A chilling aura emanated from the woman in black, constantly clashing with the intense heat. Extreme cold and extreme heat collided repeatedly in the dark space, causing countless explosions. Brilliant light bloomed around the two identical beauties, as if two beautiful rings of light had been added.
Xiao Rou gently trembled her hand, and the golden ball suddenly floated up, exploding in mid-air several meters above the ground. In the blink of an eye, it formed an arched golden river, one end of which was sweeping towards the woman in black with tremendous force.
With a light touch of her slender feet, Xiao Rou floated above the golden Milky Way. The entire Milky Way immediately churned and rolled, tightly enveloping her entire body. Merged with the silver spiritual energy field, countless dazzling sparks burst forth, making Xiao Rou look like a majestic goddess descending to earth. Her hands held a silver telekinetic spear, which she slowly thrust towards the woman in black. With each step she took, she left a fiery red trail in the air, like blood.
The woman in black bit her lip, a resolute expression suddenly appearing on her face. She and Gu Xiaorou were the same person, even their hearts were connected. Since the other party had already given her all, she would not hold back either. With a swing of her slender arm, her spiritual field suddenly transformed into an extremely dazzling light, like a cold shooting star streaking across the sky, whistling as it collided with the celestial river that Xiaorou had transformed into.
With a deafening roar, as if a mountain had exploded, a storm capable of sweeping everything away instantly flattened all obstacles on the ground. The aurora vanished in an instant, followed by a sudden burst of bright red lava that shot straight out of the hole where the aurora had been. The powerful and straight stream of fire was immediately frozen by the sub-zero temperature of minus one hundred degrees Celsius before it even reached the top, creating a peculiar spectacle of extreme cold and extreme heat merging together.
Xiao Rou revealed herself in mid-air. The light emanating from the golden ball disappeared, and the silver telekinetic spear she gripped tightly in both hands had already deeply pierced the black-clad woman's chest. The telekinetic power of the spear tip was less than a millimeter away from the black-clad woman's heart, but it could not go any further. Her body was trembling incessantly, and her snow-white skin was constantly changing between blue and silver, which was the manifestation of countless hair-thin cold threads freezing inside her body.
A trickle of bright red blood flowed from the corner of the woman in black's mouth. She struggled to straighten her chest, seemingly oblivious to the telekinetic silver spear that could pierce her heart with the slightest movement. She was panting heavily, but smiled triumphantly and said, "Gu Xiaorou, you didn't win against me, nor did you conquer yourself. We will die together. I am not afraid of death, just as you are not. It doesn't matter if my dark side soul disappears, but your original self will disappear with it. I wonder if your little lover will be heartbroken when he finds out."
“No, I have won, you twisted soul in the darkness.” Xiao Rou struggled to open her lips, which were slightly blue from the cold. “Your icy flow sealed my body, but it could not seal my heart. You are exactly the same as me in every way, even in terms of strength and special abilities. If you had used the same Sun River special ability, perhaps we would have really perished together. But you were wrong. You wanted to compete with me to see who was more ruthless and more self-destructive, and that in itself determined your defeat.”
Dark Xiaorou's expression froze, and she said sharply, "I did something wrong? Isn't this your true nature?"
"Hehe..." A gentle expression appeared on Xiaorou's face. "You are just the old me, not the current me. I don't know how you appeared, nor do I know why you and I are so in sync. We are exactly the same in every way, but obviously, you are not me yet, so you cannot understand my feelings."
"And what about your feelings?" A ferocious glint appeared on Gu Xiaorou's dark face. "That kid, is he really that great? That he can use some vague, ethereal love to make you stronger?"
"No, you're wrong. Love doesn't make people stronger; it only changes a person's feelings and personality." Xiaorou's expression had returned to calm. "The difference between you and me is that I've learned to cherish, instead of constantly risking my life. Because I'm not alone. I know how precious I am in Lingyun's heart. I'm fighting for myself and for the people I love. Although Lingyun isn't by my side, his heart is with me. With our combined strength, how could you possibly be my match?"
