Chapter 267: A Sharp Turn for the Worse, The Family Showdown (End)

"She really is a madwoman. I knew she was powerful, but I never imagined she could take out all the S Rank executives of the Control Bureau."

Ke Mingwei paused, resting one hand on his hip. He took a deep drag of his cigarette before continuing, "Though that's probably because she struck first. The other executives had no idea she'd suddenly lose her mind. In esper ability battles of this caliber, the element of surprise is enough to instakill an opponent. Take this as a lesson. Be careful of the people around you, and never give anyone your absolute trust."

His voice trailed off. Seeing that neither brother spoke, he looked up at them in confusion.

Ke Mingqing and Ke Linye were frozen in place.

It wasn't that they didn't want to speak—they couldn't. The living room had plunged into absolute silence. Even the crows outside had stopped their cawing.

After a long while, the brothers finally turned their heads and stared blankly at each other.

Both of their eyes brimmed with utter disbelief.

"How old is Ah Xue?" Ke Linye suddenly asked.

Ke Mingqing had no idea why he was asking, but he answered distractedly, "Twenty?"

"She hasn't even reached menopause yet..." Ke Linye muttered absentmindedly.

'Mother of God, man, do you really have time to be making bad jokes right now?' Ke Mingqing thought.

Frowning, Ke Mingwei asked slowly, "This is the latest intel you wanted on Executive Zero. What exactly happened, and what is your relationship with her?"

The two men standing opposite him remained silent, cold sweat already dripping down their foreheads.

'Is this for real? What kind of crazy fit is Second Sister throwing?'

Ke Mingqing's Adam's apple bobbed. His thoughts were a tangled mess.

He had obviously expected Xia Lingxue to make a move recently to find a way out of the Control Bureau as quickly as possible. But he absolutely never imagined she would do something this earth-shattering—directly butchering all the S Rank executives in the Hero Control Bureau. To put that into perspective, it was the equivalent of someone slaughtering the Magical Girl Three Giants of the Magical Girl Company.

This was a move that could directly shake the foundation of a super-human species organization.

Without those elites, the Control Bureau would lose its deterrent power in the short term. The people in the Superhero Roundtable Council and the Super Hero Company could run completely amok with no one to keep them in check.

Thus, it was easy to imagine just how terrifying Xia Lingxue's situation would be from here on out.

Perhaps the Control Bureau's higher-ups would request the Superhero Roundtable Council to deploy and arrest her. However, most members of the Superhero Roundtable Council came from the Super Hero Company, and the Hero Company and the Hero Control Bureau were fundamentally at odds.

Because of that, the Roundtable members might not accept the Control Bureau's commission. That was the one silver lining in this disaster.

But setting all that mess aside, the real question was: had Xia Lingxue not considered that this might bring disaster down upon her family?

She could leave, but her family couldn't.

She didn't know they had an alien mother at home; she only knew their old man was Rain Crow. Did she really think Rain Crow could single-handedly block the Control Bureau's wrath?

No, it was absolutely impossible.

So where exactly had things gone wrong? Given Second Sister's personality, even if she wanted to break free from the Control Bureau, she definitely would have done it by faking her death or something similar to ensure it wouldn't affect her family...

His thoughts reaching this point, Ke Mingqing looked up in confusion, waiting for Ke Mingwei to explain further.

"Regarding this matter, Dr. Toy said he was going to give me a call," Ke Mingwei said softly. "You two talk for now. I'll come back to interrogate you in a bit."

With that, he headed upstairs, stepped into the bathroom, and shut the door.

Ke Linye murmured, "Impossible. With her abilities, if she really wanted to make a move against the other executives, she could have wiped them all out without anyone knowing. Why was she exposed?"

"Maybe she had a specific goal at the time, and she was forced to change her plan to achieve it," Ke Mingqing said.

"What goal?"

"A mythic vessel can only maintain their sanity by devouring their own kind. Did you forget?"

Ke Linye froze. "Ah Xue wanted to... eat Anubis?"

"Yeah, I think there's a high probability of that."

"But why?" Ke Linye asked, utterly baffled. "Didn't White Jack say that Ah Xue wanted A'zhi to eat her once A'zhi evolved into her perfect form? If that's the case, why would she go out of her way to eat Anubis?"

"Maybe she was worried she'd lose control before she could finish her plan?" Ke Mingqing guessed. "That might be why Second Sister was in such a rush to eat a mythic vessel."

Ke Linye shook his head. "I don't think it was that severe. The last time we saw Ah Xue, she still seemed perfectly rational..."

Ke Mingqing nodded. He had heard that mythic vessels always showed symptoms before losing control. It started with minor issues like insomnia and anxiety, progressing to sensory failures like blindness and deafness. They would suddenly become prone to mania or even experience memory confusion. A mythic vessel at this stage was like a shutting-down computer; once all the programs were cleared out, the screen would just go dark.

