Zhou Jiao was actually surprised that Jiang Lian let her go.
During their standoff, she appeared unnervingly calm—but internally, she was ready to press the electromagnetic pistol to her temple at any moment. She expected she'd lose half her life, that he'd release her only as death approached.
To her shock, he simply stared at her—his gaze far more terrifying than a god's: a crushing coldness pressed into her like steel needles biting her bones. For a moment, she thought he would dismantle her, tear her apart, consume her with unspeakable violence.
Her body tensed completely, prepared for him to seize her throat.
But then—he withdrew the tendrils blocking the escape corridor.
In that instant, Zhou Jiao was stunned by his eyes.
…Instead of an omnipotent god, he seemed more like a tamed beast that had been abandoned.
She pulled her gaze away and walked toward the escape pod without looking back. Her heart twitched as if struck by electricity—a blend of pain and thrill that hit her nerve center. She started the pod and inhaled deeply, struggling to steady her trembling hands and legs.
Was that excitement—or fear?
A hunter feeling triumphant, or the rush of seeing the powerful fall?
She realized then that every intense emotion she'd felt lately had been because of him.
No prey stays with its predator.
Yet no prey had ever been so consumed by the predator's cold-blooded hunt, relishing the fringe-of-death thrill.
Zhou Jiao frowned slightly. She floored the throttle, letting the spray splash up and the waves surge. She didn't ponder further—too dangerous. Not because he was dangerous, but because this relationship was.
Predator and prey. Dominant and weak.
A mysterious "god" and an ordinary person.
Keeping distance was her only safe choice.
Still, no matter how far the pod sped, she could faintly feel his magnetic pull calling from behind: Can you really give up this extraordinary experience?Where else could you feel this alive?
The roar of the sea hit her ears like thunder. The speed of the boat couldn't match the rush of facing him. Unconsciously, her emotional threshold had been raised.
Zhou Jiao closed her eyes, veered toward a secluded dock, and parked. She walked to a local "HighTech Safe Locker."
Perhaps out of some sense of honor, the corporation had kept their promise. Ten minutes later, a drone delivered 100,000 "New Yen," a military-grade disguise mask, odor suppressant, and optical camouflage suit.
She didn't use the supplied odor suppressant—who knew what it contained? Tossing everything into the complimentary backpack, she grabbed the motorbike and raced toward the skyline airport.
…
Two months later, Zhou Jiao had settled in California. Crime here was worse than in Yucheng—attempts to pick her door lock were nightly occurrences.
One morning she cut through an alley to avoid being late and was ambushed by a gang of punks wielding knives, crowbars, and stolen stun batons. Their scar-faced leader grinned:
"Hey sweetheart, we know where you work, how much you make. Now you have two options: hand over all your money, or let us harvest your organs."
Before he could finish, she interrupted in a flat voice:
"I choose Option Three."
His face twisted with rage: "There is NO third option!"
She calmly took stock of her surroundings, stepping back so her spine was exposed to one thug. He laughed, thinking she was scared—but two seconds later he stopped when her elbow slammed into his gut. He crumpled, groaning, and she snatched the stun baton from his hand, kicking him into the others.
Boom!
The gang scattered, chaos erupting.
Scar-face roared: "You freak in a suit—we'll gut you into pieces right now!" His men lunged at her.
She didn't flinch.
Her skills far exceeded these cheap-chipped thugs. Back when she was in Special Unit service, she'd used stun batons and tasers daily. She was a shark in those waters.
Within moments, the punks lay battered and howling. Scar-face got the worst of it—his eyes rolled back from the shocks; he wheezed:
"Please… mercy! We give up! We won't trouble you again!"
Zhou Jiao nodded—but didn't stop the shocks. The memory of the pain kept him trembling as he whispered, "What else… do you want?"
She said, "Hand over the money. Now."
He paused, trying to process it—she's robbing us?—but realized they'd been beaten at their own game. "You want us to pay you?"
"Ahem." She murmured. "Yeah. Or you can line up at the clinic—one kidney each, see how far the doc gets with that."
He went silent. He'd been outplayed by a higher predator.
Later that day, she was late to work and got chewed out and docked $50. But she'd taken $1000 new yen from the punks—so her mood was oddly upbeat.
Only bummer? That payday was a one-shot deal. The neighborhood punks would never dare mess with her again.
Zhou Jiao sat at her workstation, face indifferent and languid, eyes filled with absolute boredom.
Her job had no technical depth. She did a bit of everything—yet was never trusted with anything meaningful. It felt like she was just a temp waiting to be thrown under the bus at the first sign of trouble.
