411: Chapter 411 Give me your life, I don't want your money!

Lin Yao sat on the ground, her spine stiff.

She did not look up.

Beside the Man surnamed Wang, the man with the old scar on his chin raised both hands.

Two fists smashed against the isolation wall.

"Bang! Bang!"

Two muffled thuds, slow in rhythm and heavy.

"My brother was in there too."

The scarred man's fists stayed pressed against the wall without pulling back.

"His name was Li Hongbin. Twenty-six years old. Just got married. His wife is five months pregnant with their child."

His fists slid down an inch against the wall.

"And you're telling me she's not at fault?"

"You're making it so an unborn child will never be able to call out 'Dad' for the rest of their life, and then you tell me—no fault?"

The woman didn't speak. But standing between the two men, she pulled a photograph from her pocket and pressed it against the isolation wall.

In the photo was a radiantly smiling young man wearing a Wind Wolf Corps uniform, making a V-sign with his fingers.

The photo was placed face-down against the wall, facing the interior of the arena.

Lin Yao's gaze met that photograph.

A living, breathing person.

Not data, not an ID number in a system log, not just one of the "one hundred and forty-one personnel" Chen Jing had mentioned.

It was a smiling face.

Lin Yao's eyes grew red.

It wasn't a sudden breakdown or a loud wail. It was the kind of heat that surges up from the nasal cavity, spreading to the bottom of the eye sockets, as the vision begins to fog over.

The water bottle slipped from her hand and clattered onto the floor, the sound of plastic hitting the metal floor ringing out sharply.

The bottle rolled twice and stopped beside her knee.

She braced herself against the ground and stood up.

Her movements were very slow. Her knees felt weak; she failed to find her footing the first time and had to brace her right hand on the ground again before standing straight on the second attempt.

She took a half-step forward.

Toward the isolation wall. Toward that photograph. Toward those three people.

She opened her mouth.

Something was stuck in her throat. A sentence, or perhaps just a few words, were blocked there, unable to come up or go down.

A palm pressed against her back.

It wasn't heavy. Five fingers were spread flat between her shoulder blades, with the heel of the palm resting against her spine.

Lin Yao's body came to a halt.

It was Lin Yu's hand.

He wasn't tugging or pulling her; he just kept his hand there. The warmth of his palm seeped through the fabric of her clothes, dry and steady.

Lin Yao did not turn her head.

But she pulled her foot back.

That half-step was retracted.

Lin Yu withdrew his hand from her back.

He moved past Lin Yao and took a step forward.

Now, the distance between him and the isolation wall was less than two meters. Those three faces on the other side—the calculated calm of the Man surnamed Wang, the deliberately maintained grief and indignation of the scarred man, and the woman's silent accusation—all fell within his field of vision.

"She doesn't need to apologize."

Lin Yu spoke.

No buildup, no transition, and no prefix attempting to soften the atmosphere.

Those words were thrown out like heavy blows.

The remaining speakers in the venue faithfully replicated this sentence hundreds of times, pouring it into the skulls of a hundred thousand people.

The Man surnamed Wang's pupils constricted.

The scarred man's fist smashed against the wall again.

"What did you say?"

Lin Yu didn't look at him.

"The match wasn't over. She released a skill. Your brother ran into the skill's range of his own accord."

His gaze was fixed on the face of the Man surnamed Wang.

"The system issued three red warnings. Your brother heard them. He chose to ignore them. He rushed in. And then he died."

"From start to finish in this matter, she is not at fault for anything."

"She is completely innocent."

Silence lasted for two seconds.

Then the venue exploded.

"You animal!"

"Cold-blooded beast! Saying such things right in front of the family!"

"The lives of a hundred and forty-one people are just 'ran in on their own' to you?"

The audience in the front rows surged forward again, their fists falling like raindrops on the isolation wall. The blue energy ripples were so dense they formed a solid curtain of light, flickering constantly and illuminating the entire interior of the arena in a pulsing, ghostly blue.

At the backstage corridor entrance, Wen Yan leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, having heard every word Lin Yu said.

He tilted his head to glance at Zhong Huai.

Zhong Huai's face had lost all color. The identity reset protocol on the light screen flickered; he had already begun preparing to edit a new identity.

"This kid," Zhong Huai's lips moved, "really doesn't want to live."

Outside the isolation wall.

The Man surnamed Wang turned his head and leaned close to the scarred man's ear. His lips moved only slightly, drawing no attention amidst the chaotic crowd.

"Raise the stakes."

The scarred man narrowed his eyes.

"The public opinion is already enough. The compensation from the Organization will be at least tripled."

The Man surnamed Wang's fingers tapped twice against the side of his thigh.

"Not enough. We can push it further."

He glanced sideways at the woman. She gave a slight nod.

The three of them reached a silent consensus.

The Man surnamed Wang turned back to face the isolation wall.

He slowly raised his right arm.

This movement was caught by the surrounding crowd. The audience members who were pounding on the wall stopped, their gazes converging on his raised arm.

The noise level dropped layer by layer.

A raspy tone squeezed from the throat of the Man surnamed Wang; every word was drawn out long and heavy.

"Everyone."

"No matter how much compensation the Organization gives us, I don't want a single cent of it."

This sentence exploded in the brief silence.

"I don't want money."

The Man surnamed Wang's arm remained raised in mid-air, five fingers spread wide toward the interior of the isolation wall.

"One hundred and forty-one lives. How much money can buy that? Ten million? A hundred million? A billion?"

His hand slowly clenched into a fist.

"My brother's life is not a commodity. It's not a line of numbers in the ledger of the Organization. It's not a zero in a compensation agreement."

His fist struck the isolation wall.

This time he didn't use force, just a light tap. The sound was small, so small that only the audio sensors attached to the wall could catch it. But after being amplified through the speakers, that muffled thud rolled back and forth three times under the venue's dome.

"If you want me to stop, fine! I have only one demand!"

"Give my brother's life back to me!"

"Give back the life."

Four words.

They surged out of hundreds of speakers simultaneously, exploding over the heads of a hundred thousand people.

The venue went briefly silent for an instant. That silence wasn't the hush of being overawed, but the last half-second when a fuse has burned to its end.

Then, it blew.

"Give back the life!"

The first voice burst from the seventh row of the left stands. It was a young man in his early twenties, wearing a Battle Axe Guild uniform, with wet tear tracks still on his face. He stood on his seat, hands cupped around his mouth, screaming those words until they were distorted.

"Give back the life!"

A second voice immediately followed from the right stands. It was three people shouting at once, their voices layered together, muddy but powerful.

"Give back the life! Give back the life! Give back the life!"

How inspiring!

The family members don't want anything!