The icy night wind did little to cool the sudden surge in his body temperature. It felt useless, like scratching an itch through a thick leather boot.
The world fell quiet. Qiu Fa felt himself slipping downward—perhaps toward a dark abyss, or perhaps into a sweet, irresistible illusion. He knew something was wrong, yet his reactions dulled. By the time he regained his senses, his tail had already wrapped firmly around Jing Pei’s waist, pulling her straight into his chest.
A low gasp escaped Jing Pei’s throat.
Qiu Fa froze.
He tried to pull his tail back immediately, but the overly honest tail proved even more uncontrollable than before. Instead of loosening, it tightened its hold, clinging as if trying to press her directly into his ribs.
Jing Pei placed both hands against his chest, feeling the heavy thudding of his heart, his burning body heat, and the faint scent of laundry detergent clinging to his clothes. Whether caught up in his heat or not, she felt her own skin warming.
Noticing subtle shifts in the surrounding street, Qiu Fa feared drawing unwanted eyes. He scooped Jing Pei up with one arm and ducked into a dark, deserted alleyway. A dim streetlamp cast faint light from the main road, making the narrow space feel dangerously intimate.
Qiu Fa realized that forcing his tail to let go would probably require chopping it off. Taking a deep breath, he tried to steady his racing thoughts, glaring fiercely at Jing Pei like a predator cornering its prey.
“Who taught you to say things like that?”
Jing Pei smiled sweetly. “Nobody. I’m just a natural-born romantic.”
“Hmph. That chatty ring of mine explicitly said you’re no player.” Qiu Fa pretended to ignore the word romantic, though his heart secreted a strange sweetness at the sound of it. Unbeknownst to him, the fluffy tip of his tail swayed gently from side to side.
Jing Pei figured the ring said that because all her past relationships ended with her getting dumped—mostly because she got tired of always having to reassure partners who were never satisfied and kept doubting her feelings, even though she gave them everything she had.
Still, she smoothly changed her tune. “Ah, exposed. Fine, it’s just that when I see someone who makes my heart skip a beat, the words come naturally.”
“…Slick tongue. What does a kid who just turned eighteen know about love?” Qiu Fa turned his gaze away again, pretending to remain completely unmoved.
Then his eyes fell upon his tail. The fluffy tip was swaying even faster now.
Do you have no shame? Stop acting so pathetic!
Qiu Fa cursed his tail inside his head. Sweat formed on his forehead, his jaw clenched, and he looked everywhere except at Jing Pei, showing a rare moment of embarrassment.
Jing Pei held back a laugh as she watched the big cat battle his own tail, feeling a wave of lighthearted joy.
They stayed in that ambiguous posture inside the alley for what felt like an eternity before the tight grip finally yielded to its master’s control, slowly loosening its hold.
Just then, his phone rang. Qiu Fa answered in a hurry, looking almost relieved by the interruption. Whatever the caller said offered him an immediate escape.
“I have work to deal with right now. Go eat on your own—put it on my tab.” Without waiting for her response, he turned and dashed away.
As he ran, he yanked his collar open. The shirt underneath his uniform jacket was soaked with sweat, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He looked like an upright hero fleeing from a temptress, desperate to escape her grasp.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself from looking back—once, and then once more.
Jing Pei stood in the dark alley, watching him run off with a bright smile on her face.
In high spirits, Jing Pei returned to the Long Estate.
The family grounds were mostly cleaned up by now, and Long Yiming’s debt collection had gone surprisingly smoothly. After all, the younger generation currently heading the Atavist families possessed far better character than their shameless elders.
Even though the money was being paid back honestly, having half the family estate destroyed still left Long Yiming looking foul-tempered and sour. Naturally, he eventually remembered the young family head who seemed to have known about the impending battle all along yet let it happen anyway.
Chu Xusheng, serving as her retainer, stood beside Long Yiming, making wild hand gestures toward Jing Pei.
“Family Head, why are you sneaking around in your own home?” Long Yiming called out, catching Jing Pei just as she tried to slip past.