Then, their entire being would sink into hallucinations, never to wake up again as they entered a state of absolute self-destruction.

The Control Bureau hunted down mythic vessels day after day precisely to prevent this. The rumor that mythic vessels were doomed to lose control had not yet been made public, which was why the two mythic vessels within the Superhero Roundtable Council hadn't faced any external scrutiny.

In reality, Zeus and Black Dragon Nidhogg were destined to face an encirclement by the Control Bureau one day.

This was something almost everyone tacitly understood, but the problem was how to deal with them. It was like two ticking time bombs sitting right there in plain sight; if the defusal method was even slightly off, they would detonate in the worst possible way, dragging even more people down with them.

The Control Bureau was undoubtedly losing sleep trying to figure out countermeasures. They never could have anticipated that a mole would suddenly strike at a time like this, wiping out their own top-tier fighting force first.

"I get it now. Second Sister must have been running an experiment," Ke Mingqing suddenly realized.

"An experiment?" Ke Linye didn't follow.

"Exactly. Second Sister probably wanted to figure out the proper way to devour a mythic vessel in preparation for Third Sister to eat her," Ke Mingqing said softly. "Before a mother hen teaches her chicks how to eat feed, she has to learn how to eat it herself, right?"

"That makes sense..."

Ke Linye pressed a hand to his forehead and leaned weakly against the back of the sofa, his gaze shifting. "Our second sister has really gone crazy. Why didn't she discuss it with me? And how did White Jack know her goal?"

Not wanting the atmosphere to stay so heavy, Ke Mingqing stayed quiet for a moment before teasing, "After finding out about your identity, the old man probably felt exactly the same way. Understand how he feels now?"

"The world is just a giant boomerang. From now on, I have to keep a closer eye on my family."

"Here we go again. Can't you control freaks give it a rest?"

"Give it a rest?" Ke Linye laughed self-deprecatingly. "Please, I've practically rested my two sisters and brother to death already... Honestly, I should have stuck with my childhood idea: wait until I grew up, lock you all away, and feed you on a schedule like pigs. Then everyone would be safe. This damn super-human species world doesn't give me a single second of peace."

"Hey, hey, have you lost your mind? Do you even hear yourself?"

"Sorry... My head is just a mess."

"Second Sister is a very rational person. Even if she's going crazy, she's doing it rationally. We have to be even calmer than she is to stay one step ahead and stop her."

"You're right. You've really grown up, A'Qing... How can I be such a useless older brother, always one step behind in everything?"

As the two brothers were talking, Ke Mingwei walked down from upstairs and stood in front of them.

Ke Mingqing immediately asked, "Old man, the intel you gave us only mentioned the executives. I want to know what happened to Anubis... the mythic vessel in Egypt."

If Second Sister had already eaten Anubis, things would be much easier going forward. They would only need to find one mythic vessel for Third Sister. Either Black Dragon Nidhogg or Zeus in the Roundtable could serve as the target.

But... would it really be that simple?

"Anubis fled," Ke Mingwei said slowly. "Also, Dr. Toy told me that based on the clues left at the scene, there was more than one mythic vessel present. Fire Giant Surtr, who once stopped that nuclear bomb in our capital, apparently also appeared in Egypt."

He lowered his head and took a deep breath, dropping his voice as he continued, "And... you might not believe what I'm about to say."

Ke Mingqing watched him silently, while Ke Linye lowered his eyes in deep thought. Both of them, however, already knew what Ke Mingwei was going to say.

"Say it, old man," Ke Mingqing sighed.

Ke Mingwei said, "Dr. Toy also told me that based on some residual clues, they deduced that the mythic vessel is Executive Zero, and the other executives were silenced by her after discovering her anomaly."

He paused and looked up. "Shocking, isn't it? To think your friend was actually a mythic vessel—and that she managed to hide in an organization dedicated to hunting down mythic vessels for four whole years."

"Not four years, only three," Ke Mingqing said softly. "After she killed the mythic vessel Fire Giant Surtr, she became the target of possession instead. The other party's mythic power transferred to her."

Ke Mingwei blanked, apparently not expecting him to know this much detail.

At that moment, Ke Mingqing and Ke Linye exchanged a glance, as if deciding who should break the news.

As the eldest brother of the family, Ke Linye ultimately spoke up.

He said, "Old man, Executive Zero... is Ah Xue."

Ke Mingwei froze slightly. The cigarette dangling from his lips suddenly tipped upward, and only a moment later did it drop back down.

"Do you think this is funny?" he asked, frowning.

"Haha, yeah, it is pretty funny. Why did you think Second Sister went missing?"

Tilting his head, Ke Mingqing continued, "Oh, right, Third Sister also went missing. Why is it such a coincidence? Could it be that Third Sister has some secret identity too?"

