She forced herself to work for ten more minutes, her movements completely robotic as she shaped the loaves of bread and placed them on the wooden trays.

Every single second felt like an eternity. Her skin was crawling, and the black mark below her collarbone was starting to throb with a dull, steady heat.

The moment the old goat-female turned her back to tend to the back back-ovens, Lin Wan dropped her flour scraper. She didn’t say a word. She slipped silently through the back door, stepping out into the narrow, dark alleyway behind the tavern.

The cold, greasy rain hit her face instantly. It was a miserable, dirty rain that smelled like smoke and wet iron, but it felt freezing against her burning skin.

The water ran down her cheeks, washing away a small line of the black soot she had smeared on her skin, revealing a glimpse of her pale, smooth female flesh underneath.

She walked quickly down the alley until she reached the deep shadow behind a massive, rusted iron water barrel. No one could see her here. The alley was empty, filled only with the sound of the rain smacking against the stone walls.

Lin Wan leaned her back against the cold stone wall of the building, her breath coming in ragged, terrified gasps.

She reached into her apron pocket with both hands, her fingers shaking so violently she could barely grip the smooth wood of the box. She pulled it out into the dim daylight.

*Click.*

She pressed her thumb against the small silver latch. The lid popped open with a tiny, clean sound.

Lin Wan’s entire world completely stopped turning.

*Gasp!*

A sharp, terrified cry was caught in her throat. Her eyes went completely wide with pure, unadulterated horror as she stared at the contents inside the dark wood.

Sitting perfectly in the center of the box was a small, elegant silk pouch made of royal gold thread. It was the exact type of high-tier pouch used by the wealthiest lords of the Upper Realm. But it was what lay right next to the gold pouch that made her blood turn to solid ice.

It was a tiny, torn piece of soft, pale blue fabric.

Lin Wan recognized that fabric instantly. She didn’t even need to touch it. It was a torn piece from the high-grade silk tunic she had been wearing on the exact night she escaped from the rented courtyard in the border city. She had torn her sleeve when she scrambled out of the bedroom window in the dark.

With a completely numb hand, she reached down and picked up the gold silk pouch. She pulled the silk strings open, tipping the pouch forward slightly.

The bright, blinding glow of high-grade spirit stones spilled into her vision. They were perfectly cut, glowing with a deep, pure magical light that lit up the dark alleyway.

She didn’t even need to count them one by one. She knew the amount down to the very last grain.

Exactly three thousand high-grade spirit stones.

It was the exact, identical amount of money she had handed over to the fat slave trader to buy Cassian out of his iron cage.

Every single stone she had spent to buy his body had been returned to her, packed neatly inside an expensive royal box, delivered straight to the filthy kitchen where she was hiding.

"He knows," Lin Wan whispered, her voice completely breaking as her knees buckled beneath her.

*Thud.*

She slid all the way down the cold stone wall, her knees hitting the wet, muddy dirt of the alley floorboards. The beautiful gold stones and the piece of blue fabric spilled into her lap, but she couldn’t even feel them. Her entire body was shaking as if she were standing in the middle of a blizzard.

"He knows... he knows everything," she sobbed softly, pressing her dirty hands against her face. "Weiwei... he knows exactly where I am. He sent my money back. He sent my clothes back."

Suddenly, a loud, frantic digital buzzing exploded inside her head. The sound was so violent it made her ears ring with sharp pain.

[Host! Oh my god, host!] Weiwei’s voice broke through her mind, completely stripped of its usual calm, machine-like tone. The digital lines were screaming with pure panic, flashing red error codes across Lin Wan’s vision. [The tracking crystals outside didn’t find you because they were looking for a physical scent! But he didn’t need those stupid crystals at all! He has been tracking the manticore mark inside your energy core since the very first millisecond you ran away! He knew you crossed the border! He knew you came to this slum! He knew you were inside this tavern the entire time!]

Lin Wan clutched the tiny piece of blue fabric against her chest, her tears finally overflowing and washing away the black soot on her face in thick, messy streaks.

"Why?" Lin Wan cried out in her mind, her voice filled with a deep, agonizing confusion. "If he knew I was here the whole time... why did he let me wash those dirty plates? Why did he let me sleep on that rough straw mattress in the attic? Why didn’t he just send his black-armored scouts to smash the door and drag me back to him on the very first day?"

[Because it is a psychological trap, host!] Weiwei shouted back, her digital voice trembling with deep worry. [He is a predator! He didn’t want to just catch you like a common criminal! He wanted you to think you were clever. He wanted you to think your dirty soot disguise and your chopped hair were actually working. He wanted you to build up hope, to think you were finally safe from him, just so he could drop this box into your hands and crush your spirit into absolute pieces! He wants you to feel the walls closing in! He wants you to panic! He wants you to run out into the streets screaming, because to a royal manticore prince, a prey that runs and panics is a thousand times sweeter to break! Do not leave this tavern, host! If you step into the main street right now, you will play right into his hands! You are safer inside the kitchen!]

Lin Wan looked down at the glowing gold stones sitting in the wet mud of her apron. They felt like blocks of white-hot iron, burning straight through her clothes into her flesh.

She understood the absolute, terrifying truth now.

She had never been hiding. She had never been free.

She was just a small, ordinary female sitting in the exact center of a massive, wide-open cage. And the giant, golden-eyed monster was currently standing on the highest peak of his golden kingdom, watching her every single shudder with a slow, cruel, and deeply satisfied smile on his face.

He was just waiting for his hands to be free before he reached down to pull her leash.

....

The afternoon of the sixth day did not bring any sunlight to the capital city. Instead, an unnatural, pitch-black darkness completely swallowed the sky, turning the world into a gloomy, terrifying void.

It was not a normal night or a common storm. It was an eclipse of pure, destructive spiritual power. The dark purple storm clouds that had been hanging over the inner palace for days had gathered so tightly that they formed a massive, roaring vortex.

The center of the vortex sat directly over the high spires of the royal citadel, spinning like a giant whirlpool that reached into the highest heavens.

Heavy, continuous thunder shook the ground without stopping. The vibrations were so intense that the thick wooden walls of ’The Drunken Goat Tavern’ were constantly groaning and creaking, as if the entire three-story structure were about to collapse into the mud.

Inside the kitchen, the situation had turned into complete, terrifying chaos.

*Clang!*

*Crash!*

The spiritual waves coming from the inner city were so heavy that the massive iron pots hung on the brick walls were shaking off their metal hooks, slamming violently onto the floorboards.

The water inside the massive dish tubs was rippling and bubbling violently as if it were boiling over a high fire, even though it was completely freezing cold to the touch.

The old goat-female and the other kitchen maids had completely abandoned their cooking vats.

They were no longer chopping vegetables or stoking the fires. They were all kneeling together in a tight circle on the dirty, wet floorboards in the center of the room, their foreheads pressed hard against the wood.

They were weeping loudly, their voices shaking as they prayed to the ancient beast gods for mercy.

"The heavens are splitting," one of the maids wailed, her hands clutching her ears as another massive crack of thunder shook the ceiling. "The royal house is tearing itself apart! We are all going to die in the crossfire!"

Lin Wan did not kneel with them.

She stood completely alone by the narrow, greasy kitchen window, her small, raw hands gripping the wooden frame so tightly her knuckles were white.