In the moment of life and death, a man said, "I don't want to kill you, just go, isn't that especially touching?" It's as if he had lived a sinful life, committed countless murders, yet still retained a shred of tenderness in his heart just for her.
But Jian Jing didn't believe a single word.
She said, "I don't want to kill you either, take the boat back and turn yourself in. I can forgive you for your mistakes."
One stood in the cockpit, the other on the deck, the sea breeze blowing through their hair, a fine display of chivalrous love.
Yet as their eyes met, both knew the other was putting on an act, just playing a part.
Wang Shi laughed, "Now I really can't bear to part with you."
"What are you trying to do?" Jian Jing stared into his eyes. "You think you can get away with this?"
Wang Shi sighed, "I don't want anyone else deciding when I die." He gazed out at the open sea. "Isn't the ocean a better final resting place than a prison cell?"
Jian Jing raised her brows, filled with suspicion. "Oh?"
"There's already a time bomb installed on this boat," Wang Shi said. "I can detonate it anytime."
Jian Jing was half skeptical, half believing.
She believed he had planted a bomb, but that he was ready to die himself? Only a fool would believe that. If he wanted to die so badly, why did he fight so hard to regain consciousness earlier? This was surely a ruse to get her to abandon ship so he could escape.
"You must be thinking, if I wanted to die, that would be easy, so why go through all this trouble?" A cold smile flickered at the edge of Wang Shi's lips. "Little Jing, just because you've seen my past, doesn't mean you truly understand me."
Jian Jing said, "I don't need to understand you, I just need to know you're afraid to die."
Wang Shi was silent for a moment, a look of emotion on his face. "Death is more... complicated than I imagined. There's no shame in admitting one's mistakes. But this makes things more interesting. I've been an observer all this time, maybe it's time to experience this firsthand."
Jian Jing: "Really?"
"At this point, do I still have any need to deceive you?" Wang Shi took out his phone from his pocket. "Leave this place, or I'll have no choice but to take you with me."
Jian Jing readily agreed: "Fine, I'll play along."
Before she even finished speaking, her body was no longer in its original spot. With her cat-like agility, she leapt below decks in just a couple of bounds.
Wang Shi couldn't leave the cockpit, so he could only wave his gun around, firing wildly to force her into hiding.
It was pitch dark below deck. Jian Jing changed her high-tech glasses from invisible mode back to a normal frame. She then turned on her X-ray scanner to locate the bomb.
The positioning device was already activated - she was in no rush to subdue Wang Shi and dismantle the bomb just yet. She would continue feinting with him until the police arrived, then it would be game over.
Where was the bomb?
She scanned the area inch by inch until finally locating the familiar structure in a corner suitcase.
The suitcase had a six digit passcode lock.
death?451208.
It opened.
Just as she was about to use the bomb dismantling skills she'd forcefully learned from Zong Ye, a police siren suddenly blared from the suitcase.
Damn thing had an alarm system!
Jian Jing immediately backed off, dodging back behind cover to avoid getting trapped by Wang Shi.
But Wang Shi didn't appear.
From the suitcase came a soft "tick", followed by the rhythmic "beep, beep, beep" of the timer.
Jian Jing took a closer look and sucked in a breath of cold air.
The time bomb had been activated, with a countdown of 3 minutes remaining.
He really intended to blow it all up.
Jian Jing quickly donned a life jacket, then grabbed a chair and tossed it out the door. A barrage of gunshots immediately sounded from outside.
Seizing this opportunity, she flashed out the door, avoiding a tragic end by bullet.
"You're forcing me to do this," the boat had stopped, bobbing on the waves. Wang Shi stood on the deck, having reloaded with a full magazine. "Then let's keep each other company on the road to the Yellow Springs."
The sky had not yet brightened, the sea and night both a deep, murky grey-blue.
Sparse starlight was reflected on the water's surface, faint ghostly shadows lurking beneath.
Jian Jing turned on her night vision goggles, plastering herself flat against the outside of the cabin walls as she stealthily approached.
"Draw card."
[Name: Prop Card - Tear Gas (1/1)]
[Description: Strongly irritating substance that causes a burning sensation on skin, uncontrollable tearing up, temporary blindness. Effective radius of 20m.]
