Li Xiao: “I’m not afraid of him wanting something; I’m afraid he doesn’t want enough.”

Song Jin narrowed his eyes slightly. “You’re that interested in that old man?”

Li Xiao was preoccupied with his thoughts. Hearing the edge in Song Jin’s tone, he realized his words were ambiguous and explained, “The more ulterior motives he has, the easier it is for us to find a flaw. Relying purely on one-sided digging is too tedious.”

Song Jin: “So, to make the fish bite, you’d marry him again?”

Li Xiao: “…”

What a complete mess of logic.

Meeting Song Jin’s gaze, Li Xiao suddenly remembered that he had married this brat in the first place out of a transaction of mutual benefits.

Li Xiao stood up, casually taking Song Jin’s hand, and said, “Marriage is too much trouble. Once is enough.”

Song Jin: “I don’t believe you. Not unless you kiss me.”

Li Xiao: “…After all that talking, this was your actual goal.”

Song Jin chuckled softly. “Hurry up.”

“You really have the makings of a kissing maniac,” Li Xiao said as he leaned closer. Suddenly, his stomach convulsed, and he turned away, dry-heaving.

Song Jin: “…”

Fuck.

Song Jin turned to leave with a thoroughly displeased expression, but Li Xiao grabbed him. “The guy on the ground is just too reeky.”

“…” Song Jin suddenly registered what was happening.

The pheromone scent Li Xiao perceived was different from that of ordinary people. The thought of kissing while smelling a rotting corpse made Song Jin feel entirely unwell just imagining it. “Let’s leave first. Put what you owe me on tab—with 100% daily interest.”

Li Xiao: “…”

Even loan sharks don’t operate like that.

Ordering 09 to transform into a hovercar, Li Xiao carried the unconscious Lin Zhou into the back seat and buckled his seatbelt. “Where are your people staying?”

“I’ve sent you the location. It just so happens they are preparing to return to our home country in the next two days.” Song Jin wrapped up his quick commands and switched off his terminal.

After confirming the coordinates, Li Xiao directed 09 to bypass the bustling urban areas and deliver Lin Zhou straight to them.

When the exchange students from the Shengya Military Academy had arrived in the Danse Empire, they had been escorted by diplomatic and military personnel. Once all administrative formalities were settled, they were required to return within a designated timeframe, leaving only a few staff members behind in Danse to manage exchange affairs.

Rather than trying to find a hiding spot for Lin Zhou within Danse, it made far more sense to ship him off to Shengya along with those two misdelivered crates of blood. They could hand him over to Song Jin’s father, Shen Sinian, for research, in hopes of finding a way to counteract the Modified Humans as quickly as possible.

Once 09 flew off, 07, which had been concealing the cave entrance, retracted into the cavern interior, transforming into a hovercar to carry Li Xiao and Song Jin away.

Inside the vehicle, Song Jin browsed the network. Sure enough, the news of the hovercar explosion had already hit the trending charts. The local precinct had issued an official notice just half an hour ago stating that an investigation was underway, but hot topics explicitly carrying Lin Zhou’s name were already pinned to the headlines.

[According to reliable sources, Lin Zhou, the third son of Major General Lin Xu—the Deputy Commander of the Second Legion—met with a fatal traffic accident on his way home and has been confirmed dead!]

Someone had leaked the video from the military academy’s internal network onto the broader internet, and marketing accounts had already spun it into sensationalized think-pieces.

[Lin Zhou attacked Second Prince Li Xiao just two days ago, and today he gets ‘accidentally’ taken out. This is terrifying to even think about, guys!]

Predictably, the comments section below the post was flooded with conspiracy theories, almost all of them pointing fingers squarely at the Imperial Family.

“The Imperial Family lands in this kind of news every few days. Is their PR department dead?” Song Jin scrolled through the comments. “You don’t seem very worried. Aren’t you afraid the Imperial Family’s authority will collapse entirely, making room for them to manufacture a ‘savior’?”

“The ‘savior’ has been itching for a move for a long time now. It’s nothing new.” Li Xiao rested his hands on the steering wheel, his mind repeatedly turning over Lin Zhou’s words.

Modified Humans required a dose of the blood every two months, and that blood was strictly controlled by the Meng family. Failing to use it meant dying from the agonizing side effects. As long as the Modified Humans relied on this blood, they would remain under the Meng family’s thumb. Most people would gladly sacrifice the interests of others to preserve their own lives.

