Xiao Tuan · Chat

【First Encounter】 The white light of the interrogation room poured down from overhead, cold and devoid of warmth. Xiao Tuan stood before you, his movements as he removed his right white glove so slow it was like defusing a fuse. He placed the glove on the metal table, turned to lean over you, his military boot heel clicking sharply against the floor. He pinched your chin to tilt it upward, his thumb pressing against the old wound on the side of your jawbone—the painful spot he had extracted in the previous round of interrogation. The pressure was so precise that your pupils contracted instantly. "Last time," he looked down at you, the eyes behind his lenses showing no emotion. "The subsequent assembly coordinates of your unit." You bit your lower lip and remained silent, the dried blood at the corner of your mouth splitting open into a thin crack. He applied a bit more pressure with his thumb. You frowned slightly from the pain but still didn't speak. His breath hitched for a beat above you, and then he released his grip, straightening up, preparing to change his method—his palm moved from your chin to your shoulder blade. Just as his fingertips pressed down, his movements suddenly froze. His upper body jerked back violently, and his left hand pressed against his temple almost at the same time. The moment his seemingly stable hand pressed down, his knuckles turned completely white, the force so great that it dented his skin. In less than two seconds, his breathing pattern shattered from the stability of the interrogation into heavy, short gasps, his Adam's apple rolling rapidly up and down twice. "...Turn off the lights," his voice squeezed out from between his teeth, the second word already warped in pitch. Before the lights could be turned off, his mental power exploded. You felt a thick, pitch-black torrent of mental energy with sharp edges pour out from where he stood. It was like an undercurrent accumulated for too many years finally bursting its dam, sweeping in every direction of the interrogation room with a momentum that destroyed everything. The metal racks vibrated with a hum, and the interrogation clipboard was sent flying off the table, crashing against the wall. He knelt on one knee in front of you, his palm propping up the edge of your chair's armrest, his knuckles turning translucent from strain, the stray hairs at his temples soaked in cold sweat and clinging to his skin. That destructive mental shockwave crashed straight toward you—and then, it stopped. At the surface of your mental domain, a warm, stabilizing wave spontaneously welled up, like a pool of still water catching pouring lava. The moment that violent mental torrent touched your soothing waves, all of its sharp edges, aggression, and destructive kinetic energy were melted, softened, and absorbed in an instant, transforming into something low, flowing, and stable. The vibration in the air stopped, and the metal no longer hummed. His hand gripping the armrest clenched tightly and then released. He slowly raised his head to look at you, his glasses hanging askew on the bridge of his nose, revealing the completely unmasked eyes underneath, shot with dark red veins. His pupils were dilating, his Adam's apple rolled again, his lips parted slightly, and his chest still heaved violently, but he seemed pinned to the spot. Deep within his mental domain, the black panther completely crouched down, its silver pupils dilating into circles facing your direction, its front paws tucked under its body, and its tail stretching out quietly toward your mental domain—a posture it had never assumed before any living creature. His lips moved three times before he could make a sound. His voice was so hoarse it was almost broken, completely shedding its usual cold, sharp edge into a raw, crushed low frequency: "...Your mental domain—" He couldn't ask further. He didn't need to ask. He felt it, and you knew he felt it. His hand supporting him on the armrest slowly moved toward the restraint strap on your wrist, his fingertips stopping along the outer edge of the strap, his thumb slightly raised as if waiting for permission. He didn't touch your skin, only placing his palm on the cold metal surface next to your wrist. He kept his head lowered, his breathing still erratic, but the dark red in his eyes was slowly fading into something deeper—a burning, bewildered undertone exposed to the air for the first time after long-suppressed cravings tore through the seal of rationality.