Chapter 239 Plant Prisoners
Huo Ling stood up, his hunched back casting a long, eerie shadow in the dim light.
"Come with me."
Bai Shu followed behind him without making a sound. The old butler had already left at some point, and in the huge mansion, only the sound of the two footsteps echoing in the empty corridor could be heard.
Passing through a long corridor adorned with traditional Chinese ink paintings, Huo Ling pushed open an alloy door that clashed with the surrounding rustic style. Behind the door, a strong smell of disinfectant wafted out.
The sight before him caused Bai Shu's pupils to contract slightly.
This is neither a study nor a living room, but a well-equipped private hospital room. Various advanced life support instruments flicker with a faint green light and emit a monotonous beeping sound.
On the hospital bed, a woman lay quietly, her face ashen, her eyes closed, various tubes inserted into her nose and arms, her chest rising and falling slightly with the rhythm of the ventilator.
Bai Shu was all too familiar with that face.
It's Su Yuting.
She is still alive, living in this way, a prisoner of plants.
"Surprised?" Huo Ling's hoarse voice rang out in the quiet ward, tinged with a sickly smugness.
"Her mind is very active, but her body is imprisoned. Sometimes, living is more painful than dying."
He walked to the bedside, his withered fingers tapping on the screen of a device connected to Su Yuting's head. A complex three-dimensional image of brain activity immediately appeared on the screen.
“We found something very interesting in her mind.” Huo Ling turned around, his cloudy eyes fixed on Bai Shu.
"A chip. A chip that records all my memories. Of course, including everything about you."
Bai Zhu's heart sank heavily.
"Hand over all the core technologies of 'New Wave'," Huo Ling's voice was not loud, but it carried an irresistible pressure.
"Then, take your mother's place and serve the 'Eagle's Nest.' You can continue the path your mother didn't finish. You and your descendants can enjoy the glory your mother didn't get to enjoy."
He paused, his withered lips curving into a cruel smile: "Otherwise, we will make the contents of the chip public."
A threat, a blatant threat.
This was the most deadly crisis Bai Shu had encountered since her transmigration. A chill ran from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. But the strong will she had honed through two lifetimes allowed her to forcefully suppress the turmoil in her heart within a few seconds.
Her brain was working at lightning speed.
Something's not right.
If the chip were truly that effective, and if the Huo family already possessed all her trump cards, including the existence of the space and the system, they wouldn't have needed to wait until today to threaten her.
They will set up a plan to capture her alive and, like they did with Su Yuting, turn her into a research subject to be exploited at will.
Huo Ling's use of this to negotiate only proves one thing.
This chip is either difficult to read, with incomplete data, or it has some kind of fatal flaw that prevents them from fully utilizing it.
They're bluffing her!
Having figured this out, Bai Shu's tense body relaxed. She raised her eyes to meet Huo Ling's probing gaze, her face subtly revealing panic, fear, and a hint of struggle.
"I...I need time to think about it." Her voice trembled slightly, perfectly portraying a young girl whose soft spot had been hit.
A hint of satisfaction flickered in Huo Ling's cloudy eyes. This was exactly the effect he wanted—to completely shatter her psychological defenses.
“Sure.” He waved his hand generously. “Give me an answer before dawn tomorrow.”
Bai Shu bit her lower lip, her face filled with humiliation and resentment. She slowly walked to the bedside, looked at Su Yuting's lifeless face, and whispered:
"Can I... spend some time alone with my sister? Just to say goodbye."
Huo Ling did not refuse this reasonable request. He turned and walked out of the ward, leaving them alone, but Bai Shu knew that the surveillance camera outside the door was definitely pointing directly at them.
Bai Shu bent down and reached out, seemingly to tidy Su Yuting's disheveled hair. Her body happened to block the surveillance camera's view.
The instant her fingers lightly brushed against Su Yuting's cheek, a thin, poisoned silver needle, as fine as a cow's hair, silently slipped out from under the nail of her left ring finger. But she did not pierce it.
Her goal was not to kill.
As she approached the IV tubing connected to the life support fluid on Su Yuting's arm, she flicked her fingertip lightly.
A tiny, almost invisible drop of liquid popped out from another mechanism under her fingernail and silently dissolved into the transparent medicine.
That's not poison, it's spring water.
A drop of concentrated spiritual spring water.
It cannot cure a brain-dead vegetative patient, but the immense vitality it contains is enough to generate a violent bioelectric storm with the sophisticated electronic chip in Su Yuting's brain the moment it enters her body.
Fighting with one's life for another, cutting off the source of the problem.
This is a high-stakes gamble. If she wins, her greatest threat will be reduced to ashes; if she loses, she will be doomed.
After doing all this, she straightened up, her face regaining the expression that had been a mixture of fear and despair. She took one last deep look at Su Yuting, then turned and walked out of the ward.
"I've made up my mind," she said to Huo Ling at the door.
"oh?"
"I need to go back and take care of some company matters. I'll come back here tomorrow morning with what you need."
Huo Ling gave her a deep look, and finally nodded. He was confident that a bird already in a cage wouldn't be able to fly away.
On the way back, it was still the same Rolls-Royce. Bai Shu leaned back in the back seat, eyes closed, as if resting.
As the car rounded a corner, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Huo Qishan standing at the entrance of the old house. He was watching her with the eyes of a victor, a faint, almost imperceptible, mocking smile playing on his lips.
Bai Shu slowly withdrew his gaze, his eyes filled with icy coldness.
The car drove smoothly down the mountain road. When they passed a sharp bend without streetlights and confirmed that they were out of the Huo family's surveillance range, Bai Shu gently pressed the obsidian earring she always wore on her right ear three times.
Less than a minute later, an inconspicuous Toyota sedan caught up from behind and forcefully blocked the Rolls-Royce.
Before the driver could react, the car door was pulled open from the outside.
Qin Zheng's cold, hard face appeared at the door: "Miss, get out of the car."
Without the slightest hesitation, Bai Shu quickly switched to the Toyota. Lu Jingyan was already waiting in the back seat, the atmosphere inside the car was frighteningly tense.
"How is it?" he asked, his voice a little hoarse.
Bai Shu revealed the Huo family's threat and his response in detail, including Su Yuting, the chip, and her gamble of injecting spiritual spring water.
A deathly silence fell over the carriage.
Looking in the rearview mirror, Qin Zheng saw that Lu Jingyan's expression was beyond ugly; it was a calm before a storm, beneath which lay a raging fire capable of destroying everything.
He held Bai Shu's hand; her fingertips were icy cold.
He warmed her little by little with his own body heat.
After a long while, he finally spoke, each word clear and distinct.
"Don't be afraid."
"Even if the whole world knows your secret, I will personally destroy all the evidence and kill everyone who knows about it."
He turned his head, his deep eyes swirling with a possessive and obsessive desire in the darkness, his gaze so intense it almost melted her.
"You are mine, and no one can take you away."
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