Dead silence did not begin to describe the scene. It felt as if Death itself had arrived. In that instant, many people dazedly felt as though they had seen their entire lives flash before their eyes.
The moment Shen Zhuo opened his eyes, his hand flashed out. He shoved Bai Sheng aside, turned, and pinned Zhao Jun, who had only just snapped back to himself. Before Zhao Jun could even run, there was a heavy crash!
Shen Zhuo slammed him hard to the floor, twisted both his hands behind his back, and smashed his head into the tiles hard enough to crack them apart.
“What the fuck—”
Blood streamed down Zhao Jun’s face. He cursed and struggled to escape, but Shen Zhuo was far colder and more decisive than he had imagined. Without hesitation, he drew his gun and pressed it beside Zhao Jun’s ear.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!
Bullets flew. Fire burst from the muzzle. The shots tore into the floor directly in front of Zhao Jun’s eyes, blasting the tile into flying powder.
By the time the gunfire stopped, Zhao Jun had gone completely limp with terror. He trembled so hard he could not even crawl. Shen Zhuo grabbed him by the hair and forced his face up.
“What room number is the black-market buyer in?”
“O-one... one...”
“What room number?”
“One six two five...”
Bang!
Shen Zhuo struck Zhao Jun with the butt of the gun, sending blood spraying from his nose and mouth. Zhao Jun passed out.
The hotel security guards stared, dumbstruck.
The corner of Bai Sheng’s mouth twitched faintly. “Supervisor...?”
At that moment, a door at the end of the corridor opened. Several figures rushed out in a panic and fled toward the fire stairs.
They were the evolution-source buyers hiding in Room 1625!
There was no time to explain. Shen Zhuo got up and gave chase. Behind him, someone kept pace at full speed.
It was Bai Sheng, running after him while loudly asking, “Excuse me, Supervisor, were you running a honey trap just now?!”
Shen Zhuo displayed astonishing self-restraint.
Had it been anyone else, he would have turned the gun around and dealt with this cheap “boyfriend” first.
Ahead of them, the buyers kicked open the fire door and rushed inside in panic. Two of them had some sense and ran upstairs. The other three idiots fled downstairs in a swarm.
Just then, Chen Miao charged up with his team and happened to block the three idiots head-on. The Supervision Office team members pounced like wolves and tigers, instantly taking them down.
“Stop!”
“Freeze!”
“Cuff them and take them down!”
“Supervisor!” The team members were so relieved they nearly burst into tears on the spot.
Chen Miao focused and saw Shen Zhuo standing on the stairwell one floor above, looking down at them. His collar was open, most of his body was soaked with liquor, and the thin fabric was still clinging to his waist.
Poor Chen Miao felt as if a bolt of high-voltage electricity had shot from his tailbone straight through the crown of his head. He nearly dropped to his knees with a thud.
“S-Senior...”
Shen Zhuo had no interest in dealing with them.
“The suspect at the sixteenth-floor elevator entrance has been subdued. Go make the arrest.”
Chen Miao cried out as if his heart were being torn apart. “Senior, are you okay?! Senior, I’m guilty! Senior, I’m sorry we came too late!”
Shen Zhuo turned and rushed upstairs.
But the two who had gone upward through the stairwell were evolutionists. They were far faster than ordinary people. Like a gale, they shot up to the hotel’s top floor, the eighty-eighth floor, kicked open the fire door, and fled into the corridor.
A reception was being held on the hotel’s top floor.
Shen Zhuo stopped.
Not far away, guests in fine clothes mingled under soft music. Upper-class men and women in custom evening gowns held champagne glasses and chatted elegantly. Driven into a corner, the two evolutionists charged into the banquet hall, instantly knocking people over in all directions.
“Ah!”
“Who are they?”
“What’s going on?”
“Don’t come any closer!” One of the evolutionists grabbed a waiter and held him in front of himself like a lifeline, roaring wildly, “Stay back! No one come near me! Let me leave!”
With a crash, the tray overturned. The waiter was terrified out of his mind.
“Help—help me!”
The crowd cried out and scattered in every direction, instantly leaving an empty space around them.
Amid the chaos, Shen Zhuo’s icy expression did not change in the slightest. He strode forward, raised his gun, and fired.
Bang!
The bullet skimmed past the side of the waiter’s neck and struck the evolutionist squarely in the shoulder. Blood splashed into the air.
“Ahhh!”
Terrified screams erupted all around.
The evolutionist hit the floor. Because of the electric shock round, his whole body convulsed violently, and he could no longer get up.
Shen Zhuo said in a deep voice, “Shenhai City Supervision Office. Everyone stay where you are. Do not move.”
“...Shen... Shen Zhuo...” someone recognized him with a trembling voice. “Supervisor Shen Zhuo of Shenhai City...”
Shen Zhuo.
The direct superior of Shenhai City’s twenty thousand evolutionists. Chief Supervisor Shen Zhuo.
The deterrent effect of that name was immediate. Every socialite present turned pale. Countless shocked and fearful gazes came from all directions, and the entire scene fell silent.
