At this moment, Zhou Jiao was slurping noodles in a ramen shop.
A bandage was wrapped around her hand, faint traces of blood seeping through with every movement—but she didn't even flinch. Halfway through the bowl, she found the noodles not spicy enough and added two heaping spoonfuls of chili paste.
Over the past three days, she'd been scattering bloodstained clothes all over the city while investigating the identity of the person behind "Biotech's Collapse."
And it turned out she really had found something.
A street vendor told her that there used to be a white-collar worker who would frequently come around and hand out supplies to the local homeless.
Because such a good Samaritan was rare, people in the area remembered him vividly—even six months later, they could still describe what he looked like.
"He looked like a genuinely good person," the vendor said. "He didn't just give food to the homeless—he even tried to help them find jobs. But homeless people are still homeless. All they want is a free meal. Even if he found them work, they'd be fired within a week."
Zhou Jiao finished her noodles, took a big sip of the spicy broth, and still didn't feel full. She ordered another bowl.
"And then?" she asked.
"Then? That guy got really pissed. First time we'd ever seen him mad. After that, he stopped coming around. The homeless folks disappeared, too. No one knows what happened."
The vendor leaned in. "—Are you a friend of his? He rented an apartment nearby. There's a rat infestation there lately—rats everywhere. He hasn't been back in months. Maybe check if he left any important documents behind. Don't let the rats chew them up."
Zhou Jiao took the fresh bowl of noodles and slurped again.
"Alright, I'll head over. Thanks for the tip."
"No problem," said the vendor, rubbing his hands. "If you see him, can you ask whether they're still hiring for that security job? My son just graduated. He's looking for work…"
Zhou Jiao calmly nodded. "Sure, I'll ask."
After finishing, she peeled off her old bandage. The wound beneath was beginning to heal again.
Unfazed, she clenched her fist, forcing the wound to reopen. Blood welled up immediately, soaking into the bandage.
She wasn't sure why, but in the past three days—despite barely sleeping and constantly being on the run—her energy had only improved. Her wounds were healing faster and faster.
She remembered what Jiang Lian had once said: without his energy transfers, she would've starved to death by now. He must've given her something—whatever it was, it made her feel strangely energized.
Zhou Jiao frowned.
What the hell was Jiang Lian doing? Chasing her down on one hand, and pumping her full of energy on the other?
Was their fundamental disconnect due to a difference in species—or just mental instability? Because from where she stood, even among monsters, Jiang Lian didn't seem particularly stable.
Zhou Jiao thought about it for a moment, then brushed the whole thing aside.
She wasn't about to let herself spiral into madness just to figure him out. She was still young—she wasn't ready to lose her mind.
Following the vendor's directions, she found the apartment building. It was a low-security building—the kind a high schooler could hack with a wire.
She plugged her personal cable into the door's interface. Two seconds later, it unlocked with a click.
A wave of mildew hit her face. The room was caked in dust, littered with rat tracks. Yellow waterproof tape around the window had been chewed into a gaping hole, letting rain drift in and soak half the wall.
On the plastic floor sat a box of unfinished locust pizza, now bloated with white mold.
Zhou Jiao pinched her nose and stepped around the pizza.
It was clear the company had already been here. Everything had been ransacked—even the inside of the sofa wasn't spared. The leather, the foam—it was all slashed apart. Springs lay exposed like torn sinew.
Zhou Jiao sighed in disappointment and rubbed her temple. She was about to leave when she heard voices and footsteps approaching outside:
"We've already searched this place three times. Why are we back here again today?"
A pause. Then another voice: "Less talk. More work."
"Bro, it's not that I don't want to work—it's just dangerous around here. Haven't you seen the news? People have seen things around here. Monsters."
"Believe me. If you don't work, the company will become more terrifying than any monster."
Before they could enter, Zhou Jiao slipped out the window.
From their conversation, she gathered two important things:
First—Jiang Lian had arrived. For some reason, he wasn't maintaining his human form.
She knew it was him, not some other variant, because only he would be referred to as "the monster." Any other mutant would have been neutralized or contained by the Special Bureau within an hour.
Second—the company had somehow learned she was on to something and wanted to re-search the apartment before she could.
But it was the first point that truly shocked her.
What happened?