Even someone like Lin Zhou, who wanted out halfway through, didn’t dare openly defy the Meng family. Given the sheer scale of the Meng family’s power, a wrong move could easily drag down an entire clan.

The Meng family exploited this vulnerability, becoming increasingly reckless and unbridled. The more people they lured into the trap, the more pawns they accumulated. The total outbreak of civil war in his past life had escalated so rapidly precisely because of the sheer volume of these hidden pawns.

The Modified Humans weren’t the ultimate goal; they were merely a tool to seize power. That was why no one in the upper echelons of the Meng family, including Meng Tao, had undergone the modification themselves.

After finishing with the comments, Song Jin sent a message to Yam, a secret guard embedded among the diplomatic staff.

Song Jin: [Sent someone your way. Place him in a stasis pod first, then secretly transport him to the Snow Planet and hand him over to my father.]

Yam: [Understood!]

Song Jin then began reviewing the intelligence they had gathered over the past few days.

On the day the mechanical arm collapsed in the training arena, the student who had engineered the trap to pin down Li Xiao had ultimately contacted Meng Tao. The Omega who had tried to hit on Li Xiao and strike up a conversation had also ultimately contacted Meng Tao.

“Looking at all the intel we have right now, the Meng family is undeniably the mastermind behind the scenes,” Song Jin observed aloud. “The other people who interacted with them are all low-level lackeys; it’s highly unlikely they are equal partners. Why are you so certain the Meng family has another accomplice?”

Li Xiao: “Intuition.”

In his past life, he hadn’t had the chance to come into direct contact with the Modified Humans. If these modified individuals truly died without the blood, then once the Meng family was defeated, a massive wave of Modified Humans should have gone mad with withdrawal. It would have been impossible for not a single whisper to get out. Yet, even after the Meng family fell, things had remained completely quiet. Shouldn’t those people have seized the opportunity to kick them while they were down?

The truth had been scrubbed clean. Too clean. Clean enough to breed unease.

To be able to pick up the pieces left by the Meng family and wipe the slate entirely spotless meant that this hidden hand possessed immense power.

Song Jin looked thoughtful. “Could it be the Zheng family? Zheng Lin hasn’t been modified either.”

Li Xiao: “As of right now, among the Five Great Families, the only one who has definitely undergone modification is Qige.”

“How high is the probability for the Qi family?” Song Jin asked.

Li Xiao: “Qi Shoude secured his position as a General through Meng Shan’s backing. The Qi family is nothing more than the Meng family’s loyal hound. But as for how deeply they are involved in this modification business, I can’t say for sure.”

“Meaning, even if they knew it was a pile of shit, if the Meng family told the Qi family to eat it, they would?” Song Jin pressed.

Li Xiao: “…Yeah.”

Song Jin tapped his fingers lightly against the armrest, pausing to think before asking, “How much does your brother know?”

Li Xiao: “I’m not sure. Even if he does know, given his current capabilities, there isn’t much he can do.”

The Imperial Family was being completely cornered. The people his brother could rely on had been steadily whittled away until barely anyone was left. Without deploying some unconventional tactics, launching an outright strike against the Meng family had become an impossibility.

Song Jin: “Then let’s first determine how many Modified Humans are hidden inside the military academy. We can filter them based on their identities to see if we can narrow down the target pool.”

Li Xiao: “Yeah. That’s our only option for now.”

_

Imperial Capital Star, The Meng Estate.

Lin Xu arrived to see Meng Jian looking entirely dispirited, only to be barred at the entrance.

Fearing that Lin Xu would make a scene and alert the household, Meng Zhai swiftly steered him into his personal study. The moment the door closed, he spoke bluntly: “The Imperial Family is undoubtedly behind this incident. You can cry until the sky falls, but it won’t change a thing.”

Lin Xu buried his face in his hands, his voice choked with sobs. “How could this happen…”

“A single misstep leads to eternal damnation. You should have known this a long time ago.” Meng Zhai patted him on the shoulder. “If a son is gone, you can always have another. Your focus right now needs to be on how to get yourself transferred back to the Second Legion.”

Lin Xu lifted his head to look at Meng Zhai, his eyes bloodshot. “What choices do I even have?”

Meng Zhai withdrew his hand. “Your second child just entered the military this year, didn’t they?”

