Liu Yin followed the members of the Tao family out of the banquet hall, walking past the covered corridor and heading toward the main gates of the Long estate.
He stopped in his tracks. “There’s no one around. Speak here—there’s no need to walk any further.”
Failing to lure Liu Yin all the way out of the Long estate in one go was a slight shame for the Tao family members. Still, knowing the drug he had consumed would take effect within minutes, they didn’t feel overly anxious.
The young playboy from the Tao clan took the lead, letting out years of pent-up resentment. “Liu Yin, from this day on, the Tao family doesn’t need your management!”
Liu Yin’s expression remained empty. His metallic, inorganic eyes stared back at the young man. “What’s the matter? Think your wings are fully grown now?”
Those words instantly ignited the group’s fury. “Who do you think you are, putting gold on your own face! When did the Tao family ever ask you to run our household? Are the rest of us dead?”
“If not for your special background, do you really think we would have tolerated you for all these years?”
“What kind of stupid promise did we make that we’re forced to help you carry out? Did you ever ask for our opinion?”
“If not for you, the Tao family wouldn’t be stuck at this level today!”
They hurled bitter accusations, bringing up several lucrative business projects the Tao family had favored—projects Liu Yin had shut down because they were either unethical or illegal. Why could other atavist families do whatever they wanted while the Tao family could not? Watching others grow rich while they missed out made their eyes red with envy.
Liu Yin listened without saying a word, his robot-like eyes showing no flicker of emotion.
When they finished shouting and caught their breath, they looked at him, suddenly sensing something off. Their expressions shifted.
Liu Yin spoke up. “You’ve clearly harbored deep hatred for a long time. So why didn’t you say all this earlier or later, but chose this exact moment?”
An uneasy dread crept into their chests, their hearts beating faster.
“Is it because of this?” Liu Yin put a finger into his mouth. Within two seconds, he pulled out a small, transparent gel capsule containing a golden liquid—the single sip of champagne he had swallowed half an hour ago.
Seeing their shocked faces, Liu Yin went on. “Whenever I feel something’s wrong with what I eat or drink, my body makes a special gel that traps the substance, keeping it away from my organs. It’s made from the oil in my system, so it’s tough and won’t break down easily. Didn’t you check before acting? There’s a reason why so many enemies tried to poison me during the war, but I came through without a scratch.”
They had researched it, of course.
However, as a living founding minister and atavist warrior, the government kept his detailed physiological traits strictly confidential. Most descriptions in history books were made-up details based on ordinary members of the Cyborg Clan.
They had never imagined this possibility, believing the public books were true.
“With this level of intelligence, how can you claim to be fit to manage a family?” Liu Yin asked. His tone and expression were entirely earnest, devoid of mockery, reflecting pure confusion.
The Tao family members felt a burning humiliation. Yet soon, dark satisfaction swept across their faces, and they backed away.
Liu Yin glanced around as atavists emerged from the shadows. These people, who were supposed to be guests at the banquet, now surrounded him in silence.
Plan A had failed. They had no choice but to start Plan B.
Inside the banquet hall, an abrupt shift occurred. More than half the guests left in a hurry, drawing the attention of those left in the dark.
The confused guests looked around, not sure what was happening. Jing Pei, the host, stepped forward and asked, “What’s going on?”
Patriarch Wu furrowed his brow and moved forward, intent on checking outside.
At that moment, Patriarch Feng and heads of several great families blocked the exit, addressing the two. “Patriarch Long, Patriarch Wu, allow us to explain what is happening.”
Jing Pei and Patriarch Wu exchanged a glance, waiting to hear them out.
“We are here to secure one of tonight’s guests,” Patriarch Feng stated. “He holds the key for us to regain the ground we lost at the 8.20 Conference. We didn’t inform you in advance to prevent any leaks. This is a collective decision made for the shared interests of all atavist families. As members of our circle, I trust you won’t object?”
Another family head eyed them with caution. “Don’t forget our rule: the minority yields to the majority. Unless you announce right now that the Long and Wu families are leaving the atavist circle for good, you either assist us or stand aside and watch!”
The minority yielding to the majority was an unwritten rule among the atavist clans—an alliance where families shared common glory and ruin. When the majority decided on a course of action, the remaining few had to comply unless they chose to break away entirely.
Neither the Long family nor the Wu family would abandon this circle so easily. They looked at each other and made no further move. Patriarch Wu scratched his head, asking in his usual rough manner, “Don’t get worked up so fast. We haven’t said anything yet. Who are you trying to catch, and what’s the goal? You can tell us now, can’t you?”
