It was like falling into a brief spell of chaos. Two seconds later, Zhou Yikai came back to himself. The moment he saw what was in front of him, every hair on his body stood on end, and terror slammed into him.

Everything before him was red.

He was red too.

That traditional, festive red—the kind that sent a chill through you in certain moments. The huge 囍 character was so bright it hurt his eyes.

He had seen scenes like this countless times growing up. Whenever someone in the Zhou family got married, or someone in another Atavist family held a wedding, this was usually the kind of old-style traditional ceremony they used.

He and Cheng Feili had married in haste. They had only registered the marriage; they had never held a wedding.

So why was he suddenly standing here in wedding robes?

Red candles wept wax. The flames seemed to burn with a sickly green cast.

Then a gust of cold wind swept past him. He jerked his head around and saw a bride in a red wedding dress walking toward him in silence, her face hidden beneath a red veil. One look nearly made him pass out—

the bride had no heels.

Zhou Yikai was so scared he couldn’t make a sound. His body wouldn’t obey him either. He could only watch as he bowed with her before the altar.

It was too strange. Too strange.

Who was the bride?

Who was she?

After the ceremony, still joined by the red silk, Zhou Yikai and the bride walked toward another room. Cold sweat drenched his whole body.

What now?

Were they going into the bridal chamber?

The door creaked open.

There was no bed inside. Only a black coffin. Two paper effigies stood beside it, their cheeks painted bright red, their expressions twisted and eerie. Zhou Yikai’s legs shook so hard they nearly gave out, but his body still kept moving on its own.

The two of them stopped beside the coffin. One of the paper effigies presented a wedding rod. Zhou Yikai watched in horror as his own hand reached out, took it, and slowly lifted the bride’s red veil.

A bloody face with no skin looked back at him.

Its eye sockets were empty too—black, hollow pits staring straight at him.

Aaaaaahhhhhh!

Chu Xurao!

It was Chu Xurao—ahhhhhhh!!

He would never forget that face.

Right in front of him, that Atavist had used their power to strip the skin from Chu Xurao’s face. It had to have hurt. It must have hurt so badly. But her throat had already been taken from her, so she couldn’t even scream. Her limbs had twisted in agony, each convulsion carving bloody streaks into the floor. Every muscle in her body had thrashed with pain. She had even reached out to him, as if begging for help.

But he had been terrified out of his mind.

All he had wanted was to run.

He hadn’t even wanted to dream about her anymore.

And now she was here again.

She was here again—ahhhhhhh!!

Chu Xurao lifted a hand and set it on his shoulder. Freezing cold seeped straight into his bones. Then she shoved him into the coffin.

She climbed in after him.

That mangled, bloody face pressed right up against his.

Fear twisted every muscle in his face.

The paper effigies lifted the coffin lid and closed it. He heard nails being hammered in. Then the coffin rose and began to sway.

Not long after, it seemed to be lowered into a pit. He heard the soft patter of dirt being shoveled down.

Only then did Zhou Yikai seem to realize that he was being buried alive.

His body suddenly moved again. He started struggling like mad.

“Let me out! Let me out! I know I was wrong! Xurao, I know I was wrong—please forgive me! I know I was wrong, I know I was wrong…”

He understood now.

Chu Xurao had come to drag him down to hell with her.

They had once been at the point of talking about marriage. He had betrayed her. Not only betrayed her—he had tricked her into coming to the Zhou family, where she was killed.

He had always known this day would come.

No one answered him.

The dirt kept falling.

Soon Zhou Yikai felt the space around him growing tighter, the soil outside pressing against the coffin, squeezing his body inside it. The silence was horrifying. It was as if he had already been cut off from the human world. Even the air was thinning.

He thrashed wildly in the coffin. Terror hit its peak. His fingers clawed at the wood in every direction, leaving streaks of blood. The bride lying on top of him was death itself.

“I was wrong, I was wrong—spare me, spare me…”

He was sobbing so hard that snot and tears smeared across his face.

