The Agent's Chill
Rodriguez struck Zhao Zhiyong's most sensitive nerve plexus on the back of his calf with the rubber baton once more. When he saw that Zhao's body only jerked violently before returning to stillness, with no noticeable change in his breathing rate, he finally stopped.
He took a step back, wiped the sweat from his forehead (mostly from psychological pressure), and gave a wink to the young detective next to him who was taking notes and assisting. The two of them temporarily left the interrogation room and went to the observation room outside.
The observation room was dark, save for the bright light streaming through the one-way glass, which illuminated Richard Cohen's somber face and Sarah Mendoza's furrowed brow. Cohen had been there the whole time, mostly watching in silence.
Rodriguez unscrewed a bottle of water, gulped down more than half of it, then let out a heavy sigh, his voice trembling with barely perceptible confusion. "Boss, this guy... something's wrong. Something's very wrong."
"What happened? Did he speak?" Cohen asked immediately, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
"No." Rodriguez shook his head, his face grave. "Precisely because he didn't speak. I know Tony's methods; even a rock would crack by now. But this guy..." He pointed to Zhao Zhiyong, slumped in a chair behind the glass, soaking wet, trembling slightly, but his eyes still staring blankly at the ceiling. "He didn't utter a sound from beginning to end. It wasn't that he was just putting on a brave face; it was... it was as if he couldn't feel any pain at all, or perhaps his consciousness wasn't even in that body."
Sarah Mendoza crossed her arms, her voice low. "It's been over thirty hours. Physiologically, he should have reached his limit long ago, fainted, or been hallucinating and delirious due to pain and dehydration. But he hasn't. His heart rate and blood pressure monitoring are terrible, but they've remained at a... eerily stable level, without any violent fluctuations that threaten to break him. This defies common medical sense."
Cohen's expression grew even more grim. He stared at Zhao Zhiyong behind the one-way mirror, the seemingly ordinary but now incredibly eerie Chinese man. He recalled Zhao Zhiyong's terrifyingly calm gaze when he raised his middle finger in the interrogation room, and the indescribable sense of "looking down" on him in that last glance back.
A chill, even stronger than the air conditioning on the second basement level, crept silently up his back.
"Investigate his background again!" Cohen ordered in a deep voice, his tone somewhat hoarse. "Thorough investigation! Every experience he's had since birth, every person he's come into contact with! As for Great East University... find a way, through informal channels, to find out what he did before he went abroad! I refuse to believe that an ordinary warehouse manager could develop such skills!"
"We've expedited the investigation," Mendoza replied, his brow furrowing even more. "But the feedback is the same as before. Clean, ordinary, without any trace of special training or complex experiences. He's like... like a pre-programmed cardboard cutout, only activated with some kind of... incomprehensible instruction when pushed into the 'front-line' position."
"Incomprehensible instructions?" Cohen chewed on the word, his unease growing stronger. He had initially thought it was just a simple case of tax evasion and money laundering using a "front man," at most involving some local gangs or corrupt officials. But now, Zhao Zhiyong's irrational and almost "inhuman" behavior made him wonder if he had inadvertently stirred up a hornet's nest that was far deeper, darker, and more dangerous than he had imagined.
"Should we continue, boss?" Rodriguez asked, a hint of hesitation in his voice. Continuing the torture might actually kill the man, which would be a huge problem. Moreover, against an opponent who seemed "insensitive to pain," continuing the violence seemed pointless except for draining their own strength and morale.
Cohen stared at Zhao Zhiyong behind the glass, his eyes shifting between light and shadow. Give up? Impossible. They'd already come this far; there was no turning back. Besides, Zhao Zhiyong was currently the only possible opening to break through Lin Feng's defenses. But continuing... would it really work?
"Change him," Cohen finally said through gritted teeth, a ruthless glint in his eyes. "You rest. Let the 'doctor' try. No need for any more physical torture. Give him a little 'spice' and see if his nerves are really made of iron. Also, notify the forensic department to collect all his clothing, including any possible skin flakes and hair, and conduct the most detailed bioinformatics analysis and toxicology screening! I need to know if he's used any drugs we don't know about, or... if he's not ' Zhao Zhiyong ' at all!"
"Doctor" is their internal name for an expert in the bureau who is skilled in using "special drugs" and "psychological manipulation," whose methods are more covert and touch the core of the mind.
"Yes," Rodriguez and Mendoza replied, but neither of them showed much optimism. Zhao Zhiyong's behavior had gone beyond the scope of what they were familiar with as a "criminal" or "resistance fighter."
Silence fell again in the observation room, broken only by the faint hum of the bright lights in the interrogation room and Zhao Zhiyong's increasingly faint but still steady breathing, which could be faintly heard through the audio equipment.
Cohen walked to the one-way mirror, almost pressing his face against it, staring intently at the man slumped in the chair, like a lifeless rag. He tried to find a crack, a trace of human fear or wavering, in that face contorted with pain and exhaustion but still empty in the eyes.
But all he saw was a bottomless, chilling calm. It was as if the body undergoing torture and the "will" residing within it were two completely separate parts.
"What... are you?" Cohen muttered to himself in a voice only he could hear.
Inside the interrogation room, Zhao Zhiyong seemed to sense something. His unfocused eyes shifted slightly, and his empty gaze seemed to pierce through the one-way glass, meeting Cohen's sinister gaze for a fleeting moment in the void.
That glance, still devoid of any emotion.