Chapter 10
Under the glove
The violent electrical current was destined to shred any flesh and blood, but in the nick of time, a deep black hole abruptly opened in the air behind Liu Sanji.
Chen Miao cried out, “A spatial ability?”
The figure of a woman with short green hair flashed into view, likely a plant-based ability user. Her hands transformed into vines that flew out, grabbing Liu Sanji and yanking him back. Just as Bai Sheng was about to give chase, another man leaped out of the spatial tunnel, brandishing a gleaming katana that he brought down with lightning speed.
Clang!
With a deafening ring, Bai Sheng, carrying Shen Zhuo with one arm, blocked the hurricane-like blade with his other hand.
A trickle of blood slowly ran down his palm. The cold back of the blade reflected the eyes of the spatial ability user—a young man in his early twenties, powerfully built and fearsome, with a naturally fierce look in his eyes. His gaze flickered over Shen Zhuo’s face, then glanced at Bai Sheng. He grinned and said in Japanese:
“When we meet next time…”
Before Bai Sheng could reply, he had already withdrawn his blade and, grabbing the green-haired woman and Liu Sanji, retreated into the spatial tunnel.
Bai Sheng abruptly swung an arm, sending a violent bolt of lightning straight through the sky, but he was half a second too late.
The spatial rift vanished in an instant. The waterfall of electricity hit nothing, instead it smashed half the overpass to smithereens!
Beep—Beep—
The earth shook violently, black smoke filled the air, and the piercing alarms of dozens of cars echoed across the wilderness. By the time the smoke slowly cleared, all three of them had vanished, leaving only a ground covered in charred rubble of steel and concrete.
“Where… where are the people?” “Was that spatial teleportation just now?” “This is my first time seeing a spatial ability…”
…
The supervisors looked around frantically. Bai Sheng stood his ground, let out a hot breath, and looked down at Shen Zhuo in his arms, his sharp eyes narrowing slightly.
Drowsiness, swaying, noise.
The lights in the hospital corridor were a deathly white. Shen Zhuo felt as if he were on a gurney, being pushed forward at breakneck speed. The sound of people bustled around him, muffled and indistinct as if heard from underwater.
“…Internal organ rupture is not the main issue, but traces of an evolved ability virus have been detected in his blood…”
“Shenhai doesn’t have the conditions for detoxification. He must be sent to the central district immediately to create a serum from the analysis results!”
“The helicopter Director Yue urgently dispatched won’t arrive for another fifteen minutes, what do we do?”
“Blood oxygen is dropping to critical levels! Doctor, doctor!!” …
The entire world seemed to be enveloped in a halo of white light. The sounds faded away, leaving only a quiet, empty void.
After an unknown amount of time, Shen Zhuo opened his eyes. His vision was hazy and unfocused. In a trance, he saw a tall figure standing by the operating table, dressed in a white coat, with deep, handsome eyes visible above a surgical mask.
He held a blood collection needle in his right hand, the sleeve of his left arm rolled up, and he was drawing blood from his own sturdy arm.
“You see, Supervisor Shen.” Bai Sheng watched his own crimson blood flow into the blood bag, and glanced over with a smile. “No matter how many times they call him ‘Yue-ge,’ in the end, I’m the only one who can save you, isn’t that right?”
His consciousness felt submerged in the deep sea, hazy and indistinct, drifting up and down. In his stupor, Shen Zhuo couldn’t recognize the figure before him, but he could sense the unique aura of an S-class evolutionist.
He stared unblinkingly at Bai Sheng, but his gaze seemed to pass through the void. Every murmured word was laced with the taste of blood:
“Was it… was it you… who did it…”
“Fu… Chen…”
Bai Sheng’s movements paused.
The operating room was silent, save for the faint, rhythmic beeping of the medical instruments.
After a long moment, Bai Sheng let out a scoffing laugh. “Still remembering to call his name at a time like this. What kind of undying love do you two have?”
The blood bag gradually swelled to full. Bai Sheng finally pulled out the needle, casually flexed his arm, then bent over and tilted Shen Zhuo’s chin, forcing him to face him up close.
“It’s too much to be yelling another man’s name at me while you’re lying in bed. Remember to call my name next time, okay?”
Shen Zhuo closed his eyes. Under the operating lamp, his profile was so cold it was almost translucent, but his eyes and brows were an inky black. The collar that was usually buttoned to his throat had been undone, revealing a slender neck and deep collarbones. His thin white shirt was almost completely dyed red with blood.
