Chapter 29: The Trap

Twenty minutes later, inside Warehouse No. 2.

Tea Immortal and Ji Cheng led an HL tactical squad straight inside. Armed with assault rifles, the squad members followed standard procedure, covering one another as they advanced and searched. Tea Immortal, however, seemed unconcerned, as though he already knew there would be no ambush.

“Sir, this leads to the basement,” one of the men reported. Rather than entering on his own initiative, he stood guard at the door, his gun trained warily on the entrance.

Tea Immortal walked over, apparently about to go inside. Just then, he turned to Ji Cheng, who was following him. “Could you tell me what's in there?”

Ji Cheng looked puzzled. “What's in there? The hostage. Didn't you just deduce that the hostage was being held here?”

“Really? Then go in alone and bring the hostage out,” Tea Immortal said.

Ji Cheng fell silent for a few seconds, then his expression abruptly changed. His face became that of a walking corpse, and his voice turned wooden. “You live up to your reputation. You spotted it so quickly.”

…

That morning, about five hours earlier.

After the rocket hit the surveillance vehicle, Ji Cheng dragged several of his men out, issued a few orders over the radio, and handed command of the scene over to the assault team's officers. Then he drew his gun from inside his jacket and rushed into the building where Li Wei was.

He headed straight for the elevator, intending to go to the top floor. About thirty seconds later, the doors opened. No one was inside. He stepped in and pressed the button for the highest floor.

Waiting always made people restless. Ji Cheng watched the floor numbers climb on the elevator display. Suddenly, they were no longer numbers. They became all sorts of distorted images, resembling human faces, yet also some kind of vivid, eerie pattern.

Ji Cheng shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, and opened them again. Just then, the elevator went pitch-black and stopped rising. Ji Cheng sensed danger. Someone must be behind this, but he was a Normal-rank ability user, after all. He was only trapped in an elevator; he had plenty of ways to deal with that. Feeling his way to the doors, he forced them apart with both arms, and light soon spilled in. His luck seemed good. The elevator hadn't stopped between floors, but right at one.

But while he was still prying the doors apart, an arm suddenly reached through the gap. It held an injector gun, and its needle plunged into Ji Cheng's neck. An entire tube of green liquid flowed into his vein.

…

“When did you realize I wasn't Ji Cheng?” the impostor asked.

“I knew from the beginning,” Tea Immortal replied.

“Why?”

“Ji Cheng had never met me, true, but he'd known for days that I was coming. Would he really not have looked up footage of me in all that time? I certainly looked into him beforehand. He's a thorough, capable man who does his homework before taking action—enough to know what he's dealing with, at least. On first seeing me, he would never have asked something like ‘May I ask who this officer is?’”

“You knew I was an impostor at first sight, yet gave nothing away. That's enough to make anyone's skin crawl… And you solved the boss's riddles without batting an eye, following them all the way here,” the impostor said. “I'd be very interested to know just how much more you've figured out.”

Tea Immortal said, “I know there's a trap in the basement. That's enough. On the surface, this game is being played with Li Wei, but the opponent Tian Yi really wants to outmaneuver is me. He deliberately made his first contact by video, and even allowed Li Wei to involve HL, so that his identity would be confirmed as quickly as possible, drawing me into the game.

“During that call, he told Li Wei outright, ‘People like you are so low-grade. Just looking at your face makes me sick,’ and ‘The crimes you've encountered are all too vulgar, and your imagination is far too limited. Once you've completed all my challenges, perhaps you'll catch your first glimpse of the world I inhabit.’ The disgust and impatience in those remarks show that he could hardly wait for me to appear.

“The most obvious hints were the riddles themselves. He gave the address in reverse order because he was waiting for me to arrive so he could lead me to this warehouse. As it turned out, no one had deciphered them before I came. Tian Yi would never give someone a riddle they couldn't solve. He has no reason to indulge in such pointless cleverness. So those messages were meant for me from the very beginning.”

“Looks like you won't be going into that basement,” the impostor said. “Fortunately, the boss has a backup plan.”

“Does this so-called backup plan involve you fighting your way out of our encirclement all by yourself?” Tea Immortal asked.

By this point, the surrounding HL squad members had more or less caught on. They didn't quite understand the details, but apparently this Captain Ji was an impostor. The red dots from the laser sights of dozens of guns in the warehouse were now trained on the false Ji Cheng.

Tea Immortal continued, “You certainly aren't Darkwater. He addresses Tian Yi differently, and follows Tian Yi's will in everything he does. He also has that so-called devouring ability. He wouldn't slip up on a detail and expose his identity. Now, imitating someone's appearance and voice to this degree is extremely difficult. If that's your ability, then in my judgment you must be a Paper-rank ability user. I advise you to surrender and cooperate with us. Fighting to the bitter end is very dangerous.”

“No, I'm perfectly safe. You're the one in danger,” the impostor said. “My mission was to replace the real Ji Cheng in the elevator, then put on a few performances for that idiot Li Wei. After that, I was no longer needed. Don't forget, you're the one who sought me out today and asked me to come along. Accompanying you here was never part of my mission. I'd only stayed at the HL branch and kept up the act because I wanted to see how things would develop. If you'd walked into the trap yourself, I'd have vanished without a trace a few hours later.”

Tea Immortal said, “You're contradicting yourself somewhat. If you mean you don't mind dying once your mission is complete, how does that make you safe now? Besides, even if you aren't afraid to die, that still doesn't make you a threat to me.”

“Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh heh…” The impostor suddenly let out a grotesquely manic laugh. What happened the next second explained everything.

His face suddenly became like a puppet's. His jaw slid down like a slider phone, and a machine-gun barrel extended from his throat, spitting bursts of flame. His neck lengthened a little too, and his entire head began spinning through full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotations, spraying gunfire around him in circle after circle.

The squad members had been on their guard and opened fire first, but their bullets merely struck sparks from this stationary, rotating machine-gun turret. Its own fire was extraordinarily fierce. In moments, the warehouse was a shambles, with countless HL personnel dead or wounded.

After dodging the first burst at close range, Tea Immortal regained his footing and swept his arm. An invisible blade of wind sheared the rotating machine-gun head from its body, sending it rolling to the floor. Though he had acted quickly, the head had already whipped through more than two full rotations.

He sighed, walked up to the headless body, and examined the severed neck. “No biological components inside. It isn't a cyborg… A remotely controlled robot, of all things… I see. That explains what he said.” As he considered this, another thought suddenly flashed through his mind. “I'm perfectly safe. You're the one in danger…”

“No. This can't be all Tian Yi meant by danger.”

Tea Immortal spun around and roared, “Everyone! Get into the basement! Now!”

Unfortunately, his warning came too late. Everyone present saw only a blaze of white light. Most never even heard the deafening boom. The explosion's shock wave surged skyward, leveling the entire warehouse. In the first second of the blast, the tremendous force ruptured the internal organs of the HL soldiers inside. Their bodies, their clothing, and even their metal equipment were all burned to ash by the intense heat of the flames.

Even two days later, the air above the site was still somewhat hotter than in the surrounding area, and clouds could not even form overhead. In those ruins, only one thing remained.

It was a rectangular iron room, roughly a dozen square meters in area, buried underground with only one entrance. Subsequent examination established that this basement had been built from pure alloy, which was why it had remained undamaged despite the devastating blast that struck the warehouse above. Had the people in the warehouse taken shelter down there, they could have survived the explosion.