Chapter 510: The End of the Incident

Su Ming pushed open the door of Emergency Cabin No. 3.

The first scene that slammed into his eyes made his feet stumble.

Lu Yu was bound to the operating table.

Eight silver‑gray restraints tightened around his limbs and torso, the familiar cold, hard feel of metal reflecting the white light from the cabin ceiling.

Those are the Federation's stock specifications for suppressing A Ji and above anomalous beings. Eight—no fewer, no more.

The boy's face still bore the marks of his loss of control, his lips cracked, the wound on his chest sealed with bio‑gel, oozing dark blood. Yet his eyes had already returned to their usual well‑like calm.

But beneath that calm pressed an unquenchable fire.

"Captain Su."

Lu Yu spoke, his voice hoarse. He moved his wrist, the metal straps scraping with a faint sound.

"What does this mean?"

His tone was flat, unnaturally flat. A fire seed who had fought for the Federation until he vomited blood, nearly trading his life for victory, woke up bound in a thousand knots yet still managed to suppress his emotions.

Su Ming gave no reply.

The bandage around his left eye bled anew, the pain making his temples throb. He was too lazy to change the dressing, and had no mind for it.

He walked to the bedside and raised his hand.

A holographic test report sprang from his fingertips, hovering before Lu Yu. A crimson Crystal Stone schematic rotated slowly, while a string of data scrolled beside it, dazzling the eyes.

"Take a look yourself."

Lu Yu's gaze fell upon it.

He recognized medical reports; in the previous world's apocalypse he had perused more autopsy documents than anyone. Yet this one, after three seconds, his pupils began to contract.

"God knows not, ghost sees not," Su Ming's voice was pressed low, each word heavy with blunt intent, "Someone has buried something in your heart."

"Source—" he paused, "suspected deity."

Lu Yu's breath stopped.

"Who do you think you are?" Su Ming leaned down, staring at him, "The Apocalypse Prophet? The reborn one who defies fate?"

"You were gutted, a detonator was shoved inside. From start to finish, you're nothing but a walking trick bomb."

His words were harsh, like a blade meeting blood.

"Lin Fan's strike burned away most of the Crystal Stone's veins. If it weren't for him," Su Ming straightened, stepping back half a pace, "you'd have nothing left but ash now. Qiu Ce Yuan, above and below, along with all of us, would have to be buried with you."

The cabin fell silent.

Lu Yu didn't move.

His fingers, bound in the restraints, slowly curled. The Nail dug into his palm, blood beads oozing, yet he didn't notice.

The report continued to spin before his eyes.

The image of vessel‑like veins piercing the myocardium resembled a living tentacle. That was his heart. The body he had taken pride in, using as revenge capital, was actually a reservoir of someone else's explosives.

He had deceived the Federation, deceived Eden Garden, treating Chen Shao and Wei Gong alike as steps to climb.

He thought he was a player.

In fact, he wasn't even a piece.

A piece at least has purpose; he was a stone a player casually pockets, crushing it whenever they please.

The sliver of composure left on Lu Yu's face after the calamity crumbled.

It wasn't anger; anger has a target.

But he didn't even know whom to hate. The 'god' who slipped a hand into his heart, he had never seen, not even felt a Shadow.

He only felt a cold that seeped into the cracks of his bones.

It was the humiliation of being toyed with by absolute power. Two lifetimes of struggle, only to discover he was merely a footnote in someone else's script, erasable at any moment.

"Heh."

He forced a breathy sound from his throat.

"So what?" Lu Yu lifted his gaze, the twin wells in his eyes now iced over, "You found it out, then what? Keep me as a Patient?"

Su Ming stared at him.

"Wei Gong's order," Su Ming said without beating around the bush, "From this second onward, you enter the highest‑level 'protective surveillance'."

He pointed at the eight restraints, then swept his hand across the entire emergency cabin.

"Without approval, you can't even step through that door. Eating, drinking, excreting—all inside this room. Watched until death for twenty‑four hours."

Lu Yu resignedly: "The Federation's fire seed gets this treatment?"

"You know you're a fire seed," Su Ming didn't even lift an eyelid, "Fire seeds are precious, they must be offered. Can something that's offered just run away?"

The words sounded sarcastic, but Su Ming knew it well.

Wei Gong's order, nominally surveillance, was protection at its core.

The 'god' who could reach the highest tier of Qiu Ce Yuan and embed something in Lu Yu's heart could do so again at any time. Locking Lu Yu in this cabin, shrouded by layered defenses and watched by the strongest forces, effectively cut off the deity's path to this 'trick bomb'.

The cage is also a shell.

But Su Ming wouldn't spell out that layer of meaning. Saying it outright wouldn't benefit someone like Lu Yu. Letting him swallow this humiliation made him more compliant.

Lu Yu remained silent for a long while.

The white light from the cabin ceiling illuminated his cracked lips. He stared at the ceiling for a full minute, his chest rising and falling with breath, the bio‑gel over his wound glistening under the tension.

Finally, he closed his eyes.

His jaw clenched with a click.

"...... Fine."

A single word ground out from between his teeth, tinged with the scent of blood.

He accepted.

It's not about being convinced, it's about seeing clearly. In front of that "god" that even Shadow can't touch, resistance is a joke. He must stay alive; only being alive gives a chance to turn the tide, even though in this game he was cheated from the start.

Su Ming looked at his condition and couldn't quite describe the feeling inside.

"Take good care of your injuries." Su Ming turned toward the doorway and tossed out, "Medical Team will come in right away to give you a second check. Cooperate, it's good for you."

The door closed behind him, cutting off the coldness in the emergency cabin.

