The man watched as his bodyguard trembled on the floor, suddenly finding the whole thing tiresome.
He knew finding her would be difficult—but if it were easy, why would he even keep these people around?
Still, if he lost all his men, there’d be no one left to do his bidding.
"Any movements from *them* recently?"
The bodyguard knew exactly who "them" referred to. "Our sources report no activity so far."
*They’re this patient?*
"Keep digging!"
The bodyguard bowed and turned to leave—only to be called back.
Heart pounding, he braced himself as his master’s impatient voice rang out. "Find a way to get rid of this cat."
The damned thing was too fragile. Keeping it here only slowed him down. Better to send it away before it croaked—he didn’t need *her* blaming him for its demise.
The bodyguard’s face twisted in silent despair, but he had no choice.
*Exits are already under heavy surveillance, and now I have to smuggle out His Highness the Night Cat? Safely?*
*...Impossible.*
With a sigh, he retreated.
---
Alone, the man strode to the floor-to-ceiling window. After a long pause, he pushed the curtains apart with his sharply defined hands, revealing the glittering cityscape beyond.
Memories surfaced—
As a child, he’d been brought to S City to learn the family business. Endless dull negotiations had worn his patience thin until, one day, he slipped away unnoticed.
That was when he saw her.
A sly-faced man was coaxing a little girl to follow him. Even as a boy, he recognized evil—this was a trafficker.
He sprinted over, yanked the girl behind him, and glared the man down until he fled.
Only then did he turn to the child—and forgot how to speak.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. A literal angel, glowing with an otherworldly radiance that seared into his soul.
Even now, decades later, he remembered every detail.
The fluffed princess dress. Crystal shoes. A tiny crown perched atop golden curls, one tendril brushing her shoulder. And those eyes—sapphire pools that made her seem untouchably regal.
Yet her expression was adorably vacant, especially when she blinked up at him with those galaxy-filled eyes. *He’d have given her the world right then.*
Porcelain skin. A face crafted by heaven itself. Love at first sight—the kind that ruined all other women for him forever.
Before he could ask her name, his bodyguards dragged him away.
*"Big brother, this is for you! Daddy just bought it—I really like it, so here’s one for you!"*
She’d pressed a hairclip into his palm, its twin still nestled in her curls. He’d treasured it like holy scripture, later locking it in a vault for safekeeping.
Of course, his escape earned him harsh punishment—but the memory of her sustained him through years of torment.
*She was his reason to keep living.*
So why couldn’t they find her? With features that distinctive, it should’ve been simple. Unless...
*No.* She was God’s favorite. Nothing bad could’ve happened.
Hands shaking, he poured himself a glass of water and downed it in one gulp.
Only when his pulse steadied did he tap a hidden panel, letting the curtains swallow the night once more.
---
**H City**
Qi Jiayou had shed his designer suit for off-the-rack casual wear, blending seamlessly into the crowds.
His local contacts had provided ample intel in just two days, but extracting the Yun siblings would take precision timing.
Spread across his hotel room were blueprints of the Yun family’s ancestral compound—their current prison. Every exit, every blind spot memorized.
*One shot. One extraction.* Rumors said their condition was deteriorating.
His team had worked miracles gathering this much intel undetected. Now, it was up to fate.
---
**S City · Abandoned Warehouse**
Mu Jingxuan scribbled frantically, his handwriting degenerating into near-illegible scrawl.
His mentor sighed. *If I didn’t know this brat, I’d think he was writing in code.* Since when did a young master abandon all calligraphic grace?
And those dark circles... The old man’s usual mischief faded. "Kid, rest. You’ll make mistakes at this rate."
The boy had already achieved the impossible—reverse-engineering the drug’s exact composition from trace samples.
Mu Jingxuan barely glanced up. "If this drug is usable, we need *complete* understanding—its mechanisms, its patterns, *everything*."
Originally, he’d hoped to isolate the original compounds. But the fusion was irreversible. Now, they had to weaponize the hybrid.
And that required anticipating *every* variable—hence the avalanche of notes burying his desk.
His mentor eyed the paper graveyard. "You realize you’ve theorized *hundreds* of permutations?"
A grim nod. "And I’ll test them all."