Chapter 10#

Parting#

The fish-scale necklace was too crude, too cheap, too plainly made — a single glance was enough to tell anyone it couldn’t possibly belong to Ning Weichen.

All three people in the room were speechless, their faces utterly blank at the situation unfolding before them.

How were they supposed to believe that the crown prince of a global financial empire had gone around stealing things? And yet the object in question was, beyond any doubt, hanging around his neck.

When Butler Li walked into the conference room carrying a sheet of paper, the frozen standoff he walked into made his eyebrow twitch against his will.

Ye Sheng wasn’t accustomed to being close to people. Yet somehow, every time he and Ning Weichen ended up in contact, the distance between them inexplicably dissolved past the boundary he’d drawn for his own safety.

He looked away, let go, and moved to sit back down.

But as he pulled away, his wrist was gently caught.

“Name your price, then.” The accused defendant turned and gave him a flawless smile.

Ning Weichen still held his chin in one hand, the corner of his lips curved in an unreadable arc. “I happen to like this necklace very much, sir. Let’s settle this privately. A few million — say the word.”

Ye Sheng: “…”

Ye Sheng, who had been ground down by poverty his entire life: “……”

He had to admit that for a single moment, his heart actually stirred. He nearly lost his grip on his anger entirely.

Ning Weichen tapped his wrist bone with a light, flirtatious touch, held his gaze for a moment, then suddenly blinked and softened his voice into something almost coaxing. “Sorry. Don’t be angry — I was just teasing.”

Ye Sheng had probably been rattled by the mention of several million, because now, watching Ning Weichen put on this guileless, placating look, he found it — against all reason — rather appealing.

That was probably the power of money.

Ning Weichen idly pried Ye Sheng’s fingers apart, maintaining his cooperative little smile as he leaned in. In an instant, a cool, refined fragrance wrapped around Ye Sheng, leaving him no room to retreat.

A breath fell against Ye Sheng’s cheek, teasing as a caress. His lips brushed the edge of Ye Sheng’s ear, voice entirely audible to the whole room.

“And besides — doesn’t ‘friends’ feel a little distant?” The words he breathed out carried no discernible emotion, each one measured, his tone cool and thin: “Big brother, you’re my — partner in crime.”

“…” Before Ye Sheng could push him away, Ning Weichen had already pulled back cleanly of his own accord and settled back into his seat with perfect elegance.

“My apologies — our little personal grievance took up a bit of time.” Ning Weichen flashed a smile at the three people across the table, who were by now entirely dumbfounded, his tone breezy.

“Continue.”

“I brought him into Car 44. And then?”

Xu Qing had no particular desire to face Ning Weichen. He said stiffly, “Then there are additional questions for Mister Ye to answer.”

Ning Weichen curved his lips. “Ah. So it’s not my turn yet.”

Xu Qing shifted his gaze back to Ye Sheng. “We spoke with people in Car 17. You left alone at eleven o’clock that night. Where were you going?”

Ye Sheng said, “Looking for something.”

Xu Qing: “Looking for what?”

Ye Sheng: “I forgot something there.”

Xu Qing’s tone sharpened. “What thing?!”

Ye Sheng’s brow creased slightly.

At that moment, Butler Li stepped forward with the paper and a pen, bowed, and presented them to Ning Weichen. “Young Master,” he said warmly, “your personal physician, Mr. Andrew, just sent me a health questionnaire regarding your condition. He needs you to fill it out and return it to him now.”

Ning Weichen received the pen and paper without expression and began filling out the questionnaire right there in the conference room. He leaned back in his chair, his cold, slender white fingers holding the pen, eyes downcast, skimming and marking the form at a rapid pace.

Next to Ye Sheng, the only sound was the soft scratch of Ning Weichen’s writing — strokes sharp and quick, betraying a mood that was anything but good.

Every gaze in the conference room was now on Ye Sheng.

The baby-faced one, Cheng Fa, Xu Qing — and Butler Li’s meaningful, watchful attention.

Strictly speaking, the Bureau of Unnatural Affairs was not a national institution; it answered to a world organization. Mysterious, singular, ruthless — its enforcement took no account of civilian opinion, and more than a little inhuman in its methods.

Xu Qing said, “Ye Sheng. What exactly happened that night on the 27th?”

The impatience in Ye Sheng’s mind was building rapidly.

He ran through the situation quickly. If he told the truth about encountering the womb-girl in the mirror, it would inevitably drag in everything else — the talismans, his app, the corpse-sewing needle.

Even if he had perfect explanations for all of it, one single remark — “you were remarkably calm for someone facing an aberrant” — would leave him with nothing to say, and the Bureau would have its eye on him for good.

