The Shao Jin Mansion was a secluded 1,200-square-meter estate, standing since the early 20th century on the city peninsula of Aphid City. Generations of owners had lived reclusively, and few knew the full history.
Through successive renovations, the mansion now radiated a strong sense of technology, entirely devoid of the old, private-residence aura.
The mansion had five floors, though only the first through fourth were open. The fifth floor, always lit, remained unoccupied except by delivery staff or cleaning maids. Rumor held that the owner lived there, never stepping out.
On the easternmost part of the first floor was a gaming room. Monitors and consoles lined all four walls. A reptile omega, hoodie pulled over his head, pink candy stick in mouth, lounged in an ergonomic chair, tapping at a dozen screens with oversized headphones on.
To his left, a butterfly omega curled in a hanging white swing chair. Domino, clutching his laptop, hunched over the cushion, gnashing his teeth, two antennae bristling from his curly hair.
“Pisses me off,” Domino slammed the keyboard.
The reptile lifted one headphone off an ear. “What are you doing?”
“Arguing with a human,” Domino said. “They swear so much I can’t keep up. Typing isn’t fast enough—help me think of a few comebacks.”
The reptile, hoodie pouch in front, slid over, candy in mouth, gently taking Domino’s laptop. A black dialogue box appeared on the screen. He typed several lines of white English commands, ending with the IP address of the person Domino was shouting at online.
“Done. He’s quiet now.” The reptile returned the laptop, candy stick back in place, headphones on.
Domino flipped back to the argument page. The other person’s messages were gone.
“That’s nothing. He can just make a new account,” Domino muttered, dejectedly stroking his messy curls, antennae drooping.
“Nope,” the reptile said, leaning back. “He won’t be able to send messages online for the next ten years.”
The reptile’s J1 gland ability, “Virtual Prison,” could capture a user’s life ID and imprison it for any set duration. The incarcerated ID could not log into any network terminal; previously uploaded information would be forcibly hidden. Phones or computers wouldn’t connect; ID cards and bank cards wouldn’t register. Essentially, the user was isolated from the entire global network.
Domino’s excitement returned. Hugging the laptop, he exclaimed, “I have so many people I hate—put them all in prison too!”
Two light knocks sounded on the gaming room door. A black panther alpha walked in, clad in a black trench coat, sapphire ring on his index finger.
Seeing the two little omegas mischiefing together, the alpha frowned. “Domino, have you finished what I told you?”
Domino straightened, laptop in arms, antennae wiggling. “The Envoy just left the training base. Four scouts followed. Why rush?”
The alpha moved past Domino, leaning over the reptile’s chair. “Show me the modeling progress.”
“Here.” The reptile typed a few commands. The screen displayed a silhouette analysis of Bai Chunian. Only his left arm was filled with 3D color. Clicking it revealed a full page of running metrics, tiny, dense, precise.
“Right now, only test case 324 has been used to probe him,” the reptile explained. “The Envoy deliberately conceals strength. If experimental subjects aren’t strong enough, he won’t act. Plus, he has the Electro-Phantom with him, so there’s even less chance he intervenes.”
“I can’t fabricate battle data. It must be based on real engagement, like 324 with the Envoy. The battle in the Prism House with the No-Form Stalker was meaningful—at least the Envoy’s left hand broke through defenses and grabbed him.”
“But the info’s limited. I only know the Envoy is left-handed, J1 ability is skeletal reinforcement, M2 ability is nullification. I know left-hand attack speed, strength, and defense, but all other data still needs gradual collection.”
The alpha fell silent.
“Can we track his next mission target?”
“No. The IOA Alliance tech department has an expert who encrypts key personnel communications so thoroughly that even ordinary calls can’t be decrypted.” The reptile shrugged. “But I know one octopus experimental unit has reached the western Atlantic. That’s close to Electro-Phantom’s territory. If the Phantom runs into trouble, the Envoy certainly won’t stand by. You could follow and see.”
“No. Too dangerous there,” the alpha said steadily, weighing the risks. “Contacting the Phantom outside the coastal zone is our safety baseline.”
Domino tiptoed and suggested, “Or we could send a stronger experimental unit to intercept the Envoy. With the Phantom absent, he’d have to act himself, quickly and decisively.”
