Chapter 83: Puppet
"Rich people really have soft bones. A little intimidation and they immediately become subservient, without an ounce of ruthless desperation. But if you can fight with money, why bother fighting with your life like us poor folk?" Thinking this, she spitefully added a few more ounces of strength to her grip.
She felt the man beneath her offer no resistance under her intimidation, and she once again confirmed that his limbs were completely bound by her hair. With herself positioned squarely on his waist, he couldn't possibly turn over.
Mu Si decided to add another layer of insurance, quashing any potential thoughts of resistance from the other party. So, she stretched out her right hand again, pressing down on Bai Mo's neck, then with one hand, she brushed aside her hair and pressed a small device she wore on her right ear.
"Click." The moment she pressed it, the previously locked door automatically opened, and two accomplices appeared in the doorway.
"Mu Si, you finished already?" one of the men asked.
"Did you take care of his bodyguards on your end too?"
"What bodyguards does this Chinese guy have? We searched everywhere," the man called Sheng Qi said, scratching his head. "Hei Long,
you didn't find anyone either, right?"
"Nope, my nose hasn't caught the scent of any strangers," the burly man behind Sheng Qi said, his nose twitching a few times.
"With a nose like that, why aren't you called Black Dog?" Mu Si said with a laugh. "Now, let's move this guy to our hideout. The hotel might find us here."
"Give me the rope and gag."
"Here." Sheng Qi pulled the rope and cloth from his bag and tossed them to Mu Si, then expertly retrieved a large sack from the same bag.
"Quiet." Mu Si tightened the hair wrapped around Bai Mo's neck.
"Quite an amusing ability." Bai Mo, pressed beneath the beautiful woman, smiled and spoke his first words since they met. His calm gaze completely disregarded them, as if they were nothing.
"Kid talks too much. Mu Si, remember to gag him once he's tied up." Sheng Qi was clearly someone who utterly loathed loudmouths.
He looked at Mu Si, who was completely unresponsive, and said, "Mu Si? What's going on?"
She didn't move an inch, as if she hadn't heard Sheng Qi at all.
Sheng Qi stepped forward, wanting to see what was happening, but just as he reached halfway, he heard Bai Mo leisurely utter another sentence.
"You'd better retract your hair. I don't want this bed to be covered in fallen strands."
"Hei Long, come on." Sheng Qi waved to Hei Long, only to see Mu Si actually doing as Bai Mo said, beginning to retract all the hair wrapped around him.
"Mu Si!" Even Sheng Qi, as slow as he was, now realized that something was definitely wrong with Mu Si. He immediately unleashed his famous signature move—the Holy Light Fist—a strange white energy enveloping his fist, striking directly towards Bai Mo's head.
Sheng Qi no longer considered the ransom. He felt he had to deliver a fatal blow before Bai Mo fully recovered.
Because his intuition told him that the young man before him posed a life-threatening danger, he felt he had to kill him, even though Bai Mo's eyes still seemed as innocent as before.
"Hei Long! You too, quick, help me!" Sheng Qi shouted to Hei Long behind him as he threw his punch.
Just as Sheng Qi's Holy Light Fist was about to strike Bai Mo's head, a slender hand suddenly appeared between the fist and Bai Mo's head, firmly blocking the punch. It even grabbed the fist wreathed in white flames.
The scene instantly became incredibly strange. It looked like a mantis trying to stop a chariot; the small hand, barely able to cover the front of the fist, nevertheless firmly grasped the full-force attack, even extinguishing the white flames wreathed around the fist.
"Mu Si! Do you know what you're doing!" Sheng Qi shouted one last time.
Mu Si paused after hearing Sheng Qi's words, then relaxed the hand blocking the fist.
"Sheng Qi, I... I'm being controlled by him..." Mu Si managed to blurt out half a sentence, seizing a momentary lapse in Bai Mo's control, before control was snatched away once more.
"Still not quite proficient. Controlling someone else's body with such fine motor skills involves too many considerations. Most of this is originally the subconscious's responsibility, but if it's all to be externally dominated by psionic power, the computational demands are too high." Bai Mo thought this, lying on the mat.
Because, with Bai Mo's current precision in psionic power control, he could only focus his main efforts on controlling the motor system. Mu Si's hair ability, however, wasn't something psionic power could manipulate. Her offensive output against enemies relied primarily on her physical techniques. So, he simply used his psionic power to bestow a powerful shield upon his puppet, Mu Si, making her more resilient and harder to damage.
With the external support of Bai Mo's psionic power, the controlled Mu Si relied on her fists and kicks, along with the aerial maneuverability granted by psionic control, to simultaneously fend off attacks from her two teammates.
Although occasional openings appeared, they were fighting to a standstill. However, this was also partly because Sheng Qi and Hei Long were holding back, wary of harming Mu Si.
The two had also considered the strategy of "to catch the bandit, first catch the king"—one would hold back Mu Si, while the other would go forward to capture Bai Mo. After all, he didn't look like someone skilled in close combat, so they'd have a good chance if they could get close.
However, Bai Mo simply wielded Mu Si back and forth like a shield, making it impossible to hold her down. Moreover, Mu Si's strength had become prodigious, at times even surpassing that of the two close-combat ability users under the augmentation of psionic power.
"If she lands one of those punches, we might die..." The two men facing Mu Si couldn't help but think this as they watched her overbearing fists.
"Something's definitely wrong! Every time we get within a certain distance of that guy, the air seems to become thicker than water, the resistance is terrifying. Even if Hei Long and I charge together, Mu Si catches up to us and drives us out of the defensive perimeter separately. And Mu Si's attacks seem to be getting more skilled, not as stiff as they were a few minutes ago." Sheng Qi thought this amidst the fierce battle.
"Every one of this puppet's punches is imbued with a portion of my psionic power. Yet you two, who don't even have a Life Field, still dare to hold back?" Bai Mo chuckled inwardly as he watched their performance.
"Go ahead and hit her with all you've got. You won't break this doll," Bai Mo said to them, then continued to lie on the bed and watch the show.
"You bastard!" Sheng Qi was almost driven mad with rage, but there was nothing he could do when his strength and speed couldn't keep up. Both of them were tank-type, power ability users; when they were also suppressed in terms of strength, they could only bitterly defend against the attacks coming from their former teammate.
Their entire worldview was crumbling. Mu Si, normally a nimble ability user, had suddenly transformed into a close-combat berserker who broke through skill with sheer force, and she was growing even fiercer in the melee.
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