Jing Pei looked up at the night sky and grinned. “The moon is quite bright tonight, Second Uncle. Why don’t you let me find you a Second Aunt?”
Long Yiming’s face twitched. “…So she can give birth to someone like you to drive me crazy?”
“Hahaha, wouldn’t that be a great deal?”
“…” Thinking about it carefully, it actually—bah!
“Second Uncle, don’t be mad. Sure, the house needs rebuilding, but we made a massive profit, didn’t we? Though I suppose you’ll have to work a bit harder from now on.” Jing Pei offered a sweet distraction with a smile.
Remembering the valuable assets and pride they had reclaimed, Long Yiming felt a sudden surge of ambition to expand their territory. His expression softened slightly. “At least you have some sense. Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
Long Yiming waved his hand, looking as if he couldn’t bear to look at her a second longer. “Go eat then.”
Jing Pei left happily, taking Chu Xusheng with her.
Late into the night, Qiu Fa lay on his bed in the small apartment, tossing and turning. Every time he closed his eyes, Jing Pei’s face appeared in his mind, her words replaying in an endless loop—especially that line: “Because I broke your heart.”
He wasn’t unfamiliar with sweet talk. Back in prison, when various Atavist families sought his White Tiger genes, they tried every trick in the book after threats and bribes failed. They sent people into the prison, staged encounters, and acted out scripted dramas. Those girls had expert teams guiding their every word, crafting sentences designed to capture anyone’s heart.
To him, those words felt sickening, fake, and laughable. Everything went in one ear and out the other, forgotten in an instant.
Yet the sweet lies from that crafty, scheming information broker kept him awake. This time, her words hit him like a physical blow—making him feel as if he were soaring through the clouds one moment and plunging into an abyss the next. He felt flustered, disoriented, yet filled with an unprecedented, sweet excitement. Sweat soaked his skin from head to toe.
His tail threatened to sprout again. But since Jing Pei wasn’t around, Qiu Fa suppressed it fiercely the second it stirred, refusing to let it show.
He always believed that if he let his guard down when he was alone, he would mess up in front of others. So, he never showed any Atavist traits in public and trained himself to have complete self-control—until Jing Pei came into his life.
While he could control his tail, controlling his brain proved far harder.
Her body heat, her scent, the feeling of her in his arms… all of it flooded his thoughts.
After tossing and turning for two hours without a wink of sleep, he leaped out of bed, took a quick shower, and began cleaning the apartment frantically.
He wiped down every surface from the bedroom to the bathroom, even scrubbing the ceiling clean. He smoothed the bedsheets, folded the blanket into a crisp square block, and ironed every shirt and uniform in his closet. Finally, with nothing left to clean, he sat upright on the sofa for a while. His brain remained thoroughly hyperactive, refusing to obey. Qiu Fa had never felt so shameless in his life.
Abruptly standing up, he put on his uniform and went out to patrol the streets, guarding the peaceful sleep of Yunjin Prefecture’s citizens.
The following day, Liu Yin and Tao Ying were discharged from the hospital. Tao Ying remained fast asleep, carried out in Liu Yin’s arms.
Meanwhile, the ungrateful members of the Tao family—the non-Atavist squibs who just relied on the family name—were still hoping after Tao Ying announced their expulsion the night before. They foolishly thought they could convince other Atavists to let them stay, or at least leave their wives and kids behind so they could keep benefiting from the family’s reputation.
For years, they had looked down on the family’s Atavists, taking advantage of their lazy and easygoing nature to deceive and manipulate them. Though they knew their comfortable lives depended entirely on the Atavists, they thought they could exploit that gentle temperament once more to escape punishment.
This time, however, even the most laid-back Atavists of the Tao family flew into a rage. They drove not only the squibs out of the Tao Mountain estate, but their wives, children, and parents as well. No amount of begging or crying worked.
“You shameless parasites! You went so far as to attack our ancestor for a bit of profit! If something happened to us one day, you’d probably burn our bodies to ashes! Get out!”
