Why Do All the Villains Look at Me Like This? - Chapter 2

Meng Xuexiao and Xu Gao were tied up and thrown into the depths of the warehouse. The shop owner and his accomplice lingered for a while before leaving, they were probably going to contact the human experimentation organization.

Afraid of being discovered, the two fugitives had at least made some effort to camouflage the outer parts of the warehouse, but deep inside, it was a completely different story.

Dampness and the stench of blood rushed to meet them, mixed with labored breathing and the sound of the wind, all tangled together. Even Meng Xuexiao himself wasn’t sure whether those strained breathing sounds were coming from him.

 

He struggled to turn over, his mouth tightly sealed with black tape. The skin around it was already starting to redden.

Meng Xuexiao wanted to wake Xu Gao up, but his hands had long been tightly bound behind his back. Helpless, he could only reach out with his foot and lightly kick him. Xu Gao’s body swayed slightly but didn’t wake up.

Meng Xuexiao kicked him again, this time with more force, still no response.

No choice, it looked like he could only rely on himself.

 

Meng Xuexiao shifted his position and began fiercely rubbing the rope binding his hands against the ground. The floor was very rough. If he kept applying force, he might have a chance to wear through the rope.

Because of the awkward angle, Meng Xuexiao couldn’t properly control his force. The rope hadn’t worn through much, but his fingers were already reddened from the friction. His wrists were probably swollen from the rope chafing, even the slightest movement caused a sharp stinging pain.

Meng Xuexiao closed his eyes briefly but didn’t stop moving.

Until—

“Mm!!”

His muffled cry was sealed behind the tape, his fingertip had slammed heavily against a shard of stone on the ground, splitting the skin at his knuckle and causing it to bleed.

 

At that moment, a sound came from deep within the warehouse. A rustling noise, as if something was crawling.

Meng Xuexiao froze, instinctively turning his gaze toward the source, only to meet a pair of piercing, sharp eyes.

It was… a person?

 

The person looked extremely battered, his black hair clumped together with dried blood, one side of his face swollen high, and his military academy uniform almost completely soaked in blood.

Could this person be the “colonel’s son” those kidnappers were talking about?

The colonel’s son, Shen Zekai, had already been held captive here for some time. His physical fitness was S-rank, but the shop owner and his accomplice, afraid he would escape, hadn’t given him any food or water for several days. Even someone with S-rank endurance was now close to his limit.

 

Just now, when he heard sounds, Shen Zekai had thought those two bastards were coming to torment him again, only to meet the cautious gaze of a young boy.

In the pitch-dark warehouse where one could not even see their own hand, only Meng Xuexiao’s eyes reflected a faint glimmer, like glass marbles that had fallen to the ground, bringing a bit of clarity to Shen Zekai’s already groggy mind.

“Snap”

The sound of the rope rubbing, which had paused for a moment, started up again. Meng Xuexiao shifted his gaze away and continued struggling.

“Are you also a military academy student who was captured by them?” Shen Zekai spoke with difficulty, his voice hoarse beyond recognition.

 

Meng Xuexiao ignored him, and couldn’t respond even if he wanted to, continuing to struggle.

Shen Zekai watched him for a while, his gaze lingering especially on the boy’s slightly flushed cheeks.

“Don’t move. I’ll help pull the tape off your mouth first. You could suffocate if you keep struggling like that,” he said.

Meng Xuexiao’s face was simply too small, and the tape was too wide. It didn’t just seal his mouth, it pressed down on his nose too. With his struggling, Meng Xuexiao’s breathing had become increasingly labored.

Meng Xuexiao’s movements paused. He looked at Shen Zekai again.

There were still faint tape marks visible on Shen Zekai’s face, but the tape itself was gone, he must have managed to remove it somehow.

 

After a brief hesitation, Meng Xuexiao began inching toward Shen Zekai.

“Wuwuwuwu!”

Before Meng Xuexiao could reach him, a muffled sound suddenly rang out.

Xu Gao had woken up at some point.

Xu Gao had never expected that just coming out to buy some books would lead to something like this. Not only had he been struck with a rod, but when he woke up, he found himself in such a dark and terrifying place, his heart was pounding wildly.

The moment he saw someone who might be able to help him, he immediately made a sound.

 

Xu Gao hurriedly scrambled toward Shen Zekai, letting out several more muffled cries of “wuwuwu.”

