What Exactly Are You
The universe had played a massive joke on me.
Moments ago I'd been beating Victor Kane, and the instant I opened the door, Adrian Cross was ready to return the favor.
Don't panic...
I forced myself to breathe steadily. I had to stay calm.
Maybe last time was a fluke. I just hadn't found Adrian Cross's weakness quickly enough. If I focused this time, I might have a fighting chance.
Most importantly...
I had a hostage!
I grabbed Victor Kane by the hair and said coldly, "Don't come closer, or I'll—"
"Or you'll what, kill him?" Adrian Cross said flatly. "You have no weapons. It's very difficult for a woman to kill a grown man barehanded. Sure, you could look for a weapon, but do you think you'll get the chance?"
I...
Bastard!
I cursed internally, let go of Victor Kane, and kicked at Adrian Cross first!
Before I could react, Adrian Cross had already kicked me!
I was only 1.68 meters tall, but Adrian Cross was around 1.85. Our leg reach wasn't even in the same league!
Before my kick could land, I was sent flying like a kite with a broken string, crashing hard onto the table inside!
Everything hurt... I felt like my whole body was falling apart!
He was completely out of my league!
"Maya Chen..." Adrian Cross walked toward me, his voice cold. "Your husband saved countless lives. He and I were friends for years. After he passed, I promised to protect you and your child. You could have come to me with any problem. But you didn't listen."
I coughed violently, trying to push through the pain.
I struggled to say, "You knew it was me?"
He said coldly, "I recognized you from the start... When we fought in the parking garage, I saw your scars. I was part of your rescue back then. Naturally, I knew your history. I was preparing to set a trap to catch you, but you suddenly disappeared. Then you came back and committed another crime."
I shouted, "I didn't commit another crime! I made the person who killed my child pay!"
"..."
"You act so high and mighty! What right do you have to talk down to me like this? I only killed the person who murdered my child — what did I do wrong? The people I killed deserved it! They should die! I'm the one in the most pain, and you dare to stand there telling me I'm wrong!"
I grabbed a bowl from the table and hurled it at him, on the verge of breaking down!
He didn't dodge.
The bowl struck him. I screamed, "You said you'd protect us! But my child is still dead! What good is your promise? He killed my child, and I made him pay! You claim to be Ethan Cole's friend, but look how you're treating a widow! Adrian Cross! That bastard killed your best friend's child — his last bloodline in this world — and you don't even want that scum dead?"
"I'm sorry," he said. "I never wanted your child to die either. Cooperate and I'll request leniency, fight for a reduced sentence."
I ripped off my mask. Tears streamed down my face.
What was the point?
Talking to a brick wall.
I cried, "You stand on the side of law and justice, but you speak the cruelest, most heartless words. Don't you have a heart? Don't you have someone you love and cherish? Haven't you ever thought that excessive heartlessness will cost you everything? How impressive, Detective Su — everyone knows your heroic deeds, but does the justice you enforce have any heart? I respect you as a hero, but I never want anything to do with someone like you!"
He was silent.
"Your justice is just you talking big because it doesn't affect you! If the criminal weren't me, but Ethan Cole — if he'd lost his temper and killed that scum, would you arrest your own best friend? If the person in danger weren't my child, but someone you love — would you have the same determination to fight to the death?"
I was like a willful child throwing a tantrum.
I hated this feeling.
But I couldn't stop.
He finally spoke. "I would do both. But even if I'd descend into the abyss of pain, I'd still know what my principles are. Catch the criminal and let the judge decide. That simple."
Of course...
He was the most heartless man alive.
I gritted my teeth. "You must regret saving me. Should've left me to die in those mountains. You thought you rescued an innocent girl, but she became a Sin Hunter working against you. Adrian Cross... you're the last person I want to face. Ethan Cole admired you so much. There are plenty of cops in this city — why does it always have to be you standing against me?"
Suddenly, a hand touched my head.
He gently stroked my hair. "Police save people — there's no regret in that. The only thing I regret is not being able to save Ethan Cole and your child."
"That wasn't your fault... I'm in pain, but I know you couldn't have done anything either."
"Stop resisting. You know you're no match for me."
I held out my hands, ready to let him cuff me.
How ironic.
I'd become his trophy — another shining achievement in his career.
Adrian Cross pulled out his handcuffs and was about to put them on me.
Suddenly!
A figure lunged out, jamming a stun baton right into Adrian Cross's leg!
