Top edge chapter 58

Go all the way

Shen Siwei raised his arm and protected Amor and Avis behind him. He intended to push them back, but as he took a small step, Avis circled around his arm and stood in front of him.

“I did all this. Let them go, I’ll stay?” Avis said to Moran.

Shen Siwei quickly grabbed Avis’ arm and whispered, “Don’t be stupid”

He was grateful that Avis stepped forward in such a situation, but he had to admit that he was the most suitable one among the three to act as a shield and protect them.

Moran sneered and said to Avis, “You really think so highly of yourself.”

Avis remained in front without moving.

“By the way, Shen Siwei,” Moran looked beyond Avis’s head and locked eyes with Shen Siwei, “I can understand you taking Amor away, but him? Do you know each other?”

It seemed that Moran still didn’t know about Avis being a Nightingale.

However, he should find it strange. If Avis was just an unrelated bystander, why would he stand in the front?

Shen Siwei calmly replied, “it’s just a matter of convenience.”

“Is that so? Then he is worthless.”

After saying that, Moran suddenly drew his gun from his waist and aimed it at Avis, about to pull the trigger.

Things happened quickly, and Shen Siwei’s heart raced. 

Fortunately, he reacted swiftly. Almost at the same moment Moran pulled the trigger, he pulled Avis back, turned around, and blocked the bullet himself.

The bullet hit him without causing pain or injury, but due to his unstable footing, Shen Siwei and Avis both fell to the ground.

“Negotiator?!” Avis exclaimed in shock, quickly searching for a wound on Shen Siwei’s back.

At the same time, Amor hurriedly crouched down and supported both of them, saying to Moran, “Moran, are you okay?!”

Shen Siwei wanted to say that Amor was naive and only realized the truth now.  He said to him, “I’m fine, the bullet can’t kill me.”

“Negotiator?” Moran raised an eyebrow, showing displeasure at being deceived, “So, you do know each other.”

Shen Siwei feared that Moran might shoot again, so he grabbed Amor’s arm and said, “Take him and find a room to hide.”

Perhaps Avis had no value to Moran, but it was different for Amor. It wasn’t easy to bring a Mag person as a collectible, let alone the fact that Amor was the son of the Life Tree head. Seeing Avis covered in bruises while Amor remained unharmed, Moran must have been quite fond of this “collectible.”

“What about you?” Amor asked.

“I’ll be fine,” Shen Siwei said.

The fact that the bullet didn’t harm him was proof enough. Amor didn’t say anything more, helped Avis up, and walked towards the deeper part of the corridor. With Amor by Avis’s side, Moran indeed didn’t dare to shoot again.

“Hide then.” Moran casually put away his gun, coming to Shen Siwei’s side from above the stairs. “Playing hide-and-seek in this basement it’s more interesting, isn’t it?”

He was enjoying the thrill of the hunt. Shen Siwei immediately realized this.

“And you,” Moran crouched down, gripping Shen Siwei’s cheek, “who woke you up?”

Shen Siwei coldly stared at Moran without answering.

“Or were you pretending to be asleep all this time?” Moran speculated aloud.

He must have realized that no one could wake Shen Siwei in this basement, which meant Shen Siwei could only be “pretending” to sleep. Then he squinted and said, “You always manage to surprise me, Shen Siwei.”

“How about it,” Shen Siwei said with a dark expression, “don’t you like the surprises I prepared for you?”

Moran released his grip on Shen Siwei’s cheek and slapped him hard.

“He called you ‘negotiator’ earlier,” Moran continued, “so you’ve regained your memories, haven’t you?”

Shen Siwei’s head hit the wall from the slap, and it took a lot of effort just to steady himself. He didn’t have the energy to exchange harsh words with Moran.

He lowered his gaze, ran his tongue over his teeth, and barely resisted the urge to crush the rice-sized capsule.

—It’s not the time yet.

Shen Siwei had already anticipated that there were only two ways to leave the third floor: forcibly or normally.

