Qiu Yu waited for a moment, but Lu Zehou didn't continue speaking. Unable to hold back, she finally prompted him, "Professor Lu, and then?"
Lu Zehou's mouth twitched slightly when he saw how oblivious she was to the undercurrent between him and Chen Ce Bai. His tone was filled with restrained exasperation.
"Follow me."
With that, Lu Zehou pulled out a set of keys and unlocked the storage room door.
Qiu Yu noticed that although Lu Zehou led the team that developed nanosecond-level biochips, he himself barely used any advanced tech. He hadn't undergone synthetic skin grafting, rarely used implants, and still carried a jangling bunch of keys everywhere—like a dorm matron straight out of a 2020s movie.
The warehouse door was an old-fashioned rolling shutter, clattering loudly as it opened.
At the entrance, piles of messy cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly.
Right in front of them was a graffiti mural covering the entire wall: crimson and black paint splashed across the surface, with giant, blooming flowers growing out of a skull.
Instinctively, Qiu Yu snapped a photo of the artwork.
Lu Zehou glanced at her.
She said, "It's quite artistic."
"A kid painted it," Lu Zehou replied coolly. "She saw something similar in a magazine and copied it. She was only eight years old. Never even been to school. What does she know about art?"
"Capital told her that flowers growing out of a skull was artistic—was beautiful—so she painted them that way. She died never knowing that flowers aren't supposed to grow in hothouses, or inside eco-architecture, and definitely not out of skulls in magazines. Flowers are supposed to grow in the dirt under her feet!"
Qiu Yu felt a sudden sense of foreboding. After a pause, she asked softly, "What happened to the child?"
"She died," Lu Zehou said, face blank. "Cause unknown. Probably some kind of genetic disorder. Ever since the human gene pool got contaminated, this sort of thing happens all the time. The media doesn't even bother to report it anymore."
What he said was true. People had become numb. Once, news like that would've caused outrage; now, no one even bothers to click.
Qiu Yu pressed her lips together and fell silent.
She never knew how to respond to things like this.
Pity? Grief? Anger?
She couldn't find the right emotion.
No one ever taught her how to deal with it.
Just like when she'd seen Chen Ce Bai being bullied at school. She'd wanted to help but didn't know how.
—Step in? Speak up?
She might've stopped it for a moment, but the second she walked away, the retaliation would have been worse.
—Make her stance known, tell the class she disapproved of bullying?
Maybe a few people would back off, out of respect for her. But over time, as she drifted apart from them, the bullying would return.
It was like a pack of wolves hunting a sheep. You could fire a warning shot to scare them off—but the moment you lowered your gun and turned away, they'd pounce again.
Worse, they might shift targets and come after you instead.
They stepped deeper into the warehouse—about thirty square meters. Bedding was scattered across the floor—some neatly folded, others grimy with sweat stains and cigarette burns, yellowed and musty.
A woman sat in the corner. When she saw them come in, she looked up abruptly, eyes wary like a stray cat.
When she recognized Lu Zehou, she relaxed again and leaned back against the wall, dazed.
Qiu Yu noticed a silvery glint in her eyes—she was browsing the web through an implant.
"This is the best shelter I could find for them," Lu Zehou said.
Then he pointed abruptly to the woman. "Do you know who she is?"
Qiu Yu looked at her. "Should I?"
Lu Zehou snorted. "I thought you were a competent journalist. That's Jessie Murphy. She used to be a senior executive at Biotech."
Before he could finish the sentence, a hovering drone let out a loud crack, sparks of bright blue flashing from it before it crashed to the ground with a thud.
Startled, Qiu Yu moved forward to check on it—but Lu Zehou held her back and tilted his chin toward her.
"Your husband did that."
He said it with a half-smirk, like he was enjoying the show.
