'Soul Capture is more convenient.'
Wang Jixuan, holding a freshly made, brand-new Soul Capturing Charm, sat in the now quiet car.
He didn't like this method of Demon Cultivators;
but in order to quickly find out from Ban Wenying's mouth the question he cared about the most—Zhou Zhengde's specific role in this matter—Master Wang still used the Soul Capturing Charm once again.
The elderly driver at the wheel, gripping a handgun, with half his head missing, lay quietly asleep on the steering wheel.
Ban Wenying sat paralyzed with terror in her eyes, her vital signs temporarily stable, but as soon as Wang Jixuan took the Soul Capturing Charm away, Ban Wenying's body would quickly die.
Wang Jixuan glanced at the wooden house, which was already temporarily safe.
He took a shortcut back, the passage that Mrs. Kong had always guarded.
The passageway had only one wooden house outlet, but several entrances had been opened in the Black Fire Gang's territory.
There were access controls in the channel that only Mrs. Kong's side could control, but these were not difficult to deal with—two talismans could blow them open, and since the passage had been there for many years, many of the equipments were already worn out.
Wang Jixuan reached the area beneath the wooden house smoothly and immediately sensed the presence of Thomas inside the wooden building.
Wang Jixuan had initially even thought that Thomas had come to protect the old lady.
He also considered that if those guys were to use the passageway tonight, and he was killing the Black Fire Gang BOSS, whether he should deal with Thomas, who helped him find the Cultivation paradise.
Who would have thought...
Master Wang's heart was filled with mixed feelings.
'Are all the hearts of worldly officials so filthy?'
'I'm a bit out of touch with the world, but good thing I thought of coming over to protect Ye Zi and the others, at least these unspoiled children are innocent, and those from the Black Fire Gang can't escape the Fortress anyway.'
'Is this also a kind of 'good people are rewarded' in an unusual sense?'
Wang Jixuan hadn't expected that Zhou Zhengde's situation was being closely monitored by his mother, the Minister of Internal Affairs.
And this woman in the car, Wang Jixuan had clarified her identity before he proceeded with Soul Capture.
Ban Wenying, the primary secretary of the Minister of Internal Affairs.
After all, how could the Minister of Internal Affairs personally come here to do such dirty work? She just sent an underling.
Wang Jixuan skillfully activated the Soul Capturing Charm and summoned Ban Wenying's soul. Without asking anything, he immediately produced a thread of True Fire, as potent as a lighter.
The soul screamed in agony;
but only Wang Jixuan could hear it in his heart.
After burning for half a minute, Wang Jixuan spoke softly,
"I ask, you answer. Your body is not yet cold, and if I judge that I can spare your life, you will be allowed to live."
He specifically emphasized 'if'.
Ban Wenying's soul sat slumped on the slowly drifting paper talisman, frantically nodding her head.
Wang Jixuan asked, "Do you have any monitoring or eavesdropping devices on you?"
Ban Wenying immediately shook her head.
Wang Jixuan could tell she wasn't lying.
With a sobbing tone, Ban Wenying said, "How could anyone know I was coming here?"
"Hmm," Wang Jixuan asked, "how much does Captain Zhou know about your plan with Thomas?"
"He must have guessed some," the expression on Ban Wenying's face was hard to tell if it was crying or laughing, "how exactly were you created, how do you do this, my soul... my soul has been imprisoned by you!"
Wang Jixuan didn't bother with her and continued to ask, "What about Captain Zhou's mother? Is she the instigator of everything?"
"Yes, I am her subordinate."
Her soul trembled slightly, clearly lying.
Wang Jixuan raised his eyebrows, turning a wisp of soul power into the size of a needle tip, touching it on Ban Wenying's soul's forehead.
"Ah! Ah—I'll talk!"
"Don't waste my time, I still have to go back and fight with the Black Fire Gang."
The soul of Ban Wenying hurriedly nodded.
She rattled off a string of words, and Wang Jixuan fell into a long silence.