The head of the Tao family—Tao Ying’s father—gathered every Atavist in the clan. Using their ancestral Blood Peach ability to communicate with plant life, they deployed a terrifying, invisible botanical intelligence network across the entire Yunjin Prefecture to hunt down members of the illegal organization.
Other furious Atavist families joined the hunt.
Unfortunately, Yunjin Prefecture was separated from the rest of Hualan by the sea. Although connected by bridges, there were no deep-rooted plants spanning the waters, making it impossible to extend the network to other cities.
Even so, backed by abundant leads provided by the government, the plants pinpointed targets with absolute precision. Within Yunjin Prefecture, they captured numerous organization members, shareholders, and several covert strongholds.
The organization’s members in Yunjin Prefecture were hunted down like rats in the street, suffering devastating losses.
“Liu Yin’s heart wasn’t taken by us!” the initial traitor caught from the Atavist families shrieked frantically during interrogation.
The interrogator slammed his hand on the desk. “Are you a member of the organization or not?”
“Yes, but—”
“Did you receive orders to set a trap for your family and lead them to attack Liu Yin?”
“Yes, but—”
“The Black Iron squad, the Hot Spring Inn, everyone inside, and the dissection machines—were those all your organization’s assets?”
“…Yes.”
“Then how dare you claim innocence?!”
“Ah… but… but…” The traitor suddenly caught a flaw in the logic. “If we took it, why is Liu Yin’s heart completely intact inside him right now?! Would we be generous enough to return it?!”
The interrogator leaned in with crushing pressure. “That’s what we want to ask you! What did you take from Liu Yin’s heart?! What kind of plot are you running?!”
“No! It really wasn’t us!”
“Then who was it?!”
The captive froze in utter despair. He realized there was no way to explain this away. Someone had dumped this massive scapegoat right onto their heads, and they were stuck taking the fall! Who on earth was the bastard that framed them so thoroughly?!
Meanwhile, the mastermind behind the frame-up—Jing Pei—was currently at the Atavist Hospital.
Having received an excited phone call from Wen Yuxian earlier, she had hurried over to watch the spectacle.
Xiao Cheng, Mei Yanlan’s ex-husband, had just given birth. As everyone knew, he had delivered triplets—two boys and one girl. However, this wasn’t a typical set of triplets.
Because his mother was a rare Seahorse-Succubus hybrid, these three children were born unique. The two boys were destined to be the ones who would carry pregnancies in the future, while the baby girl possessed the ability to impregnate men, just like her mother.
“You two better behave yourselves when you grow up, or you’ll end up with big bellies, got it? And you… well, you won’t get pregnant, but don’t go messing around outside making other people pregnant either…” Mei Yanlan leaned over the cribs, lecturing the three tiny infants.
All three babies were Atavists, each possessing an Atavist purity exceeding 60%. In the Atavist world, anything above 60% qualified as high purity, above 80% was ultra-high purity, and anything past 90% reached natural disaster levels.
Mei Yanlan pinched their cheeks and added, “You were the ones who insisted on being born. I won’t be responsible for whatever kind of world you have to face later.”
Wen Yuxian, holding one of the baby boys, looked at her speechless. Were those really the first words a mother should say to her newborns?
The babies’ grandparents looked as if they wanted to speak up, but swallowed their words. They didn’t dare cross Mei Yanlan. Aside from her high status, their son was still humbly pursuing his ex-wife; if they upset her, Xiao Cheng might end up with postpartum depression.
Jing Pei almost burst out laughing the moment she arrived.
She leaned in for a closer look and saw the baby girl with bright red hair—probably going to grow tiny horns soon—lying in Wen Yuxian’s arms, eagerly drinking milk with her eyes closed. The baby looked really healthy. The two boys had soft black hair and drank more gently while looking around the world with watery black eyes.
Even as newborns, the three babies looked exquisite. They were bound to break countless hearts when they grew up.
