The motorcade they had seen yesterday in the central plaza did, in fact, belong to the "royal family."
That Shi Geye had been holed up in the slums, surrounded by a bunch of shady-looking characters—and yet was somehow connected to royalty.
Haipo and Claw-Arm Guy had probably spotted her on the big screens in the plaza and recognized her. That's why they'd come knocking so quickly.
Valia was typing rapidly on the monitor screen. After a while, she looked up.
"I told the royal staff multiple times that you're not in any condition to receive visitors. They still insisted. Even in quarantine, they want to see you—just for a moment."
Her tone was cool, clearly irritated.
She muttered, "Taxpayers spend tens of millions every year to support this family, and it's still not enough for them—they have to come disrupt other people's work, too."
Her voice was quiet, but Pei Ran caught every word.
Pei Ran followed her lead. "Yeah. Just thinking about it is enough to piss me off."
Valia nodded. "Aside from feeding the rumor mill, they've contributed absolutely nothing to the Federation."
Pei Ran asked, "So who's coming to see me?"
"Someone called Xing Wuxian. The second prince—though the monarchy's long been abolished, people still refer to them as princes."
"Word is Xing Wuxian arrived in Heijing yesterday. That same night, Chief Executive Basserway even threw him a welcome banquet," Valia scoffed. "A banquet—while people are dying everywhere."
Pei Ran said, "I've never really paid attention to royal affairs. Don't know much about them."
"Nothing worth knowing," Valia said. "Absolutely useless trivia."
She mentioned the "second prince"—which, of course, meant there had to be a first.
Pei Ran asked, "What's the name of the eldest?"
"Yan Xun," Valia replied. "Those two are the public-facing ones. As for how many illegitimate children there are in the shadows? Who knows."
Pei Ran cautiously asked, "What's their family name?"
She wanted to know what they were called, how many of them there were—she needed clarity.
Valia answered, "They claim to be descendants of the gods, so they have no surname. Every royal has only a given name. The names are usually bizarre—probably to make sure no one mistakes them for ordinary people."
She sighed. "See? We've wasted all this time talking about them, and I was supposed to go over your precautions for the next few days."
She carefully repeated the instructions: Pei Ran was to closely monitor the state of the manic-phase green light inside her body. If anything felt off, she was to call for help immediately.
Pei Ran nodded in agreement.
Valia added, "I checked your medical records. You've been on that anti-rejection drug from Volin Pharmaceuticals—JTN35, right?"
Pei Ran nodded. "Yeah."
Valia asked, "Things are a mess out there. Do you still have enough? I can prescribe a box for you. If that runs out, come to me again. Heijing doesn't carry some rare meds, but we happen to have JTN35 in stock."
That medicine Pei Ran had fought tooth and nail to find—crossing cities and facing death—could be casually prescribed here in Heijing. The thought made her heart ache.
Outside Heijing, there were still countless others who had taken part in the Volin Group's experiments—people now struggling to survive each day without enough anti-rejection meds.
The intercom screen by the door lit up. Valia walked over, said a few words, and turned back.
"They're here. They'll meet you here in this room. I've already told them—they only get a few minutes. I'll see you again tomorrow for your routine check-up."
Valia left.
Pei Ran stood quietly in front of the glass wall that separated her from the outer room. She reached out and pressed a hand against the transparent barrier.
It felt just like the synthetic clear materials she was so used to chiseling through—not quite like glass, not so cold.
This was a quarantine room, built to contain even the mutated, manic-phase fusion beings. The wall had to be extremely strong.
She tried to summon the green light in her mind.
Still completely dormant.
She looked up and noticed the camera on the ceiling rotate slightly, almost like it had cocked its head to one side.
Pei Ran tilted her head the same way. The camera immediately shifted its angle in the other direction.
The movement was subtle—but noticeable.
It was telling her: I'm here. I'm watching everything.
This was a quarantine center, blanketed in surveillance. It was unlikely anyone would make a direct move on her here.