Now that Moran had fabricated the scene of Shen Siwei escaping from the laboratory, it wouldn’t be long before he became a wanted man by the military.

Even if Moran hadn’t fabricated the scene, Shen Siwei was still military property and couldn’t leave openly.

Under strict surveillance, Shen Siwei couldn’t escape with Avis using an aircraft unless he managed to seize a fighter jet.

In other words, the important rice-sized capsule could only be used at that time.

Compared to that, it would be best to leave normally.

This inevitably involves a key figure, Miller.

The only person in the top level who had the authority to let Shen Siwei go was Miller. That’s why Shen Siwei must persuade Amor, because other than Amor, Shen Siwei had no other way to contact Miller.

If he abandoned Amor, he could only forcibly escape with Avis—after all, as long as he couldn’t contact Miller, Moran could manipulate everything.

 Amor’s coordinates had already been sent out, although there was some network delay, Miller would definitely receive the message soon.

By then, Shen Siwei won’t need to take action, and Moran won’t be able to act recklessly.

But the second plan also carried risks. If, after negotiations, Miller refused to let Shen Siwei leave, he still had the rice grain capsule, at least leaving him with hope of escape.

“Not speaking, huh?” Moran grabbed Shen Siwei’s hair on top of his head and dragged him toward the hallway. “You only have this little time left to revisit your memories.”

What does this mean?

Does Moran have a way to erase his memories?

Shen Siwei didn’t have the strength to struggle and could only let Moran drag him upstairs. Although his skin wouldn’t get bruised, the steps pressing against his back made him quite uncomfortable.

After coming out of the elevator, Moran dragged Shen Siwei to the center of the living room and then took out a syringe from the briefcase on the sofa.

“Do you feel invincible, like no one can harm you?” Moran said while shaking the syringe in his hand. The liquid at the two ends of the syringe, yellow and blue, merged into an ominous green potion.

Shen Siwei tensed his body and began to consider if there was any possibility of using a sudden burst of strength to deal with Moran when he wasn’t paying attention. However, since waking up, Shen Siwei had already consumed too much energy, and whether he could still successfully break a password lock remained a question.

“You don’t understand your own body like I do,” Moran said, approaching Shen Siwei with the syringe. He looked down on him from above, “You still don’t know, do you? If you had behaved obediently this time, Dr. Chen was going to restore your cardiopulmonary functions. How did you decide to mess up at such an inappropriate time?”

Shen Siwei couldn’t help but feel surprised. So his cardiopulmonary functions could be restored?

“But all that doesn’t matter now.” Moran squatted down, using his knee to hold Shen Siwei’s neck, and with his left hand, he lifted Shen Siwei’s eyelids. “Your eyes are not invincible.”

“Moran…!” Shen Siwei was choked, making it even more difficult to breathe.

“As for this syringe, it’s specially prepared for you. I brought it back from the laboratory.” The needle was getting closer and closer to the outer fiber membrane of Shen Siwei’s eyeball as Moran spoke. He seemed to enjoy the process very much, and his expression became more and more evil. “Once injected into your brain, you will never be able to think again!”

At that point, Moran put his thumb on the back of the needle and, at the same time, the needle tip touched the outer layer of the fiber membrane of Shen Siwei’s eyeball.

But in the next instant, the green eyes suddenly turned crimson. Moran was startled for a moment, and before he could react, Shen Siwei took the syringe from him and crushed it into pieces.

“How… how did you…” Moran quickly pulled out the gun from his waist.

However, Shen Siwei was fearless. He grabbed Moran’s neck, pulling him up from the ground.

Gunshots rang out one after another, with some bullets hitting Shen Siwei and some hitting the wall behind him.

To be honest, Shen Siwei didn’t want Moran to die too easily, but the capsules in his mouth wouldn’t last much longer, so he could only give Moran a quick death.

“Rest in peace.” All the cruel words, all the mockery, turned into simple three words. Shen Siwei looked at Moran expressionlessly, like a grim reaper, who was about to break his neck.

