HS Chapter 21

Thank you T for the Ko-Fi!! 🧡🧡

---

Half an hour ago.

A gilded, intricately carved antique clock was placed in the corner of the wall. Thanks to the daily cleaning by the manor’s servants, it was free of dust. The clock’s chain suspended the hammer, swinging slowly to drive the mechanism and move the hour hand toward the eighth mark.

Gerald’s political career had started with Old Master Pei’s support, pushing him into the Federal Security Bureau. From a low-ranking clerk to the current Deputy Minister of Economic Security, he had remained loyal to the Pei family all these years. If it had not been for the mismatch in age and the fact that he was already married at the time, Old Master Pei would have paired his nephew with him.

As a trusted aide, Gerald even had an independent, exclusive lounge in the Pei manor, which was enough to show his status.

In today’s political circle, Gerald was still in his prime. Unlike those decrepit, gray-haired directors and deputy directors, the two newly grown strands of white hair at his temples had already been covered up with dye. He was only forty-five years old, with a bright future ahead of him, and his eldest son Cook was just twenty.

‘Cook…’

Thinking of his deceased son, Gerald’s previously straight back finally bent. Holding a wine glass, he sat back down on the sofa. His hunched back made him seem as if he had aged twenty years in an instant.

Cook was the child left behind by his first wife, who had died early. No children from his second marriage or other lovers could compare. No matter how much a lover resembled her, they could never stand alongside his first wife in his heart.

Gerald did not know if he had done wrong. For the sake of the Pei family standing behind him, he had proposed the plan for the total extermination of the mutant species, which ultimately led to his son’s death.

However, even if he had been twenty years younger, Gerald would probably still have advocated for the Prometheus Laboratory project under the Qiu family. Even though it was a cruel, inhumane experiment forcibly stitching humans and beasts together to create new species, he believed that, for their new future, the sacrifice of those civilian participants, whether willing or not, was justified. It was to explore another possibility of human evolution. Perhaps they could even achieve immortality.

Such a path paved with thorns obviously required blood and sacrifice to smooth the way.

Unfortunately, the research project had failed because of a sudden fire. The experimental subjects, who had only been halfway through their transformations, rebelled. Their lack of sufficient self-sacrificial awareness turned them into today’s mutant species. Their acts of crazy revenge forced people to drive them out beyond the border of District Thirteen.

Gerald leaned against the back of the chair.

If it had not been for the fire that stopped the experiments back then, perhaps the Core Zone could already be enjoying the benefits of immortality and evolution. And he could have got a share of the pie with those laughing and talking at the banquet.

Gerald immersed himself in these fantasies, pushing away the sporadic grief of losing his son. He lit a cigarette and waited for his newly acquired, fashionably late little lover.

The ceiling lights illuminated every corner of the room.

Without a sound, a dark, enormous, heavy shadow loomed from behind, plunging the room into what felt like complete darkness.

Gerald’s pupils contracted. When he saw the grotesque shadow on the floor, alarms blared in his mind. His aging reflexes made him half a beat too slow, and that small moment of delay cost him dearly.

The gun he had just pulled out, like its owner, fell powerlessly onto the carpet.

A black line flashed across his neck. The middle-aged Alpha’s eyes remained wide open, staring into the void. Scarlet blood gushed from his neck, soaking into the deep red carpet.

As the Cutter left, he came face-to-face with one of the tentacles.

Neither of the two mutant species spoke.

The tentacle, controlled by the sub-brain, could only be understood by the main brain and other sub-brains. Therefore, even if the Cutter tried to communicate with the tentacle, it was impossible to achieve true communication.

They brushed past each other.

The Cutter did not care where this tentacle was heading. He returned to the aircraft, and the black shadow once again attached itself to the bionic humanoid.

Number One immediately sensed his master’s summons. Within the machine’s internal program, he could see Xin Hexue’s positioning information.

He did not hesitate and immediately chose to proceed.

………

“Gudu, gudu, gudu…”

Xin Hexue choked on water. He coughed twice and struggled, splashing water out of the bathtub.

The more he struggled to break free, the tighter the tentacle wrapped around his waist like a snake, sticking to him closely and intimately without any gaps.

The young man’s breathing was already so disordered it turned ambiguous and fragmented.

His back muscles, slightly defined due to his half-crouched posture, pressed against the tentacle’s suction cups. The damp, sticky sensation kept wriggling against his skin, like lips and tongues constantly licking and violating his bare flesh.

The young man’s skin was fair and soft, with fine texture, well-proportioned flesh and bones, and still carried a trace of warmth.

The tentacle could sense the pulse of life from this body, the steady, rhythmic beats coming from his chest cavity.

“＊＆＆％…￥％＃￥＃＠”

“＃＃￥＊……％＠＃＠（＊＆％）”

The mutant species’ voices sounded as if they came from a distant deep sea, glowing with a faint blue light under the moonlight. Xin Hexue could not understand a word.

One of the tentacles slithered up from his slender ankle.

It prided itself on being the most important among the eight tentacles because it was the mating arm, responsible for reproductive functions.

Now, following the guidance of its soul, it had found its one and only beloved mate in this life—

Oh… it meant, its wife…

It was no longer a wild tentacle without a wife…

It would gift the hope of life to its beloved mate, thus tirelessly searching for its mate’s wet, soft reproductive cavity.

Along the way, it got stomped on several times. It loved it so much…

‘Wife…’

“＆＠＊…＆＃#”

—Wife, your hands are so small, your skin is so white…

“＊＆…％＆％…％＃”

—Wife, you smell so good…

At the critical moment, K electrocuted two of the tentacles with a hundred thousand volts.