In this supernatural incident, he had to present himself as a normal person. But how was a normal person supposed to look right now — breaking down? Crying? Incoherent? Lost?

He couldn’t perform any of that.

He had zero acting ability.

Ye Sheng bit his lip.

That was a habit he fell into when he was agitated.

It seemed like he’d been wrong from the very beginning.

Xu Qing noticed the restlessness in Ye Sheng’s manner, and his gaze went colder. He said sharply, “Ye Sheng. The aberrant incident you are entangled in is extremely serious. If you fail to answer truthfully and obscure the facts, we will arrest you on behalf of the World Organization.”

Ye Sheng sorted out the threads in his head, blinked, and spoke flatly: “On the night of the 27th, I went to Car 44 to look for something. Then I heard a baby crying. Shortly after, a creature stitched together from organs came running out of the restroom and tried to kill me. The restroom door was open. I watched as a female ghost sewed a ghost-infant into her own belly. Once the infant was sewn in, the crying stopped, and the creature outside went still. I survived. And then—”

His tongue went stiff.

“Ning Weichen showed up.”

He reconstructed the scene in his mind, and said without expression:

“He demanded to know what had happened. I was too scared to speak. After that, you arrived.”

Ye Sheng raised his head. His dark eyes looked like glass marbles soaked in water.

“Officer Xu, what I went to Car 44 to find on the night of the 27th — was the necklace. The fish-scale necklace.”

Yes.

That was him, the night of the 27th — from beginning to end, every cause and consequence.

Xu Qing’s brows were knitted tight, eyes locked on him.

“Ye Sheng. Is this the first time you’ve encountered an unnatural situation?”

As expected.

Ye Sheng pressed down the fury rising in his chest. He was just about to open his mouth when he suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his throat. His mouth had already been scraped and torn while swallowing Little Sister, and after speaking at such length, he must have aggravated the wound.

In an instant, a thick sweet-iron taste flooded through him. A burning, searing pain bleached the colour from Ye Sheng’s face.

Xu Qing’s eyes sharpened at the sight.

In all their dealings with aberrant incidents, it was practically a given that any “ordinary person” who remained calm during a disaster was not a simple bystander. Especially in an incident that involved the Story King of the Bizarre Empire, with his unsettling and erratic methods. Car 44 had seen the already-impossible scenario of a Class C aberrant eliminating a Class A aberrant.

This young man’s presence here was particularly suspect.

Xu Qing’s voice climbed several registers, packed with cold fury.

“Ye Sheng! This is your last chance! If you’re still lying, we will—”

Thud.

Ning Weichen suddenly set down his pen — whether he was finished or had simply stopped was unclear.

The sound was not loud, but it cut Xu Qing off mid-sentence like a blade.

The entire conference room went still.

Ye Sheng’s brow was creased tight, head lowered, mouth full of blood, the burning pain in his throat searing through him so intensely he could barely speak.

Ning Weichen moved with unhurried ease, passed the questionnaire to Butler Li at his side, then looked up and offered Xu Qing an elegant, measured smile. Slowly, he said: “What he told you is the truth.”

Everyone stared.

Ning Weichen’s smile was serene, his features carrying a bewitching luminance beneath the lights. “The three of you — I was also present that night on the 27th, and the teratoid was originally my assignment. Why not just ask me directly?”

Cheng Fa, who had been sitting in the middle without moving, finally stirred. He slid a folder across the long table to Ning Weichen. “This is what headquarters has gathered on the teratoid. Young Master Ning, you may want to review it first.”

Ning Weichen raised an eyebrow, took the folder, and read through it at a brisk pace.

Cheng Fa said, “After you reported the mission failure on June 24th, headquarters moved quickly and began tracking the teratoid’s aura in Yinshan, but the trace was lost. Under normal circumstances, an A-class aberrant’s paranormal resonance value should be extremely high. The only possibility that the Tianji system failed to detect it is that the teratoid’s abilities had been fragmented.”

“The teratoid belongs to Sector Seven. We suspect this was the Story King’s doing.”

“The Story King’s ability is the postscript — ’the bizarre made real.’ Our hypothesis is that the Story King dispersed the teratoid’s powers before its birth to lower its paranormal resonance value, in order to smuggle it past the Tianji system undetected.”

The baby-faced young man on the right, who had been silent until now, turned his laptop screen around and continued.

“Thank you for your cooperation. On the evening of the 25th, Mr. Andrew contacted us, and we were able to successfully apprehend the smuggler and the teratoid in Car 44.”

“We identified the smuggler as Li Jianyang — a fugitive convicted of murder, with no prior history of contact with aberrants. On his phone, we found the Forum, confirming that the transaction had taken place on the Bizarre Empire’s platform. The Forum’s entry point, however, had vanished without a trace by the time we discovered it.”

