After Picking Up the Rival Boss, It Smells Really Good - Chapter 19

“So, this is the red-haired beauty?” Qin Gou crouched down, glancing at the bound Ellis on the ground.

Lu Lian’s hands bore several bloody marks from the rope friction. He shook them off indifferently: “What else?”

“Oh, so did you fall for his beauty trap?” As he spoke, Qin Gou pulled Lu Lian’s hand over and took out a bandage to rewrap it.

The fair, slender yet powerful hand showed several shallow blood marks, with a scabbed wound visible at the tiger’s mouth area below – clearly a bite mark.

“Don’t ask why I carry this with me.” Qin Gou lowered his head. “It’s because I bit someone, and that someone never bothers to change dressings, so I have to keep an eye on it.”

“If it doesn’t heal properly, I don’t want this tooth mark to follow you for life.”

“Whatever.” Lu Lian took the bandage himself, withdrawing his hand. He tilted his head and used his teeth to pull the bandage tight, tying a neat knot.

Qin Gou watched for a moment. The obvious bite mark was completely concealed by the white bandage, disappearing without a trace. The bandage wrapped around the slender, fair hand appeared particularly ascetic.

No one but Qin Gou knew what lay beneath.

Qin Gou turned away: “How do we deal with him?”

Lu Lian slowly crouched down. Ellis kept his head lowered, clenching his teeth and turning his face away. Lu Lian directly grabbed his hair, forcing his face back: “What would happen if I destroyed your Mental Sea?”

Qin Gou fell silent. This meant he would become completely insane – the most common threat higher-level Nuclear Inhibitor Possessors used against lower-level ones.

Ellis widened his eyes, trembling with rage and resentment, having long lost his initial radiant appearance. His usual sharp tongue failed him now, leaving him unable to speak.

Qin Gou glanced over and timely reminded: “So you’d better demonstrate whatever remaining value you have.”

Ellis bit his lip: “I…”

“You look very similar to that blond boy. Are you relatives?” Qin Gou suddenly said.

“Don’t hurt him!” Ellis’s eyes nearly burst with fury.

“Why would we hurt him,” Qin Gou tapped his fingers, “He looks like a minor. We should send him to the juvenile supervision center for proper education.”

Ellis froze for a moment. He gasped for breath, as if only now perceiving Qin Gou’s genuine goodwill. He slumped back down and after a long pause finally spoke: “I can guide you help me. save my brother.”

Qin Gou patiently guided: “Kill Caberry, and your brother will naturally be saved.”

Ellis nodded, looking somewhat disheveled. He then turned to look at Lu Lian and explained: “Believe it or not, I genuinely wanted to help you find Caberry earlier. I hate that old bastard to death. Ever since he picked up me and my brother, we’ve been living like his dogs every day. I really want to kill him someday.”

“But he captured my brother to threaten me.” Ellis paused, “As long as you don’t harm my brother, I’ll serve you with utter devotion!”

“What would we do with your devotion.” Qin Gou laughed, “But given prior experience, we can’t let you move freely anymore. Lead the way.”

Lu Lian glanced back at Qin Gou briefly. Qin Gou’s earlier actions had effectively secured Ellis’s safety.

“What’s wrong,” Qin Gou glanced at Lu Lian while walking, “not satisfied with my approach?”

“Making him surrender without spending a single soldier – why would I be dissatisfied?”

Qin Gou let out an “ah”: “I thought it might spoil your mood for a bloodbath.”

Lu Lian ignored him.

This time Ellis was finally behaving properly. They didn’t encounter any more mechanisms along the way. After winding through countless turns for a long time, Ellis said while walking: “The passages here are particularly complex, but if he’s really afraid of you, he should have gone straight out. There’s only one exit passage.”

As he spoke, he pushed open a wooden door and looked inside.

All three of them saw Eden hanging in the air!

“Eden!” Ellis shouted loudly!

