“Besides, your little sneak attack?” She scoffed. “I’ve seen it too many times already.”
The town mayor had used it. The psychic zombies inside the underground lair had used it. She herself was a psychic ability user.
This move? Overused.
Su Su’s veiled mockery pushed He Heng’s expression to a whole new level of ugliness.
And it wasn’t over yet.
The black snake, furious at missing its strike, had already slithered to the ground, its gaze locked onto the human who dared to covet its female.
In a flash, He Heng released the tiger from its cage.
He commanded his battle pet to charge at the python. “Kill it!”
“Roar!!!!”
The tiger obeyed instantly, lunging at its fellow beast.
One red, one blue—two elemental forces collided.
But in mere seconds, the tiger was completely overpowered.
The blue flames suppressed the orange-red fire, forcing it back inch by inch.
As the last few centimeters of its flames were about to be extinguished, fear crept into the tiger’s eyes.
It let out a desperate roar—and tried to flee.
He Heng pressed his thumb and index finger together and let out a sharp whistle.
“No retreat!”
But standing its ground meant certain death.
The once-obedient tiger ignored its master’s command, turned tail, and bolted back to its cage, curling up in a corner, trembling violently.
He Heng’s face darkened to the extreme.
“Hiss!”
The massive black python did not chase after the tiger.
Instead, it slithered menacingly toward He Heng.
Su Su did not stop it.
From the moment she set foot in this basement, a murderous intent had already risen in her heart.
No matter how friendly He Heng pretended to be, no matter how humble his attitude was when asking for advice—it could not conceal his true nature.
A man who experimented on animals had no bottom line. No principles.
If she killed him here… perhaps she could eliminate a future threat before it fully emerged.
Yet He Heng remained calm.
Standing still, he looked straight at Su Su and said, “Miss Su, I have treated you with sincerity. Is this your response?”
Su Su replied coldly, “You know best whether your sincerity is real or not.”
As they confronted each other, the black snake launched its attack.
Unfortunately, He Heng’s reflexes were quick, and the blue flames missed their mark once more.
“Hiss~”
The black snake spat out over a dozen fireballs, each one grazing the ground near He Heng’s feet, forcing him to scramble frantically in all directions.
It was both a taunt and a torment.
“Xiao Hei!” Su Su called out impatiently. “Stop playing around!”
The longer they dragged this out, the greater the chance of unexpected complications.
Fine.
The black snake finally abandoned its game.
It coiled, preparing to unleash a devastating blaze to burn its enemy to ashes.
“Wait!”
Being locked in the cold, vertical pupils of the snake, He Heng was under immense psychological pressure.
For the first time, his mask cracked.
His right hand slipped into his pocket.
“Miss Su, you’d better call your battle pet off.”
“This basement is rigged with over a dozen explosives.
One light press—”
He pursed his lips and mimicked a sound.
“Boom.”
“You, me, and your battle pet… we’ll all go straight to hell together.”
The black snake, unaware of the power of explosives, still intended to burn the human before it.
“Xiao Hei, wait.”
Su Su’s face darkened as she called it back.
She hadn’t expected He Heng to have wired the basement with bombs.
No wonder he dared to bring them here alone.
“That’s more like it.”
He Heng’s smiling, carefree expression returned.
“Miss Su, all I did was use a bit of my ability on you. Was such hostility really necessary?”
He chuckled, then added, “Actually, I believe we still have room to cooperate.”
“Why don’t we…”
Before He Heng could finish speaking, the two-way radio on his body, which had been on the entire time, suddenly crackled to life.
“City Lord, there’s a fight outside.”
He Heng narrowed his eyes. “Who’s fighting?”
“Wan Pengfei and Wang Qingnian.”
One was a teammate from Si Zhe’s side, and the other was likely someone from Su Su’s group.
He Heng put away the radio. “Looks like today isn’t the best time for a conversation. Miss Su, shall we head up and continue this chat later?”
From the moment he took out the radio, Su Su hadn’t looked away once.
With that device active, their entire conversation had been overheard.
If He Heng died here, even if she didn’t die from the explosives, she would still become a wanted criminal in the entire Southern Base.
Xiao Hei was strong, but could it handle an entire city of ability users?
Now, Su Su finally understood He Heng’s true leverage.
This confrontation had merely tested their stances and trump cards—neither side had won.
Su Su remained silent for a few seconds before sighing. She struggled to lift Xiao Hei, who had slithered back to her. “The City Lord is truly skilled. It seems I was the reckless one.”
One was calculating, the other impulsive.
A minor grudge was, by unspoken agreement, canceled out.
“I’ve already forgotten what happened just now.” He Heng said as he gestured toward the exit. “Come on, let’s go see what’s going on outside.”
—
By the time they left the basement and hurried to the villa entrance, what had started as a duel between two people had escalated into a chaotic brawl.
Only three people remained uninvolved: Si Zhe, Lin Weiran, and Qu Wen, who had nothing to do with any of this.
“Enough!”
Now that his ability had been exposed, He Heng made no effort to hide it.
He unleashed a wide-range psychic control.
In an instant, every fighting ability user froze, their bodies rendered immobile—only their eyes could still move slightly.
His face darkened as he demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
The culprits guiltily avoided his gaze.
Then, someone pointed at Wan Pengfei and angrily shouted, “He attacked Brother Wang first!”
“Bullshit!” Wan Pengfei shot back, his neck stiff with defiance. “I only shoved him! How was I supposed to know he’d swing a knife at me?!”
“Shoved?! You call that a shove?! You nearly broke Brother Wang’s bones!”
