It worked.
Lu Pei thought this with perfect composure.
But on the outside, he carefully arranged his expression into a mix of surprise, hesitation and faint emotion.
“You’re sure?”
“Mm.”
“What time are we going to Hexing Street tomorrow?”
“Noon. Twelve.”
“Then we leave as planned,” Lu Pei said. “And we don’t come back.”
He paused, then added, deliberately planting the idea of danger:
“Mammoth probably doesn’t want either of us coming back alive. Starting tomorrow, he might already have people waiting to intercept us.”
“Mm.”
“This will be a very dangerous pursuit. Can you handle it?”
Yuan Que considered for half a second, then answered with certainty:
“Yes.”
“I’ll deal with it,” he added, as if reinforcing the promise.
Whenever Yuan Que made a commitment, there was an undeniable weight behind it, something that inspired instinctive trust.
The lingering fear from being followed earlier seemed to fade under the steadiness of his tone.
To Lu Pei, Mammoth wasn’t an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
But Yuan Que… Yuan Que was undeniably strong.
Even knowing that tomorrow would likely spiral into another deadly, unavoidable scenario, Lu Pei found himself relaxing. The tension drained away, replaced by a creeping exhaustion.
“Sleep,” Lu Pei said. “We need the strength.”
“Mm.”
They returned to the dorm.
Lu Pei lay down beneath the blanket.
The night deepened. Moonlight spilled faintly through the dark blue curtains.
The air in the mining district always carried a dusty taste, like smog that never fully dispersed. It was a constant presence across the underground zone, humid, stale, untouched by real sunlight.
Even beneath artificial sun panels, it never changed.
Because natural sunlight never reached here, the humidity remained high and medical conditions lagged behind. The illness rate in the underground population was twenty three percent higher than on the surface, especially for serious diseases.
Lu Pei drifted in and out of sleep.
At some point, half conscious, he thought he felt Yuan Que leave.
His mind wandered through fragments of dreams and memories.
The most rebellious thing he had ever done as a child… was sneaking into a commercial expedition convoy and leaving the city.
After the great purge that ended the old calendar era, humanity had retreated to a narrow band near the equator. High walls enclosed a fragile sanctuary.
Beyond those walls, danger lurked everywhere.
By the time the expedition team discovered that the young master of the Lu family had stowed away, it was already too late. There was no spare vehicle to send him back.
During that journey, Lu Pei found a child.
The boy was unconscious, emaciated, tense even in stillness, like an abandoned wolf cub.
They spent the remainder of the journey together.
The boy couldn’t speak.
The caravan brought him back to the city and placed him in an orphanage. Lu Pei had promised him, promised that one day, he would bring him home.
His parents had agreed to find him a study companion.
“I want Taiyi to stay with me.”
“Ah…” his mother had said, troubled. “That might not be possible. We’ve already selected someone for you.”
“I want Taiyi.”
“He’s not suitable.”
“I want ”
“You’re being too willful.”
Lu Pei was confined for three months as punishment.
By the time he went back to find the boy, the orphanage had already closed.
The new companion chosen for him had round eyes, hands always nervously clasped together. From behind him came a voice:
“Young master.”
Lu Pei’s chest tightened instantly.
“I’m sorry…” he murmured.
……….
Lu Pei turned over in bed and then he woke.
Light pressed faintly against his eyelids and he forced them open.
10:31 a.m.
Not early.
It was a rest day, no labor required.
His roommates stood by the door, chatting with someone outside. The corridor buzzed with noise, unusually lively.
Some kind of activity?
Lu Pei sat up, waited for his body to fully wake, then went to wash up.
In the washroom, he heard fragments of excited conversation.
“It’s confirmed, something really happened to Mammoth.”
“No way, seriously?!”
“Seriously. Chenghua just checked, his eyes were open, body already stiff.”
“What?!”
Lu Pei’s ears perked up.
Mammoth… dead?
That kind of luck actually existed?
“They checked surveillance and found… someone…”
“Looks like…”
“Seriously?!”
They seemed to have identified a suspect but the rest was too unclear to catch.
Reluctantly, Lu Pei left, carrying his cup back.
The path from the washroom to the dorm formed an L shaped corner. As he approached, the noise ahead grew louder, unsettlingly so.
He slowed.
At the corner, he cautiously leaned out just enough to look.
The corridor was packed.
“They’ve figured it out. It’s probably that kid.”
“He’s not here?”
“No. Must’ve run.”
“What about his lover?”
“Probably ran too…”
The crowd was gathered near his dorm.
A bad feeling crept up his spine.
“Surface dweller.”
A voice whispered suddenly, ghostlike.
