Ling Qingyu's residence, somewhere underground.

Tang Ziyi stood waiting in the dim corridor, arms folded as the sound of footsteps echoed faintly through the reinforced halls. The female mercenary—recently captured by Spirit Fox—was on her way, escorted by two operators under Athena's remote guidance.

She arrived with little fuss—quiet, composed, obedient to orders, but not to be mistaken for submissive. Despite the hood veiling her eyes, Tang Ziyi didn't miss the subtle tension in the woman's body: the slight tilt of her head, the calculated placement of each footstep, the measured breaths. She was trying to map the route.

Athena had already anticipated this and adjusted the environmental layout slightly to throw off orientation. Still, the mercenary persisted.

'Smart,' Tang Ziyi mused, observing her. 'Too smart to be underestimated.'

The woman hadn't been blindfolded during transport, so she had a rough sense of her current location. Judging by the shifts in air pressure, the absence of ambient city noise, and the echo of her own steps, she had correctly deduced that they were underground. A partial map was already forming in her mind—one that would be mostly useless thanks to Athena's modular corridor design, but she didn't know that yet.

She snickered quietly to herself beneath the hood. This is their great Spirit Fox? No guards? No security layers? Just a blindfold and a hand on the shoulder? Please.

Of course, she was unaware of Athena's silent presence—watching, recording, adjusting. And she was equally unaware that every step she took, every minor attempt at orientation, had been logged for later analysis.

Still, her confidence wasn't unfounded.

Spirit Fox wasn't trained for this kind of adversary. The original founding was merely to serve as Ling Qingyu's cohort, an arm wing to protect herself and her lovedone.

Yang Qingyue's entry to her life changed that. With Tang Ziyi's help, the transformation was far easy, drawing gains for her group.

Spirit Fox was a direct-action unit—built for kinetic assaults, rescue missions, and interdictions. They moved fast, hit hard, and finished clean. Infiltration, sabotage, long-term surveillance—those were different beasts altogether. And the mercenary was one of them: a specialist in espionage, stealth, and psychological warfare.

Against a seasoned spy like her, Spirit Fox lacked the subtle finesse. They knew it too—and they didn't mind.

Because they weren't supposed to be that.

They didn't need to build underground networks or conduct shadow games. Ling Qingyu didn't want her girls walking in darkness, becoming the kind of operatives who lived off manipulation and lies. She valued their safety above all else. Their training was brutal, their missions dangerous, but their principles were clean.

Intel gathering? That wasn't Spirit Fox's burden.

That was Athena's realm.

She saw everything. Heard everything. Intercepted everything.

In Ling Qingyu's eyes, the risks of turning Spirit Fox into a clandestine intelligence apparatus outweighed the benefits. Why endanger the very women she worked so hard to protect when she had money, technology, and the world's most advanced AI to do the digging?

Manpower was irreplaceable. But money could always buy more men. More spies. More traitors. More whispers.

Before the will of a capital giant, anything was possible.

Tang Ziyi motioned silently to the two operators flanking the woman. They gave curt nods and stepped out, sealing the door behind them. The room they left her in wasn't anything extraordinary—just four plain walls, a small table with two chairs, an electric kettle humming softly, bottled water, and a few packs of instant noodles stacked neatly to one side.

Certainly not an interrogation chamber. More like a breakroom hastily cleared for use.

Once her subordinates exited, Tang Ziyi personally cut the handcuffs off the female mercenary and removed the hood, showing no concern about resistance.

Please—Tang Ziyi's very existence was a bug in this world. It was the opponent who should fear offending her.

The woman squinted, adjusting to the dim lighting, and scanned her surroundings while massaging her wrists to restore circulation after being bound for so long.

She smacked her lips when she saw the red marks left by the plastic cuffs. These operators didn't even show mercy to women.

Well, they were women too, she mused to herself.

Initially, she considered breaking free the moment her hands were released, thinking she could exploit her captors' possible underestimation. But she restrained herself.

She hadn't been hurt or mistreated—only wrongfully apprehended and brought here on the pretext of possessing a restricted firearm.

Without proper intelligence, acting rashly was foolish. Every move had to be calculated to increase the odds of success.

And she, someone whose profession constantly teetered between life and death, understood that better than most.

Just one slight miscalculation on Spirit Fox's part—leaving her alone, uncuffed, with only one woman.

One very calm woman. Well, not uncuffed but more like removed by a single woman. Why was there no guard against her?

She scanned her captor's figure again.

No stance. No aggression. No weapon drawn. Tang Ziyi simply stood there with a faint air of amusement, as if waiting for something mildly entertaining to happen.

And that's what made her pause.

