It was a dimly lit tea room.
The perspective was low, as if someone were kneeling on the floor secretly filming.
On the left side of the tea table sat an old man in a Zhongshan suit.
Gu Chen recognized him at once—it was Old Master Gu from twenty years ago.
His back was ramrod straight, and he was rolling two lion-head walnuts in his hand.
Sitting opposite him was a figure wrapped entirely in a black robe.
The face was hidden, but one deathly pale hand with blackened fingernails was visible, dipping into tea and writing characters on the table.
“You want to create a god?”
The black-robed person’s voice was heavily distorted, like nails scraping across a blackboard, setting teeth on edge.
“I only want the Gu family to survive,” Old Master Gu replied, his tone revealing neither joy nor anger.
“The Eden Project requires two cores.”
The black-robed person drew two circles on the table.
“One is the key. That little girl from the Qin family is a fine candidate. But the vessel…”
“My grandson,” Old Master Gu cut him off. “We tested him. His gene sequence is a perfect match.”
“Subject 001?” The black-robed person let out a strange laugh.
“Old Gu, you’re ruthless. Using your own grandson as the cauldron.”
“As long as it succeeds, I’d sacrifice the entire Gu family, let alone one grandson.”
The black-robed person stood up and tossed down a black token—the exact same card now in Gu Chen’s hand.
The footage began to shake violently, as if the person filming had lost control of their emotions.
“The one from the Mo family is about to awaken. It has been starving for far too long and needs the highest-grade nourishment. Raise Subject 001 well. When it wakes, we will come to collect the meal. This is both a transaction and a pledge of allegiance.”
“Deal.”
Old Master Gu’s voice echoed in the empty tea room.
The footage cut off abruptly.
“Ah!”
In reality, Gu Chen arched his back violently.
The black-and-gold card had completely melted into a pool of black-red liquid that drilled straight into his skin.
Pain.
Not surface-level injury, but a collapse at the genetic level.
It felt as if every cell in his body had been tossed into a meat grinder.
His bones burned, his blood flowed backward, and every word from the vision hammered wildly against the Eden Project’s original underlying logic.
He was not some perfect evolved being.
He was livestock.
He had been raised by the Gu family and the Mo family for twenty years, nothing more than a New Year’s feast prepared for the so-called god of the Mo family—codename 000!
“Gu Chen!”
Crimson patterns resurfaced across his body, shifting toward an eerie purple. His temperature was terrifyingly high.
Qin Hongyi’s voice sounded distant, laced with rare panic. Gu Chen wanted to speak, but the moment he opened his mouth, he vomited black blood.
“Hot… so hot…”
Su Rou huddled in the corner, trembling.
She smelled an extremely terrifying scent coming from Gu Chen.
It was the aura of destruction released by a high-tier lifeform on the verge of collapse—an irresistible temptation to her.
“Get lost!”
Qin Hongyi kicked away Su Rou, who was trying to crawl closer and lick, then slammed the partition button.
The soundproof divider rose, sealing off the driver’s cabin from the back seat.
“Look at me!” Qin Hongyi grabbed Gu Chen by the collar and hauled him upright.
His pupils had dilated completely. The golden vertical slits expanded and contracted, unable to focus.
His body convulsed violently.
“Want to die? Did you ask me first?”
A fierce light flashed in Qin Hongyi’s eyes.
Without the slightest hesitation, she bit open her own wrist.
Blood gushed out, carrying that unique, key-scented fragrance.
She pressed the bleeding wrist firmly against Gu Chen’s mouth.
This was the only antidote. His body had been custom-made for her as the key; her blood was the cure.
Gu Chen’s instincts reacted faster than his mind.
The instant his tongue touched the warm liquid, he latched on like a desert traveler finding water, sucking greedily.
But it wasn’t enough.
Blood alone could not suppress the Mo family’s overbearing spiritual contamination.
The berserk factors inside Gu Chen rampaged wildly.
A beast-like growl tore from his throat as he suddenly broke free of Qin Hongyi’s grip and slammed her down beneath him.
Rip.
Qin Hongyi’s custom-tailored suit was torn apart. Buttons flew everywhere.
Gu Chen had completely lost his sanity. His eyes burned crimson, nails lengthening as he pinned her shoulders, fingers sinking deep into flesh.
