomen.
A look of disbelief flashed in his eyes, but in the next moment, his head slumped to the side, his eyes closing in unwilling defeat.
...His mouth was still covered with duct tape.
The instant he truly died, the Main System's notification sounded in both their minds.
The mission was complete. The points were credited to their accounts.
Yue Du silently averted her gaze. After a pause, she dragged over a stretcher and moved the still-warm corpse onto it.
Qi Jiu asked, “Shall we head back?”
Yue Du replied, “Yes, we can go now.”
Qi Jiu gently took her hand and teleported them to the surface.
They were back in the same small shop. A man in ragged clothes was squatting inside. He jumped in fright when he saw them, his gaze seeming to sweep over Xin Licheng's corpse for a moment before he quickly scurried away.
“That was one of the test subjects, probably hiding here to see how things would play out,” Qi Jiu said, shaking her head.
Dragging the heavy stretcher, the Two-Person Rotation squad walked at a leisurely pace, as if they were out for a stroll.
Qi Jiu didn't stop until they had walked a hundred meters or so.
“Destroy that base,” she said. “And ensure that nothing related to the poison is left behind.”
A dull rumble echoed faintly from underground nearby. Beneath their feet, unseen, the experimental base that had claimed countless lives was being obliterated by an invisible force. It was as if it were being consumed by a blazing fire, erasing all its crimson sins and leaving only ashes.
A crisis was thus averted, vanishing without a trace.
Yue Du tilted her head, listening closely. “Self-destruct sequence?”
Qi Jiu smiled. “Exactly. No one will find any holes in the story.”
Yue Du glanced back at Xin Licheng's silent corpse and sighed.
No matter what he plotted or how much trouble he tried to stir up in life, in the end... this was all it amounted to.
And the unspoken reasons behind his actions were buried along with his death and the destruction of the base, forever sealed away from the world.
...As if.
In fact, they hadn't gone much farther before Yue Du found out.
She was examining the internal files on Xin Licheng's phone. It couldn't be helped; if they weren't going to cover up the incident, the phone had to be submitted as evidence to the proper authorities.
If it still contained data related to the virus research, then what was the point of Qi Jiu destroying the base? Just for fun?
As she was checking, she came across a private folder named “Liming” meaning Dawn. The final virus, after all, was named Xin Liming A-79.
Yue Du was immediately on alert. After cracking the password and opening the folder, she discovered it was Xin Licheng's personal account of his experiences.
Xin Licheng had a twin sister named Xin Liming.
Xin Liming was gentle, intelligent, and beautiful (attached were several candid photos of his sister, taken by the sister-obsessed Professor Xin). Unfortunately, beauty is often cursed; she had suffered from a rare genetic disease since birth.
It was a terminal illness, and her life was sustained only by medication. Patients typically passed away before the age of twenty-seven.
Xin Licheng refused to accept this.
In a way that was both difficult to understand and yet perfectly logical, the resentful Xin Licheng went down a dark path. He used his family's connections and the power of money to make deals with the criminal underworld.
Human trafficking, human experimentation... eventually, Xin Licheng even used his own genes to create female offspring, keeping those who inherited the genetic disease as test subjects and disposing of the healthy ones.
He could no longer be considered human.
Finally, a glimmer of hope appeared. The cure Xin Licheng had been researching proved effective on a test subject—who was, in a biological sense, his daughter.
Just as he was preparing for the final round of tests, the Recovery Mist descended, catching everyone off guard—
Xin Liming was among the unlucky half of the ten percent.
Her frail body couldn't withstand the shock of her Esper Ability awakening. In Xin Licheng's arms, his twin sister stopped breathing.
If there is anything more painful than gaining something only to lose it, it must be having what you desire at your fingertips, only to have it cruelly snatched away.
From that moment on, Xin Licheng was truly mad. No, perhaps he had lost his sanity long before, when he began conducting illegal human experiments for Xin Liming's sake.
