Lan Bo placed a hand on Bai Chunian’s shoulder and examined him from head to toe. “Are you hurt?”
Bai Chunian shook his head. “The researchers at the breeding facility aren’t very skilled.”
Lan Bo ran his hand down Bai Chunian’s arm. He found no wounds, but he did feel the Dead Sea Heart Rock dagger clenched in Bai Chunian’s left hand. Frowning, he snatched it away and restored it to its original form as Dead Sea Heart Rock.
Bai Chunian knew he was in the wrong. He hung his head, not daring to say another word.
“Let’s go home.” Lan Bo squeezed his hand tightly. “Come back with me.”
“Um, I suspect Eris is recording us.”
“Oh?” Lan Bo glanced back at Eris, who was trying to slip away. “Recording?”
“There’s electronic static in his right eyeball,” Bai Chunian said.
Taking advantage of their distraction, Eris had already released a curse-laden golden thread to wrap around the building across the way. Just as he was about to climb over the railing to escape, his name was suddenly called out.
A blue bolt of lightning vanished from beside Bai Chunian and reappeared behind Eris.
“Hand it over.” ”Lan Bo placed his hand on Eris’s shoulder from behind, yanking him off the railing. He locked his arm around Eris’s neck from behind, then without warning, dug his right hand into Eris’s right eye socket. His long, sharp, dark-blue nails tore into the socket, gouging out the eyeball. The entire process was carried out without a moment’s hesitation—brutal and completely unexpected.
Eris let out a scream of pain, clutching his empty eye socket as he tumbled off the rooftop.
The Black Panther, who had witnessed the entire scene, opened his mouth slightly. Although his purpose in coming had been to stop the fight between the Divine Messenger and the Curse-Bound, with the Divine Messenger’s Summoner present, the situation was now beyond his control.
“But it doesn’t matter. As long as I make sure none of them perish prematurely, the mission is complete.”
Lan Bo tossed the eye he’d snatched to Bai Chunian, then turned and leaped off the skyscraper alongside Eris.
“That’s not fair! I’m not playing with you guys anymore! A divine messenger like you actually asking your wife for help? I look down on you!” ”Eris had already crossed swords with Lan Bo and knew just how formidable this merman was. In the midst of the torrential downpour, he stood no chance against him, so he clung to the cursed golden threads, darting swiftly between the skyscrapers as he fled toward the waiting helicopter. After grappling with Bai Chunian for so long, his stamina was completely depleted, and he had no hope of standing up to Lan Bo.
But just as he rounded a corner, a bolt of lightning struck from the sky. Instantly, Eris felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck, as if something razor-sharp had bitten into him, and his body went limp behind him.
Lan Bo clamped his jaws around Eris’s neck and began climbing up the smooth facade of the building. Eris, held fast, was jolted against the window frames along the way, leaving him dizzy and disoriented.
Lan Bo didn’t take him back to where they’d started; instead, he climbed straight toward the breeding facility, which had been struck by lightning and was now burning in the downpour. When he reached the glass wall he’d smashed through, he tilted his head back and flung Eris inside, along with his shotgun.
“Take care of everyone who’s still alive,” Lan Bo said, looking down at him from the shattered glass.
“You… want me… to clean up after Bai Chunian?” Eris fell to the ground, sitting there with his head tilted back, unable to believe his ears. “That Black Panther standing over there was a Demon Envoy. Why didn’t you drag him in?”
Lan Bo reached out toward him; rainwater coalesced in his hand into a transparent water-steel rifle, which he aimed at Eris. “Do it, or die.”
Eris struggled for a while, but eventually raised the shotgun and took out the researchers still trying to escape, one by one.
Bai Chunian had already landed on the observation deck of the breeding base. Hooking his leg over a crossbeam, he hung upside down, holding Eris’s camera-eye in his hand, its pupil aimed directly at Eris. “Bro, smile for the camera.”
“Fuck, why me? Nix, can you hear me? They’re—they’re—come save me!” Eris had never felt such humiliation in his life, but Bai Chunian had already shredded the communicator in his ear, so he couldn’t contact his Puppet Master now.