Eden’s mouth was gagged, his eyes wide open as he mumbled, unclear what he wanted to say. Both his hands and feet were tied, with a conspicuous Dark Red Potion attached to his waist.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Qin Gou asked.

Lu Lian lifted his eyelids slightly: “Do you think someone with Caberry’s personality would boldly place something important directly on a hostage?”

Clearly a trap.

But Ellis obviously couldn’t care less now. Even with his hands still bound, he rushed forward without even maintaining balance. Qin Gou chased after him, using forceful strength to stop him.

“No… Eden!” Ellis struggled violently.

“Don’t rush, let’s scout the path first.” Qin Gou held several stones in his hand, throwing them in different directions.

No response.

“Hmm?” Qin Gou looked thoughtful. No mechanisms on the ground – where was the trap?

Seeing this, Ellis broke free from Qin Gou and rushed forward.

Suddenly, a small mechanism on the wall shot a wooden arrow directly toward Eden.

“Eden!”

However, this wooden arrow actually cut the rope from which Eden was hanging.

Qin Gou: “?”

Eden fell heavily to the ground, and along with his fall, the Red Potion at his waist shattered.

The potion’s scent spread through the air, and Ellis’s movements instantly froze.

A red Mental Sea erupted from his body in an instant.

He was also an Experimental Subject!

Qin Gou quickly stopped Lu Lian.

“Just a B-grade Mental Sea,” Lu Lian commented after a glance.

Ellis’s eyes were vacant, having lost his sanity. His Mental Sea began continuously expanding and growing.

Beside him, Eden clutched his head in pain. With his hands now free, he quickly pulled the cloth from his mouth and shouted at Ellis, hoping to restore his sanity: “Ellis! It’s me!”

Ellis didn’t respond. He turned directly, his empty gaze fixed on Lu Lian, then suddenly charged forward violently.

Lu Lian glanced at him and effortlessly dodged.

“So he’ll indeed attack those with Core Inhibitors first?” Qin Gou said. “If we don’t stop him, he’ll soon die from spiritual sea collapse.”

Hearing this, Eden quickly tried to stand up and chase after them, but his feet were still bound. He fell to the ground with a thud. Unable to distinguish friend from foe now, he could only anxiously plead with Qin Gou and Lu Lian: “Please save him!”

Qin Gou glanced at Lu Lian. Stopping someone experiencing spiritual sea collapse was far more difficult than killing them. Lu Lian also glanced at Qin Gou, and suddenly both moved simultaneously, charging toward Ellis.

Qin Gou grabbed Ellis by the shoulder, his brow furrowed tightly. As an ordinary person, it was nearly impossible to remain unaffected at close range against a B-level threat.

Seizing the moment while Ellis was restrained, Lu Lian struck from behind with a palm imbued with gray spiritual sea.

The red spiritual sea was instantly pierced through by this blow. Just as it was about to reach Ellis, an even more violent spiritual sea erupted from his body.

Qin Gou and Lu Lian retreated instantly.

Qin Gou blocked with his arms, enduring the fluctuation. “Tch,” he clicked his tongue, “forcing someone’s spiritual sea to this extent they’re truly disregarding their own life.”

Lu Lian stood nearby, the gray spiritual sea in his hand growing even more intense.

Just as the two prepared to take further action, a loud noise came from the wall that had been struck by Ellis’s spiritual sea fluctuation.

Everyone turned to look at once.

The smell of burning filled the air.

“Not good!” Qin Gou shouted. From the very beginning, Caberry hadn’t intended to rely solely on Ellis to deal with them instead, they had used this unique spiritual sea fluctuation to ignite specially crafted explosives buried nearby.

With a “boom,” massive flames surged forward like a fire beast devouring everything in its path.

Lu Lian’s gray eyes reflected the brilliant blaze. In the same instant, an immense gray spiritual sea erupted, countering the violent explosion and protecting the small area around Lu Lian and Qin Gou.

