Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Su Wanxing instantly shielded Su Mingyu behind her.

Her mental energy was almost depleted, and the ice spikes at her fingertips condensed very slowly, growing out of her palms little by little.

Her body temperature dropped even further, and her lips were already white with cold, but her hand holding the ice blade was as steady as a rock, without the slightest tremor.

"You're Deputy Director Li?" Su Wanxing's voice was as cold as ice. "Zhang Bingkun's backer?"

Her gaze was fixed on Li Zhengmin's face, etching that face into her mind.

Zhang Bingkun said before he died that this was the person who specifically asked for her.

This is the man who conspired with Zhang Bingkun to abduct girls and force them into prostitution.

Zhao Hu is the knife, Zhang Bingkun is the hand, and this Deputy Director Li is the heart that holds the knife.

"So what if it's me?" Li Zhengmin sneered.

He looked Su Wanxing up and down, his gaze sweeping over her from her blood-stained face to her hand holding the ice blade, finally settling on her eyes, which were so cold they seemed to freeze.

With undisguised contempt on his lips, he said, "You lowly people, you killed my men, and you think you can get out of here alive?"

His tone carried an air of self-righteous arrogance.

In his eyes, Su Wanxing was nothing more than an ant.

An orphan girl with no parents lives in a leaky, dilapidated bungalow in Fu'an Lane with her disabled younger brother, barely making ends meet by doing odd jobs for a few dozen yuan a day.

There are tons of people like that in Zhaoming City; they'd be dead and nobody would remember them.

Why is the person who killed him still alive and standing here?

"Today, all three of you will die here. Zhang Bingkun's secret will rot underground along with you."

He raised his hand, about to give the order to fire.

The safety on all sixteen submachine guns was released simultaneously, the synchronized clicks particularly jarring in the quiet back alley.

Lin Shen suddenly moved.

He had long ago woven the illusion to its fullest extent.

From the moment he pushed open the iron gate to the fire escape, his mental tentacles spread out, covering everyone in the back alley.

He could clearly perceive the positions of the sixteen people, their breathing rates, the force with which their fingers were on the triggers, and most importantly—their visual and auditory perception of the surrounding environment.

This is not something that he could do alone.

It was that mysterious resonance amplification—starting from the Emperor's Club, his abilities were lifted up by something and increased several times over.

His mental tentacles can now easily cover dozens of targets, simultaneously writing completely different fake sensory signals into each person's brain.

But he doesn't have time to think about that now.

Before Li Zhengmin's hand could fall, Lin Shen's illusion had already entered the brains of those sixteen people.

Li Zhengmin's confidants behind him suddenly felt a blur before their eyes.

In their view, the three people standing opposite them suddenly changed their appearance—Lin Shen became Li Zhengmin, Su Wanxing became Wang Haidong, and Su Mingyu became Zhang Bingkun.

Three people who should have died in the Emperor Club were standing alive at the entrance to the fire escape, their expressions ferocious, holding weapons in their hands.

The real Li Zhengmin disappeared from their perception.

"Zhang Bingkun?! Aren't you dead?!" a square-faced confidant shouted in terror, his voice filled with the fear of seeing a ghost.

He had just witnessed Zhang Bingkun's body being carried out of the Emperor Club office; the gash on his neck was so deep that the bone was visible.

Now, seeing Zhang Bingkun standing alive in front of him, holding a water blade that glowed with blue light, his brain completely shut down.

Even more terrifying, Zhang Bingkun raised his gun.

The gun was pointed at him.

No, that's not right—it's aimed at Li Zhengmin.

"Protect Deputy Director Li!" The square-faced confidant instinctively pulled the trigger.

He was Li Zhengmin's confidant, having followed Li Zhengmin for over a decade, and protecting Li Zhengmin was ingrained in his very being.

Seeing Zhang Bingkun pointing a gun at Li Zhengmin, his hand reacted before his brain.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The submachine guns spewed fire.

As soon as he fired, everyone else followed suit and pulled their triggers.

In their view, Wang Haidong and the young man in the hoodie also drew their weapons, the tips of their knives pointed at Li Zhengmin's back.

Sixteen submachine guns fired simultaneously, bullets raining down, tracer rounds leaving bright trails in the night.

But their target was not the three people standing at the fire escape door.

The bullets all hit their own men.

Three bullets pierced the chest of the square-faced confidant instantly. His eyes widened, his body swayed twice, and he fell straight to the ground.

The last thing he saw before he died was that "Zhang Bingkun" turned into a wisp of white smoke and disappeared.

Then he saw the real Su Wanxing standing at the entrance to the fire escape, looking at him coldly.

"Holy crap! It's an illusion! Ceasefire! Ceasefire, everyone!" someone finally realized and yelled at the top of their lungs.

But it was too late.

The machine gun barrage lasted only a few seconds, but it was deadly enough.

Of the sixteen people, more than half fell down. Some were shot in the chest and died on the spot, while others had their leg bones broken and fell to the ground screaming in agony.

Blood gushed from the bullet hole, quickly forming a dark red puddle that soaked the cigarette butts and broken glass on the ground.

Li Zhengmin was terrified.

His first reaction was to lie down—the instant the gunshot rang out, he reflexively crouched down and hid behind the hood of the car.

The bullet grazed his scalp, shattered the car window, and shards of glass rained down on him.

When the gunfire stopped, he looked up and saw his trusted men lying on the ground, while the three men opposite him were still standing there unharmed. He was completely stunned.

"Trying to run?" Su Mingyu's eyes flashed, and he raised his hand to lash out with a water whip.

This water whip was almost twice as thick as the ones used to whip the soldiers before; it was formed from the water that had been laid in the fire escape beforehand.

The water whip lashed out with a whoosh, precisely wrapping around Li Zhengmin's ankle.

Su Mingyu pulled hard, and the water whip tightened abruptly, making a crisp cracking sound from his ankle joint.

Li Zhengmin fell heavily to the ground, his front tooth hitting the cement floor and breaking in half. Blood gushed from his lips and flowed down his chin.

He was in so much pain that tears streamed down his face, his mouth was full of blood, and he lay on the ground struggling to get up.

Su Wanxing had already walked up to him.

Her icy blade pressed against Li Zhengmin's neck, the tip piercing the surface of his skin, making Li Zhengmin shiver with cold.

It wasn't the coldness of the blade itself, but a chill that pierced straight to the bone, making even the blood in your veins freeze.

"You've killed so many people, and now you think you can run away?" Su Wanxing's voice was as cold as ice. "Do you think you'll give me a chance to escape, those girls you and Zhang Bingkun killed, those ordinary people you bullied?"