Xin Hexue smelled the scent of food that was crispy on the outside and tender on the inside.

He thought that from now on, he would never eat seafood again.

He hated seafood.

K explained: [Sorry, the skill had just finished cooling down.]

It sounded as if he were some kind of Pokémon, even the electric shock skill had a cooldown period.

Xin Hexue weakly supported himself against the bathtub and stood up, pulling a disposable bathrobe over his body. Taking advantage of the brief break between waves of drug effects, he quickly tidied up the mess in the bathroom.

He did not understand why there were so many mutant species in the Pei manor.

The script was unfolded from his character’s perspective, and the information provided was extremely limited. Most of the world background was simply glossed over.

The only contact “Xin Hexue” was supposed to have with the mutant species was in the originally planned ending, where he would become a cannon fodder wandering at the border and died at the hands of the mutant species.

Xin Hexue frowned. He kept a cold face, lowered his gaze, and without hesitation, threw the weakened, pitifully shrunken tentacle into the sink drain and flushed it down.

Hmm, he hoped it would not clog the pipes.

Xin Hexue walked out of the bathroom, suddenly bursting into a fit of continuous coughing. The sweet, rusty taste of blood surged up his throat. The long-silent pain in his lungs flared up, making his chest tremble and his body bend over, his hand gripping the edge of the table tightly.

If this continued, he would sooner or later end up in the hospital.

Xin Hexue accidentally knocked something over.

A glass photo frame shattered on the floor.

Because of the coughing, his wrist trembled badly, and he flipped over the photo paper.

It was a teenager, a child, a man, and a woman.

Xin Hexue was face-blind and could not recognize them at all.

But this was the Pei family manor, there wouldn’t be family photos of other unknown people.

After wandering left and right for a long while upon leaving the bathroom, Xin Hexue could not figure out where he had gone.

When he entered the room, he had subconsciously thought it was a guest room. The discovery of the family photo made him look around again.

The decoration style was almost identical to Pei Guangji’s room in the Nancheng villa. He glanced at the connected study, where familiar books lined the shelves.

This was Pei Guangji’s room?

Xin Hexue reexamined the family photo and guessed it was Pei Guangji and Pei Ying. Besides them, many different group photos were hung on the wall.

Some could be identified as class graduation photos from elementary, middle, and high school, judging by the small red printed characters.

There was also one photo, with the large garden at the Pei manor’s entrance as the background.

Three children, and a teenager who looked a few years older.

K noticed Xin Hexue’s frowning expression and asked: [Do you need a hint?]

Xin Hexue: [Mm.]

He could only judge by hair color and eye color. The one on the far left was probably Pei Guangji. Counting from the left, the first one was Xi Zhengqing. He was not familiar with the remaining two.

K: [From left to right: Pei Guangji, Xi Zhengqing, Zuo Yongyan.]

His words confirmed Xin Hexue’s earlier guess.

Xin Hexue exhaled a hot breath. The effects of the drug were faintly surging again. [What about the last one?]

Judging by age, it was not Qiu Yuan. This was not a group photo of four childhood friends.

K: [He does not appear in the plot.]

Moreover, K could not find any information about this person online either, as if all traces of him had been intentionally blocked and erased.

Xin Hexue tried to slow down his burning breathing. He closed his eyelids.

He could feel the transparent K gently holding him from behind.

Xin Hexue’s dark eyelashes trembled slightly. There was still a bloody taste lingering in his mouth. His voice was a bit hoarse, “I’m not at the point where I can’t stand anymore. Thank you for your concern, good partner.”

K fell silent.

He didn’t say anything and quietly disappeared from the spot.

Perhaps because Xin Hexue had not called him “gege”, and because of that tactful rejection and reminder in his words, K silently returned to his original position.

He watched as the bionic man opened the door and entered.

The host grabbed the butler’s uniform collar and gave it a pull.

With a pull, he was pushed onto the sofa.

Before the bionic man could react, Xin Hexue straddled him, sitting down and bestowing a kiss upon him as if granting charity.

K was thinking, would the bionic man taste the fishy sweetness of rust?

His program calculations could not give him an answer.

The young man rode on top of the bionic man, and as the clothes fell away, he expressionlessly grasped the external part, which was outrageously out of proportion, and said coldly to the bionic man, “Use something else.”

………

Number One found it hard to explain what had happened.

He had absolutely no experience in this. The advantage of bionic humanoids was supposed to be rapid learning and analysis. He should have been able to calculate the master’s physical limits through programming.

But he was not a real bionic man.

He was merely a monster manipulating the bionic man’s body.

The master’s waist trembled incessantly, like soft willow branches swaying in the spring breeze. The human body was pale and fragile, looking as though it could snap at any moment, yet displayed astonishing flexibility.

Number One felt he must have touched somewhere. When he poked the soft flesh, it was like squeezing a ripe fruit, with transparent juice seeping down his knuckles.

Xin Hexue bit into the pillow, and an uncontrollable cat-like whimper overflowed from his throat.

The pillow was already soaked with tears.

He lifted his thin, red eyelids and said coldly, “You’re going to break me.”

Number One was so anxious that sweat broke out on his forehead.

Xin Hexue rolled his eyes, obviously dissatisfied with his performance.

Number One wanted to prove himself very much, but by the third finger, his master had already passed out.

After the drug’s effect wore off, the unnatural redness of the young man’s earlobes also gradually faded.

At the same time, footsteps sounded from the hallway outside.

Number One’s instincts told him he should not be here.

Moreover, he had received a message from Qiu Yuan. He had to leave.

Number One hid in the ventilation duct and peered at the newcomer.

He believed that today, he had experienced many kinds of emotions unique to humans, and the final one was unwillingness!