“Dad, how did this morning’s meeting turn out?” Feng Yilian asked the family head when she returned home. Chen Mo, Wu Ying, and the others were asking their families the same question.
They were all juniors, not yet old enough to take charge of family affairs. They were rarely allowed to attend meetings of such importance. Among their peers, Jing Pei was the only one qualified to appear on such an occasion, and the only junior whose words those stubborn elders would actually listen to.
When they saw Jing Pei at the Tribunal Division today, her expression had seemed perfectly normal, and there had been nothing unusual about the way she interacted with Mei Yanlan. That only made them more curious about the outcome. But while they were inside the Tribunal Division, they could hardly ask without someone hearing them.
None of them agreed with their families’ plan to dispose of Mei Yanlan. But whenever they spoke up, the family heads only accused them of being childish, shortsighted, careless about the honor of their families, or too softhearted. At the same time, they really could not think of a foolproof way to protect Mei Yanlan and her descendants. It left them frustrated and helpless.
They believed Jing Pei was just as opposed to harming Mei Yanlan as they were, but they could not imagine how she might have changed the elders’ minds.
“Go on, tell me. How did Ah Jin convince all of you?” Wu Ying dropped onto the seat beside her father. She lifted her chin like a queen and casually placed one foot on Jiang Qing’s knee, expecting him to massage it.
“You trust Long Jin that much?” the Wu Family Head asked. Then he added casually, “And stop bullying your little brother all the time.”
“If there’s one person among our generation I really admire, it’s Ah Jin. Just because I can’t think of a solution doesn’t mean she can’t,” Wu Ying said.
She did not withdraw her foot, and Jiang Qing did not remove his hands. He kept his eyes lowered and obediently continued the massage.
The Wu Family Head did not interfere further. Wu Ying was the Wu family’s young heir and its future family head. Jiang Qing would need her protection in the future anyway, so what was wrong with letting her order him around a little?
“Long Jin merely raised an issue we had previously overlooked,” the Wu Family Head said. “We can wait until we have the answer before making a decision. After all, taking action against Mei Yanlan at a time like this would be quite risky for the Atavist families. If the answer doesn’t conflict with our interests, then everyone will be satisfied.”
Wu Ying sat up in curiosity. “What issue?”
Jiang Qing’s hands also paused for a moment.
The Wu Family Head was about to answer when his phone rang, cutting him off. He pulled it from his breast pocket and answered. After listening for only a moment, his face fell.
“What did you say?”
Inside the research building.
The floor had been trembling without pause, and the chandeliers overhead swung back and forth. The researchers conducting gene-fusion tests in the laboratory had finally reached the limit of their patience.
“What is going on?”
An assistant entered and said, “It’s Mei Yanlan. She’s trying to kill Xiao Cheng, and our people are stopping her.”
“…What?”
Why did that sound so ridiculous?
“Don’t worry. The fighting won’t spread up here.”
The researcher took a moment to process the situation. Once he was sure their people would not allow Mei Yanlan to reach this floor, he returned to his workstation.
The results of the compatibility test with Dragon Clan genes had come in.
The moment he looked at the screen, he froze.
“What?”
He spun toward his subordinates. “Bring me the Atavist genes of the Phoenix Clan, Black Tortoise, pit viper clan, and rabbit demon clan.”
“Protect Xiao Cheng!”
“Stop Mei Yanlan! Hurry!”
“Damn it, she’s crazy!”
Of course Mei Yanlan was crazy.
Ten years ago, she had been forced to flee and hide when facing the weaklings of the Ling family. Ten years later, she was Number One of the Tribunal Division headquarters’ Special Forces, the strongest combatant beneath Qiu Fa himself. Without that madness, how could her strength have grown so quickly?
She had climbed to her current position over mountains of corpses. The blood flowing beneath those bodies belonged not only to her enemies, but also to her.
The man carrying Xiao Cheng glanced behind him and almost died from fright.
Mei Yanlan’s red eyes brimmed with icy killing intent. Her sharp crimson nails were less than a step away, so close that it seemed she could seize his collar with a single reach.
