Mental Illness (Part 1)

In this arrest operation, the military and police had indeed dumped them here without any follow-up measures, but that did not mean they had completely washed their hands of them. The compartment had actually been under surveillance the whole time, with everyone's vital signs monitored as well. They had only taken emergency measures after discovering that Li Xuecheng had gone into shock.

Armed Mechanical Soldiers were utterly cold, hard, and merciless things. They did not care about causes, consequences, right, or wrong. Following their fixed procedures to the letter, they simply fired their Riot Guns.

High-voltage pulses swept across the entire holding cell. Everyone still standing became a target—even Lian Yu and the other girls were not spared.

What followed was electricity coursing through their bodies. The current formed a closed circuit with the human nervous system, stimulating their muscles and instantly throwing them into tonic convulsions.

They had no ability to resist at all and went down in a groaning heap.

The chaotic situation was immediately brought under control...

No, there was still one.

Ronan. Just moments ago, those rich kids had grabbed him around the waist and clung to his legs, forcibly restraining him. Perhaps because he had several layers of human shields around him, he had not fallen immediately.

He staggered a few steps before barely managing to maintain his balance. Half-bent over, he braced both hands against his knees. His calves seemed to be trembling, his body swaying as though he could collapse at any moment.

Yet even so, Ronan remained standing. He raised his face slightly. Some of the crimson color had faded from his face, but his eyes remained fixed beyond the cell bars, staring straight at the Armed Mechanical Soldier's gun barrel.

The Armed Mechanical Soldier coldly locked onto its sole remaining target and was about to fire again when soldiers in Combat Uniform rushed in through the doorway. Leading them was a captain:

"Stand down!"

The voice command was issued, and the Armed Mechanical Soldier's Electronic Eye immediately turned the black of standby mode.

The captain swept his gaze through the room and barked, "All of you, get on the ground! Hands behind your heads!"

He did not say what would happen if they refused, but no one wanted to test the law with their own bodies. Even though the numbness had not entirely faded, they still groaned as they corrected their positions, each one more obedient than a lamb.

Lian Yu secretly lifted her head and looked toward Ronan. There were probably many others who, like her, strongly felt that this sinister, violent lunatic would resist to the bitter end and refuse to obey the captain's order.

But the truth made their jaws drop. Ronan moved with difficulty and slowness, yet he lay down with complete obedience, crossing his hands behind the back of his head.

Because Ronan had moved a few steps earlier, he was now somewhat closer to Lian Yu. From her angle, she could see his profile.

Hmm, he seemed to be trembling... Could it be that he had only now learned fear?

Before the thought had fully formed, a faint sound reached her ears. "Buzz, buzz," like the beating wings of a bee, carrying a vague rhythm.

The source of the sound was Ronan.

Only then did Lian Yu realize that although Ronan was lying prone, his posture was slightly different from everyone else's. His chin rested against the floor, his eyes staring straight ahead. His lips opened and closed faintly, and that strange noise came from between them.

He looked exactly like a venomous bee with broken wings, struggling on the ground.

Was this guy actually insane?

Lian Yu shivered, gritted her teeth, and silently cursed someone hundreds of kilometers away:

Xie Junping, you bastard, what kind of people do you even know?!

Xie Junping certainly would not reply, but the military soon handed down its judgment.

In Lian Yu and the others' eyes, the successive appearances of the Armed Mechanical Soldier and military personnel meant that the matter had surely blown up, and they had no idea what punishment awaited them.

But reality proved that, in the military's eyes, a group of temporarily detained young people causing a minor conflict amounted to nothing. In the end, the military was merely holding them on the police's behalf; there was no need to waste energy on them. The final handling was simply to carry the unconscious Li Xuecheng away for treatment, then drag Ronan—who did not fit in with the others at all—away... for solitary confinement.

No one objected. Even if they had, it would have meant nothing.

Ronan, however, spoke softly as he was being taken away. "My notebook too."

Here it came, here it came!

Lian Yu and the others all widened their eyes, waiting to see how this deeply hidden lunatic would reveal his fierce, defiant side.

Yet the course of events fooled them once again. The captain did not get angry. Instead, he gestured for a subordinate to enter the compartment and pick up the notebook. He flipped through a couple of pages after taking it, glanced a few extra times at the cracked soft screen, then handed the notebook back to Ronan.

Ronan said nothing further. He obediently followed the escorting soldiers out, quiet and reserved from beginning to end, just as he had initially appeared to be.

As Lian Yu and the others looked at one another in bewilderment, Ronan was led into an individual Confinement Room not far from where they had been held before.

Since it was an individual Confinement Room, it was naturally cramped. There was only a metal chair in the room, bolted to the floor. A turn around it would practically fill all the remaining space.

This was precisely the sort of place claustrophobics feared most, but Ronan did not care.

He sat in the chair, the notebook resting naturally on his knees. First, he wiped the footprints and grime from its cover, then carefully opened it.

After Li Xuecheng's heavy stomping and crushing, parts of the Paged Notebook's metal ring frame had warped, and the latch tabs no longer worked smoothly. But compared to the Imitation Paper Soft Screen, that damage was nothing.

Who knew where Li Xuecheng had found such strength? The highly flexible soft screen had developed more than a dozen fine cracks. Some ran all the way across the display. It looked as if the slightest additional force would shatter it into pieces.

Still, even like this, the Imitation Paper Soft Screen somehow still worked. With a light swipe, the screen lit up.

Ronan relaxed slightly. Ignoring everything else, he directly opened his most frequently used drawing software. The familiar loading icon appeared, and it soon entered the normal interface, displaying the top-layer draft of Burning Demon Shadow.

It looked normal enough... Ronan let out a long breath and pressed down with his finger to enter the next layer.

But before the temperature of his exhaled breath could even change, the Imitation Paper Soft Screen suddenly went dark. It shut down automatically, without the slightest remaining light, like an ominous black card smeared with ink.

After that, Ronan tried several methods to restart it, but there was no response.

Facing the shattered, pitch-black screen, he sat there in a daze.

A tiny camera in the corner framed Ronan's wooden, stiff face and transmitted the image to another compartment aboard the warship.

There, the newly minted lawyer Zhang Yingying had arrived in a hurry and was submitting legal documents to the relevant personnel on the ship.

She had changed into a mature gray-black skirt suit, her hair pinned up in a bun. The only bright color on her was the gorgeous royal-blue scarf around her neck... well, and her slender, long legs, fully exposed to the air, flawless from top to bottom. Supported by black suede high heels, they appeared even more delicate, as though glowing with a jade-like sheen.

The person handling Zhang Yingying was the Transport Ship's deputy logistics supervisor. This somewhat portly lieutenant colonel was surnamed Lu. He had been given advance notice. Even though the young lawyer's youthful face and mature attire looked suspicious no matter how one viewed them, he had no intention of getting to the bottom of it.

Of course, perhaps that also had something to do with the fact that his eyes kept drifting downward.