As Lan Bo put on his police uniform, he lifted his arms. The moist bandages stretched over his body with a tightening sound. His round, smooth tail curled over the wavy edge of the fish tank.
He turned and saw Bai Chunian, shirtless, sitting cross-legged on the bed, hugging a pillow while playing with his phone.
The alpha’s chest bore an old, long scar, stretching from chest to side—about twenty centimeters. The injury, compounded by post-surgical infection, had left deep, uneven marks, some slightly raised, which he found unsightly. After showering and drying, he often hugged a pillow across his chest to avoid seeing it.
Bai Chunian sensed a gaze and looked up, meeting Lan Bo’s eyes.
Lan Bo stared at the scar briefly, then turned back, silently finishing dressing, fastening his leather vest.
The bedroom air seemed to thicken, almost suffocating. Phones lost their entertainment value. Bai Chunian looked down at the sheets, then pulled out a new black tank top from the bedside cabinet, putting it on and looking up at Lan Bo: “Ugly?”
Lan Bo, back turned, quietly fastened his buttons and tie.
Suddenly, a pair of hands wrapped around his waist. The alpha’s hot chest pressed from behind, heat transferring through the bandages, warming Lan Bo’s body.
Bai Chunian hugged him from behind, lips brushing the exposed side of his neck, teasing softly: “So cold.”
Lan Bo seemed uninterested in intimacy, even struggling briefly.
Bai Chunian, using his strength and size, pinned Lan Bo’s hands from behind. His canine teeth grazed the omega’s delicate nape, testing lightly.
Lan Bo looked back at him, eyes complex, as if the scar had stirred a memory, his demeanor suddenly colder and more distant.
The more Lan Bo stared like that, the more impatient Bai Chunian became. Years of tactical command in teams trained him to control members quickly from body to mind. Not being able to fully control someone made him anxious.
“Why aren’t you talking?” Bai Chunian’s grip tightened. Initially, he only wanted Lan Bo to stay still and speak. As Lan Bo struggled harder, Bai Chunian bit his neck, piercing the soft skin with his sharp canines.
The alpha’s pheromones entered the glands. Lan Bo’s body softened, collapsing onto the bed. Bai Chunian left two rows of bloody bite marks on the merman’s glands. The spicy, alcoholic scent reacted with the marking cells on the surface, forming a temporary lion-shaped emblem. The mark was temporary and would disappear once the pheromone infusion depleted.
Bai Chunian flipped the merman on the bed so he was facing him, hands braced on the mattress as he watched Lan Bo’s slightly parted lips.
Lan Bo panted, looking up at him.
From the vigorous movements, Lan Bo’s tail fin covering his lower body had lifted slightly. A small gauze pad was still in place; the wound had been freshly stitched and wasn’t ready for suture removal yet. Though the stitching was neat, tiny stitch marks were inevitable, and dried blood had formed deep red scabs along the seam. Bai Chunian knelt on the bed, stepped back a bit, placed his hands on Lan Bo’s waist, and bent down to kiss his injured body.
Lan Bo stayed quiet, waiting. Once the alpha released him, he climbed up, swung his backpack over his shoulders, and used his tail for support to stand at the edge of the bed. He raised a hand, pressed it against Bai Chunian’s head, and patted him.
Then, without a word, he left Bai Chunian’s apartment. A few faint sparks lingered on the door handle as the merman short-circuited the corridor lights while passing by, making them flicker. The apartment fell silent and empty once more.
Bai Chunian lounged on the edge of the fish tank, stirring the glowing jellyfish in the water with his hand. He had intended to sleep, but fatigue eluded him. Instead, he grabbed his headphones, settled into the living room sofa, and started watching horror movies.
On the coffee table sat a delicate box. Previously it had held a watch Uncle Jin had given him for New Year; now it contained two pearls and a few pieces of blue fish scales.
Movie after movie played, but Bai Chunian’s gaze kept drifting back to the box. Close to 2 a.m., he finally picked up the cigarette box from the table, sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, and, cigarette between his lips, dialed a number.
“Boss, you awake?”
President Yan’s voice came, still drowsy and nasal, with another person breathing closely beside him.
“Got something to discuss,” Bai Chunian said.
“I didn’t assign you a task,” President Yan replied.
“Escort counts, right? Lan Bo is on a late-night assignment, and the police station hasn’t assigned him any other support officers.”
“The Alliance Agents and the Alliance Police are two separate departments. Coordinated work requires applications and approval,” Yan said.
“Then unlock my garage and my funds. Lan Bo is staying up for a measly three-thousand-yuan bonus. I’m taking him for a motorcycle ride and a feast,” Bai Chunian insisted.
“The armory access is granted. You can take one firearm.”
Just as Bai Chunian was about to hang up, Yan called him back.
“Xiao Bai.”
“Mm?”
“At first, your mutual attraction existed because you were the only ones in the breeding chamber. You can’t force him out and expect him to be devoted to you. Don’t treat him as your property. Whether friends or lovers, don’t be overly possessive. Otherwise, you’ll hurt him and yourself. You’re still young. You’ll understand later, but I don’t want you to wake up heartbroken over something avoidable.”
“…Understood.”
Bai Chunian heard the alpha beside Yan stir, breathing closely into the phone, murmuring, “If he likes you, let him chase. Relax… little alpha isn’t that fragile.”
Uncle Jin, half asleep, took the phone and instructed Bai Chunian, “Your accounts are frozen to keep others from tracking you. They’ll be unlocked in a couple of days. I’ll have the assistant send your allowance tomorrow. If you call me at night for chit-chat, I’ll break your legs… okay, hanging up now.”
