Hui Tian Ch59

Chapter 59

From now on, I have to keep an eye on him no matter where he is.

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Nightfall descended quickly, but the beach was swarming with supervision vehicles, bustling with a clamor of voices and hurried footsteps.

Cameron’s men had cordoned off the entire scene. It took Amatullah quite a bit of bureaucratic maneuvering just to lead her group inside to direct her supervisors, who were dragging the wreckage of the Fenrir ashore and carrying away several sheet-covered corpses. Numerous salvage vessels illuminated the sea surface as bright as day.

Not far away on the beach, Shen Zhuo sat by the open rear doors of an ambulance, draped in Bai Sheng’s coat. His eyes were half-closed, his face pale.

Although Rong Qi’s serum had been diluted 600 times, and theoretically shouldn’t have caused side effects, mixing it with Yang Xiaodao’s powerful A-class serum was bound to take a toll on his body. Coupled with the immense physical strain the fierce combat had placed on his ordinary human frame, the local medical evolutionist—having finished a temporary examination—strongly recommended a two-day hospital observation to prevent any unforeseen complications.

“Understood.” Bai Sheng stood beside Shen Zhuo, shaking hands with the doctor to express his gratitude. “I’ll escort him over shortly.”

The medical evolutionist nodded, about to offer a few more words of caution, when a stretcher chanced to pass right in front of them. The person on it was completely drenched in blood.

It was Nielsen.

The Director-General, once hailed as Odin’s Wolf, had never looked so utterly ruined. Having received emergency resuscitation, he was now being transferred to a helicopter for detained clinical treatment at the evolutionist hospital. A deathly, bloodless gray shroud enveloped his face; at first glance, one couldn’t even tell if he was alive or dead.

Bai Sheng watched the stretcher pass with a chilling gaze. Yet, at that exact instant, Nielsen’s unfocused eyes locked onto Shen Zhuo. Prompted by some sudden shock, his eyes snapped wide open.

Bai Sheng immediately extended an arm to shield Shen Zhuo behind him, but Nielsen—clinging to a near-fatal obsession—let out a torn, intermittent rasp, choking out a few syllables:

“Is it… true…”

“Reproductive… isolation…”

Reproductive isolation?

What on earth was that supposed to mean?

The moment those words left his lips, Bai Sheng instinctively felt Shen Zhuo freeze beside him.

But Nielsen’s voice was too mangled to decipher clearly, and the dimming twilight made it impossible to read his lips. For a moment, Bai Sheng could only wonder if his ears were playing tricks on him, unable to verify if those were indeed the words Nielsen had uttered.

“—It is completely impossible for Nielsen to be nominated for the next term as Director-General,” a polite, smooth voice chimed in from behind.

Bai Sheng turned around to find Cameron standing by the ambulance, watching Nielsen’s stretcher depart.

The high-ranking official of the Security Council had already changed his clothes; impeccably dressed in a pristine suit, he looked entirely poised. Not a single trace remained of the bedraggled, drowned-rat appearance he had sported when stepping off the helicopter. He cast a casual glance at Bai Sheng before turning his full attention to Shen Zhuo.

“Regardless of who the newly appointed Director-General turns out to be, no one will ever permit you to spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to sustain HRG. That tiny laboratory of yours in Shenhai will do nothing but scrape by, facing increasing hardships until it is forced to shut down once more.”

“The storm is visibly gathering, Dr. Shen.” Cameron offered Shen Zhuo a disingenuous, diplomatic smile, making a grand gesture by opening his arms wide. “Rather than waiting for death in Shenhai, why not let me generously extend my arms to you once more? I welcome you and your desperate researchers to bring HRG to the Security Council. You can continue your scientific exploration in a safe and stable environment. What do you say?”

Shen Zhuo merely let out a soft, mocking sneer.

“HRG is not a weapon of war, Cameron.” Leaning back against the ambulance’s rear door, he replied in a faint, raspy tone, “You simply want to manufacture a specialized military force to wage war against evolutionists. Do not insult the words ‘safety’ and ‘stability.'”

What Cameron truly wanted was to knock Shen Zhuo unconscious and whisk him away in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, since the metaphorical Siamese twins had joined back at the hip, he was entirely powerless. He could only flash Bai Sheng another look, offering a flawless, textbook eight-tooth smile.

“So, you would rather remain trapped in that precarious, storm-tossed laboratory on the basement floor of the Shenhai Hospital than abandon your beautiful dream of coexistence between evolutionists and humanity?”

Shen Zhuo offered no reply, merely turning his head away in sheer exhaustion, resting the back of his head against the vehicle door.

“…” Cameron nodded, smoothing down the lapels of his suit. “In that case, I shall not waste my precious time disturbing the two of you any longer.”

He turned to walk toward the distant beach, but after taking a few steps, he abruptly halted, turning back to scan Shen Zhuo from head to toe.

His gaze was peculiar—thoughtful, yet laced with a sudden, impulsive urge. He abruptly asked, “What did you just call me?”

