“So that’s how it is. I get it now—it was Long Ankang who told you all, wasn’t it?” Jing Pei said, a sudden realization dawning on her. When this storm broke out, Long Ankang was the very first person to step forward and accuse her. As her biological father, his words naturally carried a degree of credibility in the eyes of others.
“That’s right. So, have you figured out how to use that silver tongue of yours to deny it?”
Jing Pei smiled. “Since you’ve already put it that way, why should I bother denying it?”
Wu Qiang blinked, caught off guard. He hadn’t expected her to refrain from defending herself. Could it really be that her abilities stem from a Dragon Pearl?
A greedy, fervent glint flared in the eyes of the surrounding crowd.
Wu Qiang demanded, “In that case, hand it over voluntarily.”
How is that any different from asking me to surrender without a fight and offer my neck to the blade? Jing Pei sneered. “Keep dreaming.”
“Then don’t blame us for being ruthless!”
The moment the words left his lips, Chu Xusheng moved first. His scorpion tail shot out like a bloodthirsty viper with its jaws wide open, lunging toward the nearest target, Wu Qiang.
Suddenly, a green flash of light streaked through the air.
The flash stung Jing Pei’s eyes. When she focused, her expression shifted.
The beautiful deathly, hooked black scorpion tail landed on the floor, twitching mechanically. Severed cleanly from its body, it could no longer pose any threat. Blood welled from the smooth cut.
The scorpion tail had been severed!
Chu Xusheng stared in utter shock.
Wu Qiang held a strange-looking gun and watched him with calm eyes.
“This is the latest Atavist weapon. Each shot fires a powerful laser laced with a viral agent. The more cuts the laser leaves, the deeper the virus spreads through your body. This weapon costs a fortune to make, but its killing power is worth every penny. Cutting through a King Insect’s exoskeleton is easy. I wonder if a dragon’s Reverse Scale—said to be the second-strongest defense under heaven—will be any harder to pierce.”
In fights between Atavists, Atavist weapons rarely made an appearance. The Atavist community considered their use a disgrace; any self-respecting Atavist refused to rely on such external tools in combat.
More importantly, Atavist weapons weren’t easy to buy. Each one cost a fortune to make. The advanced technology was only part of the problem—the materials and ores they needed were rare in this world. Even with enough money, most underground syndicates had no way to get them. That was why government agencies kept tight control of Atavist weapons, making them almost impossible to find on the black market.
Apart from the government, the only entity in the world with the resources and technology to manufacture them was the Organization.
Even Chu Xusheng realized the truth. He raised his head in shock. “Wu Qiang, you’re actually…”
Who could have guessed? Wu Qiang, who had wept with such grief and rage over Master Wu’s death, and who had brutally beaten the Organization’s Young Heir, Jiang Qing, turned out to be an agent of the Organization! What a deep, terrifying mole he was!
Before Chu Xusheng could finish speaking, Wu Qiang fired again. As the bullet left the barrel, it split into two points in mid-air, drawing a line of green light that sliced toward Chu Xusheng and Jing Pei. The two dodged swiftly. Wherever the green light passed—whether it was a wooden table, a ceramic cup on top, or a chandelier above—everything was severed cleanly in two.
Worse yet, Jing Pei noticed that the people surrounding them outside had pulled out identical weapons.
If the enemies relied on Atavist powers to attack, they might not lose. But facing weapons specifically designed to counter Atavists, the situation was precarious.
“Xusheng, you go first,” Jing Pei immediately told Chu Xusheng.
“Master, I’ll hold them off. You escape,” Chu Xusheng insisted.
“These weapons can slice through you, but cutting my Reverse Scale won’t be so easy. Their target is me, so you can break through,” Jing Pei lowered her voice and commanded firmly. “I need you to go to Nevergone District. Find Little Yue and protect her. Until the very last moment, you must not let her suffer a single scratch. Do you hear me? Absolutely… no… harm… must come to her.”