A surge of heat emanated from her body, thawing her nearly frozen internal organs. This was the effect of her continuously increasing mental energy field.
A look of shock appeared on Gu Xiaorou's face in the darkness: "Impossible, you have feelings now, that's your weakness, how could you possibly defeat me? This is impossible!" She suddenly began to scream hoarsely, her long, mournful cry instantly echoing throughout the entire dark world.
"You have no emotions, so how could you understand the greatness of emotions? To me, you are nothing more than a shadow of concentrated negative emotions. You never truly existed, so why talk about weaknesses? And let me tell you one last thing: defeating you is equivalent to defeating my past. This has always been what troubled me the most, even affecting my state of mind. So thank you for helping me break through this bottleneck." Xiao Rou said softly, her hand, now steady, gently released the telekinetic spear, which instantly pierced through the heart of Dark Gu Xiao Rou, and then silently passed through her back.
Gu Xiaorou, seemingly oblivious to the piercing of her heart, asked from the darkness: "Gu Xiaorou, do you really think you've won?"
She suddenly grabbed the telekinetic spear. "No, you haven't won yet. You've conquered yourself, but can you conquer the one in your heart?"
Chapter 221 Mind Control
Ling Yun slowly appeared beside the elevator entrance on the seventeenth floor of Baiyun Hospital. The panoramic view revealed the entire internal structure of the hospital building. Clearly, Baiyun Hospital was a large, comprehensive hospital. Apart from the service lobby on the first floor, the second to thirteenth floors were all dedicated to various departments' consultation rooms. Twelve elevators, divided into high and low floors, constantly went up and down, distributing the continuous stream of patients to their respective consultation rooms.
Floors fourteen and above are inpatient wards, with each floor becoming increasingly upscale. Above the thirtieth floor, the wards offer five-star hotel-level treatment, almost on par with the Royal Hotel. These wards provide professional services to members of high-society individuals, offering expert consultations, small treatment facilities, and professional and attractive female nurses—truly living up to the slogan in the hospital lobby: "Come to Baiyun Hospital, and you'll find more comfort than in any hotel."
The source of the mental fluctuations was a ward on the 32nd floor. There were only four high-end single rooms in the 800-square-meter area, located in the east, west, south, and north, and they were separated from each other. The rooms were fully equipped with televisions, sofas, air conditioners, shower rooms, toilets, etc. Apart from the snow-white walls and specially made medical equipment, they were almost no different from a high-end apartment.
The clean and bright red and black marble corridor floor was spotless, and there was a faint smell of disinfectant in the air. Except for one ward facing east, the other three wards facing north, south and west were empty. However, the doors and windows of the wards were open, whether for ventilation or because there were patients who had gone out for a walk.
The east-facing ward is a four-bedroom, two-room suite, along with a large living room of about 100 square meters and several small medical rooms. In the clean and tidy inner ward, there is a special bed for patient care, but it is more than twice as wide as a normal patient care bed. It is covered with an unknown brand of expensive and soft mattress, and on top of the mattress is a snow-white sheet. An expensive down comforter is covering an unconscious middle-aged man.
The middle-aged man was sallow-faced and extremely thin. His skin was loose, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken. Even with his eyes closed, the dark circles under his eyes were clearly visible, indicating that he was terminally ill. Beside him stood a neat stainless steel frame, on which hung a glass IV bottle labeled glucose solution, with the other end connected to a needle that extended into the blanket, clearly indicating that the middle-aged man was receiving an intravenous infusion.
Yang Yuqi stood silently in front of the hospital bed, watching the middle-aged man. Ling Yun only showed his figure behind her, so he couldn't see her expression. Five minutes had passed, and Yuqi hadn't moved an inch, not even her head. Although the middle-aged man was extremely thin, he resembled Yuqi in the features, and seemed to be her father.
On the phone, Yuqi said that her father was almost recovered, but looking at the middle-aged man now, even his breathing had become very weak. Not to mention that he was seriously ill, he was probably only a matter of time before he passed away.
