Then let the witch offer her loyalty

If Zhou Haiwei hadn't suddenly appeared, Sun Kan would have almost forgotten that he was there.

The person most surprised at this moment was undoubtedly Zhou Yan. She never expected that her father would stand up to protect her when she was about to be half-coerced away by the Demon Alliance.

Zhou Haiwei spread his arms to protect Zhou Yan. His tattered clothes were hanging halfway down his body. He looked very disheveled with black eyes and a swollen mouth, but his chest was held high, like a wall.

Zhou Yan's memory of Zhou Haiwei has always been one of endless beatings; no matter what she did in front of him, she would get beaten.

Zhou Yan felt that Zhou Haiwei must really hate her, hate her to the core, otherwise he wouldn't have given her such a name.

Regardless, Zhou Yan felt that this was his father, his only relative in the world, so he could endure being beaten, scolded, and insulted.

Now, this father, who could be considered a childhood trauma for her, has stepped forward resolutely when her life is in danger, trembling as he protects her.

This scene greatly shocked Zhou Yan. She stared blankly at Zhou Haiwei's tall back, unable to recover for a long time.

Liu Dashan looked at Zhou Haiwei, sizing him up: "Wait, who are you?"

Zhou Haiwei, panting heavily, glared at Liu Dashan: "Who am I? I'm her father! With me here today, no one can touch Zhou Yan unless they step over my dead body!"

"Thump, thump, thump..." Zhou Yan's gaze became increasingly vacant, his heartbeat gradually quickened to an extreme, and even his breathing trembled.

Zhou Haiwei's words were like a knife cutting into my heart, cutting away the fear, apprehension, and uncertainty from my childhood memories.

At the same time, a longing for something lost in memory, called "family affection," surged forth like a tide, surging in my heart.

Seeing Zhou Haiwei acting so arrogantly, Liu Dashan pressed the gun against his forehead and said, "I think you're fucking tired of living!"

"Shh-"

The air jolted suddenly.

Liu Dashan felt as if he had been hit by a truck, and he was thrown back to the ground, his back slamming hard against the concrete. A strong, metallic taste of blood rose in his throat.

He suddenly opened his eyes and saw the figure that had suddenly launched an attack.

Zhou Yan's eyes were red-rimmed, as if burning with flames, filled with an unprecedented ferocity. She gripped Liu Dashan's neck with one hand, while a scarlet blood crystal blade condensed in the palm of her other hand, hovering an inch in front of his eyeballs.

Even more terrifying, centered on Zhou Yan, countless sharp blood spikes formed from congealed blood floated in the air, densely packed and pointing directly at everyone except Zhou Haiwei, ready to cause everyone to bleed on the spot at any moment.

"Don't touch my dad!!!"

Liu Dashan was experienced in judging people and could tell at a glance that this anger was not feigned.

Moreover, Zhou Yan should not have been acting on behalf of anyone. At such a high intensity of spiritual energy use, one or two thorn-like fine black marks have already appeared at the corners of her eyes, which are signs that the erosion of the rampant evil within her body is accumulating.

Liu Dashan didn't want Zhou Yan to explode with rage right there. He slowly put the gun down on the ground and said in a deep voice, "Calm down first, don't be impulsive, let's talk this out."

"If you explode here, I'm a psionicist, so it doesn't matter to me, but your dad can't take it. Do you want him to become a Death Apostle?"

Zhou Yan remained silent for a moment, then stood up from Liu Dashan, retracted the blood that had left his body into his own, and walked towards Zhou Haiwei, protecting him like a cub protecting an old lion.

Liu Dashan got up, took out a device from his pocket, and examined it carefully for a few moments.

Zhou Yan asked in a cold voice, "What is this?"

Liu Dashan glanced at her: "The jamming device we developed internally is specifically designed to block the signals of the Crazy Monitoring Base Stations set up by the Administration in various locations."

"Do you know how dangerous your actions are? If I hadn't happened to be carrying this device, and hadn't misused psionic energy like you just did, the Bureau's hunters would have already received warnings and were rushing here."

Sun Kan quickly chimed in, "What's going on now? Don't you dare cause trouble on my turf! Who is Zhou Yan with?"

Liu Dashan's tone was very assertive: "I will definitely take the witch with me; she is useful to our organization."

Relying on Liu Dashan's respect, Zhou Haiwei retorted forcefully, "You think you can just bring them? I don't agree!"

Liu Dashan clicked his tongue.

Normally, he would have killed these thugs who were everywhere.

But he didn't want to get into a life-or-death conflict with Zhou Yan.

