It was only after his ability awakened that Tang Qiuqiu learned his father was a piece of human trash who profited from filming animal abuse.
His awakening had come very early. Everyone around him viewed the manifestation of an ability as something to boast about, and Tang Qiuqiu had felt the same—until he went home to his parents. The look his father gave him was like he was looking at a monster.
That man had packed his bags and fled the house overnight. He believed the vengeful spirits of those animals had possessed his son to seek retribution.
Only then did Tang Qiuqiu understand why, despite his love for small animals, his father never let him touch them or even look at them for too long.
He knew right from wrong, yet when he looked at his hands transformed into claws or the cat ears he had grown, he would sometimes fall into a daze.
The feline genes within him... they must hate being inside the son of such a scumbag, right? They must want to escape his body, right?
So, as soon as he was old enough, he chose to join the Mutation Investigation Department, hoping that one day he would die on a battlefield while purging mutants.
But contrary to his expectations, when faced with a true choice between life and death, he flinched.
In his first mission, he chose a C-rank task that matched his level. He completed it successfully and returned to the branch covered in wounds.
Tang Qiuqiu would lie in his dormitory, unable to sleep for nights on end. Pain and inner turmoil filled his body and mind, making his cat ears tremble incessantly. He was afraid to move forward, yet unable to retreat, leaving him to be pushed along by time, trapped in a cycle of self-torture.
That was until the morning of the team selection, when he met Xin Ye.
Xin Ye said his ability was useful and that the team needed him.
Xin Ye also said they would go through many missions together, promising that everyone would move forward safely as one.
Tang Qiuqiu felt that he could finally move forward—if it was with the team, with everyone.
As for the past, it should be buried deep in the earth, left to rot in the dust accumulated over the years in this wretched shelter.
The White Lion led Tang Qiuqiu to the remaining functional equipment and paper records. He smashed or shredded every electronic device and tore the papers into tiny pieces, hiding them in the corners. Only after everything was destroyed did Tang Qiuqiu breathe a sigh of relief.
"Let’s go. Back to the second floor. I’ll help you release the rest of the albino animals." Tang Qiuqiu brushed the dust off his hands, his steps light as he walked toward the second floor with the White Lion.
While heading up, Xin Ye sent a voice call request, but Tang Qiuqiu declined it.
When he had first sought Xin Ye’s opinion after communicating with the White Lion, he had noticed Xin Ye’s distrustful attitude. Therefore, during their second negotiation, Tang Qiuqiu and the White Lion had struck a different deal.
Or rather, the White Lion had initiated a collaboration with Tang Qiuqiu behind Xin Ye’s back.
As the biological son of a long-term abuser, and given that most animals developed special abilities after mutating, the lion had smelled a scent on Tang Qiuqiu similar to Wang Dongming’s. Furthermore, through the uniform—which was identical to that of the kidnapped member from the Eighth Branch—it understood Tang Qiuqiu’s current identity. The White Lion saw that Tang Qiuqiu seemed to like and obey the other human, so it devised a plan and proposed this cooperation.
If Xin Ye was unwilling to help save the albino animals, Tang Qiuqiu would do it. The White Lion would find a way to lure Xin Ye to the lower floors, giving Tang Qiuqiu a chance to break away from the team and return upstairs.
In exchange, the White Lion told Tang Qiuqiu the location of the records concerning his father, allowing him to destroy them all at once.
Rescuing the albino animals wasn't difficult. The sealed glass containers, which only had a small hole for breathing, had their openings glued shut, but their structural integrity was no match for Tang Qiuqiu’s claws. He simply pressed his claws against the top and applied a bit of pressure, and the glass plates cracked.
Tang Qiuqiu moved quickly. He dismantled all the containers on the shelves within twenty minutes. The small animals, trapped for so long, scrambled down from the wooden racks and huddled around the White Lion, shrinking beneath its long mane to hide.
It was a posture of pure defense.
"Our deal ends here." Having settled his debt with the White Lion, Tang Qiuqiu felt a wave of relief and headed for the door. "I’m going to find the Captain. You guys..."
His words cut off abruptly. He shoved the door twice, but it wouldn't budge.
Trapped here? He couldn't be. His other teammates were still trapped on the basement floor. He had to get to them because they had promised to finish the mission together...
Outside the door, over a dozen mummified mutants were piled together, physically blocking the exit.
{Tang Qiuqiu, stay here for a while,} the White Lion said, sensing Tang Qiuqiu’s movements becoming violent. It stopped comforting the small animals around it. {I need that friend of yours... to do something for me. When it’s over, you can leave with your remaining teammates.}
Tang Qiuqiu’s increasingly frantic movements suddenly stopped.
{What did you say?} Tang Qiuqiu turned his head slowly. The cat ears on his head and the claws he had retracted involuntarily emerged. The feline language was soft in pronunciation, but coming from his mouth now, it sounded exceptionally grim. {Remaining teammates... Who is this 'friend' you're talking about? Xin Ye?}
The White Lion had only met Xin Ye, so he was naturally the one it referred to, but Tang Qiuqiu confirmed it anyway.
A bad premonition rose in its heart, but thinking of its goal, the White Lion suppressed its unease: {The one who came to the second floor with you. Haven't enough of you humans died at the hands of mutants? He’s just a D-rank...}
"I should have listened to the Captain... He definitely would have seen the problem with this deal. Yeah, now that I think about it calmly, this collaboration was full of holes," Tang Qiuqiu murmured.
If it was just a matter of breaking glass containers, the White Lion could have done it itself. Even if it couldn't reach the high places, since it could control mutants to attack ability users, it could have commanded them to stack up and reach the containers.