Lu Pei jolted, almost stepping out, before a hand clamped over his mouth and pulled him back.
“Mmph?!”
“Come with me,” Yuan Que said.
Lu Pei followed, instinctively lowering his voice. “Mammoth’s dead. Did you know?”
“I know,” Yuan Que replied calmly. “I killed him.”
Lu Pei: “?”
Lu Pei: “Why?!”
Yuan Que gave him a look, as if he were an idiot.
“He would’ve hunted us. You told me to deal with it.”
His tone was steady, matter of fact.
“You asked for it.”
Lu Pei: “…………”
He sounded so justified that Lu Pei couldn’t speak for several seconds.
He took a deep breath. “Were you seen?”
“Not at the time,” Yuan Que said. “Now… maybe. The surveillance might’ve been restored.”
Lu Pei: “…”
For the first time, Lu Pei understood the phrase “itching hands.”
At the end of the corridor was an emergency exit, rarely used. It smelled damp and moldy.
They moved quietly down the stairs.
When they pushed open the door on the first floor,
Lu Pei froze.
Ten meters away, he locked eyes with a familiar face.
Zeno.
Zeno: “…”
Lu Pei: “…”
Zeno suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs:
“They’re here! They’re trying to run! Get them!”
Lu Pei: “!!”
………
Zeno’s shout rippled outward instantly.
“Those two?!”
“Where?!”
“First floor! Chase them!”
Shouts and footsteps thundered from stairwells and behind them.
Lu Pei ran again.
Again.
Again.
Gunshots rang out.
“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang bang!!”
A chaotic storm of noise echoed behind them.
The range of handguns was limited and these men lacked proper training. The closest bullet only grazed Lu Pei’s pant leg, tearing a bit of fabric.
He was already struggling to keep up.
The gunfire only made it worse.
“Hold on.”
Yuan Que grabbed his hand.
Lu Pei immediately gripped back, thinking he would be pulled along.
Instead, Yuan Que seized his arm with one hand, grabbed his collar with the other and swung him around like a sack.
Then hoisted him over his shoulder.
Lu Pei: “???”
Yuan Que ran toward the parking area with him slung over his shoulder.
Even carrying sixty five kilograms, his speed barely dropped.
The wind lashed against Lu Pei’s face. The jostling made his vision spin.
Yuan Que’s shoulder pressed into his stomach, bouncing with every step, he felt like he might throw up.
“Yu, ” Lu Pei gasped, words breaking apart. “Yu… an… Que… I… I ”
At the entrance to the parking lot,
Old Wei stood waiting.
A pistol in his hand.
A vicious grin on his face.
His massive frame, like something out of ancient Viking stock, blocked the way like an immovable wall.
“Stop! Stop! stop! stop!!” Lu Pei shouted. “He’s got a gun!”
In the very next second, Lu Pei felt his body lose support for a brief instant, as though he had suddenly taken flight.
It was because Yuan Que, with unbelievable agility, had used momentum to launch himself into the air.
And when Yuan Que landed, his foot came down hard, driving Old Wei straight into the ground. A heavy “thud” echoed as the man’s massive body slammed down, the back of his head striking the floor.
Yuan Que bent slightly, swift and precise and transferred the gun from Old Wei’s hand to Lu Pei.
“Take it.”
Lu Pei grabbed the weapon. Yuan Que had already carried him another ten meters forward. Glancing back, Lu Pei saw that the enormous man, like a stranded whale, had already been knocked unconscious by that single kick.
Yuan Que stopped beside the blue pickup truck he usually drove. He shoved Lu Pei into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.
Only a few seconds had passed before the pursuers caught up. Lu Pei didn’t even have time to fasten his seatbelt when the chasing vehicles blared their horns arrogantly behind them.
“BEEEEEP!!”
The dashboard lit up. The engine roared to life.
The pickup had just started moving when a van charged straight at them. Yuan Que spun the steering wheel to its limit and the vehicle slid sideways in a dangerous drift, narrowly avoiding a fatal collision.
The tail of the pickup skimmed past the van’s headlights, then twisted sharply and shot toward the eastern exit of the parking lot.
The van, unable to brake in time, crashed headlong into a small truck nearby.
“HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!!!”
“Damn it!” the truck driver shouted. “Are you blind?!”
“Quit honking and chase them!”
Yuan Que floored the accelerator. The pickup slammed through the barrier arm, sending it flying.
Lu Pei clung tightly to the overhead handle. The violent turn just now had nearly crushed his fingers and palm with pain.
Now that they were on a straight stretch, he finally managed to grab the seatbelt and snap it into place.
