"Next time, again?!!"

Even when Zuo Bai’s head was clamped by the beast’s giant paw, with his skull creaking under the strain, he was never as terrified as he was at this moment.

But when the words "pay a visit" pierced his eardrums, it was as if his blood instantly turned to ice.

"This isn’t over yet?!!"

"Next time, it’ll be directly aimed at my true self. After all, it’s going to be a personal visit....."

Screeeech—

The beast gently twisted with its fan-like giant paw, taking Zuo Bai’s head off and severing his thoughts.

The severed neck was so neatly done it was alarming, as if it had artistic collectible value.

The missing ears especially added a unique touch of beauty to the head.

The beast pulled out a large handkerchief from a tactical waist pouch and carefully wrapped the head.

Then he took out a spray from his pocket, and as the special liquid contacted the skin, Zuo Bai’s pale face oddly flushed as if he had simply fallen asleep.

"The gift has to be preserved."

The beast delightedly picked up the head and then leaned in to gently sniff it:

"Mmm... it’s mint-scented, probably will be liked, right?"

Zhao Jingyi clamped her hands over her mouth, horrified as she watched her master’s head being casually removed.

"The master’s strength shouldn’t be this weak, even if it’s just a clone, the master didn’t dare to resist throughout and instead cooperated in having his head removed?!!"

"Just like me before, even facing death, I didn’t dare defy the master. He’d rather lose his head than displease these people..."

Zhao Jingyi was profoundly shocked, her psyche struck with unparalleled impact.

If previously her fear of [Destiny] was superficial, only based on some reports, now she had the most intense and direct perception.

At that instant, fear, shock, and awe surged within her heart, eventually transforming into burning gratitude and a pious sense of belonging.

The gratitude was for Zheng Hang;

The sense of belonging was towards [Destiny].

Though from her perspective, Zheng Hang was only an intern at [Destiny], and she, as Zheng Hang’s secretive offline recruit wasn’t even counted as an outer member of [Destiny].

But Zhao Jingyi felt that at this moment, her soul had completely and utterly converted to Destiny.

She raised her hands high, slowly stepping out from her hiding place:

"Don’t move,"

Her voice trembled slightly, yet was exceptionally clear,

"I have a secret to tell you. Actually, I am....."

"What a coincidence."

A chilling voice suddenly cut her off, the Master of Ceremonies had somehow already stood in front of her, fingered the trigger of the sniper rifle, his icy white eyes fixating straight on her, with a smirk:

"We just happen to have a secret too..... that needs your cooperation."

......

Feng Yuhuai couldn’t eventually find where the blue and white car carrying her father had gone.

She skipped the red cord, leaving the community with worries on her mind.

Thick smoke from the explosion on the distant highway rolled, she didn’t dare to approach at all, but piloted an eyeball, kite-like, to drift there with the wind.

On the asphalt road, burnt-out vehicle wreckage clogged, a headless corpse in a white coat stood in the middle of the road.

The foursome standing beside the corpse seemed as if they had walked straight out of an asylum:

• A glamorous lady on ten-centimeter high heels, her lips bloodstained;

• The Master of Ceremonies in a neat suit holding a long gun;

• A bald, scruffy man in slippers stepping through the smoke;

• A burly, muscular man gently twirling a bow-knot around his arms.

"What kind of strange combination is this.....?"

Feng Yuhuai hadn’t finished her complaint when her gaze suddenly fixed onto that headless corpse.

Though it lacked a head, the white coat elicited a vague familiarity in her.

"No way..."

Feng Yuhuai cautiously maneuvered the eyeball to descend bit by bit, wanting to see a bit more clearly.

But the moment the vision focused, a piercing cold suddenly seeped from her soul.

Her lips began to tremble uncontrollably, a long-lost childish voice escaped between her teeth:

"Don’t look there... Hurry up, leave—"

Feng Yuhuai didn’t have time to think as her body turned 90 degrees backward, like a puppet, from the waist down.

"My body is fleeing?" Feng Yuhuai realized in horror that she had become a mere observer.

Indeed, she was beatin’ a retreat.

Her body swayed madly between buildings like a puppet, at a speed hundreds of times faster than she could control, not even leaving afterimages in the air.

Truly: people run on the ground, eyeballs chase in the sky, yet stubbornly can’t catch up.

After sprinting for more than a dozen miles, arriving on an abandoned, half-finished building’s rooftop, Feng Yuhuai suddenly halted, the eyeball in the sky ’huffing and puffing’ rewinding, ’thud’ back into her palm.

"It’s dirty! Can’t keep it!!!"

The eerie childish voice suddenly rose, the angry sound spine-chilling.

Her right hand clamped involuntarily, fingers clutching tightly—

"Pop—"

The eyeball shattered in her palm, fine fragments of crystals sprinkled, swept away by the whistling wind, vanished into the night sky.

A full half minute later.

Feng Yuhuai suddenly convulsed violently, trembling as if struck by high-voltage currents.

The moment consciousness reasserted control over her body, she nearly collapsed to her knees.

She slowly lowered her head, gazing at the shards left in her palm, her expression dark as ever.

"Heh....."

She chuckled meaninglessly, swiping open her phone with a finger.

In the front-facing camera, the hollow eye socket appeared like a bottomless dry well.

The newly woven eyeball could still be used, but lacked the...vitality.

Feng Yuhuai touched the outline of the empty eye socket, brow furrowed:

"What, how did my eyes get dirty, Puppet Mother, your expectations for cleanliness are a bit too much aren’t they?!!"

Feng Yuhuai bit her lip, the sole remaining eye flickering with eerie red light:

"Puppet Mother seems afraid to approach those people, what makes them so special?"

A strong curiosity arose within Feng Yuhuai, and dangerously germinated a thought in her depths.

She remembered Puppet Mother parasitizing her, waiting for her maturation to hatch; if she managed to infiltrate those people or emulate them somehow.

Then upon that day’s arrival, would Puppet Mother dare to emerge from her body?

Amidst the end’s bleakest despair, Feng Yuhuai seemed to glimpse a potential solution.

"Thinking too far ahead, for Puppet Mother to hatch needs me to mature, my immediate priority is to hide, evade the Executive Government’s capture, ideally escape Zone 9..."

At the same time.

Inside the pitch-black Executive Government building, within the Chief Member’s office deep within, the Chief Member sat on the sofa, watching the projection screen repeatingly playing the footage....