Chu Xusheng froze. He sensed the gravity of his master’s order. Anxious as he was to stay, he knew remaining would only drag her down. Driven by absolute faith in his master, he gritted his teeth. As the enemies opened fire together, sending a storm of laser rounds, Jing Pei summoned her Reverse Scale to block the onslaught, clearing a path for him. Chu Xusheng launched a fierce assault, tore open a breach in the barrier, and fled the battlefield.
“Don’t bother chasing him. By the time he brings reinforcements, we’ll have torn Long Jin to shreds,” someone told the subordinate as he moved to pursue him.
“True enough.”
Nobody paid any further attention to the fleeing Chu Xusheng. Instead, they focused their fire on Jing Pei. Countless beams of green light rained down from all directions. The Reverse Scale danced rapidly like a shield, the green lasers striking its surface with a deafening crackle of sparks. Yet a few stray beams breached her defense and struck Jing Pei’s body.
Standard dragon scale armor was formidable, but it still sustained fine cuts under the concentrated barrage. As the layers were sliced again and again, her defenses eroded, and small wounds began to open across her skin.
Meanwhile, abroad:
“What do you mean? Are you blocking me?”
Qiu Fa looked at them with sharp, cold eyes. Why? Blocking him from what? Blocking him from making a phone call? If they merely wanted to prevent him from contacting the domestic authorities, what point was there? The domestic offices could contact him or An Yan directly—how could they stop that?
Unless… they are trying to stop me from calling Jing Pei?
“Nothing of the sort, Director Qiu! You misunderstand. I just tripped,” the Prime Minister’s secretary-general stammered.
Qiu Fa offered no further words. “An Yan, we’re leaving.”
An Yan, who had been representing Hualan in diplomatic pleasantries with the foreign officials, was baffled by the sudden command, but he fell into step immediately.
“Director Qiu! Director Qiu!” The Prime Minister’s voice called from behind, but Qiu Fa didn’t even slow his stride.
The other officials and Atavists watched in confusion. The Prime Minister didn’t dare make his move too blatant. He stopped with gritted teeth, a flash of ruthless malice in his eyes as he watched Qiu Fa’s retreating back.
“What do we do now?” the Secretary General asked nervously in a low voice.
“Listen to me. Pass down the order…”
Qiu Fa tried calling Jing Pei’s phone, but no one picked up. He then dialed Madam President. The Secretary General answered the line. “Director Qiu, Madam President is currently in a meeting.”
“Has something happened back home? Concerning Long Jin?”
The Secretary General paused, then said, “Something did happen, but she has already dealt with it—and handled it well. Liu Yin’s true identity was exposed, but this meeting is about finalizing the public announcement. We can discuss the details when you return.”
“Already resolved?” Qiu Fa’s tense posture eased. It was true—she was highly capable and seemed able to handle any crisis with ease.
But if it’s resolved, why isn’t she answering her phone?
After the Secretary General hung up, Qiu Fa tried Jing Pei’s number again. Still no answer.
“Director, since it’s already resolved, what are you worrying about?” An Yan overheard the conversation and remarked.
“No.” Qiu Fa pulled up Wen Yuxian’s contact from his phonebook. Mei Yanlan was out on field missions most of the time and hard to reach, but Wen Yuxian held an administrative desk job due to his lower Atavist purity. He was frequently on duty in the office and likely to answer—and he was certainly the person in the Tribunal Division who kept the closest eye on Jing Pei.
Sure enough, the call connected.
Wen Yuxian got straight to the point. “A major incident broke out. I’ll send you the video directly.”
With a strong signal, Jiang Qing’s broadcast video downloaded quickly. When Qiu Fa opened and watched it, his pupils constricted violently.
Wen Yuxian added, “The Atavist families held a conference tonight. Everyone knew it was a Hongmen Banquet, but word is she turned the tables completely.”
