Li Wenjia snickered.
“Once I kill Huang Xiaotao, I’ll hypnotize you and turn you into a criminal.”
“Whatever you say,” I replied nonchalantly.
It seemed that Li Wenjia had convinced herself that she was invincible here. If I had not interrupted her earlier, I would’ve died from Wang Yuanchao’s bullet. Having said that, although I acted as calm as I could, I was secretly breaking out in cold sweat and my heart was beating like a drum.
I took a quick glance at Wang Yuanchao, who was now a cold and ruthless killing machine. To my surprise, I saw a pained expression on his face. I froze in shock. Was he not hypnotized after all? But that would be impossible! If he wasn’t under Li Wenjia’s control, he would’ve killed her a long time ago. My guess was that Wang Yuanchao was resisting Li Wenjia’s control on his mind with his own willpower!
This would’ve been an impossible feat if it had been anyone else. But Wang Yuanchao was no ordinary man. He’d fought in real battles and was as tough as nails.
Please, Yuanchao, I silently prayed. You must wake up! We need you!
“Officer Wang, sing!” Li Wenjia suddenly ordered.
Wang Yuanchao then raised his gun and pointed it at our heads. It seemed that Li Wenjia’s order to ‘sing’ meant something else. We walked forward step by step. The warehouse was large and empty. After a while, we finally saw a table in front of us. There was a white porcelain jar on it with a name that read ‘Li Wenhai.’ Two candles were lit and placed on both sides of the jar.
“Prostrate before my brother and knock your head on the ground three times, Officer Huang,” Li Wenjia ordered. “Make sure I can hear the sound of your head hitting the ground.”
“Never!” spat Xiaotao.
“You killed my brother,” said Li Wenjia. “Therefore, you must ask for his forgiveness.”
“He was a monster!” Xiaotao shot back. “He deserved no pity or respect!”
“Officer Wang, dance!” ordered Li Wenjia.
Then Wang Yuanchao suddenly punched Xiaotao. She fell to the ground, then Wang Yuanchao continued to kick and beat her up when she was down. I tried to stop him but he pushed me away easily.
“Stop!” yelled Li Wenjia. Then Wang Yuanchao stopped abruptly like a wooden puppet. He then stepped back and pointed the gun at us just as he did before.
I helped Xiaotao up to her feet. She was covered in bruises and was bleeding from her head.
“Kneel before my brother!” ordered Li Wenjia.
Xiaotao gritted her teeth and did so reluctantly. She then slammed her head to the ground three times. She hit the ground so hard I could clearly hear it, and my heart sank with worry.
Then there was a sound of clapping from the loudspeaker.
“Well done, Officer Huang!” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long. Brother, your spirit can rest in peace now.”
Xiaotao stood up and spat, “What else have you got, Li Wenjia? Bring it on!”
“There’s a letter behind the candle,” she murmured. “Read it yourself.”
Xiaotao looked behind the candle, then suddenly cursed, “You bitch! I’ll kill you!”
Li Wenjia laughed wildly, and the spotlights above the warehouse were suddenly turned on. I saw two people standing on the beam. Officer Ma was on the left and a middle-aged man in a suit was on the right. Both of them had loops around their heads. The other end of the loop was tied to the roof above their heads.
“On the left is your teacher, and on the right is your own father,” Li Wenjia said. Her cold and vicious voice echoed through the empty warehouse. “Blow out a candle and choose who will die. Otherwise, they’ll both die together.”
Xiaotao almost collapsed onto the table. She was about to turn the table over in anger when Li Wenjia exploded into laughter.
“If both of the candles are extinguished,” she said, “then everyone here will die. Go on. It’s all up to you.”
“You will die an ugly death, you bitch!” Xiaotao shouted hysterically. Tears streamed down her eyes, and my heart ached to see her like that.
“Your pitiful wailing is music to my ears,” Li Wenjia replied. “You only have five seconds, Officer Huang. Five, four, three…”
Before she counted to one, Xiaotao blew out the candle on the right and collapsed to her knees, weeping.
“Forgive me, father…” she mumbled weakly.
“Interesting…” said Li Wenjia. “You love your teacher more than your own father. Well, in that case… Ma Guozhong, step forward!”
Li Wenjia snapped her fingers.
Xiaotao looked up in horror as Officer Ma stepped forward. He fell from the beam, and when the noose caught his neck, his spine snapped instantly. Officer Ma kicked his leg in the air, and his body twitched for a few seconds. Then, he stopped moving. His body swayed limply as it hung from the roof.
“No! No! No!!!” Xiaotao shouted.
“Are you enjoying this game I designed for you, Officer Huang?” Li Wenjia asked. This time her voice didn’t come from the loudspeaker, but it sounded like she was approaching us herself. “I have longed to see you lose everything and die in pain for a long time!”
The sound of high heels clicking the floor grew closer and closer. Out of the darkness came a woman in a long red dress. Li Wenjia had cut off the bangs that were covering her right eye, exposing the bright green eye.
“Li Wenjia! I’ll k—” Xiaotao’s shout came to an abrupt halt, and she suddenly stood very still. I had a feeling something was very wrong, so I quickly looked away from Li Wenjia’s eyes.
Li Wenjia walked towards Xiaotao and wrapped her arms around her. It turned out that she was searching Xiaotao’s body for any hidden weapons. She pulled out the gun that was hidden under Xiaotao’s clothes.
“Finally,” said Li Wenjia as she caressed Xiaotao’s face. “We’ve come to the finale. I want you to helplessly watch this boyfriend of yours die in front of you!”