“‘Cameron,'” Shen Zhuo stated plainly.

“Don’t you want to know what my actual name is?”

Shen Zhuo lifted his eyelids, calmly meeting his gray-green eyes. “During our very first meeting in Shenhai, you told me your name was Elton Cameron.”

The surrounding beach was a chaotic din of voices, illuminated by vehicle headlights of all sizes. Cameron’s expression against the backlight was impossible to read. Only after a lengthy silence did he let out an ambiguous, mocking chuckle before turning away.

“Have a pleasant evening, Supervisor Shen,” he stated with a cold, formal courtesy, striding purposefully toward the distant salvage vessels.

The tide crashed against the sandy shore wave after wave. A deep blue canopy enveloped the sky, with the morning star hanging low over the distant horizon.

Cameron’s figure vanished into the crowd, and the medical evolutionist had already departed. This tiny patch of earth was suddenly left to Bai Sheng and Shen Zhuo alone. The briny, howling wind rushed over them, carrying their intermingled breaths as it sprinted toward the vast expanse beyond.

Bai Sheng turned to look at Shen Zhuo, whose gaze happened to meet his own.

Yet, the moment their eyes touched, Shen Zhuo averted his gaze without a word. Under the deep blue twilight, only his pale profile remained visible.

“…”

Bai Sheng dropped to one knee. An inexplicable sense of hollowness and anxiety consumed his mind. After a long pause, he finally forced out a topic:

“When are you returning to Shenhai?”

Shen Zhuo replied, “Probably in two days.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“I can’t feel anything anymore.”

It was difficult to describe this unfamiliar atmosphere, as if a minefield had suddenly materialized between them. The more carefully they tried to avoid stepping on the triggers, the more prominent and unignorable the tension became.

The air felt too thin to breathe. Bai Sheng dug his fingernails deep into his palm. Suddenly remembering something, he raised his hand like a child showing off a prize, pressing against his temple and pointing toward his forehead. He let out a dejected, youthful whine from the back of his nose:

“Look, I’m injured.”

Aided by the headlights refracting from the distance, a small scrape was indeed visible near his temple—likely sustained when he furiously pulverized forty meters of thick ice to thrash Nielsen.

Shen Zhuo gazed unmovingly at that incredibly familiar, handsome face. A faint glint seemed to flicker within the depths of his eyes. After a long while, he reached his arms around Bai Sheng’s shoulders, leaning down to press a cool, soft kiss right against the scrape on his temple.

“…I’m sorry,” he murmured raspily, his final words trembling slightly in the wind. “This should be the last time.”

The gusting wind roared past. Bai Sheng froze in place, his entire body feeling as though it had been turned to ice. It took a long while before he could find his voice:

“…Why? Just because I pressed you for answers?”

Shen Zhuo did not reply.

“Because I wanted to define our relationship?” Bai Sheng’s voice grew louder. “Because I explicitly said I like you?!”

Shen Zhuo countered, “Why do you like me?”

Bai Sheng locked his eyes onto him, firing back with a fierce demand: “Then what about you? Why do you like me?!”

It was as if something had been violently ripped wide open, leaving an abrupt, blank void in its wake. Even the air froze solid.

One sat while the other knelt, mere inches apart—a distance where even their gazes could not find a way to evade one another.

“…Five years ago, the HRG laboratory discovered through a series of chemical analyses that the brains of evolutionists secrete a specific sequence of neurotransmitters. These chemicals automatically instill a sense of pack mentality, going so far as to forge the deeply ingrained belief that ‘we are not of the same species as humans.’ The secretion of these neurotransmitters in high-tier evolutionists can reach up to a thousand times the amount found in lower-tier individuals, making them significantly more susceptible to being driven by this chemical substance.”

“Therefore, the higher an evolutionist’s tier, the more difficult it becomes for them to empathize with humans, let alone fall in love with one.” Shen Zhuo gazed into Bai Sheng’s bloodshot eyes, speaking with deliberate slowness. “Your affection for me defies your very nature. It is an anomaly where dopamine has triumphed over instinct.”

“So I have to fall in love with one of my own kind to be considered following instinct, is that it?!” Bai Sheng’s voice was visibly trembling. “Am I just an animal to you?!”

Shen Zhuo replied in a low, raspy murmur, “No. You are simply far too unique.”

Bai Sheng’s chest heaved rapidly, the veins on the back of his hand bulging where it pressed into the sand.

“Your very nature drives you to uphold coexistence and equality, but along this path of extreme idealism, you can find no other S-class to walk beside you, nor could you ever find another human—until you met me. You invested a hope in me that no one else could match, as if you saw a tangible possibility of achieving peace. That is why this illusion resembling love was born.” Shen Zhuo let out a brief, hollow laugh, abruptly asking, “What will you do if a future peace is destined to never exist?”

“…What are you saying?”

“What will you do if one day you are forced to choose between your own kind and humanity?”

