Classical music echoed faintly through the hall. With a wave of Noah’s hand, a line of hybrids dressed in identical uniforms entered, carrying trays with downcast eyes. Their expressions and movements were unnervingly synchronized, the curve of their smiles as precise as if they had been trained a thousand times.
If it weren’t for the trembling white-mouse boy standing beside him, Pei Qingshan might have actually believed he was having dinner at a high-end Western restaurant.
“Symphony No. 40 in G minor. You have taste.”
Sitting nearby, a Mozart enthusiast with an elegant bass voice felt Pei Qingshan’s gaze. He turned and smiled slowly, revealing a face with severely protruding jawbones—as if the section from the bridge of his nose to his chin had been stretched and restructured. A long row of sharp, needle-like crocodile teeth lined his mouth, moving slightly as he spoke.
“…”
What key? What symphony?
Usually, this kind of abomination wouldn’t survive two seconds under his blade, but now Pei Qingshan had to share dinner with this visual eyesore. The tyrannical Commander brought his personal temper into his work: “Could you please turn your head back and enjoy the music elsewhere?”
When the Council of Elders unanimously decided to send Pei Qingshan deep into enemy territory as an undercover agent, Adjutant Liao was the first to object.
It was one thing to let someone named Pei go in with his blade and skewer a nest of monsters, but it was another to ask him to act. This Commander, who had dropped out of high school to join a military training camp, was not only a damn radical racial-supremacist hawk but also lacked any high-society refinement.
In a five-star elite banquet hall for monsters like Lost Paradise, he would only complain about them “sucking the lifeblood out of the people.”
Fortunately, Seth Novikov was a high-school dropout and arms-dealing thug—certain traits of his actually coincided perfectly with Pei Qingshan’s.
“What do you mean by that!”
Noah’s expression actually managed to look contorted despite his hard crocodile skin; he was clearly fuming. “Gentlemen, let us dine first.”
In the earpiece, the real Mr. Novikov had finally stopped swearing and was taking a breather. Meanwhile, the “Mr. Novikov” beside him was making inexplicable provocations. Li Xian felt his nerves were so frayed he was seeing things—he actually thought he saw a flash of impatience in the eyes of his brother’s poor, frightened little snake friend…
Many at this dinner were harboring hidden agendas. There was the “KPI King of the Year” casually scanning the room to memorize every face so he could uproot them all later. There was the “anti-social” element who loved seeing his own kind kill each other. And then there was the one secretly plotting to beat up the boss to stand up for his stupid younger brother. In short, Noah felt an inexplicable chill down his spine throughout the meal.
This feeling persisted until a mercenary leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Noah’s face visibly dropped, and he hurriedly gathered his medieval-style bell-bottom trousers, making a grand yet frantic exit.
Wen Zhu’s gaze fell silently on the mercenaries who had suddenly increased in number around the hall. He unobtrusively touched the miniature earpiece behind his ear, which had been silent for a long time. It flickered with a faint, ominous red light against his skin.
“I really don’t know why Noah invited people like you. Besides, aren’t these hybrids technically your own kind?” Crocodile-face pulled his mouth into a jagged grin. “You can actually stomach doing this to your own race?”
“We don’t discriminate based on bloodline, but as for someone with your… looks,” Pei Qingshan glanced at him briefly and said politely, “even as a hybrid, you probably wouldn’t sell for a good price.”
“You dare compare me to those freaks?” Crocodile-face was so angry his back teeth began to grind fiercely. He opened his mouth, revealing deep serrated teeth in a threat. “Do you want me to swallow half your head in one bite?”
“Is that so? Why don’t you try?” The human with the fragile skull responded in a tone so nonchalant it was maddening.
This was the first time Wen Zhu had seen Pei Qingshan in his “work mode.” It was no different from his naturally abrasive and arrogant personality. Your organization must truly be out of personnel, he thought. Even in a situation where a wise man would play the coward, Pei Qingshan—a man of no moral refinement—refused to change his provocative, “bandit” ways.
Wen Zhu was genuinely impressed.
As soon as Pei Qingshan finished speaking, the sound of disorganized footsteps rang out around the hall. A dozen mercenaries in body armor appeared at the door with heavy weaponry, ruthlessly aiming their barrels toward the center of the hall.
Crocodile-face stared at Pei Qingshan and then at the mercenaries, stuttering in disbelief and rage for a long time.
Pei Qingshan retracted his gaze and fell back into silence. “It wasn’t me.” He wasn’t that god-like.
With a heavy, crisp thump, a shell landed in a steel tube, and Wen Zhu’s heart settled.
“Wow, it’s so lively in here, everyone! How was the dinner? Was it to your liking?”
A tall figure walked in slowly, dragging a chair behind him. One leg of the solid wood chair scraped against the floor, creating a piercing, sharp screech.
The man wore a hoodie, his face marked with mysterious scars, and two youthful dimples appeared when he smiled. He was speaking, but his mouth didn’t move.
“Who are you? Where is Noah?” “What is the meaning of those men at the door!” “We are guests, not prisoners! You’d better have your men stand down immediately!”