Yet the knot in Qiu Fa’s chest did not loosen; if anything, an overwhelming sense of unease seized him. If it were merely a Hongmen Banquet of that level, why would a prime minister—a mole the Organization had cultivated for years at immense cost—be deployed to trap him abroad? The mere fact that such a high-level asset had been activated signaled the unmistakable stench of a lethal trap.
“We’re returning immediately.”
They had arrived at the air dock. Qiu Fa boarded the vessel with long strides.
However, the pilot turned with an apologetic expression. “My apologies, Director Qiu. We just received top-level orders. A no-fly zone has been declared over our airspace tonight. You’ll have to remain here for the evening. The ban applies not only to airships, but to all Atavists within our borders. The perimeter is locked down completely. Anyone attempting an unauthorized flight or border crossing will be shot on sight.”
Another crew member added, “Director Qiu, the Prime Minister has arranged the finest rooms in the palace for you. Please return and get some rest.”
Only Qiu Fa and An Yan had come on this mission, traveling on the foreign government’s airship. What had initially seemed like a gesture of respect and humility now revealed its true purpose—it was designed to make his arrival effortless and his departure impossible.
Qiu Fa’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He had to get back immediately.
Turning on his heel, he strode off the vessel.
“Director, don’t be hasty! I’ll contact the domestic authorities right away!” An Yan chased after him, calling out anxiously.
“Too late.” Going through official channels meant hours of diplomatic maneuvering and red tape.
An Yan’s face paled. “Director! Don’t act on impulse! Whatever you do, don’t use force! We can’t trigger an international incident!”
Representing Hualan, throwing even a single punch could escalate into a major conflict.
The foreign nation’s military stood on high alert. If Qiu Fa forced his way through, he would be facing an entire army—followed by official condemnation from both governments and catastrophic political fallout. An Yan was frantic with worry.
Meanwhile, in the office, the Prime Minister and his Secretary General paced restlessly. The telephone rang without pause, while a crowd of officials outside clamored for an explanation.
“Keep a strict watch on the skies! The moment Qiu Fa appears, shoot him down!” the Prime Minister instructed his secretary once more. “Everything I have was given to me by the Organization. If I fail this task, I’m finished. And so are you!”
Using the authority of a head of state for such a scheme meant he would eventually have to answer to his government and people, as well as face Hualan’s wrath. But that was a secondary concern compared to the consequences of failing the Organization. As sleeper agents activated after years of dormancy, failing their very first mission carried consequences too horrific to contemplate.
“I understand! I’ve issued strict orders to the air force!”
Yet neither the air force nor An Yan saw Qiu Fa force his way through. He had simply vanished. They stared up at the night sky while military radar swept every cloud, but found no trace of Qiu Fa anywhere.
Where did he go?
They didn’t know that Qiu Fa was sprinting toward the river that ran through the city. In the dead of winter, the river flowed down from snow-capped mountains that never melted. The rushing water carried chunks of floating ice, frigid enough to bite into the bone. Under such brutal conditions, even an Atavist would find the cold agonizing.
Perhaps that was why the Prime Minister had overlooked the waterway. Even if he had considered it, he never imagined anyone would attempt to swim back across international borders in freezing temperatures.
Yet Qiu Fa dived into the freezing current without a second’s hesitation.
Meanwhile, Chu Xusheng sprinted wildly toward Nevergone District. He could endure the agony of his severed tail, but the tail was already beginning to regenerate. Physical regeneration consumed an immense amount of energy, and the growing pains surpassed the initial cut, leaving his face pale and drenching him in cold sweat.
Desperate, he hoped to encounter a passerby to borrow a phone and call for help. When he pulled out his own device earlier, he realized it had been sliced apart during the skirmish and rendered useless.
If he could contact Feng Yilian and the others, they could rush to her aid. Otherwise, once everyone reached their respective homes, gathering help would take far too long.
Unfortunately, it was late at night. Pedestrians were nowhere to be found, and public payphones belonged to a bygone era. He spotted a few cars, but the drivers caught one look at his bloodied, monstrous appearance, panicked, and slammed on the gas, speeding away without stopping.
