Su Rou’s movements froze.
She tilted her head, staring at the dark muzzle of the gun, and split her mouth wide.
Rows of sharp teeth glinted.
“Evil woman…”
Su Rou ground her teeth together, the sound like sandpaper scraping glass.
“If I eat you… you won’t bully Brother Gu Chen anymore…”
Whoosh!
Su Rou vanished from her spot.
Too fast to track.
This was the terrifying speed she had gained after devouring 002.
“Courting death.”
Qin Hongyi reacted instantly, shifting her gun barrel three inches left in anticipation.
Bang!
The gunshot exploded through the living room.
But Su Rou was faster.
The bullet grazed her cheek and punched a hole in the wall.
Su Rou was already right in front of Qin Hongyi. Her claws whistled forward, aiming straight for Qin Hongyi’s throat.
Qin Hongyi didn’t retreat—she advanced. Her left hand drew a combat knife from behind her waist and met the attack head-on.
“Down!”
Gu Chen’s voice cracked through the air like an invisible whip.
Su Rou’s claw, inches from slicing open Qin Hongyi’s carotid artery, stopped dead in mid-air.
It was gene-level suppression on every possible level.
Su Rou’s entire body locked rigid.
An expression of extreme pain and struggle twisted across her face.
Instinct screamed at her to rip Qin Hongyi apart, but Gu Chen’s order kept her completely paralyzed.
“Wuu… wuu…”
Su Rou whimpered from her throat, trembling.
She slowly withdrew her claws. Her knees buckled and she dropped to the floor.
She looked up at Gu Chen with pitiful, teary eyes.
Qin Hongyi’s combat knife also stopped.
She glanced over her shoulder at Gu Chen—still in his bathrobe, hair dripping wet—and sneered. “Not bad, Young Master Gu. Training her well?”
Gu Chen ignored her sarcastic tone and walked over in a few strides.
He first checked Qin Hongyi’s neck to make sure she hadn’t been scratched, then turned his gaze to Su Rou on the floor.
“Destroying the house?” Gu Chen pointed at the wreckage everywhere. “Who taught you that?”
Su Rou shrank her neck and pointed at Qin Hongyi. “She… she smelled like you… I wanted to wash it off…”
Qin Hongyi laughed in anger. “You wanted to wash off my scent? Do you know whose name this house is under? Every breath of air in here belongs to me!”
“Enough.” Gu Chen pressed his temple.
These two women—one lunatic, one monster—together created nuclear fusion.
He walked in front of Su Rou and crouched down.
Su Rou tried to crawl into his arms, but Gu Chen stopped her with a single finger against her forehead and pushed her back.
“You’re filthy. Go take a bath.” Gu Chen looked at her with distaste, eyeing the random dirt smeared across her body.
Su Rou pouted, aggrieved.
“Get clean and you’ll get meat to eat.” Gu Chen tossed out the bait.
Su Rou’s eyes lit up instantly. The grievance vanished.
She sprang to her feet and dashed toward the bathroom like she knew the way by heart.
“Wait.”
Gu Chen called her back.
He pointed at the torn leather sofa remains, then at the gun still in Qin Hongyi’s hand.
He turned to Qin Hongyi with a standard profiteer smile.
“President Qin, don’t be so stingy.”
Gu Chen stepped over, pressed the gun in Qin Hongyi’s hand downward with casual familiarity, and fished a cigarette from her bathrobe pocket. He lit it.
“This girl’s brain isn’t working too well right now, but you saw her skills.”
Gu Chen exhaled a smoke ring. “She swallowed 002 and drank my blood. Combat power is at least S-rank. Plus…”
He nodded toward Su Rou, who was staring at him with eager eyes.
“She’s obedient. Tell her to bite someone and she bites. No salary required—just feed her.”
“You want to keep her?”
Qin Hongyi sneered.
“Gu Chen, do you think I run a junkyard? I’m not leaving a single Su family member alive.”
“She is a Su family member, true.”
Gu Chen leaned closer to Qin Hongyi. “But right now, she’s my dog.”
“My dog is your dog.”
“From now on, do you really want to handle all the dirty and tiring work yourself? Free top-tier muscle—why waste it?”
Qin Hongyi narrowed her eyes, studying Gu Chen, then the seemingly obedient monster beside him who could explode into violence at any second.
Free high-grade combat asset.
It was tempting.
Especially with the current situation.
Even though Qin Mu was finished, the Black Kui Mercenary Group and the remaining Eden Project remnants lurking in the shadows were no pushovers.
“Fine.”
Qin Hongyi sheathed her combat knife. “She can stay. But the damaged items will be deducted from your dividends.”
