7: Chapter 7 Breaking Bad? No, this is art!

At the bar of the VIP reception room, the air seemed to freeze.

Qin Feng held the bag of flour in one hand and a half-finished bottle of cola in the other, his gaze focused and profound.

Under the mask, his brow furrowed slightly.

The flour was a bit damp; whether it would even disperse into the air was a question.

"Whatever, I'll make do."

Qin Feng sighed inwardly. His plan was simple: pour the flour by the door, fix the lighter at a clever angle, and use a simple lever principle so that if someone pushed the door, it would trigger the lighter and ignite the airborne flour.

With a bang, it would scare them half to death and buy him two or three minutes to eat.

It was just an enhanced prank.

But in the eyes of the onlookers, the scene took on a completely different vibe.

...

In the corner with the hostages.

Ye Tingyu, the cold and beautiful woman in a white lab coat who had remained silent all along, was now staring intently at Qin Feng's every move.

As a forensic doctor and trace evidence expert specially recruited by the Provincial Department, the world in her eyes was composed of data and chemical formulas.

What did she see?

Qin Feng didn't tear the bag open directly; instead, he used his slender fingers to lightly tap the surface of the bag three times.

"He's using sound to locate and confirm the degree of clumping of the powder inside." Ye Tingyu pushed the rimless glasses on the bridge of her nose. Behind the lenses, her eyes, which had been like stagnant water, now burned with a fanatical flame.

Next, Qin Feng tore a small opening, poured a bit into his palm, and gently rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Particle fineness testing... He's confirming the specific surface area of the dust." Ye Tingyu's fingers unconsciously gripped her notebook, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force, her lips trembling as she whispered, "He's calculating the critical oxygen concentration."

Then, Qin Feng poured out half the cola, added some flour, shook it evenly, and placed it directly under the door handle.

"Non-Newtonian fluid as a delay medium?"

Ye Tingyu gasped, the fear in her eyes gradually replaced by a sense of pilgrimage toward the truth. "Using the carbonic acid in the cola to release carbon dioxide and increase local air pressure, combined with the suspension characteristics of the flour... this isn't just a bomb."

She snapped her notebook shut and looked at Qin Feng's back, her gaze obsessed, as if she were looking at Van Gogh at work.

"This is art."

"This is the perfect fusion of fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and psychology... the art of death."

...

Meanwhile, at the police command center.

Zhao Shanhe watched the busy figure on the large screen, feeling his scalp tingle.

"What is he doing? Making a cake?" Xiahou Dun looked completely bewildered.

"Don't be naive!" Zhao Shanhe gritted his teeth, the veins on his forehead throbbing. "Have you ever seen anyone making a cake need to set up wires at the door? That's a booby trap! He's making a booby trap!"

"Quick! Get the bomb squad in there! Where the hell is that bastard Lei Wanjun? Tell him to get his ass in there and see what that thing is!"

A few minutes later.

The tracks of an all-terrain bomb disposal robot, 'Iron Wall,' turned with a slight hum as it carefully slid into the hallway on the second floor of the bank.

A high-definition camera hung from its robotic arm, like a peering steel beast, slowly approaching the door of the VIP room.

By this time, Qin Feng had finished his 'masterpiece.'

A messy-looking pile of flour sat at the door, a lighter was wedged into the door crack, and half a bottle of cola stood nearby.

It looked crude, even a bit ridiculous.

Qin Feng clapped the flour dust off his hands, turned back to sit on the sofa, stuffed a piece of chocolate into his mouth, and mumbled indistinctly, "It should go off, right? As long as this lighter isn't damp."

...

However, when these images were transmitted back to the command vehicle, they caused an earthquake-like sensation.

Lei Wanjun, the bomb disposal expert of the SWAT Team, was currently wearing a heavy bomb suit helmet, staring intently at the control screen.

As an expert who had dismantled hundreds of bombs, he had originally looked down on this 'playing house with flour.'

"Tch, how much power can flour have? At most, it'll singe some eyebrows."

Lei Wanjun chewed his gum while manipulating the camera to zoom in.

The lens focused on the device.

The seemingly casual angle at which the flour was piled.

The subtle positioning of the cola bottle.

And that lighter, which had been dismantled down to just its ignition mechanism.

Lei Wanjun's mouth, which had been chewing gum, suddenly stopped.

His pupils contracted violently, as if he had seen a prehistoric monster.

"This... this structure..."

Lei Wanjun yanked off his helmet. His fleshy face was now completely devoid of color, and cold sweat instantly poured out like a waterfall.

"No! This isn't right!"

Lei Wanjun's voice cracked with extreme fear as he screamed into the walkie-talkie, "Fall back! Everyone fall back!"

"This isn't just a normal flour bomb at all!"

In the command center, Zhao Shanhe's heart nearly stopped at the shout, and the teacup he had just picked up suffered again, shattering with a 'crack' as it hit the floor.

"Lei Wanjun! What the hell are you screaming for! Speak human!"

