The next morning, Long Yiming gathered the entire accounting team of the Long Corporation at the ancestral estate to tally the damage. Before the ink was even dry on the ledgers, he marched out with a team of family representatives and lawyers to collect debts. He clearly had not slept a wink all night. Bloodshot eyes burning with fury, he stormed through the halls with a ferocious stride, every trace of his usual refined composure gone, looking ready to tear anyone apart who got in his way.
The moment Jing Pei caught sight of him, she abandoned her breakfast and bolted out the door with Chu Xusheng.
Across the city, members of the major atavist families—with the sole exception of the Wu Clan—suffered through a sleepless night as well. They had far too many losses to mourn.
The Long Family had ripped back the Qiu Family assets from their grasp. They owed astronomical sums in compensation for destroying the Long estate. They were forced to yield hard-won internal authority within their clans. To make matters worse, no one knew how the government would handle the fallout. Qiu Fa had shown up in person last night, meaning their shadow operations were exposed beyond repair.
In short, their grand scheme had failed completely, leaving them stripped of both money and leverage.
The more they dwelled on it, the more unbearable it felt. Several elderly patriarchs shut themselves in their rooms and wept for hours.
Yet, even more than financial ruin, they feared public humiliation. They spent the entire night trembling in dread, expecting the government to dispatch a task force—perhaps even Intelligence Division Nine, known for its contempt toward atavists—to publicly mock and drag them through the mud. Such disgrace would have driven them to spit blood in despair.
The government did send a representative to the hotel where the elders assembled, but there was no grand raid or angry parade. Only one person arrived: Madam President’s Secretary-General.
“Madam President is furious,” the Secretary-General said calmly. “You came within an inch of losing her respect entirely. However, the character and integrity displayed by your younger generation saved you. She has decided to grant your families one final reprieve. The government will keep last night’s events hidden from the public and internal channels.”
A wave of profound relief washed over the elders. They had prepared for the worst possible catastrophe, so hearing this peaceful resolution sparked an unexpected surge of gratitude toward the President.
The Secretary-General then placed a file folder onto the table.
“Madam President wants you to review this. Ever since the Bubble 109 incident, that shadow organization has actively manipulated the relationship between the atavist families and the state, trying to drive us into civil war. Last night, before your plan failed, someone had already drafted these headlines…”
The elders flipped through the pages, their complexions draining of color. Cold sweat broke out across their foreheads as they read fake news reports prepared for release—detailed articles declaring that the families had assassinated Liu Yin.
Had those stories hit the presses that morning, angry crowds would have stormed their ancestral manors just as they had besieged the Long estate—or worse.
They exchanged horrified glances. “Who originally suggested taking action against Liu Yin?” someone demanded.
After a tense silence, one elder clenched his fist and confessed, “It was a relative from my line… but he vanished early this morning.”
The traitor clearly ran away as soon as the operation fell apart.
Once again, they had been played like puppets by that wretched organization. Despite purging numerous family traitors after the Wen Yuxian scandal, hidden moles still lurked in their ranks—a bitter reminder of the former leadership’s incompetence.
All their pent-up rage pivoted away from the government and slammed straight onto the shadow organization.
Early that morning, Qiu Fa arrived at the Atavist Hospital to stand guard outside the rooms of Liu Yin and Tao Ying. Exhausted after an all-nighter, his aura felt cold and heavy. He leaned against the doorframe with arms crossed, a baton clipped to his belt, silently waiting for the information broker to deliver the heart.
He assumed the broker would use some elaborate scheme or send a stealth courier. Instead, Jin Ji walked up the corridor moments later.
Wearing a black baseball cap and work overalls, Jin Ji carried a padded storage box directly toward him.
“My boss sent me to return the item,” Jin Ji said in a raspy voice. Sweat soaked through his shirt beneath Qiu Fa’s crushing gaze.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Qiu Fa glanced at the box, opened the door, and stepped inside.
Tao Ying and Liu Yin occupied adjacent beds in the private room, both still fast asleep. Tao Ying had entered a full ancestral transformation last night and expended vast amounts of energy during her rampage; she would likely need days of rest to recover.
Liu Yin lay on the neighboring bed in a deep coma. The temporary mechanical heart kept his vital signs stable, but surviving long enough to drag himself out of the rubble last night had been nothing short of a miracle born of sheer willpower.
Surgeons had reattached his severed arm, though his overall self-healing ability remained severely depleted because of the substitute heart. Scratches and bruises still covered his frame, making him look frail.
