Dude, something's really wrong with your abilities.

Chapter 31 Self-Destruction

The sleeve of the falcon's right arm was gone, and the cut had been burned to stop the bleeding. Seeing Sun Tiemei get out of the car, his eyes showed more relief than anything else.

"Guo Sen, you can't escape now."

The kestrel looked down at its only remaining left hand and gave a self-deprecating laugh.

"I ran all night, bleeding the whole way, my bike was abandoned, and I lost my arm. I really can't run anymore." He looked up at her. "Then let's stop running."

"You should surrender."

The kestrel seemed to have heard a word that had nothing to do with it, and then it laughed. The laughter was dry, as if it were being squeezed out of its throat.

"Sun Tiemei, you don't think I'm not running away because I'm surrendering, do you?" He shook his head. "As for capturing me alive, I advise you not to be impulsive."

As he spoke, he slightly stepped aside. On the wall he was leaning against, several wires were clearly visible.

The fat man, with his sharp eyes, jumped out of the car in alarm and reported to Sun Tiemei: "There might be explosives on the wall, and a lot of them."

At this moment, Zhou Xin arrived with Group Six. When he saw Hong Jun leaning weakly against the wall, his eyes lit up immediately.

The leadership said the bureau takes this suspect very seriously; capturing him alive would be a major achievement. Last time they arrested Lao Yuan, their Sixth Group lost face, and now the Fifth Group has suffered a lot of injuries—isn't this a golden opportunity to steal the credit?

He waved his hand, signaling two team members to go around from the side. He straightened his collar, preparing to go up and make his appearance after he had the person pinned down.

When Zhou Xin and his men crept up the wall, the fat man was the first to see them. He muttered in a low voice, "What the hell is this bastard doing? Didn't he see the obvious explosives on the wall?"

Su Xiaohe: "Not only did he not see the explosives, he probably didn't even know what class the red falcon was."

The fat man tried to rush over to stop him, but the falcon was leaning against the entrance of the stairwell, with explosive fuses within three meters of him. Any unusual movement could trigger his alertness.

Chen Shi stood beside the car, his palms sweating. He wanted to shout, "Don't go over there!" but his mouth opened and then closed again. If he shouted, Hong Jun might detonate the explosives immediately, and everyone in Group Six would be doomed. If he didn't shout, that sleazy Zhou Xin would lead everyone to crash into the explosives.

He turned to look at Sun Tiemei. She was staring blankly at Zhou Xin's back and muttered, "Idiot."

Chen Shi was truly at his wit's end and had no choice but to bite the bullet and go himself: "Red Falcon, you bastard, so many elderly people live here, and you've buried so many explosives in the walls, don't you have any sense of public morality? You have such poor manners."

Upon hearing this, the members of Group Six paused in their steps, glanced back at Chen Shi, and then looked up at the wall.

Zhou Xin's impatience hadn't subsided when, following the gazes of his two teammates, he finally spotted the fuses hidden in the cracks between the bricks, and his face turned deathly pale.

Even the falcon was stunned for a moment, and was suddenly scolded by Chen Shi, but, but it seemed that what he said was not wrong.

However, he was relatively calm and quickly regained his composure, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the two sixth-team members who were retreating.

He smiled, spread his left hand, and flames shot out from his palm, surging out of the stairwell along the ground and licking Zhou Xin's scalp.

When Zhou Xin scrambled back, the flames had licked away the last half of his shiny left-side hair. He touched his head and shouted back, "There's explosives!"

The fat guy and his friends wanted to laugh, but they felt it was inappropriate.

Zhou Xin shouted loudly, "There are explosives! Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!" As he spoke, he tried to comb the remaining hair on the right side to the left.

Old Zheng arrived with the people from Group Nine at this time. He was stunned when he saw Zhou Xin's hair, which was half charred and half shiny.

Lu Xue raised the megaphone and shouted into the stairwell, but Hong Jun didn't respond at all. Old Zheng asked Sun Tiemei in a low voice about the situation inside, and Zhou Xin answered quickly, saying that it was full of explosives, which their sixth team had discovered during their raid. As he spoke, he showed Old Zheng his hairstyle.

Lu Xue was somewhat helpless. After calling out several more times, Hong Jun finally spoke up: "There is only one condition: let Chen Shi in to talk."

Sun Tiemei said no, and Hongjun said then there was no need to talk. Chen Shi handed his cane to the fat man and walked to Sun Tiemei's side: "If he wanted to kill me, he wouldn't have waited until now. Besides, there are some things I want to ask him clearly."

In that instant, Sun Tiemei felt that Chen Shi had become somewhat unfamiliar, yet he increasingly resembled the person in her heart.

She looked into Chen Shi's eyes, her gaze filled with relief and anticipation. Chen Shi, of course, understood what she wanted to say, nodded to her, and then looked at Lao Zheng.

Old Zheng was silent for a moment, then nodded.

The fat man took off his protective inner lining and tried to give it to Chen Shi, but Chen Shi said he couldn't walk properly wearing it.

Su Xiaohe peered out the car window as Chen Shi struggled to move into the stairwell.

Explosives were embedded in the cracks in the stairwell walls, with fuses running densely along the walls. A hawk leaned against the base of a wall without explosives.

"You've become much bolder," the falcon said approvingly, looking at him.

"Big brother, stop messing around, okay? Didn't you specifically ask me to come? If I didn't come, how will I ever be able to work here again?"

Hongjun didn't take that seriously. He had seen clearly that Sun Tiemei had no intention of letting him come over. He smiled, but the twitch of his lips aggravated the wound on his severed arm, causing his eye to twitch in pain.