Immediately after, a figure behind the crowd took advantage of the chaos and ran toward the hall exit.
It was the last fish that had slipped through the net.
Shen Zhuo pulled the trigger.
Unexpectedly, the man rolled across the floor at the same instant, brushing past the bullet, then lunged toward the banquet hall’s floor-to-ceiling windows. He waved a hand and fired an ice arrow.
A water-type ability user.
Crash!
The enormous floor-to-ceiling window shattered from top to bottom, and countless shards of glass exploded outward.
The crowd screamed and retreated.
The ability user jumped straight out from the hotel’s eighty-eighth floor.
The instant the glass burst, Shen Zhuo shielded his head and face. He was about to step forward when someone patted his shoulder from behind. The voice was somehow still relaxed.
“Don’t rush, Supervisor.”
It was Bai Sheng.
Shen Zhuo frowned. “You—”
Bai Sheng smiled and raised one finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. With his other hand, he snapped his fingers.
In an instant, blinding lightning leapt from his fingertip into the air.
The guests around them immediately stumbled back in terror.
“Wh-what is that?”
“An evolutionist?”
“He’s an evolutionist!”
Human beings would always carry an instinctive fear and a trace of awe toward evolutionists. In the blink of an eye, shoving and trampling broke out all over the hall.
Immediately after, the lightning crackled and twisted into a rope. Like a venomous snake, it shot through the crowd and burst into a terrifying, snow-bright glare.
The electric rope rushed out through the shattered window.
In that half second of light bright enough to briefly blind a person, Shen Zhuo felt a hand gently cover his eyes.
At the same time, the evolutionist who had jumped from the building was bound by the electric rope descending from above, snatched back through the air, and hurled into the top-floor hall.
He slammed heavily onto the ground with a crash.
With a sharp hiss, the electricity vanished without a trace.
The glare finally faded. A burnt smell spread through the air. The evolutionist lay smoking on the floor, twitching nonstop.
“There!”
“Don’t move!”
Chen Miao rushed into the top-floor hall with his team, arriving at the exact right second. The Supervision Office members charged forward, subdued the two half-dead evolutionist buyers, and swiftly bound them.
“Move!”
“Cuff them and take them away!”
Only then did the hand covering Shen Zhuo’s eyes move away.
Bai Sheng looked at him teasingly. “Were you about to jump down and die for love with him, Supervisor?”
Shen Zhuo: “...”
Half an hour later, the guests who had been temporarily blinded by the intense light finally recovered one after another. They shook hands with the apologetic Chairman Bai and left in lingering shock.
The Supervision Office was clearing the scene.
Shen Zhuo stood not far from the crowd, both black leather-gloved hands in his trouser pockets, silently listening to his subordinate’s report.
“That really was Shen Zhuo?”
“Was that really him...?”
The position of Supervisor was too delicate. In Shenhai City, Shen Zhuo had almost unlimited authority, and because of that, he kept an equally unlimited low profile. Even prominent, well-connected elites rarely had a chance to meet him. Now, some of them were already eager to seize this rare opportunity and go over to greet him.
“—No, you cannot enter. This area has been temporarily taken over. The exit is over there.”
Fortunately, the Supervision Office team members were well practiced at handling this kind of situation. They refused politely but without mercy.
“Our Supervisor does not communicate with outsiders. According to procedure, you may only wait for him to summon you for questioning.”
“Yes, Team Leader Chen is also unavailable. If you have business, we can pass on the message.”
“Thank you. Thank you for your cooperation. Please leave through that exit immediately...”
Chairman Bai hesitated again and again. Finally, he mustered up his courage and edged over.
“Su-Supervisor Shen.”
The subordinate giving the report stopped.
Shen Zhuo glanced back.
“...”
Those few short seconds stretched endlessly for Chairman Bai. Every word of flattery and ingratiation jammed in his throat, unable to come out. It felt as though even his brain had been forcibly emptied by that downward gaze.
After a long while, he gulped. As if possessed, he took off his own jacket and held it forward with trembling hands.
“Would you... would you like to wear this?”
The air froze.
Shen Zhuo turned back, took his own suit jacket from Chen Miao, and silently put it on. He straightened the front and adjusted the cuffs.
“No, thank you,” he replied politely.
Then Shen Zhuo walked toward the scene without looking back.
Chairman Bai cracked apart on the spot.
Chen Miao felt a stir of compassion. “Are you all right?”
Chairman Bai grabbed him and asked, trembling from the depths of his soul, “I have paid taxes legally my whole life. I have done good deeds and accumulated virtue. If I am guilty, let the tax bureau punish me. Why must an innocent old man in his twilight years suffer all this?”
Chen Miao was shocked. “What exactly did you do?”
“...”
Chairman Bai abruptly fell silent.
The image of his precious nephew holding the Supervisor in his arms surfaced before his eyes again.
After a long while, he said with deep sorrow, “I didn’t gouge my own eyes out in time.”
Chen Miao: “Huh?”
