That morning, Owen waited near the meeting place he’d agreed on with the mysterious author, dressed in ordinary casual clothes. He went up to the mall’s second floor, ordered a coffee, and watched the street below as he drank. The commercial street was bustling with people. That was where they were supposed to meet.

Owen was bold, but he took precautions. His casual clothes bulged with explosives. If the other person meant him harm, he wouldn’t mind giving them a taste of art’s tender care.

The agreed time had already passed. The shopping district was bustling, and Owen was halfway through his coffee when he spotted someone suspicious.

A man in a baseball cap wandered back and forth, glancing around as if he were looking for someone. He didn’t look like an honest sort.

Owen saw that there was still no activity in the chat group, so he didn’t make a move either.

The man in the baseball cap wandered around for a little longer, then turned and left. Owen quietly got up and followed him.

They walked along the commercial street, stopping and starting. When Owen saw the man enter a cannabis shop, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d got it wrong.

Was this shady guy just looking to buy something addictive?

After buying cannabis, the man in the baseball cap entered a nearby alley. Owen was getting impatient. He followed him straight in and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey, bro. Are you Mimika?”

The man in the baseball cap jumped in fright and hurriedly turned around. Only then did Owen get a good look at him.

He was a young man of about twenty, with a bit of a resemblance to Leon. But he had deep bags under his eyes and a haggard complexion. He didn’t look very healthy.

“A pacifist?”

His identity checked out.

“I’m Owen. What should I call you, bro?”

“Ai Miao.”

“Let’s find somewhere quiet to talk. Come to my place. It’s not far—just a few dozen kilometers away.”

Ai Miao nodded.

The two got into the car. Owen noticed that Ai Miao seemed nervous and distracted, his eyes darting from side to side now and then. It put Owen on alert. Ai Miao looked honest enough, but Owen couldn’t rule out the possibility that he had some other motive.

Owen didn’t call him out. Instead, he smiled and started talking about his great cause for peace.

Ai Miao listened for fifteen minutes. When Owen was still going on and on, he couldn’t help interrupting. “Bro, I wanted to ask you some questions about bizarre events.”

“What do you want to know, bro?”

“There’s no way to get life-saving items anymore. If I have no choice but to enter a bizarre event, are there any tricks to surviving?”

“Now you’re asking about my sore spot.” Owen rested one hand on the steering wheel, his arm against the window as the wind tousled both their hair. “Avoid it if you can. If you can’t, then charge right through. If you die, that just means you weren’t smart or lucky enough... Has a bizarre event come after you?”

“No. I’m worried I might run into one in the future.”

Owen laughed. “Leave the future to your future self.”

Ai Miao didn’t get the answer he wanted. A trace of worry passed across his brow.

“By the way, how long have you been an author?”

“A year and a half.”

Owen asked as if it were an afterthought, “Oh? Then these past months must’ve been pretty rough, huh? Has that customer service rep been giving you trouble?”

“No. Maybe I’ve just been pretty lucky, haha.”

Owen turned off the highway onto a narrow road. “Have you ever experienced a bizarre event?”

“Just once, but I lost my memories of it.”

“Being alive is already something.” As he spoke, Owen opened his phone and held it out for Ai Miao to see. “The customer service center’s functions have changed. Does your interface look like mine now?”

Ai Miao didn’t take the phone. Instead, he said seriously, “Bro, authors shouldn’t reveal their pen names to each other.”

Owen raised an eyebrow. “Relax. You can’t see anyone’s pen name on this interface. We’re face-to-face, so we should at least have a basic level of trust. Just answer my question.”

Ai Miao looked at the screen and replied, “Yes. Mine’s the same.”

The car came to an abrupt stop.

Owen turned to stare at Ai Miao in the passenger seat, a half-smile on his face. “Bro, why are you approaching authors? What are you really doing?”

Ai Miao: “...?”

“Only authors can see that website. You’ve done your best to pretend you’re an author, but what I showed you was just an ordinary webpage. You’re an ordinary person, so why would you do that? Who gave you that information?”

Only then did Ai Miao look panicked. He opened the car door and tried to get out, but Owen was ready. He drove a pen-shaped syringe into Ai Miao’s neck with one hand and held him down firmly with the other. The anesthetic took effect, and Ai Miao soon lost consciousness.

...

Ai Miao woke to the blare of loud music.

He suddenly opened his eyes and found himself tied to an iron frame, stripped down to his underwear. Medical equipment and vicious-looking tools hung all around him. Owen was gathering blades off the floor. He glanced up at Ai Miao, then went back to sorting them. “You’re awake?”