“Then give me your face,” said the Chu Xurao lying on top of him, her voice cold and eerie. “And your eyes. And your voice.”

W-what?

He froze.

Then Chu Xurao lifted her hand. Her fingers were corpse-pale as they reached, slow and steady, toward his eyes.

Closer.

Closer.

“N-no… don’t… AHHHHHHH—!”

“AAAAHHHHHHH!!”

“AAAAAAHHHHHH—!”

The pain was so vivid, so real, just like what Chu Xurao must have felt. It was enough to drive a person mad.

Cheng Feili and Chu Xusheng stood off to one side, watching Zhou Yikai roll on the ground inside the illusion. He clawed frantically at the floor, carving bloody streaks into it, tears and mucus all over his face as he screamed, “I was wrong! Spare me, spare me—aaah, it hurts, it hurts! I was wrong, sob, sob…”

Then he went for his own eyes. He gouged them out himself, blood pouring down, and seemed not to feel it at all. Soon he had torn his own face into a pulpy mess as well. Before long, the screams stopped too. His mouth hung wide open, as if he were trying to shriek but no sound would come out, as though his vocal cords had truly been ripped away.

Cheng Feili watched without expression, her face cold and still, as if the man on the ground had nothing to do with her. As if he were not even human, only an animal—and she, the butcher standing over it, had not a shred of pity in her.

“Why wouldn’t you let me kill him?” Cheng Feili said. “Something like this doesn’t deserve to live. Even the air he breathes should feel wronged.”

“Someone once told me the difference between a person and a rat,” Chu Xusheng said.

“It’s that a person should live openly, under the sun.”

He looked at Zhou Yikai’s miserable state, and the sight filled him with savage relief and sharp pain at the same time—because he knew his dear sister had once suffered that same agony.

“There’s no need to dirty our hands with the blood of an animal like that. Besides, death would be too easy on him.”

He wanted Zhou Yikai broken, driven mad by phantom pain—pain that would cling to him for as long as he lived. He wanted him to taste it completely, forever, with no escape.

“You’re right.” Cheng Feili handed him the documents in her hand. “Are you sure you won’t leave with me? I can cover your tuition overseas.”

“No need. My score with the Zhou family still isn’t settled.” Chu Xusheng was surprised, and moved. “I’m an Atavist. I’m not afraid of them. You should go.”

So his sister had had a friend this good. Not everyone could be bought by the Atavist families—not everyone would pretend she had never existed.

Cheng Feili nodded and turned to leave. After two steps, she stopped and looked back at him.

“I don’t know where you buried your sister. When you go see her, bring her flowers for me.”

“Okay.”

“Not chrysanthemums.”

Chu Xusheng nodded. “I know. My sister liked yellow lilies.”

“No…” She paused. “…Bring her red roses.”

Chu Xusheng froze for a moment, but she had already turned away. She was tall and straight-backed, with a model’s bearing. Her hair was pinned up with not a strand loose, leaving the line of her neck clean and graceful.

The airship rose into the night. Cheng Feili stood in the corridor with her arms folded, looking through the windshield at the dark blue clouds and the bright moon hanging half above them.

She lifted a hand, as if to touch it.

The bakery had been tucked away in an alley where the rent was cheap. Outside the alley was a bar run by a friend of hers. Back then, a patient had harassed her until she was suspended from work, and she had also found out that the boyfriend who had pursued her for years had been cheating on her. She was in a terrible state. She drank at that bar all the time, drank until she was dead drunk, then staggered outside to retch against the wall.

Then shadows fell over her.

She looked up and saw several men reeking of alcohol.

“Hey, miss, let us buy you a drink.”

“Get lost.” She shoved one of them and tried to leave, only to be blocked at once.

“What are you doing? Let go of me! I’m calling the police!”

Instead, they grabbed her and started dragging her into the alley. She fought with all her strength and screamed for help. There were plenty of people outside the bar, yet every one of them only hesitated and watched. No one dared step in.