Jiang Lian had stopped maintaining his human form.
Ever since she discovered his real identity, he'd always looked like "Jiang Lian"—like something had anchored him to that face and body.
She had assumed he'd keep that form until she uncovered the secret of his arrival.
Three days of running had worn her down. She'd considered turning around to confront him. But this new development made her think twice.
When Jiang Lian lost control, it was best to stay far, far away.
She didn't want to be back in his grip two days later, forced to play another round of that sick survival game.
If he enjoyed the thrill of the hunt so much, let him have a proper chase.
Zhou Jiao tossed her old bandage and tightened a new one. Then she turned toward a nearby bar.
These past few days, she'd figured something out: nothing masked her scent better than a sex worker's outfit.
Maybe it was all the different clients they encountered. When she wore their clothes, even Jiang Lian had trouble tracking her scent.
—
Another bloodied bandage.
Jiang Lian stepped forward, bent down, and picked it up.
Blue neon flickered overhead. His expression was even darker than the lights—his eyes locked onto the bandage in his hand.
Then suddenly, as if something inside him snapped, he bowed his head. His breath grew ragged. Like an addict succumbing to withdrawal, he buried his nose in the cloth and inhaled deeply.
At first, when he found something that smelled like her, his instinct was to destroy it—tear it apart, burn it, keep it away from anyone else.
But over time, that changed. He no longer wanted to destroy her clothing. Now, even a used bandage felt precious to him.
He clutched it to his chest, Adam's apple bobbing, sniffing obsessively—almost reverently. He even pressed his lips to it, sucking the bloodstains left behind.
He didn't want to share her scent with the feelers. As he inhaled, his face remained eerily calm—no cracking, no spasms. He looked almost… normal.
But anyone watching this obsessive, deranged act would know instantly: this man was not normal.
His craving for Zhou Jiao's scent made his eyes bloodshot and fevered, thick with disturbing, sticky longing. He looked like a madman. A lunatic. A predator.
Eventually, he lifted his head, eyes glowing a terrifying shade of red.
Not enough.
He needed more.
Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao. Zhou Jiao…
Where are you?
Come see me.
—
Inside the bar.
Lights flashed red and green. Music pounded through the walls. The air was thick with sweat and alcohol.
Zhou Jiao had just bought a jacket off a dancer and was drinking at the bar, planning to leave right after. And then—
She heard her name.
"Zhou Jiao…"
Who?
She spun around, alert. But saw nothing.
"Zhou Jiao, Zhou Jiao…"
"Zhou Jiao, Zhou Jiao, Zhou Jiao…"
Maybe it was her imagination, but the air suddenly felt damp. She heard waves crashing faintly in her ears. The dancers in the pit began to slow, moving like sluggish bottom-feeders, reeking faintly of brine.
A strange atmosphere filled the space.
Then—one by one—the dancers jerked their heads toward her. Their bloodshot eyes gleamed with obsession, their movements stuttering like broken machines.
"…!"
Zhou Jiao shivered.
What the hell?
They stared at her, their faces glitching like corrupted screens—wild, erratic, unhinged.
Zhou Jiao, Zhou Jiao, Zhou Jiao…
Look at us.
Look. Look. Look.
He's looking for you.
Go back to him.
Go back, go back, go back.
Return to his side, return to his side, return to his side.
Zhou Jiao jumped to her feet and jammed her fingernails into her palm. Pain lanced through her hand—she was bleeding. Not a dream.
She'd thought the past three days of running had driven her into a hallucination.
But what was this?
Did Jiang Lian lose the game and throw a tantrum?
Or had he gone three days without being close to her—gone so mad with hunger that he was now breaking reality around her?
Zhou Jiao's mind raced.
She didn't know which explanation to believe.
But if it was the first—then showing herself now would be suicide.
If it's the latter…
Could it really be the latter?
Did she really have that much influence over Jiang Lian?
Could it be that just three days without seeing her had left him so desperate that he infected an entire bar with his madness?
—No.
Zhou Jiao narrowed her eyes, lashes fluttering as she observed the expressions on the people around her more closely. This wasn't possession. It felt more like some overwhelming, bizarre magnetic field had distorted their minds.
At that moment, a hand clamped tightly around her wrist.
