Bai Chunian slid the rifle onto his shoulder, one hand in his pocket, and jumped from the high power line, landing beside Lan Bo.
Lan Bo sat on the body of a mercenary whose head had been blown apart, using the corpse’s T-shirt to wipe mud off his tail.
Bai Chunian glanced at the nearby triangular pyramid house. “Going inside? What about these guys?”
Lan Bo had already connected with the Alliance Police. Reinforcements were being sent to Red Maple Mountain to pick up the bodies and the stunned mercenaries.
“You go home,” Lan Bo shook his head. “I’m tired. I can handle this myself.”
“I’m unemployed anyway. Give me two hundred from the reward.” Bai Chunian rifled through the mercenary’s belongings, ducked under the cordon, and pushed open the door to the pyramid house.
Inside, darkness swallowed everything. Only Lan Bo’s glowing tail illuminated a patch of floor, but rainwater had pooled near the doorway. Blue-glowing jellyfish swam in it, stirred by Lan Bo’s tail.
Bai Chunian had only recently discovered these jellyfish appeared whenever Lan Bo’s tail created bubbles in water. The bubbles transformed into small, bioluminescent jellyfish—purely decorative, with no apparent utility.
The house seemed fully powered by its external solar panels. Dawn had just broken, so the interior lights were likely still dormant.
“The police assigned you to investigate this pyramid house?” Bai Chunian asked. He usually learned mission details ahead of time, but this time they were rushed—he would have to take it step by step.
Lan Bo was new to the field, so normally he wouldn’t be assigned anything too difficult. Most likely, it was because he had no social skills—his deep-sea fish expression intimidated colleagues, and he offended people without realizing it. He got tripped up by others yet assumed it was entirely justified.
Bai Chunian had also followed news coverage of the pyramid house. The original videos had been blocked by the police, but curious netizens had saved and shared them across various anonymous forums.
The videos were simple: the mysterious escape artist stood against a black backdrop, voice altered with a trembling electronic effect, explaining the rules:
“This is a super escape room built over three years. Escape enthusiasts worldwide shouldn’t miss it. It has only one entrance and one exit—I swear, there is an exit.
The reward is at the exit; the first lucky person to reach it takes it. This is my lifetime savings, a reward for your intelligence and ingenuity.
The house has heat-detection devices. If you exit within twenty-four hours, the system will unlock a gift for you—you will love it. In other words, no one dislikes it; it’s worth traveling from anywhere on Earth.
Fail, and you become respected ‘nourishment,’ laying a foundation for those who come after you.
Good luck.”
The escape artist’s hooded cloak concealed his body; only his upper torso appeared, and his voice was fully altered. There was no way to glean any clue about Leon from the footage.
“I’ve played these games before. One of my retired colleagues opened a place like this. He invited us for drinks; the entry fee was pricey—over three hundred per person. They locked us in a small room and told us to escape. I waited ages for others to emerge, only to learn they were there to flirt with NPCs. These shameless omegas were groping the NPC boys… so in the end, I was the only one taking the game seriously.”
Bai Chunian pulled out the flashlight he’d recovered from the mercenary’s body, illuminating the floor. “There are steps.” He climbed two.
He looked back at Lan Bo, who hesitated, staring at the wooden steps. No conductive surface meant the merman couldn’t cling.
Lan Bo tapped the steps with his tail tip, shaking his head to indicate he couldn’t ascend.
Bai Chunian chuckled, bent down, and horizontally lifted Lan Bo in his arms, climbing the stairs with ease.
Each step was low, about half the height of a typical residential step, but long. Cradling Lan Bo left Bai Chunian no hand free for the flashlight, so he pressed his left shoulder to the wall, counting steps silently. After thirty steps, his shoulder brushed against another edge.
“This is a spiral staircase. Going up should lead to the rooftop. Looks like a small house, roughly the size of my place.”
Fifteen more steps brought him to a puddle.
Lan Bo’s tail swished over the water, revealing a few drifting blue-glowing jellyfish.
“So… this is where we came in,” Lan Bo murmured, staring at the bioluminescent creatures.
“What the hell, the door’s gone.” Bai Chunian switched to a single-arm carry, feeling the wall. What had once been a doorway was now solid, with only the outline of a recessed door, more decorative than functional.
“I’ve been going up the stairs all this time… never walked downhill. What the hell?”
“Of course… we’re lost,” Lan Bo said flatly, flicking his tail, the tip curling around his phone with zero signal.
Bai Chunian carried him up several times, always climbing but somehow returning to the same puddle with swimming jellyfish.
“This is freaky. Normally, following this path, I’d be at the North Peak of Mount Hua by now.” Bai Chunian traced the wall textures, speculating, “It must be some kind of ghost-wall effect, an illusion-type spatial distortion… maybe we can narrow our search area. Perhaps our real bodies are passed out somewhere, and this is just my consciousness holding yours.”
Lan Bo’s expression remained blank. “Bullshit.”
Suddenly, a light flickered in a top corner. Dawn had broken outside, powering the house’s systems.
Lan Bo looked up, located the source, and sent a current through his tail to the lamp. The entire pyramid house lit up; the darkness vanished.
Now it was clear—the stairs were suspended along the wall. A few steps to the right and one would fall into a dim void below.
