The villa was surrounded by fully armed soldiers. They carried submachine guns, had grenades hanging from their belts, and even had heavy machine guns mounted on high platforms, ready for battle.
It turned out they had no intention of leaving. The middle-aged man was just putting on a show to relax their guard; the real trump card was a sniper stationed on a tree a hundred meters away.
A gunshot broke the silence of the night, the sound carrying far in the quiet.
"Go!"
The gunshot was like a signal. The middle-aged man shouted, holding his pistol as he rushed in with the special forces. But the scene before them stunned them.
A pitch-black sphere hovered in the room, flickering with an eerie black light, strands swirling around it like gauzy fabric.
The sniper bullet was stuck on the black sphere, flattened like a piece of chewing gum.
With a "ding," the bullet fell to the ground with a crisp sound.
The black sphere flowed like water, transforming into several floating black orbs. The two girls were now visible to them.
One girl was as beautiful as a painting, with bright eyes, white teeth, and long black hair fluttering in the breeze. The other was breathtakingly beautiful, with flawless white skin, eyebrows like distant mountains, and eyes like autumn waters, her gaze lightly veiled, drawing in anyone who glanced at her.
For a moment, the villa was eerily silent, even the soldiers holding weapons unconsciously lowering their guns.
"You, you really are that person, that fox spirit," Qiao Xiaoqing said with difficulty.
"What fox spirit?" Kaguya replied softly, "But I guess I am the person you're talking about."
"I feel like a fool, thinking I could protect you." Qiao Xiaoqing mocked herself. "In the end, it was all just my wishful thinking."
"No," Kaguya quickly said, "I didn't mean to hide it from you. I wasn't doing it on purpose. I apologize."
"No need to apologize," Qiao Xiaoqing said softly, her head lowered. "If you really want to apologize, then compensate me."
"Compensate?" Kaguya looked confused, then seriously said, "As long as you're not mad, any compensation is fine."
"Really?" Qiao Xiaoqing lifted her head, her expression unreadable, only her moist eyes quietly staring at her.
"Yes," Kaguya felt uneasy seeing her expression.
Hopefully, it's not something like in those cliché soap operas, "bring me the head of your lover" or something like that.
"Be my pillow tonight," Qiao Xiaoqing said with a triumphant expression, throwing herself into Kaguya's arms and rubbing her face against her. "This is so comfortable."
"What?" Kaguya's mouth twitched, feeling like she'd been tricked.
Kaguya wanted to push Qiao Xiaoqing away, but she clung to her like sticky candy, impossible to shake off.
"Hey, hey, mind the situation, will you? Stop touching!"
Disturbed by the noise, the middle-aged man came back to his senses, tightly gripping his gun, beads of sweat dripping down his face.
The silver-haired girl's eyes were like a strange vortex, pulling him in without him realizing it. His mind had gone blank, leaving only those eyes, as if shrouded in mist.
If he hadn't undergone rigorous mental training, possessing stronger willpower than others, he might have been utterly captivated.
The middle-aged man glanced around, feeling his heart sink. All the soldiers around him had dull expressions and vacant eyes, some even dropping their guns.
Gritting his teeth, the middle-aged man fired several shots into the sky, the loud reports echoing throughout the villa.
The soldiers jolted back to awareness, hurriedly grasping their guns. Their willpower couldn't compare to the middle-aged man's, and they didn't even know what had just happened.
"Don't look into her eyes; she can hypnotize you," the middle-aged man shouted, clutching his gun tightly, his expression growing grave.
He hadn't expected this situation. When he first received the intel, he hadn't been sure if it was about this girl, and he hadn't believed the report much. That a single person could take down an entire malfunctioning civilian airliner and single-handedly challenge the entire U.S. Pacific Fleet seemed like a fantasy. Even superhumans couldn't achieve that.
He wondered if this was a smokescreen released by foreign hostile forces to confuse the empire and steal important information. Despite his skepticism, he cautiously brought a fully armed regiment, even deploying aircraft, helicopters, and tanks to encircle the villa.
When the middle-aged man first saw the little girl, he felt a strange sense of unease, sensing something was amiss. But he didn't think much of it, assuming there might be some connection between the girl and the silver-haired woman. He never imagined that the little girl before him was the very one mentioned in the report who had taken down the entire Pacific Fleet.
Things would become passive if this continued; they needed to act proactively to have any chance.
"Open fire!"
At the middle-aged man's command, gunfire erupted, deafening in the night. Continuous bursts of gunfire shattered the stillness, as countless streams of bullets, like torrents of steel, roared toward the two girls.
It wasn't just firearms being fired; even WZ-10 helicopter missiles and the new 99A main battle tank shells were in play. The middle-aged man dared not be careless. If the reports were accurate, ordinary firearms wouldn't harm her, and he didn't even consider Qiao Xiaoqing's safety at this point.
To him, national security was paramount, and anyone, including himself, could be sacrificed for it.
Gunfire thundered, and shells boomed, with bullets pouring down like a torrential rain. Explosions echoed one after another, smoke billowed, and flames soared. The villa was engulfed in a sea of fire.
"Ceasefire!"
At the middle-aged man's command, the gunfire and explosions ceased, and silence returned to the night.
Looking at the smoke-covered villa in the distance, he thought it must have been reduced to rubble, with no survivors inside.
The middle-aged man thought of the two beautiful girls, feeling a twinge of regret, but he shook his head, dismissing the emotion from his mind.
He never regretted his actions because he was acting for the country, not himself.
He sighed, turning to walk away, no longer looking at the villa.
At that moment, a clear, soft voice suddenly rang out.
"What? Trying to escape after causing havoc here?"
The middle-aged man's pupils contracted sharply as if paralyzed, unable to move, cold sweat dripping down his back.