[Note: Usable only for this mission, user immune to effects.]
Thick white smoke began billowing upwards.
Wang Shi's brow furrowed. This was truly bizarre, he had no idea where she'd gotten this weapon from. But now was not the time to worry about that. He covered his mouth and nose and had no choice but to put down his gun to pull out the gas mask hanging at his waist.
As someone well-versed in chemical weapons, he always kept a mask on hand just in case.
But just then, a heavy blow landed on his back.
Unaffected by the gas, Jian Jing seized the perfect chance to tackle him.
One hand gripped his neck, choking off his airway to subdue him, while her other hand went for his phone.
Sure enough, there was a remote control app on it.
But no matter how many times she hit the "Stop" button, she kept getting an "Operation Error" alert.
"Stop this, do you really want to die?" She held his head down.
Wang Shi coughed and laughed loudly: "It can only be activated, not stopped. Little Jing, let's die together."
Jian Jing still felt something was off, but unless the bomb was fake, what other way could he have to escape the explosion on this boat?
"Madman." She grit her teeth, not daring to take the risk, and dragged him to the edge of the deck.
The dark, endless sea stretched out below.
Jian Jing removed the lifebuoy and put it over his head, prepared to push him overboard. But Wang Shi had already recovered. On the open deck, the tear gas quickly dispersed. He gathered his strength, twisting his body in a clever Judo move to break free of her hold.
But immediately after, Wang Shi did not counterattack. Instead he sprinted swiftly to the back of the boat.
Jian Jing gave chase, only to see him nimbly toss a package overboard and flip into the water.
The emergency raft automatically inflated on contact with the water's surface. He clung to it tightly.
"Goodbye." He smiled.
Jian Jing: "F*ck!"
"10, 9, 8..." The phone left on the deck suddenly started counting down mechanically.
Only 7 seconds until the boat exploded.
Jian Jing swiftly calmed herself and considered the situation. Wang Shi was clearly using the explosion to stage his own death so he could disappear into the vast ocean. As long as he arranged for his associates to pick him up before the police found him, he could escape the law for good.
"In your dreams." Fury rising, she raised her gun.
She first aimed at his shoulder.
During the earlier scuffle, she had managed to stick a tracking device on the back of his neck. As long as the police followed the signal, they had a good chance of capturing him alive. This shot only needed to limit his mobility.
But as her finger rested on the trigger, Jian Jing hesitated.
What if his accomplices found him before the cops did?
Although the tracker was high-tech and theoretically well-hidden, nothing was ever 100% foolproof. Wang Shi was knowledgeable about these things too, what if it had already been discovered?
She would be absolutely livid if she let him get away with her own hands.
Her wrist raised the gun barrel higher.
Once the aim assist was activated, there would be no misses. She could end him right here and now.
But extrajudicial killing was vigilantism, fighting violence with violence was never the solution.
She had gone through so much effort precisely to bring him to justice, to close this case through proper legal channels.
"5, 4--" The damn bomb was still counting down.
No more time to hesitate!
Jian Jing clenched her teeth, sweat beading at her temples.
The next moment, her finger squeezed the trigger.
Aim assist activated.
The heavy bronze bullet shot out, piercing the air and accurately boring through his forehead.
A trickle of blood spilled forth.
The smile froze on Wang Shi's face, seemingly still not comprehending what had happened. Yes, compared to the endless torment of the dreamscape, real death always came as a shock.
This time, no one could save him.
Jian Jing let out a breath, standing in silence.
She had no choice but to contemplate the boundary between vigilante justice and the law. "She" didn't have to.
A life for a life, blood debts paid in blood.
To avenge oneself was righteous.
"3, 2--"
Jian Jing put away the gun and vaulted over the railing, plunging into the sea.
The icy seawater engulfed her.
"1--"
A brilliant flare of light shot towards the heavens, followed by a rolling blast wave. She felt as if she'd been tossed in a tumble dryer, the world spinning as the shockwave from the explosion pushed out the seawater, like a boulder rolling over her entire body.
