The storm returned.
Zhou Jiao went out without an umbrella and was soaked to the skin.
She was used to it. Slipping on a rubber raincoat, she kept walking. The streets flooded in minutes. Her shoes were filled with cold, sticky, filthy water.
Her expression didn't change. She had long since gotten used to the rainy season in Yu City.
As she thought about seeing him soon, she couldn't help but frown.
Zhou Jiao had always been emotionally detached. No matter what she did, her mood rarely fluctuated. Even when she spent her days with corpses and mutated creatures, dissecting their ashen skin with a scalpel, her heart rate stayed steady at 50.
But whenever he got close to her, her cheeks inexplicably flushed, her heart pounded.
It was as if she'd been hexed.
Luckily, he didn't like her. In fact, he despised her.
Even a simple glance exchanged between them would reveal unmistakable disgust in his eyes.
He detested her presence more than anyone else's.
And yet tonight, they were going to spend the night together—
In a raging storm, no less.
If it weren't in a lab, it might even be romantic.
Zhou Jiao let out a faint laugh.
She glanced back; the waves were already level with the seawall. She quickened her pace.
Half an hour later, she arrived at the Special Bureau.
The lobby and offices were empty, save for a trail of messy, wet footprints.
Everyone had gone home, except her—and him.
Zhou Jiao hung up her soaked raincoat and walked toward the elevator.
There were three in total. On stormy days like this, two were out of service. Only the far-left one was running, its red digital display resting on "-2."
Clearly, he was already here.
Zhou Jiao knew him well after all this time working together.
Most of the time, he was calm and rational to the extreme, not a single flaw to be found in his conduct.
Even though he hated her, he'd still ask before lighting a cigarette.
If she shook her head, even if he was already sniffing the cigarette, he'd calmly close the box and put it back in his coat.
Because of that, Zhou Jiao could never really resent him.
Not that her body would let her.
It was strange—why him, of all people?
She shook her head and pressed the elevator button.
"Ding."
The doors opened.
A tall figure stood before her.
The man was slender and upright, wearing a white lab coat that fell to his knees. His hands were gloved in blue rubber.
His features were sharp and severe, lips finely contoured, expression cold and distant. He wore thin gold-rimmed glasses.
Even though there were bloodstains on his coat and boots, he still looked pristine.
In this filthy, damp, mud-slicked city, he appeared almost overbearingly immaculate.
Zhou Jiao nodded at him. "Dr. Jiang."
Jiang Lian glanced at her, eyes cold. "You're late, Dr. Zhou."
So strange.
She could get along with anyone—except Jiang Lian.
Every word he said made the back of her head tingle.
Not with fear, but a feverish jolt that started in her chest and spread to her skull.
If he got any closer, she'd break into chills, her throat dry, like she was burning up.
Thankfully, Jiang Lian hated her. He never came close.
Zhou Jiao was grateful for that.
She had forgotten one thing though:
This wasn't Jiang Lian under normal conditions.
On rainy days—especially during violent storms—he grew irritable. His refined expression would strain with barely contained menace.
Sometimes, he'd drop a scalpel mid-procedure, rip off his gloves, and walk into the sterilization chamber. There, shrouded in white mist, he'd brace a hand against the wall, swallowing hard, eyes blank.
He never explained why.
But the others had whispered about his background.
Jiang Lian wasn't a trained doctor. He had never formally studied human or nonhuman anatomy. Yet few at the bureau called him by name. They all called him "Dr. Jiang."
He had been recruited—neutralized—by the Special Bureau.
Allegedly, he carried a genetic defect. He lacked monoamine oxidase A, an enzyme that helps regulate serotonin. Without it, the brain can't process emotions properly. (1)
Research shows such individuals tend to be cold-blooded, aggressive, thrill-seeking, vindictive.
In short: psychopathic.
Zhou Jiao didn't believe genes determined behavior entirely.
But Jiang Lian's case was special.
For five generations, his family had been notorious for violent crimes. They would return to the scene just to savor their handiwork.
And Jiang Lian? Brilliant. Off-the-charts IQ. Got into a top-ten global university without breaking a sweat.
Before he could become dangerous, the Bureau pulled him in.
He was obsessed with dissection—human and mutant alike—and frighteningly quick to learn.
So they placed him in Zhou Jiao's department.
Aside from avoiding Zhou Jiao like the plague, Jiang Lian's conduct was flawless.
He was handsome, poised, polite. Impossible to reconcile with the label "psychopath."
Over time, people dismissed the rumors as nothing more than a strange origin story.
Zhou Jiao thought the same.
Jiang Lian didn't seem like a bad person.
The storm howled on. The tighter the windows were shut, the louder the shrieking wind became.
Zhou Jiao stepped into the elevator and pressed the floor button.