Bai Sheng felt as though he had plunged into a distorted, chaotic nightmare. “What are you talking about, Shen Zhuo? You—”

Yet Shen Zhuo’s voice remained calm to the point of absolute cruelty: “What if I told you that humanity and evolutionists were never meant to coexist from the very beginning? What will you do when your idealism inevitably shatters one day, Bai Sheng?”

Like a heavy sledgehammer smashing into his mind, Bai Sheng’s pupils dilated to their absolute limits as he stared blankly at Shen Zhuo.

In that single instant, Shen Ruzhen’s research papers from over thirty years ago, the unresolved mysteries surrounding the destruction of the first-generation HRG, and Nielsen’s delirious, incoherent mumblings from moments ago… all rushed to the forefront of his mind.

Amidst the profound shock and mental chaos, every single point of doubt aligned perfectly, forging a horrific, unthinkable logical chain.

Bai Sheng parted his lips. Despite his utter disbelief, he heard a strained, raspy voice escape his throat:

“…Were those two words Nielsen just muttered truly ‘reproductive isolation’?”

Shen Zhuo gazed at him in absolute silence, offering no confirmation.

“Meaning… reproductive isolation will manifest between humans and evolutionists?”

The oxygen within his lungs was violently siphoned away. Within Shen Zhuo’s pupils, Bai Sheng caught a reflection of his own panicked, unraveling state.

“Even nuclear deterrence cannot guarantee eternal peace. One day in the future, evolutionists and humans will completely split into two distinct species, eventually entering a genetic bottleneck that leads to natural extinction, isn’t that right?!”

From Shen Zhuo’s permafrost-like silence, he received his definitive answer.

—In truth, he should have realized it long ago.

Shen Zhuo was an individual whose rationality reached the absolute pinnacle. He was not someone who, merely by grasping nuclear deterrence, would naively dream that peace could be maintained for thousands of generations after his death. True peace stemmed from racial integration. For someone as uncompromisingly resolute as Shen Zhuo, his most logical course of action when faced with the sudden onset of evolution back then should have been to aggressively disperse the meteorites. He should have ensured that as many of the seven billion people evolved as possible, vigorously promoted intermarriage and childbearing, and even mandated the establishment of sperm banks for evolutionists to achieve global evolution within a few centuries.

The fact that he didn’t do so could only mean one thing.

This path was fundamentally a dead end.

The HRG laboratory must have discovered definitive evidence of reproductive isolation very early on. That was precisely why Shen Zhuo had aggressively lobbied global governments to completely destroy the meteorites back then; he knew from the very start that the population of evolutionists had to be strictly controlled!

“I have no idea how Nielsen learned about reproductive isolation, but I expect it has something to do with Rong Qi. I figured it wouldn’t be kept a secret from you for much longer anyway.” Shen Zhuo’s voice was remarkably steady, save for his final syllables, which sounded as though they had been scraped by sandpaper. “I’m sorry, Bai Sheng. At the very least, perhaps it is slightly better coming from me.”

“…”

“Your kind will eventually vanish from this planet one day—perhaps in two or three hundred years, perhaps even longer. You believed I was a flawless deity sworn to uphold coexistence, but in reality, I can only do my best to minimize conflict and bloodshed during this process, guiding your kind toward a peaceful twilight.”

Shen Zhuo closed his eyes, opening them a moment later to reveal eyes thoroughly bloodshot.

“HRG maintains a precarious, beautiful facade, much like the one between you and me. But beneath that beauty lies nothing but a ticking time bomb, destined to shatter into pieces in the future. So, it is far better to let the end come while you still hold some affection for me.”

“The storm is coming. Perhaps, for the sake of our past sentiment, you will willingly allow Shenhai to squeeze a few more ounces of utility out of you.” Shen Zhuo let out a laugh—a self-deprecating curl of his lips—yet his pale mouth was trembling slightly as he stated calmly, “I’m sorry.”

Bai Sheng’s mind buzzed with a deafening roar. He could only watch blankly as Shen Zhuo extended a hand, seemingly intending to lean forward to leave him one final, lingering kiss.

But in the next fraction of a second, Shen Zhuo forcibly restrained himself, standing up to walk toward the distance.

“…Shen Zhuo,” Bai Sheng’s entire body shook. He lunged to his feet, staggering as he gave chase. “Shen Zhuo!”

This section of the beach was occupied only by the two of them, but the area not far away was teeming with activity. Several supervisors simultaneously turned their heads toward the noise.

Bai Sheng clamped a hand around Shen Zhuo’s arm from behind. In his agitation, he completely lost all control over his strength; even his senses and his mind were thrown into a state of absolute chaos. “No, no way. I don’t agree. I don’t believe it, I—”

Amidst the rush, a subtle thread of discord flashed through his mind, as if there were still unresolved discrepancies within Shen Zhuo’s words—as if something still didn’t quite add up.

But that single thread of doubt was instantly vaporized by a far more frenzied, uncontrollable tidal wave of emotion.