While they'd been walking, Lu Zehou had skimmed through Qiu Yu's background and noticed that many of her projects had been abruptly handed off to others whenever the situation turned dangerous. On the surface, her parents were intervening—but Lu Zehou knew the true nature of corporate leadership. They were cold, selfish bastards. They wouldn't waste a second protecting their children's careers.
Qiu Yu had chosen to become a journalist instead of entering biotech. For people at the top, that was practically heresy. Yet her relationship with her family hadn't broken. Chen Ce Bai must've been doing a lot behind the scenes to keep her out of trouble.
She had no clue—no idea she'd already been cast aside by her parents, no idea who her husband really was.
Lu Zehou didn't dislike Qiu Yu. In fact, he respected some of her qualities.
But she was too naive. Too untouched by reality.
In a world like this, how could anyone not feel a flicker of destruction when they looked at someone like her?
—I crawl through filth and darkness, writhing and struggling to escape, and you, from your world of light, look down on me with untainted eyes.
Why should you get to do that?
Lu Zehou smiled, waiting for Qiu Yu to confront Chen Ce Bai for hacking the drone.
Then he'd only have to say, Hacking the drone is just the beginning. Your husband has plenty more secrets, and the fight would erupt.
But to his surprise, Qiu Yu merely stepped back, nodded, and said, "Oh," then stayed silent.
Lu Zehou's face twitched. "Aren't you going to ask him why he hacked it?"
Qiu Yu looked confused. "What's there to ask? You said she's a former Biotech executive. Executives only end up two ways—still in the office, or fertilizing the potted plants in it. The fact that she's alive means you protected her somehow. Of course the drone had to be hacked to stop the company from eavesdropping."
"…You knew?"
"Knew what?"
A vein bulged on Lu Zehou's forehead. He nearly roared, "That the company's been crushing ordinary people!"
He pointed to the woman. "She was the final target in that serial murder case you were investigating. Can you guess who the killer was?"
His voice boomed across the warehouse, but the woman didn't even glance up. She was still lost in her own world.
Chen Ce Bai's face darkened. He pulled Qiu Yu a step back, shielding her.
"Professor Lu, keep your rage in check. She's not your enemy."
Lu Zehou stumbled back a step, chest heaving with ragged breath.
He looked at Qiu Yu again. She was watching him—worried, confused.
And suddenly, he saw it: her innocence was a kind of cruelty.
Raised under the company's schooling system. Sheltered. Protected. This was the end result: a gentle, unknowing ruthlessness.
He exhaled, pressed a hand to his forehead.
Why was he getting angry at her?
She was just another victim—like the woman in the corner.
Calming down, Lu Zehou activated an electromagnetic signal blocker. Only then did he speak again.
"The killer… was the company."
Qiu Yu froze. "What?"
"There was a top-secret project—classified 'highest confidentiality.' Someone leaked it. After half a year of investigation with no results, Fujiwara Osamu lost his patience."
Fujiwara Osamu: CEO of Biotech.
"He designed a survival 'game' to draw out the mole."
"Before the game began, each executive received an encrypted call, warning them the secret had been exposed. They were told to lay low, go offline, and wait for extraction."
"Remember the PRISM program? It never went away—it just evolved. The company can still monitor everything you do on your devices. The only question is whether they want to."
"Fujiwara watched how each of them responded."
"Some dismissed the call as a prank. Some grew pensive. Others contacted the internal security team to trace the number."
"Jessie Murphy had gotten too many scam calls. She didn't even finish listening—just hung up."
"But that was only the start of the game."
"She was removed from the core team."
"Everywhere she went, what she bought, company security followed."
"Her calls were tapped. Her access revoked. Even supermarket cashiers stared at her name tag like she was a fugitive."
"She remembered the phone call—started to suspect she was being framed."
"And then… one of the other execs finally cracked. He called the number back, demanding to know why no one had come for him. The voice on the line said, 'We're on our way.'"
"When he opened the door—he was staring down the barrel of a gun."
"That was the first high-level executive to die."