Jin Ji unlatched the cardboard box, pulled out a thermal medical container, and lifted Liu Yin’s original heart from inside.
The moment Qiu Fa saw the organ, his eyes narrowed. He grabbed Jin Ji’s wrist with a grip like iron.
Jin Ji felt his wrist bones creak under the pressure. As a member of the Cyborg Clan, his skeletal frame was tougher than steel, yet Qiu Fa’s strength nearly crushed it.
“What is this?” Qiu Fa asked coldly. “You opened his heart?”
A fine surgical line ran across the tissue of the heart, showing clearly that it had been cut open and stitched back together.
Why open a heart? Either to extract something hidden inside, or to implant something new.
“I… I don’t know,” Jin Ji stammered, cold sweat dripping down his neck. “I only removed the heart from his body. Someone else handled the rest. I don’t know anything about it.”
That was the truth. Jing Pei had instructed him to speak honestly, provided he never revealed the surgeon’s identity.
“The boss said she will come see you in person,” Jin Ji added, wincing as his bones groaned. “You can ask her yourself.”
Qiu Fa released his grip, his expression stern and unreadable.
Jin Ji used his free hand to temporarily mechanize the chest cavity of Liu Yin’s body. Working with smooth precision, he unclipped the temporary mechanical unit like a spare part and set the original heart back into place.
He had performed the initial swap the previous night using the same technique. Without his original heart, Liu Yin’s passive biological defenses had weakened enough to allow the procedure.
“This is my ability,” Jin Ji explained quietly under Qiu Fa’s intense scrutiny. “I can mechanize living bodies to detach and reassemble complete organs—like an entire eyeball, a heart, or an arm. But I can’t extract something inside an organ without surgical tools, like removing a bullet from inside a heart.”
The aura surrounding Qiu Fa felt so overwhelming that Jin Ji kept worrying he might be placed under arrest at any second.
“Do you know who your boss really is?” Qiu Fa asked, his voice icy.
“She’s mysterious,” Jin Ji replied, a hint of admiration creeping into his tone. “As her subordinates, we probably know less about her than you do. She seems to trust you above anyone else.”
Qiu Fa’s fingers twitched slightly. “If you know nothing about her, why are you so loyal?”
“Because she saved us,” Jin Ji said earnestly, defending his leader. “She saved our lives and our souls. She is definitely not a bad person.” He feared that if Qiu Fa branded her a criminal, she would be hunted down.
“Whether she is good or bad, I will judge for myself,” Qiu Fa said.
With the heart successfully reinstalled, Liu Yin’s vital signs began to steady. Jin Ji picked up his box and turned to leave. Qiu Fa did not stop him; he could tell Jin Ji carried no scent of blood or violence, nor did he harbor any malicious secrets.
Only when Jin Ji walked out of the hospital building did the tension leave his chest.
After dropping Chu Xusheng off at school, Jing Pei left the campus. Having accumulated enough course credits early in the semester, she had no academic burdens left and drove straight toward the old Qiu Family estate.
A caretaker responsible for managing the grounds waited by the main gate, accompanied by several dark-skinned men and women standing further away. Those locals watched with cold, guarded expressions.
As Jing Pei stepped out of her car, the caretaker carried a ladder over with a flattering smile, pointing toward the group. “Miss, you might not know this, but those folks come from the nearby villages. They used to serve the Qiu Family back in the day. Even though the Qiu Family fell years ago, these stubborn locals still act like loyal servants. They’ve blocked every attempt to develop this land. Now that you’ve taken over, you’ll probably have to drive those troublemakers out before you can build anything…”
The Qiu Family estate was one of the prime properties Jing Pei had reclaimed from the other atavist families the previous night. It was a grand coastal castle manor complete with a private beach and marine waters. Normally, a property of such immense value would never be surrendered so easily, yet the former owners gave it up without a fight for this exact reason.
The surrounding villages held a population of around fifty thousand people, all of whom had historically pledged loyalty to the Qiu Family as their main clan.
When young Qiu Fa was arrested years ago, several village chiefs led thousands of residents to petition the Tribunal Division for his release, swearing he could never have murdered his own kin. Sadly, with their backing clan gone, their pleas fell on deaf ears, and they had returned home in defeat.
The Qiu Family had been kind to the villagers for generations. So, whenever greedy developers tried to take over the castle, the villagers caused hauntings, sabotage, and constant trouble. Small problems often turned out harder to deal with than big enemies, leaving the estate untouched and abandoned for decades.
