Chapter 243 The Secret is Hidden in the Most Dangerous Place

Huo Fenglin had a splitting headache, and his temples throbbed with pain.

The tinnitus lasted for an unknown period of time before it subsided somewhat.

He finally regained some strength.

Lifting his heavy eyelids, Huo Fenglin was finally able to see his surroundings.

He's not dead?

As his vision gradually cleared, Huo Fenglin moved his stiff neck, trying to figure out where he was.

He was leaning against a corner of the city ruins, surrounded by nothingness and darkness.

Sharp pains shot through my limbs.

"..."

When Huo Fenglin realized that his limbs were trapped by sharp black iron thorns, he immediately gave up the futile struggle.

He tried to get his muddled mind back to normal.

All he remembered was being ambushed and betrayed by two people from Xin Que's camp... He knew nothing else.

wrong……

Why don't they eliminate their own threat completely?

...

Footsteps echoed from the shadows cast by the ruins of the building in front of them.

The man's figure emerged from the shadows and stood in front of Huo Fenglin.

“You are…” Huo Fenglin struggled to look up at the man’s face as he looked down at him.

"Humanoid Control Procedure...01?"

The man called to the program code didn't react much; he just put his hands in his trouser pockets and looked at him coldly.

Huo Fenglin's gaze fell on the man's drooping hand.

The man was still wearing the same clothes he wore during the battle with the AI ​​in charge. The tattered fabric revealed shocking knife and burn wounds, and a nearly destroyed wristwatch hung on his wrist.

It should already be scrapped.

Huo Fenglin deduced that the man's situation was not much better than his.

“01,” Huo Fenglin tried to appear calm despite the pressure from the thorns, “Shall we talk?”

Luo Huayi's lifeless eyes remained fixed on Huo Fenglin, as still as a dead man's, and she remained silent.

"Why don't you kill me?" Huo Fenglin raced against time to find a way out of the predicament, trying to find the man's weakness through conversation.

"Let me guess... It can't be because you're being kind and want to spare my life, can it?"

"Is the battle with the AI ​​in charge not as simple as you think, or do you want something from me?"

Huo Fenglin's gaze fell on the man's still-unhealed burns on the side of his face. "Looking at your injuries..."

Luo Huayi finally moved.

He knelt down in front of Huo Fenglin, supporting himself on his knees, and said, "You'd better stop making those little moves."

Huo Fenglin fell silent.

"I'm sparing your life because you're still useful." Luo Huayi's voice slowed down considerably. "Next, I'll ask you questions and you'll answer them."

"You'd better cooperate obediently."

Huo Fenglin's pupils dilated slightly.

...

Huo Fenglin was thrown onto the paving stones by the thorns like a dead fish.

It's incredibly easy to pry information out of untrained people.

Xin Que taught him countless times.

After an unknown amount of time, Huo Fenglin's unfocused pupils finally moved slightly twice.

Just as Luo Huayi was about to turn and leave after receiving the information, she heard a trembling male voice behind her.

"You're asking me these questions...you're not asking them on behalf of Xin Que, are you?"

Huo Fenglin's voice was filled with the madness of a mental breakdown, his speech incoherent and rapid, "You're fucking stupid and blind... Don't you know how to leave yourself a way out... Aren't you afraid of being kicked aside after you're no longer of use?"

"Do you know what kind of reputation Xin Que has outside? A notorious assassin... If it weren't for the Huo family's wealth and influence protecting her... those she murdered would have torn her to pieces long ago to vent their anger!!!"

"What benefits did she promise you? Status, fame, fortune... or escaping the mental prison and entering the real world?"

"Let me tell you the truth... she never tells the truth... contracts, keeping promises... those are worthless empty words in the mouths of assassins who only care about the mission!!!"

"You have neither the Huo family's status to intimidate her, nor any other usable advantage... You'll end up like me sooner or later!!!"

Huo Fenglin spoke faster and faster, his desire to escape driving him to use any means necessary to buy himself time. "Xin Que told you about what's happening outside, right?"

Luo Huayi turned her head and replied with an ambiguous tone, "I did say that."

"Upper City, Huo Family, Upper Class, Middle Class, Lower Class..."

"I know everything you can and can't imagine."

Seeing that the other party was willing to respond, Huo Fenglin immediately grasped at this lifeline, "The Huo family's affairs... my affairs... she must have twisted the truth!!!"

"The Huo family spared no effort in training her to become one of the top assassins in the city... In the end, she repaid kindness with enmity and attacked her master's family! That's why she was imprisoned..."

"Even I... family fortune, resources... I promised her so much!!! All she had to do was help me complete one task..."

"A mission to help you seize power?" Luo Huayi scoffed, interrupting him. "Your words are incoherent; who is twisting the truth here?"

Huo Fenglin's eyes widened.

"I've told you before, I know everything you can and can't even imagine." The shadows beside Luo Huayi surged like living water, with countless tiny thorns winding out from them.

"But you seem to be blinded by a leaf and unable to distinguish reality."

Huo Fenglin's lips trembled, his brain racing, but he couldn't find the right words to respond.

"You're here for the evidence needed to inherit the family fortune, aren't you?"

Luo Huayi raised his hand.

A bundle of thorns slowly swam toward Huo Fenglin.

Huo Fenglin stared intently at the thorns that resembled a swarm of venomous snakes.

The black thorns peeled away layer by layer, revealing the true appearance of the object.

It's white...

Huo Fenglin's breath hitched.

Even though he knew it might be a trick by the enemy, he couldn't help but want to see what it really looked like because it concerned him.

“She said…” Luo Huayi’s voice grew softer and softer.

“Xin Que is extremely cunning. She knows that there are countless ways to dig out secrets from memories through mental interrogation,” Xin Que said calmly, standing in front of the man who was surrounded by guards. “So… she used what she thought was the safest way to bury this secret that could determine her fate.”

As Xin Que made a gesture, the interrogation plan appeared on the screen placed in front of the man.

A white, forearm-sized statue of the Thousand-Hand Guanyin sits quietly in a safe amidst the ruins of a villa.

“I personally severed this memory from her memory and hid it in the inconspicuous interrogation tools used to interrogate her.”

“As long as she doesn’t have this memory at all, this interrogation will never achieve the result they want.”

"Huo Fenglin would never have dreamed that the memory he most wanted to know about Xin Que's theft of the family head's token during the bombing had been right under the prison's nose all along."

Thorns gently placed the Thousand-Hand Guanyin in front of Huo Fenglin.

The string of reason in Huo Fenglin's mind snapped completely with the appearance of this Thousand-Hand Guanyin.