Li Xian, continuing his role as the “perverted drag queen” with arms crossed, saw the tide turning and drawled, “We didn’t have this part of the program before.”
Zhou Sui’s gaze fell on Wen Zhu beside him for a moment, smiled, and then looked away. “Calm down, everyone. Since you can’t leave anyway, why not play a game with me?”
“I have nothing to discuss with you! Get Noah out here!” “Does Lost Paradise not want to do business anymore?” “You uncultured thing, do you know whose man I am?”
It seemed that if one investigated Lost Paradise carefully, quite a few big names could be caught.
“Director Cheng, I remember when you were begging me for a dozen newly-fused hybrids to use for experiments, you didn’t talk like this,” Zhou Sui said, propping up his chin with the smile of a pure, twenty-year-old college student.
“Who exactly are you?” someone nearby barked.
“Wow, Lord Sweet, has your arrest warrant been retracted recently?”
“…”
“Let me see what other interesting familiar faces I can find.” Zhou Sui waved smilingly toward Pei Qingshan. “Commander, long time no see. So your name is Seth Novikov?”
He seemed to have discovered something amazing and clapped his hands. Several large mercenaries rushed forward and threw in three dying bodies tied with hemp ropes.
Seeing the brownish-black cat ears, the rabbit head, and the bloody cross-section of a tentacle on those three, Wen Zhu knew things were bad. He could feel Li Xian beside him tense up immediately—he had clearly recognized Li Zhong.
Zhou Sui propped his chin up with interest and looked down, stepping on one of the bodies on the floor. He smiled: “If you are that famous arms dealer, then who is he?”
Infiltrators with unknown identities have entered the auction.
The implication of those words spread through the crowd. Before anyone could recover, Zhou Sui had another “epiphany”: “Oh, wait, I forgot. You’re a government man.”
Instantly, many people could no longer sit still. Director Cheng instinctively grabbed the mask of the hybrid next to him and pressed it onto his own face: “How can there be government people here! How did you handle security! You useless waste!”
The moment he saw Zhou Sui’s face, Pei Qingshan’s hidden suspicions were finally confirmed. Every thought flashed through his mind in an instant. Being called out by Zhou Sui, he responded unhurriedly: “What, are government people rare around here?”
When Zhou Sui was being interrogated by him, he might not have known he was from the Beidou Bureau—after all, it was a common understanding that the Beidou Bureau didn’t interfere in matters below the front-line combat zones.
Those who were caught in Pei Qingshan’s gaze felt as if they had been pierced by a sharp sword, becoming inexplicably stiff.
“Is that so?” “Of course.”
Pei Qingshan leaned back in his chair, leisurely using a chopstick to lift the chin of the white-mouse boy beside him. He seemed quite satisfied with the way the little mouse was trembling and smiled: “Doesn’t Lost Paradise claim to ask no questions about origins or backgrounds? Am I not allowed to be interested in these things?”
Director Cheng finally breathed a sigh of relief: “Then we all have the same goal! Brother, you were certainly more cautious than the rest of us!” If I’d known, I would have used a fake identity too!
It was unclear if Zhou Sui believed him, but he at least retracted his gaze for the moment.
Pei Qingshan breathed a sigh of relief. Those conservative guys from the “Red Tower Project” had finally served a purpose in an unexpected place. The Commander decided he would reduce his monthly letters titled “Proposal to End Excessive Secrecy of the Red Tower Project and Grant the Public Moderate Right to Know” (otherwise known as a sharp impeachment of the conservative right-wing high-level officials) from ten letters to eight.
Wen Zhu was surprised that Zhou Sui had met Pei Qingshan, then remembered when he left the police station, he had mentioned a commander in the interrogation room who looked like an international supermodel—so he had been there at the time.
Li Xian gritted his teeth, his eyes fixed on the bound, dying figure. Two sharp canine teeth poked out. Wen Zhu could clearly feel his muscles tensing to the limit; the man was ready to spring.
“Stay calm.” A cold hand patted him, miraculously soothing Li Xian’s agitated heart. “Wait a little longer.”
Wen Zhu hooked his fingers around the black stone pendant that had slid from his sleeve into his palm. The thoughts in his mind gradually formed a vague outline—this was enough.
“Watch for the light.” As soon as he spoke, his claws ruthlessly crushed the hard black stone.
The mineral, now shattered into crystalline fragments of various sizes, slid from Wen Zhu’s palm, accompanied by fresh red liquid from his cut hand dripping onto the floor.
Bang—
All the lights suddenly went out. The noisy operating machinery fell into instant hibernation as if someone had pressed the stop button.
Chaos erupted within the crowd.
“What’s happening?” “Is it a power outage?” “Why isn’t there any light at all?”
The brickwork of Lost Paradise was very different from ordinary buildings. Without lights, the place became an opaque object that couldn’t reflect even a sliver of natural light from the outside. This design allowed Lost Paradise to control the lighting autonomously, turning it into a place of revelry where day and night were indistinguishable—creating an illusion for those inside that time had stopped flowing.