Taoist priest goes to America

Ang Lee squatted down and turned the old woman over on the ground.

"Hey, who sent you?" When Li An said this, he had a strong sense of déjà vu, as if he had said this several times tonight.

The woman shook her head frantically while opening her mouth and swirling her tongue around in her mouth, trying to make a sound, but only air was forced out of her throat without producing any noise.

She traced a crooked character in the pool of blood with her finger: "paper".

Ang Lee tore a piece of shirt cloth from a nearby corpse and spread it on the ground. He then took a ballpoint pen from the pocket of the corpse next to him.

The pen cap was covered in bite marks, and blue ink was seeping from the nib. He handed the pen to the old lady.

The woman's fingers trembled, and she had to try twice to grip the pen. She was writing in English on the cloth; the handwriting was crooked, but still legible.

The first sentence was: "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to grab you. Please have pity on me, don't kill me..."

Ang Lee looked at the object, tilted his head, and said to the old woman, "If you can tell me some information that I think is valuable, I will consider letting you go. I swear to God."

The woman's eyes lit up, and she nodded frantically, continuing to write quickly:

"No one sent me; I wanted to arrest you myself."

"The company has a high demand for physically strong ordinary humans recently. Catching one can earn you a large bonus and a promotion."

"I noticed something special about you on the tram, and I wanted to grab you and take you back to exchange for money."

The old woman stopped writing at this point, blinking her small eyes pitifully, as if worried that Ang Lee might suddenly have a fit and kill her.

Ang Lee nudged his chin, signaling her to continue.

"However, I had other tasks at the time, so I didn't harm you."

"I never expected... I never expected that while I was transporting these test subjects who had taken the drug, I would see you waiting for a car by the roadside."

"I was out of my mind at the time, thinking that it wouldn't be bad to bring one more of you... so I didn't inform the company and made the decision on my own."

"So I secretly slipped off the bus and asked the driver to take me to the bus stop to pick you up."

"The people on the back of the bus were originally a different group. They shouldn't have gotten on this bus. I had them come on temporarily to catch you, hoping to surround you with fewer people."

"I didn't expect you to be so powerful; even a whole carload of people couldn't defeat you..."

Ang Lee's lips twitched speechlessly. "You mean, you misappropriated company resources to arrest me for a reward?"

The woman's hand trembled even more as she wrote: "I know I was wrong. Please forgive me. Have pity on me, I'll never do it again, I'll never..."

"Continue," Ang Lee interrupted the old woman's pleading writing, bringing the topic back on track.

"I am a superhuman modified by the Vought Corporation. The company had us collect different ordinary people to conduct experiments, and gave us potions and abilities."

"Superhumans?" Ang Lee was surprised. There were such things in this American urban world?

"The company's technicians have created a potion that, when given to ordinary people, will enhance their physical abilities and reduce their pain sensitivity, but will permanently damage their brains, turning them into strong-willed idiots."

Ang Lee thought of those people in the car whose arms were broken but who were still running, and who could still reach out and strangle people after being hit on the head—things that defied common sense.

"Then I can control them by yelling. These people in the car are ordinary people I've given drugs to, who are going to be sent for modification experiments. I can control them to do anything."

"My throat was modified by the company. After the modification, I can no longer speak. I can only make those controlling roars."

Ang Lee crouched down and turned the old woman over on the ground. There was a horizontal cut on her throat that had been covered. Ang Lee used his hand to unbutton her collar, revealing the complete wound on her throat.

It was an old scar, stretching from below the Adam's apple all the way to the collarbone, with neat stitches that looked like a centipede crawling on the skin.

The scar is pinkish-white, indicating that it was done a long time ago, at least several years ago.

Ang Lee pressed his hand on the scar, and the old woman's body tensed up suddenly, letting out a painful hiss.

"This roar can control everyone who has drunk the potion at the same time. The closer the distance, the stronger the effect; it can control up to half a street."

"Looks like they're the same type of Stand user... I drive corpses, this guy drives people," Li An thought to himself.

After she finished writing, she put down her pen, put her hands together, and bowed twice to Ang Lee.

"How many people did you arrest for the company?" Li An asked.

The woman's pen hovered on the cloth, not falling. Her eyes darted around, then she quickly wrote a line:

"Not many, just a few."

"To be honest," Li An said, staring into her eyes, but her gaze began to dart away again.

The woman's lips trembled slightly as she rewrote, "I probably gave away six or seven hundred in three years. I can't quite remember..."

After finishing writing, she quickly added, "But I did everything according to the company's requirements. I was just an executor; the company made the decisions."

Ang Lee looked at the words and asked, "When you fed them the medicine, did you know it would turn them into mentally retarded children?"

The older woman wrote: "I know..."

"You don't care?"

The woman wrote: "They are homeless people, drug addicts, and illegal immigrants. Even if I don't arrest them, they will die on the streets. The company at least gives them a place to live. I'm helping them."

She wrote this passage very quickly, almost as if she were releasing a torrent of emotions. After writing the last word, "help them," her fingers paused, and she looked up at Ang Lee.

Then, the woman made a face as if she was about to cry.

Her lips were moving, and you could tell from the shape of her mouth that she was saying "please".

But Ang Lee noticed that her tears only welled up in her eyes, and not a single one actually fell.

"You said you work for Vought International. What's your contact's name? How do I contact him?"

The old woman wrote on the cloth: "Shepherd, all I know about him is that he is called Shepherd."

"On the 15th of each month, he would contact me through an encrypted number to tell me the time and place to hand over the potion."

"I don't know his real name, I've never seen his face, and I don't know his position in the company."

"What does the medicine look like?"

"Colorless and odorless, like water. It comes in small glass bottles, one bottle can feed ten people. It takes effect in about fifteen minutes after drinking."

"What does your company do with these test subjects?"

The woman wrote: "I don't know, I was only responsible for transportation. The company has a designated receiving point. I would drop people off at the designated location, hand them over, and then leave. No one told me where those experimental subjects went afterward..."

"I guess... they were taken for further research or modification, but I really have no idea what happened to them afterward."

"I know I was wrong, please forgive me."

"I will never do it again. I have three children to support. They can't be without their mother. Please have pity on me."

As she wrote those words, tears finally streamed down her face.

Ang Lee looked into her eyes and asked, "What's your name?"

The woman paused for a moment, then wrote the name "Maria" in the pool of blood with her finger.

"Maria," Li An read aloud, "your name is quite beautiful, the Virgin Mary..."

"How about I send you to see your child—God?"

The woman's eyes widened suddenly, and she made a series of muffled sounds as if she wanted to shout something.

Ang Lee pulled the jujube wood puppet from his waist and threw it at the old woman's face.

The puppet grew in the air, from the size of a palm to the height of a person. Old White's body stretched out in mid-air, covered in dried blood, with his mouth wide open, revealing blackened teeth and crimson gums.

Ang Lee had already stepped off the bus, the hem of his Taoist robe fluttering in the night wind. Behind him, a dull thud, like a watermelon being smashed, came from inside the bus, followed by a second, a third, and then the "whoosh" of the bus door closing.