So this guy's true form is a gray rabbit...

  Lu A'cang looked at "him," who was crouching in her arms, blood still pouring from his left shoulder.

  Fortunately, that tree yokai had taught her a very useful escape technique a long time ago. Otherwise, she and he would have quickly become the victims of the blood-silver bullets.

  Walking through the forest under the night sky, she couldn′t tell which direction she was going, just aimlessly wandering, still shaken. It seemed that no job had ever gone as disastrously as this one. He was badly injured by the blood-silver bullets, but fortunately, he hadn′t been shot in the head—otherwise, even a god couldn′t save him. Now, Lu A'cang didn't know where to go. She didn't even know where she was! Should she find somewhere for her employer to recover from his injuries first? Otherwise, who was she going to collect her payment from?

  Her hand brushed against the square white box in her pocket. It was his, having fallen out when he reverted to his original form. Though she still didn’t understand the significance of that blue diamond-shaped object and why it was worth all the trouble to him, she would still keep it safe for him. After all, she was a youkai with professional ethics.

  As she was thinking, something shifted faintly through the trees ahead. Before she could figure out what was happening, several trees ahead suddenly began to shake violently. Two wild boar spirits, looking ferocious, charged out from behind the trees, and in a few quick moves, they pinned her to the ground.

  She didn't even have time to scream before a cold, hard metal object touched her forehead. A fsh of white light, and her body went limp. Without even closing her eyes, she lost all consciousness…

  Fortunately, she didn’t wake up like in those horror movies, where the victim regains consciousness bound tightly with belts or metal cuffs. She was awoken by Chopin's Nocturne.

  A bright halo hovered above her head. The pale, sharp light reminded her of the shadowless mps in an operating room. She y on a comfortable, spacious white sofa, free to move, her limbs intact, not even a bruise.

  "I like this Nocturne. It reminds me of home and many forgotten memories,” a weary voice echoed from across from her. A gaunt man, wearing the mask she knew all too well, with an old-fashioned pocket watch hanging from his chest, sat at a piano. His fingers, not perfect, moved skillfully back and forth across the bck and white keys.

  Under him was not a comfortable piano bench but a wheelchair. The room was enormous, so rge that every sound echoed. The beautiful piano music, with this unique “accompaniment,” took on a strange, seductive allure.

  In the room, the only living beings were her, the pianist, and a wounded gray rabbit lying at the pianist's feet. Apart from that, there was only a sofa and a piano. The overwhelming whiteness, so pure, felt like it was not from this world.

  Lu A'cang sat up and shrank into a corner of the sofa. She was still Charlotte—this was something she would never forget.

  "Miss Charlotte.” The piano abruptly stopped, and the masked face turned toward her. “Oh, no, I mean Miss Lu A'cang, the rare yaokai species, Wu Xiang.”

  It seemed this was the first time her identity had been exposed by someone before the contract expired. Lu A'cang let out a long sigh, straightened up, and climbed down from the sofa, appuding. “The Nocturne was well pyed.”

  "Thank you.” The man nodded toward her, a faint ugh audible beneath his mask. "It’s the only piece I can py.”

  "That means you're quite devoted.” Lu A'cang stood up and gnced at the rabbit at his feet. “Since you know my identity, you should understand that I′m just a paid substitute. I have no value except for impersonating others. Capturing me here isn′t very wise. Of course, I'm not interested in your identity. But I hope you won't harm that rabbit for now, because it hired me. Until I get my payment, I don’t want anything to happen to it.”

  "I like straightforward people.” He pressed a button on his wheelchair, and it automatically turned to face her, rolling closer until it stopped less than a meter away. “Aren’t you afraid?”

  Afraid? From the scent on him, she could tell he was a genuine human. Yaokais don′t fear humans, unless they’re exceptionally powerful hunters. The person in front of her didn't have the sharp aura of a hunter; in fact, she could sense a certain genuine vulnerability from him.

  Besides, she was a Wu Xiang—formless and immortal. No one could take her life. Not even the most powerful yaokai or hunter could kill a Wu Xiang. There was only one circumstance that could make her die, but she believed that situation would never come to pass.

