Su Yuehe got out of the car first, walked over to the iron gate, and pulled a card from her pocket. She swiped it across an unassuming metal panel on the right side of the doorframe.
A mechanical whirring sound came from inside the gate, and the lock clicked open.
Chen Guan followed her in.
The moment the iron gate closed, the lights inside the warehouse flickered on.
The interior was completely different from the exterior.
The hall floor was polished alloy. Monitoring screens were embedded in the walls on both sides. Directly ahead stood a heavy elevator door, flanked by two guards in black uniforms.
"Miss Su."
The guard on the left nodded to Su Yuehe.
Su Yuehe flashed the authorization code on her document. After the guard verified it, he entered a string of numbers into the electronic terminal.
The elevator door slid open slowly.
The two of them stepped inside.
Chen Guan noticed that the floor buttons only had downward options, from B1 to B6. The bottommost button was marked with a red diamond symbol.
Su Yuehe pressed B6.
The elevator began to descend, not fast, but it kept going for a long time. Chen Guan estimated the depth—roughly a hundred meters underground.
The only sound in the elevator was the low hum of machinery.
"Are you nervous?" Chen Guan glanced at her.
"No."
Su Yuehe answered quickly.
"I'm not the one who should be nervous."
The elevator reached B6, and the door opened.
A straight corridor stretched ahead, lined with sealed metal cells on both sides. Each door had a number and a small observation window.
The air in the hallway was cold, carrying a mix of disinfectant and metal.
Armed guards stood every ten meters. When they saw Su Yuehe, they saluted in unison without any questions, as if it were routine.
Su Yuehe stopped at the last door at the end of the corridor.
The number on the door was A-017.
She turned to Chen Guan, her voice lowered.
"After we go in, you don't need to speak. First, watch how I ask questions."
"What if he doesn't cooperate?"
"He will."
Chen Guan saw something change in Su Yuehe's eyes when she said that. The gentleness and kindness faded, replaced by something more like the Lady Speaker he had only ever seen in the news.
She swiped her card, entered the password, and the metal door slid open from the center to both sides.
The room was small. The walls were covered in gray-white soundproof panels. A pale white light was built into the ceiling, casting the room without a single shadow.
In the center of the room was a metal chair bolted to the floor. A man sat in it.
Yue Teng.
His limbs were fastened to the chair's armrests and legs with specialized spiritual power restraints. A silver ring-shaped device was locked around his neck—a spiritual power inhibitor.
His complexion was worse than it had been a week ago. His cheekbones jutted out, his eyes were sunken, and his skin had an unhealthy grayish-white pallor, like tree bark that had been drained of most of its moisture.
But his eyes were open.
Those bloodshot eyeballs shifted when he heard the door open. His pupils swept across Su Yuehe first, then settled on Chen Guan behind her.
The moment their eyes met, Yue Teng's lips twitched.
"You again."
His voice was hoarse, carrying a half-dead quality.
Chen Guan didn't reply. He leaned his black coffin against the wall, grabbed a folding chair nearby, and sat down.
Su Yuehe walked directly in front of Yue Teng. She opened the folder on the small table beside her and pulled out several photos.
She held the first photo up in front of Yue Teng.
It was a panoramic shot of the underground temple.
"You recognize this place, don't you?"
Yue Teng's gaze swept over the photo. The corner of his mouth twisted—whether in a smile or a twitch was unclear.
"You think I'll answer your questions?"
"I think you have no choice but to."
Su Yuehe put the photo down and picked up the second one.
It was a close-up of Yue Teng's body after being eroded by black energy—skin peeling away, revealing the bone beneath.
"You should be feeling the side effects of the spiritual power inhibitor by now. Your bloodline ability is being suppressed continuously. Every day that passes, the black energy left inside you will eat away at you even more."
She crouched down so that her eyes were level with his.
"According to the medical team's assessment, you have at most three months."
Yue Teng stared at her for a few seconds. His cracked lips split open, and a trace of blood seeped out.
"Three months is enough."
His hoarse voice carried a hint of amusement.
"Enough for what?" Su Yuehe asked.
Yue Teng didn't answer that question. Instead, his gaze moved past Su Yuehe's shoulder to Chen Guan sitting in the corner.
"Why aren't you saying anything?"
Chen Guan lifted his eyelids lazily.
"You haven't asked me anything yet."
"Then I'll ask you one now."
Yue Teng leaned forward slightly, his restraints clanking.
"That night, when you came out of the cocoon, what did you feel?"
The air in the room grew cold.
Su Yuehe's back stiffened. She didn't interrupt. Instead, she stepped aside to give Chen Guan the space.
Chen Guan sat on the folding chair, legs crossed, arms folded across his chest, posture relaxed.
He looked at Yue Teng's withered face. "Answer her question first."
"Then I'll consider whether to answer yours."
Yue Teng stared at him. Something was stirring in those murky eyes, as if he were weighing a decision.
The silence lasted nearly half a minute.
Finally, Yue Teng retracted his gaze and looked back at Su Yuehe, who was still crouched in front of him.
"Ask away."
Su Yuehe pulled another folding chair from the wall and sat directly across from Yue Teng, less than a meter apart.
She opened the folder and took out a handwritten outline of questions neatly listed on the paper.
"First question. Start from the beginning. What is the relationship between your family and the Lord of Nothingness?"
Yue Teng leaned back against the metal chair. The restraints had left dark-red marks around his wrists. He tilted his head, sizing up the interrogator in front of him.
"You're the Speaker's daughter."
"The question I'm asking has nothing to do with whose daughter I am."
Su Yuehe kept her tone steady.
"Answer me."
Yue Teng's cracked lips moved, letting out a dry laugh.
"You must have looked up the word 'devotee,' right?"
His voice was clearer now, sharper than before. He stated bluntly that, for dozens of generations, every eldest son of the Yue family had been a servant of the Lord of Nothingness.
"The bloodline was passed down without a break."
"Your family has served an entity that never appeared for dozens of generations. Did it ever respond? Any form of response?"
Yue Teng was silent for a few seconds, his Adam's apple bobbing. He asked what she meant by "response."
"Manifestation, blessing, divine message—anything that proves its existence."
Su Yuehe pressed the tip of her pen against the paper. She thought a faith lasting dozens of generations couldn't be based on nothing more than a hand-me-down oral tradition.
That would be too foolish.
Yue Teng lowered his head to stare at his restrained hands. The knuckles stood out sharply.
"There was."
He paused for several seconds before speaking again.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