“We’ll tell you once we have our target.” They still had doubts about the Long and Wu families. Once Liu Yin was in their hands, they would take him apart, so there would be no need to keep secrets.
Tension filled the banquet hall. Wu Ying and the others left in the dark whispered to each other, trying to guess what was going on.
“Who are they after?”
“Capturing one person can turn the tables? Who could be that powerful?”
Tao Ying looked around nervously. Where’s Ah Yin? Why hasn’t he returned?
Suddenly, Feng Yilian’s face paled. “It’s Liu Yin? Your target is Liu Yin? Why?!”
Tao Ying whipped around. “Ah Yin? You’re going after Ah Yin?”
An elder from the Feng family snapped, “If not for you stupid traitors, we wouldn’t have to go to such lengths today!”
BOOM!
CRASH!
Explosive rumbles echoed from outside, one after another—a battle had erupted.
“Liu Yin belongs to the Cyborg Clan! You held meetings every day just to catch him! Taking such a hard stance means you’re not looking to cooperate… Are you going to kill him? No… you want to fight the government… you’re going to tear him apart?!”
A storm raged in Feng Yilian’s mind. Known as a brilliant prodigy, he had once stood as the king of the Twelve Zodiac Academy’s Atavist Division before Jing Pei appeared. He pieced together their true intention in seconds.
“You want to recreate history—to extract technological weapons from Liu Yin’s body to stand against the government!” He glared at Patriarch Feng in sheer disbelief.
Patriarch Feng averted his gaze, refusing to meet his eyes.
The Feng family elder scolded again, “If not for you kids, we wouldn’t have been forced into this move! Liu Yin suffers because of your actions!”
That outburst confirmed Feng Yilian’s deduction.
Tao Ying surged toward the main doors, only to be held back by two Tao family members who had stayed behind. “Little ancestor, stay here! Liu Yin isn’t one of us…”
“Ah Yin is my family! He’s my fiancé!” Tao Ying shouted in anger.
“What fiancé? You don’t even like him!”
Tao Ying raised her voice to a shout, “I do like him! I like him so much! He’s my favorite!”
“Stupid girl, if you liked him, why hasn’t a single flower bloomed on your body? Besides, Liu Yin doesn’t care about you at all—the one he loved was Tao Yuan! You’ve been fooled by him all along!”
Tao Ying froze in her struggles, looking at her kinsman in confusion. “…Tao Yuan? Who is Tao Yuan?”
The arrival of the reinforcement, Tao Yuan, relieved much of the pressure on Liu Yin.
Utilizing her ability to communicate with plant life, she linked the underground root systems into a massive intelligence network. Every person seen and every word heard by any tree traveled through those roots to complement Liu Yin’s capabilities, leaving no blind spots across the territory.
Yet, Tao Yuan also displayed the sun-loving, lazy nature of the Peach Demon Clan to the fullest. Because some of her functions relied on solar energy, the central command room sat on the top floor of the building, enclosed entirely in glass without any shade, soaking in sunlight all day.
During peacetime, Tao Yuan spent her days slacking off there. Whenever Liu Yin turned his head, he would catch her sleeping with her chin tilted up, occasionally drooling after a hard day of combat. Unable to watch, he would extend a mechanical tentacle with a stiff expression to wipe away her drool.
“Don’t keep bothering the general in the command room. He won’t be happy,” a comrade advised her in the mess hall.
“Why? The command room is huge. I only take up a tiny corner.”
“Well… I don’t know, but he definitely won’t like it. He prefers peace and quiet, doesn’t he?”
“Did he say that?”
“Not directly, but everyone thinks so.”
“Oh.”
She nodded as if she understood, then continued to sleep in the command room. Before long, she began joining him for meals, picking away the chicken drumsticks and cabbage he left untouched.
“Why is a member of the Cyborg Clan a picky eater? So weird.”
Liu Yin replied, “Cyborgs aren’t pure robots. Even robots have preferred grades of machine oil.”
Tao Yuan burst into laughter. “Hahaha, that’s hilarious!”
Liu Yin went silent. What’s so funny about that?
Then she snatched away the dishes he actually enjoyed.
Liu Yin stared at his lunchbox in disbelief, then looked at the girl eating gracefully yet swiftly.
“Don’t go too far, reinforcement.”