“Is this how you repay your savior?”
Qin Hongyi sucked in a sharp breath from the pain, but she didn’t dodge. Instead, she arched up to meet the out-of-control beast.
This was the monster she had raised.
Dangerous. Lethal. Yet it drove her mad with fascination.
“If you want it, then take it all.”
Qin Hongyi hooked her arms around Gu Chen’s neck, flipped their positions, and took control. There was no tenderness in this clash.
Inside the sealed car, the two lunatics who stood at the pinnacle of Beijing exchanged life force in the most primal, most violent way possible.
Like a nuclear reactor on the verge of meltdown.
Pleasure. Pain. The metallic smell of blood.
Qin Hongyi offered herself as fuel, pouring everything into Gu Chen’s exploding reactor without regard for the consequences.
Every sensation was amplified to the extreme, surging back and forth through their nerves via that mysterious quantum entanglement.
No one knew how long it lasted before the soul-searing heat finally receded.
Gu Chen collapsed against the seat, chest heaving.
Sweat glistened across his devastatingly beautiful face; a few damp strands of hair clung to his cheek, the picture of total ruin.
Qin Hongyi wasn’t much better off.
She leaned against the door, straightening what remained of her ruined suit.
Her body was covered in purple bruises and bite marks.
“Awake now?”
Qin Hongyi fished a bottle of water from the car’s mini-fridge, downed half in one go, and tossed the rest to Gu Chen.
He caught it, didn’t drink, and simply poured it over his head instead.
Icy water streamed down his cheeks and into his collar, making him shiver. Reason finally returned completely.
“The Mo family.”
“I’m their backup ration.” Gu Chen wiped his face. “They’ve raised something called Subject 000. I’m its backup ration.”
“Who gave them the guts to touch what’s mine? Backup ration?”
Qin Hongyi raised an eyebrow, clearly displeased by the term.
“Twenty years ago that old bastard sold me to the Mo family to protect the Gu family’s foundation. This supreme card was the receipt for that transaction.”
Gu Chen laughed coldly, the smile never reaching his eyes. “Old Master Gu.”
He looked down at his palm.
A dark-red brand shaped like a closed eye had appeared.
The pool of black-red liquid had vanished completely; the coordinate had been activated.
The monster the Mo family had kept starving for twenty years should have caught the scent and awakened by now.
Qin Hongyi reached out and lightly tapped the brand on Gu Chen’s palm, the motion as teasing as if she were playing with a cat. “Is this Subject 000 strong?”
“Interesting, at least.”
Gu Chen shook his hand. “But for that old fox to willingly play the grandson and even offer me as a sacrifice, it can’t be anything gentle.
According to Eden Project’s classification, it’s at least… god-tier.”
“God-tier?” Qin Hongyi laughed, eyes gleaming with the mad excitement of someone who loved chaos.
“Then we absolutely have to go meet it. I want to see whether its teeth are sharper or my gun barrel is harder.”
She turned and looked at Su Rou, who had stayed silent and curled up in the corner the entire time.
“Hey, idiot. Seen enough?”
Only then did Su Rou dare lift her head.
She had witnessed the entire R-rated “treatment” from start to finish.
Even with her damaged brain, her survival instincts told her it was best not to provoke the two killing gods who were still riding the aftershocks.
Su Rou pointed one finger outside the window. “Someone’s been following us the whole way.”
Gu Chen’s gaze sharpened.
His evolved perception spread out instantly.
In the rainy night, beneath the roar of the Maybach’s engine, he detected over a dozen extremely faint presences trailing two hundred meters behind. Not cars.
People.
They were running on foot, keeping pace with a car doing eighty kilometers per hour, their breathing so low it was terrifying.
“The Mo family’s dogs have sharp noses.”
Gu Chen tossed the empty bottle into the trash, rolled his wrists, and cracked his knuckles with a series of pops.
The near-death fever earlier had nearly killed him, but it had also forcibly broken the second shackle on his genetic lock.
Right now his body was filled with a violent urge to tear something apart.
“President Qin, looks like tonight’s extra meal has arrived.”
Gu Chen pushed open the car door.
Wild wind and pouring rain poured into the cabin, whipping his half-dry clothes into disarray.