Zhao Qian snagged an account from the backstage staff and logged in, fingers tapping like flint on steel, the login screen rippling like an icy lake.

At the marked coordinates, Nana Toki watched him come from afar, a hook of a smile at her lips, like a hunter waiting in shade. She’d known he’d come to her.

If a stranger laid your old secrets bare, calm would be the strangest reaction in the room.

“You the lead designer of this busted game?”

Nana Toki dropped from a tall tree like a cat, circled Zhao Qian once, eyes skimming him like a cold blade.

He looked bookish, ink-and-paper quiet, a scholar’s air clinging like spring rain. Hard to picture those hands tied to human experiments on her.

“...”

Under her inspection, Zhao Qian kept silent. His eyes locked on Nan Jin, who watched him from not far off, fog in her gaze like morning mist.

It was the same girl who’d stormed their company three years ago. Face and name matched the photo like a stamp in wax.

But what was this Treasure Imp?

If she were an AI that learned itself awake, it was a sci‑fi fairy tale. He wouldn’t buy a theater of sparks for truth.

“What do you actually want?”

Names aside, he couldn’t afford a head‑on clash. She knew their rot in the dark. One wrong note, and the whole hall would hear.

He had to steady her first, keep the lid on, then find another road through the thorns.

“I’ve got no grand purpose. I want back the body you toyed with for three years.” Nana smiled like sweet wine, but her voice slid like a knife. “Give it back, and I let it pass. Your buried sins stay buried. How about it?”

“You were one of our test subjects?”

His heart lurched like a drum hit wrong. “Impossible. We stopped human experiments three years ago. Every subject was destroyed. If you were one, you wouldn’t be alive.”

Her curveball scattered his suspicions like birds. How could this Treasure Imp be a leftover from that trial?

“You’re saying your human trials stopped three years ago?”

Nana’s gaze cooled like frost on a blade. If that was true, what was this body she wore? A ghost light in a temple?

A haunting, then? Was she truly a ghost?

Even Nana felt a jolt, as if a chill hand pressed her back.

Or he could be lying, painting smoke to blind her eyes.

“Can you swear what you just said is true?”

She lifted her head, emotion tucked away first. A bad hunch rose in Zhao Qian like dark water. Her smile curved like a crescent, but her eyes were dead still.

“Of course.”

He steadied himself and broke eye contact, as if dodging a storm. “We ended those inhumane trials three years back. Aotuo Games is clean now. Don’t spread falsehoods. It could gut us.”

“Heh—”

Nana drew the sound out like silk. “No chips on your side, no conversation on mine. Please leave. What I say or don’t say isn’t your concern.”

“That’s slander.” Zhao Qian’s face went dark, like thunder piling over the sea.

“I don’t even have a physical body. So what if I slander you?” Nana’s laugh snapped like ice. “You gonna shut the servers and delete me?”

“...”

He swallowed his words. “What do you want?”

She was too at ease, like a blade sheathed in light. He figured she held more cards under the table.

From every angle, the wind blew against him and his company.

“We can find you a new body and bring you back to reality.” His voice went smooth, like a salesman’s patter. “One condition. In a few days, you leave the game.”

“You want me to keep quiet about your human trials?”

“...” He didn’t answer. Silence bridged between them like a drawn bow. Both knew the arrow’s name.

“Interesting. Keep going.”

“We have a technology that reconnects your in‑game consciousness to an unconscious human body. If the match holds, you can use it at will.”

He added, soft as oil on water, “It’s simple. There’s no risk.”

“So your plan is to have someone die for me?”

Nana’s cold smile flashed like a blade’s back. “Life for life. Bold terms for a company made of shadows.”

“You want life back. I want my company safe. We both get what we need.” Zhao Qian shrugged, a grin like a paper fan. “Deal sound good?”

“...”

“You’re right.”

Nana agreed after only a few beats, like a pebble dropped into a still pond. “We all take what we need. Ethics are pretty curtains. In a high‑tech world, dead weight gets tossed.”

“...”

Her voice rose cool and hollow, like cave wind at night. It wormed under the skin and lifted the hair.

Facing her, Zhao Qian felt a chill rush up his spine like climbing smoke.

“Pleasure doing business.”

“I’ll be waiting for good news.”

Nana took his hand, smile bright as spring, and shook. He jolted, then froze, as if a pause key had been pressed.

Her hand was snake‑cold, no heat at all. Zhao Qian couldn’t stop the shudder that ran through him.

Was this girl ever truly human?

He removed the helmet and stepped out of the pod, thoughts looping like a dark river. A calm that treated lives like weeds could frighten even a wolf.

“Manager Zhao.”

A staffer walked up and shattered the fog of thought like a tossed stone. “We checked like you asked. Our archive has the Treasure Imp’s sample data. The real body vanished three years ago. Only personal info remains.”

“Fine. Pick a compatible new body from the lab. We’ll need it.” Zhao Qian flipped the file like turning dry leaves. “Shadow that woman these days. Flag anything odd.”

So the Treasure Imp was truly a victim of that old trial, as the girl had said.

“Understood.”

“And find why her body went missing three years ago. That’s key.”

He gave a few more orders, then carried the file back to his office, steps tapping like rain.

On the other side.

After the deal, Nana Toki waited in the game in quiet, like a lake before dawn, for the servers to open.

Nan Jin sat beside her, studying her profile, eyes drifting like clouds. Thoughts slid away without a sound.

“What? Got something to say?” Nana propped her cheek with one hand, turned slightly, and smiled like a fox. “Why stare at my face?”

As if flowers had bloomed there.

“Nothing. I was thinking about your talk with that man.” Nan Jin lowered her gaze to her fingers, pale as bamboo shoots. “Would you, someday, sacrifice another life to stay alive?”

“Why ask?”

Boredom brushed Nana’s tone first, then the words followed, like a fan opening.

“Just curious.”

“...”

“I guess I would.”

Nana answered fast, like a match flaring in the dark.

“Why?” Nan Jin’s brow knit, a soft ripple across still water.

“Survival of the fittest is the law of this world. Why demand more why?” Nana shot her a sidelong glance, sharp as a reed. “Too kind, die early.”

“If someday you have to sacrifice the person you value most to live, would you do the same?” Nan Jin pressed on, voice quiet as rain. “One life, to save your own.”

“...”

Nana fell silent, eyes drifting to a bed of flowers, colors burning like small flames. In that instant, she thought of a girl who commanded peerless fire.

“You really want to know?”

“Mm.”

“...”

“If that day comes, I’ll still do it.” Nana’s voice thinned like a thread. “I’ll kill her. Then I’ll kill myself.”

“Why?” Nan Jin blinked, fog thick in her eyes again.

She couldn’t square the circle. Moments ago, Nana would do anything to live. Why fold now?

“Because I’m afraid she’d wait too long for me in another world.”

“Nana’s words are as hard to read as ever...”

You’re a silly ghost. You don’t need to understand that much.

Nana gave Nan Jin a white‑eyed glance, then drew her gaze back. She looked up at the sky, pale as washed silk. Survival of the fittest—those four words never let go, anywhere.