Chapter 40: Hermès Edition Meteor Hammer

Damn it.

Gu Chen bit down hard on his tongue, using the sharp pain to claw his way back to sanity.

That old bastard Old Master Gu really had left a back door when he created these monsters.

Sensory enhancement was both a gift and a curse.

It was one massive bug.

Master the right frequency, and even a god could be turned into a paralyzed wreck in an instant.

“Hahahahaha.”

Subject 002 in the car threw his head back and laughed, spinning the remote in his hand like a propeller.

“See that? This is the perfect body?”

Subject 002 kicked the car door open, his gray-white leather shoes stepping onto the concrete.

He ignored Qin Hongyi completely and walked straight toward the kneeling Gu Chen.

In his eyes, an ordinary human like Qin Hongyi was no different from an ant on the roadside.

“The more perfect the evolution, the more obvious the weakness.”

Subject 002 stopped right in front of Gu Chen and stared at that devastatingly beautiful face. Hunger burned in his gray-white pupils.

“What a flawless gene chain. If I eat you, I won’t be missing anything anymore, right?”

He reached out. His fingernails were black as hooks and aimed straight for Gu Chen’s hair.

The sonic attack was still raging.

Gu Chen couldn’t summon even a scrap of strength.

This was dimensional suppression.

Except it was a special method designed specifically for higher-dimensional beings.

“Fuck off.” Blood leaked from the corners of Gu Chen’s eyes and slid down his exquisite face in a tragically beautiful trail.

“Shh, stop struggling.” Subject 002 licked his lips. His fingers were about to brush Gu Chen’s hair. “It won’t hurt for long. We’ll become one.”

Thud!

A dull impact.

No flashy energy waves—just raw physical violence.

The claw Subject 002 had extended was smashed aside viciously.

A black Hermès Birkin bag—even one meant for documents—proved its excellence as a blunt weapon right then and there.

Qin Hongyi stood in front of Gu Chen.

She held the several-hundred-thousand-yuan bag in one hand like she was holding a brick.

“Where did this ugly freak crawl out from?”

Qin Hongyi shook her slightly numb wrist and stomped down hard with her high heel. “Who gave you permission to touch him?”

Subject 002 froze.

Why could this woman—who should have been nothing more than background noise in the sonic field—still move?

“You…” Subject 002 tilted his head, his gray-white eyes rotating stiffly. “You’re not in pain?”

Qin Hongyi looked at him like he was mentally deficient.

“Pain your ass.”

The next second, the female president who had just seized control of a trillion-yuan empire showed exactly why she was known as Beijing’s number one madwoman.

She didn’t retreat. Instead, she stepped forward, grabbed Subject 002’s collar with her left hand, and clenched her right fist.

This was the straight punch she had practiced for three years in the boxing gym.

Bang!

The punch landed squarely on Subject 002’s nose bridge.

Even though the opponent’s bone density was terrifyingly high and it made Qin Hongyi’s knuckles throb in pain, it was still an insult.

A blatant provocation from the bottom of the food chain to the top.

“I am the Key.” Qin Hongyi sneered, completely unconcerned about her injured hand. “As long as I’m not dead, you can’t pry open this lock.”

Sonic waves?

That was for mutants.

To someone with pure human genes like Qin Hongyi, it was nothing more than a slightly noisy breeze.

Gu Chen knelt on the ground, his vision blurry.

Through blood-soaked lashes, he stared at the back shielding him.

Slender yet upright.

Wearing the suit whose buttons he had torn off, yet standing like an insurmountable mountain.

“Fuck…” Gu Chen cursed in his heart.

This woman was really something else.

Daring to fight a bio-monster bare-handed.

“Looking to die.”

Subject 002 was enraged.

Being slapped in the face by an ant made him lose it instantly.

“Since you want to die, I’ll eat you first!”

Claws whistled through the air, aiming straight for Qin Hongyi’s throat.

The speed was so fast her dynamic vision couldn’t even register it.

But she didn’t dodge.

If she dodged, Gu Chen behind her would become a sitting duck.

“Buddha!” Qin Hongyi shouted sharply.

Bang!

A large-caliber sniper round entered the fray with perfect timing, striking Subject 002’s wrist and sending sparks flying.

It didn’t penetrate, but the massive impact deflected the claw by a few inches.