Her murderous aura crashed over him.
He could barely breathe. A rabbit staring into the bloody jaws of a starving wolf could not have felt much different.
How had things come to this?
The protector had become an assassin hunting the hostage, while the real assassins had become protectors desperately trying to save him. What kind of complete reversal was this? Even a television drama would not dare write something so ridiculous.
He was going mad. Someone save him!
Mei Yanlan had struck so quickly that Xiao Cheng had not even felt the pain at first. Only while being rushed away for emergency treatment did a tearing agony slowly spread through his chest. His strength drained from him, and the clamor around his ears sounded muffled, as though it came through water.
Mei Yanlan was trying to kill him.
That was all right. He understood her.
This was the best solution. Compared to being trapped here as a test subject, denied both life and death, dying would be a mercy. From the moment he had been captured and learned of this organization’s existence, his fate had already been sealed.
Besides, only if he died would Mei Yanlan have a chance to survive.
He was even beginning to worry that he might not die.
Wait. Why wasn’t he dead yet?
With a hole this large in his chest, an ordinary person should have bled to death by now. Only then did he realize that his strength had stopped draining away.
Mei Yanlan was drawing closer.
The man carrying Xiao Cheng had already entered the reach of her long arms. Mei Yanlan lunged and stretched out a hand to seize him.
But a hand suddenly clamped around her ankle and pulled her back. Mei Yanlan’s fingertips brushed past the man’s collar, catching nothing but air.
The man carrying Xiao Cheng looked relieved to have escaped with his life. He bolted toward the research institute without looking back.
The next instant, something flew from behind and looped around his neck.
He was yanked backward and, in the blink of an eye, fell into the grasp of an ice-cold hand.
It was Mei Yanlan’s bag!
He had only just recognized what was wrapped around his neck when that cold hand closed over his throat.
Crack.
His vision went black, and his breathing stopped.
Mei Yanlan had seized Xiao Cheng.
“Mei Yanlan!”
“Mei Yanlan, we can talk about this! It doesn’t have to end this way!” Miss Hong and the others paled.
With Xiao Cheng in Mei Yanlan’s hands, they were afraid of harming what they wanted to protect and did not dare attack for the moment. They could only surround her.
Mei Yanlan’s gaze swept across Xiao Cheng’s wound. Blood was no longer flowing from it. A layer of Atavist power covered the injury, not only stopping the bleeding but slowly repairing the damaged flesh.
She froze.
Miss Hong saw it as well. An Atavist’s eyesight was that keen.
“Mei Yanlan, you can see it too,” Miss Hong said at once. “Xiao Cheng is only an ordinary person. How could he have this kind of healing ability? There is only one explanation. The little ones are saving their father. They can already sense the outside world. Are you really going to deprive them of their lives?”
That was not actually what was happening.
Genes were selfish. To ensure their continuation, they could even manipulate a living creature’s will and induce reproductive behavior. Atavist genes were far more powerful than most genes and could protect the maternal body to some extent in order to survive.
But protection of this magnitude proved that the three fetuses’ Atavist genes were very active. It was evidence of their strength.
That made it even more important to stop Mei Yanlan from killing Xiao Cheng.
So that was why she had failed to crush Xiao Cheng’s heart earlier?
Mei Yanlan considered this without expression. Her cold hand settled around Xiao Cheng’s neck.
If the heart would not work, then…
“Mei Yanlan, think about how they would feel if they knew their own mother wanted to kill them,” Miss Hong said as soon as she saw Mei Yanlan move.
She was trying to awaken Mei Yanlan’s maternal instinct, the instinct to sacrifice everything for her children.
“They would thank me.”
A seductive smile curved Mei Yanlan’s lips, while her red eyes held both tenderness and cruelty.
Xiao Cheng knelt on the ground, his head resting weakly against Mei Yanlan’s abdomen. Her slender hand, powerful enough to crush stone with ease, held his neck in place. Her fingers began to tighten.
