"When you did that, weren't you afraid your heartbeat would fall out of rhythm and set off the explosive?" Wei Zhao glanced at the man and asked.

"Heh heh, didn't know that, did you? The explosive only detonates if the heart beats too slowly. If it beats too fast, on the other hand, there's no problem at all!" The man looked at Wei Zhao, gloating with immense satisfaction, shattering Wei Zhao's hopes completely.

"You—" Wei Zhao's face twisted with rage. He glared at the man, so choked with fury he could not speak.

"Scared now, are you? Seems you really do care about your girlfriend, huh?" The man burst out laughing.

"You'll die a horrible death!" Wei Zhao said with a cold sneer.

"How right you are. When does a death warrior ever die well?" The man could not have cared less. "Boy, now you realize how rash it was to come up here, don't you? What do you think? Not only can you not save your girlfriend — you can't even leave yourself!"

"You—" Wei Zhao glared at the man in fury, caught between a rock and a hard place.

Feng Xiaoxiao, however, had calmed down by now, and a flicker of doubt had risen in her mind. Wei Zhao's behavior today seemed somehow off. In the past, no matter how great the danger he faced, Wei Zhao had always remained calm as ever, never betraying such violent swings of emotion.

Take the car race earlier — even in such perilous circumstances, Wei Zhao had stayed perfectly composed. Yet today, after only a few taunts, he had grown so agitated? This was not the Wei Zhao she remembered.

So Feng Xiaoxiao began to suspect: was Wei Zhao doing this on purpose? If so, did he have some objective in mind?

At that thought, Feng Xiaoxiao was all but certain — Wei Zhao was deliberately putting on this act to achieve some end. That being the case, she would not expose him, nor would she behave any differently from before. Instead, she would do everything she could to play along.

"Wei Zhao, darling, you have to go, quickly. I won't live much longer anyway — if I die, I die. Don't worry, if he dares to touch me, I'll fight him to the death!" Feng Xiaoxiao said.

"Shut up, girlie!" The man shot Feng Xiaoxiao an irritated glare. This girl was a real nuisance, prattling on and on.

"Go, Wei Zhao, darling, go! Don't worry about me!" Feng Xiaoxiao paid the man no heed and kept shouting at the top of her lungs.

"You goddamn bitch, shut your mouth!" The man was on the verge of madness. He snatched up the towel and stuffed it back into Feng Xiaoxiao's mouth.

"Mmmph mmmph mmmph—" Feng Xiaoxiao let out a string of meaningless sounds.

"Finally, some peace and quiet!" The man dug at his ear with his finger, then looked at Wei Zhao. "All right, boy, now we can begin our game!"

"What game?" Wei Zhao asked in return.

"The suicide game!" A mocking smile cut across the man's lips. Suddenly he pulled a long blade from a bag beside the sofa and kicked it over to land in front of Wei Zhao.

"The suicide game?" Wei Zhao frowned, glanced at the long blade at his feet, and asked with some puzzlement.

"Boy, don't play dumb with me. Don't think I don't know what you're thinking." The man looked at Wei Zhao with derision and laughed. "Your acting's not bad, but I never believed you from the start! 'To die on the same year, same month, same day' — all that vow-of-eternal-love, seas-dry-up-rocks-crumble crap. Pretty touching, huh? You idiot — you thought I bought it? I was just stringing you along for fun!"

Wei Zhao's expression darkened. He had underestimated this man's intelligence. It seemed the fellow had not believed a word of what he had said earlier.

"What's the matter? Did I see right through you? Cat got your tongue?" The man gave a smug snort. "Let me tell you, playing these games in front of me — you're still too green! You say you're this girlie's boyfriend — that I believe. But that you came up here to die with her — that I don't! There are cops all over down there. Would they let an ordinary civilian come up? Don't think I don't know — whoever let you up here, how much responsibility would they have to shoulder?"

"What exactly are you trying to say? If you've got something to say, say it straight. Cut the crap!" Wei Zhao said coldly.

"Don't want to hear it? But I'm determined to finish! My brilliant powers of deduction — if I don't show them off, I'd be doing myself a disservice!" The man continued. "So the only possibility is this: you yourself are a cop, or a member of the Mysterious Investigation Bureau — and at the same time, this girlie's boyfriend! You didn't come up to die with her. You came up to seize the chance to subdue me! If I'm not mistaken, you were planning to lunge forward and dislocate my jaw with a single blow, weren't you? So I'd have no way to bite down on the poison and kill myself?"

"Hmph!" Wei Zhao gave a noncommittal snort.

"Let me tell you, it's a good thing you didn't try it — otherwise you'd already be dead!" The man said with insufferable smugness. "My poison is hidden in the upper part of my mouth. One hard lick with the tongue and it breaks. Nothing to do with my teeth!"

"Hmph!" Wei Zhao's answer was still a cold snort.

"What's the matter? Nothing left to say? These little tricks of yours — in front of me, they amount to nothing!" The man looked at Wei Zhao with contempt. "Idiot! Want to take me on? Come back after another ten years of training!"

"Are you done with your nonsense? What exactly do you want to do?" Wei Zhao asked, as though losing patience.

"Having your hopes crushed by me — does it hurt? Do you regret coming up here? But there's no medicine for regret in this world. Regretting it won't do you any good!" The man looked at Wei Zhao and laughed. "What's the matter? Feeling pretty stifled inside?"

"Are you finished yet?" Wei Zhao cut him off. "If you've got business, get to it!"

"Since you're in such a hurry to die, I'll grant your wish!" The man gave a cold laugh and said with some displeasure. "I was going to let you live a little longer, but you don't appreciate the chance. So there's nothing I can do."

"What do you mean?" Wei Zhao asked in return.

"See that long blade on the ground? Now we're going to play a suicide game!" The man pointed at the long blade lying before Wei Zhao. "Pick it up now, and drive it into your own heart. Don't tell me you don't know where your heart is. Take off your clothes, stand in front of me, and stab — from the hilt all the way to the tip, run yourself clean through!"

"You mean you want me to kill myself?" Wei Zhao glanced at the long blade on the ground and asked.

"Of course, what else? Can't you understand plain speech?" The man said with some irritation. "You're the one so eager to die. Who else is there to blame?"

"And if I don't do it? You want me to stab my own heart with a blade? Anyone with a sound mind — who would do such a thing?" Wei Zhao asked, looking at the man with a strange expression.

For the fastest updates, read without pop-ups at.