Liuyun Prefecture National Museum.

Mo Weiwei waited inside the museum for Tao Ze. His large eyes looked hollow and cold, almost machine-like, as they swept across the surroundings.

The world he saw through those eyes was different from what most people saw. When he looked at someone, he did not first notice whether they were beautiful or ugly, but their soul. Those souls were built from every detail he observed from their bodies.

From those details, he could also infer information about objects. That was why he quickly figured out who would steal the Heart of the Emerald Red Bird, and how the theft would happen.

But so what? What did it have to do with him? Right now, he was more interested in seeing what the information broker would do after receiving his false answer. Perhaps this was an unconscious challenge directed at her.

Ever since he was young, he knew he was special. He learned he was a once-in-a-generation genius from the insults and beatings his parents gave him.

Not long after he learned to speak, he pointed at his wealthy grandfather and exposed his affair with a younger woman, which led to his grandmother and father being thrown out of the family and forced into poverty. He once pointed at a neighbor and revealed that the man had just killed someone and hidden the body in a freezer, nearly getting himself silenced forever…

His mother often pointed at him and cursed him, saying all their suffering was his fault. Normal people were not like him. He was a monster. So they locked him away, raised him in a cage, and kept him from outsiders, afraid he would say more horrifying things.

He was a monster-like genius. No disguise could fool his eyes. To him, the world was dull and beneath notice, and the people in it were stupid and ugly. That was how arrogant he was.

The information broker had won Tao Ze’s complete loyalty with a single act of kindness. Tao Ze even believed she could discipline him. That annoyed him deeply, as if his abilities had been challenged. He wanted to teach her a lesson.

After waiting for a while, Tao Ze returned. Light appeared in Mo Weiwei’s empty-looking eyes, and he seemed eager with anticipation.

“What did she say?”

Tao Ze looked at his excited expression in surprise. “The boss said she understands.”

“That’s it?”

“What else should there be?”

Ha! Mo Weiwei looked even more excited. The boss had really believed the fake answer. She really was just an idiot pretending to be some mysterious all-knowing figure. Her agency probably worked by gathering talented people like him to solve cases for her, then selling the answers herself.

But once someone like him betrayed her from inside, she could only suffer for it.

At that moment, he noticed movement inside the museum. The expression of one armed guard changed as he cautiously scanned the surroundings. Someone must have informed him through his earpiece that a theft targetting the Heart of the Emerald Red Bird was about to happen.

The other guards also moved, quietly surrounding the man in the striped hat.

Exactly as expected. The boss had passed along the wrong information. Hilarious. In truth, the real thief was the elegant man in the suit standing farther away. Although his acting was excellent and he gave off very little information, Mo Weiwei had still seen through him.

No one else could have done it.

Yet at that moment, the guards closing in on the striped-hat man suddenly changed direction and lunged at the suited man beside him.

Mo Weiwei’s excited expression froze.

W-What?

In the next instant, the suited man vanished from the spot like a magician just as he was being pinned down. Mo Weiwei’s eyes widened slightly as he searched frantically for him. Before he could find him, one of the guards charged toward an empty corner and smashed through a glass panel with a loud crash, tackling the thief who had somehow appeared there.

It was as if they already knew his next move before he made it.

Mo Weiwei’s face instantly darkened.

The entire incident, from start to capture, lasted only two minutes. Many visitors shrank back in fear, confused about what had happened.

“Damn it! How did you know? How did you find me?” the man shouted. He was a famous master thief known for using tricks and illusions during thefts. He had prepared for this robbery for a long time, hoping to become famous with one move. Instead, he was caught before he could even begin.

“Was it the boss who told them?” Mo Weiwei asked Tao Ze.

“Probably. But wasn’t the criminal supposed to be the man in the striped hat?” Tao Ze said in surprise. Then he realized something and asked seriously, “Did you make a mistake, or did you lie on purpose?”

Mo Weiwei had no mood to answer him. The pride that had floated high in the clouds was suddenly slapped back down, leaving him ashamed and furious.