His body still reeled from the chaos. His stomach churned violently, if he had eaten anything, he would have thrown up long ago.
As his mind slowly cleared, a realization struck him like lightning.
He might have been wrong.
When he had first received that ominous glimpse of the future, Mammoth had already deeply suspected them. Naturally, Lu Pei assumed Mammoth intended to eliminate both him and Yuan Que, two suspected traitors and had sent people to kill them. Ren Yao poisoning him earlier seemed like further proof.
But what if…
What if the cause and effect had been reversed?
What if everything had been flipped?
Yuan Que, this absurdly strong, straightforward fighter, had taken Lu Pei’s repeated warnings of danger seriously. To eliminate the threat preemptively, he had simply killed Mammoth outright.
And then,
Because of some ridiculous stroke of bad luck, the surveillance system had been restored at exactly the wrong moment, capturing his movements.
That… was what triggered the manhunt.
Lu Pei: “…………”
“This damned fate is playing me for a fool!!” Lu Pei exploded.
As his furious shout echoed, a deafening boom erupted behind them.
“BOOM!!!”
Their pursuers had started using homemade grenades.
“Sit tight.” Yuan Que said.
Ahead lay a winding mountain road.
The terrain of the underground district differed wildly from the surface. Some areas were low mounds of earth, while others rose like colossal stone pillars stretching all the way to the surface above.
The road spiraled around one such pillar, like a tightening umbilical cord.
The pickup sped onto the mountain path. Several cars followed close behind.
Lu Pei still gripped the handle tightly, his eyes locked on the rearview mirror. The vehicles behind were accelerating. From one passenger window, a hand stretched out and hurled a smoke grenade.
“Whoosh!”
On such a treacherous road, sudden blinding white smoke was terrifying.
Even knowing it was meant to force them to stop, Lu Pei couldn’t help shouting, “Slow down! slow down! slow down!”
Yuan Que didn’t reduce speed at all.
Whether it was instinct or familiarity, the steering wheel seemed alive in his hands. The pickup hugged the mountain wall, slicing straight through the smoke.
The black sedan that had thrown the grenade burst out of the fog right behind them.
Ahead, sheer cliff.
Yuan Que yanked the handbrake.
The pickup fishtailed in a perfect drift, its taillights carving a blazing red arc through the air.
The maneuver was so sudden, so extreme, it left no room for reaction.
When the pursuing driver realized the cliff ahead, he jerked the wheel but it was too late.
The outer wheels slipped off the edge.
The car lost balance.
In the rearview mirror, Lu Pei watched as the sedan plunged down the mountain road. For a fleeting instant, he even glimpsed the panic on the occupants’ faces.
“They fell…” Lu Pei murmured.
But the chase wasn’t over.
More cars surged forward behind them. Someone had even mounted a gun on the roof.
Yet Lu Pei’s wildly pounding heart began to steady.
It was still terrifying but Yuan Que’s presence was strangely reassuring.
And then,
Like a bolt of electricity shooting up his spine,
Lu Pei froze.
No.
No.
No.
Something was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
His body trembled.
He had been wrong from the very beginning.
“You…” Lu Pei turned, staring fixedly at Yuan Que. “You…”
Fragments of memory surfaced.
‘The boss always sends Yuan Que to do the dirty work.’
‘Give me the drug. I’ll handle him.’
‘Quick. Clean.’
…
Yuan Que was a professional killer.
Would someone like him really make such a basic mistake… like being caught on surveillance?
“You…” Lu Pei said, the final realization crashing down like thunder. “From the very beginning… you did it on purpose.”
On purpose.
Leaving behind a sloppy trail.
On purpose.
Letting himself be exposed.
On purpose.
Getting discovered.
On purpose.
Dragging them both into a manhunt.
On purpose,
Making them enemies of an entire organization.
In that instant, Lu Pei understood Yuan Que’s true intention.
Last night, he thought he had succeeded in persuading Yuan Que with his feigned vulnerability.
But in truth, he had not gained his trust.
To Yuan Que, he was still a cunning, deceitful, unreliable surface dweller.
Yuan Que didn’t trust him.
So he forced reality into place.
By binding them together as accomplices.
Even if it meant making enemies of Zhou Zu.
Yuan Que met his gaze calmly.
His lie exposed yet his expression remained completely composed, as though everything was only natural.
Strands of black hair clung to his cheek, partially obscuring his eyes as the pickup entered a mountain tunnel.
In the dim darkness, his pitch black eyes cut through the gloom with precision.
“You said it yourself,” Yuan Que said. “You wanted to leave with me.”
…
To him, leaving together meant only one thing.
The surface dweller had to be prepared to die with him.