Dude, something's really wrong with your abilities.

Chapter 12 A Light Shines Above the Head

The man's left hand tightly gripped Tang Xiaoguo, while his right hand, holding a knife, waved wildly in the air. His eyes didn't focus on anyone; he just stared straight ahead, as if that was where his greatest fear lay.

The little girl was held tightly in front of him, her feet almost off the ground.

She didn't cry, perhaps because she was startled by the sudden turn of events. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth was slightly agape, and her lips were trembling.

"Let her go!" a woman rushed over, crying and shouting, "Can't you just grab me? Can't you just grab me? She's only 5 years old!"

But the man ignored her; when he heard the woman's shouts, he just thought it was a bit noisy, and then swung his knife at her.

The woman instinctively shrank back, the tip of the knife almost grazing her fingertips.

But she didn't run away; instead, she collapsed to the ground, her sobs sounding like the mournful cry of a helpless mother beast.

People inside the mall had already fled to the exit, crowding around and watching what was happening. Many were already calling the police. Two mall security guards stood behind a pillar, holding riot forks, confronting the man, but dared not approach him, given their age.

Chen Shi walked over, helped the woman up from the ground, identified himself to her, and told her to keep quiet for the time being.

His back was facing the knife, less than 5 meters away.

He hadn't noticed the action himself, but in the past, he probably would have. As a useless person in a world of superpowers, he originally thought he was no different from ordinary people. Living a carefree life and staying away from danger had been his motto for over twenty years. When did it change? Was it the brotherly passion he gained after being completely accepted by Group Five? Was it the confidence he gained from single-handedly dealing with Wei Sheng and Lao Yuan? Or was it the warmth he felt from this girl he'd just met?

It seems like they all have them.

So he took two more steps inside.

The man immediately stepped back.

"Don't come any closer!"

"Okay, I won't come over." Chen Shi stopped.

"I can't leave. You've all come to arrest me. You've blocked all the roads. You're all the same."

Chen Shi didn't understand what he meant. He clearly didn't have many people around him, and if he wanted to escape, no one in the mall could stop him.

With that roar, the blade in his hand pressed against the little girl's neck again, leaving a shallow mark.

"Could you loosen your grip a little?" Chen Shi said. "She's having trouble breathing."

This time, the man completely ignored Chen Shi. He kept muttering a few words to himself, very softly. Chen Shi could only make out the words "Let me go."

"We're letting you go," Chen Shi said loudly to make sure the man heard him, "but you have to let her go first. The exit is right behind you, and no one will stop you here."

"Liar." The man suddenly raised his head. "I let her go, and then you all rush over to arrest me. It's happened so many times, so many times."

As the man shouted "many times," tears began to stream from his bloodshot eyes. What kind of emotion was that? Anger, sadness? Or pain?

"My name is Chen Shi." Chen Shi patted his chest. "I'm not here to arrest you, I'm here to buy a toothbrush."

He pointed to the row of electric toothbrushes on the shelf to the side.

The man's gaze shifted slightly, landing on the shelf. He glanced at it only once, then turned back to look at Chen Shi.

"You are one of them."

"I came out to buy a toothbrush."

"They're the ones who buy toothbrushes too, you're all the same."

Chen Shi didn't refute, because he realized that the person in front of him was no longer listening to any logical arguments. He simply moved forward another step based on his instinct to save the person.

The man was not sensitive to Chen Shi's words, but he was very perceptive to other people's actions. When he saw Chen Shi move his feet, he immediately pressed the knife half an inch towards the little girl's neck.

Chen Shi noticed that the skin on Tang Xiaoguo's neck had become sunken.

He had no choice but to stop.

"I won't move," he said. "I assure you."

"You all made those promises before."

"Who made that promise to you?"

The man didn't answer the question. Instead, he removed the knife from the girl's neck, then struck his own head a few times with the handle, making a thumping sound, before putting the knife back on.

"They put something in my head," he said.

Chen Shi was sweating profusely from the intense tension. He had interrogated Wei Sheng and confronted Yuan Shikai head-on. He had thought he had found a way to relax people through conversation, and once relaxed, to lower their guard.

But the person standing in front of him wouldn't even listen to him ask "Who are you?"

Chen Shi wanted to tell him a joke.

This was his most instinctive reaction, and also his only weapon.