Jing Pei rode a golf cart across the unkempt lawns and past a crescent-shaped artificial lake littered with fallen leaves. In the distance, the low-key luxury of the grey-and-white castle came into view. She narrowed her eyes slightly.
She tried to imagine how Qiu Fa might have grown up if that tragedy had never happened—how the little prince of the Qiu Family would look, raised amidst the unconditional affection of his clan and the devotion of his people.
An image instantly popped into her mind: a proud little white tiger strutting around with its tail held high, haughty yet utterly adorable.
Jing Pei found the thought amusing, though a strange, unfamiliar pang of sadness touched her heart.
The heavy front doors creaked open, releasing a cold, dusty draft. The caretaker laughed awkwardly. “Well… as you know, Miss, a gruesome tragedy happened here. I’m just an ordinary person, so I rarely dare to step inside…”
Traditional Hualan culture harbored a deep fear of haunted or cursed properties, let alone a manor where an entire noble family had met a violent end.
From the outside, the structure looked intact, but the interior revealed collapsed walls, shattered stone, and dark, faded bloodstains baked into the floorboards. Yet to this day, no one besides the killer and Jing Pei knew what had truly transpired in this hall.
“I’ll look around myself,” Jing Pei said, taking the ladder from his shoulder. “You may go.”
Once the caretaker left, Jing Pei wandered through the silent halls alone. The walls had been stripped clean of valuable ornaments long ago, and worthless debris had been cleared out over the years. However, she knew the item she searched for remained hidden.
She searched through hundreds of rooms over the course of the morning before finally finding the right one. Climbing the ladder, she tapped along the ceiling tiles until she located a hidden latch and pressed it inward.
A secret drawer slid open along the lower wall.
Back then, Qiu Fa’s parents had been first-time parents. People experiencing parenthood for the first time tend to be exceptionally cautious and devoted. Wanting to ensure their child felt loved beyond measure, they had prepared a surplus of gifts that proved impractical, hides them around the estate like treasures for their little boy to discover during his childhood adventures.
Some of those hidden gifts were eventually forgotten even by the parents themselves.
The music box inside this drawer was one such surprise waiting for Qiu Fa to find. In the original storyline, Qiu Fa had lived and died without ever knowing it existed.
Jing Pei opened the music box. Inside the lid was a photo of his parents. His mother looked strong and brave but also very beautiful, smiling brightly with a round pregnant belly. His tall, handsome father stood next to her with a gentle, calm smile, his amber eyes full of warmth.
Jing Pei pulled a fresh battery from her pocket and installed it. The miniature white tiger sculpture in the center began to run in circles as a woman’s voice echoed soft and clear:
“Is it recording yet? Do you know how to use this thing?”
A man’s voice replied, “Is it on? Ah, looks like it started already. Ahem… go ahead.”
“You speak first.”
“…No, you go first.”
“Tsk, a big strong guy like you getting shy! Fine, I’ll start. Child, this is your mother speaking. Today is 29 days before your expected birth. I want you to know that even before you arrive in this world, your mom loves you so much…”
“Me too.”
“Don’t interrupt me! When I asked you to talk earlier, you stayed quiet. Now you butt in! Annoying!”
“Apologies, Commander. Please don’t stress yourself or the baby. Please continue.”
“…”
The recording lasted roughly twenty minutes, packed with deep love—both for each other and for their unborn son.
Qiu Fa possessed no keepsakes from his parents, not even a single photograph. If anything in this world remained priceless to him, it was those distant, cherished memories.
Jing Pei carefully packed the music box into a neat box, tied it with a elegant ribbon, and set off on her return journey to Yunjin City.
Qiu Fa waited by Liu Yin’s bedside until noon. When Jing Pei failed to show up, he confirmed that Liu Yin’s self-healing mechanisms and passive defenses had stabilized, then handed shift duties to his officers and walked out with a grim expression.
The moment he returned to the Tribunal Division, his assistant An Yan rushed over with an excited smile.
“Great news, Director! Haven’t you heard? The whole department is talking about it! First thing young Long Jin did after taking office last night was reclaim all the assets stolen by the other families!” Realizing something, An Yan toned down his excitement slightly. “I mean… your family’s old property too! Since you’re so close with her and practically her mentor, maybe you can buy it back from her?”
The legal team representing the Long Family was likely the busiest group of lawyers in the world today. They had worked through the night, processing paperwork and transfer deeds with attorneys from the other clans. Given how government departments usually expedited matters for major atavist families, the transfers would be finalized before the day ended.
