After ninety-nine online romances, I finally met my ex in person when school started.

Zhu Xun Chuan took a half step back, then suddenly exerted force with his right leg. The terrifying explosive power traveled from his thigh muscles to his heel, and a simple side kick struck the vulnerable core of the door lock.

A muffled thud.

The spring clips inside the riot lock broke inch by inch. The rusty iron door was violently forced open with a screeching sound.

A chilly, basement-like atmosphere wafted over me.

Zhu Xun Chuan pressed the old switch on the wall. A dim, yellowish incandescent light above flickered twice before finally lighting up, illuminating the extremely secluded safe house.

The interior was extremely simply furnished: a metal bunk bed, a sophisticated gun modification workbench, and several military-green moisture-proof ammunition boxes.

The room was empty.

Zhu Xun Chuan walked to the worktable. On it sat a black, thickened military-grade computer tower. He stretched out his hand, placing the back of his hand against the metal casing on the side of the tower.

There was still a trace of warmth.

The cooling fan was still vibrating slightly.

Less than ten minutes after the person left, the white crane, realizing that the fake base station signal might be intercepted, swiftly completed its evacuation with extremely high tactical proficiency.

Zhu Xun Chuan turned around, his gaze sweeping across the cramped basement. The next second, his eyes froze completely on the wall to his left.

It was a whole wall of photos.

Hundreds of photos were pinned tightly to the yellowed wall with thumbtacks. Most of the photos were taken from hidden angles, yet they were extremely clear. And the subject of all the photos was him.

From his profile as he smoked on the street two years ago, to his lining up during military training at Peking University; from riding in Fu Xinghe's car to the National Museum to see an exhibition, to enjoying the sea breeze on a yacht at Hai Zhi Ya, his movements in Beijing over the past two years have been recorded almost meticulously.

But this was not the reason why Zhu Xunchuan's pupils contracted.

What truly shook him to his core were the women around him in the photos.

In every photograph featuring other women, their faces were marked with a sharp red cross. The force was so great that it even tore through the surface of the photographic paper.

The photos show Gu Qinghan working in the counselor's office wearing black stockings with his face slashed; Jiang Yao feeding him in the hospital room while wearing a motorcycle leather jacket with her face slashed; Su Mucheng leaning on his shoulder in the RV with her face slashed; and even Xia Wanying's aloof figure holding a glass of red wine on a yacht is completely covered by scarlet crisscrossing lines.

In the secret safe house of this top-tier assassin, she displayed an almost pathological jealousy and malice towards these high-society heiresses, the richest men in the capital, and the top celebrities in the entertainment industry.

The blank spaces next to the slashed female protagonist's face were filled with writings made with black pen.

"Brother Chuan is mine."

"Shameless vixen, she deserves to die."

"I really want to cut off her legs."

"Brother Chuan smiled at me today, I miss him so much."

"I'm cleaner than them, I only have Brother Chuan."

These densely packed, haphazardly written words form an extremely repressive, distorted, yet utterly humble web of emotions. This is the story of a female assassin who walks the line between life and death every day. In countless dark nights, she hides in this basement, wiping her murderous knife while frantically spying on the daily life of her beloved man, swallowing her overwhelming jealousy alone.

Zhu Xun Chuan stood in front of the photo wall, feeling an indescribable heaviness in his chest.

He had always thought Baihe was just a crazy girl with a quirky personality, brainwashed by the organization. Only now did he truly see her true face behind the mask of poison—a pitiful girl who longed to be loved but was extremely insecure.

"drop--"

A sharp electronic notification sound shattered the deathly silence of the basement.

Zhu Xunchuan turned his head to look.

Beside the pillow on the metal bunk bed sat a silver tactical voice recorder. An indicator light was flashing rapidly red, and a small countdown LCD screen displayed the last twenty seconds.

Zhu Xunchuan walked over quickly and pressed the play button.

After a hissing sound of electricity, the cry of a white crane echoed in the basement.

Gone was the teasing and feigned wildness from the hospital room; the voice in the recording was very soft, even carrying a hint of barely concealed trembling.

"Brother Chuan, I knew you'd find it. With that woman from the Gu family's intelligence network and your brains, it's only a matter of time before you find this place."

"I've wiped all the data from the mainframe. Don't investigate any further. That organization is too murky. Once you get involved, even the combined wealth of the Jiang family and Dinghe Group won't be enough to protect you."

"I have things I must do. The fire at the orphanage back then claimed the lives of seventy-three children. They think they can wipe that blood debt clean, but I crawled out of a pile of corpses just to wait for this day."

"Brother Chuan, I'm actually quite selfish. I came to you because I wanted to be your woman for once, before I die."

A very soft sob could be heard in the recording.

"I'm sorry I couldn't give you a child. If there's a next life, I'll definitely come back to you clean and pure, and drive away all those vixens."

The sound stopped abruptly.

The countdown on the LCD screen reached zero.

"laugh--"

The micro self-destruct mechanism inside the voice recorder activated, and the high temperature instantly melted the motherboard, emitting a pungent white smoke, turning it into a piece of charred scrap metal.

Zhu Xunchuan stood quietly in place.

The dim, yellowish incandescent light cast his shadow long. He stared at the scratched photos covering the wall, the nonchalance in his eyes vanishing completely, replaced by a chilling coldness and malevolence.

"Carrying a blood debt, you still dare to provoke me." Zhu Xun Chuan's voice was cold and sharp, yet it revealed absolute protectiveness. "My woman, if she's going to die, she'll die in my bed." (A Yin: Brother Chuan is comparable to the free-spirited Goku!)

He took out his encrypted phone and directly accessed the fragmented intelligence clues he had just seen in Fu Xinghe's office. His brain began to work frantically, conducting multi-dimensional deductions.

Clue 1: A top-tier assassination bounty has been placed on the target, who is under a one-year-long silent observation period.

Clue 2: According to the internal report retrieved by Fu Xinghe, a retired dignitary will be returning to Beijing from Beihe for recuperation at the beginning of next month, with a security level as high as Grade A, Level 1.

Clue 3: The core motive mentioned in Bai He's recording—the bloody fire at the orphanage that killed seventy-three children years ago.

Fire at the orphanage.

Zhu Xun Chuan's eyes sharpened. He quickly searched his memory for this old case that had occurred a few years ago.

The official report at the time stated that the fire was an accident caused by aging wiring, but rumors have circulated on the dark web that it was a malicious arson attempt to cover up an experiment and certain profit chains.

The person in charge of the development and renovation of that area back then was a key figure with real power who was transferred from Beijing.

Later, that person was promoted for his merits, and then retired from public life, going to a high-ranking cadre sanatorium in Beihe Province under the pretext of illness and fading out of public view.

Now, he is going back to Beijing.

All the puzzle pieces fit together perfectly at this moment.