Chapter Fifteen: Trust That Came Too Late

The gunfire ceased.

The deafening symphony of alarms, flashes, and the clangor of metal—all sounds of war—cut off abruptly. The entire abandoned Jin Hai multi-story parking structure was plunged into an eerie, post-carnage silence, as though all life had been scoured away and only the ghosts remained.

A heavy, peculiar scent hung in the air—a blend of vapor, gunpowder, ozone, and blood. The fire suppression system still dripped water, tick… tick… onto the concrete, as if mourning the massacre just ended with a belated, sorrowful rhythm.

On the third floor, this recent hellscape—this “death mezzanine”—was now completely under the control of the National Security Bureau. Xiao Ran’s squad, exhausted to the bone, methodically swept the battlefield.

“Team A! Count the wounded! Immediate call for medical support!”

“Team B! Collect all enemy weapons and equipment! Count the prisoners!”

“Team C! Check every floor! Make sure no one slips through!”

Xiao Ran leaned against a concrete pillar riddled with bullet holes, gasping for breath. Her combat suit, soaked through by both firefighting water and sweat, clung to her body, tracing the lines of her powerful frame. Streaks of black powder marked her face, lending her icy, frost-like features a wild, untamed beauty.

Her gaze swept slowly, deliberately across the chaos before her. There was a deep complexity in her eyes.

It was as if the camera followed the path of her vision.

Not far away, the industrial elevator that Lin Feng had wielded as a “giant hammer” now sat motionless. Beneath it, the enemy’s core firepower—a nest of heavy machine guns—had been crushed into a repulsive mass of flesh and steel, indistinguishable one from the other.

Elsewhere, several mercenaries knelt on the floor, wrists bound behind their backs with zip ties like crabs strung together. The ferocity and cruelty had drained from their faces, leaving only the terror of survival and an incomprehensible bewilderment. Even to their dying breaths, they likely would never understand how their battle-hardened elite unit lost to a building that fought back.

Below, those enemies who were swallowed or cast down by the mechanical parking system met deaths too grotesque to describe.

All of it was like some absurd, surreal nightmare.

But Xiao Ran knew this was no dream.

This was a path torn open for them from the depths of hell—by one man, kilometers away, using only his keyboard.

She straightened, moving to a corner. She ignored the wound on her arm, cut by shards of concrete, and instead picked up the tactical communicator—nearly crushed in the heat of battle—and switched to Lin Feng’s private encrypted channel.

As the connection clicked through, she felt a tension rise in her heart, something she herself hadn't noticed before.

She cleared her throat, striving to keep her voice as calm and steady as ever.

“Hey...”

She paused, searching for words.

In the end, only a clumsy, yet genuine question emerged, betraying her concern.

“...Are you... still alive?”

There was no immediate reply.

Only a fit of suppressed, agonizing coughs, as if lungs were being torn apart.

“Cough… cough, cough… cough…”

Afterward, Lin Feng’s voice, frail and halting, as if he might expire at any moment, came through.

“…Almost… almost went to see Old Lu…”

Xiao Ran’s heart clenched violently.

She could almost taste the metallic tang of blood in his voice.

“You…”

Before she could finish, a wave of harsh, gut-wrenching retching sounded through her earpiece.

Her pupils contracted to pinpricks.

She hesitated no longer.

Whipping around, she barked an order at the deputy squad leader, her voice urgent and commanding, brooking no dissent:

“You’re in charge here! Watch the prisoners! I’m heading to the command vehicle!”

“Ma’am?!”

Without waiting for his shock to fade, for the first time, before a mission was fully concluded, she ran—unhesitating, anxious—toward the exit like a mother panther defending her young.

...

Using her highest clearance, Xiao Ran forced open the mobile command vehicle’s door. The stench of burnt electronics, mixed with a sour tang of decay, hit her in the face.

The sight stunned her.

Inside, chaos reigned. After the reckless, desperate hacking frenzy, several core servers had overloaded and burnt out, black smoke curling up from them, tainting the air with a bitter, acrid smell.

Lin Feng was slumped in his ergonomic chair.

His face was deathly pale, lips tinged blue, forehead beaded with icy sweat. His hoodie, soaked through, clung to his frame, making him look as gaunt as a skeleton.

At his feet, an overturned trash can spilled the contents of his stomach—energy drinks and bile—across the floor.

The AI assistant, “Mouse,” in a panicked, childish voice, cycled warnings through his tactical smartwatch:

“Warning! Tachycardia! Hypotension! Warning! Central nervous system overload! Immediate artificial hibernation recommended!”

He had nearly exhausted his life force to drag them out of hell.

Xiao Ran watched him in silence, her eyes a tumult of shock, anxiety, and confusion.

But overshadowing all else was a feeling even she struggled to name—a profound, unspoken ache.

She wanted to scold him, call him a reckless madman.

But seeing him so fragile, as if he might die at any second, all her admonishments stuck in her throat.

In the end, only a trembling thread of concern escaped her lips, even she failed to notice.

“Are you insane?”

Lin Feng seemed to hear her voice. With immense effort, he cracked open an eye.

He looked at the woman before him—drenched, face streaked with gunpowder, gaze complex—and a weak, tired smile curled his lips.

Gone was the old mockery, the defiant edge—only the exhaustion of survival remained.

With the last of his strength, he spoke the words that would define the foundation of all their future together.

“No choice…”

“How could I not…”

“…when this wayward idiot owes you a life?”

The words struck Xiao Ran’s heart like a bolt of warmth, piercing her innermost tenderness.

She finally understood.

This man, in his own way, had repaid her—“You owe me a life.”

He’d traded his own for hers.

...

The medics arrived quickly.

After administering oxygen and IV fluids, Lin Feng’s condition stabilized at last.

The atmosphere in the command vehicle, once taut as a wire and later breathless with mortal urgency, finally eased.

At that moment, the deputy squad leader arrived to report.

“Ma’am! All prisoners are secured. We’re confirming their identities. But their leader—the mercenary captain codenamed ‘Butcher’—is a hard case. Refuses to say a word.”

Xiao Ran glanced at Lin Feng, lying on the stretcher nearby, eyes shut but brows still tightly knit. Her gaze turned cold and resolute once more.

She knew the battle was far from over.

Lin Feng had kicked open the gates of hell for them.

The path ahead—she would have to walk it herself.

Rising, she gently draped her waterlogged, bullet-torn combat jacket over Lin Feng.

Then she turned to the deputy, issuing her order with a newfound, unshakable confidence.

“Take them all to headquarters.”

“I’ll handle the interrogation personally.”

In her eyes, there was no longer fear or confusion.

She knew, from this day on, she would not fight alone.

Behind her stood someone she could trust with her back—a “madman” ally, ready to flip the table at her side.