Rain slanted down through the night.
Three black off-road vehicles stood outside the ten-meter barrier, their headlights like three blades cutting straight across the entrance of Mist Convenience.
The amplified voice still carried a cold metallic echo through the rain:
"Surrender the sealed asset. Submit to takeover."
Behind the counter, Lin Wu didn't even change posture.
She just lifted her eyes toward the dark figures behind the lights and said, in an even tone,
"Takeover denied."
The four words weren't loud.
But outside, everything went still.
The second team had clearly not expected that. They had arrived with men, guns, and official orders, and the first response they got was that.
The voice over the amplifier paused for half a second.
When it came back, it was colder.
"I'll repeat—"
"You don't need to." Lin Wu cut in. "I heard you the first time."
"But this place does not accept takeovers."
"It accepts transactions."
Someone outside cursed under their breath.
Then the rear door of the second vehicle swung open, and a man stepped out.
He was tall, dressed in black rainproof tactical gear. His collar was fastened with obsessive neatness, and even the water on his boots somehow looked less than everyone else's.
Pei Wan carried the restraint of a professional.
This man carried something colder.
Not the kind of operator who negotiated.
The kind who was used to reaching conclusions and expecting the world to obey them.
He walked to the edge of the barrier and looked inside.
"Qin Zheng," he said. Even introducing himself sounded like he was reading a line off a report. "Field lead, Second Special Containment Team."
"I don't want to waste time."
"Hand over the asset. Everyone who has seen the sample tonight gets registered and comes with us."
Beside the counter, Su Yu held Sui Sui so tightly her fingers had gone white.
Inside the rest pod, Xie Lin didn't move at all. Even his breathing had gone shallow.
Pei Wan, standing to the side, had already gone cold.
"Qin Zheng. This isn't your containment site."
He didn't even look at her.
"Captain Pei, your transfer window has already started."
"If you still can't distinguish command priority, I can report that for you."
That one line visibly steadied the people behind him.
That was how they operated.
No discussion. No persuasion.
They pressed rank, authority, and liability until people folded.
Too bad for him—
he had picked the wrong place.
The system prompt in front of Lin Wu had already judged him first.
[External identity pressure detected involving "takeover," "transfer," and "command priority."][According to temporary store rules: Invalid.]
Good.
The rules were already tired of listening.
"Mr. Qin," Lin Wu said, "either stand out there and keep reading your script…"
"or come inside alone and make an offer."
"I'm not listening to anything else."
For the first time, Qin Zheng's gaze landed on her properly.
It was cold.
The look of a man evaluating an abnormal variable that should not have existed.
"Do you understand what you're refusing?"
"Yes," Lin Wu answered immediately. "I'm refusing freeloading."
For a moment, nobody said anything.
Qi Ye lowered his head and coughed once, very suspiciously like he was swallowing a laugh.
Even Pei Wan's eyes shifted faintly.
Qin Zheng had probably been challenged before.
But being reduced to freeloading in two words?
That was new.
He stared at Lin Wu, then, after several seconds, stepped forward.
One step.
Two.
At the edge of the barrier, he didn't stop.
He moved as if he intended to test the place in the most direct way possible.
The next instant, pale gold lines blazed into being.
Hum—
It didn't throw him back.
It was worse than that.
It was like an invisible wall appeared half an inch in front of him, absolute and unmoving. No matter how much force he applied, he could not advance another fraction.
Qin Zheng lowered his eyes and looked at the glowing lines.
For the first time, something in his expression changed.
Behind him, one of his men instinctively raised a rifle.
The system instantly threw up a new prompt in front of Lin Wu.
[Weapon threat detected.][According to store rules, execute warning?]
[Yes.]
The next second, the rifle's safety clicked by itself.
Then the weapon flashed with a ring of tiny golden light and died in the man's hands as if something had forcibly locked it shut.
The man's face changed at once. He yanked at the bolt—
nothing.
At the same time, two other operatives' earpieces shrieked with a burst of static and went black.
Qin Zheng snapped his head around.
"Nobody moves."
His voice was notably heavier this time.
Because he had finally understood something.
This wasn't just a barrier.
It was a full set of independently operating rules.
Inside, Lin Wu raised one hand lazily and pointed to the ground.
"Put the weapons down. One person enters."
"This is your second chance."
Qin Zheng looked at her.
Rain slid down from his hair, dropped from his jawline, and vanished into his collar. Still he stood there like a steel spike hammered into the street.
"And if I refuse?"
Lin Wu smiled.
"Then you stay out there in the rain."