Xiaotao’s body trembled violently, but she still couldn’t move. She must’ve wanted to kill Li Wenjia right then and there, but there was absolutely nothing that she could do.
Li Wenjia pointed the gun at me. My heart raced. What should I do?
“Say goodbye to your boyfriend, Officer Huang!” Li Wenjia taunted.
Just at that moment, Wang Yuanchao suddenly shouted, “Aaargh!”
I saw him holding his head as if he were in pain. Li Wenjia was utterly shocked.
“That’s impossible!” she cried.
As soon as her attention was diverted, Xiaotao was able to break away from her ‘spell.’ She grabbed Li Wenjia’s arm violently, causing the gun in her hand to fall to the ground. But before she could hit Li Wenjia, she was once again hypnotized and immobilized.
“Turn the lights off now!” I shouted.
All the lights went out instantly. At that moment, Xiaotao was able to move again. Although she couldn’t see a thing in the dark, she was able to expertly knock Li Wenjia to the ground. Li Wenjia stealthily snatched a stun gun behind me.
“Get away from her, Xiaotao!” I shouted.
But it was too late. The stun gun hit Xiaotao squarely on her belly. She trembled and fell to the ground twitching.
Li Wenjia fumbled in the dark and managed to get up to her feet. She wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth and said, “It was very smart of you to use this trick on me. But…”
Before she finished her sentence, I landed a punch on her face.
“Who did that?” asked Li Wenjia, visibly frightened. She looked around holding the stun gun in front of her. But her fox eye couldn’t focus in the dark, so it had no effect at all.
“It’s me!” I announced.
This was my plan all along. Right now, it was the darkest moment before dawn. Her fox eye lost all effects in complete darkness, yet this was when my Cave Vision was most effective!
Li Wenjia heard my footsteps approaching her and she was about to run away, but because it was completely dark, she didn’t dare to run too fast. All she could do was grope her way in the dark and stumble away from me. The woman who believed herself invincible just moments ago had now turned into a hapless blind woman.
I grabbed an iron rod and followed Li Wenjia. When she heard my footsteps, she turned around and tried to attack me with the stun gun, but I hit her on the wrist with the iron rod, and the stun gun flew out of her hand. I then hit her on her knees with the rod, causing her to fall to the ground.
“How did you do that?” she asked in panic.
“You’re not the only one with special eyesight!”
I pinned her body to the ground with the iron rod. I had reservations about hurting a woman, but at that moment, I no longer hesitated. I wished that I could kill her with my own hands. What she’d done proved that she was hardly a human at all, but a demon!
“I’ve never used this skill on a living person before,” I told her. “You have the honor of being the first!”
Li Wenjia struggled hysterically and shouted, “No! I won’t surrender! No! This isn’t happening! I won’t lose to a side character like you!”
“A side character like me?” I sneered.
Cave Vision was first developed by Song Buping, the first patriarch of the Song family, chief justice officer of Guangxi and Guangzhou. The original purpose of Cave Vision was to fight criminals in the dark, so it was no accident at all that Li Wenjia’s fox eye was finally defeated by my Cave Vision.
I inserted my finger into her right eye and pulled out the eyeball. It was cool to the touch, and it was as big as an apricot stone. The eyeball trembled in my hand like jelly. There seemed to be no damage on it at all. Li Wenjia’s scream echoed throughout the warehouse.
Suddenly, Li Wenjia gritted her teeth and muttered, “One, two…”
I realized that she was trying to make the other hostages commit suicide. I punched her on her face, knocking out a few of her teeth. Just when she was still confused, I quickly picked up the stun gun and shot it at her.
Li Wenjia trembled and finally passed out. I breathed a sigh of relief and shouted into the walkie-talkie, “You can come in now, Uncle Sun!”
The lights were turned on again. I quickly checked Xiaotao’s injuries. She was in a terrible state, but she slowly opened her eyes and smiled at me.
“You did it, Song Yang!” she exclaimed.
Meanwhile, Wang Yuanchao was still struggling. His whole body was still convulsing. What he did was truly an impressive feat. If it hadn’t been for his shout, Xiaotao and I would’ve lost our lives.
A large number of the special squad officers rushed in with Type 95 rifles in their hands and they quickly rescued all the hostages. The hypnotized victims would all receive psychiatric treatment, but their recovery process would be lengthy.
When she saw Officer Ma’s body being packed into a body bag, Xiaotao leaned against my shoulder and wept bitterly.
I gave the Fox Eye to Sun Tiger so he could keep it as evidence. I suggested for the Fox Eye to be donated to a museum after Li Wenjia’s trial.
Eventually, the mysterious eyeball that exuded a turquoise-green light would become a permanent exhibition item in the Nanjiang City Museum. I would often visit it later, and every time I looked at it, it evoked a sense of awe and terror in me that I couldn’t explain.
As we walked out of the warehouse, the sky slowly brightened. Our nightmares were finally over.
“I’ll always remember you, Song Yang!” Li Wenjia’s hysteric scream shattered the peace. I turned around and saw her with wily hair, shouting like a lunatic. “I am the best hypnotist in the world! Do you really think you can shut me up in prison? I’ll escape! And when I come out, I will kill you and Huang Xiaotao! I will kill all of you!”
She then broke into frenetic laughter.
It seemed that she’d completely lost her mind. The desire for revenge had truly led her astray and hatred had completely blinded her. It really was a pity, because she had the potential to be a brilliant professor with a bright future.
A few months later, Li Wenjia committed suicide in the mental asylum.