“Justice, what are you running for?”
“Justice,” Zhuang Xingyu lowered his head, pressing his lips close to Ston’s ear as he said with sinister menace, “how much does the Supreme Court pay you? Is it really worth risking your life like this?”
With his mouth blocked and unable to speak, and completely lacking the mood to exchange idle chatter with Zhuang Xingyu, Ston reached backward instinctively. Guessing blindly, he pinned Zhuang Xingyu’s head down, raised his other hand holding the pistol, and pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation.
All of this occurred within the span of a mere two seconds. Fast as Zhuang Xingyu’s reaction was in swerving his head away to narrowly dodge the bullet, the projectile whistled past his ear at extremely close range and detonated with a thunderous roar. The howling wind-blade and sonic sword generated by the bullet nearly made his entire scalp feel as though it were about to explode.
Spitting out a curse, Zhuang Xingyu knocked the gun out of Ston’s hand with one hand, then forcibly clamped down on him and soared high into the distant sky, vanishing from sight in a flash.
This flight lasted for over ten minutes.
The clamor of human voices, gunfire, footsteps, and shouting near his ears gradually gave way to the monotonous, howling rush of the wind. Dragged along by Zhuang Xingyu’s hijacking, Ston was flown to the rooftop of an abandoned, desolate high-rise building, where they finally came to a halt.
Across the surface world, such vast, abandoned high-rise complexes were ubiquitous. Real estate developments that once fetched astronomical prices of tens or hundreds of thousands of credits decades ago had long since become desolate ghost towns, though mutated avian pollutants occasionally chose to settle and build nests here.
Landing upon this rooftop, Zhuang Xingyu released his grip on Ston.
Having been subjected to violent coercion for over ten minutes, Ston felt his legs grow weak the moment he touched the ground, forcing him to take a couple of hard forward strides just to steady his posture.
A dull, throbbing ache lingered along his waistline where Zhuang Xingyu had just violently gripped him, but Ston had no bandwidth to spare for such discomfort. His service pistol had been swatted away by Zhuang Xingyu, leaving his sole remaining weapon concealed within the inner lining of his leather boots a compact combat dagger.
Yet it was painfully evident that such a tiny blade posed no substantive threat to Zhuang Xingyu.
Ston stood with his back to Zhuang Xingyu, his brain racing at lightning speed to calculate the possibilities for escape.
He recalled that upon his left wrist, he still wore the judiciary-issued timepiece equipped with GPS tracking and emergency distress signaling functions.
Distress signals were no longer necessary; dozens of eyewitnesses had watched him get abducted by Zhuang Xingyu, and by now, the incident would undoubtedly have been reported back to the court and the Federation, ensuring Mentor Cao would certainly dispatch rescue forces.
Therefore, the paramount priority right now was ensuring this watch remained safely stowed in a secure location on his person, while dragging out time as long as possible until the Federation reinforcement teams arrived.
Having sorted out his priorities, Ston unassumingly slid both arms around to the front of his body, intending to remove the watch and conceal it within his uniform’s inner pocket before Zhuang Xingyu noticed.
Just as Ston was fumbling with his small maneuvers, he suddenly heard Zhuang Xingyu who had remained stationary behind him stride forward, heading directly in his direction.
A jolt of alarm went through Ston, prompting him to instinctively close his grip around the already-detached watch resting in his right palm.
The instant he secured it, Zhuang Xingyu arrived directly behind Ston, reaching out to plant a heavy hand firmly upon his shoulder.
Frowning, Ston sidestepped to evade Zhuang Xingyu’s touch, then wheeled around to face him, speaking in a chilling register: “Violently hijacking a Federal Grand Justice—your crimes carry an added penalty.”
Left hanging in mid-air, Zhuang Xingyu let out a scoff and retracted his hand: “I’m already a man marked for the death penalty anyway; what difference does adding ten more charges make?”
Before the echoes of his words had even faded, Zhuang Xingyu abruptly dropped his smile, flapped his wings, and lunged toward Ston with the ferocious velocity of a whirlwind.
Caught completely off guard, Ston reacted half a beat too slow, failing to execute an evasive retreat before Zhuang Xingyu slammed him backward onto the ground.