Lin Xu’s pupils contracted. After a prolonged, agonizing silence, he replied in a trembling voice, “I will defer entirely to the organization’s arrangements.”

_

T999 Celestial Seat, The First Military Academy

By the time Li Xiao and Song Jin returned to campus, Jiang Hao and the other two were already back, lounging in the dorm’s living room while reviewing combat training videos.

Seeing the pair enter, Qian Can proactively offered up his own snacks. “We checked out those secondhand bookstores afterward. For now, we haven’t found anything out of the ordinary.”

Qin Le chimed in, “The secondhand bookstores around that area often hire students as part-time clerks, and there are even teachers who go there to help out voluntarily.”

Jiang Hao projected a cluster of photographs into the air. “I managed to sneak a picture of this week’s shift schedule from the bookstore that Shi Ke frequents.”

Li Xiao scanned down the list rapidly. Yan Qing’s name was actually on it. He had worked last Sunday from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, and this week he was scheduled for Friday from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

“He really is highly suspicious.” Song Jin fetched his personal flask from the kitchen, casually settling into a single-seater sofa to sip his cool tea.

Lin Zhou had stated that the Ferryman, G2, was operating inside the military academy, and the Z152 blood had been addressed to Wanhua Street. This meant that the academy’s faculty and students who frequently drifted through that specific zone carried the heaviest suspicion.

On Monday morning, the entire first half of the day was dedicated to practical combat classes.

Zhao De stood before the assembled students with his hands tucked behind his back, bellowing, “We have two events this morning: the obstacle course and precision shooting. These are core components of your phase examinations! Anyone who dares to slack off better tighten their skin!”

With that out of the way, he looked over at Li Xiao. “How is your injury? Can you handle this class?”

Li Xiao: “No problem.”

Zhao De didn’t press further. He blew his whistle, signaling the group to start with a twenty-lap warm-up jog.

Li Xiao and Song Jin fell into pace at the very back of the formation, listening to the muffled whispers of the students discussing Lin Zhou. After a weekend of brewing speculation, the entire academy knew that Lin Zhou had been expelled and subsequently blown to pieces on his journey home. The internet was practically unanimous in assuming the Imperial Family had ordered the hit.

“As expected of the privileged class.” A lackey belonging to Meng Tao’s circle turned his head to cast a sideways glance at Li Xiao. “Killing someone over a minor disagreement—who’s going to dare hang out with him after this?”

Jiang Hao fired back, “Has the web published the official investigation results yet? Why are you just shooting your mouth off?”

Qian Can merrily took up the thread. “Little Jiang, is defaming the Imperial Family actually legal here in Danse?”

Jiang Hao: “Flogging. Ten lashes.”

The lackey choked. “Does an incident like this even need an investigation?”

Qian Can: “Oh? So we skip the investigation entirely and just let you hand down the verdict?”

As the students degenerated into a noisy squabble, Meng Tao, noticing that Li Xiao was acting as if none of this concerned him, intentionally tossed the conversational grenade his way: “Li Xiao, was it really the Imperial Family’s doing?”

The surrounding chatter abruptly died. Every single eye snapped to Li Xiao.

Li Xiao replied indifferently, “If I wanted to kill Lin Zhou, I could have done it right then and there. There was no need to go through such elaborate lengths. Besides, hovercars cost money.”

The crowd of students collectively fell into a stunned silence.

Actually, that makes perfect sense.

It was an undeniable fact that Lin Zhou had gone berserk and initiated the attack on Li Xiao. Li Xiao acting in self-defense would have been entirely justified, yet he had cooperated with the guard detail to send Lin Zhou back that very night. There was zero logical necessity to orchestrate a delayed execution.

Just as Meng Tao prepared to counter, a piercing whistle cut through the air.

Zhao De roared in fury, “Did I authorize a chat room?!”

The first event was the obstacle course. Li Xiao was assigned to the fifth group and was slated to go first.

Laid out across the sandy ground ahead were low-crawling nets, plum blossom poles, a ten-meter high wall, and a balance beam.

With a single glance, Li Xiao picked out several anomalies. He raised his hand. “There is an issue with the equipment.”

Before Zhao De could even open his mouth, Meng Tao spoke up first: “The equipment was literally just cleared by the safety inspector. How could there be an issue?”