“No, you can’t just leave,” Bai Sheng was completely consumed by the terror of impending loss. He couldn’t even process what was spilling from his own mouth, driven entirely by a primal instinct to halt him. “Come back and let’s find a way. There’s always a solution to these things, isn’t there?! What do you mean it’s over? Why does it have to be over? Why can’t we think of something? Shen Zhuo, listen to me, don’t leave yet, Shen Zhuo!!”

With a sharp thud, Shen Zhuo was pinned down against the sandy beach. He barked out an order: “Let go!”

“What’s happening?” “What’s going on over there?” “No, no, no, no, no—”

A crowd of personnel paled in shock, rushing over in a hurry. They threw their hands out to pull him away, yet they couldn’t budge him an inch. In the distance, Cameron unhesitatingly drew his firearm, striding forward at a brisk pace as he shouted sharply, “What do you think you’re doing? Let go of him! Or I will fire!”

“WHAT THE FUUUUUCK!” Amatullah arrived at a full sprint, forcibly tearing Bai Sheng away from the crowd while hauling the disheveled Shen Zhuo to his feet with her other hand. “What on earth is going on here? Stop this instant!”

An individual who rarely lost their composure wouldn’t remain irrational for long, even when pushed to the brink. Sensing his own loss of control, Bai Sheng snapped back to reality like waking from a dream. “I’m sorry, I—”

His heart hammered uncontrollably against his ribs, as if his entire volume of blood had rushed to his head. Reproductive isolation, a peaceful extinction, an impossibility of coexistence, drawing the line here… the sheer volume of explosive information threw his consciousness into complete disarray.

I should feel hatred, a bewildered thought surfaced within his mind. At the very least, I should feel the burning rage of being played for a fool.

Those staggering truths, the explicit admission of being utilized, the merciless breakup, and a volatile future all came crashing down upon him amidst the roaring night tide, swallowing his vision and perception entirely until the chaotic scene around him faded into a blank canvas of white.

—Yet amidst the churning waves and the clamor of voices, across all the chaotic details surrounding him, the only thing his eyes could truly lock onto was the sight of Shen Zhuo’s cool fingertips trembling ever so slightly.

“Escort Supervisor Shen to the Supervision Office Hospital,” Amatullah barked a sharp command to the supervisors. “Deploy guards to stand watch. Introduce 24-hour rotating shifts.”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

Shen Zhuo turned to walk toward the nearby helicopter without a word. His spine was perfectly straight, the line from his nape down to his waist displaying a tense, freezing rigidity within the dark of night.

Just like that, step by step, he vanished from Bai Sheng’s line of sight.

With the demise of the Archbishop of the Round Table and Nielsen’s sudden detention, the entirety of the International Supervision General Administration was thrown into a state of absolute anarchy.

In accordance with the global conventions established during the founding of the evolutionist supervisory bodies, the United Nations temporarily assumed control of the International Supervision General Administration. They mandated that aside from Shen Zhuo, who was temporarily hospitalized for observation, the ten Chief Supervisors had to depart for their respective jurisdictions the very next day to quickly stabilize the situation and maintain order.

In truth, remaining here any longer was entirely pointless. Whether by legal protocol or actual circumstance, Nielsen was completely under the thumb of the Security Council. Even Amatullah, who ranked second within the headquarters, found it impossible to insert her own informants under that old fox Cameron’s nose. There was nothing left to do but watch things play out.

At 11:00 PM that night, Amatullah sent a text message to Bai Sheng:

【Around? Come down for a drink.】

Ever since the inexplicable argument erupted between Bai Sheng and Shen Zhuo earlier that evening, Bai Sheng’s behavior had been exceptionally strange. He had locked himself alone in his room, remaining inside for several hours.

No one had any idea what this independent S-class was contemplating at this moment.

Amatullah was someone who had clawed her way to this position after years of brutal struggles; a drive for her career was her default survival instinct. Her sharp political acumen told her that the rougher the seas, the more crucial it was to win over people’s hearts. There were no eternal adversaries, only eternal interests, and tonight presented the perfect opportunity to make the first move.

She had even prepared a lengthy, comforting speech to motivate this counterpart whom she absolutely had to win over. To her surprise, not long after the text message was dispatched, Bai Sheng actually materialized within the lounge downstairs.

“Yo, everyone’s here.” Not a single trace of anomaly was visible on Bai Sheng’s face; the utter desolation he had displayed when facing Shen Zhuo earlier that evening had completely vanished. He merely appeared somewhat lazy, his mind clearly drifting elsewhere. “Aren’t you guys supposed to leave tomorrow?”

The lounge was occupied by only a scattering of two or three patrons. Amatullah sat by the bar, while Margot, Celine, and Chu Yan occupied a booth, chatting in low voices in English.

Chu Yan and Yang Xiaodao had stepped off their plane earlier that evening. Since Yang Xiaodao was thick-skinned and required little rest anyway, Bai Sheng had already dispatched him to handle other matters. Chu Yan had remained at the inn to freshen up, rest, and grab a bite to eat, which was how she chanced upon Amatullah and the others who had yet to depart from the island.

