“Ah!!!”
A blood-curdling scream like a pig being slaughtered ripped through the elegant BGM of the banquet hall.
The dignitaries whipped their heads around in horror. There was the woman in the purple dress, beautiful enough to topple nations, now innocently shrinking into Qin Hongyi’s arms.
Her hand was gently pinching Wang Dayong’s index finger.
That finger was bent backward at an inhuman ninety-degree angle, the tip nearly touching the back of his hand.
“Oops.”
Gu Chen blinked, the vertical pupils in his eyes flashing for a split second before vanishing. His tone was full of apology. “Uncle, are you calcium-deficient or something? How is it so brittle? It snapped with just a little touch?”
Wang Dayong’s face twisted in agony, cold sweat pouring down. “You… you little bastard! Kill him! Bodyguards! Where the hell are you?!”
Four burly men burst out from the shadows, murderous intent radiating from them.
“Too noisy.”
Gu Chen frowned in annoyance and buried his face back into Qin Hongyi’s chest, arms looping around her neck as he hung off her completely.
“Qin Hongyi, I feel like throwing up,” he complained in a muffled voice.
Qin Hongyi wrapped one arm around his waist to steady him, took a slow sip of champagne with the other, and looked down with disdain. “If you want to throw up, go ahead. The Qin Group will cover the cleaning fee.”
“I won’t.”
Gu Chen’s voice carried a hint of willful petulance.
The next second, using Qin Hongyi’s body as a pivot, his long right leg lashed out in a blind back kick!
No one even saw the movement clearly.
Thud!
A dull impact rang out.
The lead bodyguard flew backward more than ten meters, smashing through a long buffet table. Crystal glasses and cakes exploded everywhere.
Gu Chen didn’t even turn his head.
He kept hugging Qin Hongyi, the arm looped around her neck never loosening even a fraction.
That rib-shattering kick had been nothing more than a casual stretch to him.
Silence.
Everyone froze.
The scene was too jarring.
One was a cold, domineering female president.
The other was a peerlessly beautiful woman clinging to her like a delicate bird.
The two of them were wrapped up in each other, all lovey-dovey, while injured men lay groaning on the ground around them.
“Is… is that her personal bodyguard?” someone swallowed hard. “That’s a goddamn human bioweapon!”
Wang Dayong clutched his broken finger, shaking from the pain, and was now scared witless by the terrifying display of power.
He pointed at Qin Hongyi, blustering. “Qin… Qin Hongyi! You’re letting your subordinate commit violence! I’m calling the police! I’m going to let the entire capital know you’re a lunatic!”
“Call the police?”
Gu Chen smiled.
He finally lifted his head from his human charging station, eyes dangerous.
“Chairman Wang, are you referring to the well you filled in the western suburbs to secure that plot of land…” Gu Chen extended a slender finger to his lips in a shushing gesture. “Or the three billion you lost at the Aomen to launder money?”
Wang Dayong’s scream cut off abruptly, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. “You… who the hell are you?! How do you know?!”
Those were top secrets!
No one knew except the Gu family’s young master who had haunted his nightmares back then!
“Who I am doesn’t matter.”
Gu Chen released one hand and casually straightened Qin Hongyi’s collar.
“What matters is that, starting today, the rules of this capital are decided by President Qin.”
He turned, his gaze sweeping over the deathly silent guests.
“Whoever agrees, whoever opposes?”
The hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
The high-and-mighty elites who usually lorded over everything didn’t dare breathe too loudly.
In this so-called canary, they saw the shadow of the man who had once made the entire Beijing business circle tremble.
Gu Chen.
But that man was supposed to be dead…
“I’m tired.”
Having finished showing off, Gu Chen instantly went limp again, slumping back against Qin Hongyi. He didn’t want to hold himself up for another second.
“Home.” He mumbled into her ear. “I’m hungry. Want to eat meat.”
Qin Hongyi looked at the man in her arms whose face changed faster than flipping a book. The frost in her eyes melted into a bottomless dark surge.
She loved this version of Gu Chen far too much.
Powerful. Dangerous. Yet completely dependent on her to survive.
The thrill of dragging a god down from his pedestal and locking him beside her as her private property made her blood boil with excitement.
“Alright, let’s go home.”
Qin Hongyi casually tossed aside her empty champagne flute. The sound of it shattering was oddly pleasing.
She ignored the mess on the floor and the paralyzed Wang Dayong, wrapped one arm around Gu Chen’s waist, and strode arrogantly out of the banquet hall under everyone’s eyes.
…
The elevator doors slid shut slowly.
In the confined space, the suffocating pressure eased a little.
But Gu Chen didn’t loosen his hold on Qin Hongyi. If anything, he clung tighter.
“That kick earlier pulled a ligament,” Gu Chen complained, frowning pitifully. “My body is still too fragile. Next time remind Buddha to prepare a gun.”
Qin Hongyi leaned against the elevator wall, letting him wrap around her like an octopus.
“Gu Chen.”
“Mm?”
“You looked exactly like a dog relying on its master’s power to bully others just now.”
“Thanks for the compliment.” Gu Chen closed his eyes, completely shameless. “As long as I can bite people, what’s wrong with being a dog? By the way, President Qin, your heart was beating pretty fast earlier. Did this young master charm you?”
Qin Hongyi didn’t answer.
She raised her hand, her fingertips gently kneading the soft spot at the back of Gu Chen’s neck. Her eyes were dark and unreadable.
She was indeed charmed.
Charmed enough to want to stop the elevator right now and devour him clean in this metal box.
Ding.
The ground floor.
The moment the doors opened, a chilly draft rushed in.
Gu Chen’s eyes snapped open. His body tensed instantly, all laziness gone.
“Don’t move.”
He gave a low warning and shoved Qin Hongyi back into the corner of the elevator, using his body to block the view of the entrance.
The parking lot was empty and silent.
But in Gu Chen’s enhanced hearing, at the ten o’clock position under the hood of a black Maybach, a timer’s faint countdown ticked away.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
And the person sitting in the driver’s seat.
Even from dozens of meters away and through bulletproof glass, Gu Chen could smell it.
It wasn’t gunpowder.
It was the stench of rot mixed with a salty sea smell—like decayed wood.
The unique scent only monsters that had crawled out of Eden Project’s living hell would carry.
“What’s wrong?” Qin Hongyi sensed something off and quietly reached for the spare gun at her waist.
Gu Chen stared fixedly at the Maybach, pupils contracting slightly.
The car’s window slowly lowered halfway.
It revealed half a deathly pale face and a dark gun barrel.
The man didn’t fire.
Instead, he flashed Gu Chen an extremely provocative gesture.
He pointed at his own heart, then at Gu Chen, and grinned, mouthing words silently.
Even from this distance, Gu Chen’s god-like eyes read it clearly.
He said:
“002 sends his regards.”
The temperature in the parking lot plummeted.
The smell was overwhelming.
It wasn’t the fishy stench of a seafood market—it was the sour, moldy reek of a corpse soaked in water for ten years, fished out, dried, and left to rot.
Gu Chen’s stomach spasmed.
With his sense of smell now at divine levels, it was the equivalent of having his skull pried open and corpse water poured straight into his brain.
The Maybach’s window rolled all the way down.
The man in the driver’s seat wore an ill-fitting white suit, collar pulled tight.
He had no eyebrows. Beneath the bald brow ridge were vertical pupils identical to Gu Chen’s when he went berserk.
Only Gu Chen’s were molten gold. His were murky, dead gray.
“001.”
The man bared his teeth, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs like a shark’s. “Or should I call you big sister?”