He pulled up another image — a female infant sealed inside a transparent rectangular container, her entire body red and wrinkled, sleeping quietly and peacefully. He pressed his lips together, looking slightly awkward.

“We apologize for our error. The teratoid escaped our custody while being transported to the Bureau by using a train mirror.”

“After that, headquarters detected the Story King’s aura, and we deployed on an emergency basis.”

“As the person present last night, I’d like to ask—”

He put forward the strangest, most inexplicable question from the whole evening.

“Do you know why the teratoid appeared inside the corpse-sewer’s belly?”

Both Cheng Fa and the baby-faced one kept their voices low — formal, but laced with a careful deference.

This organization that answered to the whole world — and yet in the presence of Ning Weichen, it was full of restraint at every turn.

Ye Sheng had stopped being able to follow what they were saying. His ears were ringing, his whole body trembling with pain. Cold sweat was seeping from his skin, and after forcing down the blood pooling in his throat, a strange, uncomfortable sensation had begun spreading through his abdomen too.

After listening to the full briefing, Ning Weichen turned his head. “Butler Li.”

Butler Li stepped forward. “Young Master.”

Ning Weichen’s tone was even. “Take him out first.”

He hadn’t specified who — but everyone in the room understood.

Butler Li smiled. “Of course.”

“This young man,” Butler Li said, walking over to Ye Sheng with courteous grace, bowing slightly with a warm smile, “you’re not feeling well. Let’s go and rest for a bit.” His voice was considerate and kind, like a gentle elder.

Ye Sheng had no desire to stay either. He swallowed the discomfort, forced himself upright, and walked out.

From the moment Ye Sheng stood up, to the moment he stepped out and the conference room door closed behind him, Ning Weichen did not turn around once. He set down the documents in his hands. Beneath his dark hair, his gaze was remote, his profile cool. As the Ning heir, he seemed born to occupy the seat of absolute authority at any negotiating table.

Once the door shut, Ning Weichen’s tongue pressed lightly against his teeth. His peach-blossom eyes curved into a smile as he looked at the three people across from him, dark red lips lifting at the corners.

He said:

“Well. I know. I did it.”

*

“Please, have some water first, sir.”

Ye Sheng sat down on the reception room sofa. Butler Li courteously passed him a cup of water.

Ye Sheng pressed his lips together. A little blood had seeped out to tinge his lower lip red, giving his ice-cold face a strange, eerie vividness. He eyed the cup with suspicion and made no move to drink.

Butler Li’s gaze remained benevolent — the kind directed at a younger family member. “There’s no need to be on guard, sir,” he said soothingly. “The Young Master asked me to bring you down specifically so I could attend to your injuries. There’s medicine in the water. It will help with the pain.”

The disposition carved into Ye Sheng’s very soul was this: ferocity, suspicion, wariness of goodwill, and an infinite magnification of anything that looked like ill intent.

It was wrong, he knew — something he needed to work on. But right now he felt too awful to bother suppressing it. Not a trace of the sharp coldness left his eyes.

Butler Li gave a quiet sigh. “Sir, please don’t make things difficult for me. If I truly intended to harm you, I wouldn’t need to go to this much trouble.”

Only then did Ye Sheng drop his gaze, accept the paper cup, and drain it in one emotionless swallow. The warm water must genuinely have contained medicine — something no pharmacy counter would ever carry. The cool liquid gradually soothed the shredded feeling in his throat. His abdomen was still uncomfortable, but it had become bearable.

“You should shower,” Butler Li said. “Wounds caused by aberrants are unusual — they carry traces of malicious energy. A wash will help.”

Ye Sheng very nearly pointed out that his wound was in his throat, inside his body. But he was exhausted, and he had no desire to spend another minute with Ning Weichen’s smile-faced tiger of a butler. Talking to this old man was worse than taking a shower.

He stood, and under Butler Li’s guidance, stepped into the washroom next door.

He turned on the shower and chose ice-cold water — the kind that stung like needles — and let it pour over his head.

He wasn’t actually afraid of pain.

In fact, the more pain there was to stop him from thinking clearly, the more he relied on even sharper pain to pull himself back to calm. The cold water ran over his eyelashes, his nose, his lips, his chin — washing away the blood on his body, and washing away the exhaustion that had accumulated over the whole journey.

Soon enough, Ye Sheng shut off the shower and drove his fist into the wall.

He had the feeling.

His quiet, stable life was gone.

He stood in the bathroom for a long time.

