Manhattan, NASA Fifth Division

  Yan Qing frowned at the line graphs on his screen—colored curves from the National Meteorological Bureau, all spiking upward at once.

  So his suspicion was right.

  With tectonic activity this abnormal, why had no one in the scientific community raised concerns? Yan Qing wondered.

  “Yan Qing! Going downstairs to buy coffee?”

  A casual voice suddenly snapped him out of it. Chris strolled into Yan Qing’s office at an unhurried pace. The two had known each other since university, so Chris never knocked before entering.

  “Take a look at this.” Yan Qing kept his face angled toward the computer as he motioned his blond friend closer and showed him the graph. “What do you think?”

  Chris stared at the graph for a while, then turned to Yan Qing. “Weird climate data, but… this doesn’t look like our project.”

  Yan Qing shook his head. “It’s not. This is the National Meteorological Bureau’s recent global seismic monitoring data. Don’t you find it strange? Activity this abnormal, and no one’s raised any doubts at all?”

  “Yan Qing, isn’t that the meteorological bureau’s job?” Chris asked, baffled. He couldn’t understand why Yan Qing—who only cared about his own research projects—was digging into something else this seriously.

  Yan Qing crossed his arms and turned toward his colleague and friend. “The problem is: not a single person in the bureau has reported this to their superiors.”

  Chris shrugged. “Maybe they think they need more data, so they haven’t published yet. You know those officials—put a mountain of evidence in front of them, and they’ll grant you their ‘precious’ five minutes to persuade those rusted brains.”

  Yan Qing just stared at the screen, jaw tight. Chris’s answer didn’t sit right.

  Seeing his buddy’s brain nearing overload, Chris grabbed Yan Qing and patted his back. “Relax. Don’t make yourself so jumpy.”

  “Hey—what are you doing?” Yan Qing complained as Chris shoved him toward the door.

  “Going downstairs for coffee! If you think all day like this, you’ll go bald!”

  “By the time I go bald, you’ll already be a shiny-headed monk.”

  “Hey! That’s racist! Who says white men have to go bald first?!”

  “Statistically speaking, you’re already on borrowed time.”

  “Hey! How can you hit my confidence like that? I was campus heartthrob back then!”

  “More like campus crabgrass.”

  “……”

  The two joked back and forth as they disappeared into the elevator at the end of the corridor.

  As the elevator doors slid shut and carried Chris and Yan Qing downstairs, a faint shuffle echoed from the corridor outside Yan Qing’s office. The door, left ajar in their haste, allowed a slim figure to slip inside. The assistant paused briefly, glancing at Yan Qing’s computer, which still glowed softly in the afternoon light.

  Moments later, after Chris and Yan Qing had grabbed their coffee and exchanged a few more jokes, they stepped out of the elevator and made their way back down the hallway. Just as they approached Yan Qing’s office, the inspector’s assistant emerged, closing the door quietly behind him.

  “Noel, need something?” Chris asked casually, but Yan Qing’s brows had already drawn tightly together.

  The assistant’s thin figure flinched. He turned toward them. “Ah— Chris, Prof. Yan Qing, good afternoon. I had some materials for Prof. Yan Qing, but you weren’t here, so I left them on your desk.”

  Yan Qing’s dark eyes locked onto the assistant as he asked coldly, “What kind of materials?”

  Noel seemed to sense the hostility in Yan Qing’s tone. He hesitated, then replied haltingly, “I–it’s a fax from Professor Kriodoniski in Finland. I have other matters to attend to. Excuse me.”With that, he turned and hurried away.

  “What a strange guy,” Chris muttered, watching the assistant leave. He shook his head, then turned to Yan Qing. “What’s wrong?”

  Yan Qing said nothing. He walked straight into his office and sat down in front of his computer.

  “The computer’s been accessed,” Yan Qing said, tapping the keyboard.

  The computer should have locked itself after ten seconds of inactivity, but the screen was still on.

  “Yeah…”Even the usually grinning Chris finally looked serious. He leaned in, trying to peer closer at the monitor. “But I heard only those guys working on rail guns and weapons systems get hacked. Your research doesn’t seem that valuable—”

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  He caught Yan Qing’s murderous glare and immediately backtracked.

  “I mean—relatively speaking.”

  “My research only matters to people who care about physics,” Yan Qing said, eyes narrowing at the screen. “But whoever broke in was after the meteorological data.”

  Chris raised his eyebrows theatrically, his handsome face taking on a comical look.“That’s what’s weird. Who waits for us to leave, uses some unknown super-hacker method to break into your system, just to look at weather data?”

  “That means it’s important to them,” Yan Qing replied calmly. He stood up again and headed for the door. “We should ask Noel what he was really doing in my office.”

  “I love detective games!” Chris jumped to his feet as well, rubbing his hands together excitedly. He glanced back once at the screen Yan Qing had just locked, then followed him out.

  While Yan Qing and Chris hurried off to find Noel, Chen, on the other hand, followed the address provided by Xiao and arrived at a derelict building.

  The red brick walls were mottled and crumbling, chunks missing to reveal rusted rebar beneath. Rubble and trash littered the ground, weeds growing wildly among them—there wasn’t even a proper place to stand.

  “Looks like you’re doing quite well on this planet,” Chen said, standing atop an unidentifiable heap of ruins, his gaze fixed on a figure half-hidden behind a column nearby.