"With the first, there comes a second, then a third... It didn't take long for Murphy to realize: this was a loyalty test targeting executives. The difference was—once the testers, now they had become the subjects."
"She was never loyal to the company. Assassinations, framing others, leaking secrets—she'd done them all."
"She suspected that even if this was a test, her competitors would try to solidify her guilt. After all, there were only so many seats at the top. If she went down, someone else would rise."
"The other executives came to the same conclusion. So, the bloodbath began."
"Isn't it funny?" Lu Zehou's voice was detached. "Fujiwara Shu designed this game hoping the mole would collapse mentally and confess. Instead, the leak was never found, and a chain of paranoia exploded among the top brass."
"After several executives had fallen, Fujiwara tried to shut it down under pressure. But by then, whether the 'game' stopped or not was no longer up to him."
"The surviving executives no longer trusted the company. They wanted out of the city. But these people weren't just cogs—they were key personnel, privy to classified information. There was no way the company would just let them leave."
"So, they activated the self-destruct implants in their brains."
Qiu Yu recalled a news headline. "The explosion on Metro Line 7?"
"No," Lu Zehou shook his head. "Executives don't ride the subway. That was just a high-level employee who lost their job during the bloodbath. After being off their meds too long, they lost it and triggered the self-destruct."
"Of course, the explosion was ultimately labeled a suicide attack." Lu Zehou let out a dry chuckle. "Funny, isn't it? High-level employees were prescribed the neural inhibitors developed by your husband. Aren't you curious—why did they go insane even with the meds?"
Qiu Yu didn't ask Chen Ce Bai.
Lu Zehou had said it with malicious intent. She didn't know why he was trying to sow discord between her and Chen Ce Bai—but she wasn't going to take the bait.
Still, Chen Ce Bai spoke coolly:
"Because its side effect disrupts the brain's autoregulation of blood flow. Once you stop taking it, you risk cerebral hypoperfusion or hyperperfusion. Either one causes neural damage.
"Some tried switching to inhaled stimulants after quitting the inhibitor, but all that did was worsen cerebrovascular disease.
"This drug is a half-finished prototype. It doesn't create addiction the way stimulants do—but its danger goes beyond addiction. Fujiwara Shu wanted it rushed to market. I refused."
Lu Zehou glanced at Qiu Yu but didn't bother explaining why the drug was more dangerous than stimulants. He knew she'd figure it out herself.
And she did.
Her lashes quivered. For the first time, she understood why her parents had been so eager to marry her off to Chen Ce Bai.
—The neural inhibitor was expensive, irreplaceable, and required lifelong use.
Unless a team developed a cheaper generic, once Chen Ce Bai's drug hit the market, it would replace stimulants completely.
Stopping stimulants would cause disorientation and possibly neurodegenerative disorders.
Stopping neural inhibitors, though, could trigger a stroke.
There were no gods in this world—but if Chen Ce Bai allowed this drug to go public, he would be one.
Everyone's life would rest in his hands.
And faced with this power, he had chosen not to seize it.
Qiu Yu thought of what Pei Xi had said to belittle him:
—"Your parents married you off thinking his drug could be mass-produced and globally distributed. But he foolishly hoards the patent, making it accessible only to senior staff… He may be smart, but he has no clue how this company works."
Back then, Chen Ce Bai could've exposed the truth, thrown Pei Xi's words back at him. But he hadn't.
Just as he could've become the ruler of the world—but didn't.
The room grew still.
Qiu Yu was silent. So were the other two.
Chen Ce Bai shut his eyes, visibly agitated.
He thought, blank-faced: If I'd known Lu Zehou liked meddling this much, I should've killed him earlier.
He'd developed the neural inhibitor for the intellectual thrill of solving the unsolvable.
Other than Qiu Yu, only academic challenge gave him that same high—something close to the feeling of kissing her.
He didn't care for fame or profit. He didn't care whether the drug was released publicly. But once it was, it would bring catastrophe.