At the mouth of the alley, a young woman who had been about to close up shop poked her head out at the noise. In the middle of struggling, Cheng Feili met a pair of beautiful eyes. Those eyes widened in alarm—

then vanished again like a startled rabbit ducking back inside.

Despair washed over her.

The hurt inflicted by all those people pretending not to see was worse than what these men were doing to her.

“Let her go!”

A woman’s voice rang out, sharp with anger. The rabbit that had just hidden had charged back out.

In the next instant, a blast of dry-ice spray from a fire extinguisher hit the men, leaving them dizzy and gasping.

Then another hand closed around hers—rougher than hers, but warm—and pulled her into a run.

They hid inside the bakery while the men rushed over and kicked at the door in a rage.

“Don’t be scared. I already called the police.” The hand holding hers was trembling too, but its owner still tried to comfort her. Then she added, “Want some bread?”

Cheng Feili looked at her. She was obviously younger, probably only in her early twenties. Tears blurred Cheng Feili’s vision.

“Thank you.”

Not long after, her friend came with people of his own and beat the men badly. The police arrived soon after and took them away.

Once they were out of detention, Cheng Feili had people deal with them again so thoroughly that they were forced to move out of the area altogether.

She had always been a proud person. She found that whole incident humiliating and felt too awkward to talk much to Chu Xurao after that, so she never exchanged contact information with her or showed any sign of wanting to become friends. Maybe because she missed the right moment to add her, that chance never came again, and the two of them remained something between acquaintances and friends

Perhaps Chu Xurao had been worried about her. Once she figured out Cheng Feili’s routine, she started appearing on time every day, handing her two loaves of bread as if stuffing bread into her stomach would keep her from drinking so much.

What Chu Xurao never knew was that Cheng Feili had stopped drinking.

As for why she still showed up at the same time every day after that—Cheng Feili herself didn’t know either.

“This is a new one. Can you try it for me?”

“Ugh, this batch isn’t selling. Help me get rid of two, okay?”

“So annoying. I somehow made mooncakes that taste like vomit. Try one. If they’re really hopeless, I’ll mail them home for my little brother.”

Who would eat a mooncake that tasted like vomit? And why on earth would she mail them all that way to her little brother? That poor kid. Just throw them out!

“Why do you keep giving me bread every time? Take this.” Wearing that cool, aloof older-sister expression, she pulled several red banknotes from her wallet and held them out to the younger woman.

“Because you’re pretty. Bread for a beautiful lady is free.”

“—!” She coughed. “Y-you’re not bad-looking either…”

Until she started dating Zhou Yikai. Until her friend from the bar lowered his voice and told her that something had happened to the bakery owner—the young woman who baked there.

Cheng Feili closed her eyes and took a deep breath. For a moment, it was as if she were back in that little shop, breathing in the warm, comforting smell of fresh bread.

…

Tribunal Division.

The assistant settled the young woman who had come to ask for help, then walked in with a cup of coffee, face dark with anger.

“Director, the Zhou family is disgusting! Sure, the other Atavist families aren’t exactly clean either, but rotten to this degree? Could you even find a second family like them?”

Qiu Fa let out a cold snort and said nothing. No one knew what he was thinking.

“It’s infuriating. With only her testimony, the evidence still isn’t enough for us to enter the Zhou family and arrest people. And they’ve probably destroyed the evidence already. Even if we go in, we might not find a thing.”

These Atavist families were slippery and vicious. They covered for one another too, putting up a united front against the Tribunal Division. Taking down one of the great Atavist families was like trying to move a mountain.

Hard as hell.

“What are you in such a rush for?” Qiu Fa picked up the instant coffee on his desk. His amber eyes were steady and blank. “Tomorrow might hand us our chance. That little dragon is such a nuisance. She sticks her nose into everything. Probably can’t sit still for five minutes.”

“Director, you complain that she’s trouble, but you like her just fine.” The assistant wore the look of someone who had him figured out. “You even went out to eat with her before. You ate so much bluefin tuna. When you came back, you looked way too pleased with yourself. You only ever look like that after eating something you really like.”