Ban Wenying was born in the Upper City, basking in the glory of her heroically fallen soldier parents to become a clerk in the military, later working in the Internal Affairs Department of the 76th Fortress, having worked for Zhou Zhengde's mother for seventeen or eighteen years.
She was a confidant of Zhou Zhengde's mother, yet she wasn't satisfied with just being a confidant; active as the first secretary of the Internal Affairs Department in the Upper City, she was a well-known social butterfly in the circle.
The two incidents, where Big Mouth Hua was killed and Mu Liang counter-killed the gunman, allowed Ban Wenying to acutely sense a political opportunity.
What truly convinced Ban Wenying that this was her chance was Zhou Zhengde getting attacked on the forty-sixth floor, the one and only time the Black Fire Gang BOSS 'lost his real younger brother' and went mad.
This excited Ban Wenying so much she almost leapt for joy.
Because Ban Wenying knew that Zhou Zhengde had such a solid background that even the Governor wouldn't dare to affront him, and his mother would not let go of any enemy who dared to harm her son;
this was the opportunity that Ban Wenying had been waiting for so long.
She quickly drafted the 'plan to replace the Black Fire Gang using this incident.'
Lower City's seven major gangs were like seven pieces of cake, each controlled by three political factions from the Upper City.
In this area, the military faction represented by the Minister of Internal Affairs had always been passive.
Especially the Black Fire Gang, responsible for providing blood products to the frontline war fortresses, it was the most critical area among the seven major gangs, yet it had always been firmly controlled by the Biological Minister representative of the Thirteenth Institute faction, with the military unable to get involved.
Ban Wenying understood clearly that the Minister of Internal Affairs would not refuse this plan, and the backups she'd been preparing for years could finally be put to use.
Wang Jixuan was somewhat surprised to hear here... Thomas had once told him in person that he had a secret girlfriend.
Well, it turned out that the secret girlfriend was none other than Ban Wenying who regularly came to Joyful City on the forty-sixth floor for pleasure!
Thomas would even wear flamboyant makeup to go along with Ban Wenying's twisted little games.
This...
This was simply...
Scandalous, against ancient propriety, utterly devoid of conscience, and a collapse of moral integrity!
Could Master Wang stand to hear these details?
He had heard quite a bit.
Under Ban Wenying's coordination, a rapid strangulation of the Black Fire Gang was unfolded, involving the gangs' coalition, the Clean-up troops, factional contention, and so on.
Zhou Zhengde believed he had played a tremendous role in it, but in reality, it was his Ms. Ban who took action behind the scenes, using the authority given by the Minister of Internal Affairs to manipulate various events.
The only variable that Ban Wenying couldn't control was Wang Jixuan, the "New Spirit Ability User."
Because Zhou Zhengde was always protecting him from behind.
Of course, Ban Wenying wasn't doing all this for the sake of the military faction.
She wanted to seize this opportunity to secure her own base and let Thomas establish the "Wooden House Brotherhood," which was one part of her plan. And if she could get further with Thomas and take control of the list in the hands of the Black Fire Gang's BOSS...
Then she would have a hold over a group of retired officials from Upper City.
The three major factions: the Military, Thirteenth Institute, and the Governor would all be at her mercy.
This posed a great danger, and Ban Wenying was well aware of it, but she was willing to take the risk.
"I can't control my desires," Ban Wenying's soul trembled as it spoke, "but I have never acted against you or Zhou Zhengde. I was already familiar with Zhengde when he was young, I've always taken care of him, please, let my soul return!"
Wang Jixuan said with a heavy voice, "One last question."
"I can answer them all! I can help you obtain lots of resources!"
"What do you think, with officials colluding with bandits, the exploitation of the people and the persecution of the good, should the officials die or should the bandits die?"
Ban Wenying's soul cried out, "The bandits should die! The bandits deserve to die the most! I was only using them!"
Wang Jixuan smiled and said, "Though I'm not very keen on intervening in these dirty affairs, I believe, both should die."
He raised the shotgun and aimed it at Ban Wenying's head.
