“Wei Xiaotian…” Hearing that the guy pointed out his relationship with Xin Xiaoqi, Xiahou Wuxin immediately put on an expression of embarrassment and fury. He bit his lips so hard that blood was spreading out. “If you’ve known about it since a long time ago, why did you never point it out?”
“Why should we deprive you of the last hope in your life?” The Immortal Cultivator named ‘Wei Xiaotian’, who was the captain of the gray Exos and the direct liaison for Xiahou Wuxin for the past ten years, was truly fond of smiling. He went on with a smile. “We do not need someone who has lost all hope as our puppet. A donkey will run faster if you hang a carrot before its head. Xin Xiaoqi was your carrot. It was better to keep her alive.”
Xiahou Wuxin moaned and completely collapsed.
“Master!” Anxious, Xin Xiaoqi raised her daggers at Wei Xiaotian and glared at him. “Are you the ‘angels’? You can stop being pretentious. I know that you never intended to let the two of us go. This is just a game where cats play with mice! Enough of the cr*p. We will definitely not leave with you obediently. If you want to take us away, you can take our dead bodies!”
“Mice?’ Wei Xiaotian was slightly dazed. He remarked in great amusement. “Comparing yourself to a mouse, you are too arrogant, little girl.”
A few gray Exos seemed ready to jump at Xiahou Wuxin and Xin Xiaoqi.
“Cr*p!” Li Yao, who was lurking below their feet, was very anxious. The gray Exos up above were all elites. Many of them were at the peak of the Core Formation Stage, and Wei Xiaotian, their leader, was even in the Nascent Soul Stage. With Li Yao’s iron body, he was truly uncertain if he could kill all of them without a sound while dodging the surveillance from the sky. It was even practically impossible to rescue Xiahou Wuxin and Xin Xiaoqi.
Surveillance. Surveillance was the key in this goddamn large laboratory!
What do I do?
Li Yao’s soul was like a swirl that grew larger and larger, gradually involving the entire battlefield. Every action in the ten or so blocks nearby as well as the distribution of all the forces were perceived by him.
An audacious plan slowly popped up inside Li Yao’s head.
“Han Te, Liu Li, it is time for you to act!”
Li Yao called the two little fellows over and whispered something to them. Then, he asked the mental devil to crawl into Neltharion and follow them to provide protection.
The two little fellows soon disappeared at the end of the underground sewers.
Above Li Yao’s head, the leader of Liberty City was still making the last struggles.
“Wait!”
The look on Xiahou Wuxin’s face changed dozens of times in a row. His eyes, nose, and lips shivered for a long time, but he finally managed to put on an obsequious smile. He tossed the chainswords in his hands and the storm bolter on his waist to the ground before he stomped on them with all his strength and crushed them into pieces.
“Master Wei…” His back was completely hunched. He rubbed his hands and said humbly, “I have been serving Manjusaka and you for so many years. Even if I made little contribution, my diligence should at least be credited. Would you please say a few nice words for me in front of the supervisors? As long as my worthless life is spared, I can do whatever I am asked to.”
“Of course.” Wei Xiaotian agreed promptly, and his smile became even more intense. “Why don’t you talk to them in person? I’ll certainly be there to support you.”
Xiahou Wuxin shrieked in desperation, “Is it possible for me to stay here? Just consider me a useless dog and let me go. You know that I am a smart person. I will never say anything that is against the interests of the sky!”
Wei Xiaotian’s smile vanished. He sighed and said, “Leader Xiahou, I know that you are a smart person, so what do you think?”
“I can trade for my life with things.” Xiahou Wuxin seemed to be taking a wild gamble. “Over the past decades, I have built dozens of warehouses in secret and stored a lot of good items. As long as I am kept alive, I can submit all of them—to you alone!”
“I said just now that you were a smart guy. Why are you in such a hurry to prove me wrong?” Wei Xiaotian shook his head in confusion. “How could the tricks that you thought nobody knew anything about have deceived the eyes of the sky? We are aware of the coordinates and the opening methods of the dozens of secret warehouses. However, as the saying goes, when the water is too clean, no fish can live inside. Like your secret disciple, Xin Xiaoqi, we did not bother to discuss such trivia with you. Do you think that those things can be used as bargaining chips?”
“You do have a point, Master Wei. Those secret warehouses are truly not worth mentioning at all.” Xiahou Wuxin suddenly calmed down and put on a weird smile. “However, for your information, Master Wei, those secret warehouses were just my cover. How could I not know that my every move was under the surveillance of the sky? The only reason I established so many secret warehouses was to cover the real secret warehouse, which I guarantee is not at any location on your list of surveillance.”