To save his favorite food, the young general—who hated eating—would gobble his meals. He feared that if he paused for even a second, she would think he disliked the food and snatch it away, leaving him stuck with plain rice that was hard to swallow.
Back then, he found this reinforcement sent by the central command noisy, greedy, lazy, and lacking boundaries. While she relieved his workload, she brought plenty of headaches—someone he found a bit annoying, yet quietly grew fond of.
In those lonely days, a reliable companion appeared. As time passed, they grew closer. When spring arrived, she suddenly reached out and laced her fingers through his. The young man’s ears turned red as he lowered his head.
She said, “Did you know? For our Peach Demon Clan, if we fall in love with someone, our true form blooms with flowers. Guess if I’ve bloomed yet?”
“…Have you?”
“Guess,” she replied with a bright smile, her hands behind her back, making his heart race even faster.
“Your lifespan is so long! Why don’t we make a promise? Promise me you’ll live well and help me protect my descendants, okay? Look at my clan—without someone keeping an eye on them, they’ll end up sold for firewood sooner or later,” she teased with a cheerful laugh.
To Liu Yin, those words sounded as though she feared he might follow her after her passing, leaving a bitter ache in his chest. At that time, he hadn’t realized that if Tao Yuan remained with him, two atavists could never produce offspring together.
“I promise you,” he swore with solemn resolve.
Spring passed with its sweet warmth, and the scorching summer vanished in a flash. Autumn swept in with withered leaves, and the favorable war situation turned dire as fast as the biting winter winds.
“General! The northern defense line has fallen! They somehow learned our shift rotation schedule and struck when our defenses were at their weakest…”
“General, the sea line was attacked! Two of our supply ships were sunk!”
“General…”
One piece of grim news followed another. Investigations revealed that the enemy had appointed a new commander—a young prodigy from a Western military academy, born of noble blood and exceptional skill. His arrival invigorated the enemy forces, dealing a heavy blow to Hualan’s troops.
With Liu Yin and Tao Yuan guarding the network and plant lines, no traitor or spy could steal information internally. That meant the new enemy commander possessed a brilliant mind or a special ability to calculate every move.
Faced with such an opponent, Liu Yin stayed put in the command room. His torso turned into countless fiber-optic cables, some plain to see, others thin as hair.
In this near-full atavist state, he shifted from a human into a machine while striving to retain his human reason—a painful, demanding ordeal that left no room for distraction.
Beyond physical pain, mental strain took its toll. Linked to the state network, he absorbed every bit of data against his will, exposed to endless human hate and darkness.
Tao Yuan watched him, reduced to a single head sitting atop the cables. His face was pale, yet his gaze remained steady as rock.
“Among the people you protect, you’ll see plenty of scumbags and trash,” she said softly, her expression complex. “Many will blame you behind your back for not sacrificing enough, taking your kindness for granted. Is it really worth doing this for them?”
Liu Yin answered, “The one I give everything for isn’t these individuals. It’s this nation, this land.”
Before Tao Yuan could speak, he added, “It’s not as dark as you think. Scumbags and evil people are the minority. Most of the people I see are worrying about me and caring for me. If you saw the unity and resolve of this nation when facing foreign invaders, you’d be deeply moved.”
Tao Yuan’s pupils trembled slightly.
“Come here,” Liu Yin extended a hand toward her.
Perplexed, she placed her hand in his. A gentle current surged through her palm, flooding her mind with countless images.
She saw the people of this land digging out their stored food, young and old running to the base gates to press food into the soldiers’ hands, dropping the packages and running off for fear of having them returned, choosing to go hungry so the fighting soldiers could eat their fill.
She saw students gathered together, citing classics as they denounced the invaders, their bright eyes burning with passion and their young faces flushed with anger, ready to fight and die for their country if handed a rifle.
She saw volunteer medical teams and citizens patrolling the streets, extending help to anyone in need.
And those ungrateful individuals she spoke of were being berated and beaten by the crowd.
“The general has been guarding us since he was a teenager—younger than my own son! After all these years, how dare you say such things? Where is your conscience? I’ll curse you to death, you idiot!”
“I think he’s a traitor! Send him to the police station—what if he’s a spy?”
“Right, right!”
“What? You dare insult Miss Tao Yuan too? Get out of here, beat him up!”
“He actually said Miss Tao Yuan dragged the general down! Break his legs, that motherless dog!”
Tao Yuan’s lips trembled as her face turned pale.
“What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
“I’m fine… just a bit tired. I’ll go rest.” She pulled her hand back, cutting off the mental images, and turned to leave in haste.