  A middle-aged man stepped out from behind the pillar. He wore factory work clothes and looked utterly ordinary—like any common laborer. But his eyes gleamed with a feral light.

  “You’d better leave quietly and mind your own business,” the man warned, his voice carrying confidence and killing intent. “Otherwise—”

  At that moment, seven more figures emerged from the shadows. Men and women, tall and short—but all shared the same feature: glowing, glassy eyes.

  Chen’s lips curved into a smile, one that seemed almost friendly. He took a step forward, utterly unconcerned by their numbers or their threat.“And what if I’m the sort who loves meddling?”

  “That would be unfortunate,” the middle-aged man said, pity crossing his face. “Meddlers don’t live very long.”

  The instant the words left his mouth, the seven lunged at Chen with speed far beyond human limits!

  Such a sudden attack would have left even a trained soldier unable to react.

  Unfortunately for them—Chen was no ordinary being.

  The first attacker’s fist shot toward Chen’s nose, but he only smiled, tilting his head aside and catching the blow with effortless speed.His right hand snapped upward, clamping around the attacker’s throat. Muscles tightened—and in the next instant, the man was flung in a straight line, crashing into three others charging from behind!

  The impact sent all three sprawling to the ground, unable to move.

  All of this happened in the blink of an eye.

  Without wasting a moment, Chen pivoted sharply. A woman was trying to ambush him from behind—but for reasons unknown, her eyes suddenly bulged. Her mouth fell open as both hands flew to her throat, as if she were choking.

  Blue blood—distinctly non-human—burst from her mouth.

  The remaining three froze in shock.

  “What are you?!” the middle-aged man demanded, terror flooding the voice that had been so confident moments ago.

  Chen turned toward him. Two beams of gold pierced straight into the man’s retinas.

  The man’s eyes widened in disbelief, his voice trembling.“T–Teleopean?!”

  A collective gasp rose from the others.

  “Greetings, Fenreigans,” Chen said, inclining his head politely. His demeanor had completely shifted from moments before—where there had been brutality, there was now elegance and composure.

  Behind him, the woman collapsed to the ground, clutching at a wound on her neck that had appeared from nowhere—still alive.

  “You butchered our people and destroyed our world!” the middle-aged man roared, fear and hatred mingling in his voice. “What are you doing here?!”

  Chen raised an eyebrow in faint mockery.“Your greed for power threatened the Interstellar Federation. My people merely acted in our own interests and served as the Federation’s weapon. Ysour extinction was the result of your own choices.”

  “Lies!” the man shouted. “Without your interference, we would never have been wiped out! But now—now we can taste a little revenge. Kill him!”

  Including the middle-aged man, four Fenreigans shed their human disguises and revealed their true forms.

  Blue skin covered in reptilian scales. Black hair braided into countless tight plaits. A second pair of arms sprouted from their elbows, while their lower bodies twisted into serpentine coils.

  Alien. Monstrous.

  Creatures that never belonged on this planet.

  Chen merely brushed a hand through his ornate, metallic-gold braids and snorted.“A human once called me a monster. I wonder what that human would think if they saw your true forms—assuming they’re still alive.”

  “What do creatures who haven’t even reached Mars know?” one of the Fenreigan sneered. “Soon, we’ll be the masters of this planet. Humans will be caged amusements for us!”

  He coiled his snake-like body, ready to strike.

  Chen’s smile never faded. His lips parted slightly, revealing the faint glint of carnivore fangs.“Do you know why your kind was doomed?”

  “Shut up!!”

  The Fenreigan, enraged, charged him.

  Chen cleaved through the first attacker and snapped the neck of another to his right in one fluid motion. Twisting, he evaded four sets of razor-sharp claws and drove his hand straight through an enemy’s chest, using their momentum against them. The Fenreigan went limp instantly.

  Chen flung the body aside and turned, blue blood splashed across his face, to face the two remaining enemies.

  His blood surged from exertion, golden light burning in his eyes within the dim ruin. Against his pale face, the blue blood made his presence suffocating.

  He advanced slowly. The two Fenreigans froze, terror locking their bodies in place.

  “Tell me,” Chen said evenly, his emotionless voice filling the air like cold fog, making them tremble.“What are you doing on Earth?”

  Their blue skin dulled under the pressure. Eyes wide with horror, limbs shaking, they still tried to inch backward, searching for an opening.

  “Answer!” Chen snapped, his voice sharp as a blade.

  One of them finally broke. Screaming, he lunged at Chen, secondary arms spread wide, claws flashing as he aimed for Chen’s throat.

  Chen watched coldly.

  With a push of his feet, he surged forward like lightning. Just as the claws were about to strike, he dropped low and slid aside, his body moving like a dragon through water. His hand caught the attacker’s secondary arm at the joint and twisted hard.

  The sound of dislocation cracked through the air, followed by a scream.

  Without mercy, Chen hurled the attacker into the last remaining Fenreigan. They crashed together like fallen dominoes.

  Blue blood sprayed, staining Chen’s braids and face.

  He stepped toward the two figures writhing on the ground and looked down at them, golden eyes narrowed with predatory chill.

  “Now,” he said calmly, like a final verdict,“you’d better behave.”

  The two Fenreigans were utterly broken. Their bodies shook uncontrollably. One of them finally stammered,“We—we were only… following orders! This is our hideout!”

  “Orders?”Chen let out a soft, dangerous laugh and lowered his gaze to the speaker.“Whose?”