Until the chip-thawing process was halfway done, Xie Yueze didn't know what to say.
He didn't remember that he'd once been under Jiang Lian's control—only flickers of memory remained: a dark laboratory, a chilling atmosphere, purple-black tentacles writhing everywhere, like an indescribable horror den.
But nothing was as terrifying as him.
Tall, lean, wearing a knee-length white coat—every feature from his nose to his jaw and to his long, strong fingers was unnaturally handsome. Yet at the edges of his silhouette, shadows seemed to pulse and a horrifying hum occasionally surfaced. That buzzing sensation still echoed in Xie Yueze's ears, chilling his blood.
Xie Yueze looked at Zhou Jiao, paused, then changed the subject:
"How are you feeling now?"
"Okay," she replied.
He hesitated, then said, "If you were still working at the Special Bureau, I'd never help you unlock your chip. The credit chip may have the fewest functions, but it's also the one most capable of altering your brain."
"People ask why BioTech pushes credit chips hardest. They don't realize: to build a corporate monopoly, you first need a unique credit system…"
Zhou Jiao eyed the progress bar on the screen tiredly and rubbed her temples.
"I worked at BioTech for a long time. I know where credit chips come from…"
Xie Yueze shook his head:
"Credit is just the first step. With it, the company can track everyone's movements, target high-credit customers with ads and product suggestions, restrict low-credit people's purchases, even locate them and send them to their factories as laborers."
"And that's just the basic level," he said softly. "On a deeper level, they could use big data to predict political leanings and manipulate elections…"
Meanwhile, the progress bar hit 85%.
She looked around: a typical chip surgery room—monitors, computers, a leather chair, and a row of freezers in the back filled with amphetamines, sedatives, and analgesics bearing BioTech labels.
—BioTech?
Zhou Jiao's gaze dropped. Her voice trembled:
"Stop… my parents died because of a chip explosion." She choked back a sob. "I can't hear this right now."
Her features hardened again—her skin pale, neck marked with brutal purple bruises. If Xie Yueze were any closer, he'd see her body tensed like a ready-to-strike bow.
But he believed her. The files confirmed her parents' death by chip-detonation. She had every right to be this distraught.
He leaned forward and took her hand again:
"Don't be afraid, Jiao Jiao. If you trust me, we can avenge your parents…"
At that exact moment, the progress bar hit 100%—thawing complete.
Zhou Jiao acted instantly: she yanked out her connection cable and, with lightning speed, grabbed Xie Yueze's throat. He barely had time to register before she slammed him back into the leather chair.
She shoved the cable back behind her ear and pinned his shoulder with her knee.
"Let me guess… which company do you work for?"
He opened his mouth, but froze at her tone.
BioTech had charged him with "downloading and distributing classified information," she said coldly.
"But I've searched every detail online, and there's no record of what you're saying. So, tell me—who did you distribute it to?"
Her grip tightened, snapping Xie Yueze's Adam's apple—a sickening crack.
"There are two possibilities," she continued, mercilessly.
"Either you're a mercenary stealing the data to sell to a client, or you work for some other mega-corporation, taking it for your own company's benefit…"
She squeezed harder. He gasped in pain, managing to choke out:
"You're brilliant, Jiao Jiao. I am from another company… but I have no ill intent… please believe me…"
She met his gaze with ice:
"I know you're not staying with Jiang Lian by choice …you wanted to help me escape him… you know how dangerous he is…"
She expected compassion. Instead, she laughed.
Leaning close to his ear, she hissed:
"If you are from another company, why are all the medications in these freezers BioTech products?"
Xie Yueze's pupils nearly vanished from shock.
"There's one more possibility," she continued, voice cold-blooded:
"You are BioTech. You never stole anything. You came here because BioTech detected something weird with Jiang Lian and sent you to monitor him."
Indeed, Jiang Lian had been at the Special Bureau a while—BioTech had to have noticed. They hadn't dared act, just observed. Xie Yueze was simply a camera in their pocket.
She smirked:
"Do you know what gave you away?"
"They're the only ones who would know about my parents' death—as a chip explosion, not a suicide bomber. That's the first clue."
"Second: I only encountered conspiracy theories yesterday, and today you're already telling me all about BioTech's insider knowledge. You're giving me too much at once—I don't trust your 'intranet.'"
He said nothing.
"Last clue," she tightened her grip further, "We're connected via chips. But when I mentioned Jiang Lian, you changed your voice. You were testing his influence over me."
Her voice dropped to an icy whisper against his ear:
"Have you considered this? If I wasn't valuable to Jiang Lian, your info might have gotten me killed. And you still expect me to team up with you?"
She wanted to kill him.
There was no forgiveness for someone who almost betrayed her life.
But though Xie Yueze had to live—he needed to repeat her words.
Zhou Jiao released her hold, stepped back, and reached for a disinfectant wipe. She wiped her fingers carefully.
"Bring me someone smarter next time. You're not worthy."
She dropped the wipe and walked out.
She didn't trust BioTech.
She didn't believe a single word they—or Xie Yueze—had said.
Yet if she wanted to get rid of Jiang Lian, working with BioTech seemed like the only way forward.
One is a born monster. The other is a manufactured monster.
How does she choose?
