Chapter 60: Principal, That's Way Too Harsh, Isn't It??

The rise and fall of He Yu’s chest gradually grew steady, and with every breath he took, the burning heat accumulated in his lungs from the fierce battle was expelled.

The office was filled with a nauseating, compounded stench.

The sour rot of sweat, the reek spawned by sheer terror, and a faint trace of the smell of blood that refused to disperse once it entered the nostrils—the three mixed together, making the air feel viscous.

He did not look down.

The five twisted humanoid figures on the ground, like beetles with their shells crushed, instinctively curled and writhed, squeezing broken whimpers out of their throats from excruciating pain.

His steps were very light, treading over shattered office supplies and scattered documents, yet the soles of his leather shoes did not produce a single unnecessary sound of friction.

Finally, his figure came to a halt.

He stopped in front of a miniature camera embedded in the gap between the bookshelf and the wall, at an extremely concealed angle.

At the other end of the lens were countless untraceable encrypted links. At this moment, they were guiding a tidal wave of traffic, overwhelming one temporary cloud server after another.

The online viewer count of a single livestream room was frozen at a terrifying number, and it was still crazily jumping.

Tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of viewers, held their breath at the exact same time. Their pupils reflected the figure of the man on the screen.

He Yu’s gaze pierced through that tiny lens, his sight seeming to cross the physical barrier, landing on every horrified, dazed, or fanatical face behind the screen.

He raised his hand.

His movement was unhurried and composed, carrying an elegance utterly out of tune with the bloody mess around him.

First, he calmly straightened the slightly unbuttoned collar of his shirt, and then he extended a finger to brush away a non-existent speck of dust from his shoulder.

Having finished all this, under the focus of tens of thousands of gazes, he unhurriedly took out his phone.

The screen lit up, reflecting his utterly tranquil face.

Without a shred of hesitation, his fingertips slid across the screen, precisely dialing a number.

The private number of Liu Jie, the captain of the Cyber Police Detachment.

The call was placed.

"Beep—"

The connection tone, in the dead silence of the office and in the earphones of countless netizens, was as clear as beating drums.

One ring, then another, hammering at everyone's heart.

The call was answered.

"Hello? Is this Officer Liu?"

He Yu’s voice sounded, as gentle as ever, calm without a single ripple. It was completely impossible to tell that he had just experienced a life-and-death struggle.

"Sorry to disturb you so late."

His gaze casually swept over the few bodies still twitching on the ground, his tone as relaxed as if he were discussing tonight's midnight snack.

"It’s like this, I have a few lost friends in my office."

"They seem to have had too much to drink and can't walk anymore. You might need to send a car to 'sign for them'."

The phrase "'sign for them'" was pronounced extremely lightly, yet his tone carried an unquestionable weight.

On the other end of the phone, dead silence fell.

Liu Jie fell silent.

At the exact same moment, in that livestream room where the numbers were still crazily jumping, the barrage of comments completely breached the dike of rationality, turning into a boiling torrent of data!

["Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! What the hell did I just hear?! Sign for them?! What level of underworld slang is this?! This is too damn cool!"]

["Friends? Had too much to drink? Principal, I beg you, spare those two words! The flex is unreal!"]

["Our Principal... what was that split-second sideways knife-grab just now? That’s muscle memory! That’s an instinct formed by repeating a single movement tens of thousands of times until killing became numb! This is definitely a boss who crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood!"]

["Don't guess blindly upstairs! This is not modern combat arts at all! This is a martial arts grandmaster! Didn't you see his final stance of retracting his hands? That’s a standard internal martial arts posture! My grandpa practiced Bajiquan his whole life, but his stance, compared to the Principal's, is a complete joke!"]

["Screen recorded! Full 4K high-definition screen recorded! This video will become this century's greatest combat tutorial! No! It's performance art! It's the aesthetics of violence!"]

The online world was completely detonated.

In the real world, the shrill wail of police sirens drew closer from afar, tearing apart the tranquility of Longhai City's late night.

"Bang!"

The heavy solid wood door of the Principal's office was smashed open from the outside by a thunderous force.

Liu Jie took the lead. Behind him was a full squad of riot police officers wearing masks and holding riot shields and assault rifles. Everyone's nerves were strained to the absolute limit, preparing to face a fierce gunfight or a bloody hostage rescue scene.

Then, they saw a scene they would never forget in their lifetimes.

Five felons described in wanted posters as vicious and extremely dangerous were, at this moment, lying limp on the ground like five wild dogs with their spines broken. They twitched in pain, the wails coming from their throats as faint as mosquitoes.

All the weapons they had brought, from pistols to daggers, were neatly stacked in the corner.

Like a pile of scrap metal waiting to be recycled by a junkyard.

Inside the office, there were no panicked hostages, no tense standoffs, and certainly no rivers of blood as imagined.

Only the man who should have been the "victim."

He was sitting serenely behind the spacious mahogany desk.

He had even managed to find a set of exquisite Yixing purple clay tea sets from somewhere and was leisurely brewing a pot of Kung Fu tea for himself.

Boiling water was poured from a height into the pot, and the brownish-brown tea leaves rolled and unfurled in the water.

Billowing white steam rose slowly, carrying an elegant tea fragrance that miraculously diluted the original bloody stench and sweat odor in the air.

He Yu pinched a small celadon teacup, maintaining a serene demeanor and complete composure.

At this moment, the door broken open by the riot police with a battering ram did not seem like a crisis-ridden kidnapping scene.

Instead, it felt like a quiet tea room nestled deep within a bustling city.

The riot shield Liu Jie held high and guarded in front of him suddenly appeared utterly comical at this instant.

The fully alert riot police officers behind him, their index fingers resting loosely on the triggers, stared with dazed eyes and stiff movements. They did not know whether they should maintain their advancing posture or stand at attention on the spot and salute.

The sounds of the entire world seemed to have been extracted by this bizarre scene.

Only the crisp and pleasant sound of tea pouring from the spout into the cup remained.

Clink.

Liu Jie stared fixedly at the extremely magical and surreal scene before him, staring at the man who remained calm and composed amidst gunsmoke and tea fragrance.

His mind went completely blank.

All contingency plans and all tactics turned into waste paper at this moment.

Once again, he plunged into a deep doubt about this world and his own profession.

This kidnapping crisis, which could have been listed as an A-grade major case of the year and shocked the entire city, ended just like this...

With the most shocking, the most absurd, and even a certain aesthetic of violence, the curtain fell.

In the end, it did not become a bloody sensational news headline.

Instead, it transformed into a brand-new, spine-chilling legend within Longhai University.