Over the next week, Zhou Jiao went to work as usual.
The only difference was that she began, consciously or not, paying attention to the news coming out of Yucheng.
Since the headquarters of Biotech Corporation was located there, news outlets normally never skipped over it. But for some reason, in the past two months, only a handful of stories had mentioned the city—and none of them said a word about Biotech.
Rumors began to surface on social media: something unimaginable had gone wrong inside the company.
People claimed that Yucheng locals could no longer even see Biotech's towering building. Manufacturing partners had reportedly lost contact with senior executives two months ago.
Though these rumors didn't spread widely online, the market had clearly caught wind of something. Biotech's stock price was in a total freefall, plummeting with no end in sight.
Analysts estimated the company had already lost over $200 billion in value. Some warned that if the drop continued, it could trigger mass layoffs and even food shortages across regions.
Biotech, after all, held patents for a vast number of synthetic foods. If their partners couldn't reestablish contact soon, production would grind to a halt.
Panic buying swept through supermarkets. Shelves were stripped bare of synthetic products. Insect protein bars, once $1 a piece, surged to $50.
And while organic food was also facing a supply crisis, the urgency simply didn't compare—wealthy people had private cultivation systems for that.
The general public, however, was drowning in anxiety, unsure how they'd make it through tomorrow.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Biotech held a press conference.
The speaker was Araki Isao.
He looked dramatically older than he had two months ago—his hair had turned entirely white, fine lines now etched around his eyes, nose, and mouth. No longer the sharp, youthful man he had once been.
Still, even like this, the distance between him and an average man in his fifties remained vast. The chasm between corporate elites and ordinary people wasn't something that could be erased by a market crash.
Araki's voice was hoarse as he began:
"I apologize for our silence… None of the executives have appeared publicly during these past weeks because we were undergoing a critical board vote."
He paused.
"The results are in. The board has voted to remove the former CEO from office and appoint Mr. Jiang Lian as our new Chief Executive Officer."
A wave of gasps swept the room.
Biotech was a family-run company. Every CEO had borne the name Fujiwara. This was the first time they'd named someone from outside the bloodline.
Reporters immediately sprang to their feet, abandoning all decorum as a barrage of questions erupted:
"Jiang Lian?! Mr. Araki, can you tell us more about this new CEO's background?"
"A sudden leadership shakeup could further destabilize the financial markets—especially when the new CEO is an unknown. Biotech has already lost $200 billion in valuation. Is the board planning to start a new financial crisis?"
"Mr. Araki—!"
But Araki's eyes swept across the crowd coldly. His voice hardened like steel.
"The company has no obligation to explain its decisions to you."
And with that, the press conference was over.
The chaos died instantly.
Zhou Jiao was surprised—but also not. Somehow, it all made sense.
Jiang Lian had the ability to manipulate people's minds, and with his horrific, limitless ability to replicate himself, if he truly wanted it—becoming a CEO was trivial. He could rule the entire world if he chose.
So that's where he'd been for the past two months. Studying how to take over a corporate empire?
Her face didn't change, but something inside her twisted.
The discomfort was strange. Unfamiliar.
After some thought, she chalked it up to disappointment—until now, she had always been the center of Jiang Lian's attention. Whether he despised her or not, he had only ever looked at her.
Now, suddenly, there was a company in his sights. And it seemed to matter more than she did.
The sting was natural.
Besides, Jiang Lian wasn't entirely ignorant of strategy. She knew he harbored another personality—brilliant and cold, with antisocial tendencies. Maybe this whole act, the absence, the dramatic public appearance, was that persona's ploy—to provoke her, lure her back in.
Thinking this, Zhou Jiao calmly pushed the entire event out of her mind and went back to work, as if none of it had happened.
That evening, as she was leaving the office, acid rain began to fall from the sky without warning.
But this was not like the rains of the past.
This time, the chemical burn rate had reached skin-blistering levels. Recent studies even detected E. coli in dangerous concentrations. People stayed dry at all costs.
Zhou Jiao waited under the office awning with others who'd forgotten umbrellas.
Then suddenly, her nerve endings tingled. A familiar chill crept through her spine.
It was a slow-motion moment out of a horror film—time seemed to freeze. The mist halted in the air. Raindrops hung mid-descent.
Pedestrians stopped in their tracks. With a sickening crack of vertebrae, one by one, their heads turned toward her. All of them. Unblinking.
Zhou Jiao's skin erupted in goosebumps. Her heart slammed hard against her chest.
—Jiang Lian was here.
No one else found the scene strange. The people around her stared with the same glassy-eyed focus.
A man in a crisp black suit, holding an umbrella, approached her.
His movements were jerky, unnatural. His face looked like a corpse.
"…Here," he said. "An umbrella. For you."
Zhou Jiao hadn't felt this in weeks—real excitement. Despite the falling temperature, her heart thudded so hard it hurt.
The electric thrill coursed through her veins, pounding in her ears—but her face stayed perfectly neutral.
"No thanks," she said coldly. "I don't need it."
The "man's" breath hitched. His face twisted briefly.
He said nothing. He simply stepped aside.