Shen Zekai understood what he meant. Xu Gao was saying, “Help me.”

He frowned slightly. “One at a time.”

 

Since Xu Gao wasn’t having trouble breathing because of the tape, Shen Zekai decided he should help Meng Xuexiao first.

But Xu Gao was far too panicked. He kept shaking his head, crawling even faster toward Shen Zekai.

He looked at Shen Zekai the way a drowning man would look at a floating piece of wood, desperate for survival. When he got close, he lunged forward hard, but accidentally used too much force and collided directly with Shen Zekai.

“Thud!”

 

Both young men were quite tall, and with that collision, they knocked over a metal crate in the warehouse. One crate fell into another, and soon, with a series of “clang, clang” sounds, things were scattered all over the ground.

Meng Xuexiao immediately turned to look at the warehouse door.

 

Sure enough, the next second, the door was kicked open.

The shop owner and his accomplice barged in, both looking furious.

“Making such a racket — what, you think we’re deaf? Believe it or not, I’ll shoot you all right now!”

As soon as they stepped inside, they saw Meng Xuexiao, Shen Zekai, and Xu Gao all gathered together, and their expressions turned even more twisted.

“Well, well, already hooking up together? Planning to escape, huh?”

The shop owner grabbed Meng Xuexiao and Xu Gao, one in each hand, as easily as if he were picking up two little chicks, and almost started roaring at his accomplice, “What did I tell you before? These two brats shouldn’t have been kept alive! Making all that racket—what if they attract the colonel’s people over here? Together, they’re not even worth as much as the colonel’s son!”

 

Meng Xuexiao had already been struggling to breathe, and now that he was being lifted like this, his dizziness worsened to the point of almost fainting. But he couldn’t afford to care about the physical discomfort now.

Compared to dying immediately, he would rather be sold to the human experimentation organization.

 

He struggled slightly, turning his face toward the shop owner’s accomplice. He lifted his head just enough to make sure the man could see his eyes.

When those two had been talking about the human experimentation group earlier, Meng Xuexiao had overheard a bit, this man had said he was very satisfied with Meng Xuexiao’s eyes, mentioning that the lab specifically liked to collect beautiful eyes.

Because of that, Meng Xuexiao could be sold at a much higher price than an ordinary test subject.

He was gambling—gambling that this man’s greed would still make him hesitate to kill.

But the shop owner’s accomplice, still spooked by what had just happened, made the final decision, “Then let’s just finish them off!”

The same iron rod that had been used earlier was raised again.

 

Meng Xuexiao’s heart plunged into despair.

At that moment, Xu Gao suddenly began struggling fiercely. His wild thrashing didn’t just draw attention away from Meng Xuexiao, even the two criminals turned to focus on him.

The shop owner and his accomplice exchanged a glance, then simultaneously burst into laughter, like cats gleefully watching a mouse struggling in a cage, savoring the twisted pleasure that came with holding life and death in their hands.

The shop owner violently tore the tape off Xu Gao’s face, ripping his skin in the process. “Say whatever you want now, think of it as your last words.”

Xu Gao frantically shook his head. “Don’t kill me! I didn’t help them escape!”

 

His panicked gaze darted toward Meng Xuexiao and Shen Zekai, one was being held up in the shop owner’s hand, and the other was lying miserably on the ground.

Xu Gao forced himself to calm down. “It was them who tried to escape! I-I tried to stop them!”

Such a statement was utterly absurd. Not only would the two vicious kidnappers not believe it, but even Meng Xuexiao didn’t believe it. Kidnappers and their victims—they were fundamentally on opposite sides.

“I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to end up in a human experimentation lab!” Xu Gao said urgently. “I’m a Federal Military Academy student, I can be useful! You’re doing this for money, right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kidnapped the colonel’s son. I can help lure students out of the military academy for you!”

“Maybe selling one or two students won’t make much money—but what about dozens, or hundreds?!”

 

Xu Gao’s voice was desperately eager, making Meng Xuexiao involuntarily glance at him sideways. This person, at a moment like this, was actually trying to become an accomplice to the kidnappers.

The shop owner and his accomplice exchanged a few whispers, seemingly agreeing.

“If we let you go now, can you bring people to us?” they asked.

Xu Gao nodded frantically.