The force that had protected Xiao Cheng’s heart appeared again around his neck, resisting Mei Yanlan’s grip.
“This reaction is nothing more than a gene’s instinct to survive. Once their brains have fully developed, once they can feel pain and see that they were born into hell, they’ll hate me for not killing them before they were born.”
She had failed to crush Xiao Cheng’s heart earlier only because she had been caught off guard. She had used no more force than was necessary to crush an ordinary person’s heart.
This time was different.
The protective power resisted in vain. Mei Yanlan overwhelmed it completely.
She really showed no mercy.
Xiao Cheng was still conscious, yet he did not struggle. He offered his neck without resistance, ready to die, no different from a dog that would allow its owner to beat it to death without ever fighting back.
Seeing that her words had no effect on Mei Yanlan and that Xiao Cheng was really about to die, Miss Hong’s eyes hardened.
“Go! Forget whether Xiao Cheng lives or dies. Capture Mei Yanlan!”
Anything was better than losing both the prize and the means to obtain it.
If the three fetuses died, then so be it. Once they caught Mei Yanlan, they could simply force her to bear more.
The encirclement contracted in an instant. Atavists surged toward Mei Yanlan like a tide.
Inside the research building.
The researcher stared at the latest test results, his expression grim.
“Doctor, what’s wrong?” the assistant asked quickly after noticing his face.
“See for yourself.”
The assistant leaned toward the screen and read the lines displayed there.
[Gene compatibility test with the Phoenix Clan: Failed.]
[Gene compatibility test with Black Tortoise: Failed.]
[Gene compatibility test with the pit viper clan: Failed.]
[Gene compatibility test with the rabbit demon clan: Failed.]
[…Failed.]
[…Failed.]
“F-Failed?” The assistant stared at the screen in shock.
What did this mean?
Surely it could not mean what he thought it did.
The researcher pressed a hand to his forehead, where veins bulged beneath the skin.
“It means exactly what you think it means.”
The compatibility test had not failed only between the genes of Mei Yanlan’s descendants and the Dragon Clan genes. Their genetic compatibility tests had failed with every type of Atavist gene available in the laboratory.
The reason was the same one that caused hybrids born between ordinary Atavists to be frail and short-lived. Atavist genes from different races rejected one another. They could not fuse. Instead, they attacked and devoured each other, like wild beasts competing for survival. In the end, both sides were destroyed and the hybrid died.
That very morning, Jing Pei had posed a question to the aggressive family heads of the Atavist families.
“How can you be certain that Mei Yanlan can produce healthy hybrid descendants as her mother did?”
Her mother is an atavist of the Seahorse Clan, while she herself is a hybrid of a Succubus and a Seahorse. Strictly speaking, her genes have been completely rewritten from the inside out. Her atavistic power resonance aligns neither with that of the Seahorse Clan nor with that of the Succubus Clan, so it needs to be recorded separately. What if only pure-blooded Seahorse atavists are capable of bearing healthy hybrid offspring?
The family heads had fallen silent.
The assistant looked stricken, as if he could not accept what he was hearing.
“Damn it. Mei Yanlan’s descendants can’t produce healthy hybrids at all. And Mei Yanlan conceived them with an ordinary human, which means the Atavist portion of their genes hasn’t been rewritten. Their genes are the same as Mei Yanlan’s. Therefore, Mei Yanlan most likely can’t produce healthy descendants with an Atavist of another race either!”
Like most Atavists, she could only produce descendants with ordinary humans.
The same was true of her children.
Their calculations had been wrong.
Those idiots from the Ling family had made a catastrophic mistake. Mei Yanlan’s mother had been the only person they really needed.
Her mother had been the real treasure!
They should have considered this possibility long ago. Why hadn’t they?
Because the fools of the Ling family had done what they did. Everyone had taken it for granted that the Ling family had confirmed Mei Yanlan could do what her mother had done. Otherwise, how could they possibly have dared to commit such atrocities and drive that couple to their deaths?
