Why it never ends

Chapter 1045 Release
Victoria heard the door close behind her, and she understood that this meant she was imprisoned here for the time being.

She rolled up her sleeves and checked her left hand. Sure enough, the chip had been pried open. The vandal was quite impatient.

It seems impossible to expect Hesta and the others to find this place based on the chip.

Victoria lowered her eyes slightly. What should she do now? Pretending to cooperate was impossible. The other party knew her background completely, and knew that she could do a lot with the power she had at the moment. If she wanted to cooperate, she had to pay enough weight to the other party. Victoria thought of several extremely dangerous conditions: such as destroying the mother city, or inducing Zoe and Ende to come here... Any of these was the bottom line she would never cross.

And the price of refusing the deep anchor...may be that she can only live until tomorrow morning.

Victoria let out a soft sigh and scratched her hair violently: I shouldn’t eat so much at night!
Now she had to come up with a third way, a choice between complete submission and complete break, in order to break through this dilemma.

Victoria tapped her fingers on the table.

This is really... easier said than done.

……

A simple operating table was set up in the temporary workshop, and several cages containing people were dragged to the first floor. All the mercury needles that came to support passed their restraining time smoothly under Hesta's sight.

"Where's Victoria?" Zoe stood up and asked, "Why isn't she here?"

"She was captured by Deep Anchor's men."

Zoe frowned, "What?"

Hesta recounted what happened, but Zoe didn't even finish listening before rushing over and grabbing Hesta's collar: "So what are you doing here now? Go save people!"

Hesta raised his hands: "Calm down for a moment..."

"She's one of yours, right?" Zoe turned around and reached into the cage, grabbing the face of one of the reservists between the bars. "Tell me! Where did you take Victoria?"

The reserve was caught off guard by someone grabbing his neck, and his breathing stagnated for a moment: "...Do you think I will tell you?"

"Then I will break your fingers one by one, and then pull out your nails one by one—"

"Zoe." Hesta stepped forward and held Zoe's shoulders. "Don't mess around."

"Don't touch me!" Zoe shook off Hesta's hand. "Victoria came out with you. Now you are standing here, but she was kidnapped by a group of reservists for no reason. Do you think you don't have any responsibility? If anything happens to Victoria, you and I will—"

“Zoe.” Theresa held down Zoe’s other hand. “Let Jane finish what she has to say.”

Theresa looked at Hesta: "What are you going to do next...?"

"I plan to let these two reservists go," Hesta pointed at the two tall men in the cage, and then at the young man who had been crying. "I'm going to hold this one and the one on the operating table for now. When Ximoya comes, we'll fly back to Emanlia together."

"Let them go? Why?"

"Send a message," Hesta replied, "Tell them to go back and tell Deep Anchor that I am willing to have further contact with them. As long as they release Victoria and show me their sincerity, we can discuss everything else. They decide the time, place, and method, and I will be there on time..." "I don't agree!" Zoe said sternly, "If they just run away like this-"

"There are still two hostages." Theresa reminded.

"It doesn't matter how many hostages we have!" Zoe retorted fiercely, "You are risking Victoria's life."

"So what do you want to do?" Hesta asked.

“Give me these three people,” Zoe said solemnly, “In an hour I will make them spit out all their hideouts—”

"Think about it, if Victoria were here, would she be willing to let you do this?" Hesta also frowned. "Exchange is a feasible solution. The people over there have been tense for a long time. It's time to relax."

"Why do you——"

"She's right," Theresa said. "Zoe, if Victoria were still here, she would agree to Hesta's plan."

Zoe's anger accumulated little by little, and finally reached the edge of exploding at this moment - Hesta's attitude of giving orders as a matter of course further angered her. Not to mention that they were in the same team for the past two years and cooperated with each other in carrying out tasks. Even if Hesta was a shitty inspector, as long as she was not her immediate superior and the two were not affiliated with the same team, Hesta could not control her.

"Why do you--" Zoe started angrily, but before she could finish her words, she found Ende looking at her.

Ende fell silent from the moment Zoe and Hesta started arguing. Her mouth was slightly open, with panic and confusion in her eyes. She just stared at her former close comrade-in-arms, listening to him say a series of words such as "breaking fingers" and "peeling nails". These threats made her feel unfamiliar - these were Chelate's favorite games, but they were definitely not what Zoe would do.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

Ende said nothing, but Zoe's anger died down almost instantly. An inexplicable shame made Zoe feel ashamed. Before she could get rid of her worry about Victoria, another surge of self-doubt hit her like a huge wave. She took two steps back and groaned.

"…Let me calm down alone."

"Don't run out alone." Hesta grabbed Zoe's hand, "Who knows if there are other ambushes nearby—"

"Leave me alone!"

Zoe still ran out of the room. Ende glanced at Hesta and whispered, "Don't worry, I'll go chase her back."

The room became quiet again.

"...Is what you just said true?" asked the two reservists in the cage.

"Yes." Hesta turned around, "But we have to wait until we leave. We can't let you go back and tip off now."

The two young men looked at each other and asked, "Why are you..."

"I don't know enough about Deep Anchor," Hesta said, "I don't know your purpose, so I'm curious, is attacking civilians the only way to achieve your political agenda? No matter who your leader is, it would be good to meet him."

Hesta placed a business card on the table behind him.

"My email address is on it. If you want to know about the follow-up treatment of your companion, use this to contact me."