A moment later, more people approached.
Each one with an umbrella.
Each one with the same line:
"For you."
"For you."
"For you."
Dozens of umbrellas extended toward her.
Zhou Jiao, facing the eerie wall of staring strangers, finally smiled—for the first time in two months. A real, genuine smile.
And still, she said:
"No, thank you."
In an instant, every eye turned sharp and malicious, their gazes like ice-cold arrows.
—She still wouldn't accept him.
In the crowd stood Jiang Lian—tall, straight-backed in a long black coat, golden-rimmed glasses glinting. His eyes never left her.
He knew she didn't want to see him.
That's why, for days, he had stayed away.
He had followed human customs—given her time, space.
From Jiang Lian's knowledge base, he had learned that to win someone's affection, you needed beauty, grace, and wealth.
Beauty? He had that. With his replication powers, he could become anyone. Human forms were simplistic. His real limbs were strong, fluid, capable of taking any shape.
Other suitors couldn't compete.
Grace? He ignored it completely.
He didn't care for human society. He loved Zhou Jiao—not the outdated culture she came from.
That left only one missing piece: wealth.
So he took the time to acquire it.
Taking over Biotech had been simple. All he had to do was walk into the building—people fell into worship, exalting him as their leader.
Even so, it still took two months to formalize the paperwork and secure his place as CEO of a multinational giant.
He didn't care for the company.
He only wanted Zhou Jiao to see him differently.
She ran because it was in her nature.
So he would change nature itself.
The cold-blooded predator had learned to suppress the instinct to devour—and instead tried to offer her a gift.
She wouldn't accept him.
Fine.
But she could at least accept the gift.
Yet still, she refused.
—The umbrella was only the appetizer. She rejected him before he even served the main course.
Jiang Lian's eyes reddened, veins creeping into the whites like cracks in porcelain.
Out of Zhou Jiao's sight, countless tendrils stirred.
They crept forward like mold blooming in darkness—changing color to match the environment, camouflaged to the human eye.
She was being ungrateful.
So very, very ungrateful.
Why go to such lengths to court her?
Wouldn't it be easier to just snatch her and lock her away?
Now that he had control over Biotech, there was no way she could escape him again like last time.
Invisible tendrils inched toward her face, stopping just a breath away from her lips.
The "people" around her had already been assimilated—mere puppets under his command.
Each held a different colored umbrella, unmoving, watching her with cold, detached eyes.
With just a single thought, he could make it so she'd never escape again.
But.
But——
Rather than imprisoning her forever, he only wanted one thing:
A kiss.
A willing kiss.
It had been far too long since their lips had touched.
Far too long since he'd tasted the saliva that once flowed sweetly between them.
Just watching her from a distance stirred up a monstrous, aching hunger inside him.
He wanted to grip her jaw and force her mouth open, wait until saliva welled at the base of her tongue, threatening to spill over—
Then devour her mouth with ravenous force.
Jiang Lian's pupils contracted into narrow slits—like a predator locked in on its prey.
Though this hunger was pushing him to the edge of madness, he forcibly held himself back.
Just then, Zhou Jiao lifted her head and smiled gently at the people offering her umbrellas.
The sky was gray. The smog was gray. The acid rain fell in a dull, ashen haze.
Everything was gray—except for her.
She was vibrant, alive, heartbreakingly beautiful.
She raised one finger and lightly touched her lips, as if unaware.
Every single "person" locked their eyes onto her hand, watching as her finger traced over her soft, red lips.
This moment was etched into countless pupils, no angle missed. Even the delicate lines of her lips were captured in painful detail.
Through the acidic rain and fumes, "they" could smell her—sweet, heady, intoxicating.
In an instant, all those eerie, cold gazes turned blood-hot and fevered.
Jiang Lian didn't move a muscle. His tongue tingled just watching her, as if he'd already tasted her.
He didn't understand why, but the two conflicting instincts within him began to tear him apart again:
Rip her apart. Keep her forever. Rip her apart. Keep her. Rip her apart.
RIP HER APART.
...No. That would mean losing her.
He had to approach like a human, court her like a human, or she would continue to reject him.
Jiang Lian shut his eyes. His Adam's apple bobbed with effort, swallowing down the surge of violent, destructive desire.
With that motion, the throats of all the "people" around him moved in unison—swallowing hard.
Then, he heard Zhou Jiao say:
"I don't want an umbrella from a stranger."
...She thought he was a stranger.
Before the thought even had time to fully form in his mind, a voice—low and loathsome—sounded deep within him:
"She means you should give it to her yourself, you idiot."
A grotesque twitch passed over Jiang Lian's face, and for a moment, he wanted to torment that human voice into insanity before finally consuming him.
But he endured.
Because of Zhou Jiao, he'd learned patience.
He had to endure.
He needed that human—needed him to explain the baffling rules of human courtship.
Steeling himself, Jiang Lian stretched out a hand, palm open.
Immediately, one of the "people" passed him an umbrella.
Fluorescent yellow, cheerful and bright—perfect for a couple to share.
Jiang Lian opened the umbrella and walked toward Zhou Jiao.