The simulated sun rose and set. When bright sunlight returned, the city’s central clock tower chimed nine slow strikes. An announcement with electronic tones and music followed:
“Exam time is halfway over. Surviving examinees, well done! System detection shows surviving examinees are below 5%, far lower than the usual 12% pass rate. The ranking method is now adjusted to team combat score. Exam ends when only members of the same team remain. Teams ranked in the top thirty at the end are considered qualified. Other rules remain unchanged.”
Live leaderboard:
- Ghost-Hunting Team
- Random Squad
- Have A?
- Empire Awakens
- Bug
- Construction Crew
- Wind Xiao Xiao Xi
- Dare to Hit Your Dad
- Mad Dogs
- Four Confused Faces
…
“Keep it up, examinees. End of announcement.”
Random Squad was second. Bai Chunian exhaled, grateful to Ghost-Hunting Team for making their own performance less conspicuous.
“The sniper from Wind Xiao Xiao Xi’s Spirit Squad is still alive?” He counted out anti-explosion devices and distributed them. “Be careful, I underestimated him.”
By evening, Bai Chunian hadn’t made any more moves. Instead, he booked a hotel for the whole team to rest.
The front desk clerk smiled politely and asked, “Sir, do you have a reservation?”
“No.”
“All right, sir. We currently have two two-bedroom suites available. Would that work?”
“Wait… people from the exam are staying here too? Shouldn’t all the rooms be empty?”
The clerk simply repeated a few polite, scripted lines. Bai Chunian didn’t bother arguing. He turned and assigned the rooms: “You three share one.”
Lu Yan frowned. “No way am I cramming three people into that tiny room.”
The Crow Omega politely expressed concern that sleeping with Lanbo might result in being accidentally strangled by his tail in the middle of the night.
“Go ask if they have any more rooms? Pay five times the fee and just make them give you a room. Kick whoever’s inside out,” Lu Yan demanded, accustomed to getting his way.
“Enough, young master,” Bai Chunian said, slapping a key card into Lu Yan’s hand. “This place is secluded, far from major loot zones, and we’ve cleared nearby teams. Nobody should bother us. Go to sleep, wake up at four in the morning.”
Inside, the room was decorated in a European elegant style. On the first floor, a bed faced the door; a wooden spiral staircase led up to a second bed in the loft.
Bai Chunian glanced at the wall clock. It was nine p.m.—plenty of time to rest for seven hours. With their trained stamina, two days of high-intensity combat wasn’t a problem. The priority now wasn’t chasing kills or stars; they had enough points. Low-profile survival was the wiser strategy.
He thought, If another reckless squad shows up and we accidentally top Ghost-Hunting Team, that’s too risky. He considered maybe letting a few little Omegas from the Have A? team grab some kills to help control rankings.
Yawning, Bai Chunian lay down, relaxing. He glanced at Lanbo, who still clung to the steel security door without moving.
“You sleep upstairs,” he said, rolling onto his side, back to Lanbo.
“No.” Lanbo eyed the wooden staircase. Since it was non-conductive, he couldn’t cling to it—he couldn’t go up.
“Then sleep downstairs. I’ll go up.” Bai Chunian began to get up, but a cold body pressed against his back. Before he could move, a slender arm wrapped around his waist. Bai Chunian flinched and grabbed the wrist, lifting it away from his side.
But Lanbo pressed closer, forehead resting lightly against Bai Chunian’s tensed back. His long tail curled around one leg, murmuring as if to soothe: “Don’t move.”
“You’re hot.”
“I… will… hurt,” Lanbo whispered.
The special operations experiment subject’s learning ability was extraordinary. In less than two days among humans, he had already learned some basic verbal expressions.
In the past, Bai Chunian hadn’t really spoken with Lanbo; communication had been mostly through pheromones. Hearing this clear, cold, and pleasant voice—slightly cool and more mature than Bai Chunian had imagined—was new.
“Don’t get so close,” Bai Chunian teased, lips curling. “There’s no inhibitor here. You sure you won’t… do something?”
“True. Anyway, you’re not inexperienced. Besides me, you’ve been with plenty of Omegas in the breeding chambers.” Bai Chunian relaxed against his pillow, still back to him, murmuring, “You can bear their children. Why not mine? I tried hard.”
In the lab, high-quality Omegas were rarer than Alphas. When raising a new generation, Omegas were shared if breeding resources were scarce. A successful Omega rested roughly three months before being sent to the next breeding chamber; failure meant immediate reassignment.
Bai Chunian had spent six months with Lanbo. One day, after training, he returned to the breeding chamber to find the little fish he’d been waiting for gone. When he asked the researcher, he was told that Lanbo had been removed after failing to conceive, and a new Omega would be assigned in a few days.
The complex explanation was too much for Lanbo to understand. All he caught was the word “baby.” He stared blankly, then lowered his hand to his smooth, flat abdomen, touching it lightly.
“But you’re still in the growth phase. Doing it makes you curl up in a corner, cry for a long time. The space is so narrow, you swell, need medicine every morning. I train while you’re left alone all day.” Bai Chunian exhaled slowly, chuckling softly. “If I’d known you’d become like this later… I shouldn’t have been human then.”
“What about the next Alpha… were they rough?”