In the dead of night, Coulson quietly entered Melinda's room. Just as Melinda thought Coulson wanted to take their professional relationship a step further, he delivered his mission with a stern face.
Afterward, a disappointed Melinda muttered inwardly, "Coulson, you blockhead. Coulson, you have no charm," as she drove away from the cabin alone.
By the time the morning sun shone on the RV, Melinda had returned, her face as stiff as a poker player's, and knocked on the RV door.
At that moment, Li Ming—who never rose before the sun was high—was deep in conversation with the Duke of Zhou in his dreams. The bedroom was far enough from the door that he didn't hear the knocking at all.
Klee Che, who also lived in the RV, heard the knocking but, being utterly devoted to Li Ming, dared not disturb his master's sweet dreams. So Melinda was left knocking on the door alone outside.
After several minutes of pounding with no response, an infuriated Melinda stormed back to the cabin, grabbed her pistol, returned to the RV's window, and fired several shots into the air. "I refuse to believe you can sleep through gunfire!"
Unfortunately, Melinda underestimated the RV's soundproofing.
A few gunshots outside were nothing—even if the RV were surrounded by artillery fire, Li Ming in his bedroom would remain blissfully unaware.
However, Melinda's gunshots did manage to wake everyone in the cabin, including Coulson.
Rushing out in his pajamas, Coulson took one look at Melinda's gritted teeth and immediately understood why she was furious.
Women already had little patience for anyone who disrupted their beauty sleep, let alone being forced to go out alone in the middle of the night to retrieve a corpse.
An ordinary woman's mood in such a situation was easy to imagine—but Melinda was anything but ordinary. The fact that she hadn't used a rocket launcher to wake Li Ming was already a small miracle.
A few warning shots into the air? Coulson considered this a minor scene—well within acceptable limits.
To prevent Melinda from escalating to explosives, Coulson—who knew the RV's capabilities better—signaled for her to holster her gun. Calmly, he took out his phone and dialed Li Ming's number. Inside the RV, Li Ming instinctively controlled the ringing phone to float near his ear and mumbled sleepily, "The number you have dialed is not in service. Please refrain from calling again."
Before Li Ming could finish, an enraged Melinda snatched the phone from Coulson's hand and barked coldly, "Open the door—or I'll break it down with a battering ram."
Feeling an inexplicable chill in his limbs, Li Ming sat up on the bed in a daze. "M-Melinda?"
"Yeah, it's me. Open the damn door," Melinda gritted through clenched teeth.
A moment later, Li Ming, wrapped in a bedsheet, opened the RV door while yawning. "Seriously, sis? Couldn't this wait until I woke up? What's so urgent?"
Melinda's eye twitched as she pointed expressionlessly at the car and said, "The person you asked for." With that, she turned and headed toward the cabin to catch up on her beauty sleep.
"What got into Melinda? She's so pissed," Li Ming muttered under his breath before scratching his head in confusion. Glancing at the car, he asked curiously, "The person I asked for? Who did I ask for?"
Coulson raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Alexander Pierce."
"Oh, him."
Li Ming rubbed his face to wake himself up and, still wrapped in the bedsheet, floated toward the car without bothering to change. "Didn't expect Fury to be so thoughtful. There are still a few days left before the handover—why'd he send this idiot over already? Doesn't make sense."
Jokingly, he added, "Unless Fury needs my help with something?"
Coulson forced a weak smile behind him. How was he supposed to answer that? Admit that Fury wasn't sure if the charred remains were actually Alexander Pierce and wanted the sorcerer to perform a resurrection spell to verify? Or that they needed to extract intel—classified S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets, no less—from a pile of burnt bones?
The idea that a major international organization had to outsource such a task was downright embarrassing. But he had no choice.
Sighing, Coulson quickened his pace past Li Ming and opened the car's rear door. Pointing at the mostly skeletal, charred corpse on the seat, he said awkwardly, "Could you revive him? I'd like to ask him a few questions... privately."
Li Ming stared at the burnt corpse, then at Coulson, before asking blankly, "Did you... guys strap Alexander Pierce to an electric chair for interrogation? Then tear his corpse apart in a fit of rage?"
"Rage?" Coulson frowned slightly at the implication. "What do you know?"
Li Ming narrowed his eyes at Coulson, tilted his head in thought, then summoned a spectral projection of the corpse and asked in the language of the dead, "Who are you?"
"Alexander Pierce," the charred skull replied dazedly. "Didn't I die?" Li Ming crossed his arms and scrutinized the charred corpse. Although the body had been pieced back together after being blown to bits—making it impossible for Li Ming to discern its original physique or appearance—he was certain this wasn't the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Alexander was far too cunning to die so easily, let alone in such a gruesome, dismembered way.
After a moment's thought, Li Ming yanked off the skull of the charred corpse and held it up to Coulson's face. "Recognize him?"
"Yes. Phil Coulson, a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Director Fury's right-hand man," the corpse hesitated before adding, "I remember he was killed in action. Unless…" It fell silent then, but Li Ming still sensed the corpse knew something more.
As if secrets could be kept from a mage? Even a spirit would cough up something useful under my methods. A faint smirk curled Li Ming's lips as he raised his hand and cast a Purification Spell on the corpse. With a cruel grin, he sneered, "Talk. What do you know? Trust me, I have plenty of ways to interrogate you slowly."
The corpse seemed to realize it was already dead—nothing more than a skull now.
Feeling Li Ming toying with its soul, the corpse reluctantly spilled everything it knew, begging him to stop tormenting its spirit.
Nearby, Coulson watched Li Ming's silent performance in confusion.
When Obadiah had been "resurrected" by Li Ming, Coulson had clearly heard him speak human words. Even when Coulson himself had been "revived," he'd spoken normally and even managed to take a few steps.
Now, the "resurrected" corpse being unable to move was understandable—after all, it was just a skull. But why was it speaking in "ghost language" that humans couldn't hear?
This wasn't what I expected. How are we supposed to interrogate someone when we can't even understand them?
Coulson glanced at the charred corpse and asked, puzzled, "Austin, why can't I hear him speaking?"
"A skull without eyes or a tongue—how do you expect it to speak human words?" Li Ming replied offhandedly, still listening to the corpse's account of Alexander's life.
After a while, Li Ming tossed the skull to Coulson, yawned, and floated toward the van. Over his shoulder, he said, "He's Alexander's biological decoy. All he knows is how lavish Alexander's daily life was. Nothing useful."
A biological decoy? So Alexander's gone underground? Coulson's pupils constricted as he hurriedly asked, "Then where's the real Alexander?"
Li Ming paused mid-step and turned back with an annoyed glare. "You're asking me? I was about to ask if you knew where that bastard's hiding." He pointed at the charred corpse and added coldly, "And when I said 'hand him over,' I meant the person who ordered the nuke launch. Now Fury's trying to fool me with a biological decoy? What kind of joke is this?"
After speaking, Li Ming, feeling the temperature drop further, tightened the blanket around himself and continued floating toward the RV. Behind him, Coulson hurriedly explained in a helpless tone, "Austin, Fury has no idea this is a synthetic human. Don't you dare act recklessly."
Li Ming casually waved his hand, signaling that he wouldn't do anything rash.
Had he not experienced the world of 'Bruce Almighty' or spent two years under God's careful guidance, Li Ming's first instinct might have been to stand in front of the Pentagon conjuring fireballs, forcing the government to mobilize the entire nation to search for Alexander.
Now, however, he dared not easily turn malicious thoughts into actual actions without reason—doing so would truly make him more susceptible to Dark Energy corruption.
Of course, Alexander still had to be found. After all, it was Alexander who had tried to kill Li Ming first.
This fell within the bounds of legitimate revenge and didn't violate the moral boundaries set by God and Li Ming.
As for how Coulson interpreted his casual gesture, that wasn't something Li Ming bothered to consider.
So what if he scared people a little? Even God enjoyed playing such games.