Later, Zhou Jiao had left. In the now-empty lab, a voice spoke in Japanese-accented Mandarin:
"You've rushed in. You know she's smart. With a person like that, you can't threaten them—you have to tempt them."
Xie Yueze pressed a hand to his battered neck:
"I'm sorry, sir. I messed up."
"No—you did not," the voice replied.
"She's too clever, picking up everything from a few clues. We don't want pawns that smart."
Xie Yueze's heart skipped:
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Since she refused, send someone else to approach Jiang Lian," the voice said casually.
"She doesn't know: we can see everything she experiences through the chip. She reacted that way because she fears Jiang Lian. She can't control that creature. She stays by him because he likes her scent. And scent—chemical information—can be replicated."
Xie Yueze understood.
They planned to synthesize Zhou Jiao's scent and send someone more obedient—even if not as clever—to get close to Jiang Lian.
Then Zhou Jiao could just disappear.
But something deep in Xie Yueze's gut told him—this plan wouldn't work.
—
Zhou Jiao twitched at the corner of her eye as she stared at her own hand.
She knew he was going to lick her.
Jiang Lian gripped her hand tightly, seemingly oblivious to her discomfort. The gash in his palm opened and closed rhythmically, and from it emerged a cold, wet, slick tongue-and-teeth-like appendage, wrapping around her fingers with alarming focus and detail.
Would it feel better if he licked her like a normal human being?
Better, my ass.
Zhou Jiao shuddered. Either way, it was enough to give her goosebumps.
Should she be grateful that he didn't use the mouth on his hand when kissing her?
The mere thought of him kissing her with that palm-slit made her stomach churn. A chill shot down her spine, and she couldn't stop the involuntary shiver.
The only comforting thought was that Jiang Lian didn't seem too bothered by the lies she'd told him… which was good, because she had no clue how to explain what she meant by "having a taste for that sort of thing."
What she didn't know was—Jiang Lian wasn't unaffected.
He was livid. So consumed with fury that he couldn't even process the words coming out of her mouth.
Zhou Jiao had come out of the operating room carrying the scent of another man.
That realization had ignited a feral, uncontainable urge to kill.
He'd never experienced rage so intense. It was as if a thousand termites were gnawing away at his joints and bones, and only scalding-hot blood could wash the feeling away.
If Zhou Jiao had just glanced behind her in that moment, she would've seen his tall, elegant figure twist and warp into something grotesque—clear outlines of squirming tendrils rising beneath his skin, ready to burst through at any moment.
He wanted to kill every single person in this room.
Jiang Lian's gaze was icy, terrifying. Rage and murderous instinct wrapped around each other in a frenzy.
But first—he had to remove the scent of another man from her body.
Zhou Jiao had stopped resisting. She allowed the thing in Jiang Lian's palm to wrap around each of her fingers, again and again.
Now her hand felt like it had just been pulled out of a swamp—wet, sticky, and slick between every joint.
She thought he'd stop after licking her fingers.
He didn't.
That thing began crawling up her arm, cold and slimy, inching toward her neck and shoulder.
Zhou Jiao immediately clamped down on it with her other hand, staring at him, confused and unsettled.
And in that moment, she almost didn't recognize him.
Jiang Lian's expression was… wrong. So very wrong. Bloodshot veins crawled across his eyes, and every couple of seconds, a tendril visibly writhed beneath the skin of his face—like a muscle spasm, only far more horrifying.
"…Are you okay?"
But Jiang Lian didn't hear her.
He just stared. Motionless. Consumed by one singular obsession—erasing every trace of another man's scent from her body.
Her body should carry only her scent—and his.
The tongue in his palm had been blocked—no problem. He'd just use another method.
The slit in his hand closed shut.
Zhou Jiao exhaled in relief. At least he could still communicate. For a moment, she'd thought he'd gone so far off the deep end that there was no bringing him back.
She cleared her throat, about to ask what was wrong—when both her wrists were suddenly yanked behind her back, held tight with just one of his hands.
Zhou Jiao: "?"
She frowned slightly, watching as Jiang Lian, still gripping her wrists, stepped closer. He lowered his head and sniffed her hair… then her neck.
And the entire time, his burning gaze never left her.
Gone was the cold, slick, jelly-like look in his eyes. What now flared in them was molten—heavy, solid, scorching, like dripping wax that could harden on contact.
The air between them grew tight and strange. Zhou Jiao's scalp prickled.
…Was he about to kill her again?
She couldn't sense killing intent coming off of him, but he'd given her that murderous look so many times today. What if her instincts were wrong?
The thought alone set off alarms in her brain. Her whole body tensed. Icy dread crawled up her spine. She instinctively stepped back.
And in the very next instant—Jiang Lian stepped forward, and split.
Yes—his entire body split open down the middle.
His expression didn't change. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses, his eyes stayed locked on hers. But everything from the neck down tore open, revealing a massive, gaping maw, dark as a wormhole—an abyss like a portal to another dimension.
Zhou Jiao: "..."
What the f—?!!!
Her eyes went wide as the gash yawned open and clamped down over her upper body like a massive shell, sealing her in tight.
Jiang Lian kept one hand locked on her wrists and the other pressed against the back of her head, drawing her closer, holding her tighter.
And in that moment, he let out a sigh—almost human in its satisfaction.
The other man's scent was finally gone.