"Chief! It's a 'Dust Thermobaric Array'!"

Lei Wanjun's hands were shaking as he pointed at the pile of flour on the screen, his eyes terrified as if he'd seen a ghost. "Look at the distribution of that flour! It's spread out in a 'turbine' shape! Once triggered, the airflow will instantly lift the flour, forming a high-concentration suspended aerosol cloud!"

"That bottle of cola... that's the carrier for the accelerant! The sugar inside will instantly carbonize under high temperatures, releasing a massive amount of heat!"

"This structure... I've seen it in a top-secret file from the Middle East! This is the prototype for a crude 'Thermobaric Bomb'!"

"Once it explodes, the oxygen on the entire second floor will be sucked dry instantly! The high-temperature shockwave will act like a pressure cooker, shattering all the glass in this building! The people inside... will be roasted instantly!"

"This guy is a lunatic! A total chemical lunatic!"

...

*Hiss—*

The command hall fell into a deathly silence.

All the police officers looked at the pile of white powder on the screen as if it weren't flour, but high-grade enriched uranium.

A Thermobaric Bomb?

Sucking out the oxygen?

Is this still a robbery? This is practically starting a war!

Zhao Shanhe felt his vision go dark. He quickly pulled a bottle of fast-acting heart pills from his pocket and swallowed three dry.

If he didn't take the medicine, he was afraid he'd need to be rushed to the ER right now.

"Withdraw!"

Zhao Shanhe roared into the microphone with all his strength, "Have the SWAT Team fall back another hundred meters! No! Two hundred meters!"

"Seal off all surrounding streets! Evacuate everyone within five hundred li... no, five hundred meters!"

"Get me the Fire Department! Bring every fire truck in the city here!"

"This Qin Feng... he's holding the entire building hostage!"

...

Outside the bank.

The SWAT Team, which had been closing in, retreated like a tide as if they'd been electrocuted.

Armored vehicles reversed, riot shields were pulled back, and even the helicopters in the air increased their altitude, for fear of being knocked down by the legendary 'flour Thermobaric Bomb.'

On the second floor of the bank.

Qin Feng was sitting on the sofa, eating some chips he'd scavenged, while watching the police retreat like ants through the blinds.

He froze.

The chip in his hand fell to the floor.

*Crunch.*

Qin Feng blinked, his expression under the mask full of confusion.

"What's going on?"

"I just put some flour at the door for a prank... Why are these cops running faster than rabbits?"

"Is the flour expired? Does it smell that bad?"

Qin Feng was utterly baffled.

He turned to look at Gui Jianchou in the corner and pointed out the window. "What are they doing? Halftime?"

Gui Jianchou was currently huddled in the corner, looking at the pile of flour at the door with eyes full of awe.

Hearing his boss's question, his whole body shook, and he immediately filled in the blanks with his boss's deep meaning.

Boss is being sarcastic!

He's mocking the incompetence of the police!

He's saying: I just used a little trick, and these cops are already scared out of their wits!

"Boss is mighty!"

Gui Jianchou looked on with admiration, his voice trembling. "These cops must have been stunned by your 'divine methods'! They're scared! Scared of being wiped out by your 'Desperate Poison Array'!"

Qin Feng: "..."

What the hell is a Desperate Poison Array?

It's just a two-yuan bag of high-gluten flour and half a bottle of two-fifty cola!

Are the extras and the police this year all a bit mentally ill?

...

In the livestream room.

The bullet comments were flooding so fast the screen was invisible.

"Holy crap! I just Baidu'd dust explosions, they're actually that terrifying!"

"Desperado Bro is awesome! He knows everything from astronomy to geography. With this chemical expertise, even Walter White would have to call him boss!"

"I can't even, guys! That movement when he scattered the flour was so cool my legs are shaking! It's that 'I'm making a bomb, but I'm still elegant' vibe!"

"The police uncles all retreated, hahaha! A bit of flour scared off hundreds of SWAT officers. Is this the legendary 'one man holding the pass against ten thousand'?"

"Stop bragging, am I the only one worried about that girl? She's so close to the bomb, what if it goes off?"

"Don't worry, Desperado Bro is a man of culture. Didn't you see him give his lackey chocolate just now? This is definitely a measured deterrent!"

"Qin Feng: I just wanted to make a cake. Police: He's making a nuke! This misunderstanding is huge, hahahaha!"

And amidst the screen-wide revelry.

Ye Tingyu, sitting among the hostages, silently wrote a line in her notebook:

[Target: Qin Feng. Danger Level: SSS. Evaluation: A perfect criminal artist with extremely high intelligence, skilled at using everyday objects to create mass-casualty panic. Suggestion: Do not provoke; can only be defeated through wit.]

After writing, she pushed her glasses, her gaze passing through the lenses to land on the back of the figure eating chips.

The corner of her mouth curled into a frantic arc.

"Interesting."

"Too interesting."

"An opponent like this... dissecting him must be wonderful, right?"