“Do you have proof? Barking accusations like a dog? It’s normal for ability users to have conflicts! You all ganged up on me first!”
The uproar quickly devolved into a chaotic market squabble, undignified and absurd.
He Heng took a deep breath, already regretting his decision to invite so many uncivilized people into his home.
His target had only ever been Su Su.
“Enough.”
Another wave of psychic energy surged outward.
This time, everyone who had been arguing was forced into silence.
“I need someone rational to explain everything to me from the beginning.”
He Heng’s gaze landed on Qu Wen, who had been standing idly by.
She glanced around and quickly realized that, aside from Si Zhe and Lin Weiran, she was indeed the only reasonable person left.
As for those two… they clearly couldn’t be bothered to argue over such trivial matters.
“I’ll explain.” Qu Wen sighed helplessly. “Back at the hunting grounds, Wan Pengfei tried to steal our crystals, so Brother Wang slashed his arm with a blade.”
“Just now, when we were about to leave, Wan Pengfei suddenly ambushed Brother Wang, and that’s how the fight started.”
He Heng understood immediately. “So this was a personal grudge that ended up escalating to the City Lord’s residence.”
His words carried a subtle danger, and both Wan Pengfei and Brother Wang visibly tensed up.
Wan Pengfei was the first to speak, his tone filled with flattery. “We won’t fight anymore! We’ll leave right now!”
He Heng sneered. “Oh? Since when was the City Lord’s residence a place you can come and go as you please?”
His cold questioning sent Wan Pengfei into a full panic.
He whipped his head around, looking desperately at Si Zhe and Lin Weiran for help.
“Brother Si Zhe! Weiran! Please, say something to the City Lord! I swear I didn’t mean to cause trouble!”
Lin Weiran frowned.
Considering Wan Pengfei was part of her team, she hesitated, then decided to speak up.
“City Lord, why don’t we just let them leave? It looks bad for everyone to be standing around like this.”
Since she was the one speaking, He Heng should at least give her some face.
Everyone in the base knew that He Heng had a soft spot for Si Zhe and Lin Weiran and extended that favor to Eternal Squad as well.
Naturally, Lin Weiran assumed he would brush the matter aside lightly.
But, unexpectedly, He Heng regretfully shook his head.
“Weiran, not this time.”
Lin Weiran was stunned. “Why?”
“I don’t care about his personal conflicts with others.” He Heng’s tone was calm but firm. “But causing trouble right outside my home? That’s blatant disrespect toward me as the City Lord. If I don’t make an example out of him, what’s stopping others from throwing tantrums here in the future?”
Lin Weiran pressed her lips together.
Deep down, she agreed with his reasoning.
But Wan Pengfei was desperate now.
“Weiran! Please help me! I really know I was wrong! I swear I’ll never do it again! Please, help me!”
The other ability users who had been involved in the brawl also started casting pleading looks her way.
They were all terrified that He Heng would extend his wrath to them as well, so they pinned their hopes on their leader.
It was such a small matter—just asking for leniency.
Lin Weiran suddenly felt cornered, caught in a difficult position.
At last, Si Zhe spoke up.
“He Heng, give me some face. I’ll make sure to discipline my team properly.”
He wasn’t just wary of He Heng as a Tier 4 psychic ability user.
What he truly feared was the countless battle squads that stood behind He Heng—the foundation of the Southern Base, the very reason he could hold his position as City Lord.
He Heng raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t agree right away.
Instead, he turned to look at Su Su.
“Why don’t I let Miss Su decide?”
Su Su blinked, confused.
Why was she being dragged into this?
Si Zhe also frowned, clearly displeased with He Heng using this situation to curry favor with Su Su.
“He Heng—”
He Heng raised a hand, silencing him.
“If we really want to settle accounts, Wan Pengfei doesn’t just have a grudge with Wang Qingnian—he also has some entanglements with Miss Su.”
Su Su’s confusion deepened. “What do you mean?”
He Heng shrugged. “He climbed his way up by leeching off women. He even got your relative’s daughter killed. Didn’t you know, Miss Su?”
Su Su’s expression froze.
She had no relatives—only a lie she had made up on the spot. To outsiders, the ‘relative’ she was looking for in the Southern Base was Granny Niu.
—”After he got that weapon, he dumped my daughter.”
—”Not long after, he started dating a hunting squad leader’s daughter and quickly advanced to a Tier 2 ability user.”
Su Su’s gaze shifted between Wan Pengfei and Brother Wang.
The former looked shocked and uncertain, while the latter was completely clueless.
At last, she connected all the pieces.
Wan Pengfei was the heartless bastard who had gotten Granny Niu’s daughter killed.
He had first cozied up to Brother Wang, then, for some unknown reason, ended up joining Si Zhe and Lin Weiran’s squad.
Such a tangled web of relationships, described so vaguely by Granny Niu, had left even Su Su uncertain of the details.
And Brother Wang? Clearly, he had been kept in the dark as well.
Yet He Heng had casually uncovered it all.
She had only been in the city for less than two days—how had this baby-faced City Lord managed to investigate her to such an extent?
Had he set his sights on her the moment she entered the base?
A chill rose in Su Su’s heart.
Meanwhile, He Heng still wore that same smiling expression.
“The base doesn’t encourage killing, but as the City Lord, I do have certain privileges.”
“People like Wan Pengfei, who step on others’ emotions to rise in power, are a menace no matter where they go.”
“I’ll hand him over to Miss Su now. You can do whatever you want with him—consider it my apology for using my ability on you earlier.”
He smiled wider.
“Well? My sincerity should be more than enough, right?”
“So, can we put aside our grievances now?”