“We’re returning to our respective jurisdictions tomorrow, so we’re having one last get-together tonight.” Amatullah raised her glass in a toast to Bai Sheng, making no mention of the dispute between him and Shen Zhuo on the beach, nor inquiring about the underlying cause. She merely stated, “I just received a report that Supervisor Shen has been admitted for observation. He seems to have summoned additional personnel from Shenhai for close personal protection, so there shouldn’t be any issues regarding his safety.”

“Ah,” Bai Sheng offered a succinct reply. “I know.”

Amatullah observed him for a moment, somewhat unable to gauge whether he was genuinely indifferent or if he truly knew.

From the booth behind them came the faint sound of Chu Yan chatting with Margot and Celine. The two female supervisors had always belonged to Amatullah’s faction. Margot, a French woman with an exceptionally placid disposition, spoke in a gentle, soft tone: “Is your ability empathy with animals? That’s quite impressive. My Fatal Strike merely allows me to temporarily borrow beast-like traits, so my overall combat proficiency is relatively standard…”

Sitting by the bar, Bai Sheng had ordered nothing but a glass of ice water. The condensation along the glass obscured his expression, leaving only his deep, pitch-black eyes visible.

“Shall I order a drink for you?” Amatullah inquired.

Bai Sheng shook his head. “No need.”

“Why’s that?”

“Need to keep a clear head.” Bai Sheng glanced at his wristwatch. “Got things to take care of later.”

“…” Amatullah nodded thoughtfully. After a moment of deliberation, she finally asked, “Nielsen—the man who viewed you with the most disdain in this world—has fallen. What are your plans for the future?”

Bai Sheng abruptly let out a laugh, brief though it was. “What does that have to do with me? What plans could I possibly have?”

Amatullah fired back, “Perhaps it could have something to do with you. Don’t you want to become a supervisor?”

The question was posed with immense subtlety, for she refrained from specifying what kind of supervisor—whether a standard regional post, one of the ten permanent seats, a position in Shenhai, or some other jurisdiction. This omission naturally left ample room for ambiguity and maneuvering.

Yet Bai Sheng merely gazed silently at the ice cubes floating inside his glass, the lounge lighting catching the crisp contours of his profile. After a lengthy silence, he stated calmly:

“I have no interest in your existing supervisory system.”

Amatullah retracted her gaze, taking a sip of her drink with a smile. “You are only interested in our Chief Supervisor.”

The corners of Bai Sheng’s chiseled mouth hooked slightly, neither confirming nor denying the statement.

“Handsome, I still don’t get it.” Amatullah propped her chin in her hand, slanting a smirk his way. “Asia possesses the highest concentration of evolutionists in the entire world. As an S-class, you neither expand your own territory to forge a faction, nor cooperate with the General Administration to march into the upper echelons. Instead, you spend all your days throwing your own money down the drain just to work for free at the Shenhai Supervision Office. Is the charm of Shenhai truly that immense?”

“…”

Bai Sheng’s expression remained cold and quiet. For a moment, Amatullah assumed he had no intention of answering, but a moment later, she heard him speak with deliberate slowness: “Because I am used to it.”

“Used to what?”

“My identity as a human, and the attachments that come with it.”

Amatullah was left completely mystified. She watched as Bai Sheng offered a lazy shake of his head, appearing entirely powerless against his own mindset. He abruptly swiveled around on his high stool to face Margot and the others in the booth behind him, raising his glass toward them.

“If—and I do mean if,” he initiated in a casual, conversational tone. “What if the global situation undergoes a sudden, cataclysmic shift one day, and it becomes a definitive reality that evolutionists and humans can no longer coexist?”

The entire group instinctively fell silent, turning their eyes toward him.

“If you choose humanity, the reproduction of evolutionists will steadily decline over a few centuries until they gradually vanish. While the outcome is inherently passive, the process leans toward peace, devoid of major friction or conflict.”

“If you choose evolutionists, war could erupt at any given moment. Large-scale conflict and bloodshed will become inevitable, the population of evolutionists will spike drastically, accompanied by the mass death of humans. In the future, there is a substantial probability that the Earth will belong entirely to evolutionists, but there is also a slim chance that humanity will utilize nuclear weapons to defeat and wipe us out entirely.”

Bai Sheng’s voice paused slightly, his gaze systematically drifting across each face in the room. None could discern the deep, unreadable light flickering within his pupils.

“Which side would you choose to stand on? Humanity, or your own kind?”

The lounge’s piano melody drifted gracefully through the air as the occupants of the booth exchanged glances.

After a long pause, Amatullah knitted her brows. “…What kind of extreme ethical dilemma is this? It defies all logic. It’s impossible for circumstances to become so polarized—”

“Just a casual chat,” Bai Sheng replied nonchalantly. “Merely a bit curious.”

The supervisors looked back and forth at one another. A full few minutes ticked by before Chu Yan’s soft, slender voice broke the silence: “…Will it affect the animals on this planet?”