Gu Chen’s hand trembled; cigarette ash fell to the floor.
“That’s five percent of my shares!”
“This sofa was two million. That coffee table was one and a half million.”
Qin Hongyi started tallying. “Plus emotional damages. Young Master Gu, your dividends don’t seem to cover the bill.”
Gu Chen gritted his teeth. “Evil capitalist.”
And seriously, how was money this worthless? Burning it like incense at a funeral?
Western Beijing, Gu Family Private Cemetery.
Lead-gray clouds hung low. The rain wasn’t falling so much as drifting, coating everything between heaven and earth in a wet, glossy varnish.
Over a hundred people in identical black suits, white flowers pinned to their chests, stood like crows waiting to feast on carrion around a newly erected tombstone.
It was Gu Chen’s empty coffin grave.
Qin Hongyi’s signature limited-edition Phantom rolled up, tires crushing puddles and stopping at the cemetery entrance.
Mud even splashed onto the pants of the outer-ring bodyguards.
The car door opened.
High heels stepped into the water.
Gu Chen wore a minimalist, Hepburn-style black dress.
A small black veiled hat sat on his head, the netting covering half his face but failing to hide those playful peach-blossom eyes or the blood-red lips that burned like fire.
He linked arms with Qin Hongyi in her sharp black suit.
The two of them looked less like they were here to mourn and more like they were walking a red carpet.
In the driver’s seat, Su Rou huddled inside an oversized black tactical jacket, hood pulled low, face hidden behind a mask.
She looked like a severe social anxiety case trying to sink into the leather seat and disappear.
Before getting out, Gu Chen turned his head and gave one instruction: “Watch the car. Anyone scratches the paint, rip their hands off.”
In the rearview mirror, Su Rou’s gray-white eyes flashed with excitement. She nodded obediently.
The two of them held a large black umbrella and walked along the bluestone path under hundreds of stunned, contemptuous, and admiring gazes, straight toward the tombstone.
The crowd parted automatically.
Murmurs mixed with the rain like buzzing flies.
“Has Qin Hongyi gone mad? Bringing her new pretty boy to trash Young Master Gu’s funeral?”
“This is called killing the heart. Young Master Gu’s body isn’t even cold and she’s already parading her substitute around.”
“Pfft. That woman looks like a femme fatale. She’d better hope Young Master Gu doesn’t come back at midnight to claim her life.”
Gu Chen’s hearing was excellent. Every word drilled into his ears without missing a syllable.
Instead of getting angry, he found it amusing.
Attending his own funeral—this experience was one of a kind in all of Beijing.
Qin Hongyi felt the arm linked with hers tremble slightly.
Thinking he was afraid, she swept a cold gaze across the entire crowd.
“If you don’t want your tongues anymore, you can donate them to medical institutions.”
The surroundings fell deathly silent. Even breathing grew quieter.
The two reached the front of the tombstone.
Gu Chen looked at the enlarged black-and-white photo on the stone.
It was him at twenty, accepting the National Business Elite Gold Award—full of vigor and arrogance that said he owned the world.
Below it.
The epitaph was written with the utmost pomp: Tomb of Gu Chen, Eldest Grandson of the Gu Family.
“Tsk.”
Gu Chen let out an extremely inappropriate soft scoff.
In the pin-drop quiet of the funeral, the sound was like pouring a ladle of water into hot oil.
The funeral was presided over by the Gu family’s third granduncle, Gu Zhen.
The white-haired old man leaned on a dragon-head cane.
His mustache trembled with rage.
“Outrageous! Qin Hongyi, is this the kind of person you’ve trained? Making that noise at an occasion like this is a grave disrespect to the deceased!”
Qin Hongyi was about to speak up for her man when Gu Chen released her arm and strolled forward a couple of steps with leisurely grace.
He extended a hand in black lace gloves and wiped the edge of the tombstone.
“Grade-B white marble. See this crack?”
Gu Chen’s tone dripped with disdain, like a housewife picking through spoiled vegetables at the market.
“The gold inlay on the engraving is industrial gold powder—it’ll fade in less than three years. And the flowers in front… heh, yesterday’s discounted chrysanthemums from the flower shop? The petals are already curling at the edges.”
He turned around.
Through the black veil, his gaze swept over the so-called relatives.
“Young Master Gu was always particular about appearances while he was alive. If he knew you were using this cheap street-stall junk to fool him…”
Gu Chen’s red lips curved, his voice soft and eerie, “be careful he doesn’t come back tonight and drag you all down to keep him company.”
Gu Zhen’s face turned purple with fury. He raised his cane to strike.
“You demoness! Spouting nonsense! Someone, throw this ignorant woman out!”