Whenever you urgently need something, it’s always impossible to find!
Finally, another car appeared, and this time, it pulled over.
The window slid down slightly, revealing a pair of cautious, nervous female eyes. Her voice sounded thin and strained. “Wh-What do you want?”
“Let me borrow your phone.”
“Ah… okay.”
A phone was pushed out through the crack, and the window rolled up immediately.
Ignoring her fear, Chu Xusheng unlocked the device. But before he could dial, a string of numbers automatically entered itself into the keypad and initiated a call.
What?
The call connected instantly, and a strange, mechanical voice echoed through the speaker. “Hello. This is the Hell Hotline. How would you like to die today?”
Dense, black tendrils burst forth from the phone screen, coiling tightly around his hand.
An enemy!
Jiang Qing was determined to ensure Jing Pei’s death tonight, weaving a net so vast that he had no intention of letting Chu Xusheng escape to bring reinforcements.
The coffee shop had been reduced to ruins. The ground was littered with cleanly severed blocks of concrete, wood, ceramic, and glass—some chopped into tiny fragments from repeated laser passes.
Amid the rubble, a vibrant green Reverse Scale curved into an inverted dome, shielding Jing Pei from the storm of laser rounds raining down from every direction. Jing Pei panted softly, glancing at her arm. The cut was deep, reaching near the bone, its edges smooth. She felt a faint, crawling numbness in the wound—the virus attempting to invade her bloodstream.
Moments later, Wu Qiang’s gun clicked empty. He clicked his tongue in annoyance and stowed the weapon. The others were similarly running low on ammunition, their barrage gradually tapering off.
In that split second, Jing Pei launched her counterattack without a moment’s hesitation.
She closed the distance to Wu Qiang in an instant. Wu Qiang’s face paled in shock as he scrambled backward, but half his face was torn away by dragon claws before he retreated into his shell.
The Black Tortoise shell—the most impenetrable defense in the world.
Though Wu Qiang’s lower Atavist purity weakened the shell’s defensive threshold, breaking it still required time—time Jing Pei didn’t have.
Outside the ruins, the enemies discarded their empty firearms as a tall, imposing figure stepped forward.
“Let me test this legendary Dragon Clan Atavist first. I heard dragon scale armor is quite extraordinary—I’d love to claim it for myself.”
The others raised no objections. They were hired mercenaries without built-in coordination, and attacking all at once risked friendly fire that might give her an opening. A battle of attrition had been agreed upon from the start; they would wear Jing Pei down until she collapsed.
The beast-like man with a dark, sinister aura stepped into the light, his wicked grin stretching nearly from ear to ear. “Forget about any Dragon Pearl—I only want your skin.”
At the same time, eyes surrounded her, watching with cold amusement, murderous intent, or naked greed. One assassin radiated a freezing chill, frost spreading across the ground beneath his feet. Another lounged atop a floating chair made from countless metallic blades, observing her with casual detachment. A third repeatedly tossed a grotesque sphere covered in eyeballs into the air. Its eyes spun ominously, as though searching for a target to curse.
Just sensing the aura radiating from them told Jing Pei that every single one of these opponents was dangerous.
It made sense—any assassin dispatched to eliminate the Information Broker could hardly be weak.
Jing Pei smiled faintly. “If you have the skill, come and try.”
Two figures collided instantly.
Watching the battle unfold on his screen, Jiang Qing smiled with deep satisfaction.
Qiu Fa was trapped abroad, Chu Xusheng had been prevented from fetching help, and Jing Pei was surrounded without an escape route. It was only a matter of time before she died.
“Young Master, now that Long Jin’s identity as the Information Broker has been made public, the fallout doesn’t seem as massive as we anticipated,” an Organization official asked, a frown creasing his brow.
The others shared his confusion.
They had originally assumed this revelation would spark global chaos, severely disrupting the joint operations of international governments and buying the Organization precious time to transport materials and mass-produce membrane-breaking machines. Yet the current situation fell short of those expectations.