Such is the nature of the glands that govern the bond between them: when the two are in the same place, their combined power makes it impossible for anyone to stand against them.
At four in the morning, the breeding facility lay in ruins. The Red Fox City police cars arrived late, surrounding the rubble.
Red Fox City was far from Aphid City. By the time Lan Bo dragged Bai Chunian back to the apartment, it was nearly afternoon.
Only after stepping inside did Bai Chunian breathe a sigh of relief. Breathing in the familiar, warm scent of the room, his whole body relaxed.
His clothes were soaked through by the rain, clinging wetly to his skin. He wanted to head to the bathroom for a shower, but the moment his hand touched the doorknob, it was wrapped by a slender fishtail.
Bai Chunian quietly studied Lan Bo’s expression. It was so gloomy it looked like he might eat a child; his eyes were half-closed, and his blue pupils, narrowed to vertical slits, glared at him sternly.
“I’m sorry, I know I was wrong,” Bai Chunian said, scratching his cheek.
“Wrong?” Lan Bo asked coldly.
“Yeah, I shouldn’t have used your stuff to do something you told me not to do.” Bai Chunian crouched down, obediently looking up at him and twitching his fluffy ears.
“You think you can get away with this?” Lan Bo grabbed his collar with surprising strength, lifting him up to face him. “Take off your clothes.”
“Hmm, are we going to sleep? I’ll go take a shower.” Bai Chunian knew his wife was all bark and no bite; as long as he acted a little cute, she could never really stay mad at him.
Just as his hand touched the doorknob, a jolt of electricity snapped his hand away.
“Going to sleep?” Lan Bo sat down on the sofa and tapped the floor with the tip of his tail. “Stay right here and take off your clothes.”
The pain from the electric spark made Bai Chunian realize just how serious the situation was.
Lan Bo seemed genuinely angry.
Bai Chunian stiffly walked over to the sofa, silently lifting the hem of his tank top, pulling it up inch by inch starting from his abdomen, then tossing it to the floor.
“Pants.” Lan Bo didn’t even look at him, turning his head to stare out the window.
“Please, honey… you don’t have to go this far.” Bai Chunian moved closer to Lan Bo, trying to hug him, but Lan Bo suddenly shot him a sharp glance: “Go take them off!”
Bai Chunian bit his lip, slowly undoing the buttons and pulling down the zipper. The waterlogged pants stuck to his thighs, so he could only peel them off bit by bit.
Now he was left wearing nothing but a pair of black briefs and a collar.
“Get down on your knees. Rest your hands on the coffee table.”
“……” Bai Chunian hesitated for a moment, then knelt down one leg at a time, resting his hands on the coffee table.
The half-piece of Dead Sea Heart Rock left in Lan Bo’s hand slowly elongated in his palm, forming a long black ruler. He weighed it in his hand, then raised it and lashed out at Bai Chunian’s back.
The Dead Sea Heart Rock was very hard, but it had no flexibility whatsoever. Moreover, the damage it inflicted on the test subject was equivalent to that of a conventional weapon on a human—the wounds would not heal immediately.
A heavy, muffled thud echoed through the room. Bai Chunian let out a muffled groan and, caught off guard, stumbled forward a few steps. If not for his hands braced against the coffee table, he would likely have fallen face-first onto the floor.
The blow was indeed brutal. A long, white mark appeared on Bai Chunian’s back, visibly turning red before slowly oozing a few drops of blood.
“I told you I would punish you.” Lan Bo lifted Bai Chunian’s chin with the crystal ruler, staring at his pained expression as he struggled to suppress a cry. “I spoiled you too much, letting you do as you pleased. How many strokes do you think you deserve?”
Bai Chunian replied softly, “It was my mistake to act without consulting you, but those researchers deserved to die. If you’re hitting me for this, go ahead.”
Another stroke of the ruler struck the side of his thigh. Drops of blood seeped from the mark, and Bai Chunian’s body trembled imperceptibly, yet his face remained defiant.