“Mm.” Bai Chunian reclined, more relaxed than before, staring at the ceiling from the sofa. After a while, he got up, shuffled to the bedroom in slippers, and found the wallpaper panel in the second column, third row. Placing his palm on it, the pattern lit up square by square, revealing a scanning screen. His fingerprint registered green, and the entire bedroom wall silently slid upward.
Behind it lay a roughly ten-square-meter space, walls lined with firearms of all types: pistols, rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles, marksman rifles, and precision rifles. A central bulletproof glass case held RPGs, grenade launchers, and flamethrowers on the lower level; mid-level shelves locked various scopes; the top tier displayed military knives and blades from renowned international units.
A wooden photo frame sat on the glass case, spotless. The photo showed Bai Chunian receiving his golden “Freedom Bird” agent badge from the president upon joining the Alliance, with Uncle Jin present—three of them in the shot.
He selected a German HK417 marksman rifle, leaning against the glass case while loading it. Since only one gun was permitted, he chose one suitable for both long-range sniper work and full-auto fire.
Red Maple Mountain lay in the neighboring city, about a two-hour drive away. Though called a mountain, it was actually a slightly elevated hill, famous for its year-round crimson maples. The area wasn’t rural; surrounding buildings and high-voltage power lines dominated the landscape. Nearby, some heavily polluting factories stood, and the hill was usually shrouded in noise and smoke, so when someone built a small house there, few noticed except factory workers, who didn’t pay it any mind.
“Recently, several excavators came. At first, we thought they were material suppliers,” locals said. “But a short while later, a pyramid-like structure appeared between the hills.”
It was only 4 a.m., still dark, the hour when people were most sleepy and least alert. Thick clouds hung overhead, with a night-long drizzle falling.
Lan Bo perched on a high-voltage power line, tail wrapped around it for balance, eyes lowered on the triangular pyramid house built between the hills. Golden hair clung to his wet cheeks, drops running down his chin to his tail. In this weather, he felt unexpectedly comfortable.
The triangular pyramid house bore a faint resemblance to a real pyramid—though a pyramid has four sides and is made of stacked bricks, this small house was completely covered in sleek, high-tech solar panels. From the outside, there was only a simple doorway; to the casual observer, it looked much like an ordinary forest hunter’s cabin.
Because of the string of disappearances, a police cordon had been set up around the house. Yet, due to insufficient manpower, the officers assigned to guard it had left before backup from the Alliance Police arrived, leaving no one near the tape.
Suddenly, a flicker of light appeared in the pitch-black forest—then went out—like the beam of a flashlight.
Lan Bo’s senses caught it instantly. He released his tail, letting his body fall naturally, and at the last moment, used silent electromagnetic support to land. Sliding along some scattered scrap steel on the ground, he moved forward.
A few alphas in camouflage short-sleeves and bulletproof vests were dragging a corpse in a police uniform toward a puddle. Blood trailed behind but was quickly washed away by the rain.
Few criminals dared to openly kill police officers; only desperate mercenaries chasing death would do such reckless things.
Lan Bo coiled among the maple branches, lazily swinging his tail, listening in on their conversation.
One black-scorpion alpha was reporting to their employer: “Our men are split into three squads. The first two squads are already inside. One crazy little cop spotted us and fired a warning shot—ha! I shot him right in the mouth.”
“Killing cops—what’s the big deal? Bunch of useless wretches. Even if a squad is sent, they’ll just fail.”
“Remember, if we get out, the ten-million-yuan reward promised by the escape expert is all ours.”
“Hmph, don’t worry. We have no interest in those crappy research materials.”
Lan Bo wasn’t skilled in eavesdropping; he could barely comprehend the coarse language, let alone extract useful information. The best course of action was to capture these mercenaries and bring them to the police station for interrogation.
Suddenly, a strong flashlight beam hit Lan Bo’s eyes. One clever mercenary, noticing the faint glow of the merman, whistled, and all the mercenaries turned their guns toward him, coiled in the tree.
The black-scorpion alpha who had just finished reporting approached. Seeing only a police-uniformed omega, he relaxed, prodding Lan Bo’s face with the muzzle of his ACR: “Look what I caught—a little blond, blue-eyed angel. Night shift must pay well for such a cute little officer, right?”
Lan Bo frowned. “No… only three thousand.”
The mercenaries laughed.
The black-scorpion alpha grabbed Lan Bo by the collar, dragging him from the tree, and finally noticed the exquisite tail extending from his lower body.
He gasped, then laughed like he had struck unexpected fortune, lewdly asking the surrounding mercenaries, “Who wants to fuck a merman?”
Whistles and jeers erupted.
“I’ve seen Tasmanian mermaids in Australia—they’re pretty, but I’ve never seen a transparent glowing tail like this one.”
“Imagine seeing your own dick through it while fucking—fucking insane!”
Lan Bo’s expression remained blank. He didn’t really understand what they were saying and had no opinion—except for the discomfort of having his hair yanked by the collar.
The black-scorpion alpha reached to touch Lan Bo’s fin. But he didn’t anticipate the surge of electricity that exploded at the moment of contact. He didn’t even have time to scream; his body instantly charred into a wisp of black smoke.
The electric current radiated outward from Lan Bo, cracking across the ground like a web of lightning. Any mercenary standing in the water-soaked ground lost control instantly, collapsing in succession.
A silenced bullet whizzed past Lan Bo’s temple, ruffling strands of his golden hair.
One remaining mercenary raised an AK at Lan Bo’s back. The bullet entered his skull silently, blood spraying, and he fell with a thud, dropping his weapon with a clatter.
Lan Bo traced the trajectory, looking up. Bai Chunian sat cross-legged atop a power line, black tank top and shorts, black baseball cap shading his eyes. A silenced HK417 rested across his legs as he propped his chin on his hand, smiling at him.