Stuck in a Chinese novel

The wall of the white room parted and Yan Rong entered. The door slash wall closed up after her. Once she was inside, she made her way to the biker who was following her with his eyes.

Yan Rong controlled her emotions and got to the point, "I feel that in such situations, we should start by introducing ourselves. I'm Yan Rong, a lieutenant in the CSF. My favorite hobby is catching guys like you and blowing their heads off. With a shotgun if possible."

The biker just stared back, no words leaving his mouth. His eyes, without the cover of the brows and eye guards, took a lot of courage for one to stare into.

"My name is Damien Smith. My favorite hobby is chaos. I am the man who singlehandedly crippled the Huanan empire's law enforcement system." The biker spoke, just when no one was expecting him to say anything.

"Nothing," Ai Huiying swiftly replied from the other room, relaying to Yan Rong's earpiece that there was no activity in the biker's brain.

"Nice to meet you, Damien." Yan Rong replied.

"Same," The biker replied.

"And might I add, your Mandarin is exquisite. Almost as if you're a native." Yan Rong said.

"Thanks," The biker replied.

"Now, as much as I'd love to chat with a handsome fella such as yourself, I'm afraid I must get to business," Yan Rong said.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Lieutenant." The biker replied.

"What now?" Yan Rong simply asked.

"What now what?" The biker asked.

"What do you plan to do now?" Yan Rong asked again.

"…" The biker remained silent before he asked, "What do you think I plan to do?"

"I think you're going to spend the rest of your life in this cage. You did kill five CSF officers after all." Yan Rong replied.

"Then what about the Captain?" The biker asked.

"Captain Rin is not the topic of this conversation." Yan Rong replied.

"Is that so? But I still must ask," The biker said before he asked, "What about all the people your Captain killed?"

"Son of a b****." Zhou Han said angrily. "It was all him."

"Good luck telling that to the people who died and their families. They don't remember a biker killing their loved ones but the light coming out of Rin. We're taking massive heat because of that." Commander Han said, his voice a little strained because of the issue at hand.

"For now let's just focus on this one, shall we?" Zhang Fei asked respectfully, trying to pull the topic of conversation away from Rin.

While Commander Han knew what he was doing, he remained silent because even he didn't want to address this issue. The CSF was already taking heat from the outside. No need to make things worse on the inside.

"Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Yan Rong said from the other side of the room, "The public could easily be persuaded that it was a certain biker. Who do you think they'd believe? A terrorist like you or people's savior like us?"

"Savior, you say…" The biker said before he looked at Yan Rong and said, "What do you think is happening on the outside right now, Lieutenant?"

Yan Rong remained silent to that, a signal for the biker.

The biker chuckled and said, "People are fickle, Lieutenant. They need heroes so they worship them. But that's not all a hero is. A hero is a convenient excuse for them as well."

"An excuse?" Yan Rong asked.

"That's right. People are hypocrites," The biker said, "They wish for heroes, they worship heroes, they revere them and then they make them literal gods. But then, a time comes when a villain, like me, comes. And when he does, the lives of the people get disturbed. Do you know what they do then?"

"What?" Yan Rong decided to play along.

"They blame the heroes who couldn't stop that villain. They know it isn't the hero's fault for not being able to stop the villain and the damage that occurred was all because someone decided to go rowdy that day. But still, they'll always blame the heroes because they know the heroes wouldn't hurt them. Because that's what they are. Convenient excuses." The biker stopped.

He then chuckled and asked, "What do you think is going on out there now, Lieutenant?"

"I don't think there's any use in telling you what's happening outside. It's not like you're going there," Yan Rong said.

"Haha," The biker chuckled before he asked, "Do you want me to tell you what's happening out there, Lieutenant?"

"…" Once again, Yan Rong just remained quiet because she didn't want to give anything away. A game of pretend, it may be that but Yan Rong couldn't appear to be on the losing side.

"CSF came into existence exactly ninety-eight years ago. When a man, a just one, saw the injustice done to the people by the cultivators of the empire once the old imperial family was thrown off its long reign and replaced by cultivators. While the new imperial family didn't mean for such a thing to happen, they didn't have the manpower to deal with that situation as well."

"So the man, along with three of his subordinates, created an organization of a hundred men and soon, he was hailed as a hero. Even now, he is still revered as a hero even if his whereabouts have been unknown for the last two decades."

"For almost a century, the CSF ruled over this empire as its greatest hero under the name of that hero."

"But… look at it now."

"People are questioning what you're doing."

"Why thousands of them were killed and hundreds and thousands of them were maimed, by none other than their very own hero."

"Why did you let me, a villain, who is clearly to blame here, cut loose on this city and destroy it beyond measure?"

"And do you know what the funniest part of it is?"

A laugh that was full of mockery fell into everyone's ears as the biker said, "It all took a total of one week to do. The building of Heroes fell faster than it was constructed. All that hard work of years came down on your shoulders in a matter of days."

"And now you ask me, what I intend to do…"

"But tell me, what more could I do?"n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Experience new tales on empire

Heavy silence in both rooms. No one said anything. The reality of the situation was setting in and slowly very, very slowly, it was making its way down to everyone's hearts and letting them know how badly they were losing.

But…

The biker wasn't done.

"Right now, people are losing faith in you. And to make matters worse, large organizations are also coming out of the shadows your founding fathers put them in. They won't act immediately. They'd scope it out first. Small-time criminals, those are the people they'd use. They would see how you react. How you proceed."

"And once they have, once they realize that you cannot do anything about them because you have no information on them…"

"Well, then you would have truly lost."

"Hahaha," The biker laughed and this time, he didn't have to make his mockery apparent because the reality of the situation was now out in the open. And there was nothing they could do about it.

"You think I don't know that?" Yan Rong, however, appeared to be completely collected.

"I've already considered all of that.

We

already weighed our options and we know the situation we are in. But…"

Yan Rong leaned in and said, "You don't want all of that to happen as well, now do you? Because if all of what you said became true, the empire would be at war."

"And what makes you think I don't want that?" The biker asked.

"Because then we won't need you anymore. The damage would have already been done so having the data or not having it wouldn't matter anymore."

"Right now, you're only alive because we value that data," Yan Rong leaned very close, the stench from the biker didn't bother her in the least as she asked, "What do you think will happen to you once it'd lose its value?"

Yan Rong chuckled and leaned back, "Then, I might get permission to blow this pretty head off."

"Still nothing," Ai Huiying said from the other side of Yan Rong's earpiece, letting her know that the biker wasn't rattled in the least.

"Does that mean she's wrong?" Zhou Han asked.

"No, she's right," Zhang Fei said, "The biker isn't just showing anything. This, in the end, is a game of wits."

"And we're on the losing side." Commander Han added, knowing full well what the situation was like.

"Why do you think so, Commander?" Zhou Han asked. If they found a weakness, shouldn't that be good news? Why was no one happy then?

Zhang Fei took the liberty to explain, "The damage of the war is unsalvageable. But the damage until then wouldn't be mild either. The only problem is…"

"The biker would still be important in that time frame." Zhou Han completed the sentence because he understood what the situation was.