“Very good,” the shop owner said, untying him and patting Xu Gao on the shoulder as if entrusting him with an important task. “Go now, and make sure you come back soon.”

Xu Gao nodded again.

 

Before leaving the warehouse, he glanced at Meng Xuexiao and Shen Zekai once more, his eyes carrying a hint of smugness.

So what if they had S-rank strength? In a situation like this, they still wouldn’t survive longer than he would! Once he got out of this warehouse, he would be free to do whatever he wanted under the wide open sky!

As Xu Gao left, the warehouse door slammed shut again, plunging the room back into darkness.

The shop owner turned to his accomplice. “Did you plant the bomb on him?”

“I handled it, don’t worry. He definitely won’t notice.”

The shop owner nodded. “Let’s hope he makes it somewhere crowded before it blows. It’ll make a bigger scene, and it’ll help cover our escape.”

“Now then, let’s deal with the other one.”

The warehouse instantly fell silent.

 

The crates that Xu Gao had knocked over earlier were still scattered messily across the ground, and their chaotic, looming shadows seemed to weigh heavily on Meng Xuexiao’s heart.

He knew —”the other one” referred to him.

Meng Xuexiao began struggling with all his might.

The shop owner lifted him a bit higher, gripping his pale cheeks with one hand, looking at him with great interest. “What’s wrong? You want to be like your good classmate and pitch us a few new ideas?”

“Mm, mm!” Meng Xuexiao, already struggling to breathe, shook his head while letting out muffled whimpers, his eyes fixed intently on the shop owner.

“Tch!” The shop owner finally tore the tape off his mouth.

Afraid the man would regret it, Meng Xuexiao immediately spoke up, “You’ve already been discovered by the Enforcer.”

 

The Enforcer —in the original story, he was a top-tier villain active within the Federation, classified as Level 2S. In the early part of the novel, everyone thought he was a nameless hero who did good deeds, because he only ever attacked vicious criminals.

But as the plot unfolded, it was revealed that the Enforcer’s true identity was the Federation’s first supercomputer, also known as the Super Intellect. It could process in one second the amount of information humanity wouldn’t be able to decode even in tens of thousands of years.

Its information network permeated every corner. Anywhere covered by the Federation’s internet was its absolute domain.

It was the king of all electronic devices.

 

The Federation had originally created it to protect humanity, hoping that by analyzing its massive database, it could deduce the best possible path for human survival.

However, as the Super Intellect evolved step by step, it came to a conclusion. Humanity itself was the greatest obstacle to humanity’s survival.

 

Thus, its sense of justice became twisted.

Starting with criminals, it began systematically stripping away humanity’s living space, and in just two years, it had driven humanity to the brink of extinction.

By now, the Enforcer’s name had become infamous among criminals, even the most inexperienced thug had heard of it.

 

“Impossible! We’ve never used the internet from start to finish precisely to avoid attracting the Enforcer’s attention!” The shop owner immediately denied it, but he still instinctively pulled out his phone to check the network connection.

“The Enforcer doesn’t necessarily have to use the internet,” Meng Xuexiao said, his heart beating wildly. “I remember you just contacted the human experimentation organization.”

He knew he was lying.

The Enforcer was a “busy man” preoccupied with carrying out humanity’s population reduction plan, dealing exclusively with major, vicious crimes. It had always been indifferent to cases like kidnappings.

But Meng Xuexiao still tried his best to keep his voice calm and convincing.

What Meng Xuexiao could think of, the shop owner naturally could too.

“There are countless crimes happening within the Federation,” the shop owner said coldly.

“Why would he bother with ours?”

Meng Xuexiao closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and said firmly, “Because we know each other.”

“My physical fitness is F-rank, but as you know, I’m a student of the Federal Military Academy.”

Taken individually, neither “F-rank” nor “Federal Military Academy student” sounded too shocking. But when these two facts were put together, it became a bombshell.

Even Shen Zekai, himself a military academy student, was stunned for a moment.

 

An F-rank was simply not supposed to be able to enter the Federal Military Academy. Even admitting E or D ranks had only been a reluctant compromise by the school’s group of stubborn elders.

Family background meant nothing in the face of physical fitness rankings. If Shen Zekai himself had been F-rank, even if his colonel father went to plead with the top brass of the academy, he still wouldn’t have been admitted.

But if it had been through the Enforcer’s technological modification, then that would indeed be the only hope.

