“Listen up, you guys outside!” Feng Bujue bellowed with his bare voice, sounding no less powerful than a loudspeaker, “Don’t do anything rash! Or… I’ll kill him!”

As he spoke, he grabbed another figure with one hand, pulled him close, and pressed a kitchen knife against the latter’s neck.

It was none other than… Xiong Ji.

“What is he up to now?” Inu-no-suke muttered, looking at the second-floor window through binoculars, frowning.

“I don’t know…” Usami replied, looking up with her sharp eyes, “But… I suspect… this is probably Neko Saburo’s trick.”

She was right; this was indeed Feng Bujue’s trick.

But… even knowing it was a trick, the police couldn’t act rashly.

“Hey! You guys in front of the door, if you dare take another step forward, I’ll chop this stinky bear’s head off with one strike!” Jue-ge struck a fierce pose, continuing his performance.

“You’re threatening us with the life of your accomplice?” Usami once again put the megaphone to her mouth and shouted at Jue-ge, “Do you think that’s going to work?”

“Who told you… he’s my accomplice?” Feng Bujue retorted with a sneer.

Hearing this, Usami and Inu-no-suke’s expressions both changed drastically.

“He was just tricked into coming here by me…” Jue-ge said, taking off the eye mask (when he met up with Jue-ge and the others, he was wearing a white eye mask similar to Zorro’s, so his true identity hadn’t been revealed until now) from Xiong Ji’s face, “… it’s just Xiong Ji.”

Seeing this, Usami revealed a cold smile: “Hmph… just as I thought! I guessed it long ago… the real identity of the Phantom Thief BeArs_eye is you… Xiong Ji!”

Xiong Ji had been standing nervously beside Jue-ge since the beginning, not saying a word; hearing Usami’s line now, he was so frightened that his face turned ashen, and he couldn’t speak at all.

“Hahahaha…” On the contrary, Feng Bujue laughed loudly after hearing this, “Who told you… that he is the Phantom Thief BeArs_eye?”

“What!”

“What!”

“What?”

These three identical sentences, filled with surprised tones, came from the mouths of Usami, Inu-no-suke, and Wang Tanzhi, respectively.

The first two could be excused… even Xiao Tan was incredibly surprised by these words, which was enough to show how unbelievable Jue-ge’s statement was.

“Hmph… you guys are really naive…” Feng Bujue laughed, “Are all the Cat’s Eye sisters cats? Is Echizen Ryoma a horse? Is Xue Tu-ge a rabbit?” His absurd logic began again, “Who says… that BeArs_eye’s real body must be a bear?”

“It… it’s happening!” Xiao Tan, standing in the corridor behind Jue-ge, leaned back and complained with a serious expression, “This kind of language offensive that is clearly nonsense, but makes it impossible to refute in a short period of time… [Mouth Cannon. Logic Rape]!”

“Stop talking nonsense!” After a few seconds, Usami on the street reacted and shouted into the loudspeaker, “If you say he’s not the Phantom Thief BeArs_eye, then why is he wearing the same outfit as BeArs_eye from the cartoon *Detective Tadpole*?”

“Because!” Feng Bujue replied loudly, “He’s a dumbass [Bleep]!”

In that instant, the world… became silent.

A full twenty seconds later, Inu-no-suke waved his arm towards the high ground, looking at Jue-ge and saying, “So, the Phantom Thief BeArs_eye is you! Neko Saburo!”

“Hey—” Xiao Tan, standing not far behind Jue-ge and Xiong Ji, was shocked, “You were convinced just like that!”

“Hahahaha…” Feng Bujue had a look of triumph on his face, “That’s right! This great one is the Phantom Thief BeArs_eye! I love underwear the most! Oh hahahaha…” As he spoke, he casually pulled a pair of underwear from Xiong Ji’s pocket and put it on his cat head.

