Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Meanwhile, in the northern suburbs of Chenxi City.

The atmosphere inside a private warehouse with a sign that reads "Logistics Transfer Station" was somber.

This is a hidden stronghold under Wei Donghai's control, and also the nest of his private security force.

A lean, short-haired man was cleaning a tranquilizer gun in his hand. His eyes were cold and his movements were efficient. Every detail exuded the iron-blooded aura of a soldier.

His name is "Iron Hand," a former elite special forces soldier who is now Wei Donghai's most trusted private security captain.

In front of him, four equally skilled team members were inspecting equipment—a high-voltage net gun, a portable stun gun, and a specially made electromagnetic restraint belt.

In a corner of the warehouse, a man dressed in a well-tailored business casual suit was quietly looking at data on a tablet. He had a refined appearance and wore gold-rimmed glasses, looking like a white-collar worker.

His name is Li Wei, and he is the "top agent" who lured Xu Suyuan to the "Blue Whale Cafe".

In Wei Donghai's shadow force, he played the role of an intelligence and deception expert.

"Li Wei," Iron Hand finished cleaning the tranquilizer gun and asked in a deep voice, "what kind of person was she when you first met her?"

Li Wei adjusted his glasses and said calmly:

"She's not very vigilant and has little social experience, but she's very resilient—she was able to work three jobs at the same time to pay for her grandmother's medical treatment. Her weakness is her strong sense of sentimentality, which is also why she's easily lured in."

He paused, then turned the tablet toward Iron Hand, where a blurry screenshot of Xu Suyuan passing through the fire door was frozen on the screen.

"But now...she's changed. Her eyes are different."

Iron Hand stared at the face contorted with pain and despair, remained silent for a moment, and then stood up.

"Come here, everyone."

All the team members immediately surrounded them.

"Target: Xu Suyuan, female, 22 years old. According to the profile provided by Dr. Lin, the first thing she would likely do after escaping is to check on her grandmother. Her grandmother is currently in the 'Sunset Glow' nursing home in the west of the city."

Iron Hand drew two dots on the tactics board.

"Group one, come with me to the nursing home. Group two, go to the old apartment complex where she used to rent. Set up surveillance on both sides simultaneously."

"Remember, the boss needs to be alive and intact. Authorize the use of tranquilizer guns and net guns. Do not use electric shock devices unless absolutely necessary, to avoid causing irreversible damage to the 'sample'."

"She's injured," Iron Hand said, pressing his fingers heavily on the blurry bloodstain on Xu Suyuan's shoulder. "She can't have gone far. We need to bring her back before the police find her."

"yes!"

A unified response echoed through the empty warehouse.

------

Heo So-won fled at 7 p.m.

The eighth district of Chenxi City, a peri-urban area.

This is the edge of the city, the boundary between prosperity and desolation, adjacent to the long-abandoned "old industrial area" on the outskirts of the city.

The streetlights were dim and sparse, casting a swaying shadow of Xu Suyuan's thin figure.

She stopped in front of a small shop called "Old Li Department Store".

The red public telephone booth at the entrance of the convenience store is like the only lighthouse in the darkness.

With trembling hands, Xu Suyuan pulled a crumpled ten-yuan bill from her pocket—she had found it in the pocket of an old coat next to a trash can during her escape.

She took a deep breath, handed the banknotes to her boss who was watching TV and exchanged them for coins, then squeezed into the phone booth and stiffly pressed the number.

"Feed? Who is it?"

The call connected, and it was the voice of a middle-aged woman.

That was Aunt Wang, who lived next door and usually took good care of the grandmother and grandson.

Hearing that familiar voice, Xu Suyuan's nerves, which had been taut for days, almost snapped, and tears welled up in her eyes:

"Aunt Wang...it's me, Su-won."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, followed by an exclamation: "So-won?! Is that you, So-won?! Good heavens, you're still alive! Where have you been for the past month? Your union said you breached your contract and ran away, and the police came several times. We all thought you..."