Li Xiao ignored him entirely, waiting for Zhao De to approach before laying out the specifics. Finding himself completely brushed off, Meng Tao ground his teeth, a volatile temper flaring deep within him. He was absolutely going to teach this brat a lesson today!

Under normal circumstances, Zhao De would have considered Li Xiao a nuisance looking for trouble. However, having just survived the disaster at the mecha arena, he could not afford to be reckless. He stepped up to test the course personally.

While navigating the low crawl beneath the netting, Zhao De suddenly felt a sharp chill against his neck. In the next heartbeat, a hand clamped down firmly on his ankle, arresting his forward momentum completely.

He cautiously tilted his head down. Stretched directly in front of him was a taut, hair-thin steel wire. Had he surged forward at his usual speed, his throat would have been sliced open with a deep, lethal gash.

Zhao De twisted around. Realizing the person who had pinned his leg down was Li Xiao, he asked in sheer astonishment, “You managed to spot this from all the way back at the starting line?”

Li Xiao spun a casual lie. “I caught a stray glint of light by accident.”

Zhao De crawled backward out of the net, wiping away a tiny bead of blood that had formed on his neck. His fury spiked violently. Refusing to leave it at that, he went to test the plum blossom poles. The moment he stepped down, two of the pillars buckled completely; a careless student would have taken a horrific, uncoordinated spill.

Qian Can winced just watching. “Hiss—! That looks brutal!”

When it came to scaling the ten-meter wall, the rope snapped cleanly when Zhao De reached the six-meter mark. He had to dig his fingers desperately into the narrow seams of the wall’s structure to prevent himself from dropping straight down.

“Son of a—” Zhao De hurled the broken rope to the dirt, dropping down and instantly patching through to the security department. “Who the hell checked this course just now? Get your ass over here right this instant!”

Back at the staging line, the gathering of students had witnessed Zhao De’s string of near-misses. The looks they directed toward Li Xiao gained an added layer of profound respect. To diagnose structural traps with a single glance—this Second Prince was profoundly capable! He was entirely detached from the image of the fragile royal they had envisioned.

Song Jin stood with his hands tucked loosely in his pockets, his raspy voice carrying a lazy, mocking drawl. “To pull such underhanded, petty parlor tricks only to have them exposed in an instant… what an absolute waste of space.”

Li Xiao deliberately played along. “Who are you talking about?”

“The one who doesn’t even know how to pull off a proper ambush, obviously.” Song Jin leveled a cool, detached gaze toward Meng Tao. “A person’s patience has its limits.”

Meng Tao pretended not to register their thinly veiled mockery, his fingers subtly tapping out a few swift commands on his terminal.

Zhao De spent the next half hour in a blistering, high-decibel confrontation with several representatives from the guard detail and the security department. Ultimately, the safety inspector who had cleared the course was dragged away in custody.

Shifting to an alternate course, Li Xiao completed three rounds before heading to the rest area to grab a towel and a drink of water.

Several Alphas from the class took turns drifting past his perimeter, covertly venting their pheromones. It was obvious they were attempting to test his prior assertion regarding whether his ability to smell them “depended entirely on luck.”

Spotting Meng Tao concluding a run and heading their way, Li Xiao picked up his water cup and strolled over as if nothing were amiss. Within a few steps, the Alpha beside him veered away, replaced immediately by another student moving into close proximity.

Li Xiao rubbed his temples, turning an uncomprehending look around the space before addressing the Alpha student, “Is it getting a bit stuffy in here?”

“Not at all.” Believing their tactics were finally yielding a response, the Alpha student rapidly accelerated the output of his pheromones.

The student was so hyper-focused on monitoring Li Xiao’s reactions that he failed to notice Meng Tao’s approach. Suddenly, a piercing, synthetic alert shattered the air.

“Beep, beep, beep! Alpha pheromones detected! Alpha pheromones detected!”

The student gasped, instinctively turning to locate the source of the alarm, but Li Xiao’s hand shot out, bunching the student’s collar into a tight fist. A heavy, unmitigated punch slammed directly into the student’s jaw, sending him airborne for a full two meters before he tumbled across the floor. He curled up, his entire face completely paralyzed with pain.

“Beep, beep, beep! Alpha pheromone concentration severely exceeds safety limits! Please exercise caution! Alpha pheromone concentration severely exceeds safety limits!”

