"That's right. Hoolay's atrocities weren't limited to slaughter. In thousands of wars, we tried our best to eliminate the Borisin, but he used an unknown evil art to turn countless Foxians into his controlled pawns and mechanical beasts, allowing him to repeatedly stage comebacks. The Foxian race curses his name day and night, even using it to scare crying children into silence. If such a great evil were to die a painful death overnight, how could the Foxians within the Alliance be satisfied?"

Jing Yuan turned his head and looked back at Lingsha: "May I ask if Miss Lingsha knows why Hoolay was ultimately not detained by the Xianzhou Yaoqing, which has a majority Foxian population, but was instead imprisoned solely on the Luofu?"

Lingsha replied, "The General just mentioned that your master's martial arts were unparalleled, defeating Hoolay and achieving a great feat. Therefore, the Marshal ordered this fierce beast to be handed over to the Luofu for disposal, perhaps as a form of honor?"

"Miss Lingsha has a great misunderstanding regarding this arrangement. Allow me to explain slowly."

——

The Legend of Hei.

"So it's because of hatred."

Nezha chewed on the taro balls in his mouth and said plainly, "But since the Foxians have such deep hatred for the Borisin, Hoolay shouldn't have been handed over to the Luofu. If I locked up an enemy in my house, wouldn't I stab them eight hundred times a day just to vent?"

"Which of your enemies could withstand you stabbing them that many times?" Elder Jiu stretched his head over.

Nezha propped his chin up with his fist, thought carefully, and said, "...That's true."

"In my opinion, the secret to why the Alliance didn't entrust Hoolay to the Xianzhou Yaoqing for custody lies in Hoolay's evil art that converts Foxians into pawns." Elder Jiu stroked the thin wisps of beard on his chin. "Think carefully, since Foxians and Borisin share a common ancestry, it means that if Foxians mastered that evil art, they could also convert Borisin into Foxian pawns."

"Isn't that good?" Nezha didn't even look up. "I think it's great! The Borisin enslaved the Foxians, so shouldn't the Foxians be allowed to enslave them back? If he dares to enslave one Foxian, I should, in turn, enslave a hundred Borisin!"

"Your idea of revenge is quite fitting for The Hunt." Elder Jiu shook his head. "But in my opinion, the Marshal would never set such a precedent—Abominations of Abundances can be killed, but they must never be converted into Xianzhou people. On this matter, it is strictly black and white. Once this bottom line is broken, more and more bottom lines concerning Abominations of Abundances will be crossed in the future."

——

The three continued their journey and arrived before a damaged mecha.

"I heard Yanqing say that the Company's starship was attacked by the Borisin. Was this thing being transported on board?" Jing Yuan bent down slightly, carefully examining the mecha before him.

"Yes. The Artisanship Commission and the Alchemy Commission jointly conducted an inspection... The parts of this machine utilized specially processed Borisin biological tissue," Lingsha said. "I heard that the Intelligentsia Guild has always been researching the biological characteristics of the Long-Life species, hoping to obtain results that could be used for medical treatment or combat. However, due to their superficial relationship with the Alliance, they dared not go too far out of line."

Dan Heng speculated, "Perhaps in the eyes of those Scholars, the Borisin are no different from lab animals. Could the Borisin have attacked that starship simply to retaliate against the Intelligentsia Guild for experimenting on their kin?"

"No, if they merely wanted revenge against the Company and the Guild, they could have easily destroyed the starship and ruined all the cargo. In that case, it wouldn't have ended up in the The Shackling Prison. This was a deliberate performance, exposing the danger level of the 'cargo' in public, solely so that they could be successfully delivered into the The Shackling Prison to serve as weapons for a jailbreak."

Jing Yuan couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "To utilize the blind spots of human nature so skillfully—this is completely different from the usual tactics of the Borisin. The Company and the Intelligentsia Guild were likely used as pawns without even realizing it."

——

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders.

"These Borisin are too smart, aren't they? I feel like they're smarter than me!"

At the old hotel on the bank of the Nile River, the night desert wind, laden with sand, battered the window glass, like a tireless knocking sound. Polnareff was sprawled out in a wicker lounge chair, drinking iced beer and gazing at the Celestial Screen.

"Polnareff, isn't it normal for them to be smarter than you?" Kakyoin Noriaki smiled slightly. "You don't seriously think they could enslave countless planets based on physical ability alone, do you? The Borisin definitely have specialized R&D talent."

"In that case, Hoolay counts as the the Savior of these Borisin, right?" Joseph stroked the stubble on his chin, his expression complex. "However, the Xianzhou people are still better off than us. Seven hundred years ago, they had the Sword Champion help them capture Hoolay alive, and seven hundred years later, three Generals are uniting to surround and suppress him. Meanwhile, we have to cross oceans to get to Egypt just to eliminate DIO, sigh..."

Joseph looked at the dusty air conditioner in the hotel—it had clearly been broken for a long time, yet the unscrupulous boss still wanted to seize the opportunity to rip them off. The nights in Egypt were like ovens... and this was supposedly the best place nearby.

"So when is that woman named Feixiao planning to make her move? She's not going to overthink it and let Hoolay escape, is she?" Polnareff yelled from the side.

"Do you think she's you?" Joseph said. "It's like fishing: when the fish first bites the hook, you can't pull immediately. You have to wait until it swallows it deeper before reeling in the line."

Polnareff scratched his head: "But what if the fish eats the bait and runs away?"

"That means you're not a good fisherman." Kakyoin smiled.

——

While everyone was talking, for some reason, the broken metal mound on the ground seemed to conceal something stirring restlessly.

"Watch out, both of you, this thing is still alive!" Dan Heng watched the mecha shakily stand up from the ground, unable to suppress his astonishment. "It can self-repair even after suffering such severe damage?"

Fortunately, even standing up, the mecha was at the end of its tether. Jing Yuan quickly dispatched it with a few strikes, sending it back to the ground.

The massive machine returned to silence, like a wounded beast that had bled dry, unable to move again.

"The General still hasn't answered my question: 'Why was Hoolay imprisoned on the Luofu instead of the Yaoqing?' You've been tight-lipped about this. Could it be that this arrangement is not an honor?" Lingsha continued to press.

Jing Yuan kept staring at the fallen mecha before him: "The reason the Marshal did not keep Hoolay on the Yaoqing lies in this very machine before us."

Lingsha was clearly finding this hard to believe: "...Are you saying someone wants to decipher Hoolay's secret, just as this machine represents, and apply that knowledge?"