Chapter 70

Ye Xiao's words felt like a riposte to that earlier claim of "only you can arrive so silently."
Zhou Li's expression changed; humiliation rushed up in his chest. He considered himself a top-tier ability user, but standing before this man he felt like nothing, entirely disregarded.
But power was power, when the weak stood before the strong, pride was pointless. He forced a bitter smile. "Kill me if you must."
Ye Xiao did not move right away. "You used the earth-based abilities to threaten her. What did you want her to do?"
Zhou Li watched him and smiled. "I wanted her to leave you and work for me. Ye Xiao, the reason you were able to gain a foothold here so quickly isn't just your own skill, she's part of it, isn't she? With a wood-type ability user like that, who would dare be rude? You're lucky; I met her first, after all."
This had become an obsession for him. At the outbreak he had been the first to meet Lin Tantan. Back then he sensed she wasn't ordinary, though he hadn't paid much attention. But when Lin Tantan told him to eat more and rest more and his malaise eased after he did, and then he awakened his ability, he realized she really was different, he wanted to find her. Sadly, when they met again she had already joined someone else's team.
The more he saw how capable she was, the more he couldn't help thinking: he had known her first. Regret and remorse settled in, as if he'd missed out on a treasure. He couldn't let it go, so he kept his eyes on her and did everything he could to pull her back.
Ye Xiao's expression stayed icy. "Someone like you who obsessively fixates on one person and pins your failures on having missed someone else, even if she's your partner, even if you didn't force her away, you still couldn't protect her."
"If I were you, I would never have tangled with Li Qun and waded into this mess. If someone has strength, forming their own faction isn't a problem. Zhou Li, you have no backbone, you don't even deserve to be thinking about her."
Zhou Li's face soured. Being told to his face that he had no backbone was a crushing humiliation for an ambitious man, worse than being told his power was lacking.
He stared at Ye Xiao, eyes sharp. "You have guts, but you're still a pawn who follows orders; to those in power you're just a useful blade. Now that word's out that Lin Tantan is a three-type ability user, do you think those who hold real power will let her waste her time, energy and precious abilities here in this backwater, on a bunch of civilians?"
"Even if you can fend off those with ill intent, there are powerful people who genuinely worry about the nation and its people. Your Miss Lin is so kind; if they gently reason with her, appeal to her emotions, and promise her great rewards, can you keep her? In the end you're just a small-time figure, you can't give her the best life or the stage she needs to truly shine."
Ye Xiao narrowed his eyes; the air around him grew even more tense.
But Zhou Li seemed determined to get everything off his chest at once.
"You must like her, right? But do you think there are few who like her? She's naive now, inexperienced, so you can charm her. When she meets more people, can you guarantee you'll still be the best? Women aren't the same as men, when they fall in love they're irrational. By then, will she still see you as anything more than a former small-time companion?"
Zhou Li smiled with a nasty satisfaction. He knew he wouldn't live through the day. He was jealous of Ye Xiao, whether because of Lin Tantan, because his abilities were stronger, or because he was doing better in life he couldn't say. Male jealousy is irrational and can be even more extreme than female jealousy. In any case, he was jealous, and seeing Ye Xiao's face change before he died felt like some small consolation.
Ye Xiao watched him without a word. Suddenly the blade of condensed air at Zhou Li's throat swung away and slashed down at his shoulder.
"Ah!" Zhou Li screamed, then clamped his mouth shut into a muffled groan. Even in his last moments he kept his pride; he did not want to look utterly disgraceful.
His arm hung connected to his shoulder by a thin strip of bloody flesh. Blood splattered the entire bed; the metallic stench of it spread instantly.
Ye Xiao's voice was icy. "By dawn, get out of the base."
Clutching his shoulder, Zhou Li shot his head up. "You're not killing me?"
Ye Xiao turned to leave. Zhou Li, provoked by the disdainful tone, snapped, "I'm a lightning-type ability user, if you don't kill me, I'll come back!"
Ye Xiao looked back coolly. "I'm not killing you because what you did doesn't deserve death. I cut off your arm because you hurt her hand. If you want to seek revenge on me, be my guest."
He turned and took two steps, then suddenly asked, "Does Zhou Yan have abilities?"
Zhou Li was still processing his words and instinctively replied, "No, he doesn't have abilities."
Ye Xiao said no more. He walked out and went to another room.
He forced the lock and entered. The room was dim; things were thrown everywhere. A man sat on the sofa holding his head, looking both defeated and furious, and someone lay collapsed beside the sofa, clearly dead.
The door was suddenly opened; the man on the sofa sprang up and drew a gun. "Who!"
The man was Zhou Yan.
Even in the dim light Ye Xiao could make him out clearly; apart from a decent face there was nothing remarkable about him, a truly ordinary man.
Zhou Yan's eyes widened. “Ye Xiao?!” He immediately shifted his tone, hurried to turn on the light and forced a smile. “Captain Ye, what are you doing here? Are you looking for my brother? He’s in his room, not here.”
Ye Xiao simply stared at him. Zhou Yan couldn’t read his intentions and worried he was the target, so he cast a quick glance at the corpse by the sofa.
That was Xiao Yu, he’d returned empty-handed and, after using his ability, was suffering from a pounding headache. The tactless fool had kept pestering him about how much he could gain and whether he could stick by his side. In a fit of temper he shoved the kid against the coffee table; the idiot hit his head and was killed just like that.