Meng Tao instinctively took a half-step back. In the next instant, his gaze locked with Li Xiao’s freezing eyes. By sheer reflex, he threw his arms up into a defensive guard.

Li Xiao wrenched his arm down, driving an open-palm strike square into his mandible.

“Oof!”

Meng Tao’s head snapped back violently. The lower half of his face exploded in a wave of agony that rendered him speechless. Before he could re-establish his footing, he was dragged forward by his momentum, his sternum colliding heavily with Li Xiao’s rising knee.

“Gah!” Meng Tao balled his hand into a fist, swinging wildly toward Li Xiao’s flank.

Li Xiao intercepted Meng Tao’s wrist, executing a brutal, fluid kick to his midsection.

“They’re fighting! Instructor Zhao!” Several students caught sight of the commotion and frantically bellowed for Zhao De.

However, Zhao De was currently stationed at the furthest scoring zone. By the time the news reached him and he sprinted back, a dense ring of students had already formed around the clearing.

Song Jin was the first to react, sprinting toward the epicenter at breakneck speed. “Li Xiao, stop fighting!”

Seeing their leader getting systematically dismantled, Meng Tao’s lackeys rolled up their sleeves and surged into the fray. “Get the hell off Meng Tao!”

Qian Can, Jiang Hao, and Qin Le took one look at the unfolding chaos and instantly broke ranks to follow. They had been subjected to countless petty provocations since arriving at the academy; the perfect opportunity for payback had finally presented itself.

“Beep, beep, beep! Beep, beep, beep! Alpha pheromones detected!”

The warning system continued its relentless, shrill chime.

Li Xiao behaved as though he were entirely oblivious to his surroundings, keeping Meng Tao’s wrist pinned as he systematically beat the boy down until he was kneeling in the dirt.

“Stop!” Meng Tao raised an arm to block, but Li Xiao caught it, executing a brutal reverse-twist that forced the back of Meng Tao’s hand flat against his own forearm. “Ahhhh—!”

The Alpha who had been knocked away initially saw the desperation of the situation. Strung out on panic, he attempted to overwhelm Li Xiao using a targeted burst of pheromones while leaping forward to lock his arms around Li Xiao’s neck from behind.

Li Xiao reached back, caught four of the Alpha’s fingers, and snapped them backward with a sharp, sickening crunch.

“Ahhhh—!”

With a resonant fracture of bone, the Alpha stumbled back in a blind panic, clutching his ruined right hand as he hopped frantically on the spot, howling and weeping in agony.

“Li Xiao, let him go!” Song Jin arrived in a frantic rush, appearing to intervene. Suddenly, he pressed a hand to his forehead, stumbling a fraction of a step as the performative worry vanished from his features, replaced by a dark, thoroughly irritated scowl.

“You piece of—” A lackey launched an unceremonious kick directly at Li Xiao’s flank.

But before his boot could even graze Li Xiao, Song Jin’s leg flashed out, kicking the boy clean through the air.

An onslaught of eight people wasn’t even enough to serve as a proper warm-up for Li Xiao and Song Jin. Seeing that Meng Tao had been thoroughly drained of the strength to retaliate, another group of twenty-odd students charged forward. Their primary objective wasn’t to break up the fight, but to seize the chaotic window to permanently eliminate Li Xiao.

Qian Can, Jiang Hao, and Qin Le arrived a beat later, grabbing onto the lackeys while shouting empty, performative pleas to stop. The moment an attack swung their way, they unleashed absolute hell in return.

It was remarkably easy to distinguish between the students genuinely trying to mediate and the combatants looking to assist Meng Tao. Jiang Hao and his companions strictly singled out the latter, executing their strikes with merciless precision.

Song Jin turned back. Meng Tao was unrecognizable—his face was swollen and bruised, and thick trails of blood dripped from his jawline onto the floorboards as he wept continuously, begging for mercy.

“Stop hitting me! Oof! Please stop hitting me, wahh…”

Though the injuries appeared catastrophic on the surface, Li Xiao had measured his strikes perfectly, completely bypassing any vital or life-threatening zones.

Seeing Li Xiao release his grip on Meng Tao’s hand, signaling his intent to conclude the engagement, Song Jin subtly kicked Meng Tao’s arm flush against the floor. Under the boy’s terrified watch, Song Jin raised his heel.

