Chapter 382: Under Pressure
The flame above Lingyun’s palm shrank until it was barely more than a trembling red line.
Head Luo watched it with open satisfaction, his power continuing to spread through the office until the air felt thick enough to drown in. The pressure settled over Lingyun’s shoulders, dragging down his arms, and pushing down on his chest every time he tried to breathe.
Even the wooden floor creaked beneath his boots due to the pressure coming from the other man.
Luo expected him to be frightened, but instead, Lingyun simply studied the struggling flame with interest.
The pressure didn’t extinguish his fire completely. It smothered anything he tried to form away from his body, crushing the flame before it had enough space to grow. The closer the heat remained to his skin, the less control Luo’s field seemed to have over it.
That was useful information to have.
"You’ve heard stories about yourself for too long," Head Luo said as he stepped out from behind the desk. "Men like you actually start to believe them."
Lingyun lifted his gaze from the flame. "Oh," he murmured, cocking his head to the side. "Which stories are those, exactly?"
Luo’s expression darkened when he realized the pressure hadn’t wiped the smile from Lingyun’s face. He increased the weight around him, and the floor groaned louder as Lingyun’s boots sank into the boards.
"The ones that made you think you could walk in here alone," Luo replied through gritted teeth.
The pressure became so much that Lingyun’s knees threatened to buckle, but he locked them in place. A warm line slid from one nostril and over his upper lip. He licked the blood away without looking from Luo.
"I didn’t come alone," he reminded him. "There are plenty of people downstairs who wouldn’t mind helping me if I asked them to."
None of those people had anything to do with this, but Luo didn’t need to know that.
The lieutenants behind the desk interpreted Lingyun’s shrinking flame as weakness. The one on the left drew a long knife and started around the desk, while the other raised his gun and took aim at Lingyun’s chest.
The third man remained beside the window.
He slipped one hand inside his jacket but didn’t draw whatever weapon he carried. His attention moved between Lingyun and the pressure cracks spreading through the floor, carefully measuring both men instead of rushing to defend the one currently signing his pay.
Now that was a smart man. Lingyun might keep him.
The lieutenant with the knife approached cautiously at first, then gained confidence when Lingyun didn’t move. The field dragged at Lingyun’s limbs hard enough that every shift required effort, but it didn’t matter. The man had to come within reach if he wanted to use the blade.
Lingyun waited until the knife was less than a handspan from his ribs. Then, he shifted half a step and caught the lieutenant’s wrist.
The man tried to pull free, but it was useless.
Heat slipped through Lingyun’s palm and sank beneath the sleeve.
There was no burst of fire or dramatic flash. The fabric didn’t even smoke. But that didn’t mean that the flesh underneath wasn’t cooking while the shirt remained completely untouched.
The lieutenant’s face changed before the scream escaped him.
Lingyun tightened his grip, keeping the man upright while the smell of burned skin slowly filled the office.
Head Luo’s smile faded.
His pressure could crush fire struggling to form in open air, but it couldn’t pull heat out of a body once Lingyun placed it there.
The gunman fired hoping for the kill, only to be spectacularly disappointed.
Head Luo’s gravitational field caught the bullet the moment it left the barrel. Its path dipped slightly beneath the weight pressing over the room, giving Lingyun enough time to drag the burning lieutenant across himself.
The bullet struck the man beneath the shoulder causing his scream to break into a wet grunt.
Lingyun stared down at the blood blooming across the untouched fabric, then looked past him at the gunman. "You shot your friend. That really wasn’t very nice of you."
The gunman’s hands shook as he tried to correct his aim, but Lingyun only laughed.
The sound came out rough because he still couldn’t draw a full breath, but the delight carried clearly enough. Head Luo’s face hardened, and the pressure around Lingyun became brutal.
His knees bent before he could stop them.
Pain squeezed around his ribs, slowly tightening until every breath felt as if it had to force its way through a closed fist. Blood vessels burst in his left eye, staining part of his vision red, while another line of blood ran from his nose.
He was hurt.
He was also having more fun than he’d had in months.
Luo thought pain would make him reconsider because Luo didn’t understand what had entered his office.
Lingyun had never been harmless.
Rouxi hadn’t changed what he was. She hadn’t taken away the rage, the hunger for blood, or the part of him that enjoyed watching someone realize they had made an irreversible mistake.
She had simply given him something he wanted more.
She was downstairs with Yuche. She was safe, newly healed, and looking for green cores strong enough to help her survive the creature that had almost killed her.
That meant that the pain Head Luo was causing him had a purpose, and that made it all that much more bearable.
The injured lieutenant tried to wrench his arm out of Lingyun’s hand, tearing his thoughts away from Rouxi and back to the present issue. Lingyun, now annoyed to no longer be thinking about Rouxi, responded by pushing the heat deeper into the other man’s body, following the muscle toward the elbow.
The man screamed Luo’s name.
Lingyun glanced toward the desk. "Does he matter enough for you to save him?"
Luo did nothing, giving both Lingyun and the lieutenant all the answer they needed.
He didn’t reduce the pressure or tell Lingyun to release the man. He only watched, waiting for Lingyun’s body to fail before the lieutenant’s arm did.
The man in Lingyun’s grip understood the answer.
So did everyone else.