Bai Sheng’s first reaction was that the name Su Jiqiao sounded extremely familiar. Immediately afterward, he remembered.
In Shen Zhuo’s experimental accident three years ago, aside from Fu Chen dying on the spot, there had also been a Class A evolutionist who suffered severe brain trauma in the explosion and had remained unconscious in the hospital ever since.
That person was Su Jiqiao.
“G-God...” Chen Miao stammered. “Three years ago, Brother Fu and Senior Su also came to this health center? Why?”
At the ward doorway, Fu Chen glanced at Su Jiqiao. “It’s not that serious, is it? Why would Shen Zhuo be angry?”
Su Jiqiao answered softly, “I don’t know. I’ve just always felt Senior Shen doesn’t like me very much. I wonder if there are things I haven’t done well enough?”
Su Jiqiao was probably the only person Bai Sheng had ever seen who could match Shen Zhuo in appearance. The difference was that Shen Zhuo was accustomed to being looked up to. His superior’s aura was too strong; that cold, sharp beauty made people instinctively wary. Su Jiqiao, by contrast, had smiling eyes and slightly curled hair, his temperament gentle as water. Just from his appearance, he seemed immensely approachable, and even when he spoke, his voice carried a smiling lilt at the end.
“But when I think about it, I can understand. If we hadn’t been lucky enough to evolve, people like Senior Shen would be far beyond most of us for our entire lives. We wouldn’t even be qualified to speak a single word to him, let alone please him.”
“...” Bai Sheng stole a glance at Shen Zhuo’s icy face, then turned and quietly asked Chen Miao, “Does this Senior Su of yours always talk like this?”
Chen Miao was still immersed in his enormous shock over why those two had come to this health center three years ago to visit “Mr. Rong.” He stammered back, “L-Like what?”
Bai Sheng was silent for two seconds, then said tactfully, “The green-tea aroma is overflowing.”
“Tea aroma? What tea aroma?” Chen Miao was baffled. “Senior Su has a wonderful temper. He’s warm, considerate, helpful, and understanding. Back then, he was insanely popular at the institute. What’s wrong?”
Bai Sheng understood.
He leaned close to Chen Miao’s confused face and lowered his voice to humiliate him softly. “If I had been the one advising your master’s thesis defense, I would’ve needed blood-pressure medication too...”
“Shen Zhuo’s attitude toward people basically doesn’t change based on whether they do well or badly. For the vast majority of people in this world, he decides life or death at first glance. I suggest you stop trying.”
Fu Chen glanced back at the skeletal figure on the hospital bed. After a moment of silence, he suddenly said, “But there is one thing I’m still curious about.”
“What?”
Fu Chen said slowly, “I’m wondering what Shen Zhuo’s first reaction would be if he saw this person in the future... Mildly favorable, barely tolerable? Or would he cast him aside like trash and not even bother?”
Su Jiqiao laughed, looking harmless, kind, and gentle, but before he could say anything, he was interrupted.
“Forget it. Let’s go.” Fu Chen looked at the time again and said, “Shen Zhuo is still waiting at the airport. We’re leaving for Qinghai tonight. I don’t want to make Shen Zhuo wait too long.”
In an instant, as if enlightenment had poured over him, Bai Sheng realized something from Fu Chen’s words.
Three years ago, Fu Chen and Su Jiqiao had come to Quanshan County Health Center the day before the Qinghai explosion. In other words, within twenty-four hours of seeing Rong Qi, Fu Chen had died!
But why?
Why had two high-ranking evolutionists come to see Rong Qi? What relationship did the two of them have with that man surnamed Rong?
Su Jiqiao glanced sideways at Fu Chen, half joking and half sighing. “I’m so jealous. Brother Fu really does care about Senior Shen.”
Fu Chen turned and walked out, answering calmly, “Isn’t it only natural for the one doing the pursuing to care?”
Su Jiqiao hurried a few steps to catch up with him and laughed. “That’s why I’m jealous. Oh, right, speaking of...”
A time reversal could only be performed randomly once in the same place, and its scene and range were heavily restricted. Seeing that the two of them were about to walk beyond the range, Shen Zhuo turned to the Witch of Italdo. His usually calm voice had already changed slightly. “Follow them. Don’t lose those two!”
The witch could not resist his command. But before she could react, she looked down as if she had been shocked.
A vine had suddenly burst out of the ground, wrapping around her ankles and binding her entire body tightly.
Immediately afterward, countless vines rose from the floor. One of them split open to reveal the person inside.
It was Noda Yoko!