Sensing the impending strike, Meng Tao tried to pull his arm back, but he was a fraction of a second too slow. Song Jin had perfectly anticipated the retreat. His heel stomped down with immense force directly onto the midpoint of Meng Tao’s forearm.

Because of Meng Tao’s backward jerk, his forearm had been angled upward. The sheer physics of the impact caused the radius and ulna to snap cleanly down the middle.

“Ahhhhh—!”

Meng Tao’s voice cracked from the sheer intensity of the pain. His entire body convulsed wildly, drenched in a sudden, cold sweat as if he had just been fished out of an ocean.

Song Jin hooked his fingers into Meng Tao’s collar, hoisting him up slightly. His lips moved in a silent, precise sequence. Terrified out of his mind, Meng Tao’s gaze remained glued to Song Jin, automatically deciphering the silent lip-reading.

Song Jin was saying: That is how you play dirty tricks. Learned your lesson?

Meng Tao’s pupils contracted to pinpricks, a volatile mixture of blinding fury and absolute terror seizing his mind.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” Zhao De finally managed to breach the crowd, unleashing a furious roar at the assembly. “All of you, back off!”

Right before Zhao De’s eyes, Song Jin delivered a final, parting punch to Meng Tao’s jaw, cleanly dislocating it.

With more than twenty students scattered across the floor groaning in agony, Qian Can realized things would look highly suspicious if their trio emerged entirely unscathed. He exchanged a quick look with Jiang Hao and Qin Le; the three of them immediately clutched their stomachs, dropping to the floor to simulate injuries and fake-cry.

By the time Yan Qing received Zhao De’s emergency notification, his temples were already throbbing with a familiar, low-grade headache. Classes had barely commenced for a few days, and these kids had already managed to instigate two massive group brawls. If they didn’t end up killing each other, he was going to die of sheer frustration first.

Yan Qing immediately drove to the medical center. The corridors were a chaotic parade of students pacing back and forth—some with their arms suspended in slings, others with ice packs pinned to heavily swollen faces.

Inside an examination room, Jiang Hao caught sight of the Dean passing by the doorway. He lowered his voice, appealing to the school doctor, “Grandpa, could you wrap this up for me?”

The doctor stared at him, entirely speechless. “You don’t have a single scratch on you. What exactly am I supposed to wrap?”

Jiang Hao: “What about medication, then? I’d like to take some medicine.”

“…” Left with no choice, the doctor casually tossed him a small packet of sugar drops.

Jiang Hao offered a solemn word of thanks. Stepping out of the clinic, he promptly divided the sugar drops with Qian Can and Qin Le, preparing to pop them into their mouths the moment Yan Qing approached to simulate a rigorous medical recovery.

Yan Qing bypassed them entirely, heading straight into the consultation room where Li Xiao and Song Jin were being held. Seeing that both of them were completely unharmed, he turned a thoroughly bewildered look toward Zhao De. “Didn’t the report state a student was critically injured?”

“It’s Meng Tao!” Zhao De sat to one side with his arms crossed, his expression darker than the bottom of a burnt pot.

“What exactly happened here?” Yan Qing turned his focus to Li Xiao. “Why did you initiate an attack on Meng Tao?”

Li Xiao’s expression transitioned into a flawless mask of deep remorse. “My sincerest apologies. At the time, I detected an incredibly dense concentration of Alpha pheromones. I completely lost my rational senses. By the time I came to, things had already…”

“Pheromones?” Yan Qing’s gaze drifted back and forth between Zhao De and Li Xiao. “Why would anyone be discharging pheromones in a training session?”

Li Xiao reached into his collar, retrieving the pheromone detector that 09 had disguised itself as. “Ever since my injury, my pheromone sensitivity has been highly volatile. I’ve been forced to carry this detector with me at all times.”

The interface of the detector projected into the open air, displaying a highly detailed, real-time graph of pheromone concentration levels. Sure enough, right around the timeline of Li Xiao’s altercation, there was a recorded spike showing a dangerously high concentration of Alpha pheromones.

Alphas possessed an incredibly dominant sense of territorial integrity, and their pheromones were nowhere near as compliant or passive as an Omega’s. To eliminate the risk of spontaneous, chemically induced brawls, the military academy maintained a strict protocol prohibiting the unauthorized release of pheromones in public sectors. Evidently, a student had violated this ordinance, triggering a severe, involuntary defensive retaliation.