Liu Dashan said impatiently, "What do you want? Stop talking nonsense and just say it."

"What do you want? Zhou Yan is my own flesh and blood, my own daughter!"

Zhou Haiwei shouted righteously.

"You have to pay!"

Chapter 184 Mental Barrier

Zhou Yanben kept a wary eye on Liu Dashan, preventing him from suddenly attacking Zhou Haiwei.

Upon hearing the words "you have to pay," she froze, looking at her father behind her with a puzzled expression.

Zhou Haiwei didn't even look at her, as if she were just a commodity for sale, like a small dog in a cage at the market waiting to be sold.

He rubbed the scab on his nose, took out a crumpled, cheap cigarette case from his pocket, shook out a cigarette, lit it, and said with a roguish grin, "You can take Zhou Yan away, but you'll have to pay to buy her from me."

Even the well-informed Liu Dashan was stunned by this sudden reversal.

He expected to hear things like, "You can't take her away," "My daughter is not someone you can touch," or "Come at me if you have a problem."

...The result was that "you have to pay money"?

Liu Dashan frowned, and asked with some doubt, "How much money do you want?"

Zhou Haiwei blurted out almost without hesitation: "Give me 30 yuan, and Zhou Yan is yours."

Liu Dashan and Sun Kan looked at each other in surprise.

Seeing the strange expressions on their faces, Zhou Haiwei felt a little guilty. He licked his dry lips and lowered his voice: "25 is fine... 20 is the lowest! That's the bottom line! I won't sell it for any lower than that!"

Liu Dashan and Sun Kan's expressions became even stranger.

不 ...

It's not a matter of high price at all...

On the contrary, the price is incredibly cheap.

30 to buy a witch?

If all witches could be bought at this wholesale price, the Demon Alliance could crush the Bureau today and take over the Imperial Capital tomorrow.

Liu Dashan thought Zhou Haiwei was joking with him, and tentatively asked, "30, is that the price?"

“Of course!” Zhou Haiwei replied immediately, “But you have to pay me quickly, within three days.”

Liu Dashan chuckled and said no more. He took out a gold bar from his pocket and threw it over: "500 grams of pure gold, at the current gold price, is about 50. I won't ask for change. Consider the remaining 20 a gift to you."

Zhou Haiwei hurriedly caught the gold bar, first weighed it in his hand to feel its texture, and then took a bite out of it with his teeth.

Upon seeing the teeth mark, his expression immediately changed, transforming from initial forced composure to undisguised ecstasy.

"Hey, bro, that's enough! Thank you so much, bro! You're like a real brother to me! Thank God!!!"

He bowed and scraped to Liu Dashan like a dog wagging its tail, hurriedly hiding the gold bars in his bosom, pressing them tightly as if afraid someone would snatch them away.

At this moment, Zhou Yan stood there motionless, his face pale and his eyes red. He opened his lips as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he couldn't make a sound. He just looked at Zhou Haiwei in bewilderment.

Zhou Yan was beaten and kicked by Zhou Haiwei from a young age and suffered all kinds of insults.

Even so, she believed she knew Zhou Haiwei quite well.

No matter how cold, snobbish, or despicable he may be, he is still a father.

He should at least be a father.

But just now, when Zhou Haiwei said "you have to pay," Zhou Yan felt his heart skip a beat, as if a part of his heart had been hollowed out.

The father she had followed since childhood seemed to have become a complete stranger to her.

Zhou Haiwei was overjoyed as he held the gold bars. He glanced at Zhou Yan and lightly patted her face twice.

"You little brat, I've finally shaken you off."

"If I send you to the bureau, I'll only earn a few hundred yuan a month, which isn't even a drop in the ocean."

"Isn't it great that things are like this now? Everyone is happy, and it's worth all the hard work I put into raising you."

Unbeknownst to him, Zhou Yan's gaze changed.

It wasn't anger, nor sorrow, but a numbness of being stripped bare, a desolation born of utter despair.

Zhou Haiwei glanced down and met Zhou Yan's eyes, and his heart skipped a beat.

He had never seen such a look on Zhou Yan's face before, and for a moment he felt inexplicably uneasy.

He didn't linger. Clutching the gold bars, he strode away, his silhouette swaying under the warehouse lights like a rat crawling into a stinking ditch, without looking back.

"I'm leaving. Do whatever you want with her. Anyway, she has nothing to do with me anymore."

...

After Zhou Haiwei left, Zhou Yan curled up in the corner, staring blankly at the ground. She didn't look at people walking by, and she didn't answer questions. Even when others reached out to help her up, she just let them pull her, like a puppet with its strings cut.