He was clearly a wreck, yet he possessed a soul-stirring, shocking intensity.
Bai Sheng’s gaze fell on the black gloves that he never took off, and a thought suddenly stirred in his heart.
So many news media outlets had never once captured a photo of Shen Zhuo’s hands. This Chief Supervisor, famous for his beauty and authority, seemed unwilling to ever let the public see a single inch of skin below his throat.
OCD or germaphobia? Surely he wasn’t hiding some kind of deformity.
Bai Sheng glanced around the empty operating room, reached out, and pulled off the pair of gloves. A casual glance, and he was somewhat surprised.
—The right hand was normal and whole, but on the back of the left hand were two gruesome old scars, crossed into a horrifying X.
It had been carved with a knife by someone.
Bai Sheng knew what this meant. It was a form of humiliation that had once been popular. Because the back of an evolutionist’s left hand and their left chest were usually where their rank was marked, some extreme Darwinists would capture ordinary humans and forcibly carve an X on their hands, signifying that the person’s genes were inferior and could not evolve, implying that humanity would eventually be eliminated by evolutionists.
A high-ranking, inviolable beauty, a world-famous Chief Supervisor with an iron fist—who would dare to take a knife and leave such a humiliation on Shen Zhuo’s hand?
“…You seem to have suffered quite a few grievances yourself,” Bai Sheng said, standing up and looking down at Shen Zhuo, murmuring thoughtfully.
…
“He’s awake!” “He’s awake, he’s awake, he’s finally awake…”
The monitoring equipment beeped, and the ward was filled with the sound of footsteps and voices. Shen Zhuo’s eyes fluttered open.
Having been in a coma for half a month, his consciousness was hazy. He could only see countless figures moving frantically by his bedside. It seemed many people had broken through the nurses’ blockade, rushing forward to roar at him. Someone even tried to drag him out of bed, only to be pulled back by guards who rushed in.
After an unknown amount of time, the roaring voices finally slowly reached his eardrums:
“…Why did it explode? Why did the Qinghai test site explode?!”
“Fu-ge is dead! Fu-ge is dead! All to protect you!”
“Why wasn’t it you who died!!”
…
Ah, Fu Chen is dead, Shen Zhuo’s chaotic mind registered the sentence.
Fu Chen died in that explosion.
“Half a month ago, a three-person action team consisting of you, S-class evolutionist Fu Chen, and A-class evolutionist Su Jiqiao, had an accidental explosion at the Qinghai test site while on a mission to recover an evolution source. Do you have anything to explain about this, Director Shen?”
The hospital room was lit by a deathly white light. Two rows of investigators from the Central Supervision Office sat opposite him, their figures sitting ramrod straight. The only sound in the air was the scratching of pens on paper.
Countless surveillance cameras were aimed at Shen Zhuo on the hospital bed, capturing everything from his calm, pale face and the curve of his lowered eyelashes to every minute change in his expression.
“I don’t know,” Shen Zhuo answered hoarsely.
There was a slight stir from the other side as everyone began to whisper amongst themselves. Then, an investigator raised his voice: “How could you not know?”
“Of your three-person team, Fu Chen was killed in the explosion on the spot, and Su Jiqiao is still in a coma. You, an ordinary person, are the only one to miraculously survive, yet you tell us you don’t know what happened?”
“Fu Chen died to protect you!” someone in the back row shot up. “He activated his absolute defense to take all the damage for you, otherwise he wouldn’t have died at all!”
“It was such a simple mission. Fu Chen and Su Jiqiao have carried it out together hundreds of times, and not once has there been a problem!”
“Who was the one who made the operational error that led to the explosion? Do you really think we can’t guess who it was?!”
…
Amidst the public outrage, a flicker of something different finally crossed Shen Zhuo’s expression.
Su Jiqiao isn’t dead?
Why?
“…What happened to Su Jiqiao?”
Shen Zhuo’s hoarse voice was too faint in the clamor. Only a solemn-faced old man in the center of the front row of investigators answered him: “He is in a deep coma due to severe brain injury. The probability of him waking up in the future does not exceed 5%.”
—There was still 5%.
Shen Zhuo murmured, “Is that so.”
He closed his eyes, then opened them again after a long while, took a deep breath, and looked straight at the two rows of investigators and the countless cameras opposite him.
This scene would later be studied countless times at the hearing. Even the most insignificant details were magnified infinitely under a microscope, including his deep, calm eyes, his pale, handsome jaw, and the cold, steady tone of his voice when he spoke:
“At the time of the accident, the person responsible for operating the evolution source was Fu Chen.”