From their position, they couldn’t tell whether the stairs ahead led up or down. A strange oil painting blocked their view.
On the canvas was a green lizard with a protruding eye. The brushwork was exquisite, each scale rendered lifelike. Its gaze seemed to follow every step.
Bai Chunian carried Lan Bo along the steps, attempting to check the back of the painting. Suddenly, the stairs’ direction shifted without warning, now descending.
Descending led directly to the bottom; there was no path to see the back of the painting.
From the elevated perspective of being carried, Lan Bo slipped a few centimeters. Startled, he instinctively clutched Bai Chunian’s neck.
Bai Chunian caught him just in time. Lan Bo rested on his shoulder, cool lips pressing against the alpha’s neck.
At that moment, they were standing very close.
Bai Chunianstared ahead and asked softly, “Do you want to give me a bite mark?” There was a faint note of anticipation in his voice.
Lan Bo had not meant to do that. He had only brushed against him by accident.
“If you bite me, you should get bitten back. That would be more like you.”
“It did not hurt.” Lan Bo shook his head faintly.
An alpha’s gland does not contain receptor cells capable of accepting a true mark, so there is technically no such thing as an alpha being marked. However, when an omega intentionally injects pheromones into an alpha’s body, simulated marking factors are introduced beneath the skin along with them, forming a pseudo-mark. In essence, it is no more meaningful than a hickey and fades within a few days.
In the history of human secondary differentiation research, there had once been studies exploring the feasibility of mutual marking, but authoritative institutions ultimately rejected the concept. By nature, alphas enjoy control and resent restraint. Most alphas strongly dislike the idea of an omega leaving a possessive mark on them, yet they take pleasure in marking omegas to assert ownership.
“But I want one.” Bai Chuniancurled his lips slightly and pointed to the side of his neck. “Right here. Give me one.”
Lan Bo did not quite understand the appeal of such behavior.
Yet Bai Chunianraised his hand, pressed against the back of Lan Bo’s head, and forced him down toward the hollow of his neck.
“I want it.”
Lan Bo could barely breathe. He opened his mouth and bit into his neck, injecting pheromones beneath the skin.
“Tsk—” The sensation of sharp teeth piercing skin and forcing pheromones inside was painful.
A tiny blue fish-shaped emblem appeared amid the faintly bleeding bite marks.
Bai Chunianwalked to a mirror hanging on the wall and tilted his head, admiring the mark on his neck for a moment.
—
They continued down the stairs until their feet finally touched solid ground.
The space below was dim. Aside from vague outlines of furniture, nothing could be seen clearly.
A shadow in a distant corner shifted.
Lan Bo jumped down from Bai Chuneian’s arms, his tail coiling around the nearest chair to support himself upright.
Bai Chunianraised his HK417 single-handedly, aiming at the shadow.
In the silent, dark room, more than two people were breathing.
Lan Bo flicked his tail and released a spark of electricity, lighting the candlestick on the long table. One by one, the candles flared to life, illuminating the room piece by piece.
Across from them, in the opposite corner, an alpha stood holding a submachine gun. A red laser dot rested steadily at the center of Bai Chuneian’s forehead.
The gray wolf alpha clamped a slender cigar between his teeth and raised a teasing brow. “Persistent as ghosts. Why is it you two again?”
“Unit on an expedition?” Bai Chunianmade no move to lower his weapon. “We are on official duty.” He lifted his chin toward Lan Bo’s police uniform. Lan Bo retrieved his credentials from his pocket and displayed them.
When He Suowei saw the Alliance Police badge on Lan Bo’s chest, surprise flickered in his eyes. He lowered his gun first and pointed to the bold letters “PBBW” printed on his bulletproof vest.
“The Omega Alliance President requested assistance. Our superiors sent us to eliminate experimental subjects.”
PBB referred to the Pacific Biological Differentiation Base, a nationally independent military facility. PBBW specifically designated the elite Storm Special Operations Unit under its command.
“We do not have many leads,” He Suowei said, flicking ash from his cigar. “We only know quite a few unlucky people entered and never came back out. But this place seems to have only one room. No idea where the rest went. ‘Triangular Pyramid Cabin’—cute name. Creepy as hell. We spent more than half an hour just climbing stairs.”
“There are four corners in this room,” Bai Chuniansaid as he dragged over a chair and sat down, crossing one leg casually. “The ‘Triangular Pyramid Cabin’ is likely just visual misdirection. In reality, this room is probably a complete cube, mostly buried underground, with only one tip exposed above the surface.”
“Theoretically, this cube should be oriented so that one body diagonal is perpendicular to the ground. In simple terms, imagine a cube balanced on a single vertex. What I find curious is why we can maintain equilibrium inside it. It feels like flat ground beneath my feet.”
“Captain He, why are you standing so far away? Come over. I will show you something interesting.” Bai Chunianwaved him over with easy familiarity. “You are smoking something that nice—give me one.”
He Suowei tossed him a slender cigar without hesitation. Bai Chuniancaught it between his lips and leaned in to share a flame with the gray wolf alpha.
He Suowei asked casually, “He is a police officer. What are you here for?”
Bai Chuniantilted his head, revealing the small blue fish-shaped mark on his neck.
“I am the officer’s family member. This is my ID.”