320 Truth.
Shi Lang appeared in front of the bus, he was holding a body in his hands like a rag doll. The students inside the bus were shocked, they did not expect him to bring back a person. Shi Lang walked ahead and said, “OB-One, contact the authorities, find out who is gutsy enough to supply this place with guns and ammunition.”
OB-One acknowledged the command and said, “Yes, sir.”
The thugs back in the street were using old guns, as in gunpowder-propelled bullets. This ammunition was not manufactured by the companies anymore as they lacked a bit too much in comparison to the phasers. However, the phasers were classified as a controlled weapon, meaning, they could never be handed to a civilian for whatever reason it may be, even the soldiers off-duty were not allowed to carry a phaser handgun until they are ranked above major or were a part of the special unit that dealt with terrorism.
Despite all this, some people would manufacture this hot ammunition and sell them to the thugs and bandits of modern times, at a cheap price. These manufacturers were always on the lookout and were sly enough to avoid detection. Shi Lang remembers reading about a case where a tech genius in the need of money developed software that could detect the actions of the federal authorities and alert such people.
Arresting these guys became trickier since then. Shi Lang passed the command and carried the person inside the bus, then he instructed the automated driving software, to take them back to the academy gates.
He placed the person in his hand at an empty seat, and said, “You all did well, thanks to you, we now have surveillance set up in that chaotic zone. Within a week at most, the place will be cleaned and bought out of dark times.”
The satellite surveillance method was not profitable for them, and thus this issue had been pushed back over and over again. The authorities had enough to deal with and a small district did not catch their eye. Shi Lang could not help but blame the administrator department. Just when he was thinking of calling for action against these incompetent people.
Martha asked, “Lang, is she the one?”
Shi Lang snapped back to reality and nodded. He said, “Yes, she is the one.”
The students were also curious to find out what was going on but they did not dare to voice their questions. They have been communicating using the mind comms and Theseus had asked them all to stay quiet as the teacher seemed to be engrossed with thoughts. The journey back to the academy was quick.
Shi Lang said to Theseus, “I will collect the mind comms back from you after classes tomorrow. You can tell your parents that you have an activity planned with me. To thank you for your help, I will take you all to enjoy a meal.”
The students cheered up and Shi Lang and Martha got off the bus while the young man still held the woman in his hand, he had no intention to expose the fact that he knew about her act of playing possum. His car was parked inside the academy campus, and he did not want to show this woman to the world, so he patted the back of her neck gently once before handing her over to Martha and going inside the academy to get his car.
Martha was confused by the action but she did not ask anything. Shi Lang had simply tapped an acupoint to lock all her movement capabilities, this was to protect Martha from getting attacked by a sudden outburst with a desire to escape.
After all, the first meeting was not as he hoped it would be. This weak-looking woman was facing a bunch of thugs with hot weapons. Where did she get the guts to? This uncertain element made Shi Lang very cautious and curious about this person. Thus, the precautions. He drove the car and set the lady in the back seat as he left the place.
Martha sat in the front passenger seat, but she did not say anything. She was not sure what to say, just when she was about to mouth some joke, Shi Lang asked, “How long are you going to play possum on me?”
Shi Lang’s tone was as cold as a block of ice. Martha was taken aback to look at this side of his nature. She never expected this sunshine boy to have such a frightening side as well. The lady in the back seat opened her eyes, and her body shivered. She was aware of what this young man was capable of doing.
He made all the people useless with a snap of his fingers. She did not dare to bet her luck against him. The reason she was playing possum was to probably dig out the information about why he kidnapped her in the first place.
Shi Lang asked, “What is your name?”
The lady spotted a pair of crimson eyes looking at her through the rearview mirror. She froze and replied, “Alicia.”
Shi Lang nodded, this information was recorded in the records. He continued, “What do you do for a living?”
Alicia replied, “Why do you care? Who are you and why have you kidnapped me? Sir, I do not have anything valuable on me and I have no one to pay extortion to clear me.”
Martha could not help but chuckle when she heard this. She said, “Poor baby, you became a kidnapper from the glorious ge..”
Shi Lang cast her a cold look and Martha froze in her speech. She realized that she was about to reveal his identity to this lady, and given the troublesome character it would become a problem for him.
The car descended into silence and Shi Lang calmed himself before he asked, “Did you give birth to a child five years ago?”
The lady in the back seat opened her eyes wide and asked, “How do you know? Who are you?”
Shi Lang simply said, “I found that child and traced you. What thoughts do you have for that child?”
Alicia gnashed on her teeth hard before she said, “What thoughts do I have on that sinful seed? I wish to kill her, her father was a bastard who raped me in that shithole. Then he left me to die like a rabid dog on the side of the road. After he found that I was pregnant, he imprisoned me, tied me up to the bed forcefully keeping me alive.
All that torture, what for? For that bastard, he planted inside me. Piece of shit.”
She became silent after this explanation and then burst into laughter, maniacal laughter. She said, “When he came to see me during labor, do you know what happened? He said that after the child was born he will let me go, it was the first time in his life of seventy years that he was able to have a child. However, I did not want that wretched bastard to have this joy, so I picked up a fruit knife, and forcefully drove it through his skull. I stuffed his mouth with a pillow to make sure that his voice was not heard by others.
Hahahaha, the old bastard died under my bloated self. I fled the place, came to the medical center, gave birth, and wanted to snap the neck of that little shit, but the thugs of that man rushed in. I ran away, and the admin lady took the child with her. I do not know what happened. I wanted to kill that child so I asked around and located that lady in the wave mountains, she was living with an old man.
I hate old men, so I set fire to their houses when they were sleeping. Hahahahahaha.”
Shi Lang finally came to know the story behind the incident and could not help but shake his head and took the car to the nearest police station. He was not going to let this lady walk out. She was not mentally sound and needed help, and also the punishment for her crimes. The trauma from the misfortunate happening to her, she had come to despite the child that she gave birth too.
This sort of trauma response was not new, but it was not safe for others to be around her. No wonder she could face a bunch of gunmen alone. So, he dumped her at the police station, stated his identity, gave them the recorded confession, and left the place. The police will follow procedures to deal with this matter, but one thing was for sure, Tao was not going to be handed to her at any cost.
Shi Lang drove the car silently and dropped Martha home, who was also very shocked by the facts that she learned in the car. After all, as a woman who loved her child, she could not even imagine what Alicia must have gone through to have her thoughts twisted like this.