Chapter 64 - 60: Tesla Coil
"Run! Go on, try and run from me again!"
Li Tieshan gripped his hammer, his face contorted with savagery.
Qin Ziwen followed close behind. He was surprised to see the man in the duck-billed cap sitting against the wall, no longer running.
His gaze drifted down to the headless corpse below.
Head... Headless?
Qin Ziwen snapped his head back around.
A head sat on the ground in front of the headless corpse, like a rubber ball.
’I told you to stop him, why did you have to be so brutal?’
But then again, this explained why the man in the duck-billed cap had stopped running.
Qin Ziwen looked at him. "Name?"
The man in the duck-billed cap wore an expression of resignation. "Running into ruthless people like you... I admit defeat."
From the foot of the stairs, Qin Ziwu said coldly, "I’m a law-abiding citizen. Don’t you dare slander me."
The corner of the man’s eye twitched. ’What kind of law-abiding citizen acts like you?’ "Let me go," he said, "and I’ll tell you who hired me."
Qin Ziwen said flatly, "That’s not important. I’ve already guessed who it is. I’m just curious how you got my door open."
"Let me go, and I’ll tell you everything."
Qin Ziwen’s face was a blank mask. "Do you think you’re in any position to bargain with me? I might let you live, but only if I’m satisfied with your repentance. If I’m in a good mood, I might spare you, and for that, you should be eternally grateful. This is not a negotiation. Do you really think you have any right to be making demands?"
The man in the duck-billed cap raised his head. He had a scar across the bridge of his nose and looked to be in his late thirties.
He gave a bitter laugh. "You’re being a little unreasonable, don’t you think? I’m just a thief. I’ve been in this business for years, and I only ever steal. I don’t do... other things."
"Spare me the details," Qin Ziwen ordered Li Tieshan. "Break his arms and legs. We’re taking him back."
"Boss, wait! You haven’t even asked me anything! Just ask! I’ll tell you everything!" The man scrambled backward in a panic. If he was really so tough, he wouldn’t have become a thief in the first place.
Qin Ziwen made a gesture to pause, and Li Tieshan, quick on the uptake, froze.
"How did you open my door?"
"I used a Tesla coil. This is it." As he spoke, he reached into his pants pocket.
"Don’t move! Open your hand!" Qin Ziwen’s eyes hardened as he raised his knife in warning.
The man’s mouth twitched, but he complied, slowly opening his hand and pulling it from his pocket. "It’s not a gun. Things aren’t like they used to be. How could a normal person get their hands on one of those these days?"
Qin Ziwen said, "Turn around. Lie facedown on the ground, hands on your head."
After the man complied, Qin Ziwen stepped forward and pulled a small black box from his pocket.
The top of the box had a loop of metal wire bent into the shape of a mosquito coil.
The box had a single button on the front. It looked crude, like it was homemade.
"This is the Tesla coil?"
The man replied sullenly, "It’s just a handmade, high-frequency electronic pulse generator. It interferes with nearby electronics. If a lock’s electromagnetic shielding is garbage, it gets disrupted by the strong interference. It’ll either reboot and unlock automatically, or it’ll misread the pulse as an unlock command. Of course, it doesn’t work on all electronic locks. It really depends on whether the manufacturer cut corners or not."
"The developer installed the same electronic locks throughout our Gated Community. I tested it on my own door over and over to get the calibration just right. The frequency is perfectly tuned for these locks."
"How do you use this thing?" Qin Ziwen gestured with the Tesla coil in his hand.
The man in the duck-billed cap quickly explained.
Qin Ziwen quickly grasped how the Tesla coil worked.
He glanced at the man. "A regular artisan, aren’t you."
The man gave a hollow laugh. "Got to keep up with the times, right? Keep up with the times."
Qin Ziwen suddenly asked, "Who sent you?"
The man instinctively started to bargain, but the words died in his throat. He answered honestly, "It was a woman. She lives in your building, too. Her surname is Xue. Medium build, long hair, thin eyes, thin lips, and a kind of shrill voice."
"Ah, so it really was her." Qin Ziwen nodded. The description matched Xue E perfectly.
Qin Ziwen fell into a contemplative silence, mulling over how to handle the situation.
The man on the floor was sweating buckets. He knew his life rested on a single whim of the person before him.
’They’ve already killed several people,’ he thought. ’They definitely wouldn’t mind adding one more to the count.’
"Come here," Qin Ziwen beckoned.
The man in the duck-billed cap scrambled up from the ground and hurried forward, his face plastered with a fawning smile.
Qin Ziwen shoved the small black box into his hand and said with grave sincerity, "That woman lives in Building 8, Unit 2, Apartment 801. Her husband died, and now it’s just her and her child at home. She’s in a truly pitiful state, and of all things, she had to run into a home-invading criminal like you."
The man’s pupils widened, his hands trembling. He knew what they wanted him to do.
’This is pure evil.’ Even a veteran thief like him found it black-hearted.
𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
"Boss, you guys are the professionals at this sort of thing..." "What do you mean, ’professionals’?! You slander me again, you son of a bitch! I told you, this was self-defense! Would any of this have happened if you hadn’t broken in?! Huh?! Say something!" Qin Ziwen punctuated his words with an angry kick.
’If it weren’t for these assholes, I’d be at the altar getting my second Card right now. That’s a full fifty points!’
The man in the duck-billed cap had a long, mournful face. He was filled with regret.
If he could go back to yesterday, he would slap his past self silly, grab him by the collar, and through gritted teeth, warn him not to listen to that bitch.
"AHHH!"
The scream echoed from outside the building. A neighbor heading home had just entered the first-floor lobby and seen the corpse on the ground. They shrieked in terror, then turned and fled.
Qin Ziwen said to his younger brother, "Throw it in the basement for now. Don’t disturb the neighbors."
Qin Ziwu grabbed a foot with one hand and the head with the other, dragging the body across the floor and leaving a long trail of blood.
Watching this scene, the man in the duck-billed cap took a deep breath and nodded firmly. "Fine. I’ll go."
...
「Eastern Gated Community, outside the altar cave.」
Zhang Bo walked in. Seeing the Card floating above the altar inside, he let out a short, angry laugh. "Interesting. Yesterday, someone snatched the Card early. Today, nobody shows up at all."
He turned his head and looked at Lu Hongtao. "Tell me, do you think that group can predict the future?"
Lu Hongtao’s eyes were icy. Yesterday, they had arrived so early, yet the Card was already gone. This meant the person who took it knew the Card’s respawn time and also knew they were coming.
Tonight, they had staked out the place all night, taking a risk by gathering a large group out in the open.
And the result? Tonight, no one came to steal the Card at all.
The facts were plain to see. It could only mean one thing: they had a traitor in their midst.
Zhang Bo said, "In that case, we’re taking this Card. According to our original agreement, the second Card was supposed to be ours."
Lu Hongtao was silent. Personally, he had no problem with that.
But someone in Lu Hongtao’s team disagreed.
"We wasted so much time waiting here with you guys. We can’t just leave with nothing."
"Yeah, your time is valuable, but ours isn’t?"
"I get where you’re coming from, but you have to see it from my side! It’s not like I’m the one who leaked the info. I’ve got two elderly parents, a wife, and kids at home, all depending on me to provide for them."
The teams argued incessantly.
Everyone had their own argument, and nobody was willing to back down.
In the end, the two teams parted on bad terms.
They had arrived together, but when they left, they had split into five separate groups.