  She still cherished her life, thinking that living like this wasn't so bad. Although living for hundreds or even thousands of years could be a bit boring, she had already gotten used to it.

  She wasn’t very accustomed to exploring the meaning of life like many great people did. To her, living simply meant being able to breathe, to see, to hear, and to pass the time with different identities to stave off boredom. What reason did she have to fear a human sitting in a wheelchair? No matter what kind of powerful background y behind her.

  "If you're willing to tell me where I am and why you brought me here, I'd still like to listen.” Lu A'cang smiled. “After all, my contract hasn’t expired yet. I′m still Charlotte, your hostage.”

  "Have you ever resented yourself?” the man suddenly asked. “If there were an opportunity where everyone could start on the same starting line, without the distinctions of health and illness, intelligence and ignorance, beauty and ugliness, without wealth or poverty, without ranks, where everyone is equal, and everything is fair... do you think that would be good?”

  Lu A'cang pressed her lips together. After a long pause, she lowered her head and smiled. “Of course it would be good. But that's just an ideal as fragile as a soap bubble. Nothing in this world could ever start from a fair starting line.”

  "Here.” The man took off his leather gloves and extended a hand to her. The hand was so thin, the skin taut over the bones.

  Lu A'cang took his hand, feeling as though she had grasped a cold, withered bone—an unsettling sensation that could bring about a nightmare, yet there was also a strange force in it.

  The wheelchair moved toward the eastern wall, and Lu A'cang followed him slowly. He pulled out a USB-sized remote control from his pocket and pressed a button.

  The heavy wall in front of them opened upwards. A series of beeping and clicking electronic sounds, mixed with the faint, noisy chatter of humans, surged in like a bst of air from the outside world. Lu A'cang's gaze froze in astonishment—

  Beneath her feet, about ten meters down, was a massive boratory built with tempered gss and alloy borders, shaped like a perfect hexagon, comparable to a finely cut diamond. A group of people in white radiation-proof suits were either sitting or walking, busy in front of rows of electronic devices fshing with various colored indicator lights. Two thick tubes, about three meters in diameter, extended from the two opposite corners of the boratory, one to the south and the other to the north. At the center, they connected in an empty space, and from the connection point, a needle-thin antenna-like rod shot up into the air, piercing through the boratory′s ceiling and continuing upward, growing like a sprout from a fairy tale, reaching all the way to the sky.

  The lights flickered, all operating together, with a unique vibration moving back and forth in the two tanks. The boratory beneath her feet felt like a restless universe.

  Lu A'cang didn't know why she would describe this pce as a “universe,” but that's exactly how she felt.

  "This…” Her tongue stumbled a little.

  "This is my own version of a hadron collider.” The man slowly removed his mask. His face, no longer young, had only one eye. The left side of his forehead bulged noticeably more than the right, and he had no nose—just two uneven holes set in a lump of flesh. His mouth was crooked, and when he spoke, saliva occasionally dripped from it.

  Lu A'cang had never seen such an unappealing human face. This appearance was weirder than any youkai. But, from this weirdos’ face, she could clearly see an extraordinary confidence and excitement. These traits gave off a certain radiance, even from someone sitting in a wheelchair with a ruined face.

  "Hadron collider?” She had heard of this name and vaguely knew that it was no ordinary thing.

  "It breaks down what I need into particles, and using the principle of a hadron collider, it divides them into two proton beams, which collide at the speed of light inside the machine. After a successful collision, this machine will not only generate energy exceeding 7 trillion electron volts but also the exotic ions I desire most. When these adorable little things are transported through that needle to the highest point on Earth and then expand and explode inside, their power will spread across the entire pnet.” His voice trembled with excitement. “I must thank you. You've helped me acquire Neptune. And you, too, will have the honor of witnessing a great moment.”

  "I'm not interested in witnessing anything.” Lu A′cang withdrew her gaze. “I only do what the contract requires.”

  "You will be interested.” He smiled strangely. "I've studied creatures like the Formless. If you don’t hate yourself, you can’t become a Formless.” With that, he pressed the remote, and the wall returned to normal.

  He returned to the piano, gently stroking the old pocket watch hanging on his chest, murmuring, "It will succeed soon. We need a new world.” He kissed the pocket watch. "I miss you.”