So the boss had not been fooled by his fake clue at all. Not only that, she had even known the thief’s next move before he himself noticed it!

But how did she know? Wasn’t she supposed to gather information through subordinates? Had his deduction been wrong?

For the first time in his life, Mo Weiwei experienced frustration.

What he did not know was that Jing Pei had only asked Tao Ze to bring him to the museum as a side matter. Catching the thief had been the real goal, because she had just received a new email.

The museum director had heard from another source that a famous master thief planned to steal the Heart of the Emerald Red Bird. The Heart of the Emerald Red Bird was the treasure of the prefecture. If it were stolen, how could he keep his position as director?

He did not have many strengths, but he was very timid. No matter how many guards he arranged, he still could not feel safe. So he secretly emailed the information broker, hoping they could strike first and catch the thief before he acted.

And it really worked.

After all, this thief was also one of the side characters in the original story. After successfully stealing the Heart of the Emerald Red Bird, he challenged the entire world, claiming he had hidden it somewhere in a public area of Liuyun Prefecture and inviting everyone to search for it.

Because of that, he became famous overnight and started a treasure-hunting craze throughout Liuyun Prefecture. It lasted for months before people slowly gave up.

But now, his career as a thief was over.

Jing Pei curled her lips into a smile and returned to the Long family estate. The bruises on her body caused a level-ten earthquake within the family.

…

Late at night, a man and a woman went to the riverside bridge. By then, the three salvage robots Chen Mo borrowed had already been returned to the police station, and the bones they recovered had been thrown back into the river by Chen Mo and the others.

They found the homeless man living beneath the bridge.

“What did they pull up?” they asked him.

The homeless man looked frightened. Even though the woman was smiling, the dangerous feeling she gave off made him think they were terrifying killers.

“It… it… it was animal bones.”

“A lot?”

“V-very… very many.”

The woman smiled. “Thanks. You helped us a lot.”

She turned and walked away. A dull thud sounded behind her, followed by a splash. She turned back and saw the man withdrawing his foot as the homeless man slowly sank into the river. In the darkness, streaks of blood spread through the water.

“He wasn’t a threat. Why kill him?”

The man rubbed his shaved head. “The way he talked annoyed me.”

“Forget it. Let’s go. Luan Sha said they went digging. We should take a look too.”

Soon after, they arrived at the tree. Although Feng Yilian and the others had buried the soil back, the disturbed ground still made the spot obvious. Digging it open again was easy, and before long, piles of animal bones and fur appeared before them.

“Good. We’re only one step away now,” the woman said excitedly.

“They were very good at hiding. If not for that student Chen Mo, we might not have gotten this far. Now we just need to find out who it is,” the man said, equally excited.

Their dead companion had left clues: “canine atavist,” “graduate of the Twelve Zodiac Academy,” and “adult.” But canine atavists were common among atavists. Dogs, wolves, foxes, and jackals all belonged to the canine family.

Not to mention that most atavists had attended the Twelve Zodiac Academy. Even within their own organization, many members were graduates.

They had searched for years before finally narrowing the target to Jiangnan District. They deliberately created the human bone case to attract the Tribunal Division’s attention, while also creating pressure to force that person out into the open.

But the target appeared too quickly. Their companion was killed before gathering more information. Worse, the human bone case was solved, Feng Yilian and the others stopped investigating, and the whole plan nearly failed.

Luckily, there was still Chen Mo and his obsessive tendencies. As long as they followed him, they should eventually discover the target’s identity and locate that valuable experimental subject.

What they did not expect was that Chen Mo stopped investigating the very next day.

He attended class normally, joked around with friends, and acted no different from usual. The same continued for several days.

???

What happened to his obsessive need to see things through to the end?

So they shifted their attention to Jing Pei, since she was still on leave. But they found that she was not investigating either. Instead, she spent every day training with an atavist named Mei Yanlan. She got beaten black and blue in the training hall, healed overnight thanks to a Dragon Atavist’s strong recovery ability, then returned the next day to get beaten again, repeating the cycle as if she had nothing better to do.