Two people were sitting on the black leather sofa in the corner. One was a middle-aged man in his forties dressed in a suit and tie, whose face bore a slight resemblance to the middle-aged man on the hospital bed. He was probably the uncle or cousin that Yuqi had mentioned. Although Ling Yun possessed absolute memory, since Yuqi had not introduced them, he had no way of knowing each person's surname and given name.
The other was a young man with a somewhat gloomy face, dressed in casual clothes. His expression seemed nonchalant, yet also arrogant. He didn't even glance at the middle-aged man, but the middle-aged man looked nervous and obsequious.
A glint of silver flashed in Ling Yun's eyes. He had already discerned that the young man was a superhuman, but his strength was rather low, only at the level of a low-ranking soldier in the Heavenly Eye Society, or even weaker, as he couldn't even detect him using his mental energy field. The middle-aged man, on the other hand, was an ordinary person, but judging from his reserved demeanor, he clearly knew what kind of being was sitting opposite him.
"I wonder where your esteemed teacher has gone. I would like to ask him what his next step should be?" The middle-aged man seemed to be considering something, and asked after a long while.
The young man ignored him completely, only glancing at Yuqi's almost perfectly curved back, a greedy glint in his eyes: "Yang Ling, is it any of your business where my teacher is? You obediently follow the plan, do your own thing, and when Yang Cheng passes away, quickly take over all his shares and seize the position of family head. That's the most important thing. Don't worry about anything else, you can't manage it anyway. If there's anything you can't solve, we'll step in and solve it for you."
A fleeting hint of anger and helplessness flashed in the middle-aged man's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by a fawning smile: "Yes, yes, Mr. Matsumoto is right. I was just impatient. Yang Cheng is my brother after all, and Yang Wei and Yang Jun also hold a certain number of shares. They own a wide variety of businesses. If I want to become the head of the Yang family, there are still many details to be worked out."
"What's so difficult about that?" The young man sneered. "With me and my teacher here, taking down your trashy brothers would be a piece of cake. In my opinion, we should just kill them all, then you can take over all the shares directly, one step at a time, quick, efficient, and save us the effort. But you insist on doing that, you have to pull this trick of making Yang Cheng die of illness on his own, and you're also taking slow infiltration measures on your brothers. I really can't stand these despicable methods of you businessmen. If you want to seize power, just do it. Why pretend to be so righteous, you hypocrite!"
His words showed no respect for Yang Ling. Even though there was only one niece from his own family present, Yang Ling immediately felt embarrassed. Although he was not the head of the Yang family, he was still a figure whose influence was immense. He could command respect and command respect. In his anger, no one dared to utter a sound. When had he ever considered other people's feelings and acted cautiously? It seemed like a long time ago.
But he couldn't afford to offend this young man and that even more enigmatic teacher. They possessed a strange power that could make him vanish overnight without anyone noticing, or leave him like his elder brother Yang Cheng, lying unconscious in bed, slowly dying. They could also turn him into a mind-controlled puppet, like his niece, deprived of even the most basic freedom.
Thinking of this, Yang Ling's heart trembled. He suddenly felt regret. Why had he gone through so much trouble to establish a relationship with the Japanese in order to benefit the Yang family? Wasn't this like asking a tiger for its skin? Moreover, the Japanese attitude had changed drastically. When he first contacted these Japanese, they only promised to help him become the head of the family and then establish a trade partnership. But now it seemed that the Japanese were far from satisfied with a partnership. Instead, they wanted to further control him, just as they had gradually controlled the Yang family, to have the entire core interest of the Yang family in their own hands. And he, Yang Ling, was nothing more than a puppet representative in public.
It was too late for regrets now. The middle-aged man named Matsumoto Tomoki not only possessed terrifying power, but was also cunning and calculating. Perhaps he was better than the man in worldly affairs and social relationships, but the two of them were not on the same level at all. This determined that he was destined to be controlled by someone else and suffer a tragic end.
No matter how unwilling Yang Ling was, he could only pretend to be honest and obedient on the surface, afraid that he would reveal the slightest flaw and be seen by the other party. Otherwise, he would fall from his position of superiority to the bottomless abyss in the blink of an eye. Looking at Yang Cheng's dying appearance on the sickbed, Yang Ling couldn't help but shudder. He didn't want to become like his elder brother.