Bai Sheng couldn’t help but chuckle. After a brief thought, he replied, “Probably. Once war breaks out, most living organisms on Earth are bound to be affected, right?”

Chu Yan fell silent. Celine twirled her champagne glass with a smile. “What an extreme question. It must be an exceptionally difficult choice for you S-classes. Thank goodness an A-class like me doesn’t possess that so-called alpha-wolf instinct… Well, I despise war. But if a conflict truly breaks out, I certainly wouldn’t be able to sit idly by and watch my own kind get slaughtered. What about you?”

Lounging back against the sofa, she swung her legs, pointing the tips of her toes toward Amatullah.

“…Hmm,” Amatullah rubbed her chin thoughtfully, speaking slowly. “We aren’t even of the same species as humans anymore. In a life-or-death scenario like that, most would default to choosing their own kind, wouldn’t they?”

Bai Sheng arched an eyebrow. “Have your family and friends all evolved, Ma’am?”

Amatullah fired back with a sly question of her own: “Does the outbreak of war imply that every single human must perish?”

She left the thought unvoiced, but Bai Sheng understood her meaning entirely. Amatullah was a powerful, high-ranking Chief Supervisor; regardless of the circumstances, she possessed the capacity to shield her own lineage. Even if her family hadn’t evolved, she could undoubtedly ensure their survival amidst chaotic times, so it wasn’t a pressing concern for her.

“Humanity.” Margot, who was also an S-class, leaned against the sofa armrest with a smile. “I choose humanity.”

Bai Sheng inquired, “Why?”

“My daughter can’t evolve. I tried testing her with a meteorite when she was born.” Margot paused, lowering her eyes with a faint smile. “No one wants to see their child grow up amidst the ravages of war, right?”

Amatullah appeared somewhat moved, a trace of vacancy flickering across her expression. A moment later, she nodded and let out a sigh, leaving the matter open-ended.

“What about you, kiddo?” Bai Sheng turned his attention to Chu Yan.

Chu Yan leaned sideways against the armrest of the booth, one of her shoulders held gently by Margot’s arm. Her sharp, white canine tooth bit into her lower lip. After a long hesitation, she murmured uncertainty: “…The calico cat I feed downstairs at my residential complex is about to give birth. If war breaks out, I probably won’t get to see the kittens enter the world, will I?”

Perhaps because she was speaking before so many high-tier counterparts and Chief Supervisors, yet could only voice such trivial, insignificant matters, Chu Yan couldn’t help but feel a bit embarrassed. “And then there are my relatives back home, my old classmates, the friends I met in the animal rescue group, the orphanage where I volunteer… If we can’t coexist with humans, doesn’t that mean a part of my own life has to disappear along with them?”

No one uttered a word; only the sound of faint breathing filled the space.

“Maybe it’s just because I’m a mere B-class, so sometimes I feel… I’ve clearly been born and raised as a human up until this point.”

Chu Yan appeared somewhat bewildered, adding in a soft murmur, “Those attachments that come with being a human—can they truly be cast aside just like that? I… I don’t know either.”

The lighting beside them dimmed slightly, plunging the lounge into a quiet stillness as The Carpenters’ Yesterday Once More cascaded through the air like flowing water. The reflection of the transparent ice cubes bobbing inside his glass danced within Bai Sheng’s eyes.

Amidst the distant, churning tide, Shen Zhuo’s voice seemed to echo beside his ear once more: “…Five years ago, the HRG laboratory discovered that the brains of evolutionists secrete a neurotransmitter, causing them to automatically form the belief that ‘we are not of the same species as humans.’ The higher an evolutionist’s tier, the easier it becomes for them to be driven by this chemical substance…”

That helpless, desolate cadence, enveloped within the deafening roar of the rising tide, grew increasingly resonant and unignorable, delivering a sudden, profound realization to his turbulent soul.

A chemical substance.

Bai Sheng abruptly closed his eyes. The lighting illuminated one side of his profile, while the other half remained shrouded within the shifting shadows.

“…Did I say something wrong?” Chu Yan’s voice filtered through from nearby like cracking ice, sounding a bit apprehensive.

Bai Sheng opened his eyes, exhaling a deep, lengthy breath, as if to completely purge his mind of all chaotic, stray thoughts and confusion.

Then, he turned around with a smile, reaching out from his high stool to vigorously ruffle Chu Yan’s hair.

“Not at all. Look at the brain on my kiddo,” he stated. “One that hasn’t been contaminated truly functions beautifully.”

The young girl tried in vain to dodge, her hair left in a thoroughly disheveled state. Bai Sheng retracted his hand amidst the vocal protests of Margot and Celine. He glanced at his watch, swinging his long legs down from the high stool. “It’s midnight. Got things to do, I’m off.”

Amatullah expressed her surprise. “Where on earth are you going?”

“The hospital, of course.”

“You were just held at gunpoint and you’re still going?! Shen Zhuo is surrounded by so many guards!”