Ke Mingwei didn't move a muscle, completely rooted to the spot.

"A'Qing, stop that." Ke Linye let out a breath and looked up at him with clear eyes. "Old man, Ah Xue is Zero. And just like you said, we only recently found out that she is the mythic vessel Fire Giant Surtr. Ah Xue was the one who stopped that nuclear bomb in the Leijing City Center."

At that moment, Ke Mingwei felt that the whole world had gone completely silent.

In his eyes, his two sons' lips were moving, seemingly saying something, but he mostly couldn't hear them anymore, nor did he even want to think about what they meant.

The ringing in his ears was loud, growing louder and louder until it became a tempestuous roar.

Amidst this deafening absolute silence, Ke Mingwei vaguely felt as if he heard a burst of laughter, a fanatical cackle. Yet when he looked up, the laughter didn't come from anyone standing in the living room.

It came from the living room floor.

Slowly lowering his head, he saw a slender shadow stretching across the floor. It was his own shadow. Its blood-red mouth split open, letting out a mocking laugh.

Confused, Ke Mingwei raised a hand to his forehead. 'What in the world is happening? Is any of this even real?' he thought.

He looked up. His two sons were still spouting confusing words, as if they had gone mad.

He felt that anyone standing here and listening to them would be stunned. This wasn't a problem with him.

He suspected he had fallen into some sort of hallucination.

Perhaps these successive, unbelievable events were all just a dream.

The crows outside the window were gathering in greater numbers, their feathers falling like black snow over the entire yard. They stood shoulder to shoulder in a line on the power lines like a choir, singing hoarsely. The shadow on the floor was still laughing fanatically, its blood-red mouth stretching even higher, almost reaching the base of its ears.

"So it was just a hallucination?"

Ke Mingwei rubbed his forehead. In a daze, he actually curled his lips into a smile and looked up.

However, right at that moment, Ke Linye paused and lowered his voice. "And... there's one more thing. A'zhi is Red Lotus."

Before he could even finish speaking, he suddenly froze.

In the very next moment, an overwhelming flock of crows swarmed the entire building, dyeing the windows pure black. It was pitch black in all directions, as if a black tornado had struck, plunging the whole world into darkness.

The sound of the crows flapping their wings and cawing was so deafening that Ke Mingqing and Ke Linye could no longer hear anything else.

Xia Wenna had just stepped out of the bathroom when she stood dumbfounded.

"Mother of God, is this a crow plague..."

No one in the darkness answered her words. All that remained was a piercing sound like a blowing whistle.

As well as a hysterical, heart-wrenching roar.

After that, a week passed. There was still no news of Xia Ningzhi or Xia Lingxue, so Ke Mingqing told Ke Mingwei the name of a place: Rjukan Town in Norway.

That was the place Xia Ningzhi had mentioned before.

Ke Mingqing figured that given Third Sister's airheaded personality, she might actually run off there to delude herself into "seclusion."

As a result, he asked Ke Mingwei to have the local Hero Company in Norway begin a blanket search so that the moment Xia Ningzhi appeared, she would be found.

An Asian face was still very recognizable in Northern Europe. Only someone like Xia Lingxue, who liked to wear human-skin masks and dress up as a Nordic girl, would be hard to find.

Additionally, Officer Girl of the Roundtable had also gone to Rjukan Town as a guest. If two mythic vessels went mad and started fighting in that small town, she would definitely sense it immediately.

Time ticked away silently, and the countdown on the system panel ticked down day by day. Ke Mingqing knew he would soon have to say goodbye to this family.

But before that, he had to figure one thing out: were his memories of his past life real, or fake? He knew the person most likely to hold this truth was right here in the house:

Xia Wenna.

Until he asked Xia Wenna and cleared up the truth about players, there was absolutely no way he was taking a single step out of this place.

October 6. It was a gloomy, rainy day. Ke Mingqing opened his eyes in bed and instantly saw that nauseating notification panel.

[Good morning, beloved Red Name Player "Jin Chengwu".]

[The current time is 07:00 on October 6, Saturday morning. The time limit for the "Exterminate Superhumans" task has 83 days, 17 hours, and 0 minutes remaining.]

'Now comes the real question: how exactly do I finish this task?' he thought, rubbing his eyes. 'Don't tell me I'm going to fail this time. I've never tried just leaving a task hanging to see what happens. There won't be a penalty, will there?'

However, something completely unexpected happened to Ke Mingqing very quickly—on this very day, a player came all this way right to his doorstep and rang the doorbell of the Xia-Ke residence.

And on the exact same day, Ke Mingqing received a scheduled email.

That email came from a certain region in Northern Europe. The sender was an anonymous user, and the subject line consisted of just a few simple words: "I'm doing well, don't worry about me."