“Mr. Matsumoto, that’s not what I meant. Your method is good and quick, but it could easily cause turmoil in the Yang family,” Yang Ling said after thinking for a moment. “Moreover, Yang Cheng and his group have managed the business for many years and have definitely infiltrated many relationships within the company. They control the core of the company’s lifeline, and it’s not something that can be controlled simply by changing the person in charge. These things need to be transferred and changed gradually before our people take over. There will always be a process of blood transfusion, otherwise we will only end up with an unmanageable mess, which will be detrimental to the Yang family’s shares. Besides, the transfer of power should be formal, otherwise it will cause a shock, and the Yang family’s shares could plummet.”
The young man waved his hand impatiently: "Why are you telling me all this? These are things you need to do, not me, understand? If we also get involved in managing the Yang family, then what's the point of having you as the head of the family!"
Yang Ling said helplessly, "I know, Mr. Matsumoto, I was just venting to you, please don't mind..."
The young man suddenly smiled mischievously, staring intently at Yang Yuqi's incredibly graceful back. "It's alright. I've been bored these past few days anyway, and my teacher isn't here yet. Mr. Yang Ling, if you have something to do, go ahead and take care of it. You don't need to stay here with me. I've noticed that your niece, Miss Yuqi, seems a bit off these past few days. I need to keep a closer eye on her, and it doesn't seem very convenient for you to be here."
Yang Ling, seeing only the greedy look in his eyes, already understood what he wanted to do and couldn't help but curse the lecher inwardly. After thinking for a moment, he said tactfully, "Mr. Matsumoto, this isn't quite right. Yuqi is, after all, Yang Cheng's daughter. If something happens to Yang Cheng, she will still be the first heir and inherit the businesses under his name. Moreover, according to your teacher, she is also a latent gene ability user, meaning she wants to marry your senior brother, another Mr. Matsumoto... Don't you think this is inconvenient?"
"You bastard!" Matsumoto roared in fury, his face darkening. "Yang Ling, who gave you the right to speak to me like that? Do you think I don't know what I'm doing? Get out of here right now, or don't blame me for being impolite!"
Yang Ling lowered his head and gave a cold laugh without showing any emotion. Then he raised his head and put on a fawning smile: "Yes, Mr. Matsumoto, I will leave here immediately. I hope you have a pleasant time."
With that, he stood up, bowed deeply to Matsumoto, and then politely withdrew from the ward on the east side. The sound of leather shoes clattering echoed in the corridor. A moment later, Matsumoto heard Yang Ling enter the elevator, and then revealed a sinister smile: "Damn it, you're smart to know what's good for you. Otherwise, if I got angry, I would have turned you into a mental puppet too."
Matsumoto also stood up and slowly walked to Yang Yuqi's side. During the time the two were talking, Yuqi did not move at all, just like a clay statue.
He gently placed his hands on Yuqi's rounded shoulders and then gently turned her around. Yuqi's face was blank when she turned around. Although her beautiful face was still the same, her bright eyes seemed to have lost their life, filled with a dull and mechanical monotony, as if her soul had flown away from her body and become an empty shell.
Matsumoto's eyes lit up. He stared intently at Yuqi's beautiful face, his gaze sweeping over her sexy, curvaceous body. He couldn't help but murmur, "Yuqi, you are truly beautiful. It's a pity your mind is controlled by my teacher. Otherwise, what charm and allure would you possess? If you had cooperated obediently, you wouldn't be in this predicament. You'd have to marry that bastard, my cousin Matsumoto Chizuru. What's so great about him that he can marry a beauty like you? Yuqi, I know you're unwilling. But before you marry him, give me your virginity. Let me possess you completely before I'm heartbroken, and enjoy that wonderful body of yours..."
A silver glint suddenly shot from his eyes, striking Yuqi's eyes. The girl's expression shifted instantly, and she stared intently at Matsumoto.