"What are you doing? You tailing me?" Her voice cracked like a whip in the narrow hall.

Anger flared in Ningxin like sparks on dry straw as she shouted at Lie Long.

"Chief Ning, I should be asking you." His words fell like cold rain, iron in the air. "You colluded with an unknown Abnormal and hurt our own."

He spoke with a face like stone, his gaze flat as slate.

"You—" The word stuck in her throat like smoke, hot and bitter.

Shock iced down her spine, and regret pricked like thorns. When she heard something happened to Coco, panic ran like ants under her skin, and she missed Lie Long’s tail.

"Who’s yelling in the hallway? People are trying to sleep!" A neighbor’s voice clanged like a pot lid.

The door across creaked open like a shell splitting. Ningxin’s brows knotted tighter, rope twisting, because she oversaw Ninghai, and exposure meant punishment falling like a blade from above.

She weighed options like stones in a hand when Tang Coco slipped behind her and clamped a hand on her shoulder like a hawk’s talon.

"Huh? What are you doing?" Her tone fluttered like a startled bird.

"If you don’t get it, shut up." Coco’s voice was cold as winter water under ice.

Ningxin hadn’t expected Coco to bite that hard; surprise dropped into her calm like a pebble in a still pond.

Red particles streamed from Coco’s palm into Ningxin like fireflies crossing a dark brook, then flowed back into Coco’s hand in a glowing tide.

"Anomaly Copy—Slumber Domain." She raised her hand, and an unseen wave rippled out like wind over wheat, blanketing the whole hotel like night fog.

"Ah—" The neighbor barely swung the door before he toppled like a felled tree.

At the lobby doors, Meng Yuting and Ye Yiyi returned, and Yuting felt a powerful swell of Anomalous Energy roll out from the hotel like a deep tide.

"Ah—" Yiyi yelped, her voice snapping like a tight string.

"What’s wrong, Yiyi?" Concern rose in Yuting like a hand groping through dark water.

"No idea. I just got dizzy." Her words swayed like reeds in a gust.

Yuting glanced at her, thoughts curling behind her eyes like smoke that won’t clear.

"Let’s sit over there for a bit." She pointed at a sofa by the lobby like a quiet shore under a dim lamp.

"Mm." The answer sank like a small stone into a deep well.

Back upstairs, a woman from Lie Long Squad stared, voice taut as a drawn wire. "What is this…?"

"An Anomalous Energy wave that induces sleep," the scout said, each word a measured bead. "It doesn’t affect Abnormals."

Aside from Tang Coco and the wounded youth on the floor like a discarded puppet, everyone else frowned at her, their surprise coiling like a spring they hadn’t known was there.

"Confirmed: extremely dangerous Abnormal. Lie Long Squad, prepare to engage!" The captain’s call struck like a bell in a temple.

Powers flared across the hall like torches catching in dry grass.

"Wait!" Ningxin threw out a hand like a sudden barrier raised in a flood.

"Chief Ning, you’re shielding a dangerous Abnormal." His voice dripped like poison from a low eave. "Should I take that as disloyalty to the organization?"

"Hold it. She’s a covert member of our Ninghai branch, not some unknown Abnormal." The truth left her hand like a stone flung clean.

Lie Long went quiet, the silence settling like frost on glass.

"Captain, he’s not doing well." The woman’s gaze slid over wounds like a cold blade over silk.

"Get him treated." Two men lifted the injured youth, his body slack as a net heavy with water.

"Chief Ning, if she’s one of ours, why hide it?" His tone clamped down like a vise.

"She’s a secret asset, so she stays offstage." Her reply sat steady as a millstone.

"Fine. I’ll report this to HQ. Even a covert member can’t just injure my man, right?" His words cracked like thin ice over a stream.

"Seems your man was eavesdropping first." Her face dimmed like clouds gathering over a small courtyard.

"I was only worried about your safety." He waved it off like dust brushed from a sleeve.

She hadn’t expected him to be this stubborn; the back‑and‑forth ground like stones in a riverbed.

"Fine. Since you’re safe, we’ll take our leave." They turned as one like a retreating tide, and Lie Long shot one last look at red‑haired Tang Coco, a spark off flint.

"Ah…" Ningxin sighed, her breath rising like lukewarm steam on a cold pane.

"I’ll make a call and get this cleaned up," she told Gu Xin, smoothing her tone like silk over a knot.

"Got it." Gu Xin nodded, pliant as a reed in wind.

Tang Coco said nothing and slipped back to her room like a red streak vanishing into dusk.

Ningxin called Xiao Qiao and asked her to send people to handle the mess like ants swarming a drop of sugar.

On the west side of the amusement island, far from the buildings, a luxury yacht lay moored like a white whale at rest. It was the Will family’s private yacht.

"Have the traces been handled?" Avril lounged like a cat in a sunbeam, her question running cool. After her escape, she’d sent people to move the researchers’ bodies and gear like cold bones.

"Yes." The young man answered with his head bowed like a sapling in rain.

"Did we extract anything useful?" She turned to the butler at her side, his presence steady as an old oak.

"Not what we hoped, but there is some gain." His reply was even, a metronome under velvet.

"Send the data back to HQ. Let them analyze it." Her order fell like coins into a porcelain dish.

"Yes." He turned and slipped away like a shadow at dusk.

"Hmph, interesting. Didn’t expect that girl to turn into that." Avril laughed to herself, chimes ringing in a cold wind.

The night spilled over with trouble. Ningxin summoned many Abnormals, and they worked till around one, their Anomaly Powers sweeping like brushes until the traces vanished like footprints under a tide.

Afterward, Tang Coco left the island with Ningxin, quiet as a cat, because she couldn’t show up around Meng Xiaoxiao or the others now. Meng Yuting shared a room with Meng Xiaoxiao; Gu Xin bunked with Ye Yiyi; the girls rode out the night like boats in separate coves.

They planned to go home tomorrow, and the once‑joyful National Day holiday went dark early, like a lantern snuffed by an unexpected wind.