“He was the one who caused that explosion.”
The air froze for an instant.
Then, as if a bomb had suddenly detonated, everyone jumped to their feet at once, their roars nearly blowing the roof off.
“Impossible!” “Slander, this is blatant slander!” “Shen Zhuo, do you have a conscience?!” “Do you have even a last shred of humanity left?!” …
Denunciations and condemnations filled the air.
However, there was not a trace of expression on Shen Zhuo’s pale face. With what could be described as a condescending posture, he coldly watched the rioting crowd, as if he could already see through them to the more sinister and treacherous future that lay ahead.
…
One month after the 5.11 Qinghai Test Site explosion, Shen Zhuo, the chief director of the Central Research Institute, was demoted and held accountable, stripped of his position. The secret research project he single-handedly led was also forced to be shelved.
Just as Shen Zhuo was about to be brought to court, another shocking piece of news arrived.
The International Supervision General Administration, acting willfully and disregarding the global wave of opposition from a large number of evolutionists, forcibly appointed Shen Zhuo, an ordinary person, as a UN Permanent Chief Supervisor, a transcendent position on par with Fu Chen.
No one knew what the International Supervision General Administration was thinking, but this appointment notice ignited everyone’s fury.
On the day the news broke, Fu Chen’s most loyal band of brothers broke into the hospital, forcibly took Shen Zhuo from his ward, and what followed was the private lynching scandal of that year, unknown to the public—
“Why was it Fu-ge who died and not you?!”
The air was thick with the smell of blood and rust. The light overhead was dim, and figures swarmed around. The interrogation quickly turned into a tide of public outrage.
“It was you who made the operational error because of your deluded desire to evolve! You caused the explosion!”
“You only managed to survive because of Fu-ge’s protection, and yet you dare to push the blame onto him!”
…
Shen Zhuo was tied to a chair, his throat full of blood. He spat out hoarse words from between his gritted teeth, “The one who made the operational error was Fu Chen. He just reaped what he sowed.”
With a loud thud, he was punched, his head snapping to the side. The taste of blood in his mouth grew thicker.
“Kill him to pay for Fu-ge’s life!” “Kill him!” …
The roars from the crowd grew louder and louder, yet they weren’t clear, because his ears were already muffled with blood. Shen Zhuo gasped violently, his chest shaking with bloody coughs. And through it all, he began to laugh. “Come on, kill me.”
He raised his head, his face covered in blood, weak and wretched, but his provocation was unconcealed. “Fu Chen is dead. Su Jiqiao is a vegetable. Even if you kill me today, you won’t find any evidence to convict me.”
Like a drop of cold water in hot oil, the surroundings exploded.
Everyone was furious, everyone was roaring. Their faces were contorted with grief and righteous indignation. If not for someone forcibly holding them back, they would have rushed forward and torn him to pieces long ago.
“Do you really think evolution comes without a price? The so-called superior evolutionists are nothing but a pack of beasts who have devolved their humanity.” Shen Zhuo laughed intermittently, his voice hoarse and contemptuous. “Stupid, violent, impotently furious denunciations, worthless righteous indignation…”
His internal organs were in agony. Blood dripped into his collar, drop by drop.
The wave of sound converged into bizarre fragments, flashing violently in his vision, forming an absurd, inverted picture.
He couldn’t see the hate-filled faces clearly. All that was left in his ears was his own ragged breathing, until the icy touch of a blade awakened his senses—
His left hand was pinned down, and a bone-deep pain shot through it.
“We won’t kill you, but you’re not walking out of here like this today,” the executioner’s low voice came from above. “Remember, Shen Zhuo, this scar is proof of the blood debt you owe us evolutionists.”
The surroundings were a chaotic, bizarre spectacle. Blood soaked from his temple down to his jaw, yet a mocking smile appeared in Shen Zhuo’s eyes. He looked up at the executioner’s silhouette under the pale light. “It doesn’t matter, Yue Yang.”
“You evolutionists only disgust me.”
…
The chaotic background, the strange roars, the faces full of hostility all twisted rapidly, like absurd blocks of color blurred by water, and disappeared from the dream.
On the large bed, Shen Zhuo opened his eyes.
Sunlight pierced through the floor-to-ceiling curtains.
This was an elegant, bright and airy bedroom with modern art decor. The high ceiling made the space feel incredibly spacious. The sound of slow, relaxed breathing came from his side.
