The Most Arbitrary Wizard

Chapter 8: Chapter 3: Flame Crow (Part 2)

"And what if I don’t cooperate?"

"You will."

Quill glanced at his bulging jacket pocket and chuckled. "Trust me, Mr. Sean, firing a gun is not a rational act. It will attract our professional security guards and add another condition to your medical file."

"Besides, you’re just a frail writer. With your marksmanship, you probably couldn’t kill me anyway."

Quill pulled an exquisite scalpel from his coat, his smile a mixture of arrogance and malice. "And we are within seven paces of each other."

The thin edge of the scalpel glinted with a cold light. Sean could feel its sharpness, and he could even imagine how easily it had sliced open Chris’s abdomen.

Gripping the scalpel, Quill closed in on Sean, one step at a time. Each step felt like it landed on Sean’s own heart. The surrounding chill seemed to surge in like a tide from all directions. Sean had never felt such intense pressure—not even when he’d encountered bank robbers and faced the dark, gaping muzzle of a thug’s gun. The feeling had never been this suffocating.

But he didn’t back down.

Sean stared straight into Quill’s eyes, raised the cocked pistol, and aimed it at his forehead.

"One more step, and we die together."

Quill hadn’t expected Sean to remain calm under the pressure he was deliberately applying. He saw a resolve in Sean’s eyes—the man would actually pull the trigger, even if it meant taking him down too.

"It seems Mr. Sean is quite confident in himself, isn’t he?" Quill licked his lips, his smile bordering on madness. "How about this: I’ll count to three. You shoot, I’ll use my knife. Let’s see which of us is faster."

"Three."

"Two."

"One..."

The air grew unbearably tense.

But just as Quill’s final number was about to fall, an angry, middle-aged male voice abruptly called out from the stairwell.

"Quill! Sean! What are you two doing here!?"

The voice seemed to possess some kind of magic, instantly shattering the life-or-death tension between the two.

Quill’s gaze went past Sean, landing on the man who had suddenly appeared. "Vice Director?" he asked, surprised.

"What are you doing over here?"

The man addressed as the "Vice Director" ignored him, instead speaking to Sean in a tone that brooked no argument. "Sean, come here."

Sean shot Quill a glance, then turned without a word and walked toward the man.

His composure was such that Quill briefly wondered if he and the Vice Director knew each other, as if Sean had known all along the Vice Director would arrive.

In reality, however, Sean hadn’t put his gun away. It was still cocked and ready.

He didn’t know any Vice Director, nor did he know why the man had suddenly appeared. He only knew that right here, right now, everyone at Florist Hospital was his enemy. Judging by his position, this man was even more dangerous than Quill.

But there was one advantage.

The Vice Director was a man of "high" status. He wouldn’t be holding a conversation in the morgue.

Quill’s surprised expression proved it; the Vice Director didn’t usually come to this area.

As long as he got out of this building, his chances of escape would be much greater.

Even if the Vice Director, for convenience’s sake, decided to talk with him right there in the stairwell, he would still be closer to the exit.

Just as Sean had predicted, the Vice Director did indeed lead him downstairs.

Quill didn’t try to stop them or say anything more. He only gave Sean a meaningful look when Sean glanced back at him.

Sean read his lips: "Don’t get too happy. You’re not getting away."

The rain outside had stopped, and the sky was gradually clearing.

Emerging from the morgue, Sean remained on high alert.

To his surprise, however, the Vice Director didn’t give him any trouble. He didn’t even speak, remaining silent the entire time as he led Sean past the main building, out the same main gate he’d entered through, and into a small alley.

The moment he stepped out of the hospital, Sean’s taut nerves finally eased slightly. Only then did he realize his back was cold—it was soaked with sweat, his shirt stuck fast to his skin beneath his jacket.

"Weren’t you being so brave just now, ready to take Quill down with you? I thought you weren’t afraid." The man, noticing Sean’s reaction, spoke mockingly. But the voice was completely different from the previous masculine one; it was an eerie, crisp, and ethereal young girl’s voice.

Sean was dumbfounded. He stared, utterly astonished, as the "Vice Director’s" face twisted and transformed right before his eyes. The man’s body "shrank," changing from a sharply dressed man of about fifty into a slender, graceful young woman in a fiery red dress.

Sean: "???"

"You... you’re..."

"Witch Potion. Ever heard of it?" frёewebnoѵēl.com

The young woman crossed her arms and looked at him. "I seem to recall you writing about it in your book."

He had indeed written about it.

It was an Alchemy Potion that could temporarily change a person’s gender. A high-quality batch could even significantly alter the user’s body type and appearance. The common physical method for detection involved using a tail feather from a fantastical creature called a "Smell Crow," which could detect if a target had consumed a Magic Potion.

Speaking of feathers, it suddenly clicked for Sean. "You’re the Flame Crow from last night?"

The young woman’s pretty eyes widened slightly in surprise. "You’re pretty sharp."

’He figured out so quickly that they’d met last night.’

"Not bad-looking, either." She sized Sean up. ’I didn’t expect this nerdy writer to clean up so well. He’s actually quite handsome. Saving him wasn’t a waste after all.’

Sean: "..."

Having just escaped the tense, oppressive atmosphere, his emotions couldn’t shift fast enough to keep up with the girl’s flighty train of thought. Normally, he would have praised her beauty—a writer’s mind is never short on compliments for the opposite sex—but right now, he could only manage two words: