Qiu Yu's expression was cold, her brows sharp with an uncharacteristic edge of aggression.
She replied: "If you don't want to die, stop bothering me. Since you're a decent person, when my husband comes to kill you, I'll try to say a few words on your behalf."
With that, Qiu Yu decisively blocked Lu Zehou.
She deactivated her neural chip, walked over to the inner wall of her office, and opened a concealed compartment—lined with weaponry of every kind, from pistols to sniper rifles.
In this world, it wasn't uncommon for corporate offices to have a weapon wall—meant for emergencies.
Under the shocked gazes of her female coworkers, Qiu Yu stepped forward and pulled down a submachine gun nearly as long as her arm.
Qiu Yu wasn't short, but with her sweet features—rounded cheeks, a sharp chin, and a pair of upturned fox-like eyes—she always looked small, cute, and in need of protection.
But right now, she looked anything but delicate. With a calm, indifferent expression, she single-handedly lifted the submachine gun, loaded the magazine with a sharp clack, and clipped on the holographic scope in one fluid motion.
The scene was striking—shocking, even. Her colleagues, who'd only been watching from a distance, began to crowd around, wide-eyed, as she strapped on a supply pack and strode purposefully toward the exit.
A superior rushed over, visibly alarmed.
"Where are you going?! Haven't you seen the news? The city is swarming with mutates! Your parents told me to keep you here—they're sending someone to pick you up!"
Qiu Yu didn't even look back. She answered only the first question:
"I'm going to pick someone up."
Her boss blinked in confusion.
"Pick up who? The whole city's a war zone—who could possibly still need you? Pei Xi? His family already evacuated him."
Qiu Yu had already stepped into the stairwell. She tossed back a single line:
"My husband."
For a split second, her boss found that perfectly reasonable—of course one would want to rescue their family at a time like this.
Then it hit him—Qiu Yu's husband was Chen Ce Bai.
The man responsible for the mutate outbreak.
The office instantly erupted like a spark hitting gasoline.
Everyone was suddenly talking at once—about Qiu Yu, about Chen Ce Bai, about what their relationship really meant. Some even began speculating whether the true puppet master behind it all was Gaoke Corporation—a so-called peaceful Nordic monopoly that had long been itching to stake a claim in the Asia-Pacific market.
Their theories weren't entirely unfounded.
In this world, people had long since ceased to be individuals. Everyone was a part—a cog, a bolt, a screw, a gear, a bearing—in the corporate machine. No one viewed anything from a purely personal perspective. To them, Qiu Yu wasn't a woman—she was Gaoke, and Chen Ce Bai stood for Biotech.
And that kind of thinking, Qiu Yu mused, was normal—at least, in this world, it was.
What wasn't normal was her—the way she still insisted on acting out of emotion.
Fortunately, someone out there was willing to respond to her feelings—and respond with something even fiercer than her own.
That alone was enough.
For that alone, Qiu Yu would do whatever it took to protect Chen Ce Bai.
Even though, between the two of them, it was obvious which one actually needed protecting.
That whole day, Chen Ce Bai was in a bad mood.
He had monopolized Qiu Yu's time inside the Eternal Space for far too long. Now that they were apart, he was experiencing textbook separation anxiety.
Even being able to watch her remotely, to catch her scent from afar, did little to ease the restless ache inside him.
All morning, he'd been silent and icy, his emotions subdued—but his calculation speed had hit terrifying new levels. More than once, he beat the supercomputer to the solution by several seconds. It was as if the multi-billion-dollar machine was just a glorified calculator at this point.
After the final experiment wrapped up, Chen Ce Bai stripped off his hazmat suit, ignored the gasps of awe around him, and strode out of the lab.
—If he didn't speak to Qiu Yu soon, he was going to lose his mind.
It was a difficult emotion to put into words.
For most of his life, he'd never had anyone. Never been close. Never been loved.
And Qiu Yu… Qiu Yu spoiled him.
Even knowing what he was—a dangerous creature with terrifying, unknown powers, capable of ending her life in an instant—she let him press into her breath, place his hand over her vulnerable carotid artery…
If not for her indulgence, he would never have known what it felt like to fully possess someone.
And that feeling—it was exhilarating.
More potent than any stimulant. More euphoric than hundreds of dopamine shots.
He changed into civilian clothes, picked up his tablet, and finally, finally—saw Qiu Yu's message. The chill in his expression softened just a little.
Right then, a voice called out from behind him:
"Dr. Chen? Is that Dr. Chen?"
Chen Ce Bai lifted his gaze slightly and glanced back. "What is it?"
"Oh wow, it really is you! What an honor!" the stranger exclaimed.
The man was in his early twenties, with a scar across one eyelid. He looked simple, almost earnest—but beneath that, his eyes gleamed with twisted malice.
He gave Chen Ce Bai a quick once-over and began talking rapidly:
"My family's dying of an incurable disease. We desperately need biotech treatment. They said they needed someone reckless enough to deliver a message to you, so I volunteered."
Chen Ce Bai's voice was flat. "Your family has less than a 1% chance of being cured by biotech. Go home. They lied to you."
He raised a hand and made a dismissive flick of his fingers.
The young man's expression darkened. He sneered:
"Oh, I see how it is—trying to gaslight me now, huh, Dr. Chen? Glorious, admired Dr. Chen!"
"Biotech told me everything—about what you really are!"
"Funny, isn't it? Everyone sees you as a savior, the genius who might cure chip syndrome. But in reality? You're not even human. You're just a disgusting pile of meat!"
He had clearly been injected with something—some kind of stimulant or aggression booster. Every time he spoke, his facial muscles twitched violently.
"You think I'm dumb? Think I don't know biology?" the man raved. "Gene surgery that pushes past human limits causes DNA double-strand breaks. That means you're unstable. That means—before long—you're going to collapse. You'll be nothing but twitching, rotting meat!"
A storm of invective. A sneer twisted in hate. Violence lurking beneath false civility.
Chen Ce Bai was used to it.
Every now and then, someone like this would show up.
People who only believed what they could see—unaware that even sight could be deceived.
Take the nerve-blocker controversy, for example...
The company's methods for dominating public opinion were far more circuitous and calculated than the average person could imagine.
— First, they flooded the media with glowing articles about his intelligence, academic background, and scientific breakthroughs, calling him "the hope of the working class." Then, once the public began to feel the inevitable backlash against the overhype, a few accounts emerged to "expose" his true nature.
From painting him as cold, expressionless, and devoid of humanity, to revealing the "real reason" he refused to mass-produce the neural-blocking drug—the narrative slowly twisted in exactly the direction the company wanted.
But this "raise-up-to-tear-down" tactic only worked on the less educated lower class.
His peers just found it tedious.
Still, the lower class was the easiest to incite.
Years ago, when the neural-blocker had just been developed, Chen Ce Bai had already seen too many of these ignorant, angry mobs used to pressure him.
He shut his tablet and was about to change clothes to pick up Qiu Yu from work when a young man nearby let out a mocking snort.
"If I'm not mistaken," the young man said with a sneer, "your wife is Qiu Yu, daughter of a senior HighCore executive, right? Does she know you're just a disgusting pile of meat?"
Chen Ce Bai paused mid-step.
The young man had no clue what that reaction meant, but he doubled down with a sneer laced in poison.
"Oh—so she does know! Then why hasn't she divorced you yet? Don't tell me she still thinks you'll distribute the neural blocker globally?"
"I mean, from what I've seen, she's got no real personality. Why haven't you dumped her yet? Unless—wait—is she pregnant? Aren't you afraid your kid'll turn out to be another freakish pile of flesh like you—"
This was the fantasy that haunted Chen Ce Bai during his most deranged mental states.
And he'd spent countless nights feeling ashamed for it.
But the young man's words, hitting right at the core of that dark fantasy, made something unhinge inside him.
The young man had never once interacted with someone at Chen Ce Bai's level. Yet here he was, casually hurling insults and provocations like he had nothing to lose. The more he spoke, the more delighted he became with himself. His smirk widened, his eyes sparkled with venom. He had found a weakness—Qiu Yu—and he was about to drive the knife deeper.
But then it hit him.
A bone-deep chill, monstrous and overwhelming.
A presence that made his joints creak with dread.
For a fleeting second, it felt like his throat was being crushed. His eyes bulged like a dying fish's. He couldn't make a sound.
Chen Ce Bai looked down at him coldly, murder etched in every line of his face.
Liquid black metal had flowed silently over his hand, hardening into a blade of terrifying sharpness.
The young man didn't even get a chance to beg for his life before he felt a sharp, cold sting across his neck.
Air rushed into his windpipe—
He staggered backward, wide-eyed, gasping.
And then collapsed, his eyes going glassy.
The moment his body hit the floor, footsteps and screams erupted from behind.
It had been a setup.
The entire encounter designed to provoke and record Chen Ce Bai's violent breakdown.
The young man had likely undergone subconscious conditioning or been injected with some chemical agent—its sole purpose: to push Chen Ce Bai over the edge.
Chen Ce Bai's face remained emotionless.
He tore off the blood-splattered lab coat and tossed it aside.
Then walked out, without a glance back.
He had countless ways to erase what just happened. Countless methods to wipe every trace of negative media about him from the net.
But he was too exhausted to care.
And somewhere in the back of his mind… a darker thought lingered.
He wanted to see how Qiu Yu would comfort him.
When time had stopped between them, he had told her plainly—how vile he truly was, how he liked to tear open wounds just to hear her comfort him, just to feel her sympathy.
She had slapped him, hard.
Then held him, even longer.
That feeling—
It was more intoxicating than alcohol.
Drinking numbed the brain and dulled the senses.
But Qiu Yu? She made him feel alive.
Just like now.
Everything about the company disgusted him. He didn't want to stay in that place for another second.
But then, from another angle—through another dimensional plane—he saw her.
Qiu Yu was on her way to him.
She usually wore a bright, radiant smile.
Now, her face was expressionless.
In the passenger seat of her car sat a compact submachine gun.
She had never touched a gun outside of a shooting range.
But for him, she'd chosen the most lethal one she could find.
She'd even activated the bulletproof mode on the car.
—The prey was sprinting, full force, toward the predator.
Chen Ce Bai's breath caught.
He could've reached her instantly.
But instead—driven by a narrow, selfish desire—he stayed right where he was.
And waited.
Waited for the moonlight to carry her to him.