With the human bone case solved, although nobody knew who killed the murderer, the entire Jiangnan District seemed to breathe easier. Life gradually returned to normal.

After three days of sick leave, Wen Yuxian also returned to teaching. His complexion was still pale, but he remained the same history teacher with fluffy chocolate-colored hair, blue shirt, black trousers, and a warm, approachable expression. His classes were lively and popular as always. There was nothing unusual about him.

Tang Qiaoqiao was overjoyed. She followed him around all day, fussing over him, confessing to him again, and getting rejected again.

Everything seemed to return to how it once was.

Wen Yuxian also felt a peace and happiness he had not experienced in the past four years.

The address Jing Pei gave him was extremely safe. As long as he and Zhang Simiao did not leave, almost nobody could find them.

Because it was a small “Bubble.” Unlike the large Bubble No. 3 rented by the Huang and Bai families for battle, this Bubble was so small that even scientific instruments could barely detect it. It was less than two hundred square meters, but still enough for Wen Yuxian and his lover to live freely inside.

The Bubble was hidden deep within a quiet mountain area. Its entrance was beside a waterfall. As long as they stepped outside, they could fetch water, gather firewood, and build shelter from the forest.

The forest also had wild goats and boars. Years of forest protection had preserved rich natural resources. At least for a while, they could live self-sufficiently.

After work, Wen Yuxian hurried home eagerly.

Crossing mountains and streams, he passed through the quiet bamboo forest. The sound of the waterfall grew louder.

He stopped in place and saw Zhang Simiao sitting beside the waterfall in the glow of the setting sun. A butterfly had landed on the tip of her nose, and she did not dare move. She looked so happy that it almost seemed flowers were blooming around her.

At this moment, Zhang Simiao no longer looked human at all. Her skin was green, her body over two meters tall. She had five arms, one eye, and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Her hair was white. She looked completely like a monster.

But in Wen Yuxian’s eyes, she was still the same Zhang Simiao who made his heart light up whenever he saw her, who he missed whenever they were apart, the person he wanted to stay with forever.

Zhang Simiao was Zhang Simiao. No matter what form she took, she was still the person he loved.

When she saw him return, she rolled her eye excitedly to show him the butterfly, making him smile as he walked over. Sadly, the butterfly was startled by the movement in the air and flew away.

Zhang Simiao’s large ears drooped in disappointment. She buried her huge head into his chest and let him gently pat her.

“Alright, alright. The butterfly will come back. Weren’t you going to wash your hair? I bought shampoo. There’s still sunlight left, and the water isn’t too cold yet. Come on.”

Not long after, Zhang Simiao sat on a large rock in the pool beneath the waterfall. Only her nose and half her head remained above the water as she blew bubbles with soft gurgling sounds. Wen Yuxian stood on the rock with his sleeves rolled up, washing her hair. Half his body was soaked by the spray from the waterfall.

This was a kind of peaceful life they had never had in the past four years. She used to be trapped inside a dark house, unable to go outside, unable to speak to anyone except him, unable even to breathe fresh air. But now she could listen to the sounds of nature, smell the fresh bamboo forest, watch butterflies dance, and walk in the sunlight with him.

In these short few days, Wen Yuxian had sincerely thanked the information broker countless times, though he still remained cautious toward them. He did not know when they would come to collect their payment, or what that payment would be.

“After some more time passes, when things completely settle down and no one is suspicious anymore, I’ll resign. We’ll live here together,” Wen Yuxian said after drying her hair. He picked up a comb and gently brushed it, as tender as if he were combing a daughter’s hair.

【Okay. I’m getting better at enduring hunger now. I don’t need to eat as much anymore. We can steal wild boar piglets and raise them inside the Bubble. I can raise them!】

“…Okay.” Pain flashed through Wen Yuxian’s eyes. He could not even let her eat her fill. He truly felt useless.