Qiu Fa stopped in his tracks. A shadow of pain crossed his eyes, but he remained silent and continued walking inside.
An Yan felt his chest tighten as realization struck him. Those reclaimed assets were empty shells now. They weren’t what Qiu Fa truly cared about—everything Qiu Fa had ever wanted was gone long ago.
Before serving under Qiu Fa, An Yan had worked alongside his older brother An Zui at the Tribunal Division. Though he was young back then and handled minor errands, his duties allowed him to move around freely and witness things others missed.
Qiu Fa had been imprisoned at the age of five and sentenced to death with a ten-year stay of execution, meaning his sentence would be carried out when he turned fifteen. The official reason given for the delay was that executioners lacked the heart to end a five-year-old child’s life, even if he was labeled a monster.
In reality, his execution was delayed because of the sheer greed of the major atavist families.
The first incident occurred when Qiu Fa was twelve years old.
Representatives from a noble clan brought a beautiful woman to the prison to meet the young boy. “Look,” they told him. “This is your mother’s jade comb, isn’t it? Beautiful piece. And here is your father’s hand fan. Do you want them?”
The skinny boy sat across from them, his body covered in scars, watching them with the guarded eyes of a wounded beast. But when he saw those items, his composure shattered. His eyes turned red, and his breathing grew ragged.
The clan representatives smiled with pride, gently pushing the woman forward. “We can give these back to you. We don’t ask for much—just go into that room with this big sister and have a little talk.”
The noble families were obsessed with securing the White Tiger gene. Qiu Fa was likely the last living bearer of the pure White Tiger lineage in the world. Acquiring that genetic strain meant securing a Four Symbols level retainer for their clan—an incredible fortune. They refused to let him die young, patiently waiting for him to mature.
An Yan had watched the monitor in the security room that day, cringing as he saw twelve-year-old Qiu Fa stand up and follow the woman into the room. In his heart, An Yan had screamed that it was a crime—a grotesque violation of a minor.
Fortunately, footage from another camera revealed the truth. Qiu Fa was no naive child; having lived in prison among hardened criminals, he understood full well what “a chat” implied. He wanted his parents’ keepsakes, so he pinned the woman to the floor the moment the door closed, forcing her to fake cooperation.
Unfortunately, the Tribunal Division back then was controlled by Shi Gang and had become a corrupt mess. Someone quickly warned the noble family.
“Fine!” the clan elders sneered. “We brought you your mother’s belongings out of goodwill and even sent a lovely sister to comfort you, and this is how you treat us? Watch closely—this is your punishment!”
They smashed the jade comb and snapped the hand fan right in front of his eyes.
That day was merely the beginning. Having carved up the Qiu Family’s fortune, various clans held different keepsakes from his home. They collected those items as bargaining chips, competing to see whose sent woman would succeed first.
“Why make things difficult? You’re going to be executed at fifteen anyway. This is your chance to leave an heir for your family—why refuse?”
“You killed your whole family! You’re a sinner to the Qiu bloodline! We’re giving you a chance to pass down your line so someone can burn incense for your parents, and you dare say no?”
“Look at these photos! These are family portraits, and there are no backups anywhere on the net. Once we burn them, they’re gone forever. Do you really not want them?”
“Damned selfish brat! Your parents should have thrown you away at birth! Break them all! Smash every last piece!”
“Burn them to ashes!”
One happy family portrait after another, item after item steeped in cherished memories, were broken and burned before his eyes until nothing remained.
Back then, An Yan couldn’t clearly see Qiu Fa’s face on the monitor. He only saw the boy’s thin spine bending under the weight of grief but stubbornly refusing to break. An Yan thought that no physical torture could ever be as cruel as that.
In truth, if Qiu Fa had yielded, he could have kept those precious memories. Anyone else in his position might have broken and surrendered.
But Qiu Fa was not anyone else. He carried the unyielding pride of the White Tiger.
Later, through the President’s intervention, his death sentence was stayed and eventually overturned. He was exonerated and became Director of the Tribunal Division. Those same noble families had boasted that even if Qiu Fa offered millions to buy back his family’s possessions, they would never sell, believing they could still torment him.
What they never realized was that everything truly precious had been destroyed long ago. The remaining empty shells meant nothing to him—even if those items burned to cinders right in front of his face, he wouldn’t blink an eye.
So the assets reclaimed by the Long Family today were worthless relics to Qiu Fa.
An Yan let out a long sigh, all excitement draining from his heart.