Adrian Cross convulsed several times and collapsed unconscious!
I was completely stunned, staring at the panting Valerian. "You... weren't you knocked out?"
"Scared the hell out of me..." Valerian said. "He appeared out of nowhere! Truly terrifying! He kicked me down, and I immediately faked being unconscious. But the guy didn't believe me — kicked me several more times, and I didn't make a sound! He frisked me and even took my stun baton. He shone a flashlight in my eyes to check my pupils. Good thing I'm a master at rolling my eyes backward — I'm basically a professional at faking unconsciousness!"
"Didn't he take your stun baton?"
"I had a mini one hidden in my underwear! Thanks to Juniper — she sewed a pocket into my undies just for emergencies!"
I...
Valerian dragged Adrian Cross aside and said urgently, "Let's go, before he wakes up."
I nodded, quickly marked the mission as complete, and Valerian zapped Victor Kane unconscious too. We hauled him to the car.
An escort would come pick us up soon.
Valerian sat in the car and muttered, "Adrian Cross isn't all that impressive. I thought he was some kind of superman. Sister, remember what I told you? If he showed up, I'd take him down."
I said, "Why do you have so many stun batons hidden on you?"
"It's kind of embarrassing..." Valerian said. "I worked for over a year to reach Earth level, but I'd actually submitted applications several times before that and kept getting rejected for poor performance. But I'm persistent, so I kept applying. Finally, the platform got tired of me and sent a notice: I could become Earth level, but only if I carried weapons."
I stared at Valerian in amazement.
I'd thought being dead last among Earth-level Sin Hunters was embarrassing enough. Who could've imagined he'd been forced to carry weapons just to qualify for the lowest Earth rank?
Valerian checked his phone and brightened up. "Sister, Sage is coming to get us."
"How do you know?"
"I asked Juniper. She said she didn't get the assignment. So Sage must be handling it. Let's drive somewhere safe first — Sage should contact us soon!"
"Okay."
We drove away and waited. Before long, Sage messaged me for my location. I sent it, and he arrived in a truck.
Sage loaded Victor Kane into the truck, then turned to ask, "Anything to report?"
"Not much..." Valerian said with a hint of swagger. "We hit a snag, but it was no problem for me."
"Oh."
Sage closed the truck door. "What kind of snag?"
Valerian said proudly, "We ran into Adrian Cross. But powerful as I am, I still took him down easily... I just don't get why everyone's so scared of him. I'm not afraid at all."
Sage went silent.
He stared at Valerian through his mask.
"Wh-what?"
"Adrian Cross is far beyond what any of you can handle."
Sage suddenly grabbed Valerian and pinned him against the car door, then started stripping off his clothes!
Valerian panicked. "What are you doing? What are you doing?"
Sage pulled off his jacket. Valerian's jacket had a hood, and Sage fished a tiny GPS tracker out of it. He said coldly, "You call that 'handled'?"
"I..."
Both Valerian and I were stunned.
So Adrian Cross had planted a tracker! Was this intentional? Let us go so he could track us back and take everyone down?
Sage slammed the tracker onto Valerian's chest and snarled, "You almost destroyed the entire The Badlands with your stupidity! If I weren't the one who showed up tonight, Juniper would've been here, and Adrian Cross would've taken down our whole operation!"
Valerian shuddered in fear and whispered, "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't think he'd play a trick like that."
"Keep checking!"
Sage stripped Valerian down to his underwear, meticulously examining every piece of clothing and his shoes, leaving him shivering in the cold.
I pulled out my phone and opened the camera, asking Sage, "Should the underwear come off too?"
"No. If they can hide a tracker there, he might as well be dead."
"Oh."
I put my phone away, slightly disappointed.
Valerian said pitifully, "Sister, I'm already miserable enough. Can you hold back a little?"
"What are you thinking? Women have zero interest in filming that part of a man. I just wanted to send it to Juniper so Big Brain could see how you do missions."
"Sister... please stop bullying us."
Sage finished inspecting the clothes and crushed the tracker. Then he asked, "Anything else to report?"
I started going over every detail in my head...
Suddenly, I reached behind my head and felt a small hard object.
I pulled it out — it was a hair clip with a tracker glued to it!
Damn it!
When Adrian Cross stroked my head to comfort me, he'd planted this!
He really was the most heartless man alive!
I threw the tracker to the ground and crushed it under my foot. Sage nodded. "Since you found your own mistake, I won't say anything."
Valerian said, "You can't strip Sister's clothes off!"
