A moment later, leaving aside the enraged trench coat man’s accomplices and the patrolling officers rushing to clean up the scene, the entire city remained oblivious to what had just transpired. Even the hotel’s records of Vixen’s stay had been erased.
All of it, as if it had never happened at all.
Of course, Wu Ming was unaware that certain interlopers had disrupted his plans, causing some minor changes. At this moment, he had sensed something.
“The music box was purchased? And left the city directly… so alert indeed?”
Wu Ming finished writing a business investigation report in his hand, then glanced at the gas lamp beside him; its light remained bright.
“Steven, are you asleep? I’ve warmed some milk for you!”
Mrs. Sterling’s voice came from outside the door.
As a middle school student and the family’s financial pillar, Wu Ming had earned the privilege of having his own room, unlike his younger brother Brandon, who had to share a bedroom with his sister Angelina.
Moreover, without Wu Ming’s permission, even James and Mrs. Sterling wouldn’t enter casually.
This sense of privacy made Wu Ming quite satisfied.
“Thank you, I was just about to sleep!”
Wu Ming opened the door, took the glass, and drank it all in one gulp.
“You’re such a child…”
Mrs. Sterling turned around helplessly and walked away: “Don’t stay up too late!”
“I know!”
Wu Ming turned off the gas lamp, obediently went to bed, and soon soft snores were heard.
At this moment, he sensed the two people in the master bedroom relaxing, moving very quietly.
“Sigh… Maybe I should have agreed to that boarding school last time… However, the school couldn’t arrange a private room, which would have been troublesome…”
On the velvet mattress, Wu Ming opened his eyes, his pupils gleaming sharply in the darkness.
After ensuring everyone in the house was asleep, he locked his bedroom door and jumped out the window.
“Ordinary supernaturals shouldn’t be able to see through the measures I placed on the music box… Which means, something urgent or unexpected happened?”
Wu Ming touched his forehead and closed his eyes.
After a long while, he suddenly turned direction and dashed off quickly.
…
Outside the city, inside an abandoned factory.
In the quiet night, a gunshot suddenly rang out, echoing further and further into the emptiness.
“Damn it!”
Vixen clutched her arm, blood seeping heavily through the bandages.
“You can’t escape!”
In the darkness, a red dot flickered on and off—that was the glowing end of a cigar.
The tall trench coat man had a cigar in his mouth, his arms wrapped around a massive shotgun, aiming at a certain abandoned iron door.
Bang!
A spread of buckshot sprayed out in a fan shape, tearing the door and everything nearby to shreds.
“Hmph!”
From the darkness, Vixen’s figure emerged, rolling swiftly across the ground, finding cover, and quickly disappearing.
“Flank her, both sides! Remember, no fewer than two per group! Her hypnosis can only control one person at a time, so teammates must immediately warn each other and stay alert!”
The cigar-smoking man roared, waved his hand, and two rows of black trench-coated men immediately surged forward.
Drip! Drip!
Droplets of blood fell to the ground as Vixen glanced around.
Clearly, this place had been abandoned for quite some time. The iron frames were covered in dark red rust, emitting a scent of decay.
Her dizziness and confusion told Vixen that tonight, she likely wouldn’t escape unscathed. She gave a bitter smile: “I was wrong. When a kingdom’s machinery starts moving, in terms of intelligence infiltration and the scale of its power, it’s in no way inferior to the Purple Hyacinth Federation…”
Although she had detected the tail early and dealt with the surveillance, these hounds from the opposing side were also quite clever. They pretended to find nothing while secretly controlling all customs and border checkpoints.
As soon as she disguised herself and prepared to flee abroad, she was immediately discovered, followed by a fierce battle.
If it weren’t for Vixen’s deep hypnosis skills and her elite mercenary training, escaping here would have been nothing but a fantasy!
But even reaching here marked her limit.
Gas-powered searchlights swept around, and the gradually approaching footsteps sounded like the knocking of the grim reaper at death’s door, causing a trace of despair to appear on Vixen’s face.
Especially after hearing the cigar-smoking man’s orders, she no longer held any hope for herself.
“They’ve even figured out my abilities?”
Vixen thought bitterly.
She knew that with her past actions and performances, there must be thick stacks of files and reports about her in their archives.
No matter how many times she fought back or how many they lost, they could always replenish their numbers, but her strength was constantly being whittled down, and even her abilities had been exposed significantly.
This was the tragedy of an individual fighting against an overwhelming force.
No matter how brave or clever one might be, eventually, they would be crushed and overwhelmed by collective power. The collective has countless chances to try again, but for her, a single failure meant death with no grave to call her own.
“No abnormalities here!”
“Report, nothing here either!”