“So that's why. He hates everything related to Esper Abilities?” Qi Jiu had sidled up at some point. A corner of her mouth lifted as she said softly, “He sounds rather pitiful, doesn't he?”
Yue Du took one last look at the pale, thin woman with the warm smile on the phone screen, then turned her head away. “You're teasing me again,” she said with a sigh. “You don't really think that at all, do you?”
The end of Qi Jiu's sentence rose with a pleased lilt. “You really do understand me.”
Yue Du remained noncommittal.
Of course Qi Jiu didn't find Xin Licheng pitiful, much less would she sigh in sympathy for him. At most, she found the whole thing laughable.
A person consumed by selfishness and hatred is only digging their own grave with every action they take. Such a person deserves no pity.
“Exactly,” Qi Jiu said, letting out a lazy yawn.
Yue Du closed the file. “I figured as much.”
Qi Jiu tilted her head, her voice tinged with amusement. “Mm, you guessed right... What about you? What are your thoughts?”
Yue Du organized her thoughts before speaking slowly. “I sympathize with Xin Liming's tragic fate, but that doesn't stop me from thinking Xin Licheng was a madman and a monster. Unfortunate circumstances are never an excuse for someone to abandon their humanity.”
As she spoke, she lowered her eyes and added in a calm, almost detached tone, “Besides, his target for revenge was utterly nonsensical.”
Qi Jiu listened intently, then asked casually, “Do all you Systems understand human nature this well?”
Yue Du's expression didn't change. “Ah, my studies in human psychology were very thorough. My instructor in the training course even praised me.”
As if her funny bone had been struck, Qi Jiu leaned on Yue Du's shoulder, shaking with laughter. When she lifted her head again, her eyes were glistening, a vision of unparalleled beauty.
Yue Du remained expressionless. “...”
Let her laugh if she wants to.
Yue Du wondered if she should permanently delete the folder named “Liming.”
But in the end, she decided against it, letting it rest peacefully in the phone's storage.
As for how the world would judge him, that had nothing to do with them.
After returning to the safe zone, the two went straight to the core area—the original military district building—to report the incident.
This caused a huge uproar, even alarming General Lin.
The name Xin Licheng was all too familiar to the military—he had escaped from Xing Qingcang three times, forcing Xing Qingcang to submit three separate mission reports. How could they not be familiar with him?
“Please recount the entire incident from beginning to end,” General Lin said, his expression grim.
So Yue Du did. Her narration wasn't particularly smooth, and she stumbled over some of the details, but the effect was remarkably realistic.
In her telling, she and her vice-captain were just wandering around when Qi Jiu suddenly discovered her ability had upgraded, allowing her to teleport with another person. She wanted to give it a try.
As a result, she lost control and accidentally teleported them into the underground base, right behind Xin Licheng.
They were immediately confronted with the sight of many horribly killed test subjects in the lab, which was quite a shock. Frightened, they ended up fighting the villain, Xin Licheng, all while launching countless verbal attacks and righteous admonishments.
In the end, seeing no escape and filled with remorse, Xin Licheng committed suicide by taking poison. Before he died, he sneered that the base was rigged to self-destruct upon his death.
This was a disaster!
The two of them hastily opened the smart locks on the isolation rooms holding the test subjects, then fled as fast as they could to report back to the proper authorities.
The story sounded absurd, but when applied to the absurdly lucky Two-Person Rotation squad, it somehow didn't seem wrong.
【General, according to road surveillance, the events on the surface match her account. As for what happened inside the base, we have no way of knowing.】
The personnel in charge of monitoring the city's surveillance sent a message to General Lin.
General Lin replied: 【Understood.】
It seemed her story checked out.
General Lin watched some of the video files from Xin Licheng's phone. His brow furrowed as he saw the espers on screen screaming and struggling.
He asked Yue Du, “These viruses...”
