Chapter 20: I Am the Evidence
Su Han never expected Shen Chengyin to show up in person.
After all, the male lead had been missing without a trace for days, leaving Su Han with no chance to brief him on the plan.
Wang Jiafu had never endured such torment in his life. The blinding agony in his right hand completely shattered any lingering shred of his dignity.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself upright, his bloodshot eyes boring into Shen Chengyin.
“You’re not dead… How could you not be dead?!”
“Didn’t you hear clearly just now? Someone rescued my corpse, so I didn’t die.”
Shen Chengyin stepped forward at an unhurried pace, scooped up the fallen sidearm from the floor, and used the pistol grip to pat Wang Jiafu across the cheek.
The rhythmic slapping was sickeningly crisp, dripping with pure humiliation.
“Apologies. Looks like I’ve disappointed you.”
Zhao Yue’s eyes burned as she stared at Shen Chengyin, tears blurring her vision until she could barely see.
The other ability users in the room widened their eyes, choking on words they couldn’t bring themselves to say.
Were they dreaming?
Leader Shen is back! Leader Shen is still alive!
Struggling for footing, Wang Jiafu backed away two steps, his gaze darting across Su Han, Zhao Guang, and the rest of the crowd.
In an instant, it clicked: this whole thing was a premeditated trap.
Shen Chengyin wanted to drag all of his dirty laundry out into the open right before the eyes of the metahumans, forcing the survivors of Hope Base to turn on him.
Wang Jiafu let out a low, gravelly chuckle.
So what if Shen Chengyin wasn’t dead? It was Su Han’s word against his before, and now it was just the two of them—still baseless accusations without a scrap of proof.
Shen Chengyin’s name had already been dragged through the gutter in Hope Base.
Using his uninjured left hand, Wang Jiafu pointed an accusing finger straight at Shen Chengyin and barked at the crowd: “Are you all blind?! What are you standing there for?! The base’s greatest criminal has returned—subdue him right now!”
Shen Chengyin was a spatial ability user with zero combat magic; taking him down should have been child’s play.
Yet not a single person in the room made a move.
Spotting Li Tiangan at the front of the pack, Wang Jiafu recognized him as one of Tang Qiao’s men from the guard corps.
He aimed his finger straight at Li Tiangan. “You! Get over there and take him down!”
Li Tiangan furrowed his brow. He barely shifted his weight forward by half a step before Zhao Yue threw herself directly in his path.
“Wang Jiafu, you bastard! Big Brother Shen treated you like family, you ungrateful snake! You deserve to die!”
Her eyes red-rimmed and fierce, Zhao Yue yelled, “I’d like to see who dares lay a finger on Big Brother Shen!”
Wang Jiafu didn’t give a damn about a powerless girl. He rounded on Li Tiangan again: “What are you waiting for?! Do I need to drag Tang Qiao over here myself?!”
The sole reason Tang Qiao could command respect among the guards was his lethal lightning ability. Backed by that raw elemental power, practically nobody could match him in a fight.
Wang Jiafu thought invoking Tang Qiao’s name would bully Li Tiangan into line. He had no idea he had just struck Li Tiangan’s rawest nerve.
Li Tiangan’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. But before he could make a move, Zhao Guang lunged forward and pressed a cold blade flush against Wang Jiafu’s throat.
The entire room fell into stunned silence.
Wang Jiafu stared at Zhao Guang in utter disbelief. “Zhao Guang, what the hell is the meaning of this?!”
This kid was a timid, cowardly spineless wreck who folded under the slightest pressure. That was the sole reason Wang Jiafu had targeted him for extortion in the first place.
Now, this pathetic piece of trash was holding a knife to his throat?
Zhao Guang’s gaze locked onto Wang Jiafu, his facial muscles twitching violently under the tidal wave of emotion crashing through him.
“Who do you think you are?! Abusing Leader Shen’s trust, abusing everyone’s trust—did you think the entire world was made of fools?! You sickening piece of scum!!”
The steel bit deeper into his flesh, splitting the skin and sending a steady stream of crimson trickling down his neck.
A man with Wang Jiafu’s naked ambition was no sniveling coward. He wasn’t afraid of dying. Meeting Zhao Guang’s furious glare head-on, he sneered, “Zhao Guang, aren’t you afraid I’ll spill everything you did?”
“I have nothing on my conscience!” Zhao Guang roared, though whether the bellow was meant for the room or to convince himself was impossible to tell.
“Zhao Guang.”
Shen Chengyin’s voice cut through the tension.
Zhao Guang shuddered violently.
“A zombie wave is on its way. Lock him away for now; there will be plenty of time to deal with him once the horde is dealt with,” Shen Chengyin commanded, his tone calm and entirely flat.