Liu Dashan and Sun Kan also began their operation, leading Zhou Yan to an underground river where small inflatable rafts for transfer had already been prepared.

Sun Kan took out a map, spread it out on the bow of the ship, bent down and pointed to several locations.

"You drift downstream along this underground river tributary. Here, here, people have been arranged to meet you. They will help you transfer to the dock, where the motorboats are ready. You can get on and go out to sea."

"This road goes along the national highway, and there might be some checkpoints there. Is that alright?"

"Don't you trust me to handle things? You can just leave. If anything happens, my people will take care of it."

Liu Dashan nodded, then glanced back at Zhou Yan. She sat silently in the back of the van, her hair falling down to cover half her face, without uttering a word from beginning to end.

"Her way...is quite convenient, and it saves me the trouble of explaining."

Liu Dashan snorted coldly, grabbed Zhou Yan's wrist, and led her toward the inflatable raft.

Zhou Yan's eyes were almost unfocused, and he stumbled as he walked. He even fell when he was pushed onto the raft, but he just moved over and leaned against the seat, and then remained motionless.

Liu Dashan boarded the raft and turned back to nod his chin at Sun Kan.

"Then I'll be going now, I'll contact you later."

"Well, let's go."

After seeing Liu Dashan off, Sun Kan stood on the shore for a moment, watching the raft being carried away by the current and gradually disappearing into the night.

The wind from the underground river carried the smell of dampness and decaying grass. He raised his hand and wiped his forehead haphazardly with his sleeve, muttering under his breath, "Damn it, this is full of twists and turns, I'm sweating buckets."

With a wave of his hand, he led his men away from the underground river, unwilling to linger for even a second longer.

The small boat drifted away in the middle of the river, the night was as dark as ink, and the water was still and undisturbed.

After everyone left, only the soft sound of the flowing river remained.

Suddenly, the transparent air began to distort, and a figure with amber eyes silently appeared in the void.

Chen Moxin opened her communicator and said, "The package has been sent out. Notify the technical department to track it closely."

Yang Jie's voice came from the other end of the communicator: "The body search was really nerve-wracking... I didn't expect Zhou Yan to be so clever."

"She actually used her blood to capture the tracker on her body and then used the blood flow to make it keep moving in her blood vessels, thus avoiding the scanner... I never realized she was so smart."

Chen Moxin smiled slightly: "She has always been very smart, but she has never used her intelligence in the right way. She has used it all to scheme against you."

Yang Jie was silent for a moment, then sighed: "But on the other hand, according to the information provided by Zhang Fengwen, there is actually a simpler way for us to trace the source of the Calamity Weapon."

"So many people went to such great lengths, caused such a commotion, and spent so much time, just to let Zhou Yan infiltrate the witch alliance? Was it worth it?"

Chen Moxin took a deep breath, her tone becoming incredibly solemn: "From the perspective of the mission alone, it's naturally not worth it. There are many methods with shorter paths and lower risks."

"But do you know why I arranged for Zhou Haiwei and Zhou Yan to meet by chance on the way? And what happened just now, director? It's because I wanted to remove Zhou Yan's mental block."

"Zhou Haiwei is a huge obstacle in Zhou Yan's life. He is both the perpetrator and the anchor of Zhou Yan's inner obsession."

"For Zhou Yan, whether it was due to traditional worldly values ​​or an unrealistic attachment to family ties, she was unable to completely sever ties with Zhou Haiwei."

"No matter how Zhou Haiwei hit her, scolded her, or humiliated her, she would choose to turn a blind eye and even subconsciously use her identity as 'father' to excuse Zhou Haiwei."

"This feeling is not actually familial affection, but just a habit, because she has been raised this way since she was a child, and a self-protection mechanism has been formed in her heart."

“At this point, we must find an opportunity to make Zhou Yan realize that what she fantasizes about cannot be fulfilled by someone like Zhou Haiwei.”

"So I arranged this chance encounter, so that Zhou Yan would be betrayed by Zhou Haiwei in the most despicable and real way when she thought she needed to rely on him the most."

"This is indeed hurting her, but it is also saving her. I want to tear out the mental block that has troubled her all her life from her heart."

Chen Moxin gazed in the direction Zhou Yan had left, and said meaningfully, "Although I don't know what she's thinking right now—maybe anger, maybe sorrow, maybe just emptiness—I don't know. But one thing is certain—"

"This time, Zhou Haiwei has truly made Zhou Yan despair."