Yue Du looked at him blankly. “We don't understand any of that. We just knew it was something serious. Is there a problem with the viruses?”
“No, it's nothing,” General Lin said.
He added, “Captain Yue, you've performed a great service this time. You deserve to be properly commended.”
After a few more pleasantries, he dismissed them.
As Yue Du was leaving, she saw military personnel lifting Xin Licheng's body to take it away. As they moved him, a thin string with a small box attached slipped out from the collar of his clothes.
It looked... like a small urn for ashes.
Yue Du turned and walked away, her expression calm.
Qi Jiu asked her in her mind, “Are you satisfied? It went just as you wished. I just didn't expect them to be so easy to fool. There's no sense of accomplishment.”
“You actually care about things like a sense of accomplishment?”
“Of course I do. For example—”
Qi Jiu suddenly leaned in and blew a warm breath against the System's fair earlobe.
Yue Du: “?!”
The spot immediately flushed red, the color quickly spreading.
Qi Jiu's eyes curved into crescents. “See? This gives me a great sense of accomplishment.”
Yue Du: “............”
Goodbye!!!
Saying goodbye was impossible, of course. Who ever heard of a System and a host being able to separate?
After calming down, Yue Du put some distance between them and said in a business-like tone, “Everything is proceeding smoothly. A team that isn't powerful but has achievements to its name—this persona might prove useful in future missions.”
Qi Jiu replied, “Mm, whatever our Yue Du says is right.”
Yue Du shot her a sidelong glance. Seeing her host's innocent and harmless smile, she could only turn away and sigh to herself.
The Two-Person Rotation squad had once again performed a great service.
The news spread quickly throughout the safe zone.
It was just an ordinary patrol, yet they had run straight into the notorious anti-social figure, Xin Licheng, and had actually managed to kill the dangerous man.
Who was Xin Licheng? He was the evil scientist who had escaped from the renowned Professor Xing's team from the neighboring province three times!
...Although no one really knew what made him so evil or what his research project was, the wanted poster from S City was plain for all to see. He must have been conducting some truly terrifying research.
It was one thing for those two ordinary espers from the Two-Person Rotation squad to get by on luck, but to take down a major figure of this caliber by luck alone? Did they actually have some kind of “King of Luck” Esper Ability?
Espers and ordinary people alike were all talking about it. After all, someone with seemingly average strength who managed to stand out through sheer luck was always an easy topic of conversation.
The kind that attracted both praise and criticism.
If a powerful person achieved something, people might feel envious or jealous, but for the most part, they could only look on in admiration.
But if it was someone whose strength seemed on par with their own, people would think, “If they can do it, why can't I?”
This was the news that greeted the Wingspan Squad—the esper team sent by the military to the neighboring province a month ago to assist with a mission—upon their return.
“What's everyone talking about?” the vice-captain, Fang Zheng, asked an informant he was friendly with. “Did something big happen in the safe zone while we were away?”
The informant replied, “Well, it's a big deal, I suppose, but major events don't usually have much to do with us common folk, right? Everyone's just talking about it because it's so unusual.”
He then recounted the whole story of the Two-Person Rotation squad.
After finishing, he added with a sigh, “I mean, we've seen lucky people before, but this lucky? Can you believe it? I bet one of them has a dual ability, and its name is probably something like Little Miss Fortune!”
Vice-captain Fang Zheng said, “...That's really something.”
“Tell me about it!” the informant said.
The captain, Zhan Yi, had been listening the whole time. He now asked, “You only mentioned that the captain of the Two-Person Rotation squad is named Yue Du. What about the other person on their team?”
The informant replied, “Oh, that girl? She's gorgeous, but she doesn't talk much—seems pretty introverted. I don't know her exact name, but it's pronounced 'Qi Jiu'.”
Behind Zhan Yi, a boy in his early teens suddenly went deathly pale.
Get instant access to all the chapters now.
Comments
Post a Comment