Mu Ke drove as if the car were flying, reaching the stronghold Tang Erda had mentioned in less than three minutes.

Tang Erda took out his uniform and identification card, then got out of the car. He turned back and shut the door, blocking Mu Ke, who had been about to follow him, inside.

With a grave expression, he warned, “You and Liu Jiayi are still on the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau’s wanted list. Stay in the car. If you insist on coming in with me, you’ll only slow down the rescue.”

Mu Ke’s hand froze on the car door.

“I promise I’ll bring Bai Liu out unharmed.” Tang Erda gave him a solemn vow, his gaze fixed directly on Mu Ke’s eyes. “He fulfilled what he promised me, so I’ll fulfill what I promised him.”

“I’ll get him out at any cost.”

With that, he drew the gun from the small of his back and hurried from the parking space toward the stronghold.

From the outside, this Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau stronghold looked like an ordinary convenience store. Yet at a time when panic had spread across the entire city, the people moving inside this store were still perfectly orderly. Those buying things continued buying things, and those selling things continued selling things.

That, in itself, was abnormal.

The moment Tang Erda stepped inside, the clerk at the convenience store looked up. When he saw Tang Erda’s face, he froze for a second, then immediately showed an expression of joy and led him toward the warehouse area.

Watching Tang Erda disappear into the convenience store, Mu Ke sat in the car and took a deep breath before finally loosening his grip on the door handle.

“Do you think he’ll really do everything he can to save Bai Liu?” Mu Ke asked Liu Jiayi in the backseat, unable to settle his nerves.

Liu Jiayi had put on sunglasses to hide her abnormal eyes. She did not seem panicked in the slightest. As soon as Tang Erda left, she stretched lazily and lay down across the entire backseat, looking as though she intended to take a nap.

“You’re asking me?” Liu Jiayi turned toward the direction of Mu Ke’s voice. She pulled down her sunglasses, revealing those gray, clouded eyes. “I think you should change the question.”

Her overly relaxed posture made Mu Ke pause for a moment, but he quickly asked, “...How should I ask it?” 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

“The question shouldn’t be when Captain Tang can save Bai Liu.” Liu Jiayi pushed her sunglasses back up with her index finger and nestled ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) lazily into the comfortable seat. “It should be when Bai Liu decides that Captain Tang has qualified, and when Bai Liu is willing to let him save him.”

Mu Ke was baffled. “...What do you mean?”

Liu Jiayi muttered under her breath, “You’re not stupid, so why do you lose your head every time Bai Liu is involved? Haven’t you realized it yet? Bai Liu let himself get captured by the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau on purpose.”

Mu Ke froze completely. “...On purpose?!”

“Yeah.” Liu Jiayi sounded as if she had known it all along, her tone calm and steady. “Otherwise, after that guy issued his explosion declaration and forced them into a city-wide alert, his objective had already been achieved. He could have used the eye to slip into the [Inner World] and hide. There was absolutely no need for him to stay where he was and wait to be caught.”

“But he was still caught.” Liu Jiayi shrugged. “That only means one thing—he let himself be caught.”

“Then why would Bai Liu let himself get caught—?!” Mu Ke abruptly realized something and looked toward the convenience store. “Is he trying to trap Tang Erda?!”

“I think you’ve guessed one of his objectives correctly.” Liu Jiayi tilted her head and continued, “Since Bai Liu allowed Tang Erda to join us, Tang Erda is now a member of our group. And Bai Liu has such a strong need for control that he won’t allow Tang Erda to feel any sense of belonging toward a group other than us.”

“Bai Liu is probably using this incident to force Tang Erda to make a choice. He wants Tang Erda to actively sever himself from the Heretic Management Bureau and come completely under his control. A person like Captain Tang is very easy to control through guilt, and Bai Liu is exploiting exactly that.”

Liu Jiayi turned her head slightly toward Mu Ke. “If I’m not wrong, Bai Liu will probably have the person closest to Captain Tang in the Heretic Management Bureau interrogate him, and may even induce that person into punishing him—”

“—If Tang Erda witnesses Bai Liu being punished by the person closest to him, it will deepen his guilt even further. In order to make it up to Bai Liu, he’ll take the initiative to draw a clear line between himself and everyone in the Heretic Management Bureau...” Mu Ke murmured, finishing the latter half of the thought.

Liu Jiayi snapped her fingers. “Bingo!”

Mu Ke let out a breath. “Bai Liu is doing this for the league, right?”

“Yes.” Liu Jiayi nodded several times. “As an outstanding attacker with deep feelings for his original team’s tactician, Tang Erda’s obedience toward a new team is not very high. To ensure his absolute obedience, Bai Liu, as the new tactician taking him over, needs to carry out a psychological separation process on him.”

“And this kind of process usually involves cutting the psychological connection between that person and the people closest to them.”

“Just like what Queen of Hearts did to me.” Liu Jiayi fell quiet for a moment after saying this. “Although it’s cruel, in a competition where lives are at stake, it’s necessary.”

“On the field, we cannot have even the slightest doubt about the tactician’s orders. They are absolute. Tang Erda clearly still resists and questions Bai Liu to some degree. For an attacker of his level, that is extremely fatal.”

