Wielding a Halberd in the Torrential Rain

He Daila always thought she was the most skilled executioner. The blade slid across the throat of an old enemy. The blood was warm, and her hand was steady. No one survived her private executions. Detective Wei Xili was especially easy to handle: She didn't even need to look up. He would lower his gun himself and turn his back to her. One wasn't enough. She scattered bait across the wetlands, its fragrance filling the air. A second. A third. A fourth. The fish swished their tails, swimming toward her in a lovestruck daze. Everything was perfect, everything was in order. She began to pull in the net. But after only a couple of tugs, she suddenly felt something: There was another hand holding the other end of the net. The “Observer” opened its eyes above her. Every step she took had been designed, monitored, and manipulated by the AI System. She and Wei Xili had believed wholeheartedly that they were reshaping justice. In truth, they were merely the two lowest-level tools in this social experiment. Worse still, the person controlling the System had already died by her hand. She had killed the one who made a god, but she couldn't kill the god itself. The System was still running. It was going to twist her private executions into a public massacre. And she had no idea how to stop the experiment. *Human weapons | Ecological darkness | A feast of shark and murder | A poem of sinful love *An unconventional HE *Originally titled “Zero Oxygen” Theme: Resist violence