A member of the Eighth Branch had already gone missing at this shelter. Why would a White Lion that could control mutants ever cooperate with him?
The White Lion just wanted to keep him away. If he were with Xin Ye, a certain plan would be ruined. Such a transparent scheme, yet he had been so blinded by emotion that he hadn't seen a thing.
Tang Qiuqiu gave a self-mocking laugh and turned to face the White Lion.
"It’s fine that the door is closed. None of you are getting out either." His sharp claws brushed lightly over his lips, slicing a small wound. The blood that flowed out stained his lips and the corners of his mouth before being licked away by his feline tongue.
The White Lion’s pale blue eyes reflected Tang Qiuqiu’s figure. It saw a flash of silver light in those eyes, which belonged to the same feline family as its own.
And a hint of something pathological.
"I certainly won't let a beast like you, who dares to think of harming the Captain, leave here alive."
***
Xin Ye finally managed to carve a bloody path through the mutants in front of him, only for several more to pop up behind him. At the cost of several bloody gashes on his back, he finally managed to buy himself a moment of respite. He wanted to check on Tang Qiuqiu’s situation, only to find no one behind him.
The breakdown of an adult Captain often happened in a single instant: "Where's my cat?!"
Xunyin: [I don't know—]
He tried to call Tang Qiuqiu, but the call was declined.
He felt even more like breaking down.
The trio ahead, still fighting a bloody battle, were drawn by Xin Ye’s voice. Lian Muyun shot a mutant back and tried to make his voice heard over the howling of cats and dogs: "Brother Ye—Help—!"
In a family with more than one child, the parent was always this overworked.
Xin Ye tearfully set aside the thought of finding Tang Qiuqiu for now. With one slash, he killed a mutant blocking his way and slowly moved toward the other three.
Once he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Lian Muyun, Xin Ye breathed a slight sigh of relief. Lian Muyun found using his ability to generate bullets slower than just creating guns; he was emptying one gun and tossing it aside to grab another. Seeing only one person arrive, he asked, "Where's Qiu'er?"
"I don't know. He was right behind me, then he vanished in the blink of an eye." Xin Ye swung his dagger to block a mutant dog for Leng Xianye, but ended up with another cut on his arm.
Leng Xianye didn't speak. Having refrained from using his ability until now, he activated his Black Box, swallowing several mutants closest to Xin Ye.
Xin Ye felt the lens in his pocket growing hot, but he still didn't plan to let the Mirror Image out. His and Leng Xianye’s abilities weren't as suited for fighting large numbers of mutants as Xing Yue’s and Lian Muyun’s. Adding one Mirror Image wouldn't change the tide of the battle.
Xing Yue had been worried about the group being separated by the mutants, so she had tied her Everlasting Silk around the waists of the other three. After Xin Ye arrived, she extended a thread to tie his waist as well. But gradually, she sensed something was wrong.
"Captain... don't you think the way these mutants are attacking is a bit strange?" Her Everlasting Silk no longer crushed the bodies of the mutants as it had before; instead, it just flung them away. "It feels like these lunges and bites aren't lethal. It’s more like..."
"Like they're herding us inside?" Xin Ye felt the tug of the silk on his waist. The four of them were being pushed bit by bit toward the end of the corridor.
Leng Xianye noticed this too, shifting his actions from killing to repelling and defending. "We were already at the end of the corridor preparing to open the door. We only started running outward because the mutants suddenly appeared. If they wanted to lure us into the locked room at the end, why go through all this trouble?"
"If it's not 'trouble' for nothing," Lian Muyun’s mind worked fast, "then maybe the door we were going to open isn't the one they want us to see?"
Xin Ye validated this thought: "Makes sense. How about we stop resisting and let them push us?"
Leng Xianye considered the possibility but hesitated when he saw only one door at the end of the wall. "Isn't there only one door over there?"
"That wall is pretty wide," Xin Ye thought of the hidden room on the second floor. "Maybe there's another door hidden right next to it that you guys didn't notice just now?"
Leng Xianye understood.
The four of them began to only block attacks, allowing the mutants to shove and crowd them toward the wall. As it turned out, they weren't pushed toward the door, but toward a blank space beside it.
Just as Lian Muyun was about to praise himself as a genius, the mutants lunged at the wall first, physically denting a rectangular area inward.
With a grinding sound, that section of the wall was pushed into the space behind it by the mutants, revealing a hidden room to the four of them.
The mummified mutants fell silent for a moment. Leng Xianye, standing at the front, took two steps forward to investigate the room but suddenly pinched his nose.
The smell from the room wafted out. Xing Yue also covered her nose and mouth, and Lian Muyun even coughed several times. "What is that smell..."
Xin Ye’s expression remained unchanged as he stepped in front of Leng Xianye.
"It’s the smell of human decomposition. Someone died in there." Xin Ye hated the smell too, but more on a psychological level than a physiological one. After all, in his previous timeline, he had seen too many corpses of colleagues who had been dead for a long time. "It’s probably that missing member from the Eighth Branch."
"Let’s go. We’re going in to take a look."
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 王东明 | Wang Dongming | Tang Qiuqiu's father, an animal abuser. |
| 不断丝 | Everlasting Silk | Xing Yue's technique involving unbreakable threads. |
| 黑盒 | Black Box | Leng Xianye's spatial/devouring technique. |
| 镜像 | Mirror Image | Xin Ye's ability/summon. |
| 外表同化 | Appearance Assimilation | A mutation direction where an organism changes the appearance of others to match its own. |