Honestly, that was exactly why she took the job in the first place—because of that lurking, unpredictable sense of danger. The thrill of potentially being the scapegoat in a crisis was what attracted her.
But after two months, to her surprise, her manager—aside from being stingy—was unexpectedly kind. The office atmosphere was oddly harmonious.
One coworker even offered her a protein supplement, bragging that his relative worked at an insect protein factory and could get her some made from real locusts.
She smiled politely and declined.
And just like that, another week passed.
Zhou Jiao maintained a calm, composed face every day and could fall asleep in under ten minutes at night. But she could feel it—something inside her was twisting, cracking apart.
Once a nervous system had tasted real thrill, it could no longer bear ordinary life.
The 9-to-5 routine. Standing on the street, everything looked calm. Too calm—so calm it was maddening.
Yes, the corporate giants were likely cooking up world-changing conspiracies—using chips and big data to hijack thought, reducing people to slaves of profit, cogs in a machine fueled by the endless loop of debt → consumption → work → repayment.
It sounded horrifying. But in reality, when that conspiracy trickled down to each individual life, it was boring beyond belief.
More than once, Zhou Jiao had considered quitting her job and becoming a mercenary or a cyber-runner. It wouldn't be glamorous, and the pay would be laughable—but at least it would be dangerous.
And yet, she always stopped herself.
Not because she thought those jobs were beneath her—but because… it wasn't necessary.
The moment she leapt off that rooftop with the rope tight around Jiang Lian's neck, her adrenaline had peaked—so violently, so completely that no high could ever top it.
Emotions weren't like water. They didn't boil at a fixed temperature.
Every time they boiled over, they were borrowing from the next rush.
No mercenary gig, no black market hacking job would ever rival the thrill Jiang Lian gave her.
And even if she recreated the moment exactly—leaping again, choking him again—it still wouldn't jolt her like that first time.
Let alone now, when she didn't even know where he was.
If she didn't know better, she might have assumed Jiang Lian let her go on purpose—because he knew she wouldn't be able to return to normal life. That he was waiting, patiently, for her to crawl back.
Zhou Jiao lowered her gaze. Her expression stayed flat, but her fingers twitched slightly.
The mere thought of Jiang Lian watching her from the shadows, seeing her every move, sent a ripple of excitement down her spine.
She knew it was wrong. Distorted. Dangerous.
—Then why did you fight so hard to escape in the first place?
Because in his hands, she was on the verge of losing her selfhood. Of becoming a hollow shell, stripped of mind and will.
If it hadn't been for that look in his eyes at the escape tunnel, no matter how much she craved his thrill, she'd never want to see him again.
But that look gave her something else—a belief: if she just pulled a little harder, tightened the rope just a bit more, she could fully tame him.
Lately, she hadn't had trouble sleeping. But she kept dreaming of that building—the one that had morphed into a grotesque, fleshy nest.
Whenever she appeared, it would pulse and wriggle violently, birthing tentacles: long, purplish-black limbs slithering down toward her, like slick serpents radiating cold ecstasy, rushing to embrace their prey.
It was a scene meant to disgust.
Clammy, twisted, vile.
But Zhou Jiao's heart would pound. Her scalp tingled.
She was like someone staring into the abyss, fully aware of the depth—yet still stepping forward, desperate to see what lay at the bottom.
Each time she woke, she would open the blinds, sit by the window, and light a cigarette.
The California nightscape was something surreal. On one side, shadowy slums of mismatched heights, their river glinting with a faint, toxic blue-black hue. On the other side, a cluster of neon-lit towers—bright, majestic, pulsating with synthetic life.
The neon spilled across her walls, flickering in and out.
She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and leaned back against the wall, exhaling a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
White mist filled the room.
At that moment, a holographic ad began playing overhead, projecting a garishly dressed geisha—her kimono drenched in color—striding slowly past Zhou Jiao's window.
The white smoke caught the light, turning iridescent.
Zhou Jiao's sharp features blurred in the rainbow haze.
She didn't want to admit it—but she had developed a particular feeling for Jiang Lian.
One thing, though—she was willing to admit, and had to admit:
Only Jiang Lian had the power to shatter the dull cage of her life.
He was cold-blooded, bizarre, terrifying. Not just a dangerous and alien creature, but someone with a deeply pathological mind.
Unpredictable. Uncontrollable. And yet… he pulled her like gravity.
Even now, eight thousand kilometers away, she could feel his presence. It was like they were connected by an invisible network of filaments—sticky, damp, impossible to break.
Still, even though she craved the chaos he brought, she'd never go looking for him. Never offer a hand first.
Because monsters don't play hard to get.
But she did.