Wen Yuxian adored children and couldn’t put them down, cuddling one after another. He even brought out his fluffy dog ears to entertain them, letting the babies grab and play with his ears—looking far more attentive than Mei Yanlan herself.
“You can have one with Miaomiao in the future,” Jing Pei teased with a smile.
“Having her is enough for me,” Wen Yuxian replied with a gentle smile. His fluffy, chocolate-brown hair looked as warm and welcoming as ever.
Yet Jing Pei caught a trace of quiet regret in his eyes. He loved Zhang Simiao deeply, and while not having children didn’t change his devotion, Zhang Simiao loved children too. A child born of their love had always been part of their future plans. They had imagined trips as a family of three and saved locations to visit with a baby. Naturally, missing out on that left a quiet pang of sadness.
Jing Pei merely smiled without making promises.
Xiao Cheng, having undergone a C-section not long ago, still looked pale. As soon as he woke up, he glanced briefly at the babies before looking anxiously for Mei Yanlan, asking if she had held them.
Mei Yanlan gave a simple “Mm.”
“Do you like them?” He gazed at her expectantly, nervous and deeply humble.
“We’ll see if they behave.”
“They will! I’ll make sure to raise them well so they don’t turn into annoying brats. But since they’re all Atavists, there’s a lot I don’t understand. Could you… stay with me to help? I-I don’t mean to force you, you can still go out whenever you want, it’s just…”
Jing Pei and Wen Yuxian quietly backed out of the hospital room.
In the corridor, Wen Yuxian’s expression turned serious. “Miaomiao told me that person secretly left the grounds again a few days ago. How many times has it been now? It’s too dangerous.”
He was referring to Lou Ting.
Jing Pei felt a touch helpless. Lou Ting acted like a child who knew he was favored, refusing to obey simply because she told him to. Yet his affection was so pure and adorable. She never viewed the characters she created as her children, except for Lou Ting—he genuinely felt like her own child, making it impossible to scold him harshly.
“Don’t worry,” Jing Pei reassured him. “There’s a strong line of defense protecting him. Even if he gets spotted, nothing bad will happen.”
“As long as you have a plan. I still have work, so I’ll take my leave.”
Wen Yuxian slipped his Tribunal Division uniform jacket back on and bade her farewell. As he walked away, Jing Pei stared blankly at his uniform jacket, a sharp, sudden pang of chest pain washing over her.
She had almost forgotten—Qiu Fa’s date of death was approaching.
January 18th was his birthday, just two days away. On that day, he would receive a phone call he couldn’t refuse, and then die in complete silence.
Even though he was her favorite character, when she wrote Qiu Fa’s ending in the original plot, she had steeled her heart and given him the most cruel, brutal fate—making his tragedy the most vivid stroke of her writing career. Standing here now, she felt a sudden, terrifying uncertainty about whether she could truly save him.
For the first time in her life, her heart throbbed with a suffocating wave of anxiety.
January 18th. Just two days left.
There should still be time.
Meanwhile, the joint operation by the Atavist families in Yunjin Prefecture had virtually wiped out every trace of the organization’s claws in the area. The few survivors were those who had sensed danger early on the night the plan failed and fled Yunjin Prefecture by airship under the cover of darkness.
Slam!
The Host slammed his palm onto the conference table, his hand going numb from the force. “It’s that information broker! It’s definitely that damned information broker!”
They had been played by the broker before, but after reviewing everything that had transpired, the pattern became painfully clear. Whenever they launched a major plan, the broker’s shadow appeared, and their plan collapsed. If they couldn’t see that the broker was actively sabotaging them, they would have lived all these years in vain.
“We should have known sooner! That broker was never our friend! He plays both sides, scheming against us while manipulating the government! We have no idea what his true goal is, but it’s clearly disastrous for us!”
“And yet we still have to protect him so the government doesn’t catch him!”
Seated around the circular table, the organization leaders trembled with rage. In all the years since their founding, they had always been the ones inflicting pain on others. This was the first time they had suffered such a humiliating defeat—and they couldn’t even complain to others!
