Hui Tian Ch56

Chapter 56

“The Qing Dynasty has already fallen, Mr. Cameron,” Bai Sheng said politely.

---

The glittering ceremony site had devolved into complete chaos. Armed guards from both the Security Council and the International Supervision General Administration had locked down all entrances and exits, allowing only entry and no egress. Ability detectors and explosive scanners swept through the crowds repeatedly, and the air was filled with noisy clamor and protests.

With a screech of tires, a black Mercedes pulled to a sudden stop at the entrance.

Bai Sheng pushed the door open and stepped out. With his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs, dressed in a sharp black suit and leather shoes, he would have looked like a movie star on a red carpet if not for the tense, noisy backdrop. Unfortunately, no one had the mind to notice: “Where is Cameron?”

A guard choked on his words, unable to respond before Bai Sheng caught sight of Cameron rushing past with his entourage inside the hall. He immediately strode forward and barked, “Elton Cameron!”

Cameron turned his head, and upon seeing Bai Sheng, he immediately launched a verbal assault: “Why are you so slow? Where is Shen Zhuo? Why aren’t you together?!”

Having been briefed on the situation by Cameron’s secretary over the phone on his way there, Bai Sheng frowned. “We were just…”

“Just what? Arguing? And because of your trivial, stupid bickering, we’re in this irreparable situation?!” Cameron strode through the chaotic corridor, rubbing his forehead and sighing at the ceiling. “My IQ is limited by my meager imagination. Why can a person have so much drama just because they’re dating an ant?”

“…” Bai Sheng asked, “Who exactly are you?”

Cameron pushed open the door to the interrogation room with a huff. “Don’t ask so many questions; you won’t be anyone of mine in the future anyway.” Bang! He slammed the door shut without looking back.

Just as Bai Sheng was about to follow, his footsteps faltered. He caught sight of another room down the hallway.

The room was littered with broken glass. A few Round Table students sat in a circle, weeping, with a blood-stained wheelchair in the center. Under a white sheet, the thin, rigid shape of a person was faintly visible.

It was the Bishop.

The situation was too chaotic; no one dared to move the victim’s body hastily, so they left it at the scene for the time being.

Bai Sheng pushed the door open gently and walked into the room amidst the bewildered stares of the students. He knelt on one knee in front of the wheelchair, quietly gazing at the once familiar, aged, and wise face beneath the blood-stained cloth.

“…You, who are you?” a young student’s voice quavered from behind.

No one recognized Bai Sheng; he rarely appeared at the Round Table and had been gone for a long time.

Bai Sheng did not answer. His handsome face was calm and sorrowful. After a long time, he lowered his gaze and, honoring the Bishop’s lifelong faith, traced a cross over his chest.

“I will do what I promised you,” he whispered. “The Alpha Wolf will always protect his kind and peace.”

The interrogation room was heavily guarded by the Security Council. The few Office supervisors who had been guarding the scene were secretly arrested and forced to their knees, guns pressed against their heads.

Though not high-ranking and not die-hard confidants, these men were part of the inner circle around Nielsen and had never been forced to the ground in shackles before. The moment Cameron walked in, they began cursing: “You f***ing bastard!” “What right do you have to interfere with the International Supervision General Administration?!” “You’ll pay for this!”

…

“They are biting down on the fact that they don’t know where Nielsen went,” a Security Council official reported in a low, anxious voice. “Some say they don’t know what happened, others say the Bishop wasn’t killed by Nielsen. It’s too chaotic; we can’t get anything of value.”

“Nielsen wouldn’t suddenly go mad and assassinate Professor Thorne, who was about to win a Peace Prize. There is definitely a trick here; it’s mostly likely he was set up.” Cameron sneered coldly. “—But that’s not important. He knows we will use this opportunity to pin the murder on him. The only way he can manipulate us now is through one person: Shen Zhuo.”

Nielsen was a politician. A politician’s primary enemy wasn’t the person splashing dirty water on him, but the person using that dirty water to seize his power.

Therefore, his first priority wasn’t to struggle to find the real killer or avenge the Bishop, but to strike first before Cameron could act. As long as he held Shen Zhuo—the winning card—he held the entire HRG. Regardless of whether the real killer of the Bishop could be found, the Security Council would be powerless against Nielsen.