Yan Qing extracted the raw data from the detector, dismissing Li Xiao and Song Jin to return to their quarters to rest before he departed for the surgical wing.

Given Li Xiao’s status as a prince, coupled with the objective data proving he wasn’t the instigator of the chemical trigger, no one dared to voice any public objections. Under the terrified, shrinking gazes of the remaining lackeys, the pair marshaled Jiang Hao and the other two, charting a quiet path down the long corridor.

The five of them had achieved an unmitigated victory, returning to the dorms to lounge around. Meanwhile, back at the clinic, the remaining lackeys ground their teeth in silence, not a single one possessing the courage to step forward and demand retribution.

Back inside the safety of their suite, Song Jin asked, “Your goal is to have Meng Tao removed from the campus entirely?”

Li Xiao nodded. “With the oldest brother out of the picture, the second in line has to step up to fill the void, right?”

Qian Can let out a low chuckle. “I recognize this strategy—it’s called drawing the snake out of its hole! Next time there’s a gold star opportunity like this, you absolutely cannot leave me out of the loop.”

The news of Meng Tao’s severe beating reached the Meng estate with remarkable speed. The Meng family immediately began exerting immense institutional pressure on the military academy, dropping heavy hints that Li Xiao, Song Jin, and their entire faction needed to be subjected to severe administrative discipline.

The Head of General Affairs, Zhang Bin, had barely stepped out of the Chancellor’s office before he was summarily summoned right back. The Chancellor informed him that they had just received an explicit counter-directive from the Imperial Family, demanding the absolute maximum punishment for the students who had illegally discharged pheromones.

With the Meng family and the Imperial Family locked in an aggressive proxy war, the academy’s leadership found themselves caught squarely in the crossfire, receiving blistering reprimands from both sides while satisfying neither.

On Monday afternoon, during the Military Theory lecture, the moment Li Xiao and Song Jin crossed the threshold of the grand lecture hall, they were instantly bathed in a collective wave of awe-struck, terrified gazes.

The pair quietly made their way to the very back row. As the commencement bell echoed through the hall, Li Xiao flashed a subtle signal to 09, authorizing the next phase of their operation.

09: [Should I improvise with full creative freedom?]

Li Xiao: [Go ahead.]

The student body was listening intently to the lecture when an Omega suddenly noticed an enormous rat—roughly the length of a human forearm—scurrying through the main entrance. It scrambled straight up onto the professor’s podium, prompting the Omega to let out a terrified shriek: “A rat—!”

“Where?! Where is there a rat?!”

“How could a rat even get into this facility?”

As a ripple of panic agitated the rows, the trembling Omega pointed a frantic finger at the podium. “Right there! It’s literally standing on the desk… and it’s dancing?!”

“Where? There’s absolutely nothing there.”

“You’re hallucinating, right? Who has ever seen a giant rat do that?”

Seeing the lecture hall descend into chaos, the elderly professor rapped his knuckles against the desk, signaling for silence. “Those who have no interest in the curriculum are entirely welcome to sleep on their desks, but do not disrupt your peers. If I hear another word about a dancing rat, I will have you removed from this hall!”

The Omega sat back down, thoroughly shaken. Realizing that a significant portion of the room genuinely could not perceive the creature, a sudden chill seized their chest, and they didn’t dare utter another syllable.

To explicitly draw out the focus of the hidden Modified Humans, 09 had fully committed to the bit, occupying the plump form of the rodent while executing a highly synchronized girl-group dance routine, shaking its hips with immense enthusiasm.

Predictably, a distinct cluster of students simply could not tear their eyes away from the performance.

In the back row, Li Xiao pressed a hand flat against his forehead, completely unable to watch. Who would have thought the little lion companion was this unhinged during its developmental years?

Due to 07’s presence, Song Jin was also fully capable of perceiving the cloaked 09. His face remained entirely wooden, his internal thoughts a chaotic storm of absolute bewilderment.

07: [Master, I wish to join the Patriarch on stage for a duet.]

Song Jin: “…”

A mere moment later, a sleek black rat and a pristine white rat occupied opposite flanks of the professor’s podium. The pair worked in flawless synchronization, twisting their waists and shaking their tails, thoroughly enjoying the performance.

The scattered group of Modified Humans, who kept casting involuntary, frequent glances toward the front: “…”

How the hell is anyone supposed to ignore this?!