“…” Shen Zhuo turned his head.
He saw Bai Sheng, shirtless and sturdy, groggily turning over, reaching out to wrap an arm around Shen Zhuo’s waist, and patting him soothingly out of habit. His voice was thick with sleep:
“Let me sleep a little longer, baby. You’ve been such a handful these past few days.”
Shen Zhuo’s pupils constricted. He shot up, about to get out of bed, but then a clatter sounded by his ear. He saw that his left wrist was attached to the headboard by a pair of steel handcuffs.
“…” Shen Zhuo froze in that position, then after a long moment, turned his head and slowly asked, “Care to explain, Mr. Bai?”
Bai Sheng finally opened his eyes lazily. “You didn’t have this attitude last night when you were clinging to my neck and wouldn’t let go, Supervisor. The sun comes up and you deny everything?”
The car crash, the impact, Liu Sanji, the monster covered in eyeballs… the scenes from the highway suddenly flashed through his mind. Shen Zhuo looked down.
He saw that his own white shirt was open, and the wound where a knife had pierced his abdomen had already healed, leaving only a gruesome, ghastly scar on the surface of his skin.
“Calling me handsome when you need me, then wiping your face and calling me Mr. Bai when you don’t. What, trying to get a free ride?”
Bai Sheng sat up languidly. The blanket slid from his chest, shamelessly displaying his lean, powerful figure in the morning light. From his shoulders and arms, to his waist and back, to his abs, every line was filled with an indescribable impact. His face was handsome, his hair messy, and that tuft of silver hair stuck up defiantly on his head.
“Once you’re in my hands, you’re my person. Did you think you could let those people from the Shenhai City Supervision Office take you away?” Bai Sheng gave a cold smirk. “Using me and then denying it? Not so easy.”
Bai Sheng slowly leaned in closer. Shen Zhuo was forced to lean back until their breaths mingled—
Clank! The iron chain suddenly rattled.
Without any warning, Shen Zhuo broke free from the handcuffs, flipped over and pinned Bai Sheng to the bed, kneeling on the small of his back. With a beautiful submission hold, he twisted Bai Sheng’s arms behind his back and, with lightning speed, “click!”—cuffed them.
The tables turned in an instant. Shen Zhuo pressed his elbow firmly against the back of Bai Sheng’s neck, leaned down, and whispered in his ear:
“Handsome, thank you very much for saving me, but please forget anything else I might have said. We’re both adults, after all. Don’t you agree?”
Bai Sheng’s face was pressed into the pillow. He was unusually quiet and docile, not struggling at all.
Before Shen Zhuo could feel that something was wrong, the bedroom door was pushed open with a whoosh. Chen Miao was holding a bowl of soup. “Bai-ge, didn’t you say this soup just needed to be microwaved for two minutes? I—”
Chen Miao’s words came to an abrupt halt.
On the messy bed, Shen Zhuo’s shirt was open, the hem barely covering the top of his thighs. His thighs were spread apart as he knelt on either side of Bai Sheng’s lower back, leaning down toward his ear.
Meanwhile, Bai Sheng’s pajama pants were hanging low on his hips, his upper body was bare, and his hands were starkly cuffed behind his back, looking like a pitiful little white rabbit that had been thoroughly ravaged.
The distance between their bodies was probably only enough to fit a thin sheet of paper.
The scene completely froze. Supervisor Shen’s expression was blank as he stared at Chen Miao by the door, and the few equally blank-faced subordinates behind him.
“…………”
After a long moment, Chen Miao squeezed out a smile, his flattery tinged with extreme fear. “Se-Senior, please take your time. We’ll, we’ll go outside and stand guard for you.” Then, with a bang, he eagerly shut the door.
The bedroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Only the two of them were left on the large bed.
“…” Bai Sheng’s body was trembling strangely. Finally, he couldn’t hold it in any longer and, with a pfft, he broke. “Hahahahaha—”
Author’s Note:
Bai Sheng: It’s just you and me in the room. You were unconscious, your subordinates weren’t here, and there were no cameras in the room.
Supervisor Shen: So?
Bai Sheng: So, the final right to interpret whether or not you lay in my arms calling me handsome while you were delirious belongs to me.
Love their dynamics hahaha
Shen Zhuo just got a new dog HAHAHHA
Bai Sheng acting like he was ravished XD
shen zhuo…. was tricked?! 🤣
i knew it, there’s really something underneath his gloves.