"Aunt Wang," Xu Suyuan interrupted the other person's concerned voice, her hand gripping the receiver tightly, "My grandma... how is my grandma?"

On her escape, she imagined countless possibilities—her grandmother might fall ill from anxiety because she couldn't see her, she might be sent to a nursing home's intensive care unit, or she might even be kicked out for unpaid bills...

However, there was a long, dead silence on the other end of the phone.

Only the hissing of electricity and Aunt Wang's suppressed sobs could be heard.

An ominous premonition crept up Xu Suyuan's spine, instantly freezing her heart.

"Tell me... Aunt Wang, what's wrong with my grandma?" Xu Suyuan's voice began to tremble, with a hint of pleading.

"So-won..." Aunt Wang finally choked up, "Your grandmother... passed away two days ago."

boom--

Xu Suyuan felt like something had exploded in her head.

All sound was silenced at that moment, and the world seemed to become a silent film.

"...It was a complication of diabetes, ketoacidosis...It was discovered too late. They were rushed to the hospital and treated for a day and a night, but still couldn't..."

"...Before she passed away, the old lady kept murmuring 'Yuanyuan,' 'Yuanyuan'..."

"Clatter".

The receiver slipped from Xu Suyuan's hand and slammed heavily against the wall of the phone booth, swaying helplessly in mid-air.

The dim incandescent light in the convenience store began to distort in Xu Suyuan's suddenly unfocused eyes, eventually turning into countless bizarre fragments.

Xu Suyuan's heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, then slowly twisted and crushed.

In that instant, countless fragments of memories flooded her mind like a burst dam—

The old lady, who always secretly slipped the apples she couldn't bear to eat into her schoolbag, her face full of wrinkles with a smile, said, "Yuanyuan, eat these, they'll help you grow. Grandma doesn't like them."

Even though he suffered from Alzheimer's disease and forgot the whole world, the old man would still sit at the door of her live broadcast room late at night, listening to her sing, clapping his hands and laughing foolishly.

And that dusk before I was drugged, the blood-red sunset outside the coffee shop window.

She was thinking that if she got home late tonight, her grandmother might be hungry, and she should buy her some soft pastries to take home...

So that was goodbye forever.

It turns out that while she was tied to that laboratory chair, enduring inhuman torture, she was desperately struggling to see her grandmother one last time...

Grandma breathed her last in a cold hospital room, her calls going unanswered.

……

I don't know how much time passed.

The shopkeeper poked his head out and looked at the girl sitting on the roadside bench with some curiosity.

Xu Suyuan sat there stiffly, like a lifeless stone sculpture.

The night wind was cold, blowing through her tattered and thin clothes, but she didn't feel cold.

Her tears had long been drained in that dark, sunless underground laboratory.

Now all that's left is the dry, stinging pain in my eye sockets, as if they've been burned.

"Grandma is gone..."

"While I was imprisoned and suffering... I walked away all alone..."

A thought slowly rose in the still lake of my heart.

If it weren't for those people...

If it weren't for that so-called "top agent" who tricked her.

If it weren't for that damned lab that imprisoned her for a whole month...

How could Grandma's condition have worsened because no one was taking care of her?

How could he not even get to see his granddaughter one last time before he died?

Guilt, like a dull knife, sawed at her soul.

But then, an even more certain emotion rose from the ruins where guilt had burned to ashes.

That was hatred.

It was no longer the explosive hatred that arose simply out of a desire to survive, but a dark toxin that had settled deep in the bone marrow after being cooled by death.

"The people who lied to me... the people who imprisoned me... those who indirectly caused my grandmother's death..."

Xu Suyuan slowly raised her head, and her once clear eyes were now as deep as a dry well.

"Unforgivable."

"They must be punished!"

hum-

At the very moment this thought reached its peak, Xu Suyuan was unaware that deep within her soul, the blue-purple mark representing [Void Travel] trembled violently.

At the edge of the originally pure, ghostly light, faint, ink-like black lines began to form. They twisted and tangled, trying to construct a more aggressive form, but ultimately failed to take shape due to the host's exhaustion and slowly disappeared.