The battles that followed brought mixed results. The enemy’s new commander displayed ruthless tactics, yet maintained an eerie ability to foresee every move.
“There’s an internal leak,” Liu Yin concluded at last.
et with him monitoring the digital channels and Tao Yuan watching every plant, who could leak information to the enemy without leaving a trace?
When he noticed enemy ships sneaking ashore several times without taking action before quietly retreating, the truth became clear.
“There’s something I want to tell you,” Tao Yuan said to him one day.
Both sides were exhausted, entering a brief lull in the fighting. Liu Yin returned to human form and walked with her into the woods.
It was the same forest where they had sat under trees reading books in spring, dried leaves slipping between pages to serve as bookmarks forever.
“I don’t know who my parents were because I was kidnapped when I was very young. I only vaguely remember being from Hualan,” she spoke as she led him deeper into the forest. “I grew up in a grand house, trained and broken in. Whips tore my skin open, but that man was gentle—he would apply medicine for me and give me sweets after the beatings.”
A strange smile formed on her lips, looking almost like tears. “So it’s natural that I fell in love with him, isn’t it?”
Liu Yin’s hands tightened gradually. He remained silent, listening quietly.
“We grew up together. He always said he loved me and that I was his most trusted person. We had a child together—a genius with high atavist purity who could weave a plant intelligence network across an entire town at a young age…”
Liu Yin closed his eyes. Among the enemies who had snuck ashore, there was a small child. That was how information was passed—through plants, utilizing the Peach Demon Clan’s unique ability to communicate with vegetation.
“I didn’t see him often because war broke out soon after. He sent me to Hualan, and I began an infiltration that lasted for years.”
“From the start, you were the enemy,” Liu Yin spoke with pale, trembling lips. “And you never… bloomed for me.”
By now, they stood deep within the dense forest. The wind blew cold and sharp, desolate as a ghost realm.
Yes, this was a honey trap. And yet… and yet…
Tao Yuan opened her mouth as if desperate to say something. Suddenly, her expression shifted from a tearful smile to cold mockery, lunging at him without warning. She displayed a combat power she had never shown before—swift as a phantom, lethal as a bloodthirsty assassin.
A sharp blade slashed across his throat in an instant, spraying blood across her face.
“Fool! Did you actually believe my words? I won’t bloom for you—you’ll never see peach blossoms in your life!”
Liu Yin collapsed to the ground, his body paralyzed and unable to move. Tao Yuan knew his lethal weakness—to kill him, she needed his heart. The next step would be cutting open his chest.
Yet Tao Yuan did not move. Several figures stepped out from the dense woods.
Tao Yuan said, “Task complete.”
One person remarked, “He’s not dead yet.”
“Leave him. I coated the blade with a new virus that prevents self-healing. He’ll bleed to death shortly. Let’s move quickly—aren’t we going to blow up the armory?”
“You really are a black widow. We could have done it, yet you insisted on doing it yourself. So heartless when he liked you so much.”
“Shut up.”
“Tao Yuan, you’ve achieved a great merit. Once our empire wins, you’ll become our empress.”
As their voices faded, Liu Yin did not bleed to death. Tao Yuan had lied to them—there was no virus on the blade, nor had she revealed that his heart was his true fatal point.
Because of this, the armory remained intact, and the enemy squad was wiped out entirely, including Tao Yuan. Not because Liu Yin returned in time, but because Tao Yuan had turned her blade against her comrades in a surprise attack.
During the struggle, an explosive detonated accidentally, and flames consumed the dry surroundings. Tao Yuan could have escaped, yet she gave up, letting the fire envelop her.
“I passed information multiple times, causing many deaths. I am beyond redemption, I deserve to die. Born on this land, I should have bled for it like those people, protecting it from invasion. I could have been your true comrade, standing side by side against our enemies, feeling its warmth…”
“Instead, I was taken to a cold, dark place, raised to become a blade pointed at my motherland to slay my own people. I wanted to bloom a garden of peach blossoms for her (motherland), and for you, but I am no longer worthy.”
“General… if only I had never been separated from her. I reconnected with her too late, fell in love too late. This is the last thing I can do for her. Use the intelligence I leave behind… They reported that I killed you and are waiting for the armory explosion. This is your best chance…”
Before the flames swallowed her, she looked into a surveillance camera and spoke softly. She knew Liu Yin could see her and hear her.
By the time Liu Yin arrived, she had vanished into the fire, leaving behind a smile of relief.
