"I didn't expect it to be you who chased after me across the border." Mu Ka pushed up his glasses, looking rather unperturbed.
Qingmu sat down opposite Mu Ka, placed the Beauty on his lap, and said to Beauty, "This is probably the last poppy."
The Beauty stared at Mu Ka with wide eyes. "Yeye Qingmu, the last one, can I watch you cut it?"
"Okay," Qingmu said.
"Heh, you guys seem to have me figured out." Mu Ka was still as refined as ever, even the way he drew his gun was like a gentleman. The Smith & Wesson 500 pistol in his hand was very new, the shiny paint looked like it had been sprayed on, and you could even smell a faint gun oil.
" Wu Suotun is finished," Qingmu said.
"Thank you for helping me take down Wu Suotun. If it weren't for you, I really wouldn't have found a suitable opportunity to replace him." Mu Ka smiled and brandished the dark muzzle of his gun. "You shouldn't have thrown the gun away."
"I didn't bring a gun with me when I entered Wu Suotun's general's mansion," Qingmu said.
Mu Ka chuckled dismissively and said, "I'm not like Wu Suotun."
What's different?
" Wu Suotun was just a country bumpkin who had never seen the world. All he could see were guns, heroin, and women. He thought he was a local tyrant, fearless and invincible, but he didn't realize that a person can't achieve great things without sufficient self-discipline and a broad enough perspective."
"I'm different from him. I studied hard from a young age, I went from South Asia to Europe, and later to Africa and the Americas. I've worked in the world's best schools and best laboratories, and if I wanted, I could choose any executive position in a Fortune 500 company. But what does that matter? I gave up seemingly glamorous but actually boring job opportunities and the corrupt life of the capitalist world to come back here. I just want to change this poor, ignorant, and backward land through my efforts."
"I know that opium cannot bring lasting peace and prosperity to this place, but we have nothing here but opium. The incompetent government can't help us. The drug traffickers in the Golden Triangle and the capitalists from overseas only see the profits that poppies bring them, and thus they endlessly exploit our surplus value."
"But so what? I don't care! We need opium and heroin to complete our primitive accumulation. Didn't the British Empire launch the Opium War against your country back then? Which empire didn't develop through bloodshed and aggression?"
"I don't smoke, drink, or touch heroin. Besides Du Juan, I've never been with any other woman. My table never has more than three dishes. Everything I do is for this land and the people who live here. I want to liberate them! One day, we will plant our flag on our land and declare to the world that we have stood up! No one will be able to bully us again!"
As Mu Ka spoke, she became somewhat emotional; although her movements and voice remained elegant, tears welled up in her eyes.
"I really like one of your China poets. He has a poem called ' I Love This Land.'"
"... This land battered by storms, this river forever surging with our grief and indignation... Why are my eyes always filled with tears? Because I love this land so deeply..."
He began to recite, just as he had when he recited " Yu Meiren " at the Mangdian Police Station, his voice deep and resonant, his breath long and drawn out, as if he were standing on a stage for readers.
Qingmu waited quietly for him to finish reciting the poem, then said, "Your ideals are admirable, but your methods are appalling! Have you ever thought about the families whose lives have been destroyed by your drugs?"
"They brought it on themselves; no one forced them to do drugs. Excellent people can remain untainted by the mud they come from."
"Just like you?" Qingmu sneered.
Mu Ka smiled confidently and said nothing more.
Qingmu shook his head and said, "And what about those girls? Just for your so-called bullshit ideal, you used them as lab rats, gave them to Wu Suotun as gifts, and sold them to the brothel to become prostitutes. Is this what you call greatness?"
"Great causes always require sacrifices. Their lives have already gained value because of this, and are far more noble than those who rot in the decadent pleasures of the city!" Mu Ka said.
"No matter how you try to justify yourself, you can't change your nature or absolve yourself of your sins." Qingmu gently stroked Yu Meiren's hair. "If I hadn't been there, it would have been fine, but you had to kidnap Beauty. Now, your grand dream should end! Perhaps you can still dream in hell."
"How did you wake me up?" Mu Ka asked, holding a gun in one hand and adjusting his glasses with the other, his eyes filled with curiosity. "I'm the one with the gun now."
"Do you know the name of this pistol? -- The Smith & Wesson M500 -- the king of pistols..50 caliber, five-round Magnum high-powered pistol cartridges, bullet weight approximately 22 grams, muzzle velocity 602 meters per second, muzzle energy up to 4109 joules. If you're a good shot, you can kill a brown bear with one shot. At this short distance, it's enough to kill both of you."
"Oh, I forgot to mention. You don't need to worry about its recoil. It's true that most people would find it difficult to fire a gun with one hand, but I can. I once shot and killed a rhinoceros with it using only one hand while I was exploring the Africa jungle. So, don't doubt the gun's power or my marksmanship."
"Of course, I know you can hypnotize me, put me in a dream, make me hallucinate, make me think the gun in my hand is Venomous Snake, or put me into some other illusion. But you should know, I've learned that trick too. And my Mental Power is strong enough that I can withstand Du Juan's hypnosis for twenty minutes. Even if you are ten times stronger than him, I will still have two minutes of lucidity."
"Killing you won't take two minutes, just two seconds. I have a gun, and two seconds of lucidity is enough for me to shoot you. No matter how skillful your hypnosis is, all I need is a single, unwavering thought, just two seconds of lucidity, and I can pull the trigger."
"At such a short distance, I don't believe you can dodge a bullet!"
Mu Ka's hand holding the gun was steady, without the slightest tremor.
Qingmu sighed and asked, "Have you watched the TV series?"
"What?" Mu Ka was a little confused. "Aside from the news, I never watch that kind of wasteful stuff."
Qingmu said, "Okay, actually I don't watch it either. But do you know how most villains die?"
Mu Ka was taken aback and asked, "How did you die?"
"You're such a chatterbox!" Qingmu laughed. "If you had fired earlier, you might have had a chance. But you insisted on rambling on and on about your grand ideals, and boasting about how powerful your pistol was to show off your erudition and abilities. Alas... now you have no chance!"
"You only know that you have a strong will and can resist hypnosis, but don't you know that consciousness can not only access brain memories, but also control the neural activity of the cerebral cortex through brainwaves? I don't need to hypnotize you into a dream; I just need to sever the connection between your consciousness and the motor nerve center, so that you can't issue commands to your muscles. Although this process is slower than hypnosis, your rambling has given me enough time."
"You can try now and see if you can still pull the trigger," Qingmu said.
Mu Ka's expression changed. He immediately gave himself the order to fire, but he only saw his hand holding the gun steadily, without moving an inch.
Mu Ka flushed red with excitement and nervousness, and his glasses slowly slipped off his nose, but he couldn't reach out to steady them.
He watched helplessly as Qingmu took the gun from his hand, while he remained in a comical pose, holding the gun up.
Qingmu pointed the gun at Mu Ka and said to Yu Meiren, "Cover your ears." Then he muttered to himself, "It's a pity the recoil of this gun is too strong, otherwise I could teach you how to shoot right now."
Just then, Qingmu felt the surrounding space tremble slightly, like a giant soap bubble bursting.
A peaceful and ethereal voice came from behind. "Please, for Duwa's sake, let him go!"
" Duwa? Why should I give you face!" Qingmu said, pulling the trigger.
Although Yu Meiren covered her ears, she still heard a dull and loud thud. She saw a large burst of blood erupt from Mu Ka's chest, and he and the chair fell backward to the ground.
"Eighty-one," Yu Meiren counted softly.