"Actually, we know you very well. We've been watching you since the day you started working. Believe me, we know you far better than anyone else in your department, which is why I said you've become much bolder."

Chen Shi was startled upon hearing this. Although he had become famous for taking down Wei Sheng on his very first day in the bureau, only a few people within the bureau knew about it at first. However, the forces behind Red Falcon had taken notice of him from that time onwards, which could only mean that there were many of their people hidden within the bureau.

He really wanted to ask Hong Jun if he had sent someone from the bureau, but then he gave up; the other party was clearly not stupid. But why would he tell him all this? Chen Shi couldn't understand.

"What exactly do you want to say to me? Let me make this clear beforehand: you can ask, but I can choose not to tell you."

What are your thoughts on your special abilities?

Chen Shi was taken aback. He had originally thought that the Red Falcon had come to negotiate with him, or even to kidnap him and escape; he had considered all of these possibilities.

He just hadn't expected the falcon to ask this question, which wasn't anything he couldn't say.

"At first, I felt pretty awkward." He didn't look at the falcon when he spoke, but at his hands. "When others were fighting, I was chatting. It was embarrassing to even mention it. But later I realized that the enemies I chatted with weren't being interfered with by me; they simply didn't want to fight anymore. Not that they couldn't, but that they didn't want to." He raised his head. "My ability isn't a weapon; it's a key. It's not me unlocking the locks, but letting the locks in other people's hearts open themselves."

Red Falcon nodded: "You're absolutely right. That's why you're so important to us. Have you ever thought about it? An empty jar can hold a lot of things. But if you stuff more into a jar that's already full, it will only crack."

"You mean, I'm the one who emptied the jar?"

"That's right. Last night at your house, I found that I couldn't feel any hostility towards you. Although I never intended to hurt you, that feeling of not being able to control my thoughts terrified me."

"What exactly are you trying to say?"

"What we do isn't for money, nor is it for killing." Red Falcon stared intently into Chen Shi's eyes. "We're changing this world. The rules of this world are set by your Administration Bureau. Screening, rating, elimination. The people you screen out, we pick up. We give these people something new, let them live a second life. We're walking a bright path, but it's a difficult path, requiring many people. Here, you'll be rated, defined, locked in a grid. But here, you can become whoever you want to be."

"Even now, you're still trying to turn me against you."

"No, it's just an invitation. Please see a different world."

"Can I ask you a question first?" Chen Shi continued without waiting for his answer, "You mentioned Yan Guang yesterday, do you know where he is?"

The falcon was silent for a while, then looked up and winked mischievously at Chen Shi: "I lied to her, I don't know where he is. But, who knows, you might meet him someday."

After saying that, Red Falcon emphasized again, "This time, I really didn't lie to you. I truly don't know his whereabouts." He looked at Chen Shi, meaning that since he had already answered, could he now accept his invitation?

Chen Shi understood that he wouldn't be able to get Yan Guang's whereabouts from Hong Jun. He had many questions he wanted to ask Hong Jun, but Hong Jun clearly wouldn't tell him.

So he decided to answer Red Falcon first. He had already thought of his answer last night: "You say your ideals are bright, but when Zhao Zhiqiang died, his sister was still waiting for him to come home. You said you would pick up those who were rejected, but after you picked up Zhao Zhiqiang, he went insane. Chang Biao broke three ribs, and Fatty might have died there that day. If your ideals don't include the lives of these people, then the ideals themselves are problematic. Brightness is not proven by sacrificing others."

He looked into the eyes of the kestrel and said, word by word, "Only those who sacrifice themselves are worthy of talking about the light."

The kestrel was speechless. The expression on its face changed from calm to a complex one that was hard to describe. It wasn't anger or disappointment, but rather as if it had been waiting for a long time and had finally heard an answer that it both hoped for and feared.

He looked at Chen Shi, his lips moved slightly, but in the end he only said very softly, "You're right, people like us really don't deserve it."

After saying that, a smile appeared on his face, and he raised his left hand with his five fingers spread.

Chen Shi saw his eyes instantly turn blood red, as if something had shattered all his defenses from inside his skull. Longing, resentment, relief, and resolve were all squeezed together in those bloodshot eyes.

Chen Shi took a step forward and shouted something, but the falcon's palm suddenly pushed forward, and a scalding wave of air hit Chen Shi's chest, sending him flying out of the stairwell.

The fat man leaped forward and caught him. Chen Shi straightened up and saw the relieved expression on Hong Jun's face in the stairwell, like someone who had waited a long time and finally found someone willing to listen to him finish speaking, and then made his own choice.

He looked in the direction Chen Shi was pushed out, his lips moved slightly, and he spoke softly, as if to others, or perhaps to himself: "What I owed you, I've repaid today."

He then closed his eyes and placed his left hand on the wall. At the same instant, all the fuses of the explosives were ignited by flames, and sparks leaped out from the cracks in the wall.

The fat man pulled Chen Shi back, hunching over to shield him. With a loud bang, the wall of the stairwell exploded from the inside, and chunks of broken bricks and cement hit his back, bounced off, and rolled all over the ground.

Chen Shi's ears were ringing. He looked over the fat man's shoulder and saw that the wall was gone. The building still stood, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time before it collapsed.

With his head half charred and half shiny, Zhou Xin climbed out of the pile of rubble and the first thing he did was touch his hair.

Some elderly people who had just received their eggs dropped their enamel basins upon seeing this scene, scattering the eggs everywhere. A few onlookers, eager for a spectacle, kept crowding around.

Sun Tiemei walked over to Chen Shi.

Looking at the ruins, Chen Shi said, "He said he didn't know where Senior Yan was."

Sun Tiemei remained silent.

"He's not lying this time, I'm sure of it."