As their bodies impacted the deck, a dull thud resonated outward, kicking up heavy layers of rooftop dust that billowed and scattered everywhere.
A piercing, dull ache stabbed through Ston’s spine, and the omnipresent, intrusive dust particles instantly swarmed into his nasal passages, triggering a violent fit of coughing.
Watching Ston cough relentlessly, Zhuang Xingyu burst into laughter: “Justice, you’re this fragile, yet Cao Rui still dispatched you on a surface mission weren’t you afraid of losing your life before you could make it back?”
Recovering from his coughing fit after a short spell, Ston forced himself to suppress the irritation in his throat and snapped back in retaliation: “If I die, you certainly won’t survive either.”
With that, seizing the opportunity while Zhuang Xingyu lowered his guard, Ston drove his knee hard upward into the other’s flank, then relying on his memory clenched his left fist and struck fiercely against Zhuang Xingyu’s injured right wing.
Possessing astonishing memory retention coupled with swift and ruthless execution, Ston’s strike landed with pinpoint accuracy upon Zhuang Xingyu’s crudely bandaged right wing. The agonizing impact turned Zhuang Xingyu’s complexion instantly deathly pale, prompting fine beads of sweat to seep across his forehead.
Taking advantage of the momentary window where Zhuang Xingyu was paralyzed by pain and relaxed his grip, Ston agilely rolled half a body-length to the side, kicked out fiercely against Zhuang Xingyu’s back, scrambled to his feet, and bolted at a dead sprint toward the small access door leading off the rooftop.
Ston sprinted at blistering speed, moving like a whirlwind as he reached the iron door in barely ten seconds.
Slowing his pace slightly, he narrowed his eyes to inspect the door, discovering an already rusted padlock hanging from the latch.
Muttering a silent curse, Ston summoned his momentum and hurled his physical weight heavily against the iron door.
With a dull, heavy crash, Ston’s shoulder screamed in pain; the iron door shifted slightly, but the unbroken padlock instantly yanked the door panel tightly shut again.
Habitually reaching toward his side to draw his sidearm, Ston grasped empty air before remembering his pistol had been swatted away by Zhuang Xingyu. Consequently, he had no choice but to step back two paces, extend his long leg, and kick furiously at the iron door.
After a couple of forceful kicks, the lock showed clear signs of loosening. Seeing that another two kicks would shatter the mechanism and allow him to slip down the stairwell to figure out a way to shake off Zhuang Xingyu and summon reinforcements, time ran out.
During this delayed window, Zhuang Xingyu had already recovered his wits and sprinted in pursuit.
Though his right wing had taken a brutal beating from Ston’s punch dragging behind him on the ground as though fractured anew this manifestly failed to impair Zhuang Xingyu’s charging speed. Within moments, he closed the distance right up to the doorway.
Just as Ston delivered his final kick, shattering the door open and preparing to dart inside, Zhuang Xingyu arrived on the scene.
Compressing his lips into a thin line, Zhuang Xingyu flapped his remaining functional left wing, swooping low with a rush of wind to tackle Ston forcefully back down onto the floor.
Mindful of the bloody lesson from moments prior, Zhuang Xingyu threw his entire weight onto Ston, spreading his left and right wings to encircle both sides of Ston’s body, effectively sealing Ston within a protective cocoon of wings and flesh.
The raging, howling sandstorm instantly vanished, replaced by dimmer illumination and the distinct, singular scent belonging solely to Zhuang Xingyu.
Breathing heavily, Ston found himself forced to draw breath within this cage constructed from Zhuang Xingyu’s body and wings inhaling the tyrannical, primitive, highly aggressive scent of an enraged male beast, while locked in direct eye contact with those eerie, scarlet eyes.
“Justice, what are you running for?” Zhuang Xingyu rasped in a low, husky voice. “I still need you to serve as my hostage.”
“Zhuang Xingyu, you won’t escape,” Ston leveled his respiration, staring straight into Zhuang Xingyu’s red pupils as he stated with cold composure.
Zhuang Xingyu grinned, a glint of chill malice surfacing within his scarlet eyes amidst the darkness: “That won’t require the Justice’s fretting. You simply need to play the obedient hostage; once I clear this area, I’ll naturally let you go.”
