Chapter 45: Not Worth Pitying Even in Death

“It’s raining again.”

Li Yuan looked at the iron-gray curtain of rain outside the car window and sighed.

Pingjiang’s climate was just that changeable. Rain showers came without warning. Although not heavy, they couldn’t be called a light drizzle either. The sky had turned somewhat desolate, shadows spreading like ink blobs dissolving in water. Street lamps flickered on one by one, like lighthouses penetrating countless rain lines, faint yet resolute, like fireflies.

“Oh, right. Help me check the sides of the back seat and the trunk,” she said, still driving, to Qi Xin in the back seat. “I remember there should be an umbrella in the trunk… it’ll be bad if there isn’t.”

Qi Xin propped herself up, kneeling on the back seat. For a moment, she couldn’t figure out how to open this car’s trunk, until she found a button on the side and finally folded the seat down. “There’s only a very small parasol in the trunk.”

“Forget it, we’ll squeeze together and make do,” Li Yuan said, a little helplessly. “Anyway, it’s just a short walk from the station later—ah, a call’s coming in.”

She answered the car’s Bluetooth. Fang Qi’s hoarse voice filled the vehicle, getting straight to the point without any pleasantries: “A new incident… Wait a moment, just to be safe, let me ask first: Can the girl hear right now?”

Li Yuan paused. “I’m driving, it’s on Bluetooth. What’s up?”

A sound of suppressed laughter came from the other end. It seemed Fang Qi was in a meeting. Even if Li Yuan was slow on the uptake, she realized she’d said something wrong and said, flustered, “Didn’t you all tell me I have to be reachable at all times? I’m driving, how am I supposed to take a call without Bluetooth? Taking a call while driving is a two-hundred-yuan fine and three demerit points!”

“You’re on a mission. Even if you were driving in reverse, doing a handstand on the road, it would count as emergency measures…” Fang Qi sighed. “But a model citizen like you is still good, at least better than Yu Mi, who only likes to speed. Just him alone racks up more monthly speeding tickets than the whole team combined. You follow the rules and don’t cause trouble, so that’s one less burden on me.”

Fang Qi’s sigh was very heartfelt, as he was the person in the team responsible for handling all these miscellaneous chores and writing the reports.

“If it’s inconvenient, you can pull over. I’ll get out first, and then you can take the call,” Qi Xin said.

“No need,” a man’s voice spoke from the other end. Qi Xin found it somewhat familiar, identifying it as the usually taciturn Group Leader Yu. “Li Yuan, take her along on this incident. Consider it gaining some experience. Oh, right, remember to come back first to collect your equipment, and have Tian Xi open the Lake for her while you’re at it.”

Li Yuan paused, her brows slightly furrowing. “That Tian Xi from the Song Family?”

“It’s a transfer order from above, effective yesterday. She’s been assigned as the Lake Guardian in our team,” Yu Mi stated coolly. “Same old arrangement, atonement for her crimes. I know what you’re worried about; she’s already had that surgery. I was one of the Executors. She’s wearing shackles now.”

Li Yuan’s brows were tightly knit, but in the end, she just gave a non-committal “Mm” and said nothing more.

After hanging up, the atmosphere in the car turned somewhat quiet, leaving only the muffled sound of rain striking the roof. Qi Xin asked softly, “You seem to dislike that person named Tian Xi a lot. Did she do something?”

Li Yuan gripped the steering wheel and sighed. “She’s a Lake Cutter… Have I ever told you about Lake Cutters?”

“No,” Qi Xin shook her head. “It sounds like a name from a wuxia novel.”

Li Yuan was somewhat amused by her comment. “You’re not wrong. You can think of it that way. Lake Cutters are the evil faction members everyone wants to kill in those wuxia novels, all anti-social psychopaths. That fellow Tian Xi hid within the Song Family before she was exposed. She was very cunning. If the Song Family hadn’t reported her identity and hiding spot to us, this fish that slipped the net would probably have truly gotten away.”

“I see,” Qi Xin nodded obediently, not pressing further on what the woman had actually done. Instead, she changed the subject. “I heard that Group Leader say she had a surgery, so we don’t need to worry about danger—what kind of surgery is it?”

“Let me think how to explain it to you,” Li Yuan considered. “Have you ever heard of a Prefrontal Lobotomy?”

“I know a bit about it,” Qi Xin said. “It’s notoriously infamous. Violent psychiatric patients become docile as lambs after this procedure. But actually, their illness isn’t cured; they’re just reduced to dementia, no different from walking corpses. Many countries have legally banned this surgery—”

Qi Xin’s tone paused slightly as she spoke, an emotion rarely surfacing in her voice. “…You’re saying the surgery you mentioned… is this surgery?”

The emotion wasn’t sympathy, but fear… She quickly noticed the change in her own tone and adjusted it, silently grateful again that the woman driving was thick-skinned by nature.

Li Yuan shook her head. “Of course it’s not that inhumane surgery. It’s just somewhat similar in essence. Here’s an analogy: The profession of a Lake Cutter is essentially a bit like a hacker. The mind is their computer. They use hacking methods to infiltrate others’ Mind Lakes, then implant viruses or modify the fundamental logic. The surgery we perform is like installing a surveillance device inside their computer. Whenever they use any Lake Cutter methods, that monitor will issue a warning first. And if the Lake Cutter ignores the warning after it’s issued, stubbornly trying to forcefully use their ability in violation of that restriction, the monitor will directly burn out the neural connection tissue, stopping their actions.”

“It sounds like the electronic shackles mentioned online,” Qi Xin said. “The kind that has a GPS tracker, warns you if you get within five hundred meters of places like schools, and automatically alerts the authorities if you ignore the warning.”

“Pretty much,” Li Yuan said. “It’s just even more secure. Because those Lake Cutters are like hackers in many ways, like their contempt for the law, their solitary and arrogant personalities, their selfishness, and complete lack of empathy. They only care about their own lives and their ‘self,’ or soul, which is as important as life itself to them. So, the result of burning out that prefrontal lobe connection tissue holds an immense deterrent effect for them.”

“I see.”

“Are you thinking it’s too inhumane?” Li Yuan glanced at the rearview mirror.

Qi Xin noticed her gaze, her eyes dodging slightly, her voice sounding somewhat timid. “Sorry, I spoke out of turn.”

In the place Li Yuan couldn’t see, the girl’s face held no apologetic expression.

“No, I should be the one apologizing. I’m sorry for directing my emotions at you,” Li Yuan said quietly after a long moment. “Actually, I know why you’d think that way. Students tend to see things optimistically… When I first became an Executor, I had those thoughts you mentioned, all that messy talk about humanitarianism, human rights, whatever. But trust me, once you’ve truly seen with your own eyes what those Lake Cutters have done, you’ll understand why they are so much worse than any murderer. It’s—”

Her accelerating speech came to an abrupt halt. After a moment of silence, she broke it again: “It’s the most grievous desecration and trampling of a person’s character, their true heart, and their soul. Even death by firing squad ten thousand times wouldn’t be enough to atone for a Lake Cutter’s sins.”