He opened his mouth, but said nothing.

Because he knew that every joke required the other person to at least be willing to listen. But this person didn't care what Chen Shi was saying at all; instead, he was telling a story using his own logic, or rather, it wasn't so much telling a story as venting.

This person's world consists of no one else but himself.

For the first time, Chen Shi understood that laughter needs to be received. If no one responds, telling a joke is a joke in itself.

He stared at the blade, mentally rehearsing every possible rescue option. Charge in? Not fast enough; the blade was definitely faster, and it was pressed firmly against the girl's neck. Talk? He'd already tried that. No use.

There are no options. There are no answers.

So he could only wait in despair, waiting for the patrol officers to come, waiting for the fat man to come, waiting for the people from the Superpower Bureau to descend from the sky.

As despair and pain intertwined and constantly pounded against his heart, many strange things suddenly surged into his mind, like a bubble enveloping him being punctured, and then he saw the outside world.

But it wasn't actually visible to the eyes. Rather, it was a wave emanating from within the body, spreading out like ripples on the surface of water.

Two security guards not far from him had gray lights flickering above their heads. He turned around and saw the mother behind him with a ball of purplish-black light falling down above her head.

Then he looked at the man with the knife.

Dark red.

It wasn't a uniform dark red. It was a constantly churning, incredibly violent red. The dark red light was spiraling, constantly brewing and growing larger.

But that wasn't malicious.

The thought suddenly popped into his head, and Chen Shi himself didn't know why he thought that way. He just felt that malice didn't look like that. This person might just be suffering.

Then he looked at Tang Xiaoguo.

A wisp of pink. Very thin, very pale, trembling violently, like the first breath exhaled on a winter morning, as if it might be blown away by the wind at any moment. But it still lingers.

He took half a step forward.

"Tang Xiaoguo," he called her name.

The little girl's eyelashes fluttered.

"Brother's here," Chen Shi said. "Don't be afraid."

The man with the knife seemed to pause for a moment. He moved the knife away from the girl's neck, pointed the tip at Chen Shi, and swung it from side to side.

"You know her, do you all know her?"

"I don't know her. I ran into her when I was buying a toothbrush. Then she told me her toothbrush was strawberry flavored," Chen Shi explained earnestly. He couldn't stop this person, but he had to find a way to delay him.

The man tilted his head to look at Chen Shi, as if he was carefully identifying something.

"Strawberry?" he repeated the word, his voice suddenly softening. Then his expression turned ferocious again, and he pounded his temple with the hand that held the knife.

"Quiet down. All of you, please be quiet."

He seemed to be talking to a voice in his head.

Chen Shi didn't care about what the man said, but instead got into his own rhythm of conversation: "Were you harmed before?"

The man's hand stopped, the tip of the knife hovering in the air.

He looked at Chen Shi. It was like a drowning person grabbing onto a piece of wood, but only for a moment, before the wood slipped from their grasp.

An expression appeared on his face that Chen Shi had never seen before; it was neither anger nor fear, but something deeper than both.

But that expression only lasted a second. The next second, the knife was back at the girl's neck, he took two steps back, and his back slammed into the shelf. Bottles and jars crashed down, but he didn't dodge.

"Don't come any closer." His voice suddenly softened. It was no longer the loud roar of before, but a resigned plea.

"I'm being talked about in my head. You're not one of them. But you can't help me."

Chen Shi looked up at the light above the other person's head. The light had turned from dark red to black, and was growing increasingly intense. The previous surging and violent light indicated that there was still struggle within him, but now, the light was quiet, or rather, it was dead still, filled with despair.

Chen Shi was equally desperate because he realized that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't save the little girl.

The man's knife was firmly pressed against Tang Xiaoguo's neck, as if his hand would gently swipe it at any moment, and that one swipe would be enough.

Chen Shi had only one thought left: he had to rush forward. As for the outcome, he didn't have time to think about it anymore, because the man's hand began to tighten his grip on the hilt of his knife.

Just as Chen Shi was about to take a step, a fleshy ball rolled in. Upon closer inspection, Chen Shi realized it was a person, but this person was curled up in a circle. Using the inertia of its hard outer skin, it accelerated on the tiles, gliding straight across the entire passageway. It suddenly stopped next to a pillar and then spread out its limbs.

A chubby hand grasped the blade the instant it opened.