“So Bai Liu set this trap for him.” Once Mu Ke knew Bai Liu would be all right, he completely relaxed. “You said this was only one of Bai Liu’s objectives. What about the others?”

Liu Jiayi took off her sunglasses. Her gray eyes “looked” out the window, toward the sign of the convenience store.

There was a cute chibi octopus on the sign—the symbol of the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau.

“I suspect Bai Liu wants to use his identity as a bomber, with Tang Erda as a third-party mediator, to cooperate with the Dangerous Heretic Management Bureau.”

Mu Ke was stunned. “Cooperate?”

After stirring things up to this extent, everyone in the Heretic Management Bureau should want Bai Liu dead.

Could they still cooperate?

—

“What did you do to the Captain?!” Su Yang’s tone finally changed. His fingers tightened against the tabletop as he desperately suppressed his anger.

Bai Liu leaned back on the stool. It swayed beneath his weight as he crossed his legs, lifted his chin, and smiled with an expression that made people itch to punch him.

“I used rose perfume to bewitch him and made him completely loyal to me.”

“He was abandoned by all of you, so I picked him up, trained him, and made him swear loyalty to me and betray you.” Bai Liu smiled. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“We didn’t abandon the Captain!” Su Yang slapped the table, finally unable to endure it any longer.

He tried to take deep breaths and adjust his emotions, forcing down the urge to question Bai Liu about what he had done to Tang Erda. Then he dragged the topic, which Bai Liu had deliberately led astray, back on track.

“Where is the explosion site?”

Bai Liu remained unmoved and smiled. “In the factory. Doesn’t Captain Su already know that?”

Su Yang pressed him. “Where in the factory?”

“Oh, right. Captain Su probably still doesn’t know why the explosion site was chosen at that factory.” Bai Liu’s smile grew even more pleasant. “I know Captain Su’s home is within five kilometers of that factory.”

Su Yang’s breathing stopped for a second.

“Captain Su has seen the death recordings of those people who tried to quit, hasn’t he?” Bai Liu leaned sideways against the chair, rested his head on his shoulder, and looked at Su Yang across from him with a smile. “Then let me tell you something you can’t see in those recordings.”

“Under the impact of an explosion, the fragrance concentration within a five-kilometer radius is enough to send newborn infants and postpartum women into severe addiction.” Bai Liu’s voice was very light. “If they don’t receive high-concentration perfume within thirty minutes, they will begin to wither.”

“Captain Su probably hasn’t seen the withering process of a severely addicted person yet, has he? I’ve seen it quite a few times.”

“The infant’s arms and eyeballs begin to burst first, splitting apart like dried skin. Because of the pain, he begins to cry, praying for perfume the same way he prays for breast milk.”

“And you, as his father, clearly know what he wants, yet you can only watch helplessly as your child cries out in pain in front of you, turning into a corpse shattered into pieces in your arms—”

Su Yang raised his bloodshot eyes. “Where inside the factory is the explosion site?”

Bai Liu looked straight at him. Then, suddenly, the corners of his lips curled into a smile, and his tone became even gentler.

“Does Captain Su want to know why I understand the withering process of a month-old infant eroded by fragrance so clearly?”

“Naturally, it’s because I experienced it myself. A pitiful child withered in my arms. When he died, only his mother was kneeling at my feet, powerless, begging me to save him.”

Bai Liu sighed. “But I was powerless. I could only watch him wither in my arms. His father wasn’t even by his side.”

Su Yang stared into Bai Liu’s pitch-black eyes. He did his utmost to maintain his calm exterior, but the panic in his heart expanded like a black hole.

Impossible.

Anan and the child had been fine when he left...

Almost subconsciously, he looked outside the interrogation room door. The team member outside had a dark expression and was holding up a pair of scales.

This was Heretic [1076]—The Judge’s Balance, a tool used for lie detection.

When Bai Liu lied, the scales would tilt toward [No]. But throughout the entire interrogation, the pointer on the scales had remained on [Yes].

That meant Bai Liu had not spoken a single lie.

Su Yang’s mind went blank.

Bai Liu lowered his eyes and whispered, “Captain Su, you know that before a bomber actually carries out an explosion, they choose a relatively similar, smaller location and conduct a test explosion, don’t you?”

“Guess where the preliminary test site for tonight’s explosion was?”

As Bai Liu said those words, there was a smile in his eyes and at the corners of his mouth. It was a smile Su Yang had seen on the faces of countless frantic humans contaminated by heretics—a smile belonging to someone who had utterly lost their humanity.

On Bai Liu’s face, that smile was fainter, yet it was even more chilling.

Bai Liu smiled. “How does Captain Su think we obtained your ID card?”

“Perhaps you can ask your wife how she spent her night?”

—

Author’s Note:

6 didn’t do anything bad! He’s faking it! Although what he’s doing right now really isn’t anything good.

My friend: Although 86 is the one who did good deeds and still ended up getting caught, tortured, and beaten, the people who are truly miserable are Su Yang and 2. 86 is a miraculous man. Even though he is clearly the miserable one, I can’t feel a single shred of pity for him. There must be something wrong with his character!

Me: (.)