“Electric shocks, fire, truth serum—use everything. The faster, the better.” Cameron checked his watch and said sternly, “We don’t have much time. Just keep them alive long enough to be witnesses.”

“Yes!”

The interrogator forced an electric collar onto the neck of one of the Office supervisors. The evolutionist struggled frantically and furiously: “Cameron! You bastard, just wait. When the Director-General returns, you’ll have to shut your mouth. You—”

Zzzzt! Electric current surged, the smell of burning flesh filled the room, and the evolutionist collapsed in convulsions.

The other supervisors shouted in rage, but Cameron only knit his brows, gripping his chin.

“…You dog bastard,” the evolutionist lay paralyzed on the ground, sneering intermittently. “You low-life creatures can only be arrogant for now…”

“Can I only be arrogant for now?” A cold voice came from the doorway.

Cameron turned. Bai Sheng had pushed the door open with one hand, his other hand shoved in his pocket. He looked down at the evolutionist on the ground and clenched his slender fingers in the air.

Crack-pop!

A series of explosions erupted. The evolutionist’s entire body twisted, his arm and leg bones shattered, and amidst screams of inhuman agony, he was twisted into a gory, writhing mass of flesh and blood!

If it had been angry shouting before, now every evolutionist was screaming in terror. The horrific visual impact made the interrogators turn pale; several Security Council members stumbled back, even knocking over chairs.

Cameron glanced at the S-rank with slight surprise.

Bai Sheng walked into the room, his polished leather shoes not minding the blood. Several evolutionists scrambled backward, but Bai Sheng casually stepped on one of them, grabbed his hair, and hauled him up.

“Where is Shen Zhuo?”

“…I, I don’t kno…”

Snap.

Bai Sheng snapped his fingers. The man’s leg twisted six times automatically, the leg bone shattering into countless pieces. Hundreds of broken bone shards pierced through flesh and muscle simultaneously. In the blink of an eye, the entire leg looked like a meat skewer!

It was a scene that broke the limits of visual tolerance; the screams of everyone present nearly tore the roof off.

“I don’t have much time.”

Bai Sheng casually rolled his neck. The usual flippant, playful mask vanished, revealing his cold, cruel, and ruthless true nature.

He repeated for the last time: “Where is Shen Zhuo?”

Five minutes later.

The doors to the interrogation room opened. Cameron strode out: “Fenrir yacht, altitude 344 feet, displacement 3365 tons. Target area near the St. Carter sea region. Deploy full search!”

In truth, this was the worst-case scenario.

The sea environment was incredibly difficult to search, especially since Nielsen himself was a powerful S-rank evolutionist. His yacht was protected by heavy shielding and stealth measures—whether it was electromagnetic signal searching or deploying energy detectors, it was, literally, looking for a needle in a haystack.

Time ticked by second by second. Human technology had reached its limit. Even evolutionists with search abilities had been sent out, yet they found nothing.

Bai Sheng stood before a floor-to-ceiling window on the top floor of the hotel, his pupils reflecting the vast, azure ocean.

Behind him, staff hurried back and forth, phone calls and faxes overlapped; everyone looked as if they were facing a great enemy. But this small space seemed isolated from the world—oxygen was silently sucked out, and all was quiet and void in every direction.

Bai Sheng’s shirt collar was still stained with blood from the interrogation, making his face look pale and cold, as if he were an inanimate object.

Even though it was a clear sea, it seemed to have turned into a gloomy horizon, with leaden clouds rolling and endless damp rain. The newly appointed Chief Supervisor stood in front of the International Supervision General Administration building, his lean body wrapped in a black trench coat. Under his black umbrella, only the cold, white, and handsome lower half of his face was exposed; it seemed as if the global boiling controversy and endless attacks could not bring the slightest emotion to the frozen, thin lips in the photograph.

…I actually hated him back then, Bai Sheng suddenly remembered in a daze.

But he never dared to tell Shen Zhuo.