Exposing the Information Broker had caused a stir among international powers, but it had little direct impact on ordinary citizens. Only Liu Yin’s involvement had drawn a strong reaction from Hualan’s public, and that narrative was easily managed by the authorities.
“Once Long Jin is dead, the chaos will follow naturally,” Jiang Qing remarked indifferently. He had no interest in the Organization’s grand ambitions. He had invoked them merely as an excuse to deploy its final sleeper agents and send Jing Pei to her grave.
Jiang Qing spoke with such casual certainty that despite their lingering doubts, the officials held their tongues. Their gaze shifted toward Mister Fei, who sat beside Jiang Qing in absolute silence.
Mister Fei sat with his legs crossed in an elegant posture, his face hidden behind his eagle mask. His long, slender fingers tapped rhythmically against his thigh as if weighing his options.
Jiang Qing kept his eyes glued to the combat screen, oblivious to the subtle shift in the room.
Late into the night, Hualan’s Atavist circles remained abuzz, with group chats exceeding 999+ messages. Feng Yilian and the others had returned home, showered, and lay in bed, yet their excitement kept them awake as they chatted eagerly in their group threads.
Because the major families were vast and members didn’t all reside in the main estates, missing individuals went unnoticed. Spouses assumed their partners were out drinking off their frustration from the banquet and didn’t pry further.
Thus, no one realized that something was wrong.
It wasn’t until three or four in the morning, as the excitement waned, that Feng Yilian and the others put away their phones to sleep. Right then, an urgent call arrived from the Long Estate.
Long Yiming was calling to ask if Jing Pei and Chu Xusheng were with them.
The Long family had been awake all night, unsettled by Jing Pei’s casual message in the group chat. They waited anxiously for her return and an explanation, but the hours dragged on into the dead of night without any sign of her.
Neither Jing Pei nor Chu Xusheng answered their messages or calls. Aware of how many enemies the Information Broker had, Long Yiming grew increasingly anxious and decided to contact her closest friends.
The friends who answered were taken aback. “No, we all went home after the banquet ended. Hasn’t she returned yet?”
Hearing Long Yiming’s explanation, worry gripped them all, and they scrambled out of bed.
Feng Yilian was the first to react, waking his clan members and demanding a full headcount. He quickly discovered that several members were missing, with neither their wives nor children knowing where they had gone.
“Dammit! It better not be what I think it is!” Feng Yilian gritted his teeth, immediately dispatching men back to the banquet venue to search outward from the location.
Tang Qiaoqiao, Chen Mo, and the others did the same.
Inside the sealed barrier, the stench of blood hung heavy in the air, staining the atmosphere a faint crimson hue. The ground was littered with corpses, severed limbs, spent shell casings… and glowing green dragon scales speckled with crimson droplets.
Jing Pei had lost track of time. Five or six hours had likely passed. Her phone had long been sliced to pieces, and her watch’s mechanism had been disrupted by the fluctuating Atavist fields. Her chest heaved as dry heat burned her throat, her lungs aching with every breath.
Her tattered clothes were soaked through with thick blood, growing heavy and slick against her scale armor. The fabric absorbed the blood welling from the wounds beneath her cracked scales until it reached saturation, trickling down her hem in thin streams.
Initially, most of the blood belonged to her enemies, but now, her own blood dominated the red.
The body of the assassin who had wanted her skin lay among several other corpses, his mouth agape in a frozen expression of terror.
After the first assassin fell, followed by the second and third, the remaining killers realized that the young girl was far stronger than they had anticipated. Her attacks were unorthodox and utterly unpredictable; a single misstep meant a gruesome death.
Abandoning their arrogant stance as mere spectators, they cast aside all pretense of honor and launched surprise attacks from every direction whenever she was engaged with another opponent.
Meanwhile, a fresh batch of Atavist weapons had been delivered from outside the barrier.