Jiang Lian walked to the farthest corner without a word.
No small talk. No briefing.
Zhou Jiao was used to it.
He always stayed as far away as possible, spoke as little as possible.
Soon, the elevator arrived at B2.
Zhou Jiao was about to change into protective gear when she stopped in her tracks.
One of the corpses they were supposed to examine had already arrived.
It was a man.
He lay flat on the autopsy table, skin cold and ashen, long dead.
But water still dripped steadily from his feet.
Drip. Drip.
A pool of viscous, murky fluid had formed beneath him.
Zhou Jiao glanced at Jiang Lian.
"He was parasitized," he said.
She understood immediately and went to change.
The body had already begun to mutate.
Rubbery tendrils grew behind the ears.
His nostrils were sealed shut by fleshy growths.
Two deep, gill-like slits had appeared along his neck.
Some fish can still twitch their gills after death. This body was no different.
As Zhou Jiao approached, the gills were still faintly opening and closing, oozing black blood.
"Where's the parasite?" she asked.
Jiang Lian stepped across from her.
He too had donned goggles. The purely functional gear made his features appear even sharper.
Zhou Jiao had a strange feeling.
Though Jiang Lian was bone-dry, there was something damp about him—his lashes, his brows, the dip of his throat. A chill clung to him.
A suffocating wetness, like the slime dripping from the corpse's feet.
"Zhou Jiao," Jiang Lian suddenly said, his tone clipped and icy. "Stop looking at me."
She turned away. "Sorry."
Jiang Lian picked up a scalpel and began the dissection.
It was hard to believe he had no formal training.
His hand didn't tremble, didn't falter. The incision was perfect—precise and efficient.
As soon as the grey skin split open, clusters of white, pus-filled eggs spilled out.
They looked like a nest of rotting pearls.
Some had already begun to hatch.
Through the translucent film, she could see the fetal outline—
A fish with a human face.
Zhou Jiao's stomach turned.
Any creature that looked even remotely human was always the most sanity-draining.
"What kind of mutant is this?" she asked. "I've never—ugh."
She gagged.
"Marine type," Jiang Lian replied. "No intelligence. Purely instinctual. It'll latch onto anything it can. During incubation, it mimics the most dominant nearby species to ward off predators."
"No wonder it looks so awful," Zhou Jiao muttered.
She glanced at him, ready to crack a joke—something about ugly cats that only looked ugly because they resembled humans.
Before she could, Jiang Lian picked up an egg between two fingers.
Even through the rubber gloves, the elegance of his hand was striking.
He stared at the egg for a moment.
Then, with a faint, unreadable smile, he said, "It is disgusting."
Zhou Jiao blinked.
What?
The mood had been broken. She dropped the joke.
Outside, the storm raged louder than ever.
For a fleeting second, with the rain lashing the building and the wind howling like a dying creature, Zhou Jiao had the illusion that she and Jiang Lian were the only two people left in the world.
Then she looked down and remembered:
They still had a pile of mutant-infected corpses to sort through.
She sighed and stepped into the sterilization chamber.
Normally, this wouldn't be necessary. But with parasites, you couldn't be too careful.
She didn't see what happened next.
The egg they had stored in the containment jar suddenly twitched.
Inside, the human-faced fish writhed in terror, their expressions frozen in horror.
They cowered, shrank back, desperate to break the rules of biology and grow limbs to crawl away from the man standing before them.
Jiang Lian removed his goggles and gloves.
He put his glasses back on.
His features were still beautiful. Still pristine. Still terrifyingly clean.
But if you looked closely—
His eyes hadn't blinked in a very long time.
Behind him, in the corner untouched by light, something darker than darkness stirred.
A massive shadow pulsed, heavy with malice and power.
It silently claimed the entire floor.
Pop.
One egg burst under the pressure of Jiang Lian's presence.
Black mucus dripped from the autopsy table.
He didn't even glance at it.
He didn't care about these low-level parasites.
Didn't care whether the work was completed.
Didn't even remember what Zhou Jiao had just said.
He only knew one thing—
He was starving.
Every time he saw Zhou Jiao, this body reacted with terrifying hunger.
He kept his distance not out of morality, but disdain.
Zhou Jiao didn't deserve to be his prey.
She was too ordinary.
Every time he fed, he temporarily inherited the victim's personality and memories.
Yes, maybe in human terms, she was exceptional—
Pretty. Sharp. Deadly.
But to him, she was weak. Boring.
He wouldn't have noticed her at all,
if this body didn't crave her—
to study her, to conquer her, to destroy her.
In his world, Zhou Jiao was just one among a thousand fish in a whale's gut.
And a whale never stops to savor a single fish.
Even if that fish is unbearably delicious.