The claws grazed Qin Hongyi’s neck, severing a few strands of hair. A bloody gash appeared on her skin instantly.

“More rats?” Subject 002 turned his head impatiently.

In that brief zero-point-something-second opening.

Qin Hongyi moved.

She wasn’t a martial arts master, but she was a businesswoman who knew how to use every resource available.

She pulled the silver Desert Eagle from her waist.

Not to shoot.

The recoil on this gun was too strong for one-handed use.

She used it as a hammer.

“Refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit, huh?”

Qin Hongyi gripped the barrel with both hands, swung the heavy metal grip with all her body weight, and smashed it viciously into Subject 002’s pale face.

This blow was pure emotion, zero technique.

Thump!

Subject 002 staggered from the hit.

He wasn’t invincible; physical shock was real.

Before he could steady himself, Qin Hongyi pressed in close.

Her left arm locked around Subject 002’s neck in a death grip. With her right hand, she forced the thick gun barrel straight into his opening mouth.

Crack!

Teeth shattered as metal clashed against bone.

Qin Hongyi’s expression was ferocious, like a ghost crawling out of hell. The vicious aura radiating from her was even more terrifying than these monsters.

“Go on, scream!”

Her finger rested on the trigger, the muzzle jammed deep into Subject 002’s throat.

“Weren’t you screaming so happily earlier?”

“Scream again. I dare you. Believe it or not, I’ll blow your brainstem to pieces and see if it’s filled with brain matter or tofu dregs!”

Subject 002 froze.

It wasn’t because of the gun.

A bullet of this caliber could injure him, but it wasn’t fatal.

What made him freeze was the scent on Qin Hongyi.

That was…

The smell of one of their own?

No, not quite.

It was some higher-tier pheromone that suppressed their genetic instincts.

“Key.” Subject 002’s vertical pupils contracted as he mumbled incoherently around the barrel. “You’re… the source…”

By now the car’s subsonic speakers were still running.

But Gu Chen had already recovered.

The moment Qin Hongyi touched Subject 002, the miraculous shielding effect kicked in.

She was a living signal jammer.

Even though she wasn’t touching Gu Chen, the intense emotional fluctuation interfered with the nearby magnetic field.

Gu Chen gasped for air and pushed himself up on shaky legs.

He looked at the woman who had jammed a gun barrel into a monster’s mouth, face full of murderous rage, and felt the violent impulse that had just been suppressed inside him boil up again.

This shit was seriously hot.

“Release him.”

Gu Chen walked over, voice weak, but the aura of absolute dominance had returned.

Qin Hongyi didn’t turn around. “This mutt tried to kill you.”

“I know.”

Gu Chen reached from behind and gripped Qin Hongyi’s wrist.

His hand was ice-cold.

“Something this filthy will only dirty your hands.”

Gu Chen applied gentle force and pulled Qin Hongyi behind him.

Subject 002 seized the chance to spit out the gun barrel and retreated more than ten meters in a burst, sticking to the ceiling pipes like a white gecko.

He didn’t flee. Instead, he swept his eerie gaze back and forth between the two of them.

“Interesting…”

Subject 002 wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

“001, you think you’re safe just because you found the Key?”

“Do you really believe that lock exists to protect you?”

Gu Chen’s fingertips twitched. Several glass shards turned to powder between them. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m a defective product, so I’m free.”

Subject 002 pointed at the centipede-like suture line across his chest. “But you—you’re the perfect finished product. And a perfect slave.”

“That drug really can stabilize your genes. But it has a side effect. Once you’re away from the Key for more than twenty-four hours, your gene chain will go snap snap snap…”

Subject 002 grinned, the smile dripping with mockery.

“This isn’t symbiosis. How should I put it? It’s more like keeping a pet.”

“Young Master Gu, you used to be human. Now you’re just a dog that can’t leave its owner.”

With that, he kicked off the ceiling, smashed through the ventilation window, and vanished into the vast night.

The car’s subsonic speakers finally burned out with a sharp pop and fell silent.

Only the sound of two people breathing remained in the parking lot.

Gu Chen stood where he was, the glass shards in his hand ground to powder.

Slave?

Kept pet?

Can’t leave?

Those words were like a thorn—impossible to pull out and painful every time it shifted.

If what the monster said was true, did that mean for the rest of his life he could only stay bound to this crazy woman?