Lan Bo hadn’t been truly enraged like this in many years. After calming down for a moment, he looked down and said, “Do you think you handled this perfectly? If Eris had succeeded, the whole world would be against you. Of course, I’m not afraid—but dare you say you aren’t afraid either?”
“No, I’m confident.” Bai Chunian lifted his chin. “Satan has predicted every possible outcome of this situation for me. No one can stop me.”
Lan Bo raised his eyelids slightly. “Divining different futures… that requires at least a Level 3 ability.”
“With me here, he can.” Bai Chunian clenched his teeth and forced a smile. “The Formless Stealth Walker provided an alibi for me during the Aphid City Fishing Festival, while the Reptilian and Duan Yang gave me the intrusion replication chip. Taking the chip will destroy all the data left there—no one will ever know I did it.”
“You’re crazy.” Lan Bo slammed down a ruler. “You’ve been distracted these past few days—I have no idea what you’ve been thinking. You’ve been pestering me to OBE just so I’d fall into a deep sleep and let you slip out in the middle of the night. You’ve deceived me. I’m deeply disappointed.”
“Give it back.” Lan Bo grabbed the crystal collar around Bai Chunian’s neck; the moment it touched his fingertips, it melted back into its Dead Sea Heartstone form and returned to his hand. “It’s because I gave you this that you’ve been acting so recklessly.”
Bai Chunian grabbed his wrist to stop him from taking it back, his eyes wide: “No, don’t take this.”
Lan Bo shook off his hand, raised the crystal ruler, and lashed it against Bai Chunian’s palm, then struck him several more times across his body, leaving bloody welts. Bai Chunian lowered his head in despair, gritting his teeth as he braced himself against the table, his entire body covered in a layer of cold sweat, his eyelashes damp.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” Bai Chunian murmured hoarsely, his head bowed, a droplet of water hanging from the tip of his nose. “I was born in the breeding facility. I didn’t care how they tortured or trained me, but the way they treated you—I can’t stand it. It’s unforgivable. Even if the chairman finds out and fires me, I’ll kill them. “If you’re in pain, I’m in pain. I can’t sleep or eat. I can’t accept this. Would Christians allow others to trample on Jesus? I’m the same—I simply can’t control it. And my little white fish… it’s gone. They even threw it roughly on the ground to take a CT scan. How could it possibly survive? I haven’t had enough fun yet. Not a single one of them will live.”
Lan Bo took a few shallow breaths and stopped.
Bai Chunian looked up at him, his eyes clear and free of any impurity.
“Go wash up.” Lan Bo turned his back on him.
Bai Chunian struggled to his feet and, leaning on the wall, limped into the bathroom.
Lan Bo wiped away the pearly droplets seeping from the corners of his eyes, crawled onto the bed in the bedroom, and lay on his side, pretending to sleep. This time, he didn’t sleep in the fish tank.
A little while later, Bai Chunian returned from his shower, tiptoed to the bed, and seeing that Lan Bo was already asleep, quietly squeezed in beside him.
Even though there was plenty of room on the side of the bed behind Lan Bo, Bai Chunian insisted on squeezing into Lan Bo’s embrace, burying his head against his chest, curling up, and slowly closing his eyes.
He hadn’t had a single good night’s sleep in days; his body was already exhausted beyond endurance. With a weight lifted from his heart, he breathed in Lan Bo’s faint scent and drifted into a drowsy unconsciousness.
Lan Bo opened his eyes slightly and gently ruffled the alpha’s hair nestled in his arms.
He pulled his phone from under the pillow, tapped the keys slowly, found the camera function, and, somewhat clumsily, snapped a photo of Bai Chunian, who was fast asleep in his arms.
The injuries inflicted on the test subjects by the Dead Sea Heart Rock could not heal quickly. At that moment, Bai Chunian’s body was covered in scars left by the ruler, and they looked extremely severe.
Lan Bo slowly opened his contacts, found Yan Yi’s name, and, somewhat clumsily, extended his index finger to tap out the message letter by letter: “Beaten him up. Three broken bones.”
Then he sent the photo.