As he spoke, Zhuang Xingyu used one hand to press Ston’s wrists upward above his head, while using his other hand to rip open the front of Ston’s judicial uniform.
With a sharp rip, the neatly fastened buttons lining Ston’s uniform were entirely torn away, clattering onto the floor in a flurry. Several even bounced repeatedly before striking the wing feathers Zhuang Xingyu was using to cage them, producing soft, muffled clatterings.
Ston was dumbfounded. The words ‘where on earth do you intend to escape to’ which had already reached the tip of his tongue got forcefully choked back down his throat, causing his subsequent outburst to twist uncontrollably into: “Zhuang Xingyu, what the hell are you doing?!”
“Searching you.”
With an unapologetic, wicked smirk, Zhuang Xingyu continued the uninterrupted motion of the hand that had torn open Ston’s uniform jacket, sliding it straight through the parted collar of the white undershirt to stroke upward across Ston’s upper body.
Zhuang Xingyu’s palms matched the texture of his physique, sprouting those fine, soft white feathers. Being caressed across the skin by a pair of non-human palms generated a bizarre, surreal sensation simultaneously soft, warm, and spine-chillingly uncanny with an indescribable tactile quality that instantly forced Ston’s muscles to lock rigidly, sending a shiver rippling across his skin.
“Get lost!” Completely infuriated, Ston could no longer suppress his anger and began struggling violently.
Yet regardless of how advanced Ston’s combat techniques might be, when measured in raw, brute physical strength, he clearly remained at a disadvantage against Zhuang Xingyu.
Consequently, Zhuang Xingyu continued suppressing Ston with sheer physical dominance, tore open the remainder of Ston’s upper garments to conduct a meticulous pat-down ensuring no tracking devices or secondary weapons were taped to his skin, and then drifted that hand downward toward Ston’s trousers.
“…” Ston’s voice dropped into an icy register as he spoke abruptly: “If you dare tear my pants, I’ll gouge out your eyes.”
Zhuang Xingyu raised his head, locking eyes directly with Ston’s cold, resolute gaze. Even though he was undeniably the party holding the upper hand in physical strength, for reasons unknown, a phantom sensation of searing pain rippled behind his own eye sockets, as though they were genuinely about to be gouged out.
Hence, offering a faint chuckle, Zhuang Xingyu proceeded with his search of his own accord.
Because he needed to inspect all the way from the thighs down to the calves, Zhuang Xingyu was forced to relinquish his hold on Ston’s wrists.
Seizing the opening, Ston pushed himself upward and delivered several brutal, punishing punches straight toward Zhuang Xingyu’s head, chest, and injured right wing.
Enduring the blows one by one, Zhuang Xingyu stubbornly persisted until his fingers brushed against the small combat dagger concealed inside Ston’s boot, pulling it out and tossing it far into the distance.
Having completed the search of his lower limbs, Zhuang Xingyu freed up a hand, his absolute priority being to snatch Ston’s hands back to prevent him from continuing his assault.
“Alright, alright, stop hitting me.” Sitting astride Ston’s thighs while laboriously wrestling to recapture Ston’s wrists, Zhuang Xingyu complained, “Justice, you pack a seriously painful punch, you know that?”
With a face dark as a thundercloud, Ston delivered several more vicious strikes to Zhuang Xingyu’s face before his hands were finally subdued and pinned on either side of his body.
“Fine, fine, search complete,” Zhuang Xingyu clamped down on Ston’s wrists, flashing a wicked grin. “Now we hit the road. Be a good boy and cooperate, alright?”
Ston glared daggers at Zhuang Xingyu. At this moment, with his wrists pinned on either side by Zhuang Xingyu, his clothing in disarray, and his pale, slender chest and abdomen half-exposed, he bore zero resemblance to the dignified, solemn Grand Justice of ordinary days.
Zhuang Xingyu swore to himself that he had zero desire to gawk wantonly; yet the sight of Ston right before him contrasted so shockingly against the haughty, arrogant Grand Justice he had first encountered that it possessed a surreal, captivating dissonance. As a result, unable to help himself, Zhuang Xingyu let his gaze linger, sweeping back and forth repeatedly across the open expanse of Ston’s parted collar.