“Let me warn you that I’m in a really bad mood,” Bai Liang put his hands into his pockets. “I have your parents as well, so do as I said if you don’t want them to shrivel like you.”

“Wh-why are you doing this?” Li Shen forced himself to stand and grabbed Bai Liang’s shoulders. “Was it First Uncle? Did he threaten you? We should fight him together!”

Slap!!

Bai Liang slapped Li Shen with the back of his palm, sending him crashing to the ground. He brushed his shoulders in irritation, “I warned you I’m in a bad mood. Who said you can touch me?”

Li Shen’s vision spun from the slap and his cheek swelled. He looked at Bai Liang blankly, “Why…?”

“This is why.”

Bai Liang raised his palm and formed pristine water out of thin air. More water formed and gathered until it turned into a size of a soccer ball and he threw it to Li Shen’s face.

“Watching you being glorified by everyone pissed me off. We’re both mermaids so why do I have to hide it while you get to shower in praises?”

Li Shen was stunned. He couldn’t even care about his drenched state, “You…can form your own water?”

“Amazing, isn’t it? How do you think I feel watching you getting recognition for your party tricks while having this kind of power in my hand?” Bai Liang crouched down and placed his fingers next to Li Shen’s ear. “I can do this too, you know?”

He snapped his fingers.

PING!!

“Ngh!!” Li Shen swiftly covered his ears in pain.

The sound pierced his eardrums until they bled and throbbed. His head rang and tingled, dizzying him further from Bai Liang’s earlier slap. When Bai Liang spoke again, he couldn’t hear anything from his right ear, as if he was hearing him from underwater.

“That’s why, believe me when I say this,” Bai Liang grasped a handful of Li Shen’s hair, forcing him to look at him. “If you’re not obedient, I can make each one of the Li’s, starting from your parents, blind and deaf.”

Li Shen paled.

“Don’t worry though, I won’t kill them. At most, I’ll just destroy their ability and make them crippled,” Bai Liang let Li Shen go and laughed. “Being a blind and deaf mermaid with no ability should be enough to make them kill themselves, no?”

Li Shen trembled. He didn’t want to believe a person was capable of such cruelty towards his own family, but it was clear as a day that Bai Liang wasn’t joking around. Even if he was, he could see the possibility of Li Ziyang doing it as well. He never actually hid his hostility.

“What do you want?” Li Shen anxiously asked.

“Nothing too hard,” Bai Liang smiled. “I just need you to kill a human and get caught.”

Li Shen’s body froze, “What…?”

“I know. How about that agent you’re getting along with?” Bai Liang rubbed his chin in consideration. “Ah…but he’s on his way to Uncle Ziyang now. He’s going to die anyway. I can’t trouble Uncle.”

“Don’t hurt him!” Li Shen grabbed Bai Liang’s leg.

Bai Liang kicked Li Shen straight on his stomach, “I told you to not casually touch me!”

Li Shen tumbled back to the ground. He coughed violently from Bai Liang’s sheer force and retched in pain. Seeing Bai Liang leave, he desperately crawled, “Wait–!”

“Your family or one poor soul,” Bai Liang opened the door and glanced at Li Shen with a mocking smile. “It’s an easy choice, Li Shen. Make up your mind in 15 minutes.”

He ignored Li Shen’s plea and left the room. The original terrorist didn’t make such demands because their target was Li Shen himself and the demands were for the Li family along with other influential mermaid families. But he had to make it believable somehow. It should be fine as long as Li Shen reached his destined purpose.

From how much of a family person Li Shen was, he would choose to meet his demand to at least buy some time to think of another way out.

The original terrorist was a group of extremist humans who hated mermaids and wanted them to leave the country. In that group, there was a team of scientists who were in charge of making all sorts of bioweapons against mermaids.

One of them called Qin Xia-Yu was there by force because of her parents and she made a design of a purifying system instead. When Li Shen was held captive, they met and worked together to escape the headquarter. She was the key for Li Shen to be able to purify the ocean and regained the mermaids’ home.

