The system secretly peeked at Song Yi's situation.
It found that the female lead had already taken the gun, reached a consensus with He Guang, and resolutely chosen to participate in their operation.
"I understand. I will try to kill her," Song Yi replied softly.
In all fairness, she didn't actually hate Shen Yi. There was no life-or-death personal grudge between them.
Shen Yi had never even done anything excessive to her.
But ever since Shen Yi appeared, her life had been turned upside down.
Her father was no longer her father.
Even her younger brother hated her.
Was it just because she wasn't their biological child? Song Yi didn't quite understand. She felt that feelings had nothing to do with bloodlines, didn't they?
Even Shen Yi's family had chosen to accept her, hadn't they?
Song Yi had been very confused these past few years. In order to return to her home country, she was forced to board the ship of the foreign government and He Guang, agreeing to all their demands.
The development of everything seemed to be out of her control.
Song Yi didn't hate her, but she was also thinking.
If she killed Shen Yi, would everything end? Could she return to a normal life?
This question had spun in her mind countless times.
All the changes that happened to her were because of Shen Yi.
Ultimately, after countless struggles and torments, the young girl still chose to grip that gun.
...
Shen Yi pulled Li Jianwei and Shen Ruxu into a group chat.
The group name was simply "Time to Work."
The avatars were the default icons for the three of them. Shen Yi started a group voice call and asked them straight to the point.
"Is it hard to investigate the specific high-level personnel of He Guang?"
Shen Ruxu and Li Jianwei unanimously replied with a 'yes'.
After all, it was a scattered grassroots organization. Anyone passing by could be a member, so where should they even begin? Even if they found some people, it would be difficult to trace them back to the headquarters.
When Li Jianwei talked about this topic, he unprecedentedly gave off the precise vibe of a professional: "He Guang's operation model is like a decentralized network. Each of them only knows their direct superior and subordinate. The contact between superiors and subordinates is a single line, so breaking one link doesn't affect the whole."
"If you catch one person, they can at most give up two or three names, and those two or three people are either already dead or have run away."
It was very hard to wipe them out all at once.
Shen Ruxu, with his eyes half-closed, added, "We can only peel back the layers and trace them upwards one by one. Don't alert the snake in the grass for now; wait until we are certain before making a move."
Shen Yi: "Then can you two cooperate?"
She genuinely felt that both of them were quite capable and suitable for some collaboration. "If you two join forces, the progress will be much faster, right?"
Shen Ruxu was straightforward, his words carrying undisguised disgust:
"I'm not cooperating with him. Disgusting."
Li Jianwei spoke in a sarcastic tone: "Do you think I would be happy to cooperate with an information broker like you who has no integrity and no professional ethics? I'm a decent person."
If one asked around the underground world about Shen Ruxu's reputation, his credibility was zero. He had no professional ethics and was extremely vile.
After a transaction was completed, one had better pray that no other secrets fell into his hands, otherwise they would appear in the inbox of the highest bidder the next day.
Li Jianwei, at any rate, came from a legitimate intelligence organization and wouldn't easily leak an employer's secrets.
"Stop arguing," Shen Yi's head was buzzing, and she said loudly, "I just want He Guang's intelligence. Will it kill you two to cooperate a little?"
Realizing that Shen Yi was truly angry, both of them simultaneously stopped their endless chatter.
Shen Ruxu leaned back in his chair, let out a low, complaining snort, and temporarily shut his mouth.
The corners of Li Jianwei's mouth curled up: "Don't be angry, don't be angry, Little Yi. Isn't it just cooperation? I believe your brother and I will be the best partners."
He deliberately pronounced the words "Little Yi" very intimately.
"Who are you calling Little Yi?" Hearing those two words, Shen Ruxu was completely triggered and became alert: "Are you guys that close?"
"How are we not close?" Li Jianwei was unhurried, smiling radiantly: "I am the eldest Miss Shen's dog, after all."
The voice channel fell silent for three seconds.
Shen Ruxu's originally half-drooping light-colored eyes widened.
Like a cat basking in the sun suddenly having its tail stepped on, his pupils narrowed into slits.
—He was going to kill this bitch!
...
He Guang's strongholds were scattered very widely, like a handful of sesame seeds sprinkled around, one in the east and one in the west, separated by more than half the city.
Three strongholds, three groups of people, making a move at the same time.
There was no chance for the other side to tip anyone off, nor any time for them to transfer or retreat.
Shen Yi chose the stronghold in the east of the city.
It was a very old place. The air was filled with the smell of rust and mildew, and stepping on the ground kicked up fine dust.
Light shone in from the high windows, cutting several slanted beams of light in the dim space.
The people outside were responsible for blocking all the exits, while Shen Yi barged in alone first.
Because it was so sudden, it was easier to catch people off guard.
A person was sitting behind a folding table. Seeing Shen Yi, his first reaction was to run.
Shen Yi was faster than him.
She reached out to stop him, grabbed a dagger, and pressed it against his throat, clean and swift.
Shen Yi waved her phone. On the screen was a frontal photo of Song Yi, pulled from the school archives. She had a standard smile, wore a school uniform, and looked very well-behaved.
"Do you know the whereabouts of this person?"
The man took a glance and said with a hint of provocation in his tone:
"What are you talking about? How come I don't understand?"
Shen Yi couldn't be bothered to waste time with him. She pressed the knife down: "Are you really not going to tell me?"
