73: Chapter 73 Sun Hao's Inner World

"You... are you going to kill us?"

"We aren't them! We were threatened!"

"We didn't do anything, we just... we just couldn't survive..."

One of them even took a step closer to Zhang Tianjin, tugging on his sleeve with teary eyes.

"You... you're a good person, right? Can you please not kill us..."

Zhang Tianjin didn't even move, not even shifting his gaze.

Zhao Wei just sneered and threw her to the ground. "You really know how to act."

"The surveillance footage is crystal clear: who brought the milk, who watered down the medicine, who dragged the Child inside and held them down—you lot, your acting is no worse than a TV drama."

The other girl panicked and quickly threw herself at Ye Nanxing.

"Big sister, say something! You're a girl too! You can understand, right? We just want to live!"

"Want to live? Sure."

"But if you want to trade others' lives for your own, then be prepared to hand over your own life. Go back to the Black Market and pay it back slowly."

Both girls froze, the thin veneer of fake smiles and obedience instantly collapsing, replaced by uncontrollable terror.

"Sis... p-please don't be rash—we, we were just being obedient, we didn't really do anything..."

Zhao Wei sneered and stomped his foot heavily. "Obedient? Poisoning, force-feeding water, handing over cloth strips—which of these didn't you do?"

"Do you think that putting on a pitiful face and shivering in the corner makes you not an accomplice?"

"Now guess, if we hadn't come tonight, would that girl have ended up just like the woman in 302?"

Lin Shuang shook her head, trembling, still muttering.

"I just, I just wanted to live... please, let me go..."

"Live?" Ye Nanxing stepped closer to her, "To stay alive, how many did you feed to death?"

"You weren't feeding them milk; you were feeding them ropes, anesthetics, knives—the final struggle of someone's last second of life."

"You just didn't do the killing yourself, but you were already standing on the side of the executioner."

Lin Shuang dropped to her knees. "I'm sick... I used to be a schizophrenic patient, I've been hurt, I was scared out of my mind..."

"Yes." Ye Nanxing slowly crouched down, her eyes calm and almost devoid of emotion.

"You are crazy."

"So, you won't feel pain."

As she spoke, she raised her hand and delivered a backhand strike to the back of Lin Shuang's neck, knocking her unconscious instantly.

"Zhao Wei, lock her up, throw her in the storage room."

The other girl, Lin Yao, was already paralyzed on the ground in fear, the smell of incontinence spreading. Her voice was dry:

"I... I really didn't do anything... I was forced, I, I, I didn't even say a few words..."

Ye Nanxing glanced at her. "Congratulations, you can talk."

"Someone who can talk is better off living and going to the Black Market to talk more."

"The auction is in three days. Those willing to go on stage get to keep their lives; those who aren't—Zhao Wei, you know what to do."

Zhao Wei: "One shot each, quick and clean."

In that instant, both girls finally broke down, kneeling on the ground, weeping and begging for mercy, even calling Zhang Tianjin "brother" and shouting "help" at Sun Hao...

No one responded.

Cold wind poured into the window; snow fell on the corpses and on their faces.

For the first time, they realized: there was actually a team that didn't know the meaning of "mercy."

Zhao Wei hoisted the girl up like a sack.

She screamed and struggled in terror, but she had no strength to resist—because she knew she had long since lost the right to demand "fairness."

Zhang Tianjin silently closed the storage room door, looked at the corner of the room splattered with blood, and muttered:

"Some people shouldn't wait for heaven to punish them. We have to do it ourselves."

In Phoenix City, the cold wind still raged, snow weighed down the roof tiles, and the silence held a suffocating stillness.

Inside the top-floor Shelter, the windows were blocked by heavy explosion-proof shutters, but the indoor temperature was maintained at 18 degrees.

Zhao Wei and Zhang Tianjin escorted the two accomplice girls and locked them directly in the storage room, shackling their feet and taping their mouths shut.

"Don't think acting pitiful will wash you clean." Zhao Wei dropped the cold remark and slammed the door shut.

The girls still tried to cry and beg for mercy, but no one paid them any mind.

In the master bedroom, the cold wind had long since ceased, but the air still felt like ice pressing against one's chest.

The girl lay in the quilt, curled up like a cat, her forehead slightly warm, clear finger marks still remaining on her cheek. Her eyes were tightly shut, eyelashes stained with tear tracks, as if the nightmare had not yet dissipated from her consciousness.

Sun Hao sat by the bed, his whole body almost frozen into a statue. His gaze hadn't left the girl's face for a second, even though she showed no reaction.

He was usually calm, efficient, and as sharp-tongued as a blade, but right now—the tension and restraint in his eyes were impossible to hide.

Zhao Wei leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, and sighed: "I'm not trying to be a busybody, but the way Haozi is looking at this girl—there's something there."

"It's not that we won't save her," Zhou Cheng frowned, "but our resources didn't just blow in on the wind."

Zhang Tianjin didn't speak, just lowered his head to clean his gun, but that cold silence said it all: "If she has no value, let her die."

Ye Nanxing listened to these voices without responding; she simply turned and entered the secret room with brisk, familiar decisiveness.

Her consciousness submerged into the space—this was her own private "forbidden zone."

A pool of spiritual spring water flowed quietly, like moonlight turned into liquid.

She stood by the pool, her eyes complex.

This spiritual spring... she had used it to purify food, accelerate wound healing, and even relied on it when she first transformed her own constitution.

But today—for the first time, she realized: the water level of the spiritual spring had dropped.

It wasn't a symbolic, illusory setting; it was a real decrease in water volume.

Her heart tightened.

"Isn't it infinite?" She muttered to herself, her brow slowly furrowing.

Setting aside the space itself, she had originally thought this spiritual spring was her trump card. But now, it was finite—and non-renewable.

Ye Nanxing stood by the pool for a long time, her eyes extremely cold, but her heart extremely calm.

It is not infinite.

She kept repeating it softly in her heart.

The spiritual spring was no longer that miracle that "could save anyone at will"; it had become the trump card she could least afford to waste.

This reality meant that from now on, every "rescue" must be based on the foundation of valuable returns.

She was hesitating whether or not to save that girl.

She was no saint, and certainly not a savior.

She had no obligation to save anyone.

Including this girl.

It wasn't out of cruelty, nor was it cold-bloodedness.

It was simply because—in this life, she was here to live for herself, not to bestow favors based on others' expectations.

She saw Sun Hao's gaze, but that would not influence her decision.

If she only saved people to please her team members or stabilize team morale, then how would she be any different from those hypocritical mobs outside who "talk about human kindness" and "sell sentimentality"?

She didn't need to rely on anyone to shape an image of "mercy."

She only needed to respect her own judgment.

And her judgment was—this girl did not deserve to die.