“Aren’t you a pacifist? Why are you doing this?” Ai Miao cried out.

“Heh. What does crime have to do with peace? If crime can bring peace, I’d gladly make sure the world never knows a moment of it.”

“Ah...”

“I’ll ask, and you’ll answer. Otherwise, these tools are sure to give you endless surprises!” Owen chuckled eerily as he set a full box of torture tools on the iron table beside Ai Miao.

Ai Miao stared at the tools, trembling all over. He shouted, “Go ahead and torture me! I won’t tell you a thing!”

“Then we’ll see whether my tools are tougher than your mouth.”

Owen cuffed Ai Miao’s hands behind his back, forced him to sit with his buttocks pressed against his heels, and tied him in place with rope. Then he put a weight of nearly fifty kilos on his shoulders.

After that, Owen found a science magazine and sat nearby, reading it at his leisure.

Owen had decided to interrogate Ai Miao gently, after all. Ai Miao was just a poor sap being used by someone else, not a monster like an immortal. Owen considered himself very gentle with ordinary people.

After five minutes, a dull ache spread through Ai Miao’s knees and ankles. After fifteen, his calves and feet went numb and swollen from lack of blood, as if countless needles were stabbing him all at once. An hour later, the numbness turned to a burning sensation, as though the skin below his ankles were being peeled off alive.

Two hours later, Ai Miao was drenched in sweat. His body was being dragged back and forth to the brink of lasting damage, yet he stubbornly kept glaring at Owen, jaw tense and lips sealed.

Owen put down the magazine and rubbed his eyes, feeling genuinely surprised.

Nine out of ten people couldn’t endure this kind of punishment. Even a determined adult would be sobbing after an hour of agony. Owen hadn’t expected this guy named Ai Miao to be so tough. And maybe it was his imagination, but Owen thought he saw something strange in Ai Miao’s eyes.

“How did you find out about authors? Tell me, and I’ll let you stand up.”

Ai Miao still didn’t say a word.

“Then take your time enjoying yourself.” Owen decided to step out and look into Ai Miao’s background first, to see what kind of person he was.

“No...” Seeing Owen about to leave, Ai Miao finally relented.

“You’re ready to cooperate?”

Ai Miao shook his head. “My mouth’s so dry. Give me some weed.”

“Damn, you wish.”

Ai Miao’s full name was Coville Ai Miao. He hadn’t hidden his name, though his passport could’ve been fake. Owen used big data to search for people matching Ai Miao’s appearance while also looking him up online. Aside from his Mexican nationality, there was no information about his family at all. That meant Ai Miao was either a poor orphan or someone who’d forged his identity.

Owen wasn’t usually this cautious, but he didn’t want to cause trouble for Xu Fang, so he kept his guard up around other author factions.

Several more hours passed, and night fell.

Owen entered the basement where Ai Miao was being held and found his eyes rolled back, his collar covered in vomit, and his whole body shaking like a sieve. He’d struggled so violently that bloody rings of rope had cut into his wrists.

Owen quickly untied Ai Miao and kicked him onto the floor. But Ai Miao kept shaking, muttering nonstop, “Powder... I want powder...”

Owen was baffled. Cannabis withdrawal could make someone irritable at most. How could it get this bad? What had it done to the guy?

He leaned in to smell what Ai Miao had thrown up, and his brow immediately furrowed.

Holy shit. Meth!

Owen turned over Ai Miao’s forearm and, sure enough, found a dense cluster of needle marks.

Compared to the hellish withdrawal from methamphetamine, the physical punishment was nothing.

Owen laughed gleefully. “Still willing to talk? I’ll give you the antidote.”

“I won’t tell you anything... Oh-ho!!” Ai Miao’s face twisted strangely. He laughed and cried at the same time, letting out a desperate yet euphoric howl.

“Are you a fucking masochist?” Owen finally realized that, amid the intense withdrawal, Ai Miao had somehow started enjoying himself. What a freak.

Just then, Mimika sent a message to Owen’s author group:

“You’d better let him go, or I won’t hold back.”

So the real Mimika had been lurking in the background all along. Ai Miao must’ve been pretty important to him.

“Let who go? He’s already dead,” Owen replied deliberately.

“You’re dead! I’m going to kill you!!!!!!”

Oho, Owen could feel the other person’s fury even through the screen.

“Just kidding. He’s having the time of his life. [Image]”

Owen took a picture of Ai Miao in the middle of his fit and sent it. “If you want to see me, come with honest intentions. Don’t try anything funny.”