Even Mei Yanlan had been led to believe the same thing.
Damn it!
Capturing Mei Yanlan and Xiao Cheng had achieved nothing. Worse, they had exposed the existence of their organization.
The researcher wanted nothing more than to twist the heads off every member of the Ling family, one by one.
They were the very definition of teammates as stupid as pigs!
Bang!
Mei Yanlan skidded backward, dragging Xiao Cheng with one hand. Her fingers pierced the ground, carving several long, slender claw marks into the surface. Blood and grime stained her beautiful face, leaving her in a sorry state.
There were too many enemies, and every one of them was strong.
Now that they no longer cared whether Xiao Cheng survived, they could concentrate entirely on besieging Mei Yanlan. She could not even spare a hand to kill him.
As long as he remained alive, she could not abandon him. Otherwise, the organization would capture him again. As a result, she had to defend herself while also preventing them from taking Xiao Cheng.
She glanced at him.
An ordinary person should have died after being tossed around like that, yet Xiao Cheng was still alive.
Did those three little brats want to be born that bad?
Idiots. Of course brains that had not yet developed properly would be stupid.
“Stop. You’re only wasting your strength,” Miss Hong said, arms folded as she watched from a raised platform. “There is no possibility of you escaping today.”
Beside her, a sniper appeared carrying an Atavist weapon and took aim at Mei Yanlan. Gun barrels also emerged from several windows of the research building, claiming elevated positions with clear lines of fire.
Naturally, those weapons would not kill Mei Yanlan. They would only disable her long enough to capture her.
Mei Yanlan struggled for breath as she surveyed the people surrounding her.
She admitted that she had been arrogant.
She had never expected things to turn out like this. She had believed she could kill the Ling family on schedule. She had thought Xiao Cheng might reject the pregnancy and abort it. Even if he did not, she had assumed he could give birth overseas without attracting attention.
Now that matters had reached this point, she could only correct her mistake in her own way.
Killing Xiao Cheng and the fetuses, sparing them from further suffering, was the only solution.
“Don’t come back. Don’t seek revenge. The future matters more than the past. Your mother and I want you to be happy. Do you understand?”
When her father had sent her away, he had gripped her shoulders and given her those instructions.
She had not listened.
Her father had asked the impossible of her. No one could remain cheerful after having their wallet stolen, let alone after having everything beautiful in their life ripped away.
Her heart was not made of wood or stone.
It could hurt.
Outside the bubble, lightning streaked across the sky. A peal of thunder followed, rolling closer from the distance.
Mei Yanlan pulled Xiao Cheng into her arms.
Xiao Cheng had been silently urging the children to stop protecting him, insisting that death would be better. Her embrace made him freeze.
As if realizing what she intended, his eyes grew hot. He wrapped his arms around her waist.
Her red hair lifted despite the absence of wind. Her crimson eyes deepened until they resembled blood.
Every trace of Atavist power inside her surged into motion, racing through her body so violently that it seemed ready to ignite against the walls of her blood vessels and meridians.
“Every last one of you can die.”
She stared at them and murmured the words.
The hatred raging inside her drove her Atavist power to even greater heights. Yet the vitality blazing in her eyes was the final flare of a dying life. Once those flames burned out, nothing would remain but dead ashes.
If a warrior of Mei Yanlan’s caliber really wanted to escape, these people could never hold her.
But escape had already lost its meaning.
The secret was known to everyone. Revenge was now impossible. Xiao Cheng and the children had to die at once.
There was nothing left in this world that she wished to hold on to.
Miss Hong’s expression changed drastically.
“No! She’s going to self-destruct!”
If a top-tier Atavist warrior like Mei Yanlan chose to sacrifice her life by self-destructing, the consequences would be devastating both to herself and everyone around her.
And inside a sealed bubble like this, there was nowhere to flee.
At that moment, an unfamiliar voice cut through the chaos.
“Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt.”
Everyone turned toward the voice.
Mei Yanlan’s head snapped around as well.
Jing Pei stood there, looking very polite.