A bitter taste settled in the mouths of the gathered ability users.
Even now, Leader Shen’s primary concern was the safety of the base, yet back then they had branded him a traitor and a tyrant… They had been played for fools by Wang Jiafu the whole damn time.
Su Han blinked, unable to fathom Shen Chengyin’s angle.
He knew for a fact that Shen Chengyin was the one who engineered this coming horde, designed purely to raze Hope Base to the ground and slaughter everyone within its walls.
Why not just put a bullet in Wang Jiafu’s skull right here? Leaving the root intact was just asking for trouble down the line.
Zhao Guang didn’t lower his blade. He refused to spare Wang Jiafu; he wanted nothing more than to carve the bastard into a thousand pieces.
Eyes swimming with tears, Zhao Yue looked pleadingly at her brother. “Brother, please, just listen to Big Brother Shen. Has Big Brother Shen ever been wrong about anything?”
It was true. Shen Chengyin’s strategies had always been meticulously calculated, guiding the settlement along the safest possible path with every step.
His only misstep had been trusting the wrong people.
Zhao Guang’s fingers twitched around the hilt. Casting a long, unreadable look at Shen Chengyin, he suddenly clamped his free hand over Wang Jiafu’s jaw. With a deft, vicious flick of his wrist, the blade flashed through the air, carving Wang Jiafu’s tongue clean out of his mouth.
The strike was blindingly fast; not a single person had time to react.
By the time the room snapped back to reality, Wang Jiafu was already convulsing on the floor, choking on a mouthful of hot blood.
“Zhao Guang! Have you lost your fucking mind?!”
“Quick, get a medic!”
“Carry him to the clinic, now!”
Before the full truth came to light, and without Shen Chengyin’s final say, Wang Jiafu couldn’t be allowed to die just yet.
Several ability users hoisted the writhing man and rushed him out the door.
Su Han’s eyes narrowed as he watched Zhao Guang’s retreating back.
The kid had panicked, terrified that Wang Jiafu would air out the sordid details of how he had smeared Shen Chengyin, and had moved to silence him.
Failing to kill him outright, he had opted to make him a mute instead.
Thinking about it, Su Han found it almost morbidly funny. Zhao Guang had always been such a spineless coward, terrified of even stepping beyond the walls to scavenge, yet to save his own skin, he had dared to butcher a man’s tongue right in front of an entire crowd.
Human nature truly was impossible to fathom.
With Wang Jiafu hauled away, only a scattering of ability users remained alongside Zhao Guang and Zhao Yue.
Noticing Su Han shivering faintly from the freezing water, Li Tiangan shrugged out of his jacket and stepped over.
Before he could drape it around the boy’s shoulders, a warm, thick cashmere overcoat materialized out of thin air, dropping over Su Han and bundling up half his frame before anyone could blink.
Shen Chengyin was the only spatial ability user in the room. Where the coat had come from needed no explanation.
Li Tiangan: […]
Silently, Li Tiangan slipped his jacket back on.
“Go back and change into dry clothes,” Shen Chengyin said.
Su Han was hesitant to leave. Shen Chengyin had only just returned from the dead; what if there were loyalists of Wang Jiafu lurking among the crowd waiting for an opening?
Sensing the boy’s unease, Li Tiangan tapped Su Han’s shoulder. “Go on. I’ve got things covered here.”
Only then did Su Han pull the coat tight and head out.
He hurried home, swapped his damp clothes for a dry set, and walked out the front door, only to find Li Tiangan waiting outside.
“Well? Did Zhao Guang say anything to Shen Chengyin?”
Li Tiangan shook his head. “Not a word.”
He had noticed Zhao Guang hovering, clearly desperate to speak, but Shen Chengyin hadn’t spared him so much as a sideways glance.
“By the way, Shen Chengyin went to see Wang Jiafu. If you head over now, you might still catch him,” Li Tiangan added.
Su Han and Li Tiangan hurried toward the base infirmary, which was already surrounded by thick rings of anxious onlookers.
Su Han shoved his way through the press of bodies and slipped inside, with Li Tiangan right on his heels.
The moment he crossed the threshold, he saw Wang Jiafu lying motionless on the operating table, eyes shut tight, his skin ashen and his chest slick with gore.
“Is Wang Jiafu dead?” Su Han asked bluntly.
Shen Chengyin didn’t answer right away. Bracing an arm against the edge of the metal table, he turned around with agonizing slowness.
Only then did Su Han realize something was terribly wrong with him.
The man’s lips were completely bloodless, and his steps were unsteadily hollow—he looked thoroughly drained.