Qin Xia-Yu right now was working in a research lab with her parents, developing medications for mermaids and Arias because they couldn’t consume most human drugs.

Fortunately, Qin Xia-Yu still designed the purifying system. Undoubtedly, it was the work of fate.

He could make them meet by setting her as the target and letting things flow naturally. Since Li Shen was the protagonist, the world would definitely give him a chance to escape like how he was supposed to and meet back with Han Wubin.

Waiting for Li Shen to choose, the club manager showed him Li Ziyang’s exclusive office and he gathered Qin Xia-Yu’s information with Xue Liang’s help.

Bzzzt… Bzzzt…

Bai Liang glanced at his phone next to him and saw he got a call from Li Ziyang. He thought for a short moment and answered on the third ring.

After a long pause, Li Ziyang shortly spoke, “…The agent is here.”

“Mn,” Bai Liang replied equally short.

“…”

“If there’s nothing else–”

“Where are you?” Li Ziyang asked.

“Do you not know me that much that you can’t guess where I am?” Bai Liang flatly replied. “I’m not coming home today. Something came up.”

Li Ziyang’s eyebrows tightened, “Bai Lun–”

Bai Liang didn’t wait for Li Ziyang to finish and promptly cut off the call. He put his phone on silent and compiled the information that had finished getting printed. When he returned back to the confinement, exactly 15 minutes had passed. Seeing Li Shen’s resentful expression, he knew the protagonist had made the decision.

“Here’s your target,” Bai Liang threw the papers to Li Shen. “Read it on the way.”

Li Shen bent to pick up the papers when he paused, hearing Bai Liang’s second words.

“Yes, we’re leaving now. Stop wasting my time,” Bai Liang walked out.

***

In the master study, Li Ziyang stared at his phone screen silently. With each passing second, his subordinates felt the pressure in the room becoming heavier. They could only reduce their presence into nothingness as they held their breath.

“Catch the rat,” he finally ordered as he headed out.

Half of his subordinates bowed and affirmed his order while the rest followed him to the basement. Just like Li Shen, the Li family had been deprived of food and water. They were separated accordingly and Li Ziyang went to where Li Shen’s parents and Li Shua were.

“Li Ziyang, you ingrate! Let us go!” Li Shua immediately barked. “Our family raised a freak like you and this is how you repay him!?”

Li Ziyang’s eyes dangerously narrowed, “Sure. I’ll let you go.”

He took out an item from his suit and dropped it by his feet. It landed with a heavy clatter and when Li Shua and Li Shen’s parents saw what it was, their blood run cold.

“Here’s your key. The door will open once there’s only one person left.”

“You sick bastard!” Li Shen’s father struggled in his chair.

“W-what are saying!?” Li Shen’s mother paled. “What did we ever do to you…?”

“I’m not a broken recorder. Why don’t you figure that out yourself?” Li Ziyang turned and walked away. At the door, he stopped and looked back at Li Shen’s parents, “Oh, right. Your son is about to kill someone for your sake. If both of you die, I’ll be nice and send him to you.”

Li Shen’s parents’ faces changed.

“And Li Shua,” Li Ziyang glanced at Li Shua with a sinister smile, “I’ll let you experience your son’s suffocation for his entire 20 years of life.”

“What…?” Li Shua became nervous.

Once Li Ziyang left the room, the door was locked from the outside. Li Shua noticed Li Shen’s parents’ eyes on her and looked at them warily, her nerves becoming tense. Soon after, she found out what Li Ziyang meant by his words when the pipe on the ceiling released gas sulfur.

Either one of them survived or all of them died.

Bai Liang was waiting for the green light on the road when he received a message from Li Ziyang. Attached to the text was a link.

[Come home. {Link}]

Even without opening the link, he was already seeing the live broadcast inside Li Shua’s and Li Shen’s confinement, watching them squirming and struggling on the floor, desperately battling to reach the gun first before the gas sulfur burned their lungs.

It would be a lie if he said he wasn’t moved.