The young girl looked at him calmly.
He still wasn't afraid of death, playing dumb as he said: "What do you want me to say?"
This was considered a pretty good way to stall for time.
As long as he didn't cooperate, no methods could do anything to them.
He tried to break free from the girl's shackles, but unexpectedly he was pinned down completely. Shen Yi's cold knife pressed against his neck as she repeated:
"Are you really not going to speak?"
"Get lost," he spat out viciously.
He thought Shen Yi wouldn't really kill him so easily.
The people of He Guang all seemed to be like this.
They felt that they stood on the side of justice, while the other side was destined to be a bunch of scum.
This belief gave them a false sense of security, allowing them to maintain a baffling confidence even in the most dangerous moments.
Shen Yi didn't want to waste time.
Speaking of which, her own changes over the past few years were truly astonishing.
If it were the Shen Yi from before, she wouldn't have been able to bring herself to do it no matter what.
But now, things were clearly different.
"Alright then, good night."
She said softly, ending his life with one thrust of the knife.
When that person fell, the expression on his face was frozen in disbelief.
Up until the very end, he still couldn't figure it out—why Shen Yi really dared to kill him.
After doing all this, Shen Yi expressionlessly took away his laptop, preparing to bring it to Li Jianwei to try and decrypt it to see if there was anything useful inside.
She led the team, and her partners were the familiar Wisteria and Iris.
When she rushed to the area Wisteria was responsible for, she found that Wisteria did things much more cleanly and swiftly than she did. There was no one left standing on the ground.
"You should have at least left a few alive to throw into the interrogation room and ask some questions."
As soon as Shen Yi arrived, she saw that her partner had already wiped everyone out completely.
Suddenly, she felt a headache coming on.
Iris shrugged. "Luoluo is probably just rushing to meet her quota lately. It is almost the New Year, after all."
Unlike the two of them, who were content to just scrape by.
Wisteria had always been a model worker.
Recently, because they were busy wiping out the Heguang organization, the three of them working together had practically skyrocketed their team's performance metrics.
The team leader had gradually started looking at the three of them with fond, affectionate eyes, as if gazing at three flourishing money trees.
...
Just a short while ago, after sending the intel to Shen Yi, Shen Ruxu still felt uneasy, so he took a taxi and quietly followed her.
He had thought that since it was Shen Yi's first time leading a team, she might make some tactical errors, like leaving too many people alive.
But upon entering, he was greeted by a bloodbath, a ruthless display of killing rather than capturing alive whenever possible.
These three young girls really did not hold back.
Thinking this, Shen Ruxu did not expose his position. He hid in the shadows, watched for a while, and then bent down to pick up a hammer someone had dropped, weighing it in his hand.
Then, he leisurely made his way upstairs.
He had to admit.
His sister might just be a natural-born killer.
But she was a bit lacking when it came to reconnaissance.
It was understandable, though.
There was still a slight difference between her and true outlaws.
Shen Ruxu's reconnaissance skills had always been excellent.
Because of his profession, he habitually considered every aspect of any event or planned location comprehensively. Therefore, the terrain was always the first thing that needed to be thoroughly cleared.
Shen Yi had obviously overlooked this.
She was solely focused on killing people first, completely ignoring the fact that if anyone slipped through the net, the terrain made it incredibly easy for them to be ambushed.
However, not everyone had the guts to hide and set up an ambush instead of running away after successfully escaping a massacre.
But clearly, the thought process of the members of the Heguang organization was a bit different.
The people here basically acted like brainwashed zealots ready to die for their cause, so it was not surprising to find someone foolish enough to try it.
The stairs were made of iron frames, and stepping on them usually produced a creaking sound.
Shen Ruxu's footsteps, however, were completely silent, as light as a cat walking on snow.
Upstairs, a man was crouching behind a window, his body pressed against the wall, revealing only half of his head.
He held a modified rifle in his hands, the muzzle pointing downstairs.
Pointing in the direction Shen Yi and the others had just come from.
He clearly could have escaped, but he chose to stay behind, intending to snipe from above.
Even Shen Ruxu found this level of stubbornness astonishing.
Just how deeply brainwashed were the people of Heguang, to choose to stay and die even when their stronghold had been destroyed and their comrades captured or killed?
The man loaded a bullet into the chamber, his smile twisted as he muttered two words to himself, "Die."
His entire attention was focused on the path below, waiting for Shen Yi and the others to reappear in his line of sight.
He did not even notice that someone was standing silently right behind him.
Shen Ruxu displayed none of the tension typical of a sneak attack. With a soft sigh, he brought the hammer down with precision.
Not too light, not too heavy.
Just enough to cause the brain to temporarily shut down without actually killing the person.
A living captive was always somewhat useful, after all.
The unexpected blow made the man's eyes widen instantly, and the gun slipped from his hands.
"Hi." The young man smiled, holding the hammer by his side, using a friendly greeting as his opening line.
He crouched down, the corners of his mouth curved up, looking as though he were in an incredibly good mood. "Give me a smile, sir. Weren't you so happy just a moment ago?"
Shen Ruxu gently patted the man's cheek with the head of the hammer, the cold touch raising a layer of goosebumps.
"Why did you stop smiling the moment you saw me?"
...
[The story will conclude around the middle to late part of this month, probably in about ten days or so. I am wrapping things up.]
[I will finish Song Yi's storyline this week; she will be killed off.]