Even now, they had no way to deal with the information broker. They wanted to kill him, yet feared him falling into government hands. If the government captured the broker and learned the full scope of their grand cause, centuries of effort would vanish in an instant. The sunk cost was too massive for anyone to abandon the dream now.
As they gasped for air in frustration, someone cursed, “Damned Qiu Fa! He’s clearly in league with that broker! Why else does he show up every single time?!”
“If not for Qiu Fa, Bubble 109 would have been destroyed, we wouldn’t have needed to target Liu Yin, and we wouldn’t have suffered these losses!”
“If not for Qiu Fa, Shi Gang and Qiao Ming wouldn’t have died! Losing them stripped our combat division of two major pillars!”
The Host listened to their noisy complaints, then spoke coldly, “Shut up. Qiu Fa couldn’t possibly be working with the information broker. That man would never align himself with crime.”
The room fell silent as the realization hit them. Indeed, Qiu Fa loathed crime. He was a man who could never be corrupted by self-interest. Even when offered the truth behind his family’s massacre during his dozen years in prison, he refused to bend his spine. Both they and the Atavist families knew that beyond any doubt.
Thus, he couldn’t be working with the broker unless he truly believed the broker was a force for good. But if the broker were good, he would be working directly with the government—which led right back to a logical dead end, because if the broker were working with the government, the organization would have been wiped out long ago.
The logic failed to form a closed loop. Therefore, Qiu Fa and the broker could not be partners.
“Qiu Fa is an officer of the law. Investigating incidents is his duty,” the Host explained. “If we were in the broker’s position, we would also choose to use Qiu Fa to eliminate our rivals. He is the most reliable tool for ensuring success. Qiu Fa is merely being used by the broker.”
He paused, adding, “Besides, the reason we left Qiu Fa alive instead of finding an opportunity to kill him when he was young was because we still need him for the experiment.”
“But back then, we didn’t know he would grow into such a massive obstacle!” the speaker replied, fear flickering in his eyes. The thought of Qiu Fa being led right to his doorstep by the broker made him want to strike first to eliminate the threat once and for all.
“Sigh… when can we finally conduct this experiment? Will we die without ever seeing that day come, just like our predecessors?”
At that moment, the Host’s phone rang. Listening to the voice on the other end, his grim expression melted into an uncharacteristic, sinister smile.
Hanging up, he announced to his colleagues in an elevated tone, “Everyone, the experiment we have awaited for over twenty years can finally begin.”
“What?!”
“Is it really what we think?!”
“Is it true?!”
Everyone stood up in ecstatic shock.
“Yeah, it looks like it’s time for us to do a good deed,” the Host said with a sly smile. “Let’s let Qiu Fa relive what happened all those years ago. We’ll help him remember everything—and then send him back to his family.”
“What about the date?”
“Isn’t January 18th his birthday? Let’s set it for that day,” the Host suggested. People often felt a desire for symbolism, wanting to perform monumental acts on special dates.
Yet as he uttered those words, a sudden spark of intuition flashed through his mind, as if an unknown voice had whispered a warning directly into his thoughts. A new idea surfaced immediately.
Once the others stood to leave, he signaled for his most trusted confidants to stay behind.
“The plan has changed,” the Host declared. “Set Qiu Fa’s date of death for tomorrow, January 17th.”
“Huh? Why?”
“A hunch. Killing him tomorrow feels far more fitting. It will guarantee success.”
“But almost all our people in Yunjin Prefecture have been arrested! The ones left are useless nobodies who can’t handle a task this important.” Furthermore, those who had escaped Yunjin Prefecture risked immediate arrest if they tried to return.
The Host stroked his bird-headed cane, his professional smile turning wicked. “Isn’t that just providence? So many of our people were caught, and so many plans were ruined, yet that person wasn’t captured, nor was the trap we planted all those years ago touched. It proves beyond a doubt that the information broker isn’t allied with Qiu Fa or the government after all.”