“Mmh,” Bai Sheng replied casually. “Learned my lesson. From this day forward, no matter where he is, I have to keep my eyes locked onto him.”

He offered a careless wave of his hand, burying both hands into his pockets as he walked toward the lounge doors. Amatullah watched his slouching, slender silhouette depart into the distance, cupping a hand around her mouth to shout loudly, “What you’re doing is explicitly called being a stalker!…”

Bai Sheng let out a brief chuckle, vanishing into the shroud of night without looking back.

00:15 AM.

Evolutionist Special Hospital.

Outside the window ledge of a room on the hospital’s top floor, Yang Xiaodao pressed his back against the exterior wall of the building. Blending into the night like a silent shadow, he tilted his head up to gaze at the magnificent Milky Way stretching across the sky.

Right beside him lay a brilliantly illuminated window, from the gap of which faint fragments of conversation filtered through. It was Shenhai’s Supervisor, Shen Zhuo, delivering low instructions to Shui Ronghua and the others who had just rushed over from Shenhai: “…Implement the most rigorous security measures. If this information leaks, every radical evolutionist organization across the globe will target the meteorite storage bases of various nations. The situation will spiral completely out of control…”

Shui Ronghua systematically noted down every task he delegated. “Everything has been recorded. Please get some rest early as well. Is there anything else?”

“…”

Shen Zhuo did not offer an immediate reply.

From the distance came the intermittent chirping of nocturnal insects. The hospital room behind him fell into a deep silence, the faint rhythm of breathing practically audible.

Yang Xiaodao couldn’t help but steal a glance back toward that window. It was only then that he heard Shen Zhuo’s calm, raspy voice echo once more:

“…Your Brother Bai has a scrape near his temple. Have the Witch of Itardo take a look at it tomorrow so it doesn’t leave a scar.”

“I won’t be seeing him.”

Yang Xiaodao felt somewhat perplexed, thinking to himself: Did Bai Sheng sustain a scrape near his temple? How did I miss that?

Just as he was about to turn his head back around, he was nearly frightened out of his wits.

Gazing across that bright hospital window barely two meters away, a silhouette had materialized out of nowhere on the opposite end of the concrete window ledge. One long leg dangled carelessly in mid-air, an elbow resting casually against the propped-up knee of his other leg. Resting the back of his head against the brick wall of the hospital building, he was squinting at the boundless night sky.

It was none other than Bai Sheng.

“Understood,” Shui Ronghua replied from inside the room.

The rustling of footsteps followed, indicating that several subordinates were exiting the room. Before leaving, Shui Ronghua reached out to switch off the main ceiling lights, leaving only a small bedside lamp illuminated by Shen Zhuo’s cot. Just as she was about to step out the door, she paused.

“Shen Zhuo.” Standing by the doorframe, she turned her head back around, her voice gentle and soft. “In truth, you know it well yourself—even if you tell Bai Sheng about the future reality of reproductive isolation, he will still choose to uphold the present peace. He wouldn’t transform into a radical warmonger because of it. Isn’t that right?”

Out on the window ledge, Bai Sheng’s chiseled profile remained enveloped within the night. A long moment passed before Shen Zhuo’s flat voice drifted out from the room: “I know.”

“Then there was absolutely no need for you to force him away like—”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Shen Zhuo countered. “Sit idly by and watch him draw closer and closer to the core of the HRG project?”

Shui Ronghua was instantly rendered speechless. After a brief struggle, she managed a strained remark: “In truth… even if you were to reveal that specific truth to him as well, I don’t think he would…”

What specific truth?

A thoroughly baffled Yang Xiaodao captured the keyword, turning a face full of confusion toward Bai Sheng. Yet, he merely caught Bai Sheng gesturing toward him into the night sky.

It was a sign indicating that it was time for him to leave.

Yang Xiaodao: “?”

Bai Sheng waved his hand, mouthing the words: “Go get some rest.”

“…”

In reality, when Yang Xiaodao had been dispatched here, Bai Sheng had already informed him that their shifts would rotate at twelve-thirty. The youth blinked his eyes. Though left completely in the dark, he offered a docile, silent nod before hurling himself into the boundless night. Like an agile falcon, his trace vanished in the blink of an eye.

Left alone on the concrete window ledge was Bai Sheng’s lone silhouette. He turned his head slightly, gazing at the warm yellow window glass beside him.

They were so close, as though a simple extension of his hand would allow him to touch it.

“…There is no need to bring up this matter ever again in the future,” a cold response finally drifted out from inside the room after what felt like an eternity.

“To seek companionship while living in this world is, in itself, a selfish desire.”

Shui Ronghua’s sigh dissolved into the night wind. A long moment later, she exited the room, gently closing the door behind her.

The night sky was vast and boundless, all sounds hushed into silence. A solitary lighthouse flickered over the distant sea, causing time to stretch out exceptionally long.