The alpha didn’t think it was a good plan. “Even if we want a quick fight, he still only uses his left hand. Repeated battle data is useless to us, and he’s sharp. If he knows we’re blocking him from the Phantom, he’ll be wary and treat us as enemies.”
“No problem. I’ll relay that an alliance agent is leaving the country to the Red-Throated Bird organization. To prevent the agent from interfering with their octopus project, they’ll send someone to block him. If luck is on our side, I might get some new battle data.”
At that moment, one of the screens popped up with an email notification—sent by Bai Chunian.
The reptile leaned back in his chair, then quickly sat up. “The Envoy sent this.”
Domino leaned closer. “What does it say?”
“Request detailed information on Experimental Unit #809. As a reward, you may submit a single request to me within three days.”
“Good opportunity. Think carefully about what to request,” the reptile replied evasively to Bai Chunian. “Are the scouts still following him?”
“They are.”
Bai Chunian sat leisurely at a single-person table in a dockside fast-food restaurant, ordering fries and chicken wings. He dipped fries into ice cream while returning a borrowed phone to a nearby child to send emails.
He looked up through the floor-to-ceiling glass at a short-skirted employee handing out flyers outside, then shifted his gaze to a man in a striped shirt diagonally across from him.
The man noticed Bai Chunian’s eyes, raising his newspaper to block the line of sight. When he lowered it, Bai Chunian’s seat was already empty. Only leftover chicken bones and an empty fry box remained.
He pressed the micro-comm in his ear and whispered, “The Envoy isn’t here.”
The flyer-giving employee outside casually responded, “He’s in the crowd. I can’t see clearly. Send No. 4 after him.”
No. 4 replied, “I can’t find him. Maybe he went toward No. 3’s area.”
Bai Chunian lounged lazily on the restaurant roof, licking his ice cream as four disoriented spies scurried below. He finished the tart shell, licked his fingers, then casually jumped off the roof in the opposite direction, landing on a docked yacht’s motorboat after scaling the anchor ropes, tracing an arc across the water toward the port airport.
He carried credentials prepared by the Alliance tech department and boarded a long-haul plane with ordinary passengers. Changing into casual clothes, a white shirt tucked into black-and-white silk scarf and suspenders, he reclined in the business-class seat, eyes closed, waiting through the long journey.
Before leaving the training base, Bai Chunian had a long conversation with the “little brat,” learning about many oceanic cultural practices he had never understood.
The little brat explained that merfolk are a highly intelligent species, akin to humans on land.
Most merfolk alphas are striking and graceful, but leadership isn’t based on alphas. Instead, the strongest omegas are chosen as leaders.
There is another criterion: if a baby is born with glowing scales, it’s considered a gift from the ocean, and the child is acknowledged as a future leader.
Because infants can’t protect themselves, glowing scales in the deep sea are extremely dangerous—they attract predators, including giant sea creatures.
Thus, when such a baby is born, the mother and tribe scrape all the scales from the tail and bury them in the seabed. The scales regenerate, still glowing, and the process is repeated—an immense pain for the infant.
However, merfolk subjected to this repeated stripping of scales grow increasingly strong, naturally qualifying to succeed as leader.
The little brat’s family lived by the sea for generations, deeply familiar with the ocean. They knew about shipwrecks, naval torpedoes, hurricanes, fish migrations—any event in their waters.
Seventy years ago, a mid-ocean ridge volcanic earthquake occurred. At that time, the merfolk population totaled 3,097, migrating with massive fish shoals under the leader’s guidance. Calculating from the start of the eruption, migration would have been incomplete before disaster struck. Elders initially feared the ocean would no longer harbor living merfolk.
But the eruption stopped halfway; remaining lava solidified, ceasing its upward flow. While heat still caused mass fish deaths, the feared catastrophic destruction didn’t happen, and no species went extinct.
Later, the elders discovered a scorched, shattered blue sphere had rolled from the hardened lava into the trench, remaining unseen for seventy years.
In that time, the tribe changed leadership. How the new leader gained trust was unknown, but when the former leader returned, he was exiled as a deserter who had abandoned his people—a fate unsurprising under the circumstances.