Otherworldly Affairs Office-Chapter 69: The True Face of Shangxing

Pei Yan glanced at the six captives gathered together and then at the four corpses placed to one side. Besides him and Captain Hu, the three initially killed by Shangxing, the third-level awakened ability user Shangxing had injured when joining Hu Wenjun’s battle eventually died from severe injuries after being fitted with a confinement ring.

Pei Yan looked at Qi Youting, who was staring at him with a face full of fear in the crowd, and couldn’t help but ask, "What will happen to them after this?"

"Their identities will be verified to investigate what crimes they’ve committed, and punished accordingly. However, as superpower criminals, the punishment they receive from within the country is much harsher than normal laws in society. Most of these people can forget about leaving prison for the rest of their lives," Hu Wenjun said as he summoned clothes from his ring and started tidying them.

"Will they be held at the bureau?"

"No, there’s a secret prison specifically for holding them," Hu Wenjun said as he kicked the prisoner beside him and continued to instruct, "Pei Yan, deactivate your ability and put your clothes on, remember not to deactivate the power in your right hand! There will soon be a professional team coming here to take them away. You should return to the bureau with them then. I’ll go out first and see the situation outside. You and Shangxing keep an eye on them here!"

"Understood!" Pei Yan and Shangxing said in unison. Then Hu Wenjun released his inner energy to communicate with the Jiezhi Space. The originally gray sky of the Jiezhi Space began to ripple with waves of orange-red, and after a while, the ripples gradually dissipated, and Hu Wenjun vanished into a light in front of them.

Pei Yan glanced at his shattered clothes on the ground and felt a pang of heartache. He had worn these new clothes for celebrating the New Year at Hu Wenjun’s house, but they were ruined in just a few days. After this event, he swore that in the future, any clothes he wore while going out would be covered by the ring’s imprint.

Now, it’s too late to recover; Pei Yan helplessly began to deactivate his ability gradually, summoning clothes from the ring and putting them on. This process he had practiced privately over a dozen times and was very familiar with.

After changing clothes, Pei Yan sat down on the ground not far from the crowd, staring blankly at the four corpses.

After checking the captives, Shangxing turned back and saw Pei Yan in a daze. He sat down slowly beside him and asked, "Is this your first time killing someone?"

"Yes!" Pei Yan nodded silently. Until now, he had been in a state of fighting and anger, ruthlessly defending himself when his family was threatened by a crowd. At the time, he felt nothing, but now, calm, looking at the mutilated corpse he had left behind instilled in him an inexplicable emotion — emptiness? guilt? fear? excitement? He couldn’t discern this emotion, and it made him uneasy!

"Am I really that hopeless?" Pei Yan rubbed his neck with his right hand. The cold mechanical hand touching his skin slowly calmed his emotions, leading him to self-mockingly say.

Shangxing tilted his head, puzzled, and asked, "Why do you say that?"

"Killing enemies yet feeling so melancholy, do I seem overly emotional? They are criminals, right? I was not wrong to kill them, right?" Pei Yan shrugged, feigning indifference, and said casually.

"I can’t answer you because I’m not a psychologist. However, I’ve read books on this subject, and your reaction is normal. For someone who has grown up in a normal, healthy, civilized environment, feeling inexplicably excited and unusually calm after the first kill would be the real problem." Shangxing spoke while pulling out a cigar box from his ring, extracting a cigar, and after an intricate process that seemed bewildering to Pei Yan, having lit it three times, he clipped it with a cigar cutter and placed it in front of Pei Yan.

Faced with this gesture from Shangxing, the great ape who would be his future partner, Pei Yan took it in hand, imitating scenes in movies, put it to his mouth, and took a puff only to start coughing violently. This tasted worse than the cigarettes he smoked before.

"Don’t inhale into your lungs; savor it slowly in your mouth, swirl it with your tongue, then exhale gently. Don’t smoke it too quickly; take a puff and let it linger for a while," Shangxing explained patiently beside him.

Ye Weian followed Shangxing’s advice, taking a few puffs in the prescribed way, and couldn’t tell if the cigar really tasted better or if it was psychological, but the flavor gradually calmed his nerves after his first kill, resulting in a newfound addiction to this sensation.

Shangxing looked at Pei Yan, who slowly closed his eyes, enjoying the inner peace. "How are you feeling now? Have you calmed down a bit?" he asked.

"Much calmer, thank you! Aren’t you going to deactivate your ability and return to your original form? They’ve all been subdued, so there shouldn’t be any more fighting!" Saying this, Pei Yan raised the cigar in his hand to Shangxing to express gratitude and took another puff.

Shangxing calmly said, "This is not my ability; this is my true form! I was originally a silverback gorilla."

"Cough, cough, cough!" Hearing this, Pei Yan accidentally swallowed the smoke in his mouth and started coughing repeatedly, staring in shock at the calm Shangxing before him.

"Does this surprise you? Or do you also see me as an unevolved lower life form?" Shangxing grinned broadly, asking.

Pei Yan quickly waved his hand, stammering in explanation, "No, no, no! I never meant that! It’s just hard to accept at first! This, this....!"

"It’s hard to believe, right?" Shangxing said as he pulled out another cigar, processing it as he spoke. "There’s nothing impossible about it. There are many like me in this world. They’re in the bureau too; you just haven’t noticed them yet."

Pei Yan struggled to find the right words and finally, cautiously asked, "You mean... those like you, the gorilla?"

"No, I mean those of us who have transformed from animals into ability users!" Shangxing tossed away the burnt matchstick in his hand and said leisurely.

Hearing this, Pei Yan slapped his forehead, suddenly enlightened, "Oh, oh, right! Right! I remembered the old yellow dog at the warehouse door!"

Shangxing put the cigar in his mouth, took a long drag, exhaled the smoke slowly, shook his head, and said, "No, he is still different from us. He’s an exception — it’s better you don’t know for now. Actually, we’re quite similar to you; you’re influenced by the Daoist Realm and the Magic Realm, with abilities awakened by your inner source, while our inner source comes from the Spirit Monster Realm. That dimension’s world is unlike others; its energy only affects animals. If someone’s inner source is unfortunately awakened from that dimension, they become what humans view as monsters, ultimately dying because their bodies can’t handle such transformation."

Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnovel(.)com