Yin Zhen had just swept the area with Super Sensing — there was nobody outside the alley. So how long had she been standing there?
Adeline stood with her arms crossed, sunglasses pushed up on her head, those blood-red eyes fixed directly on her.
Gone was her usual languid ease.
Gone was her usual careless indifference.
Those eyes were razor-sharp, twin blades that sent a chill crawling up Yin Zhen’s spine.
"What did she say to you?" Adeline asked.
Yin Zhen found she couldn’t move. Her limbs felt bound by invisible ropes, and her throat seized up.
Spiritual Manipulation!
The Extraordinary Ability of the Cavendish family.
Adeline walked toward her, one step at a time, her heels clicking against the ground — each strike landing like a needle directly in Yin Zhen’s skull.
She stopped right in front of her. "Don’t make me ask twice. Understood?"
Her voice was still soft, still gentle — but this was no request. It was a command.
[The Player is under attack from a Spiritual Manipulation-type Extraordinary Ability. System detects that the Player’s total Wisdom exceeds the attacker’s — this attack can be fully resisted, and the attacker will remain unaware. (Disability is your weakness; Wisdom is your edge. Damn, you’ve pulled another one off.)]
It was the first time Yin Zhen had ever thought the system’s voice sounded like music from heaven. She steadied herself instantly.
She could tell — breaking free of this mental restraint would be effortless.
Adeline was asking what Zoe had said to her. That alone told Yin Zhen everything: Adeline hadn’t heard a single word of the conversation inside the water sphere. Because if she had, someone capable of slipping past Yin Zhen’s Super Sensing would have had no reason to show herself — no reason to expose the Extraordinary Ability she’d kept so carefully hidden.
D-level Super Sensing really did come with a glaring blind spot.
Yin Zhen let her gaze go slack and unfocused. Just like she’d done back at the Saint Group — flat, mechanical, robotic — she told Adeline that Zoe had wanted to take her and run.
She recounted every word she could share, not missing a single one. Everything she couldn’t share, she buried.
"...I didn’t stop Zoe. I chose to let her go."
Finally, she confessed her own transgression. For a test subject, defying the company’s orders carried only one sentence: death.
But if she didn’t say it herself, someone as sharp as Adeline would smell a rat immediately.
"Why did you let her go?" Adeline pressed. The severity in her manner had already begun to ease.
Yin Zhen’s mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. A flicker of struggle and confusion crossed her face.
"I... don’t know."
"Do you understand what happens to you now?"
"Yes. Those who defy the company will be eliminated without exception."
Adeline exhaled heavily. "Then why didn’t you run with S704? Did you come back here to die?"
"Miss Adeline has been very kind to me. I am Miss Adeline’s guard. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t want to disappoint Miss Adeline."
Yin Zhen delivered the words in her usual flat, expressionless tone — and it hit Adeline like a bullet through the heart. She pressed a hand to her forehead and turned away, her back to Yin Zhen, a short, unreadable laugh escaping her lips.
"Adeline, just look at what you’ve done."
At the same moment, Yin Zhen heard the system chime again.
[Congratulations, Player ’Yin Zhen’ — new Talent acquired: ’The Birth of an Actor’]
[Effect: When the target’s total Wisdom is lower than yours, your performance will always convince them.]
[Mysterious Evaluation: What makes your acting so remarkably convincing? Natural Talent and passion? No. It’s the fear of dying.]
Yin Zhen didn’t react. She held her position, kept up the act of being under Spiritual Manipulation, and kept performing.
Adeline dug a pack of cigarettes out of her trench coat pocket, pulled one out, nearly lit it — then stopped. She turned and looked at Yin Zhen, who was still standing there with that vacant stare. A small cut on her cheek was still seeping blood.
"Such a mess..."
With a deft flick of her fingers, Adeline transferred the cigarette from between her index and middle finger to between her ring and little finger. She stepped closer to Yin Zhen and used her thumb to wipe away the blood on her cheek.
Yin Zhen’s pupils jolted sharply. Adeline assumed the reaction was from the gesture of care — she had no idea that her cover had just been blown.
Bai Qiang!
The therapist!
Unexpected — and yet it made perfect sense.
Both Bai Qiang and Adeline had to be Silver Card Level supporting characters, which was why they held such prominent positions in both worlds.
Maybe... Bai Qiang was the personal therapist of the male or female lead in the CEO romance novel. Every story like that had a Character like that, didn’t it?
Following the original plot, the female lead in the CEO novel would find out that the big villain Sheng Yehan had hired someone to kill her — the disposable pawn. That might have happened precisely because of Bai Qiang’s connection with the police.
It all linked together now.
Yin Zhen quietly dug her thumbnail into her palm, suppressing the tide of emotion surging inside her.
Adeline put the cigarette between her lips and lit it. She raised her hand and snapped her fingers, and the spiritual power binding Yin Zhen dissolved in an instant.
Yin Zhen blinked wide, as if surfacing from a dream. "Miss Adeline? What are you doing here?"
Adeline exhaled a slow curl of smoke. "I was worried something might happen to you, so I came to check. The car’s over there — let’s head back."
"Weren’t we supposed to go to the Saint Group?"
A faint shift passed through Adeline’s eyes. "That’s been put on hold for now," she said vaguely.
Yin Zhen asked nothing more. She didn’t even ask what Adeline had just done to her — because in the eyes of a test subject, Adeline was her employer, her owner even. Whatever was done to her had to be accepted without resistance.
That was all written into the Saint Group’s loyalty agreement.
The two of them found the car parked along the curb and drove away from the chaos of that neighborhood.
"717."
Adeline wasn’t looking at Yin Zhen. She leaned back against the headrest, watching the neon lights blur past the window, her voice slow and unhurried.
"Is there anything you want? I’ll make it happen — one wish, whatever’s within my power."
Yin Zhen paused.
A wish?
She glanced at the countdown without letting it show on her face.
[33:55:11]
Her only wish right now was to kill Lucia, make it back to her own world alive, and then — get her revenge.
"I don’t know," Yin Zhen said.
Adeline said nothing more. The car kept moving, and the lights outside swept across their faces in long, passing strokes.
Adeline’s apartment was a property owned by the Cavendish family, located near the Guard Corps Building — an unremarkable high-rise from the outside, but lavishly appointed within, fitted end to end with Saint technology.
They had barely stepped into the lobby when they stopped.
Three figures stood in their path.
Bloodthorn Squad!
They weren’t wearing Combat Uniforms — just civilian clothes — but the battlefield air that clung to them was impossible to hide.
Lighthouse had his arms folded across his chest, every muscle straining against the fabric of his T-shirt like it was about to give way.
Tuner had one hand in his pocket; a faint red light flickered at the tips of the fingers on his other hand.
White Phosphorus stood at the center, silver-white hair pulled into a high ponytail, eyes cold with hostility.
This time, none of them were looking at Adeline.
They were all looking at Yin Zhen.
"Inspector General, we’re here to take S717."
Adeline didn’t slow down. She walked straight ahead, passed through the gap between the three of them, and came to a stop in front of the elevator doors.
Tuner’s gaze locked directly onto Yin Zhen. "S717," he ordered. "Report to the lab immediately. This is a company directive."
Yin Zhen’s lashes gave the faintest tremor.
So it’s finally here.
She stepped out from behind Adeline.