“Boom!”

Overwhelming flames rolled forth, leaving no room for escape. Eden stood frozen in place, paralyzed by fear.

Suddenly, a figure with golden-brown hair stepped in front of him.

Eden’s eyes nearly burst with terror: “Brother!”

Fire blazing, all-consuming fire filled Ellis’s hollow gaze in that moment.

He and Eden had been abandoned in a vast snowstorm. Many said it was the heaviest snowfall Gorgona Island had ever seen.

But few on the island paused to admire the snowscape. Most were busy with their own affairs, navigating the fringes of gray transactions perhaps for fame and fortune, or simply to survive.

Ellis hated that snowstorm. Their only possession was a tattered cloth, which now wrapped around his shivering form and his unconscious younger brother, Eden.

Eden had developed a high fever. Ellis reached to feel his brother’s forehead, but his own hands were so numb from the cold he could no longer distinguish hot from cold.

He wrapped all the cloth around Eden, revealing just how tattered his own clothes were hardly enough to cover his body. “Eden, wake up! Don’t fall asleep! Don’t sleep!”

The golden-haired boy in his arms looked like an angel forsaken by God, as if a single gust of wind might carry him back to the heavens. He struggled to open his eyes, and tiny specks of snow fluttered down from his long, delicate lashes.

“Brother…” Eden’s voice was faint, almost inaudible. Ellis leaned closer, their similarly colored locks brushing against each other. He heard Eden’s broken, strained words: “Brother will I die…?”

“No!” Ellis shouted. He cupped Eden’s frost-reddened cheeks, rubbing them vigorously to generate some warmth. “Eden, you won’t die! Open your eyes wide! Wider! Didn’t you say you wanted to see the play I’m in? I play the prince! Hold on a little longer.I’ll take you to see it tomorrow, okay?!”

“Yes, I want to see.” Eden struggled to widen his dark eyes as he looked at Ellis, but he was truly exhausted. He slowly blinked once. “Dad, Mom also want to see, why don’t they come anymore?”

Ellis bit his pale, frostbitten lips. He couldn’t answer that question. Tears and mucus had frozen on his face, and he wiped them away roughly. “They’ll come. Don’t sleep. Eden!”

“Okay.” Eden blinked and said, “Brother is the most handsome prince.”

His voice grew fainter, and the blinking of his eyelids slowed, slower and slower, until no amount of shouting or shaking from Ellis could make a difference.

Eden blinked once more, but this time, his eyelids didn’t lift again.

Ellis could no longer see those large, dark, glistening eyes.

“Eden! Eden! Wake up! Wake up! Don’t sleep! Don’t sleep.” Ellis cried out weakly with his frostbitten, hoarse voice. He tightened the ragged cloth around them desperately, as if trying to hold onto something.

Ellis screamed until his voice gave out. The cold wind rushed into his throat, and he couldn’t hold back a sob.

Who would save him? Who would save us?!

A burning torch was thrown to the ground, its flames crackling and spitting sparks.

Ignoring the risk of burns, Ellis lunged forward and embraced the fire.

The heat scorched his skin, and the sensation of alternating extremes ice and fire made him tremble strangely.

He looked up at his savior: a middle-aged man in a leather jacket with one eye, who was watching him with an inscrutable gaze.

“Sir!! Please, sir have mercy, save my brother!!” He grabbed the man’s pant leg pleadingly, lifting his pale, fragile face to look at him.

But then he saw the man pull out a long syringe, its red liquid rippling slightly with the motion.

The man stared at him with his single eye, then suddenly gripped his chin with one hand. The man’s rough fingers rubbed against his frostbitten skin, sending shivers of pain through him. A hoarse, grim voice came from above: “Want to live? Then you must pay the price.”

Ellis’s eyes widened. The man pushed the syringe’s plunger slightly, expelling excess cold air. A drop or two of the red liquid dripped from the needle onto his face.

No one will save me.