Xu Huo caught her hand. "Look. Do you still have a knife in your hand?"
The little girl stared at her hand in astonishment, only to find that the knife had vanished like smoke. She immediately realized, "You're a Mental Evolver!"
She couldn't pull her hand free, so she ordered her terminal to send a distress signal. But neither the terminal nor the voice-activated device responded. She looked up in horror. "It's you!"
Xu Huo looked down at her. "Where is Gu Huifeng?"
The little girl's expression abruptly changed, but he continued at once, "Don't think you can use her as leverage. Compared to the secrets you're hiding, Gu Huifeng is nothing. She's worth saving even if it means failing to clear the level."
The little girl's renewed energy quickly faded. Perhaps because of her genetic condition, all the struggling had left her exhausted. Her voice was low as she said, "He's being held in a room on the first floor. I can take you there."
Xu Huo nodded. "All right. Now we can talk about you."
The little girl didn't understand. "There's nothing to talk about. If you want revenge for those people who died, I didn't kill them."
"You killed them," Xu Huo said. "They died because you were unhappy. You should repent. So many people with bright futures died for nothing because of a twisted person like you. You'd be justified in killing yourself to atone."
"Why should I?" the little girl cried. "They deserved to die! Why do I have to suffer while they get to be happy? They smiled in front of me—that was their crime!"
Xu Huo let go of one of her hands and looked down at her, as if he could see through her skin and into her ugly heart.
"What gives