During the chaotic melee, the assassin juggling the eyeball-covered spheres quietly tossed one toward Jing Pei. Every single eye on the sphere locked onto her, identifying its target.
“Target acquired. Initiating curse!” The sphere exploded in mid-air, sending dozens of eyeballs flying toward Jing Pei and adhering to her skin. Her current opponent sensed the shift and backed off instantly.
Jing Pei knew this was trouble. These foreign assassins possessed high Atavist purity and specialized mostly in magic-based disciplines, making their abilities bizarre and difficult to counter.
“The curse I’m gifting you is called the ‘Absolute Undodgeable Attack Curse.’ It lasts for thirty seconds. Right now, your body is the target—let’s see how many rounds you can take!” the assassin laughed maniacally.
The surrounding mercenaries raised their newly issued Atavist weapons, unconcerned by any notion of honor that might have prevented them from relying on external weapons.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A storm of specialized ammunition rained down from all directions. Jing Pei attempted to deploy her Reverse Scale as a shield, but her limbs felt bound by invisible threads, her brain’s commands delayed and sluggish. Countless specialized rounds slammed into her scale armor. Several struck areas where the scales were already cracked from previous laser strikes. The armor shattered, and bullets lodged deep into her flesh, immediately releasing viral agents and inflammatory factors that attacked her immune and self-healing systems. Excruciating pain shot through her brain as blood poured from the wounds.
Thirty seconds later, another layer of dragon scales carpeted the ground.
“Stop struggling! You think reinforcements are coming? Let me tell you—your retainer is currently pinned down by our comrades!”
“Die, Long Jin!”
“Hand over the Dragon Pearl!”
Jing Pei coughed up a mouthful of dark blood, her body swaying as severe internal organ damage took its toll. A high-pitched ringing buzzed in her ears. She was forced to deploy her Reverse Scale once more, curling into a protective shell like Wu Qiang to buy a moment of respite and self-healing.
If she were facing standard Atavists, her dragon vitality and the Reverse Scale’s absolute protection would allow her to endure almost any assault. But the inclusion of cutting-edge Atavist weapons changed the equation entirely.
After all, Atavist weapons were the pinnacle of human engineering—the very tools that had dragged high-and-mighty Atavists off their pedestals and restored power to ordinary humans. Even without striking a fatal point, they could dismantle her body from within.
Right then—
“Xiao Jin!” A familiar female voice called out through the chaos.
Jing Pei paused midway through curling her Reverse Scale, peering through the gap. Outside the barrier stood Wu Ying, her face pale with shock and fury.
Wu Ying spotted Wu Qiang’s shell tucked away in the rubble. He was still hiding inside like a turtle, recovering from the severe injuries Jing Pei had inflicted. To an outsider, Black Tortoise shells looked identical, but to a member of the Wu family, every shell bore unique markings.
“Wu Qiang! How could you?!” Wu Ying was consumed by disbelief and rage, but she had no time to settle scores with him. “Xiao Jin, I’m coming to help you!”
Barrier masters possessed virtually no personal combat strength; the stronger their barriers, the weaker their physical capabilities. Wu Ying knocked one down with her shell in a flash, tearing a gap in the boundary. The surrounding assassins, caught off guard by her sudden appearance, held their fire for a split second, allowing Wu Ying to leap inside and land beside Jing Pei.
“Sister Ying, why are you here?” Jing Pei asked, standing back-to-back with her.
“Your Second Uncle called saying you hadn’t returned, so I came looking. When I couldn’t find Wu Qiang, I used my shell to track his location—otherwise I wouldn’t have found you in time!”
“Thanks,” Jing Pei breathed a faint sigh of relief, coughing up another trace of blood. “Now that you’re here, I can rest a little easier. Otherwise, my life might really have ended tonight.”
“With me here, your life won’t fall into their hands,” “Wu Ying” spoke softly. Suddenly, a massive syringe appeared in her hand. Turning abruptly, she slammed it deep into Jing Pei’s back.
“Your life… I’ll take it!”