On the other side of the glass, the outer room's door opened.
Two uniformed staff members from the center entered first, escorting the visitors in.
Behind them came a group of tall bodyguards in pitch-black combat gear—like a murder of crows.
Then a man in his thirties stepped in. He was dressed immaculately in a suit and tie. The snow-white cuffs and collar of his shirt gleamed under the lights. Every part of him looked overly polished.
Pei Ran thought, This guy can't be the second prince. No way the second prince dresses like an insurance salesman.
The insurance guy walked in, caught sight of Pei Ran's freshly shaved head, froze for a second, then quickly looked away—embarrassed. He stood stiffly by the door, hands clasped in front of him, posture perfectly straight.
Finally, another figure walked in—unhurried.
A young man, maybe twenty-seven or twenty-eight. The moment Pei Ran laid eyes on him, a chill ran down her spine.
He looked far too much like Shi Geye.
Especially the eyes—that narrow, elongated shape at the outer corners was identical. And the way he raised his brows, sizing people up like they weren't even worth his attention—it was uncanny.
Shi Geye was younger, though—and always in a wheelchair, his frame fragile and birdlike, as if the wind could blow him away. This man, by contrast, was clearly healthy: tall, broad-shouldered, long-legged.
This had to be Xing Wuxian.
His outfit was the exact opposite of the insurance guy's. He wore a simple gray cashmere sweater, the collar of an Oxford shirt peeking out from underneath, paired with comfortably tailored khaki trousers. No accessories, except for a black ring on the ring finger of his right hand. When he moved, it occasionally caught the light and flickered faintly.
He glanced at Pei Ran expressionlessly. His eyes briefly landed on her bald head. Like the insurance guy, he paused—but then arched an eyebrow.
A bodyguard immediately stepped up and placed a chair behind him.
He sat.
At that moment, another figure briefly appeared in the doorway, but remained outside.
Even in that split second, Pei Ran recognized him.
It was Claw-Arm Guy—the one whose mechanical limb she had ripped straight off back in Shi Geye's courtyard.
Now, his right arm had neither a sleeve nor a prosthetic—just an empty shoulder. It looked strange.
Xing Wuxian sat, silently studying Pei Ran.
She watched him through the glass, then turned to glance behind her and slowly made her way to the end of the bed used for scanning. She sat down.
Here is the translated passage, adapted to be clear and immersive for a Western audience while preserving the names and atmosphere:
The fabric inside the workshop reeked of formaldehyde. Some of the materials were especially vivid in color—synthetic, toxic, and unnaturally bright. In small quantities, they were deemed safe enough for the consumer market. But here, the workers were exposed to hundreds of times that amount during processing. Long-term inhalation was harmful—how harmful, no one here actually knew.
If someone caught a coworker slacking off, they could report it to the guards outside. But unless there was serious bad blood, no one really did it.
No one wanted to operate like a machine from clock-in to clock-out. Turning a blind eye now and then made everyone's lives easier.
Zhang Chi asked, "Choose what?"
Zhou Ke replied quietly, "Are you… going with the Judge or the Tigers?"
Zhang Chi said, "Neither."
Zhou Ke blinked. "What?"
She bent down, picked a fresh spool of cotton thread from a nearby basket, and repeated, "I said I'm not choosing."
Zhou Ke fell silent.
After a while, when his cellmate got up and left for the bathroom, he leaned in a little, almost close enough to touch her shoulder, and said, "Do you… look down on me?"
Zhang Chi paused her threading. "What?"
His voice trembled. "I—I know what people are saying about me. And I thought maybe… you think that way too. That's why I haven't dared to talk to you lately. I was afraid."
Zhang Chi found it confusing and a little surreal.
Then Zhou Ke said, almost like confessing a crime, "I'm gay."
Zhang Chi: "…"
Was that supposed to be worse than being a criminal?
Zhou Ke continued, "He and I—we're in love."
Zhang Chi didn't know what to say.
