Ever since that “job application video” went public, Long Ling knew she was finished.

The reputation she had worked so hard to build—first her dream, back when she didn’t yet know there was an atavist in her family, of entering politics and becoming someone in power; and then, after learning the truth, her even grander dream of rising above others within the atavist world—all of it had shattered.

The Tang family would never let her go. The ordinary people she had treated as tools would turn into obstacles lurking everywhere. Long Ankang and An Yao had tried to return to the Long family, only to be turned away at the door by Long Yiming.

It was over. Even something she used to look down on—marrying Zhou Qian—was no longer an option.

“It’s fine, Lingling, don’t forget—you carry Dragon Clan genes. You’re not an atavist, but who’s to say your child won’t be? High society is full of people scrambling to get into the atavist circle, desperate to become atavists. Your genes are a treasure no one can take from you. You can take your pick of rich heirs,” An Yao said, her gloom clearing in an instant as if she had found a new pillar to lean on.

Long Ankang, too, looked ready to flip through a figurative roster, searching for which family had enough money to support the three of them. Like a parasite, he nodded eagerly. “Exactly, exactly! Once you’ve had a child, those people like Long Yiming will be begging us to come back!”

Rage burned through Long Ling. If not for her injuries, she might have already leapt up and started screaming hysterically.

“Get out.” In the end, she forced the two words out through the pain.

Her value would never lie in her ability to produce a child who might become an atavist. The Long family had produced only one atavist—Long Jin—in two hundred years. What were the odds she could give birth to one? And she wanted to stand above others herself, not let her child enjoy what she had never had.

She still had a chance—because she had hidden a boy away.

Back then, the boy had already been in the late stage of atavist transformation. By now, it must have finished. She only hoped he’d awakened as a powerful atavist—powerful enough to become a blade in her hand.

That was why, despite her injuries and the hospital’s attempts to stop her, she forced herself to check out and return to her private apartment.

The moment she entered, a dangerous aura rushed over her, setting her nerves on edge.

“Xusheng… how are you? Are you okay?” she called, switching on the lights with a careful hand.

The boy’s name was Chu Xusheng. He had introduced himself months ago, but Long Ling hadn’t bothered to remember it until just a few days prior.

No one was in the living room. She pressed a button, and her wheelchair glided toward Chu Xusheng’s room. The door wasn’t locked. She pushed it open—

—and froze in shock at what she saw.

Where the bed had been was now wrapped in a brown cocoon, smooth as a chestnut shell, yet tough and resilient. Something inside shifted. In the next instant, a hand burst through the cocoon—and sliced it open like a blade.

Chu Xusheng emerged.

He looked like a different person.

Before, he looked like some pitiful boy who had come all the way from the countryside to plead his case in the capital—without even a decent pair of shoes, thin, helpless, and desperate.

Now his frame had broadened. Even muscle layered over his bones, giving off a sense of strength from within. All the injuries he’d suffered while fleeing the Zhou family were gone.

But the most striking change was his eyes.

His right eye, no longer covered by gauze, shimmered with iridescent light—beautiful, like a glass bead polished to a shine

Chu Xusheng walked to the bathroom mirror in the living room and stared at it. Then he tore off the gauze from his left eye, revealing another identical eye.

The right eye had turned like this after his atavist transformation. The left eye, however, had been this way since birth. The doctor had called it a mutation and said it didn’t affect his vision, so his family hadn’t paid it much attention.

His older sister had once had an eye like this too.

Long Ling snapped back to herself, her gaze darting to the cocoon. Wild joy surged within her.

“You’re an Insect-type atavist!”

It had to be. According to the Illustrated Compendium of Species from the Great Convergence, only insect-type atavists went through a cocoon stage. And those eyes… those eyes—

Could he be the legendary King Insect?

This “insect race” didn’t refer to ordinary bugs in the human world. Like the Cyborg Clan, they were a race born during the Great Cosmic Convergence, highly advanced and one of the most powerful species of that era.

The compendium recorded that the insect race possessed overwhelming reproductive capacity, immense individual combat strength, and even greater power in coordinated battle—like locust swarms. They rose rapidly during the Great Cosmic Convergence, becoming dominant forces in a very short time.

Among them, the King Insect stood at the very top. Unlike the insect queens, who existed to produce offspring, King Insects were born to fight—to conquer and expand territory. Though they were destined mates of the queens, they were not completely controlled by the queens’ pheromones. That was why one had once lived among humans, leaving descendants that still carried its bloodline to this day.

“This is amazing—absolutely amazing!” Long Ling was beside herself. Such a rare Insect-type atavist—and a King Insect at that. He had to be very powerful. Perhaps he really could help her kill Jing Pei and obtain the Dragon Pearl.

Chu Xusheng turned to look at her.

He had once had a delicate, ordinary face—a typical fifteen-year-old. But after the transformation, his features were now sharper and more defined, like a young wolf.

Long Ling suddenly felt a chill.

That’s right. He hadn’t reacted at all to seeing her in a wheelchair. He must have already seen the news—must know what she truly was like. Damn it. When she had coaxed him into coming with her, she had no idea she would fall so hard soon after. She had even let him freely use the study computer!

He knew. He knew she had hidden him with ulterior motives—that her so-called kindness was fake.

Damn it. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

She clenched her teeth and dropped the pretense. “Let’s make a deal. You have the power now to take revenge, but taking on the entire Zhou family is impossible. And if you fail, you’ll draw the attention of the Tribunal Division. I can help you lure them out one by one. In a one-on-one fight, you won’t lose.”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Help me kill Long Jin.”

Back when Chu Xusheng had failed in his attempt to assassinate Zhou Yongzi and had been chased through the streets like a stray dog, desperate and cornered, Long Ling had been watching from the crowd. Distance and blocked sightlines had prevented her from seeing who had rescued him—if she had known it was Jing Pei, she would never have said this.

