Why is his holy light red?

Singing? What kind of superpower is that? Is it some kind of siren's song that can bewitch people?

Mercury tapped on the iron bed frame: "Sing a couple of lines for me."

Flora opened her mouth nervously. There was no accompaniment, only the first a cappella syllable escaped her throat, and the whole world seemed to fall silent, leaving only Flora's voice.

Mercury's fingers, which were resting on his knees, suddenly stopped.

It's impossible to describe it simply as "ethereal" or "pleasant to the ear." The voice has an unreasonable penetrating power, penetrating the eardrums without any hindrance and striking straight to the heart.

After hearing just a few words, Mercury felt as if his soul had been cleansed.

But it wasn't brainwashing; rather, it was a moment when all worries were forgotten and all fatigue was relieved.

Mercury was initially exhausted from using red holy light to combat the spiritual corruption of golden holy light, but after hearing Flora's song, he became energetic again.

Even the lingering violence and arrogance deep in his mind were completely washed away.

"Holy crap!" Mercury sat bolt upright. "With a voice like that, you should have been a pop star long ago. You could easily win awards just by covering a couple of songs. What did you do to get yourself in here?"

Flora, whose emotions had calmed down slightly, remained huddled by the door.

She had mentally prepared herself to be abused, but she thought that this underage prison bully might not be so cruel, so she gritted her teeth and took the job.

To her surprise, the other party was exceptionally polite, which made her feel fortunate to have survived a disaster.

She fiddled with the rough hem of her clothes and confessed honestly, "I stole two watches, very valuable gold watches."

"Need money?"

Flora nodded. "My mother was seriously injured and was laid off. She's too badly injured to find work. I want to help, but there's not much I can do."

Mercury frowned: "With your singing voice, you could easily make a living by registering an account online and starting a live stream, right?"

"My family can't afford the internet fee, and we don't have the money to buy radio equipment..."

"Having the equipment is useless." Black Egg, who had been listening to the gossip, curled his lip and interjected, "Minors who want to use the tipping function must have their guardians' information reviewed, supposedly to prevent forced child labor. If the review bureau finds that her family is unable to support her, they will report it directly and force this girl into a welfare institution. If her talent is discovered, those entertainment companies will immediately use various means to strip her mother of her parental rights, and then she will become a slave to those companies."

Welfare institutions sound like a fallback, but Mercury knew in his heart what a cannibalistic legal hell they were.

Federal law explicitly states that the "equal rights" of the LGBT community are paramount, granting them absolute priority and preferential treatment in the adoption system. Factors such as family economic circumstances and housing conditions can be appropriately relaxed; otherwise, it constitutes "discrimination." And once adoption procedures are approved, no one has the right to interfere with any distorted "cognitive modifications" they may undertake with the child.

Any well-funded entertainment company could easily "adopt" Flora and then do with her as they pleased. Being used as a cash cow is one thing, but being packaged up and sent to some island is the worst.

Flora stared wide-eyed in disbelief.

Her original plan was to steal some money to buy equipment and become an online singer, completely unaware that this path was blocked from the very beginning.

"Then what can a minor do?" Mercury asked.

Black Egg shrugged and said sarcastically, "What else can you do? Go out and sell your body. Boss, didn't you see the news? The latest regulations protect the 'freedom of transaction' for relevant workers, and the minimum legal age has been lowered to eight years old."

Mercury remained silent.

On the surface, the federal government appears glamorous and strictly prohibits the use of labor laws to protect minors; in reality, when someone like Flora falls to the bottom of life, the only options left are to steal, rob, and sell.

At this moment, Mercury suddenly understood the golden holy light within him—for this disgusting world, wiping it out and restarting it seemed to be a very cost-effective solution.

He gathered his thoughts and looked at the girl again: "How long have you been locked up?"

"More than two months."

"Has your family contacted you?" Flora shook her head numbly.

Mercury sighed, turned his head to Black Egg and raised his chin: "Go make a phone call for her and ask what's going on at home."

Black Egg immediately brought up the holographic interface and pushed it in front of Flora.

Flora jerked her head up, staring incredulously at the boy on the bed. Tears blurred the eyeshadow from her eyes, and her lips trembled as she stammered, "Thank you... but I... I can't repay you in any way..."

"Stop crying and wailing here, go outside and fight it out." Mercury waved his hand and kicked the two out of the cell.

He didn't expect anything in return at all.

If Flora were one of those drug-addicted, promiscuous street girls, he wouldn't even give her a second glance; he'd just think she deserved it. But this ordinary person, innocent and dragged into a deadly situation simply because of a family accident, was truly tragic.

The cell fell silent again, with only the low hum of the exhaust fan audible.

Mercury felt that he was sighing much more frequently lately.

He vaguely understood his father's thoughts. His compassion was not simply charity, but rather the more tragedies he witnessed, the more absurd he felt that "the world should not be like this." Many superheroes were probably elevated to godhood by this kind of momentary compassion.

However, I don't know what he was thinking; some rules don't actually need to be followed.

Therefore, Mercury is not prepared to be a superhero; there are too many rules and regulations. He'd rather be the richest man.

As the saying goes, "When you're successful, you should help others." You have to become the richest person first before you can help more people. As for how the richest person gets their initial capital, that's another matter.

Not long after, faint, suppressed sobs could be heard coming from outside the iron gate.

About half an hour later, Flora returned to her cell. Her cheap smoky makeup had been completely washed away by her tears, leaving her looking like she had been covered in a layer of dark gray mud, and her eyes were terribly swollen and red.

She stopped a few steps away from the iron bed, her voice slightly hoarse as she choked back a sob: "Thank you."

Mercury nodded calmly, without asking further about her family situation.

He shifted into a slightly more relaxed sitting position and cut straight to the point: "How much do you know about the 'Beast Gang'? Have you heard about their secret dealings with enhancement drugs?"

Flora took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She thought carefully for a moment before cautiously speaking, "I haven't been locked up in Black Olive for very long... but I've heard the other girls in the cell say that the Beast Gang has only suddenly risen and expanded wildly in the last six months."

She paused, clutching the hem of her clothes somewhat nervously: "As for the specific details of the enhancer deal, I don't know. I've only heard from the sisters that in the last six months, all the sisters who were sent to the Beast Gang have been killed by them. Sister Shadow Demon negotiated with them, but they only said that they couldn't control their strength."

Upon hearing this, Flora trembled slightly, as if recalling the terrible fates of her sisters.

Mercury stopped sighing; he felt he was becoming numb to this kind of thing after hearing it so many times.

"Six months, meaning that the enhancement drug only started becoming popular in the last six months."

Mercury thought of the potion he had traded with Bran, but Bran said it was extremely lethal, while the drug used by the Beast Gang obviously didn't have that kind of lethal effect, otherwise their numbers wouldn't have suddenly surged, and more than half of them should have died.

In other words, this medicine is divided into many grades.

The highly lethal ones usually get out, and then those with connections, like the Beast Gang, can use the safer, higher-quality ones.

The question is, where did they get their supplies from? And if everything is being manipulated by the immortality technology behind the scenes, why would they give drugs to a group of prisoners?

If they just want to test the efficacy of the drug, wouldn't it be better for them to conduct human experiments on their own turf?

Mercury wasn't initially concerned about this matter, but since the Immortal Technology had turned its attention to him and his family, he knew he had to settle this score.