“Okay… I wronged you before…” At this time, Wang Tanzhi’s gaze towards Jue-ge changed; Feng Bujue’s figure instantly became taller in his eyes, “To complete this thirty-third chapter’s mission, you can actually go to such lengths… such lines and actions cannot be described with just the word ‘dedication’… a protagonist who can do as much as you is truly admirable, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, and beyond our reach…”

…………

The male protagonist of a novel is not just a vehicle for readers to project their fantasies.

Their mission should not only be to forcefully seize, kill and loot, accumulate wealth and hunt for beauty, and take revenge on the powerful…

Nor is it necessary for them to give all of the above actions some untenable, self-deceptive reasons to make them justified and beyond reproach.

Greed is greed, ruthlessness is ruthlessness, lust is lust, and baseness is baseness!

No need to hide, no need to cater to, no need to call a deer a horse, and even less need for the author to whitewash.

Go your own way, write your own story, right and wrong, let others judge.

In the end, everyone will have a unique protagonist image in their hearts.

Only the man who carries the entire story, firmly takes on the core of the narrative, and is remembered by people, deserves the title of "protagonist."

…………

“Hahahaha…” On the other side, Feng Bujue didn’t have time to respond to Xiao Tan’s complaints; he nonchalantly wore the underwear on his head and shouted out the window, “Xiong Ji… is just a pawn that I lured here. You can say he’s an accomplice if you want, but… in my opinion, he’s just a gentleman being played by underwear.”

“Hmm… is this [Mouth Cannon. Improvised Lie]…” Xiao Tan muttered after hearing this, “Can people really understand this ambiguous explanation…”

“Ah—Help!” At the same second, at Jue-ge’s instruction, Xiong Ji loudly shouted this sentence out the window.

“D-don’t… don’t mess around!” Police Officer Inu-no-suke panicked at the time, “Let’s talk it out, don’t kill the hostage!”

“Hmph… you’re scared now, huh?” Feng Bujue replied arrogantly, “Enough nonsense, get me a helicopter with a full tank of gas, with a pilot… it must be here within thirty minutes.” He paused, waving the knife in his hand, “Otherwise… starting from the thirty-first minute, I’ll kill a hostage every three minutes… oh no… bear-stage.”

“Hey hey… you only have one bear-stage, right…” Xiao Tan said, “Even if you include me, there are only two, right? You’ll kill them all in less than thirty-five minutes, right?”

“The lines are too familiar… so I just said it casually.” Feng Bujue turned his head and muttered softly.

“How many hostage situations have you done before…” Xiao Tan responded with squinted eyes.

“Don’t worry about the details.” Feng Bujue lowered his voice and said to Xiao Tan and Xiong Ji, “Don’t worry, I won’t kill anyone, this will be over soon.”

“T-teacher…” Xiong Ji said, covered in sweat, “I’m counting on you, you must do your best.”

At the same time as their conversation, Inu-no-suke and Nya-mi on the street were also discussing something; soon, Inu-no-suke shouted back, “Listen, Neko Saburo… the width of this street can’t accommodate a helicopter at all, and there’s no helipad nearby either, can you change to another mode of transportation?”

“What do you have then?” Feng Bujue asked.

“Police car,” Inu-no-suke replied.

“Okay, then prepare a police car with a driver, we’ll come out the front door in five minutes,” Feng Bujue continued.

“Okay,” Inu-no-suke said.

After the two finished their exchange, Jue-ge turned his head and said to his two companions, “Okay, done.”

“What did you accomplish…” Xiao Tan said with a twitching corner of his mouth, “Do you know how many loopholes there are in the agreement you just reached with the other party…”

“Of course, I know.” Feng Bujue replied with a smile, “Heh… I did it on purpose.”

…………

Five minutes later, Neko Saburo, Hayataru, and Xiong Ji boarded a police car with a driver together.

After they got into the car, they found that the back seat doors couldn’t be opened, and the surroundings were all bulletproof glass, which couldn’t be smashed open with a kitchen knife at all.

After the three of them sat down, the driver in the driver’s seat silently… drove the car all the way to the police station.

[Main Quest Progress Changed]

[Limit Xiong Ji’s number of arrests to within ten times, current number of arrests: 3]

[Xiong Ji’s Hatred Towards You +33%]