True and false bloody rumors, sensational scandals flying everywhere, the various inhumane experiments circulating… almost everyone was convinced that Shen Zhuo was a murderer who had escaped justice. It was perfectly normal to dislike, or even hate him.

But people are such strange things.

The more you hate someone, the more you encounter all kinds of true and false news about them through various media and channels; then, his image becomes increasingly distorted, exaggerated, and twisted within your information cocoon, until it captures your entire attention every day, causing endless resentment and curiosity.

It wasn’t until years later when the plane landed at Shenhai Airport and the cabin door opened that Bai Sheng looked down from above and finally saw the Chief Supervisor in the crowd, aiming his gun steadily at him.

In the instant their eyes met, all the distorted, exaggerated, and twisted images of the past years crashed down. For the first time, this thought popped into Bai Sheng’s mind—

So, you are Shen Zhuo.

Beauty really is the most powerful weapon in this world.

Bai Sheng closed his eyes. The distant ocean tide let out a thunderous roar. He tried his best to amplify his hearing, hoping to catch a faint cry for help from the overwhelming sound of the tide, but it was destined to be in vain.

Because he knew that the soul, scarred and battered beneath that beautiful exterior, would never call for help.

Shen Zhuo would always stand tall, just like that steady figure he saw holding a gun in the crowd—isolated, upright, and unyielding. Even if he were burned by the flames of public opinion and etched by the blade-winds and frost-swords of this world, that soul would never bow its head to this world and beg for salvation.

“…Contact the local Maritime Bureau, send evolutionists to the sea surface with speedboats to search in person…”

“The Fenrir has disguise abilities; from the outside, it could very likely be any civilian vessel or even a sampan…”

“Then board them and search!” Cameron’s stern reprimand echoed through the corridor. “Intercept everyone and every ship in the involved sea area and search them all!”

Half the floor immediately descended into chaos and noise.

Cameron strode twice, loosened his tie casually, and glanced at Bai Sheng, who was still standing before the floor-to-ceiling window in the corridor. He frowned and said, “Why are you still here?”

Bai Sheng glanced at him from the corner of his eye and said indifferently, “I’m not here, so you can knock him out and drag him back to the Security Council as soon as you find him?”

Cameron didn’t feel the awkwardness of his plan being exposed. He looked up and down at the S-rank with a gaze that was hard to describe, and suddenly said:

“You know why Nielsen was in such a hurry to find Shen Zhuo immediately, right?”

Bai Sheng didn’t say a word.

“That pheromone of you S-ranks, the one like an animal,” Cameron said, wrinkling his nose in disgust, waving his hand nonchalantly. “The one that performs biological suppression on peers below S-rank and forces ordinary humans into a state of submission through copulation.”

“…”

“Nielsen must pressure the Security Council by leaning on the HRG. The most effective method is to force Shen Zhuo into submission quickly. That’s why he took him to the yacht; it’s quite possible that whatever should have happened has already happened. You understand what I mean, S-rank?”

Bai Sheng frowned, turned his face away, and stared at Cameron. After a moment, he said slowly, “I am a male of sound mind.”

“?”

“A male of sound mind means that when my partner encounters an unknown danger, I will do everything in my power to rescue them, rather than wasting time thinking about those extraneous things.”

“…”

“The Qing Dynasty has long since fallen, Mr. Cameron,” Bai Sheng said politely.

People came and went behind them, phone bells ringing. Cameron stared at Bai Sheng without moving for a long time, before finally spitting out:

“You can’t just look at someone’s face when you like them, do you know that?”

Bai Sheng said, “Appearance is only the most insignificant merit of Supervisor SHEN. Ah, sorry, I forgot; you might not know that Shen Zhuo is a living person with a soul, thoughts, experiences, and a way of behaving—”

“You also need to look at your own face,” Cameron said coldly, making no effort to hide his disdain.

“………………”

Bai Sheng stared at him for a long time, unable to tell if this man had a problem with his mental state or his eyes.