The bartender's eyes twitched violently in their sockets as he bent his head uncontrollably and inhaled deeply against the wound on her palm.
"You smell so good... So good, so good, so good... Go back to him. He's looking for you. The game is over. Go back to him... Go back to him... He's looking for you."
Zhou Jiao's brows twitched. She grabbed the glass on the table and flung its contents in the bartender's face. As he instinctively recoiled, she took three large steps back.
But more hands were already reaching for her.
Their eyes twitched just like the bartender's, their faces twisted with crazed obsession as they reached out to grab her.
Yet, before their hands could touch her, an invisible force repelled them.
A strange, low hum vibrated through the air around them:
"—Don't touch her."
In that instant, Zhou Jiao turned and fled from the bar.
The street outside was relatively calmer.
But she'd only taken a few steps when she felt the hot, sticky weight of countless stares clinging to her skin.
She turned around—and a chill pierced straight through her skull.
At some point, everyone had stopped moving. The boy wearing headphones, the man with the briefcase, the woman in red fishnet stockings, the office worker still holding a phone to her ear... All of them were frozen in place, their pupils glued to her like the damp legs of a fly stuck to syrup.
What made Zhou Jiao's scalp prickle was that these stares were completely unconscious.
It was like magnets locking onto iron, like frogs zeroing in on flies—they didn't move, just stared. Their eyes followed only her, inch by inch, as she moved.
…What the hell is Jiang Lian doing?
Since he'd proposed this game of deadly hide-and-seek, that question had looped endlessly in her head.
Three days in, she, the prey, had somehow stayed sane—while he, the hunter, seemed to be losing his mind?
She couldn't make sense of it.
But whatever. If he wanted to see her that badly, he probably wouldn't harm her.
Zhou Jiao exhaled slowly and stood still. She looked at those deadlocked eyes and said aloud:
"I won't run anymore. Let him come see me."
After a pause, she added warily:
"But if he's coming just to kill me, then don't bring him here. Because I will run again. And this time, I'll run somewhere he'll never find me. You know, scent is just a chemical signal—it can be altered. All I did was change a few clothes and he couldn't even smell me out. Give me a lab, and I'll completely erase myself from his senses."
Her words dropped into the air like stones into still water. Everything froze.
The expressions around her began to twist. Blood vessels crawled through their eyes like red spiderwebs. The way they stared at her now was as if they were ready to tear her apart.
"You... are threatening him."
It was a grotesque scene. Anyone with even slightly weaker nerves would've collapsed in terror.
But Zhou Jiao felt something else rising inside her—something like a thrill.
The monster was obsessed with her.
He couldn't let her go.
Whether he still harbored the intent to kill her, hated her, or desired her in some twisted, monstrous way—none of it mattered. The fact that he couldn't let her go was enough to excite her.
He had handed her the rope himself.
Now that she had it in her hands, she would never let it go.
Zhou Jiao smiled faintly. "Yes. I'm threatening him."
As she spoke, she peeled off the bandage around her hand, revealing the wet, crimson wound.
"Either accept my terms—or we keep playing this game. Honestly, I think I'm getting addicted."
Countless pairs of eyes stayed locked on her, wild and ravenous.
It was a nightmarish scene—every person on the street staring at her, unmoving, their noses twitching madly as they tried to inhale her scent.
The temperature plummeted. The air felt thick, like seawater was flowing all around her. There was a subtle resistance in every breath, a chill that seeped straight into the bones.
Zhou Jiao had never felt Jiang Lian's power so tangibly before.
He was powerful, terrifying—nearly omnipotent.
If he wanted to find her, he would.
He was everywhere, like a ghost.
Even if he couldn't reach her in person, his strange magnetic fields and haunting frequencies would still surround her, like a virus that couldn't be killed—once infected, you were never truly free again.
And yet, this terrifying creature—this monster—was actually hesitating because of a human's threat.
They stared at her hand, their eyes flickering and convulsing.
They craved her scent, her blood, the invisible thread of saliva that clung to her words. But more than that, they feared her running, feared her bleeding, feared her pain.
No one knew how long the silence lasted.
Then, all at once, they spoke in one chilling, synchronized voice—an inhuman resonance vibrating in the air:
"I accept your terms."
The monster had relented.
He had bowed his head to a fragile human being.