 

Shen Zekai couldn’t help but glance at Meng Xuexiao a few more times.

He hadn’t expected that behind this delicate and beautiful-looking boy was such an extraordinary force.

The group’s silence made Meng Xuexiao quietly breathe a sigh of relief, but the very next second, his heart leapt into his throat again.

“Do you have anything to prove your identity?”

Of course… he didn’t.

But Meng Xuexiao still pointed toward a corner of the warehouse. “I dropped it over there just now.”

The shop owner, half-skeptical, dragged Meng Xuexiao over in that direction. As they passed Shen Zekai, Meng Xuexiao loosened his tightly clenched hand ever so slightly.

“Plop.”

A small piece of broken plastic fell in front of Shen Zekai.

Meng Xuexiao knew that even if he managed to cut the rope, with his F-rank body, his chances of escape were still slim. If he could set Shen Zekai free, though, having an S-rank fighter might give them a fighting chance.

Shen Zekai gripped the plastic shard tightly, but in the next second, he was yanked by the back of his head and slammed onto the ground.

At some point, the shop owner’s accomplice had silently moved behind him.

Meng Xuexiao’s pupils contracted sharply. Realizing too late, he looked up, and sure enough, met the shop owner’s mocking, half-smiling eyes.

 

It was that look again.

The one Meng Xuexiao knew all too well, the same look the man had worn when tricking Xu Gao into leaving with the bomb.

Like a cat watching a mouse flail, knowing it could never escape its claws.

After all, a mouse was just a mouse.

The shop owner pulled back the safety on his gun. “We’ve already wasted enough time,” he said.

“Time to say goodbye.”

 

He aimed at the center of Meng Xuexiao’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

“Bang!”

The sound of flesh being torn filled the air, sticky and sickening.

Meng Xuexiao felt something wet on his face and instinctively reached up to wipe it. Bright red blood smeared across his pale cheek, adding a vivid, almost lurid splash of color to his sickly white skin.

He… was still alive?

He couldn’t help but look toward where the gunshot had come from.

The gun was still in the shop owner’s hand, but the barrel was pointed at the shop owner’s own head.

“Boom!”

 

The shop owner’s tall body collapsed heavily to the ground.

Was it… an accident?

The gun was a new-model energy weapon with an automatic targeting system. Under normal circumstances, how could it possibly misfire and shoot its own user…?

Meng Xuexiao couldn’t quite comprehend it.

Then he heard the shop owner’s accomplice cry out in shock, “What’s going on?! Is there a data error?!”

When the shop owner fired earlier, his accomplice had also pulled out his own gun. But when he aimed the barrel at Meng Xuexiao, the energy gun’s automatic targeting system started flashing a red warning light.

[No target detected ahead. Re-scanning for new targets.]

 

“What the hell do you mean, re-scan?! The guy’s standing right there in front of me!”

The accomplice, refusing to believe it, tried to force the trigger into manual mode by brute force.

But no matter how hard he pressed, the trigger wouldn’t budge.

The trigger felt as if it had been welded in place.

 

This… this was way too freaky!

Had he bought a defective gun?

Damn it, once this was over, he was going to kill that shady merchant…

The accomplice hadn’t even finished cursing in his mind when he suddenly saw the gun, the one that had refused to obey earlier, suddenly make a sharp 180-degree turn.

And the barrel pointed… right at his own head.

 

The hand that had just been frantically pulling the trigger froze completely, not daring to move an inch. In his ears, he heard the mechanical voice of the automatic targeting system.

[Target locked.]

 

Cold sweat instantly broke out on the accomplice’s forehead. He quickly let go and threw the energy gun away.

The gun clattered to the ground, but the automatic targeting system still didn’t shut off.

The barrel spun around again and locked onto him.

[Fire.]

The mechanical voice was like the Enforcer’s hammer of judgment.

“Bang!”

 

The accomplice, who had just been about to turn and flee, was shot directly in the forehead.

His pupils instantly went lifeless.

“W-what the hell?! This is like remote control!

Isn’t this kind of thing only something the Enforcer can do?!”

 

W-wait… wait.

“The Enforcer?!”

In his final moments, the accomplice struggled to turn his head and look at Meng Xuexiao.

Just a few minutes ago, it was this young man who had claimed to be very familiar with the Enforcer.

But… how could that be possible?

Just a mere F-rank!