Big Brother left. The pollution reading on the detector began to drop, giving Lu Yan a momentary breather.

The length of the iron chain was just enough for Lu Yan to walk from the bed to the bathroom. The eyeballs in the corners of the room shifted their gaze to follow Lu Yan’s movements. Being watched every single second was extremely uncomfortable.

Aside from the bed, the bedroom contained a TV, a desk, a bookshelf, and a vanity. The vanity was piled with cosmetics and skincare products; Lu Yan picked up a cream and saw the brand was La Mer. While Lu Yan usually only used basic moisturizers like Longrich or Vaseline, he had vaguely heard of the price of La Mer. It was clear that “Little Sister” lived a very pampered life.

There was no clock in the room, so Lu Yan checked his phone: 9:00 AM. A notification popped up from the Prevention Center informing him of a text message. Lu Yan opened it, and the sender was actually Lin Sinan.

“Where are you? Why have you disappeared?”

The weather outside was bright and sunny, but the temperature inside the room felt unnervingly cold. Lu Yan let out a breath. Seeing this text actually made him feel a bit more at ease. If the “dead” Lin Sinan could still send texts, it meant the Lin Sinan he had seen was definitely not the real one. He considered calling back but resisted. In horror movies, unless you’re the main character, people who do reckless things usually don’t survive for more than ten minutes.

What surprised him more was the appearance of a new, unfamiliar contact in his phone’s text messages.

Label: Lu Jiahe.

The last message was from December 2111. Lu Yan opened it and saw it was filled with messages from that contact. He scrolled up, deciding to start from the beginning.

The first message was from 2109:

[You told me you had tutoring after school and didn’t need me to pick you up. But what is this?]

[Photo]

It looked like a candid shot of two people from behind—a boy and a girl. The distance between them seemed normal, not overly intimate.

【Are you stalking me again, damn it?】

[I’m just worried about you.]

【You’re sick. Get lost.】

[Today is Mom and Dad’s death anniversary. Do you want to come sweep the graves with me?]

【You have the nerve to see Mom and Dad? If it weren’t for you, they wouldn’t be dead.】

[How is school going?]

[The teacher said you got into a fight with a girl in class. What happened?]

[I’m really worried about you. I think I’ll move back to M City. Even though it’s not as big as a first-tier city, it’ll be easier to take care of you.]

【Not needed.】

This sibling dynamic was truly bizarre. The texts were mostly daily chores, but in the middle, there was a gap of nearly a year with no communication. Lu Yan frowned and scrolled to the end:

[Lu Yan.]

[Where are you? Answer me.]

[Pick up the phone.]

[Don’t abandon Big Brother, please.]

The phone still had no signal. Lu Yan checked the WeChat app, but his contacts were still his own; they hadn’t morphed into Lu Yan’s. He decided to turn on the bedroom TV and tuned to a news channel. Sure enough, the bottom-left corner displayed the date: July 21, 2111.

On screen, a reporter was reading a local report:

“Recently, a heinous criminal case occurred in our city…”

Lu Yan went to the desk. There was a fashion magazine on top and a row of nail polishes near the lamp. Under the magazine, he found a report card: Lu Yan’s name was second to last. It was clear the sister’s grades were terrible—no wonder Lu Jiahe was so anxious. Combining her text tone with this, an image of a bratty, delinquent girl formed in Lu Yan’s mind.

There were three locked cabinets under the desk. Lu Yan couldn’t find a key, so he folded his hands, muttered a silent “Excuse me” to the empty room, and delivered a punch to each.

Crash.

The doors shattered. Lu Yan retrieved what he wanted without changing his expression.

The first cabinet contained a photo of three people: a couple and a child. The boy’s expression was stiff, but you could see the shadow of Lu Jiahe in his face. The background was “Qiushan Orphanage.” Beneath it was an adoption registration form: Lu Jiahe’s parents had died in an earthquake, and he was adopted by the Lu family, who were childless.

The second cabinet contained a death certificate. When Lu Jiahe was a freshman in college, he missed the train home for the Spring Festival. Lu Yan’s parents insisted on picking him up and died in a car accident.

The third cabinet contained a diary. Lu Yan opened the first page. No dates. The handwriting was childish. As he flipped forward, the tone grew more mature.

“Why am I the one who is biologically related! Why am I the one!”

“I am NOT Lu Jiahe’s sister.”

“I told everyone today that Lu Jiahe’s parents died and he was adopted by my family. He looked so sad. I feel a little guilty… Ugh, so annoying, so annoying!”

“This Spring Festival, I told Lu Jiahe not to come back. I want to spend it with Mom and Dad, not him.”

