Free Web NovelChapter 137: Pests
Arriving at the park, Wenzhi immediately hated the crunch of snow under his boots. His breath billowed into the cold air as he scanned the place, the empty benches, the frozen bars, the skeletal trees, and the flickering lamppost.
Keeping his guard up despite his relaxed posture, he stepped under the dim light and pulled out his phone.
[Wenzhi: I’m here.]
The reply came instantly, as if they were staring at the screen, waiting.
[Unknown number: Yes, I can see you.]
Wenzhi tilted his head up toward the sky, half-expecting someone to drop from the clouds. In that exact second, a sudden sniper shot shattered the silence, tearing straight toward him.
Before the bullet could hit, an angry wave of dark mist burst from Wenzhi’s body, hardening into a solid shield. The bullet smashed against it and flattened. A sharp shiver ran down his spine as the mist curled around him like a familiar caress.
There wasn’t a shred of surprise on his face. He simply rolled the plastic lollipop stick between his teeth and texted back.
[Wenzhi: You have a sniper here to kill me.]
When no reply came, Wenzhi scoffed, shifting the lollipop around his tongue before letting go of the stick.
A second gunshot cracked through the air, this time from a completely different direction. Wenzhi began to turn his head, but the mist was already faster, blocking the round effortlessly.
"Two snipers," Wenzhi muttered.
A third shot echoed, but this one went wildly off-target, sounding forced as if the sniper’s aim had been cut short mid-pull.
Suddenly, armed military personnel and elite Espers surrounded him from every side.
He scoffed in disbelief, the mist around him sharpening into deadly whips. "Fuck. I expected an ambush. But this is a hell of a lot more elaborate than I thought."
The soldiers opened fire. Wenzhi’s mist exploded outward, lashing through the air to shield him from the bullets while snapping forward to kill the nearest soldiers.
The surrounding Espers froze in pure confusion. "I thought he was just a Guide?!"
"It doesn’t matter, just—"
The speaker never finished. The ground beneath their feet shook violently. Massive boulders tore free from the earth, lifting into the air and breaking into jagged, rotating drills that hurled straight at Wenzhi.
But Xinyuan’s psychokinesis seized control of the floating drills, reversing their path and slamming them directly into the military ranks. The Espers barely managed to throw up their shields, scrambling backward to avoid being impaled.
In the middle of the chaos, Wenzhi felt a suffocating pressure similar to Xinyuan’s.
A woman appeared in a flash. She was tall, her striking white hair gleaming under the moonlight, and her eyes shone with a dangerous, glowing purple. A single glance was all it took for Wenzhi to realize what she was. A Disaster-class Esper.
Their eyes locked. The remaining military forces stared at her in terror. Weren’t they working together?
"Who... Who the hell is she?!" someone screamed.
The white-haired woman didn’t give them an answer. She simply began to slaughter them. Moving with blinding speed, she used pure white mist, heavy psychokinesis, and teleportation to systematically wipe out the remaining forces.
A shadow formed beside Wenzhi as Xinyuan finally materialized. The dark mist automatically swirled back to him, wrapping protectively around his body. Together, the two of them just stood there, watching the white-haired Esper effortlessly butcher the entire ambush team.
When the last man fell, she stopped. With a casual kick to the head, she knocked a surviving soldier dead.
She paused, slowly raising her head to look directly at Wenzhi and Xinyuan, her head cocking to the side like a curious cat. Despite the absolute bloodbath she had just caused, her heavy white fur coat remained pristine, without a single stain of blood on the fabric.
Her lips slowly curled into a dark smile.
"Shao Xinyuan and Lin Wenzhi, you two look even more delicious in person," she said, her deep, raspy voice carrying a beautiful but lethal edge.
She took a slow step toward them. "It would be so humiliating to call you ’Father,’ wouldn’t it?"
Xinyuan’s eyes flashed a dangerous, vibrant red.
The woman gasped dramatically, instantly raising her hands in mock surrender. "Oh, please. I really do not want to end up like Wu Youran. I am here in peace! I just rescued you. Then again, you were obviously going to handle that yourself, but hey, good faith, first impressions."
"Are you working for the Old Blood?" Xinyuan demanded.
The white-haired Esper immediately looked deeply offended, placing a hand over her chest. "I don’t. And I would never. I may have been engineered in a lab to become an Esper, but I escaped a long time ago. I am Su Zheng."
She dropped her hands, her crystal-purple eyes locking onto the Guide. "And I know that my Guide explicitly told you to come alone, didn’t he, Lin Wenzhi?" She gave Wenzhi a thoroughly scolding look, causing him to raise a cold, skeptical eyebrow right back at her.
"Pei Luo is your Guide?" Wenzhi asked, his voice flat.
"Ah... I suppose the cat is out of the bag," a smooth voice echoed.
A sudden swirl of white mist materialized directly beside Su Zheng. As it dissolved, it revealed Pei Luo standing in its place. He looked radically different from the last time they had seen him. The soft, refined edge of a wealthy family heir was entirely gone; he looked rough-hewn, noticeably more muscular, and his hair had been buzzed into a very low cut.
He immediately fixed his gaze on Wenzhi, completely ignoring the carnage around them.
Wenzhi stared back. The park fell into a tense, silent staring contest for a long beat before Wenzhi finally broke the quiet. "So, who were the ones who just tried to put a bullet in my head?"
Xinyuan stepped away, padding silently over to one of the mangled military corpses scattered in the snow. He knelt down, fingers tilting the dead soldier’s head to the side to check behind his ear.
There it was... the unmistakable dark drop-of-blood tattoo.
"Old Blood," Xinyuan called back, standing up and wiping his hand.
Wenzhi’s face creased into a deep, vicious frown. "Fucking pests."