The scene from three years ago vanished in an instant, and the charred, ruined ward returned before their eyes. Like lightning, Yoko took the Witch of Italdo hostage and retreated into the corner with a sneer. “I really didn’t expect you to have a trick like time reversal.”
Chen Miao cried out, “Senior!”
Yoko pressed a knife against the witch’s throat. “Why would a bug-level existence like you obey a lowly human?”
The Witch of Italdo had not yet had time to fire back when several ice arrows flashed coldly and shot through the air toward Yoko. It was Chen Miao, reacting with astonishing speed.
But in that split second, a pitch-black spatial rift appeared, silently swallowing the ice arrows.
Immediately afterward, the spatial rift rapidly extended toward Yoko. In the next instant, she was about to flee with the witch as her hostage.
Everything happened too quickly. The four officers outside did not even have time to rush through the door. In that flash, Shen Zhuo was about to step forward, but Bai Sheng caught him with one sharp movement. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“If the Witch of Italdo escapes supervision, there’ll be a major incident. We can’t let her go!”
As expected, Bai Sheng took the bait. “If she runs, at worst there’s some trouble. If you die, humanity and evolutionists go to war in minutes. Get back!”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Shen Zhuo very obediently took half a step back and patted Bai Sheng’s shoulder. “You’re right. You go, then.”
“...” Bai Sheng was simply shocked. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you! You decided from the start to use me without spending a single cent of salary, didn’t you!!”
Shen Zhuo ordered calmly, “Stop Noda Yoko too!”
Bai Sheng thought that Zhang Wuji’s mother really had been right on her deathbed: the prettier the beauty, the better she was at lying. But it was too late for self-reflection now. The spatial rift was dark and deep, leading no one knew where. Just as it was about to devour both Yoko and the Witch of Italdo, Bai Sheng moved so fast he seemed to vanish on the spot. When he appeared again, he was already closing in on Yoko’s face. At some point, a long blade blazing with raging flames had appeared in his hand, and he chopped down at the tentacle-like vines—
Unexpectedly, at that moment, a strange expression flickered across Yoko’s face.
At the same instant, the spatial rift abruptly bypassed Yoko. It brushed past Bai Sheng and rushed straight toward the isolated Shen Zhuo.
A diversion!
Bai Sheng’s expression changed instantly. He turned and rushed toward Shen Zhuo, but it was already too late.
Liu Sanji leaned half his body out of the black hole, grabbed Shen Zhuo off guard, and yanked him inside!
The next second, space sealed over. The rift vanished.
The last image left in the ward was of countless tentacles tightly wrapped around Shen Zhuo, rapidly dragging him into the darkness, while Liu Sanji aimed an undisguisedly malicious smile at Bai Sheng.
“—Senior!” Chen Miao’s delayed cry finally rang out.
With a sharp whistle of wind, Bai Sheng swung his blade and pointed it at Yoko. The trace of a smile that always lingered on his face vanished, and an intense pressure erupted from him. “Give Shen Zhuo back.”
Yoko mocked, “Oh? What are you planning to do, chop me down along with the hostage?”
Chen Miao was furious and alarmed. “Let go of Senior Shui!!”
“Ah, right. The witch is immortal. You’ll only kill the female medical examiner she’s possessing.” Yoko raised an eyebrow and looked mockingly at Bai Sheng. “What’s wrong? Don’t dare? Surely an S-Class like you isn’t afraid of killing someone?”
The Witch of Italdo narrowed her eyes dangerously. Her fingers at her side lifted, then lowered again, as though she were hesitating.
“...I don’t care how you handle the hostage.” After a long moment, Bai Sheng spoke in a low voice. “But Shen Zhuo is the only human among the ten permanent Supervisors. If he dies at the hands of an evolutionist, the already fragile peace between humanity and us will collapse. The consequences will be unimaginable.”
Bai Sheng raised the tip of his blade, pointing past the hostage at Yoko.
“Tell me where Shen Zhuo is, or I’ll make you die in so much pain there won’t be a single intact bone left in your corpse.”
The room fell into a standoff. Everyone was locked in place, not daring to move.
Yoko stared hard at Bai Sheng, the corners of her eyes pressed tight.
She had heard of Bai Sheng long ago. Many people thought he spent all day laughing and joking, never serious, just a cheerful, free-spending second-generation rich kid—but she knew there was no such thing as a good-tempered S-Class in this world. The only difference was how far they were willing to act.
This man called Bai Sheng was cold, meticulous, and possessed of a pathologically strong desire for control. Even among S-Class evolutionists, he was an extremely troublesome existence.
