101: What Is True Patriotism?

"...You lost, Reid."

Hearing Carl's words and seeing the blood dripping from her face, Reid's expression suddenly calmed.

The hand that had been ready to move relaxed open, and the body that had tried to rise slowly settled back down.

As though he had already accepted his fate, he lay flat.

"You won, Carl."

He spoke in a tone devoid of much emotion, then—

"Kill me, Carl."

He said, "Otherwise, the moment you let me go, I'll pick up a gun and shoot you again."

Reid knew what he was saying, and he knew what he would do, yet he still said it.

He seemed exhausted, desperate to be freed at once, impatiently waiting for someone to kill him.

Reid could no longer tell what he ought to do, what was truly right, what would not leave him with regrets.

He felt as though everything he did now was wrong.

Could he truly avoid regretting opposing Carl and taking Song Zhaomei back to the Intelligence Bureau? But if he did not do that, could he convince himself it was right?

It seemed neither was possible.

Reid understood that he was no longer the most standard, qualified Intelligence Bureau agent.

A standard Intelligence Bureau agent should not think so much, nor should he have so many complicated thoughts like Reid did.

If he did not have those unnecessary thoughts that could be called a "heart," he could have immersed himself completely in his mission. Yet he happened to have half of one.

Perhaps, from the very beginning, the Intelligence Bureau's so-called perfect agent had never existed and could never exist.

Reid was, after all, only human.

Seeing Reid abandon all resistance and thought, sprawled there waiting for an end, a faint ripple passed through Carl's eyes.

"Kill you?" Carl repeated, her