Outside the door came Butler Li’s knock. “Sir, I’ve set out some clothes for you — just outside.” Then he left. Ye Sheng retrieved the clothes — a thin, light coffee-coloured long-sleeved shirt. He changed, gave his hair a casual pass with a towel, and walked out.

He’d been in the bathroom about half an hour. When he returned to the reception room in his new clothes, Ning Weichen had already emerged from the conference room and was sitting on the sofa.

Ye Sheng: “…”

Ye Sheng was in no mood to talk.

He ignored Ning Weichen, went to the water dispenser — he was a little thirsty — and poured himself a cup. The fine, well-fitted light coffee shirt made his already pale skin look paler still. When he bent forward, a narrow strip of his waist showed, and the black trousers traced his proportions into something close to perfect. Only the unmistakable air of nihilistic hostility he carried ruined the softness of the picture.

As Ye Sheng drank, Ning Weichen’s quiet voice reached him.

“Nothing you want to say to me?”

Ye Sheng pulled the corner of his mouth and turned around, cup in hand.

Ning Weichen gave a light laugh and rose from the sofa. He was slightly taller than Ye Sheng, and that height lent him a natural air of pressure.

Ye Sheng met it head-on, expression blank.

If he had known boarding Train 1444 would lead to all of this, he would rather have walked from Yinshan to Huai City on foot — the entire ten-thousand-li journey — than set foot on that cursed train.

Ning Weichen studied him at his leisure for a moment, then said simply: “Let’s go.”

Ye Sheng: “???”

Ning Weichen walked out without looking back. “Come on.”

Ye Sheng followed in a slight daze. Outside, Butler Li was already waiting with his luggage. He looked left and right — not a single person from the Bureau of Unnatural Affairs was visible.

Beyond the reception office was a wide avenue, with streetlamps burning at intervals along the road.

Parked at the kerb was a car that looked expensive at first glance, a figure with the bearing of a bodyguard standing at attention beside the door.

Ye Sheng stood on the open road like a sleepwalker, luggage in hand, completely at a loss — that’s it?

Ning Weichen said plainly: “The Bureau won’t be coming after you.”

Ye Sheng frowned and looked up.

“Give me the ticket.”

Ye Sheng froze for a moment, then understood what he meant. He reached into his pocket and produced the train ticket — the one Ning Weichen had handed him with his contact details written on it.

Ning Weichen took it, held it between his index and middle fingers, and smiled in a way that was difficult to read. Tall, his face bathed in the cold, pale glow of moonlight, he ran his thumb over the row of numbers. “My real contact information is encrypted behind layers of security. These digits were only valid on the train.”

“Once we stepped off, there was never going to be any contact between us.”

Ye Sheng said nothing.

In the hazy lights and moonlight of Huai City past midnight, Ning Weichen raised the ticket and pressed it lightly to his lips. His bearing was singular; everything he did carried an ambiguous charge, and this too looked like a lingering farewell kiss. His peach-blossom eyes rested on Ye Sheng with an expression difficult to decipher.

“Why do I like you so much, Ye Sheng.” Ning Weichen leaned down slightly, laughing softly. “You’re the first person who’s ever made me angry and gotten away with it completely free of charge.”

He tore the ticket into pieces, leaned close to Ye Sheng’s ear. His lips stayed pressed together for a long moment before finally curving into a smile, his voice soft and quiet.

“Baby, now this is the real congratulations.”

“Enjoy university.”

With that, Ning Weichen turned away without mercy, his long legs taking the steps, walking toward the car.

Butler Li and the bodyguard were already positioned beside it, holding the rear door open for him.

Ye Sheng was left slightly dazed, but he was beginning, dimly, to understand what Ning Weichen meant —

The Bureau of Unnatural Affairs wouldn’t contact him again.

Ning Weichen wouldn’t meet him again.

All the derailed, unstable, chaotic events — they would simply vanish from his life.

His life would go back to being ordinary and predictable. Nothing would change.

He had thought this was a dead end. And yet there was a way out after all?

The cold wind brought him back to himself. Gripping his luggage handle, Ye Sheng let out a slow breath — and then, as if something compelled him against his own will, opened his mouth.

It was probably the first time he’d ever said Ning Weichen’s name with that particular kind of quiet, emotionless calm.

“Ning Weichen.” Ye Sheng looked up. Starlight and cold wind tangled in his dark eyes. He said steadily: “We’ve met before, haven’t we.”

Not a question. A certainty.

Ning Weichen’s hand rested on the car door. His body stilled. On hearing those words, his throat moved — and then he laughed, low and soft.

“Yeah. We have.”

The night wind carried back his final words.

“Next time we meet, I’ll tell you what we were to each other.”

The car door closed.

“If there is a next time.”