Wei Xiaotian’s face was utterly unchanged. “You are bluffing, Leader Xiahou.”
“Maybe. However, as the controller of an Elysian World who has lived the longest in the Land of Sins, I naturally know how to save my worthless life better than anybody else. Besides, Liberty City was built on a metropolis of the civilization of the Martial Meritocrats Sector before Judgment Day. Below Liberty City is the debris of an underground city thousands of meters deep, which is as enormous and complicated as a labyrinth. You can keep an eye on every inch of land on the surface, but can you observe every gap and every collapsed cave below the earth?”
Xiahou Wuxin spoke quickly, with both determination and begging on his face. “Now, I do not beg you to spare my life but only beg you to spare my only disciple. Even if her memories must be wiped out and her brains be turned blank, as long as her life is kept, I am willing to confess the location of the most precious warehouse!”
Wei Xiaotian sighed softly and frowned, as if he were startled by Xiahou Wuxin’s stupidity. “Leader Xiahou, has it ever occurred to you that everything in the Land of Sins is a gift from the sky? So, all the garbage stored in your secret warehouse is our charity for you. Now, you want to use our charity as a bargaining chip in a game against us? Are you sure that there isn’t anything wrong with your head?”
“Of course, most of the items in the secret warehouse were given to me by you, but it is not entirely false that some of them are not under your control.” Xiahou Wuxin coughed lightly, his lips and eyes both curling. “For example, do you have any bodies of the trainers whose chest really produces nine weird plants after they practice ‘Nine Lotuses Arts’? As far as I know, the test subjects that you have found only had seven man-eating flowers blossoming on their chests, right?
“Right. Strictly speaking, they were the test subjects that I helped you find, which had seven man-eating flowers blossoming on their chests…”
Wei Xiaotian’s face suddenly changed. “You hid part of the test subjects?”
“Like I said just now, maybe,” Xiahou Wuxin said. “When the hares are caught, the hounds will be cooked; when the birds are shot down, the bows will be useless. How can I not understand such simple logic? I have been the manager of an Elysian World for decades. I’ve done too many clandestine things for you, and I know too many of your secrets. Could I really count on enjoying the rest of my life in Manjusaka after retirement? Of course, I had to plan a retreat for myself carefully!
“Therefore, I perhaps hid the goods of the best qualities, or kept tremendous precious video files about them, when I helped you collect test subjects, and I only delivered the second-rate goods to the City in the Sky.
“I believe that the twenty-seven corpses and the more than 350 video clips will be of great help for your experiments.
“Also, in its prime, the Martial Meritocrats Civilization left abundant valuable heritages and secrets. Even in the global destruction of Judgment Day, they were not entirely annihilated. Perhaps I found something interesting when I built the secret warehouses. For example, some secrets about the Cultivators, which cannot possibly be under your control.
“Let’s make a deal, Master Wei. Let my disciple go, and I will give you the coordinates and the opening method of the most precious secret warehouse. Then, I will kill myself and not leave any trouble to you.
“Otherwise, I will have a hundred ways to detonate the warehouse remotely, and you will have nothing!”
As he approached the end, Xiahou Wuxin’s face was brimming with relentlessness and brutality. His pitifulness a moment ago had entirely vanished.
“Master!”
Xin Xiaoqi wanted to jump forward to fight together with Xiahou Wuxin, but she had been locked onto by several gray Exos. With every step she took, she felt that her whole body was being minced by daggers. There was nothing she could do except cry in pain.
Wei Xiaotian was rather gloomy. His face that seemed to be made of marble in the first place was even paler than before. After pondering a moment, he said, “Alright. I promise you. But if you dare play any tricks, your death will not be the end. I assure you that I have ten thousand ways to mince your fleshly body into pieces before I drag out your soul and torture it for decades. You will not die so easily, Leader Xiahou!”
“I know the methods of the angels very well. I am certainly not bold enough to make such a joke with Master Wei.” Xiahou Wuxin blinked. “However, how can I be convinced of your promise, Master Wei?”
“You don’t have a choice.” Wei Xiaotian’s smile was approaching absolute zero very quickly. “We are not interested in your insignificant video files and test subjects. You can terminate the so-called ‘deal’ at any moment.”
“It does make sense. I wasn’t thinking.” Smiling bitterly, Xiahou Wuxin suddenly said, “Master Wei, since we are being honest with each other and I am about to die, I wonder if you will be merciful enough to answer a question that has baffled me for a long time so that I can be spared an ignorant death.”
He pointed at Xin Xiaoqi again. “As for my disciple, whether you are going to wipe her memories, or go back on your word and eradicate her for good, letting her know the truth won’t matter, will it?”