“FK, Mom and Dad went to pick up that jinx…”

…

Lu Yan turned to the last page. He roughly understood the background. Lu Yan was born into a patriarchal family that couldn’t have children until they adopted Lu Jiahe. Unlike most adoptions, the child was already older. Normally, a handsome, healthy boy would be easy to adopt, but strangely, every family that adopted Lu Jiahe eventually met with misfortune—bankruptcy, illness, etc.—to the point where he had been returned to the orphanage three times.

He was 17 when he was adopted into this family; Lu Yan was 6. She felt like an animal whose territory had been invaded. Lu Jiahe, however, cherished everything, studying hard and trying to learn how to be a brother, enduring every tantrum. But misfortune still struck. Lu Yan’s parents died in that accident. Fortunately, Lu Jiahe was an adult and took on the responsibility of raising her, though it was far too early for him.

After losing their parents, Lu Jiahe’s protective instinct became pathological. He controlled her friends, her romances, everything—trying to keep her in a sterile, safe, vacuum-sealed world. He wanted to rip his heart out to show her how much he cared, but she never opened the door to him. As she entered her rebellious phase, her behavior became increasingly erratic.

“Is this Lu Yan’s dream, or Lu Jiahe’s?” Lu Yan wondered. He leaned toward it being the sister’s dream—a place where monitoring cameras were hateful, unblinking eyes, and a brother’s protection was a chain tied to her ankle.

The only thing he didn’t understand was: if he was the sister, where was the real sister?

On TV, the news was ending: “This was a vicious home invasion and robbery… The suspect Zhang’s mother, a nanny for the Li family, learned from her employer that Li was frequently away, leaving the victim home alone, and conspired to steal. The victim usually boarded at school but was home that day for skipping classes… The nanny assisted in destroying evidence and deleting surveillance footage, claiming the victim had run away.”

After the report, the TV hissed and dissolved into static. Dreams are a manifestation of the subconscious. Lu Yan didn’t think this was just random filler news. He stared at the signal-less screen, his expression becoming strange. “…Dead?”

Lu Yan studied for a long time but couldn’t open the chain. On his watch, his mutation level hit 33.7. Scales had grown on his back; due to the lack of water, they curled up, cutting into his skin painfully. The higher the mutation, the stronger his body felt. He remained calm, even pulling off a scale to study. Judging by the color, if he fully mutated, he’d likely be a Koi fish. Koi scales—no wonder his luck had always been decent.

In the afternoon, a noise came from the front door. “Little sister,” Lu Jiahe’s voice drifted up.

His detector levels skyrocketed. Lu Jiahe pushed open the door. He was covered in more blood; his black suit was soaked, leaving bloody footprints with every step. He was transmuting—bone spurs erupted from his blood-soaked hands like jagged blades.

“So many strange people appeared in the city; I feel like they want to hurt you. But don’t worry, Big Brother will kill them all,” he said, using the gentlest expression to speak the most terrifying words, as if discussing the weather.

Lu Yan said, “I want to go out by myself.”

Lu Jiahe shook his head firmly: “No, you’ll just run away again. I won’t let you. It’s too dangerous outside.”

Brother, you really lack self-awareness. Everything out there combined isn’t as dangerous as you are.

Just standing near Lu Jiahe for a moment had pushed Lu Yan’s mutation level to 49.2. He didn’t know what happened if it exceeded 100 in a dream, but he sensed the outcome wouldn’t be good.

“After I finish dealing with those dangers, Little Sister can go back to school…”

“Lu Jiahe,” Lu Yan suddenly said, “I am not your sister.”

He shouldn’t have been so impulsive. He had thought the sister was the owner of the dream, but she was dead. That left only Lu Jiahe. He had no other way to wake him up. If he waited any longer, his mutation level would exceed 100, and he would die anyway.

This sentence was like flipping a switch. Outside the window, the bright sky turned gloomy. Lu Jiahe looked up, eyes narrowing. A hint of crimson flashed in his pitch-black pupils. He stood up, walked to Lu Yan, and clamped his hands around his throat.

Lu Yan struggled for breath; the scorching smell of sulfur filled his nose, stinging his eyes. His heart rate accelerated uncontrollably—not from fear, but from a predator-prey instinct. Lu Jiahe’s hand moved to the nape of Lu Yan’s neck, rubbing it, and gouging out a layer of fish scales. Blood welled up, soaking Lu Yan’s collar.

It hurt. It felt like having a tooth pulled without anesthesia.

“Don’t say such angry things,” Lu Jiahe lowered his eyes, using his blood-stained hand to wipe the tears from Lu Yan’s face. “Little sister.”