"No. I don't want to die yet."
"Right, Sister would definitely kill you."
"It's not about being afraid of her. It's... never mind."
Sage was silent for a moment, then said, "Let's go. Don't waste time."
We got back in the car. I sat in the passenger seat and had Valerian follow Sage's truck, but something still felt off.
I said, "Adrian Cross has something suspicious about him."
"Like what?"
"Why does he keep finding me? And every time he does, he's alone, with no backup. Most importantly, why is he always solo?"
"Sister, I don't follow."
"When police arrest someone, it's usually multiple officers taking down one suspect — that minimizes risk to both officers and civilians..." I said. "Like catching a thief might require five or six officers. Understand?"
Valerian said, "That's true. Why is Adrian Cross always alone? Did he already know about us and wanted to give us a chance? Or is he so arrogant he thinks he can handle it single-handedly?"
I shook my head.
Adrian Cross had to be extremely cautious. If he weren't, he couldn't be such an outstanding detective. Today's actions proved how detail-oriented he was — if Sage hadn't been paranoid, the Badlands would have been compromised.
How could someone like that be so reckless as to take us on alone?
There had to be a reason.
I was now close to Sage, but I still didn't know how to get information about Cassian Vance from him.
Just then, my phone buzzed several times.
A message from Juniper: "Sister, I finally found the connection between those victims!"
I replied: "What connection?"
"Give me your email and I'll send it."
I gave her my address, and soon received an email.
It listed all the victims — men, women, young, and old.
The text was full of Juniper's self-praise.
"There are 17 victims in total. The connection was hard to find, but this genius discovered the problem. Three victims had worked in the Dafeng Industrial Zone, so I thought — maybe there's something wrong with that zone? Then I dug deeper and found an even bigger issue. All the victims had worked in the Dafeng Industrial Zone! They might have been in different factories, but they were definitely in the same area. So I investigated further, and this little detective actually found it."
"Three of the victims' home villages are Ashford Village, Millbrook Village, and Hargrove Village. These villages are on the same route along the county road. Every year, the workers would charter a bus together to go work. During Spring Festival, they'd charter a bus back — the three villages along the route, picking people up and dropping them off. That was their routine."
"But seventeen years ago, an accident happened. A drunk man, who'd left his wages at a rest stop, grabbed the steering wheel on the bus, causing it to veer off the mountain road. The bus was rated for 45 passengers but was crammed with 70. The accident killed 45 people — it was huge national news. And I discovered that every single person Hemlock killed... was a survivor of that crash!"
I stared at the email, stunned.
The people Cassian Vance killed... were all connected to that bus crash?
I immediately messaged back: "Are the victims all surnamed Hargrove, Morrow, Hale, and Vance?"
Those were the surnames of our villages.
"Yes! Currently there's only one person surnamed Vance — Quentin Vance — but we saved him. And no one surnamed Hale yet."
"If I'm not mistaken... his next targets will be surnamed Vance or Hale!"
If Cassian Vance was killing in this order, it meant he was saving Ashford Village for last.
He'd already killed the survivors from the other villages. Only our own small village remained.
But why?
Why was Cassian Vance killing the survivors?
I couldn't help thinking — Quentin Vance must be hiding some secret. That had to be the reason Cassian Vance wanted him dead!
When the ferry reached the Badlands, I still hadn't found an opportunity to get close to Sage.
He stood by the truck until the boat docked, still deep in thought.
I asked, "Why are you just standing there? Take Victor Kane away!"
He said, "The escort usually has a golden window to clean up any evidence the Sin Hunter might have left behind. But my golden window was wasted on you. This is the only mission where I didn't have time to process the scene. I'm worried something might go wrong."
I said helplessly, "How could something go wrong? We were clean, and we used the escort's designated escape routes."
"Better safe than sorry..." he said. "But you probably won't be caught. Judgment Tower's intelligence is always reliable. If they don't notify me, it means you haven't left any major traces."
Valerian said, "Then what are you worried about? If we're not going to be caught, we're fine. Stop being so paranoid. You don't trust me either much."
Sage glanced at him, said nothing, and drove the truck away.
I returned to Cassian Vance's house. When I opened the door, I jumped.
Cassian Vance was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, watching me quietly.
I asked, "Why are you sitting here in the middle of the night?"
"You went on a mission?"
"Yeah."
"It was a failed mission. Turns out Sage is also incompetent..." he said coldly. "Something went wrong."