Realizing what was about to happen, Ban Wenying cried out frantically,
"No! Please, don't do it! I don't want to die, I haven't offended you! I have been helping you eliminate the Black Fire Gang, without me, you two would never have been able to annihilate them so smoothly!"
"There's something I must make clear."
Wang Jixuan casually threw a Soul Capturing Charm, which burned up quickly as Ban Wenying's soul entered her forehead.
Before she could adjust to her surroundings, unable to move her body, she heard the guy wearing a helmet beside her softly saying something:
"It was I who wanted to take down the Black Fire Gang, not you using me and Zhou Zhengde's sense of justice to do it.
"This is important because..."
Bang!
A speck of fresh blood splattered onto Wang Jixuan's helmet.
He picked up a handkerchief beside him and wiped it with a look of distaste before tossing the handkerchief onto Ban Wenying.
"A weak Dao Heart, demons of the mind at play."
Wang Jixuan shut the car door, then opened it again, and said to Ban Wenying's rapidly dissipating residual soul,
"Also, Xiao Zhou is indeed blindly loyal, but he is no fool, he had long warned me to get out in time, saying that you were up to some tricks."
With a forceful close of the car door, Wang Jixuan carefully surveyed the surroundings, then headed back to the wooden house, glancing a few times at the old landlady's corpse.
The list that Ban Wenying and Thomas deemed priceless was of no concern to Daoist Wang; he was simply pondering the root of evil, or rather, the innate evil in a person.
Ye Zi and the others were on the second floor.
Right now, Wang Jixuan couldn't care less about them, simply shouting, "Ye Zi! Don't be scared! I'll come back for you later!"
Ye Zi gave no response.
Wang Jixuan sighed in his heart.
There was no helping it; such events were too shocking for these children. He would ask Zhou Zhengde and Wei Na for help later to take care of these little ones and provide some psychological counseling or the like.
Officer Zhou should be able to do it with ease.
By the way, the gun that Wang Jixuan used to kill Ban Wenying only had Thomas's fingerprints on it; he had already placed the shotgun back in Thomas's embrace.
Wang Jixuan slipped into the secret chamber, fumbling for several buttons, and the wooden chair and the disc beneath it descended together.
Wang Jixuan retrieved the sniper rifle he had previously left here, his sword finger tapping on his forehead, divine light brewing in his eyes, swiftly changing paper talismans, and once again approaching the Black Fire Gang's territory through the tunnel.
The killing had begun and could not be stopped arbitrarily.
Zhou Zhengde had mentioned that he would pick the right moment for the Fortress to deploy the Clean-up troops, and they would likely act soon.
Before the Clean-up troops make their move, better eliminate more of the Black Fire Gang's high-level members to prevent any of them from shedding their skin and surviving!
Second floor of the wooden house.
Right above the place between the study and the staircase.
A small face peeked through the cracks in the wooden planks, silently gazing at those three corpses, eye to eye with Mrs. Kong's wide-open eyes.
The girl's calm gaze showed a faint ripple, as if she was waking up from a dream.
"Mom."
...
Meanwhile.
Inside the office of the captain at the Thirteenth Floor Security Division.
Zhou Zhengde watched the holographic projection in front of him, breaths becoming slightly hurried as pixelated pictures gradually appeared.
An Qian's corpse was at the center of the photo;
Indistinctly visible nearby An Qian's body were Black Fire Gang gunmen searching frantically for cover.
The photo was taken by the "spy" Zhou Zhengde sent to Lower City, all sides were closely watching the Black Fire Gang, focusing on the "mysterious Spiritual Ability User" clashing with the Thirteenth Institute's Spirit Ability Users.
Now it seemed...
Zhou Zhengde clenched his fist and exclaimed excitedly, "Beautiful!"
Then he realized that An Qian's death probably couldn't be hidden from the Thirteenth Institute, and they would certainly take action.
Buzz, buzz!
The Communicator beside him suddenly vibrated.
Zhou Zhengde grabbed the Communicator, the screen flashing with frantic messages.