She loathed people like him. He clearly had the power to lead evolutionists farther, yet he chose to mingle with humans as lowly as ants.
“You can kill me?” Yoko sneered. Her knife suddenly stabbed toward the witch’s right ribs. “Then come and try!”
Chen Miao lunged. “Stop!”
At the same instant—
A clear flash of savagery crossed Bai Sheng’s brow. He threw away the long blade, reached out with one hand, and clenched his fingers in the air. His knuckles cracked.
With that motion, an invisible force bound Yoko. Before her dagger could stab down, her entire arm twisted out of shape. With a bright crack of shattering bone, it was wrenched alive into a spiral!
Clang!
The dagger fell to the floor.
The agony blanked Yoko’s mind. She shuddered as if electrocuted and released the hostage. Before the witch could seize the chance to retaliate, Bai Sheng grabbed her, turned, and shoved her toward Chen Miao.
Immediately afterward, wild vines erupted around Yoko, but they could not touch so much as the corner of Bai Sheng’s clothes. In the blink of an eye, his cold figure loomed over Yoko from above. He seized her by the throat and lifted her into the air. “—Where is Shen Zhuo?”
Yoko’s right arm had been twisted completely into a spiral. Her whole body trembled, but she gritted her teeth and tugged the corner of her mouth upward. “Willingly acting as dogs for humans... you traitors...”
Bai Sheng raised two fingers through the air.
Crack!
Yoko’s left arm automatically made two full rotations. Countless bone spurs pierced through the skin, and flesh and blood burst open together.
“There are 206 bones in an adult body. You still have about one hundred and fifty left. That gives me plenty to twist one by one.”
Bai Sheng lowered his head and looked down into Yoko’s bloodshot eyes, his voice clear and cruel. “Tell me where Shen Zhuo is, and maybe you’ll still have time to leave behind an intact corpse.”
“...” Yoko, drenched in blood, stared fixedly at him. Suddenly, she gritted her teeth and laughed. “Come on, then. Let’s see whether you really can kill me. Just as Homo sapiens replaced Neanderthals thirty million years ago, present-day humans are destined for extinction too. And those like you, willing to be human dogs—”
Bai Sheng showed neither joy nor anger. His five fingers tightened.
The force in that grip was simply terrifying. Yoko’s voice cut off at once, and her cervical vertebrae automatically twisted to the limit.
The sight was as horrific as a silent film. Her face turned from bluish red to blackish purple while her spine was bent inch by inch into a serpentine shape. A chilling grinding came from the bones of her throat, and in another second, it would snap completely.
At that very moment—
A spatial rift suddenly tore open above everyone’s heads, and Noda Shunsuke’s figure appeared without a sound.
“...You’re finished.” Yoko stared at Bai Sheng and forced out the words.
Bai Sheng abruptly sensed something and was just about to turn, but it was already too late.
Snap!
Noda Shunsuke snapped his fingers.
Black barriers rose from the floor, rapidly forming rectangular prisms one after another like upright coffins. In an instant, everyone was locked inside!
“Fuck!” “What is this?” “What’s happening?”
Everyone was shocked at the same time. Bai Sheng reacted the fastest, slamming one palm heavily against the barrier. The veins on the back of his hand stood out, but the semitransparent black “coffin” did not budge or break.
“Cough! Cough, cough...” Yoko collapsed to the floor. Her brother helped her up and pulled her aside.
“Spatial confinement.” Shunsuke’s Chinese was clearly stiff and accented. His gaze swept over everyone inside the black coffins before landing on Bai Sheng, his mockery undisguised. “Don’t waste your effort. It can’t be opened from the inside.”
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!
Without a word, Chen Miao raised his gun and fired. But the black, semitransparent coffin lid did not react at all. The bullets could not even pass through it.
“...You could endure watching your own sister suffer until now before coming out. What a man you are.” Bai Sheng narrowed his eyes. “Where’s that man surnamed Rong? Doesn’t he dare come himself? Is it because he’s crippled, or because he’s too afraid to show his face?”
Noda Shunsuke laughed, a bloodthirsty gleam flashing in his eyes. “There’s no need for Mr. Rong to deal with you personally... Do you remember what I said last time?”
His features were already fierce by nature, and when he smiled like that, they became even more wild and provocative. “The next time we met would be the day you died.”
His hand suddenly clenched into a fist, the tendons and bones in his fingers bulging.
A bad feeling rose sharply in Bai Sheng’s heart. With Noda Shunsuke’s motion, every black coffin began compressing violently at the same time. In another instant, everyone present would be crushed alive into meat paste—