He could ignore everything—except how Qiu Yu might see him.
—If she knew he'd invented something capable of controlling all humanity, she'd surely be afraid of him.
So he chose not to release it. He allowed it only within the company.
Senior staff could afford lifelong use. Keeping it restricted… was actually the safer option.
The more he thought about it, the more agitated he became. The hand around Qiu Yu's shoulder trembled faintly—he longed for a cigarette, anything to calm his nerves.
He didn't know what she thought of him now.
Maybe she was afraid. After all, he hadn't banned the drug outright. Worse—he'd once used it as a threat in front of her.
Lu Zehou stood watching, more amused than anything.
He hadn't intended to drive a wedge between the couple—he just couldn't stand how clueless Qiu Yu was. He thought she deserved the truth.
And really, the truth wasn't that terrible. Not horrifying. Judging by her expression, she didn't seem scared either.
But Chen Ce Bai lost control.
He stood tall and straight, in plain white shirt and black trousers—yet carried a severe, rarefied elegance.
Not the superiority of status, but that of genetics and spirit.
Instinctively, humans choose genetically superior partners. Just like how female birds pick males with the brightest plumage.
And yet he, with his flawless genes, was falling apart—just because his wife said nothing.
Lu Zehou couldn't believe it.
Where's your logic?
Where's your 200+ IQ?
She didn't even say a word. Can't you wait?
But Chen Ce Bai couldn't wait.
Viscous black matter spread like a tidal wave, emanating a chilling, alien menace as it crept forward.
It was horrifying. The substance looked part-metallic insect, part-slime-drenched reptile—evoking every repulsive creature imaginable.
What terrified Lu Zehou most was its ability to endlessly replicate.
Like cancer cells. Disgusting, unstoppable.
Cold sweat broke out across his back.
He hadn't expected Chen Ce Bai's emotional threshold to be this low. For the first time, he regretted speaking.
Lu Zehou stepped back, hand hovering near the cargo bay door, ready to slam it shut and run.
Then, just in time—Qiu Yu turned and hugged Chen Ce Bai.
—The moment she moved, the black matter behind him activated its camouflage, blending seamlessly into the surroundings.
Lu Zehou gasped, a cold bead of sweat trickling down his face.
He was old now. Not much sturdier than Chen Ce Bai. The scene nearly gave him a heart attack.
Chen Ce Bai looked down at Qiu Yu, eyes dark behind his glasses.
He cupped the back of her neck, thumb pressing gently on the side of her throat—like a predator, poised to strike.
All around the warehouse, the transparent black matter writhed and pulsed like living tissue, multiplying into countless long, jointed human hands.
—Attached to Chen Ce Bai, these hands were like sculptures: veins, bones, tendons forming an aesthetic of restrained, ascetic beauty.
Detached from him, they looked like a swarm of corpses' hands.
A hundred dead hands reached for Qiu Yu.
Poised to devour.
But like the dazed woman curled up in the corner, Qiu Yu noticed none of it.
She only felt a dull ache in her chest.
She'd never truly understood Chen Ce Bai.
If only she'd known what the neural inhibitor really was, she could've defended him.
She hadn't realized how cruel Pei Xi had been—how, for three years, he'd kept smearing Chen Ce Bai right in front of her…
If she'd known the price Chen Ce Bai had paid, he wouldn't have had to endure such slander.
"…I'm sorry," she whispered, eyes clear but heavy with remorse. "When Pei Xi insulted you… I didn't speak up…"
With each word, the black, clawed hands dissolved into nothing.
The living tide vanished.
Chen Ce Bai's Adam's apple bobbed.
He stared at Qiu Yu.
His expression barely changed, but his gaze turned molten—like he could drink her in, bone and soul.
His chest throbbed.
He hadn't expected her to say that.
Yes, her innocence could be cruel—like a wild beast, drinking blood with eyes still wide and unknowing.
But in that very cruelty, he found the first salvation of his life.