Su Ming stood in the Corridor, slowly exhaling a puff of foul air.

The wound under the bandage began to ache again. He recalled the bottle of eye drops in his pocket, which the school doctor named Chu Che had given him.

He suddenly, for some reason, thought again of Chu Che handing over the drops, the pair of curved eyes behind the lenses.

Gentle. Too gentle.

He shook his head, suppressing this indefinable awkwardness. He couldn't attend to it now.

At the end of the Corridor, morning light streamed in through the opening of the courtyard that had been blown up and cleared.

Qiu Ce Yuan.

The first ray of sunlight after the disaster fell on the wreckage strewn across the ground.

Construction team's robotic arms were still clearing debris, and sparks from welding torches flared occasionally. The air mixed the smell of burning and disinfectant, yet the sky was bright.

The entrance to the underground laboratory, half collapsed, had its Reinforced Steel Bar at the broken edge coated with a warm shade by the morning light. A few sparrows that appeared from nowhere perched on the ruined wall, chirping, as if the all‑consuming battle of last night had never occurred.

The living began to clean up the mess left by the living.

And far away—

Cross‑Sea Bridge.

The morning mist hadn't fully lifted; milky water vapor clung to the sea surface, spreading and blurring the bridge's outline.

There were almost no cars on the bridge.

Two figures walked side by side on the pedestrian path.

One was a young man with short black hair, wearing plain clothes like a school uniform. His right eye was a bottomless deep blue, while his left eye was clean and resolute; the mismatched eyes gazed toward the horizon where sea meets sky.

The girl beside him had a high ponytail, wore a white T‑shirt and jeans, looking just like the neighborhood girls you see everywhere on campus. Her skin had regained its color, no trace of the Fierce Ghost's pallor.

Ling Xinyu turned her head and looked at Lin Fan.

Lin Fan also tilted his head, meeting her gaze.

Neither of them spoke.

The sea breeze blew, lifting the tips of her hair. Lin Fan naturally raised his hand and tucked the stray strands from her forehead behind her ear.

The gesture was clumsy, yet light.

Ling Xinyu curved her eyes, reached out to loop her arm around his, and rested her head on his shoulder.

They walked very slowly.

Behind them lay the Federation they had sliced apart with a single stroke, the sea of corpses and blood from the third underground level, and dozens of Fierce Ghosts burned out for their belief.

In front of them was the boundless sea.

The morning mist gradually swallowed their silhouettes, turning them into two vague outlines, finally merging into the white‑hazy vapor, indistinguishable.

Below the bridge, waves beat the piers one after another.

As if someone were softly humming a wordless tune.

Inside the Qiu Ce Yuan medical office.

Chu Che set down the teacup in his hand.

On the surveillance screen, the two overlapping silhouettes were slowly dissolving into the sea fog. He watched, his slender fingers lightly tapping the edge of the table.

Thud. Thud.

"Variable."

He whispered the two words, and in the gaze behind his lenses a hint of almost appreciative interest rose.

The tea was still warm, but he didn't drink it again.

The sunlight outside the window streamed in, falling on the hem of his Doctor's Lab Coat, clean and tidy, without a single crease.

Meanwhile, in the emergency cabin, Lu Yu stared at the ceiling, imprinting the report about his own heart frame by frame into his mind.

The revenge list gained an additional target that didn't even have a name.

What he didn't know was that the target, at this moment, was sitting in a small room above his head, brewing a perfectly timed pot of red tea, taking everything in.

Thud.

Chu Che's finger stopped.

He rose, walked to the window, and reached out to close the partially opened louvered blinds a bit more. The light was cut into thin strips, falling on the floor.

Below, the Federation's troops still held their positions. Armed with loaded rifles, they surrounded the entire building tightly, to root out the Inside Traitor that no one could find.

They investigated over two hundred people.

Su Ming's eyes, which never missed a person, didn't raise an alarm even once here.

Chu Che recalled the old wolf's furrowed brows before it left. When he handed over the eye drops, the hint of resentment that flashed in the other's eyes was crystal clear to him.

Smart person.

Unfortunately, the smart person can only be clever within the board he defined.

He sat back at the tea table, refilled half a cup for himself. The tea broth was ruby‑bright, its steam curling.

Lin Fan.

At first, a boy who should have been drowned in revenge, consumed entirely by resentment, ended up interlocking with that Fierce Ghost in a Symbiosis he had never imagined—reason, restraint, and mutual support.

He originally thought that human‑ghost Symbiosis had only two paths: either the human is devoured by resentment, or the ghost is worn down by humanity.

Lin Fan forged a third path.

This went beyond the script.

"Interesting," Chu Che said softly.

He designed the Cavity Person, the ghost wall, the Smiling Dummy and the Midnight Nightmare, the Blood Moon, and Sai Men. Every step is in his palm. He has seen humanity's struggle in despair and greed so often that he is sick of it.

But a variable like Lin Fan is like an unexpected fresh flavor that suddenly surfaces in a pot of soup simmered over low heat.

He needs this kind of variable.

A world that is completely regimented by order is dead. What he intends to reboot has never been a corpse. What he wants is a New World that is upheld by absolute order yet still leaves room for struggle.

Then, Lin Fan, Lu Yu, Ji Bai, Qin Zhixia......

What will those he has placed on the board himself or indirectly—these people—grow into?

Chu Che took a sip of tea; it was just the right temperature.

Outside the window, the mechanical arms clearing the ruins were still rumbling. A shaft of sunlight slipped through a slit in the louvered window, slanting onto the lenses of his gold‑rimmed glasses and reflecting a cold white glint.