Ye Xiao looked at the body too. Zhou Yan’s heart leapt and he scrambled out, “He was an immature subordinate. I told him off and he got dramatic, ran into the table himself... I didn’t expect my brother to go after Miss Lin. I’m sorry for the trouble. I apologize to you and Miss Lin on his behalf.”
Ye Xiao had already looked into who he was; now, face to face, his impression deepened. Slick, cunning, selfish, always scheming, there wasn’t an honest word in him, and he even seemed cruel.
He wouldn’t do anything great, but he was a perfect little villain, if luck smiled on him, he might still get ahead in his own petty way.
Normally Ye Xiao wouldn’t concern himself with people like that, but the man had overreached.
Ye Xiao didn’t know what secrets Lin Tantan might hold; he wouldn’t pry, out of respect and not wanting to upset her, and he wouldn’t allow anyone else to probe her either.
Ye Xiao asked, “Zhou Yan, what’s your ability?”
Zhou Yan was taken aback. “Ability? I don’t have any, ”
“Then go die.” A wind blade aimed straight for Zhou Yan’s brow.
Zhou Yan’s eyes widened. It was so fast he felt death close in and he had no time to react; he couldn’t even raise the gun. In the next instant he unleashed a fireball.
The fireball was small but concentrated; any clear-eyed person could see the domineering energy within. If the wind blade struck it, it would detonate and tear the room apart, Zhou Yan was already prepared to use the chaos to flee.
But the lightning-fast wind blade, just as it was about to hit the fireball, suddenly unfurled into a wind net and wrapped the fireball up.
Like a perfectly sealed glass dome, it enclosed the fireball and even sucked the air out. Deprived of oxygen, the once-mighty fireball went out silently like a dud shell, pff, and its last light winked away.
Zhou Yan stared, unable to believe what he’d just seen.
His strongest strike, the life-saving trick he’d spent so long honing and reserved for moments of life and death, had been undone so casually, as if someone had crushed an insect.
He glared at Ye Xiao, feeling the same humiliation his brother had felt not long ago. He dropped the act of humble flattery and began throwing fireballs in a frenzy.
But no matter how many he launched, Ye Xiao reached out as if from nowhere and plucked them one by one; each was wrapped in a wind net and snuffed out, as if Zhou Yan were some child tossing balloons.
Zhou Yan panted, realizing he couldn’t defeat the man before him. “I, I, my ability is fire-based, as you’ve seen… my power is…” He wanted to say “strong,” but recalling how he’d just performed he grit his teeth and said, “not weak. I can work for you, serve under you. You don’t have a strong fire user on your team yet, do you? I can fill that gap.”
As the other man aimed to kill him, he was still thinking about offering himself for an important role, this wasn’t pleading for mercy so much as volunteering.
At his core Zhou Yan believed himself important and destined for achievement; even at death’s door he clung to the hope his usefulness would change the other’s mind.
He was nearly certain of it. Yet the next moment a wind blade sliced through his shoulder. He tumbled over the sofa and fell behind it, writhing in pain, unable even to crawl, utterly humiliated.
Ye Xiao strode over, hauled him out from behind the sofa and said, “Is fire all you’ve got? You have more than that, don’t you? There’s another ability, isn’t there?”
Zhou Yan’s pupils constricted.
Ye Xiao knew then he’d guessed right.
The two brothers were strange: the elder wielded powerful lightning and, upon entering the base, his first move was to attach himself to someone else; the younger possessed dual-type powers yet hid them and pretended to be ordinary.
And at that moment Zhou Yan suddenly stared into Ye Xiao’s eyes. “Who are you?”
For an instant Ye Xiao’s gaze clouded with confusion; a strange force scattered his consciousness and urged him to blurt out a name, one he had nearly forgotten, but at the edge of speaking he forced himself to stop. That wasn’t his name. His name is Ye Xiao; it could only be Ye Xiao!
He clutched his head as if an iron rod were being dragged through his skull, craving to split it open. He forced a sliver of reason back and wrestled himself free from the haze and the searing pain.
It lasted no more than two seconds.
Zhou Yan was momentarily stunned by the reaction. He’d asked the question casually, not for an answer, whenever he asked someone anything they’d lose focus and spill the truth, and in that state they wouldn’t resist even if he killed them. If the ability weren’t still too weak he’d be even more pleased with it.
It let him learn what he wanted and also set up surprise attacks.
He’d asked Ye Xiao to create just such an opening for an ambush. He hadn’t expected that strange reaction, but he didn’t care. He seized the chance, formed a huge fireball and smashed it into Ye Xiao’s chest, then turned to run.
Ye Xiao was blasted against the wall, but he raised a hand and sent out a wind blade. It sliced across as Zhou Yan leaped toward the window, Zhou Yan screamed, tumbled out the window, and never got up again.
"Huff, huff, "
Ye Xiao propped himself up on one hand, gasping, and looked down at the smoking, burnt dent in his chest. He let out a helpless, wry smile.
He hadn't expected to get into trouble down in the drain.
After a long moment he pushed himself up against the wall and stood, moving to the window. Zhou Yan lay twisted on the floor, half his head sliced off, already lifeless.
Zhou Yan's scream had stirred some activity nearby, so Ye Xiao left immediately.