Plenty of people had tried to bribe or win over Qiu Fa before. More than one had sent bluefin tuna too, and he had thrown every last bit of it out. A big cat didn’t eat just anything placed at its mouth.

Not to mention, that young heir really was exactly his type. For the sake of Wen Yuxian and Zhang Simiao—two people with no connection to her interests whatsoever—she had gone to him for help, had even threatened an entire Atavist family. And now she had stepped into the mess between the Zhou family and Chu Xusheng too.

Too righteous.

Her fists swung for justice.

Wasn’t she exactly the same sort of person as Qiu Fa? How could he not admire her? How could he not like her?

“You understand me that well?” Qiu Fa said expressionlessly, reaching for the enforcement baton on his desk.

“Okay, okay, I’ll shut up.”

“Hmph.” Qiu Fa took a sip of coffee.

Then immediately spat it back into the cup.

Too bitter.

He frowned, set the coffee down, and said, “Not this one.”

The assistant stared at him. “…That was mine. Your milk is over there.”

…

The next morning.

The Zhou family servants clocked in on time and began their day’s work.

The maid in charge of the side courtyard knocked on the door. When no one answered, she pushed it open in confusion—only to find that the young woman who had returned from the family hospital the night before was gone.

She hurried out and searched everywhere, even making a round through the family hospital, and confirmed that the woman really had disappeared.

Oh no.

Had she run away?

Was this Young Master Zhou Qian again?

Wasn’t he trying to get that woman killed?!

The maid was frantic, but there was nothing she could do. The only option was to report it immediately before she and her family got dragged down with it.

The Zhou family head had already slept badly. Early in the morning, he heard that the prey had escaped and flew into a rage.

“That brat chooses a time like this to make trouble? Does he think his father’s life is going too smoothly?”

It wasn’t that he cared much about the woman. Zhou Qian, on the other hand, was a son he had high hopes for. With his anger boiling over and nowhere to vent it, of course he turned it on the innocent woman instead.

He was about to send people out to bring her back when another piece of news hit him like a blow.

A trending hashtag—#TheViperousZhouFamily—had exploded across the internet.

Anything related to Atavists was guaranteed traffic these days, and this time it involved an entire Atavist family. Crowds of eager onlookers clicked in, ready for gossip, never imagining that after hearing those recordings and seeing those photos, they would feel such a violent physical reaction—nausea, shaking, cold sweat.

The fear those materials stirred was visceral. So was the rage. In no time at all, the topic shot to the very top of the trending list. For the first time in thousands of years, the Zhou family had been dragged into the open and cursed from every direction. Zhou Yongzi got dragged up with them and ended up trending too.

The Zhou family head could hardly believe it.

“What are you people doing? Delete all of it! And you’ve let it stay up this long? What are we paying you for?!”

“It’s not that, Family Head. We already had it deleted once, but then it came back. And the social media platforms still haven’t responded…” the staff member said, drenched in sweat.

“How is that possible? Even if our family doesn’t scrub it, the other families would—”

The words cut off in his throat.

Normally, the Atavist families helped one another behind the scenes. When something like this happened—when a family had all its filthy laundry dragged out in public—the others didn’t mind spending a little money to have it erased. At the very least, it protected the reputation of the Atavist families as a whole.

But now, not only could the Zhou family fail to erase it themselves, the other families were doing nothing.

That could only mean one thing.

They were doing it on purpose.

Some of them were probably even helping fan the flames.

Why?

Wasn’t it obvious?

They were using the Zhou family as a show of sincerity—an offering, practically—to invite the King Insect Atavist into their service. Compared with the growth of their own family, whether the Zhou family lived or died meant nothing.

Tribunal Division.

Dressed for duty, Qiu Fa rose from his chair and set his cap on his head. The brim cast a shadow over his amber eyes, where a trace of a smile seemed to flash and disappear. He pulled on black leather gloves, took up his baton, and wore the same cool, with the same impassive look as always.

“Move.”

The Tribunal Division enforcement team poured out behind their director in force.