The instincts honed through years in shadowy operations screamed at her—don't do it. There was no room for error here. Not with someone like her.

What she didn't know was that she was lucky she hadn't acted.

Her opponent was none other than Tang Ziyi.

Even a humanoid monster like Ling Qingyu had to yield before her.

On the side, Tang Ziyi waited patiently for the mercenary to finish her little assessment. She felt somewhat bored that the woman hadn't made a move.

She had hoped for a thrilling moment to break the monotony. After all, it was a rare situation—standing alone before an unrestrained detainee.

It was like waving gold around without a care for personal safety.

When she confirmed that the mercenary was, for now, well-behaved, a grin tugged at Tang Ziyi's lips.

Interesting.

"Have you finished recollecting yourself?" she asked, gesturing toward the table with two chairs. "Please have a seat."

The setup was meant for a face-to-face conversation. The woman sat down and prodded her elbow flat on the table.

"It's not every day I get to meet a fellow mercenary," Tang Ziyi remarked casually. "Do you want warm water?"

She didn't wait for an answer and grabbed the kettle. Two cups had already been poured, and she pushed one toward the woman while taking a light sip from her own.

The female mercenary glanced at the cup for a moment. She was thirsty. She knew, of course, that law enforcement sometimes used drinking water to collect fingerprints—but given Spirit Fox's conduct and the nature of her so-called crimes, there was no point in playing that kind of game. Not here. Not with someone like Tang Ziyi.

"Soft interrogation technique, huh?" the mercenary sneered.

Tang Ziyi wasn't fazed. "So, Ms. Murong… I must say, your record is quite impressive."

The use of her name made Murong narrow her eyes, but she said nothing. She understood what Tang Ziyi was implying—this wasn't about questions or answers, not really.

Interrogation, in its classic sense, was a crude tool. It often meant coercing information through force, threats, or psychological manipulation, with little concern for accuracy. The truth obtained that way tended to reflect what the interrogator wanted to hear—not what actually happened.

Sure, such methods could be effective—especially when there was an information gap to exploit. But only against the average detainee.

People with real conviction—strong beliefs or unwavering discipline—could hold out or, worse, feed deliberate falsehoods. It wasn't unheard of. Elite operatives worldwide were trained to endure pain, delay disclosure, and, when necessary, deceive with a mix of truths and lies. Even untrained radicals with fanatical belief could shut down completely under pressure.

Tang Ziyi might not have specialized in professional interrogation techniques, but she had her own… solutions. Her acupuncture-based methods had yielded strong results in the past, if only because they targeted the nervous system with exquisite precision.

But even those techniques would likely fall short against someone like Ms. Murong.

So today, she wasn't playing the predator.

No questions. No pressure.

Just water.

Tang Ziyi understood one thing: asking questions raised defenses. But offering comfort—sharing space, food, water—humanized the captor. That was when people talked.

Real interrogation wasn't about pressing for answers—it was about listening when the target let their guard down and spoke willingly.

Sure, she didn't have formal training in psychological manipulation. She lacked the subtle control of expressions, pacing, and emotional resonance that professional interrogators honed over years. But it didn't matter.

Because that wasn't her goal.

This wasn't about gathering intel piece by piece. Tang Ziyi had come for something else entirely.

And she was patient.

In one word, Tang Ziyi's goal was simple—truth serum.

She had laced the water Ms. Murong drank with a carefully prepared compound. Of course, Tang Ziyi also took a sip from her own cup—to lower suspicion. But the water in her glass and the one handed to Ms. Murong were not the same.

Anyone familiar with ancient techniques would have guessed the trick—hidden mechanisms. With Athena's help and Tang Ziyi's ingenuity, designing such a setup was child's play. She had replicated the principles behind an infamous assassination tool, one that diverted poison and clean water along different channels without a hint of tampering.

Only, the substance wasn't a poison but a drug with temporary effect.

So, in just a short while, Ms. Murong would begin to talk—everything from her secrets to her affiliations. Whether she wanted to or not.

As for her opinion on the method? Tang Ziyi didn't care.

Compared to Athena's original suggestion—an injectable agent—the approach was gentler. Injections acted quickly, but lacked subtlety and left traces. More importantly, they weren't suitable for long-term plans.

Long-term?

Yes. Tang Ziyi had already been evaluating Ms. Murong ever since she arrived. The woman's capabilities, background, and temperament just happened to fill a very particular gap.

A role Spirit Fox had yet to fill. At the same time, this was also an opportunity to study a guinea pig, Tang Ziyi felt amused.

What Tang Ziyi didn't know was that thousands of miles away, Ling Qingyu—on her rare overseas trip—had already begun reaching the exact same conclusion and ordered to kidnap someone.