“There are five buyers in total, including the broker. All have been arrested, along with the seller, Zhao Jun,” the Supervision Office member reported solemnly. “The communication tools and cash related to the case in Room 1625 have also been sealed. The evolution-source meteorite Zhao Jun was carrying has been sent to Identification. Results will be out within eight hours.”
Shen Zhuo said, “Back to the Supervision Office.”
“Yes!”
Everyone in the hall quickly packed up and prepared to leave.
Shen Zhuo walked toward the door. Just as he was about to cross the threshold, an arm stretched across in front of him and lightly blocked his path.
“Are you forgetting something, Supervisor?” Bai Sheng leaned against the doorframe and smiled.
The Chief Supervisor’s collar was buttoned to his throat. He was dressed all in black, his face pale and clear, his brows and eyes long and refined. When he lowered his lashes to look at something, he carried a silent air like a cold pool, as if that breathtaking beauty soaked through with the scent of liquor had never existed at all.
“Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Bai.” Shen Zhuo paused, then said, “But I hope I won’t see you at another crime scene next time.”
“...”
Bai Sheng said, “That’s too distant, Supervisor. I’ve always been the kind of person who does good without expecting repayment. I didn’t come to ask you for thanks.”
Shen Zhuo looked him up and down. His meaning was clear: Then did you come here to put on a show?
Bai Sheng glanced around. With one hand in his trouser pocket, he leaned slightly forward, his thin lips nearly brushing Shen Zhuo’s ear. The smiling tail of his voice seemed to carry a seductive hook.
“Supervisor, I submitted my application three days ago asking to be recruited by the Shenhai City Supervision Office. Don’t you plan to have me?”
Chen Miao was listening to a report while striding over. When he suddenly looked up and saw this scene, he and the entire group behind him stopped dead at the same time.
Shen Zhuo stepped half a pace back, opening a slight distance. He looked at Bai Sheng politely, without any emotion.
“The Central Supervision Office in B City has priority recruitment rights over evolutionists in this country. As far as I know, they have already sent you an invitation. I appreciate the honor, Mr. Bai, but the Central Supervision Office is more entitled to have you than I am.”
Bai Sheng refused to give up. “But I only want to follow you. Is that not allowed? I’ve wanted that ever since I first saw you in the newspaper years ago.”
“...”
“Following you has always been the dream of my life, Supervisor Shen.”
Shen Zhuo gazed at Bai Sheng’s young, sincere face. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he said nothing.
Perhaps the hotel’s dazzling gold lights were too bright. No one could see the indescribably subtle look deep in the Shenhai City Supervisor’s eyes.
“—You’re Director Shen, aren’t you?”
That year, on a midsummer afternoon, wind swept from the horizon through the corridor of the research institute building. The young head of the Central Supervision Office leaned beside the stair railing, the smell of training rounds still clinging to the collar of his camouflage uniform. He raised a hand to block Shen Zhuo’s way, his eyes bright with a smile.
“My name is Fu Chen. I’m an evolutionist from the Central Supervision Office. I had the honor of learning about your project and became extremely interested in it, so I’d like to apply to join your research team.”
At the end of the corridor, a group of researchers happened to pass by. Seeing this, they stopped one after another. Whispers drifted over on the wind.
“Is that Fu Chen?”
“That should be him!”
“I heard the institute has been fighting like mad to get him lately...”
“Why is he here looking for Director Shen?”
...
Shen Zhuo had just come out of the laboratory. One hand was tucked into the pocket of his white coat as he stood on the higher steps and studied Fu Chen for a moment.
Only then did he say coldly, “Aren’t you evolutionists protesting at the United Nations every day, accusing me of using human experiments to persecute you? What do you want now?”
Fu Chen was sincere and gentle. “I already learned the true nature of your research from the director.”
Shen Zhuo narrowed his eyes and said nothing.
“I want to follow you, to witness with my own eyes this research path that disregards ethics, and see where it will ultimately lead the wheel of evolution...”
Fu Chen looked up at that sharp, coldly beautiful pair of eyes above him and extended his hand, palm upward.
“Or, if you don’t mind, please allow me to pursue you.”
One stood higher, the other lower, separated by several concrete steps. In the distance, cicadas and human voices faded into the background.
A faintly subtle look seemed to enter Shen Zhuo’s eyes, as if he were considering something.
After a long while, he finally descended one step, bent slightly, and spoke beside Fu Chen’s ear.
The posture was condescending, interested, and faintly amused. He did not directly answer the question Fu Chen had just asked.
“I hear you’re a rare S-Class.”
...
Beneath the hotel’s brilliant lights, Shen Zhuo finally exhaled soundlessly.
“I don’t need you, Mr. Bai.”
Bai Sheng had just been about to say something when Shen Zhuo raised a hand.
It was an unquestionable gesture of interruption.
Only then did Shen Zhuo lean slightly closer and warn him, word by word, in a low voice only the two of them could hear,
“Do not pry into my private affairs again.”
“...”
Shen Zhuo straightened. His expression was cold and normal. Without looking at anyone again, he brushed past Bai Sheng and walked out of the hall.