AN: So sorry for the delay. Please leave a review for this dear author. Thank you so much. Happy reading and happy fri-yay!
Gander's laughter echoed through the tunnels, low and venomous, slithering across the dark and grimy walls like a curse. "As expected," he sneered, eyes gleaming with cruel delight, "you are stupid."
Yu Xi's breath hitched.
The voice, Xiaobao's voice, had called out moments before, trembling and desperate. But it was a lie. A cruel illusion. Gander had used his twisted technology to replicate it, each syllable engineered to pierce Yu Xi's heart.
"Where is your brother?" Gander growled, his voice thick with menace. His psychic aura surged outward, a suffocating wave of pressure that wrapped around Yu Xi like iron chains. The air grew heavy, toxic. Yu Xi's lungs screamed for relief, his body wracked with excruciating pain.
But he smiled.
Dying like this… it wouldn't be so bad.
Then, with sudden resolve, Yu Xi bolted toward the wall and slammed his head against it with no hesitation and no fear. The impact cracked bone, blood blooming across his temple.
But Gander wouldn't let him escape so easily.
In the haze of agony, Yu Xi saw her... his mother. Gentle as ever, but her eyes were filled with sorrow. " Xi Xi, who did you leave Xiaobao with?" she asked, voice trembling. "Who will protect him if you're gone?"
Yu Xi's heart fractured anew. He couldn't leave at least not yet. Not while Xiaobao still needed him. If he couldn't live for himself, he would live to ensure his brother had a chance at something better.
He clawed his way back from the brink. Because Xiaobao deserved a life untouched by monsters.
A week later, Yu Xi woke up in a damp cell, the cold biting through his skin like needles. Ever since that day, his father became something far worse than monstrous. Gander was no longer just a tormentor. He was a beast cloaked in human flesh, a sadist who delighted in psychological ruin.
Every day, Gander whispered threats like poison. "When I find your brother," he would hiss, voice thick with malice, "I will tear him to pieces right in front of you. Better yet, I will make you do it."
Yu Xi's heart had died that day. The boy who once clung to hope was gone. What remained was a hollow vessel, dark and soulless, driven by a single, burning purpose: to kill his father.
For three years, he endured the agony of experiments, needles, psychic suppression, starvation. But he never screamed. Never gave Gander the satisfaction.
Now, the time had come.
Yu Xi slipped the sharpened weapon into his pocket, its weight a promise. He closed his eyes, listening to the compound settle into silence. The night deepened. The guards grew sluggish. The air thickened with stillness.
He was no longer prey.
He was a predator silently calculating his next move. Like a beast lurking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Hours later...
Yu Xi opened his eyes to a silence so complete it felt sacred. The compound had finally gone still. The sound of footsteps and the distant hum of machinery had stopped. The guards were no longer chattering endlessly.
Just the cold breath of vantacite walls and the slow, deliberate rhythm of his own heartbeat.
He shifted the bed slightly, his movement feather-light and imperceptible. Every motion was calculated, honed by years of captivity. With practiced fingers, he peeled back one of the vantacite sheets lining the wall. Beneath it, the true surface was revealed. It was aged alloy, cracked and imperfect.
Here was the thing. Gander was brilliant in his research, meticulous in his cruelty. But he overlooked the mundane. This cell, chosen for its dampness and chill, was connected to the old ventilation system, an obsolete network no longer monitored. And right behind the vantacite panel was a narrow vent, just wide enough.
Gander had gloated when he locked Yu Xi in this cell. "Let's see how long you last before you start hunting rats," he had said, denying him food, hoping to break him.
But Yu Xi had endured.
Seven days without touching a crumb. He knew his worth to his father. He was a prized specimen, the one whose psychic potential could fetch him fortunes thus Gander wouldn't let him die. It was because of the rats that he discovered this vent. Yu Xi finally had the upper hand.
The second fatal mistake his father made was never upgrading the psychic suppressant collars. Gander had them maintained, yes, but by careless, underpaid technicians who barely understood the volatile nature of Esper containment.
One of them hadn't even noticed when Yu Xi, silent as a shadow, slipped a pair of precision tools from his box and hid them in the vent he'd already pried open days before.
His father's small oversights were accumulating like rot beneath polished marble. And Yu Xi would be the crack that shattered it all.
He used the stolen tools to pick the rusted chain locks, each click a quiet triumph. Then, with practiced ease, he jammed the collar's signal and removed it. He had tested the method before, he knew it would work.
He placed the collar on the bed, nestled beneath a pile of his threadbare shirt and pillow, creating the illusion of a sleeping prisoner. The vantacite sheet slid back into place with a soft scrape as Yu Xi crawled into the vent.
It was narrow, damp, and crawling with vermin. The air reeked of mold and rust. But Yu Xi didn't flinch. He moved with purpose, each motion deliberate, each breath measured. He knew exactly where he was going.
As he passed the vent overlooking the two guards from earlier, his thoughts turned violent. He imagined slicing out their tongues, letting them choke on their own blood, drowning in the crimson pool of their cruelty. But not yet.
His father came first.
Yu Xi reached the vent in the storage room adjacent to Gander's private quarters. With silent precision, he pried it open and slipped out, his movements fluid and ghostlike. His stealth was impeccable, honed by years of captivity and observation. He stood by the door, his aura flickering faintly, weak from suppression, but still potent, still dangerous.
The hallway was empty.
He stepped out, barefoot and silent, each footfall a whisper against the cold floor. He approached his father's bedroom slowly, deliberately. Word had spread that Gander had begun using a psychic sleep aid, a drug that dulled his powers to allow rest. Yu Xi planned on exploiting that vulnerability.
Still, part of him wished his father were awake.
He wanted him conscious. He wanted him to feel every ounce of pain, every echo of vengeance, for killing his mother, for torturing Xiaobao, for mutilating women and children in the name of research.
Yu Xi didn't hesitate.
His fingers curled around the cold metal knob, heart pounding like war drums in his ears. Nerves twisted in his gut, but resolve burned hotter.