"Who are you...?" Ian Strah's eyes flickered with a hint of apprehension, his back already soaked with cold sweat as he obviously recognized the identity of the intruder.
However he quickly realized something akin to a revelation and wrestled inwardly with himself. After a moment, he declared sternly: "This is my studio, whoever you're, whoever intrudes here must expect to be reported to the police!"
—His reaction when he was caught was the same.
When Jonas heard this, he shook his head in resignation and said, "It seems Mr. Ian has no intention of talking any further."
At these words, a sense of foreboding crept into Ian Strah's heart.
The next moment, the man in front of him said calmly, "Break both his legs first."
When the heavily armed members of the Weiting Consortium's special task force heard this order, they unhesitatingly pointed their rifles at Ian Strah's thighs and pulled the trigger.
—Bang, bang! Two shots rang out, accompanied by the man's agonized screams echoing in the mechanical workshop.
"Ah! My legs!" Despite the man's cries of pain, Jonas remained unfazed.
He looked at Ian Strah, whose eyes reflected the sight of the man clutching his bleeding thighs, and said, "Do you understand your situation now?"
"I understand, please, don't hurt me." Despite the intense pain, Ian spoke with a pale face and looked anxiously at Jonas.
As the blood continued to flow from the wound on his thigh, Jonas seemed satisfied with Ian's reaction. Calmly, he remarked, "Mr. Ian seems to have calmed down a bit, which makes our negotiations easier."
With these words, he casually pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Ian, who was curled up on the floor clutching his injured leg.
Jonas' behavior wasn't condescending, but after the ruthless tactics from earlier, Ian didn't feel like fighting back. The look in the Weiting Consortium heir's eyes made it clear that he cared little for Ian's fate and extinguished any hope Ian might still harbor.
"What do you want to talk about?" Ian took a deep breath and turned to the man in front of him.
Since the man hadn't killed him outright, that suggested he was interested in leverage...
"If everything goes according to plan, Mr. Ian should have just received an email from the Destiny Organization?" Jonas' casual tone made Ian's pupils shrink. At that moment, he considered several possibilities, each of which plunged him into an icy abyss. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out until Jonas continued:
"He wants you to infiltrate the Weiting Consortium and rescue Tianyu's youngest, am I right?"
"How... how did you..." Ian's thoughts were in turmoil.
He had to think about the riot that had brought him into this situation...
"You just have to answer me, yes or no." Jonas' expression remained calm, triggering a deep sense of fear and helplessness in Ian.
It was the feeling of being a powerless pawn on the chessboard.
"What... what do I do now?" The sharp pain in his thigh brought Ian back to reality. He looked at Jonas, who could no longer defend himself.
"Mr. Ian, there's no need to be so inconsistent." When he saw the look on Ian's face, Jonas' lips curled into a smile and he said, "Next, I'll deliver Tianyu's youngest to you..."
Ian suddenly looked up and his eyes widened in disbelief.
"In return, of course, all of the Destiny Organization's reinforcements will meet their end here." Jonas extended a finger and looked into Ian's eyes, in which he recognized a sense of satisfaction.
"You must lead them to the prepared graveyard."
—to lead them to their doom.
As Jonas spoke, Ian's swaying intensified until it consumed his entire being before Jonas' voice rang out again.
Like a seductive devil, he said, "I'll tell no one of these things..."
"And you'll surely go with Tianyu's youngest."
"Isn't that a win-win situation?"
Meanwhile, in the dimly lit cell.
The girl curled up on the floor hadn't yet given up on escaping from here...
There were no electromagnetic disruptors here, just a normal cell.
It was clear that the heir to the Weiting Consortium wanted to suppress her desire to escape through hunger and fear.
But unfortunately, he underestimated them.
The youngest of Tianyu wasn't only an excellent mechanic, but also a skillful hacker.
Her time in isolation hadn't made her hopeless, but had given her a glimpse of a possible way out.
The access code to this cell was encrypted via the E2-S system... and she happened to know her way around the E2-S system.
An hour ago, she had already breached the firewall of this cell and infiltrated the surface code.
In other words, whether it was the shackles on her hands or the door to this cell, she could open it at any time.
The only problem now was the security personnel patrolling the building.
Through the hacked surveillance system, she could see the building's security card. It was almost impossible for her to escape from the dense defenses on her own.
The only option was to penetrate deeper into the building's security system. However achieving that without tools was pure wishful thinking.
Tianyu's youngest stared at the decryption progress on the virtual interface and feeling a little discouraged.
At that moment, she sensed something and her eyes lit up.
—Someone had backed up part of the video in the encrypted files in the building.
Tianyu's youngest instinctively sensed that this video might contain information that could help her escape.
She struggled to her feet and carefully began to decode the video.
She knew that her current identity in the building's system was essentially that of an intruder and that she was in danger of being discovered at any moment.
Before that happened, she needed to gather as much advantageous information for herself as possible.
After about three hours, Tianyu's youngest finally decoded the video.
But the content of the video left her stunned for a long time.
In the video, Jonas was sitting in front of a man who was curled up on the floor, and the man's face looked very familiar to her.
—Ian Strah.
How could that be? Why did Jonas find him?
Tianyu's youngest was completely confused, but the following conversation between the two plunged her into even deeper despair.
["In return, of course, all reinforcements from the Fate Organization will meet their end here."
"I won't tell anyone about these things..."
"And you will surely go with Tianyu's youngest."
"Isn't that a win-win situation?"]
—Ian, betraying the destiny Organization...
The girl leaned against the wall of the gloomy cell, in the corners of which spiders had spinning their webs.
Unknowing flies collided with the web and struggled for a moment before losing their resistance.
The hands of Tianyu's youngest hung powerlessly at her sides. After a long while, she took a deep breath again.
—I have to stop him.
The fly in the corner of the cell had become entangled in the spider's web.
Just like the fate of the girl.