“Mr. Cameron,” the secretary trotted over, holding a still-warm fax and a satellite phone, and said hurriedly, “We have coordinated with the Maritime Bureau. The first batch of five speedboats has departed to search the involved sea area. The second batch won’t be ready to depart for another hour…”

“An hour? What are they doing? Don’t they have speedboats? Are they waiting for the speedboats in the warehouse to give birth to little speedboats before they can depart?” Cameron snatched the satellite phone from the secretary and quickly dialed the local Maritime Bureau, launching into a barrage: “Hello, Morrison’s office? I am Cameron. Listen to me: if you don’t cooperate with the operation to deploy all personnel and vessels within ten minutes, I will hand over the photos of you using public funds to party in nightclubs and lying on nude beaches to the media, letting the rats in your political rivals’ offices admire those two wrinkled…”

Bai Sheng withdrew his gaze and suddenly caught sight of the garden lawn behind the hotel, his gaze pausing.

All the guests attending the ceremony had been temporarily cleared. Celebrities from all walks of life and news media were forced to crowd onto that patch of grass, bustling and incredibly chaotic.

In a corner of the crowd sat an old lady with a full head of silver hair. She looked at least eighty or ninety, but she moved with agility and spirit. She was wearing a pale yellow floral silk dress with a bright yellow cardigan, holding a small emerald-embroidered bag, her lips painted red, smiling from ear to ear as she chatted happily with a sixty-year-old gentleman she had just met:

“Oh, young man, stop your sweet talk, although your eyes are as moving as a mountain spring. What, you also like vodka and train travel? That’s wonderful! Next time, we can take the train to Siberia together to hunt bears…”

“She came too?” Bai Sheng almost doubted his own eyes.

Cameron had just finished his call and turned around: “?”

Bai Sheng didn’t hesitate, turned, and charged down the stairs like an arrow. Cameron didn’t even have time to ask questions before he decided to follow, rushing into the elevator and hitting the lobby floor. When he got out, he saw Bai Sheng had already dashed out of the hotel’s back door, walking straight through the crowded garden lawn:

“Lady Harpa!”

The old lady’s smile didn’t fade as she leaned on her cane and turned her head. On the back of her wrinkled hand was a clear, faint ‘S’.

Iceland’s only S-rank. Because of her advanced age of ninety, she had declined a seat among the Ten Chief Supervisors. She loathed social activities and had never attended any ceremonies.

S-rank ability: [Foresight].

Predicts specific scenes in the future, and allows the caster—by paying a personal price—to change a series of minor factors to trigger a ‘Black Swan’ effect, ultimately achieving the situation the caster wishes to see. The cost depends on the difficulty of the event.

Ability cooldown: Three weeks to half a year.

Bai Sheng strode over and grabbed the old lady’s hand: “Madam, we met in Iceland five years ago. Do you remember me?”

“…”

Lady Harpa peered at Bai Sheng over the top of her round glasses for a moment.

“I remember,” she said slowly. “You asked me to use [Foresight] to help you see your future wife, provided I first use the Law of Causality to help you wipe out the rats in your manor. After a flash of white light, my entire manor disappeared into thin air, not even a root of grass remained…”

“That was the first time I used the Law of Causality. I only realized it would go out of control after I tried it.”

Bai Sheng rubbed his forehead in frustration and said sincerely, “Madam, all of us need your help very much right now. Can you use [Foresight] one more time to help us predict where a yacht will appear?”

Just then, Cameron hurried over with his men, staring in disbelief at this elegant old lady.

Lady Harpa fell silent for a moment, her gaze sweeping over the Security Council group.

“Child, I cannot help with this.” She refused without hesitation. “Fate once warned me never to participate in any of humanity’s—”

“I am asking you as a peer.” Bai Sheng interrupted her, staring intently at the old lady’s clear gray eyes, his tone gentle but his words forceful.

“I am asking you as a peer of equal standing. I am willing to pay any price.”

Between S-ranks, some favors must be granted.

If you really don’t want to grant them, you can, but the face of the Law of Causality must be honored.

Even Lady Harpa was left with no choice; she sighed, leaning on her small round glasses.

“In one hour, the Fenrir will pass within fifteen nautical miles of the St. Carter’s Strait. Nielsen has disguised his yacht as a blue fishing boat.”

She paused and said slowly, “Supervisor SHEN is in good condition, but you had better hurry, because in an hour, he won’t be as well as he is now.”

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