She finally murmured, "Uh… I hope you two are happy."
Zhou Ke: "…"
"You're mocking me, aren't you?" His voice sounded wounded, almost pathetic.
Zhang Chi really didn't know how to respond now.
"I knew it. I knew you'd think that about me."
"It wasn't like he forced me. I wanted it. I like him. He likes me. It's not what everyone says—selling dignity or whatever. He's good to me. I've always liked people like him. We're good together."
Zhang Chi asked, "...So?"
Zhou Ke choked up, then said softly, "Nothing. I just wanted you to know. You're my friend. I didn't want you to get the wrong idea."
Zhang Chi suddenly remembered something she'd heard once, though she couldn't recall where: "A princess needs to be loved because the king will never grant her the same rights as the prince."
Trying desperately to prove you're loved—because that love is all you have to compensate for the lack of power.
When you can't match someone in power, you convince yourself their affection means they won't hurt you—and try to convince the world that this wildly unbalanced dynamic is actually fine.
Zhang Chi nodded. "Got it."
She looked down and resumed stitching the teddy bear.
A few minutes later, a large hand came down and pressed over her work.
She looked up to see Zhou Ke's cellmate standing in front of her. He towered over her. Standing, her head barely reached his chest. Seated, she was only level with his waist. Her eyes first landed on the badge pinned to his uniform: 093. Then she saw his chiseled jaw, his beast-like jaw muscles—and his furious stare.
Zhang Chi was about to ask what was going on when she heard it: soft sobbing. It must've been going on for a while, but she'd been too focused on her work to notice. The sound was faint and came from right behind her.
She turned her head.
Zhou Ke was curled over the table, eyes red and swollen.
093 was the only person standing in the workshop—a six-foot-three brute blocking someone else's workstation. One by one, more and more eyes turned toward them.
Zhou Ke looked up and tugged on 093's sleeve, sniffling, "Don't. You'll get the guards involved…"
Zhang Chi looked at Zhou Ke. "What's wrong?"
Zhou Ke hesitated, about to respond, but 093 cut in first: "Mind your own damn business."
Zhang Chi: "?"
She frowned, confused, but before she could ask anything else, 093 sat back down.
Zhou Ke didn't answer her question. Instead, he looked at 093 and whispered, "It's fine. Let them say what they want."
5:10 PM. Five hours and fifty minutes until Free Activity Day began.
After dinner, Zhang Chi returned to her dorm, carefully reread the Points Manual, reviewed her notes from the final class about Free Activity Day, and combined that with everything she'd picked up from other inmates throughout the week.
She arrived at several conclusions:
You must work at least three hours on Free Activity Day, or you'd lose 2 points.
But Free Activity Day wasn't strictly monitored—no check-ins in the morning, no badge collections at night. The badges updated on Saturday were valid for two full days. If you had enough points to spare, you could just skip work altogether. Some of the long-timers did exactly that.
All points stop accumulating at 9 PM sharp.
Even one second late didn't count.
Most inmates had no weapons.
You weren't allowed to smuggle items from work back to the dorm. But mechanical prosthetics didn't count as weapons. Officially, they were medical devices. But once they hit the black market, many were custom-rigged to be deadly.
No doubt about it—cyborgs had the upper hand.
Zhang Chi closed the manual and pulled out a screwdriver-like tool from the foot of her bed. It was slightly longer than her palm and could be hidden in a sleeve, pant leg, or shoe sole.
She slipped it under her pillow—for now.
Once the clock hit midnight, the Hunt would begin.
No one ever said the violence only happened during the day.
But something didn't feel right.
It was too quiet.
She opened her door, stepped into the corridor, and hugged the wall as she walked. Most of the rooms were completely silent. She stepped back a few paces, stood on tiptoe, and peered over the metal bars of the main door.
Empty.
Not just her floor. She looked down from the fifth-floor railing—no movement on any level.
The silence was so total, it felt unreal.
Like a hallucination.