…
The gas-powered searchlights grew closer and closer. Finally, two trench coat men pushed open the workshop door.
“There’s nothing abnormal here… Hmm?”
One man was startled to see a bloodstain on the ground.
Then, under the glow of the gas lamp, a woman’s face, beautiful beyond ordinary, suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Her pupils were filled with a hazy allure, almost drawing his entire being into them.
“Joe, she’s here!”
The companion immediately screamed, aiming his revolver at Vixen.
Boom! Boom!
The muffled gunshots rang out, and amidst the sparks, the gas lamp shattered upon hitting the ground.
“Joe… what are you doing…”
The trench coat man’s chest bore several bullet holes, collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
“Run east and create a distraction! Don’t stop, kill anything that blocks you!”
Vixen gritted her teeth and quickly issued the command to Joe before dashing west herself.
“What’s going on?”
“Joe’s team has lost contact!”
“Quickly surround the area!”
Boom! Boom!
Soon, a dozen men surrounded the spot and found Joe.
But before they could even relax, their colleague suddenly seemed not to recognize them, pulling out his revolver and firing several shots.
Caught off guard, several of them immediately fell into pools of blood.
Bang!
A tongue of flame swept across, instantly tearing Joe apart, leaving only his lower legs standing in the blood-soaked ground, a horrifying and eerie sight.
“He’s not Joe anymore!”
The cigar-smoking man emerged: “The real Joe is dead; he deserves a martyr’s death. You lot, chase in the opposite direction! The woman can’t escape… After using hypnosis once, she definitely can’t use it again so soon!”
He left something unsaid—that Vixen’s hypnosis was temporary and would weaken or even fade after some time.
If they captured Joe, there might still be a chance to save him.
But that would cause delays, and Vixen would surely seize the opportunity to vanish without a trace. Therefore, the obstacle had to be eliminated immediately.
“Pursue!”
The deaths and injuries of their comrades, along with their leader’s assurance, restored the courage of the subordinates.
They howled and soon discovered the trail of blood Vixen had left, tracking her down until she was cornered in a locker room.
“Vixen, surrender!”
The cigar man looked at Vixen surrounded on all sides, flicking ash from his cigar: “Stop this pointless resistance!”
“As an A-class fugitive, I know better than you what fate awaits me if captured!”
Vixen’s voice came out: “Shoot me if you dare!”
The cigar man frowned.
Such a hypnosis master was far more valuable alive than dead.
Had it not been for such a requirement, he wouldn’t have been so cautious, allowing her to escape this far.
Thinking again about the losses incurred, a surge of anger and hatred rose within him: “Charge in! No matter whether she’s alive or dead!”
…
“Tsk tsk… Didn’t expect to witness such a big scene right after arriving. What is this? A gangster gunfight?”
Under the moonlight, a small black shadow nimbly flipped over the factory wall—it was none other than Wu Ming.
A faint sneer curled his lips: “Even though it’s the outskirts, causing such a commotion, the patrol officers should have arrived by now.”
Clearly, the area had been cleared beforehand, proving the immense power of one of the warring factions inside.
For Wu Ming, confronting such a powerful organization head-on at this moment would obviously be quite inappropriate.
“I absolutely cannot reveal myself. After all, this is just an opportunity, an unknown supernatural. If she dies, she dies… I’ll help if I can, but I won’t expose myself unnecessarily…”
Gunfire served as the best guide. Wu Ming secretly followed and soon arrived at the battlefield.
“A roundup? Already at the final moment of the dagger appearing from the map…”
Seeing Vixen surrounded, Wu Ming furrowed his brows, then relaxed, silently concealing his presence.
“Charge in! She’s already out of energy for hypnosis!”
The cigar man roared, rushing forward violently to smash the door.
Crash!
At that moment, the small door suddenly opened, and Vixen stepped out alone.
Under the glow of numerous searchlights, her beauty became even more dazzling, but the cigar man treated her as if she were invisible: “Finally decided to surrender, huh?”
“Surrender? Haha…”
Vixen’s expression was peculiar: “It should be you who surrenders! Haven’t you noticed yet… that you’re already under my control?”
“What?”
The cigar man was greatly startled, instinctively pulling the trigger at her.
The next moment, a storm of metal swept through, and cries of alarm erupted around him.
“Chief… you…”
“What about me?”
The cigar man was momentarily confused, then realized he had shot not Vixen, but his own deputy!
The surrounding team members wore expressions of seeing ghosts. Suddenly, several more men’s eyes turned hazy, their faces twisting into eerie smiles as they opened fire on their own comrades.
“Hypnosis! Group-wide!”
Cold sweat immediately poured down the cigar man’s forehead.
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