But just then, a series of lights suddenly flashed outside the window, and several soldiers burst into Moran’s house through the front door.

Miller closely followed them and quickly assessed the situation in the room, asking in surprise, “Captain Shen? What is going on here?”

“Amor is downstairs,” Shen Siwei replied immediately.

“General!” Moran cried out desperately, as if he had found a lifeline, “General, save me! He escaped from the laboratory! arrest him!”

Miller knew Shen Siwei’s capabilities. The dozen soldiers he brought with him would be no match for Shen Siwei. But he was obviously confused as well. Shen Siwei wasn’t wearing a mask, so how did he manage to defeat Moran?

He raised his right hand in an almost pleading gesture and said to Shen Siwei, “Captain Shen, please release Colonel Moran.”

Shen Siwei didn’t move.

If it were up to him, Shen Siwei could have easily just injured Moran and spared his life. That way, things wouldn’t escalate too much and it would leave Shen Siwei some room to escape.

But he couldn’t show mercy to Moran after what he saw in his memories.

In the recent phone call, the reason Shen Siwei hesitated to mention klet’s name was that he remembered Moran was the one who killed klet’s mother.

Only Shen Siwei and Moran knew about that, and he had initially intended to tell klet, but he decided to keep it to himself.

klet didn’t need to relive those painful memories. Seeking revenge was something Shen Siwei could do for him.

The back and forth conversation only took a few seconds, but the oxygen provided by the rice grain capsule had already started to decrease.

Shen Siwei withdrew his gaze from Miller, then forcefully snapped Moran’s neck with his hands and threw him to the ground, stomping on his head, crushing it.

Moran didn’t even have time to plead for mercy before he turned into a broken corpse. Blood splattered onto the faces of everyone present, and Miller was shocked speechless, looking at Shen Siwei for a long time without saying a word.

At least Shen Siwei had vented some of his anger, but after that final kick, the oxygen in the rice grain capsule was completely over. He couldn’t recover his breath in time and sat down on the nearby sofa.

He tried to maintain an upright posture, but his heavy breathing gave him away.

Miller finally regained his composure, set aside his dissatisfaction with Shen Siwei, calmed himself down, and spoke to him, “Captain Shen, do you know about the ‘Tree of Life Development Agreement’? It’s been spreading on the internet recently.”

Shen Siwei didn’t expect Miller to bring up this matter and furrowed his brow almost flawlessly. “I don’t know.”

“We should talk about it.” Miller said, “I formally invite you to the top floor as my guest.”

Shen Siwei had planned to rescue Amor and discuss with Miller the possibility of letting him go after that. But now it seemed that Miller didn’t want to let him leave.

And he had used up the rice grain capsules, making the situation even more unfavorable for him.

“I have some other matters to attend to.” Shen Siwei calmly responded, “I’m afraid I can’t stay.”

“No rush.” Miller said, “I can assign someone to help you with your matters.”

Having been frozen for twenty-five years, Shen Siwei couldn’t think of any tasks he had to attend to. He couldn’t come up with a convincing excuse and said, “Does the Tree of Life Development Agreement have anything to do with me? I don’t seem to have anything to discuss with you.”

“It does.” Miller said, “Your mother was the representative for the civilian side when she signed that agreement.”

Shen Siwei couldn’t show that he already knew about this, so he showed a surprised expression. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” Miller said, “That’s why we need to find a representative from the civilian side to negotiate this matter, and you are the best candidate.”

“But…”

“Your role is important in this negotiation, Captain Shen,” Miller’s tone was stern. “You wouldn’t want to see the downfall of the Life Tree, would you?”

Shen Siwei couldn’t find a reason to refuse, but he couldn’t inform Klet about this sudden situation either.

After thinking for a moment, he said, “Alright.”

After he finished speaking, he looked at Avis and the other rescued individuals and said, “They are all victims. General Miller, please ensure their safe return.”

Seeing that Shen Siwei finally agreed, Miller breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Of course.”