With his entire back resting against the wall, Bai Sheng caught the faint, rustling sounds coming from inside. It was likely the sound of Shen Zhuo lying down. He could even discern the deep, lengthy breaths his counterpart drew due to absolute physical exhaustion.

It felt as though the entire universe had been stripped down to that single thread of breathing, rising and falling in tandem with the tides, merging into one with the rhythmic thumping of the heart inside Bai Sheng’s chest.

He wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

He had long deduced that Shen Zhuo was withholding a portion of the truth.

The moment he learned the secret of reproductive isolation from Shen Zhuo’s mouth, a subtle thread of bizarreness had already manifested within Bai Sheng’s heart—because every single individual privy to HRG’s secrets displayed a level of terror that bordered on discordant.

The current global population of evolutionists did not exceed a hundred thousand. The vast majority of lower-tier evolutionists, much like Chu Yan, harbored absolutely no desire to wage war against humanity. Even among the S and A-class evolutionists, anti-war advocates like Margot existed; a vacillating, go-with-the-flow attitude like Celine’s constituted the baseline.

A racial war was the result of qualitative change triggered by a certain accumulation of quantitative friction. Any discerning individual could see that even if the secret of reproductive isolation manifesting two to three centuries from now were made public this very second, the maximum crisis generated would merely involve radical organizations raiding meteorite storage bases. The probability of a global war erupting approached zero.

Why, then, had Shen Zhuo rejected him in such a hurried, precipitous manner?

Why had he behaved so uncharacteristically, exerting every ounce of his being to push away an S-class who could clearly serve as a powerful asset?

Bai Sheng’s brow pressed together slightly as he suddenly recalled the first time Cameron had made his appearance. Back then, he and Shen Zhuo had just shattered the daydream, waking up inside the HRG laboratory on the basement floor of the Shenhai Hospital. Word was filtering through that Nielsen had been critically injured with his life hanging in the balance, when Cameron suddenly barged in with fully armed personnel, declaring that the HRG research conducted in Shenhai was illegal and demanding Shen Zhuo’s immediate arrest.

At that time, every single researcher in the laboratory had huddled behind Shen Zhuo, a concealed terror flickering within every pair of eyes. Bai Sheng had assumed the scientists were merely intimidated by the presence of loaded firearms on the scene.

Only today did he realize that what they feared was not firearms or bullets.

These researchers had drafted their last testaments before entering HRG. Three years ago, Shen Zhuo had nearly been tortured to death; these individuals had hurriedly destroyed their experimental data, fleeing to Shenhai under the cover of night. They had weathered the most treacherous storms and lived under constant suspicion; it was impossible for them to display such immense terror over Cameron’s mere handful of firearms.

They were terrified of something else entirely.

—Deep within this massive genetic plan spanning thirty years and suspended by a single thread of wire, there lay a core, profound truth—one far more critical than reproductive isolation, far more significant than their very lives.

Whether it was Shen Zhuo or the other researchers, they exerted every effort to prevent outsiders from drawing near to this truth. They remained fully vigilant and perpetually on guard, which was precisely why so many details appeared so discordant and counter-intuitive.

What on earth could this secret be?

The breathing inside the window behind him grew smooth and lengthy, as though amidst his long, turbulent wanderings, he had temporarily secured a pocket of peace.

Bai Sheng sat quietly on the exterior window ledge, a mere wall separating them within arm’s reach. His heartbeat gradually synchronized with that thread of breathing, resembling an uncontrollable string within his soul resonating and aligning perfectly with the other.

Carrying a torch while walking alone through the dark of night, casting his eyes forward into a blank, desolate silence. He pillowed his hands behind his head, gazing up at the night sky as a thought suddenly surfaced within his mind: Doing this… can be considered a way of keeping him company, right?

The late-night breeze swept toward the ocean. Bai Sheng turned his head to look at the dim window frame, raising his hand to sweep his fingertips across the empty space—as if, through some ethereal connection, he were caressing that familiar face resting in oblivious slumber. Only after a long while did he let out a silent, tender sigh.

Simultaneously, over the sea surface a dozen or so miles away.

Colossal waves roared as they crashed against the jagged reefs, churning up a freezing spray. Several high-tier evolutionist subordinates stood in solemn silence behind him as Rong Qi’s figure hovered mid-air. Casting his gaze toward the distant hospital building enveloped within the night, he arched an eyebrow, murmuring to himself:

“They’re certainly keeping a tight watch…”

A subordinate knitted his brows, stepping forward to request instructions: “Shall we wait for that Bai Sheng to depart, Mr. Rong?”

“He won’t be leaving.” Rong Qi let out a sigh laden with a touch of sentiment, shaking his head as he turned around. “Let’s go. At the very least, we still have one objective secure, so it isn’t a completely fruitless endeavor.”

The subordinates followed closely behind. Only Rong Qi’s lazy laughter remained, dissolving into the ocean breeze: “That Director-General should prove to be far easier to handle…”

A few silhouettes quickly vanished over the sea, blending silently into the night as though they had never appeared at all.

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