"And watch me do business with someone else."
The line wasn't vicious.
But it hit exactly where it hurt.
Because Qin Zheng knew very well what he could least afford tonight—
was to lose control of the scene.
And he already had.
If he kept resisting, his side was the one that would bleed for it.
After several seconds, he finally lifted a hand, unholstered the sidearm at his waist, and tossed it back to one of his men. Then he removed the short blade strapped to his thigh, then the retractable knife hidden at his wrist, one piece at a time, with brisk, efficient movements.
"Now?"
Lin Wu nodded.
"Qin Zheng. Entry approved."
A line of gold flashed.
The moment he stepped across the threshold, silent system text appeared in Lin Wu's vision.
[Stripping external identity from entering subject.][Current identity reassigned: Customer.]
At almost the same instant, the insignia card on Qin Zheng's chest—marking him as Second Team—dimmed slightly.
Very slightly.
But Pei Wan saw it.
Her expression shifted at once.
That meant the rules Lin Wu had set were not simply blocking people.
They were actually rewriting identity.
Qin Zheng clearly sensed something too. He lowered his eyes to his badge, then slowly looked up and took in the store.
Lights. Shelves. Counter. Ledger. Water purifier. Special Goods Cabinet.
And Lin Wu, standing behind the register.
He didn't speak immediately.
Instead, he swept the whole store with a fast, precise scan, like he was searching for the most likely location of the sealed case.
But all he found was one conclusion:
This place was worse than the report said.
"Finished looking?" Lin Wu asked.
Qin Zheng drew his gaze back to her.
"Finished."
"Then make an offer." Lin Wu pulled the ledger toward herself. "In my store, small talk is billed by the minute."
This time even Pei Wan turned her head slightly, as though she didn't want anyone to catch that tiny movement at the corner of her mouth.
Qin Zheng, however, didn't get angry.
Or rather, he had no space left for anger.
Because he had realized something more troublesome:
Once inside, his usual language—orders, takeovers, forced requisition—didn't even feel worth saying anymore.
It wasn't that he couldn't say them.
It was that some deeper layer of the place was already informing him:
those words don't work here.
He was silent for two seconds.
Then he changed tactics.
"I'm buying an answer."
There it was.
Lin Wu liked customers who learned how to speak properly.
"What answer?"
Qin Zheng looked at her and said, word by word:
"Who touched that case."
Inside the rest pod, Xie Lin's spine went rigid in an instant.
Su Yu's heart jumped into her throat.
But Lin Wu didn't even lift her eyelids.
She simply opened a blank page in the ledger, wrote two words—
Question.
Then slowly drew a line beneath them.
"That information is expensive."
Qin Zheng stared at her.
"Name the price."
At last, Lin Wu looked up and smiled.
"I can."
"But this time—"
She set the pen down gently, and her tone turned even lighter than before.
"I'm not selling information."
Qin Zheng's brow tightened.
"Then what are you selling?"
Lin Wu met his gaze, every word clear.
"This time, I'm selling lives."
Outside, rain hissed against metal and pavement.
Inside the store, it was so quiet that breathing could be heard.
Qin Zheng didn't respond at once.
Because he understood.
What she meant was simple:
If he wanted to know who had touched the case, he wasn't buying intelligence.
He was buying whether those people deserved to keep breathing.
And that price would not be low.
After several seconds, Qin Zheng spoke slowly.
"What do you want?"
Lin Wu tapped one finger lightly against the ledger.
"One: the full operational range of the Second Team's lockdown authority."
"Two: a complete list of all undeclared emergency medicine and ammunition in your vehicles."
"Three—"
She paused, then looked up at him.
"Why was your first question, the moment you entered, who touched the case…"
"…instead of whether the case was still here?"
At last, Qin Zheng's eyes went completely cold.
Because that question was no longer bargaining.
It was a blade aimed straight at the center.
Lin Wu, meanwhile, was in no hurry at all. She nudged the ledger forward slightly, as if she were genuinely waiting for a willing customer to decide how much he wanted to pay.
"Answer one, and I sell you half a life."
"Answer two, and I sell you a whole one."
She smiled.
"Answer none…"
"and tonight, you stay nothing more than an ordinary customer."
Behind her, the gray mist over the Special Goods Cabinet moved almost imperceptibly.
As if the very expensive item inside was quietly enjoying the show.
And standing beneath the lights, looking at Lin Wu, Qin Zheng finally understood something he should have grasped sooner—
the biggest problem tonight had never been the missing sample.
It was this store.
And its owner.