Jian Jing felt she'd been transformed into a lump of slime, flattened by one slap, then mashed back into shape by the next, mutating into one of Cthulhu's spawn amidst the scorching seawater.
Her head was shaken madly, her brain matter and blood shaken into a cocktail called "alien brain hemorrhage", filling her entire skull.
A panel popped up in the system.
The status column wrote clearly: Dizzy, tinnitus, hypoxia...
With a long list after that she didn't have time to read.
She only relied on instinct to grab the key point: "Draw a card, draw a card, draw a card!"
[Name: Prop Card - Portable Oxygen Cylinder (1/1)]
[Content Description: Compressed oxygen, enough for an adult to use for 10 minutes]
[Note: Perseverance is victory, hang in there!]
Jian Jing hugged the oxygen tank and put on the breathing mask with difficulty.
As the oxygen entered her body, the feeling of impending death greatly receded. She crawled and swam with all her might, trying to get as far away from the explosion as possible.
After about five minutes, the shock waves dissipated, and the buoyancy of the seawater and lifejacket carried her to the surface. Not far away, a piece of broken plank floated over.
Jian Jing swam hard and clung onto the plank, maintaining her posture.
Looking around, debris was everywhere, and there was no trace left of the rubber raft.
Where the sea met the sky, a faint white emerged, and the sea surface no longer looked as terrifying as before.
Dawn had arrived.
*
At four in the morning, Ji Feng boarded the patrol boat of the maritime police.
He was in a very bad mood.
Ten minutes ago, the maritime police told him that the drones they had sent out on patrol captured a large amount of ship wreckage.
In other words, a ship had exploded not long ago.
He really had a word that needed to be said.
"Were there any survivors found?"
"Still under investigation."
What made him even more uneasy was that although the locator was still working, it seemed to be drifting based on the speed. Looking on the bright side, the distance wasn't far and she should be able to hang on until the rescue, but in the worst case... He didn't even dare to think further.
"A person was found ahead."
Ji Feng immediately rushed to the deck.
The boat slowly approached and fished up the "person" floating in the water.
Or rather, the corpse.
It was a male, about 1.7 meters tall. His body was also scarred by the explosive shockwaves and his face was completely disfigured. Due to the high temperature, the metal watch on his hand was welded tightly to his skin.
Lao Gao squatted down to observe for a long time and said, "This watch?"
Ji Feng nodded: "It's Wang Shi's."
They had searched Wang Shi's office before and found an expensive watch branded □□. After asking colleagues, they learned that Wang Shi was very fond of this watch and often wore it on his hand.
But... "I have a bad feeling about this." He said irritably, and couldn't help taking out a cigarette, but held back from smoking it. He went to the cockpit and asked, "How long until we reach the locator?"
"About ten minutes."
These were an extremely long ten minutes.
The boat tracked down the location of the locator. As Lao Gao raised the binoculars and saw clearly, his heart skipped a beat: "Ji Feng, that looks like..."
It was a corpse.
Ji Feng snatched over the binoculars, looked carefully for a few seconds, and said: "It's not Teacher Jian." But his heart, which had been lifted, did not settle down, instead it was hung even higher now.
The second corpse was soon salvaged.
The body was also blown to flesh and blood, with no obvious identifying marks, but on the back of his neck was a locator the size of a fingernail.
Ji Feng affirmed: "This is Wang Shi."
If he guessed correctly, the first corpse was the substitute that Wang Shi had prepared for himself. He wanted to use the explosion to slip away, leaving them a similar corpse. Perhaps comparing it with the hair at his home, even the DNA would match.
However, he miscalculated by one move, and was seen through by Jian Jing. She stuck the locator on him, determined not to let him get away.
And he wasn't lucky enough. He actually... No, that's not right.
Ji Feng turned the corpse over and found a bullet hole in the head.
He: "..." With such precise marksmanship, what's the point of sticking a locator!
Although he complained to himself, he was clear that Jian Jing had killed Wang Shi but didn't retrieve the locator, proving that she didn't have time to do so back then.
At that time, the only thing she could do was jump into the sea.
"Let's use the helicopter." Ji Feng immediately made the decision. "It's too cold, she can't hold on for long."