Chu Xusheng’s head snapped toward her. Those dreamlike eyes radiated a terrifying force.

Long Ling froze.

Then she lowered her gaze—and saw the floor beneath her crack apart. In the next instant, she was falling from the thirtieth floor.

“AAAAAAH—!!”

She screamed in terror. Worse still, a steel rebar rod stood upright below, waiting for her.

“Shhk.”

Long Ling jolted awake with a scream, tumbling from her wheelchair onto the floor. Only then did she realize—it had all been an illusion.

But it had felt so real. As if it had truly happened.

“You—” she glared at Chu Xusheng, shock and fury mingling. She wasn’t stupid. This had to be his ability. “Why?”

“Thank you for taking me in these past few days,” Chu Xusheng said coldly. “So I won’t tell the Zhou family about your hostility toward them.”

Then he turned and walked away.

Behind him, Long Ling roared in fury, “Without me, how are you supposed to get your revenge? Who do you think will help you? You think being an atavist makes you amazing? Just wait—you’ll be killed by the Zhou family!”

The elevator chimed and shut.

Collapsed on the floor, unable to climb back into her wheelchair, all her emotions finally erupted. In utter despair, she broke down and sobbed.

Chu Xusheng felt sick.

Long Ling’s attempt to take Jing Pei’s Dragon Pearl for herself was already common knowledge. Disgusting. Just like the Zhou family—if it wasn’t theirs, even if it was part of someone else’s body, they would still seize it if they wanted it.

Hatred and brutality churned in his chest, boiling like water—

Then his gaze suddenly froze on something ahead.

To his surprise, not long after leaving the residential complex, he saw Zhou Qian.

…

Fang Bihe had been waiting for a long time. When she saw Xiao Cheng enter the hall alone, her face lit up with delight.

She knew it. There was no way Xiao Cheng would bring Mei Yanlan to a class reunion.

“Xiao Cheng’s here!”

“President Xiao, you finally made it!” Their former high school classmates immediately gathered around, greeting him with enthusiasm.

After a few rounds of lively—if superficial—small talk, a female classmate teased with a suggestive smile, “Remember how Xiao Cheng used to be a bottom-of-the-class troublemaker? Who would’ve thought he’d charge into our class for love? The power of love really is incredible.”

Fang Bihe smiled shyly. “That’s all in the past. Why bring it up?”

“Exactly, the past is the past. What matters is the present.” The woman’s eyes darted between them, clearly hinting at something.

When Xiao Cheng married Mei Yanlan, he had invited only close family and friends. None of these classmates knew he was already married.

He should have felt happy. Instead, he felt irritated—and had an inexplicable urge to blurt out that he was married. But when he saw Fang Bihe’s smile, he hesitated and kept quiet.

The teasing continued—talk of perfect matches, of destined lovers who always find their way back to each other. Everyone knew Xiao Cheng had remained single for years because of Fang Bihe. Now that she was divorced and back, everyone assumed they’d end up together.

A man offered him a cigarette. Xiao Cheng refused.

The man lit it himself. Xiao Cheng frowned. “Put it out.”

The man blinked, then quickly laughed. “Ah—sorry, my mistake. Didn’t consider the ladies. I’ll step outside.” He left with the cigarette.

Someone else came over with a drink.

“Sorry. Can’t,” Xiao Cheng said.

“What’s with you, Xiao? No smoking, no drinking—what, is your wife cracking the whip?” a close male classmate joked.

Fang Bihe smiled awkwardly, a bit confused. She hadn’t forbidden him from smoking or drinking, had she?

Xiao Cheng’s expression darkened.

What was he supposed to say—that he was pregnant and had to avoid smoke and alcohol?

Damn it. Should he terminate it? A man having a baby—if people found out, how was he supposed to face anyone again? But even if he did… he’d still be the one getting pregnant in the future. Because Mei Yanlan was a Seahorse Clan atavist!

Every time he thought about it, he had the urge to curse humanity’s lack of restraint—going as far as breeding with seahorses and dragging him into this mess.

As he was thinking, he suddenly thought he heard Mei Yanlan’s voice. He startled, like someone with a guilty conscience, glancing around—but she wasn’t there.

No one had invited her anyway. That was normal. Someone like Mei Yanlan had practically been invisible back in school. Just like him—he didn’t even remember having a classmate by that name. So even if she was an atavist, being able to marry him was her good fortune.

What Xiao Cheng didn’t know was that, right next door, another hall was hosting a university reunion.

Mei Yanlan had planned to relax with a few drinks since she was free tonight. Who would’ve thought that before she could even finish a couple of glasses, trouble would come knocking?

Three of her ex-boyfriends had somehow learned the news and showed up.

“Yanlan, I still can’t forget you. Let’s start over, okay?”

“You broke up with me back then—I never agreed! If I didn’t agree, it doesn’t count!”

“Who the hell are you two? Stop bothering her. I’m her one and only!”

“Mei Yanlan, say something!”

“……”

In the hall, the three men had started fighting.

Mei Yanlan: “……”

That was the problem with succubus bloodlines. She hadn’t even slept with them that many times, had she?

The commotion was loud enough to attract attention. The man Xiao Cheng had sent outside to smoke peeked in, then hurried back.

“Guess who I just saw? Remember that gloomy girl from our class—Mei Yanlan?”

Xiao Cheng’s ears instantly perked up.

“Oh, right—I kind of remember. What about her?”

“She’s next door, I think. Three guys are fighting over her—begging to get back together. It’s insane. Did she turn from an ugly duckling into a swan or something?”

Before he could finish—

Xiao Cheng dashed out like a whirlwind.