Night Frost was about to pull on her protective suit when a string of knocks rolled on the door like pebbles skittering down slate. Irritation pricked her, she swatted away the echoing noise in her head, steadied her breath, and opened the door unhurriedly.

Outside stood a man whose face felt faintly unfamiliar, like a name half-remembered in fog.

The instant he saw Night Frost, his eyes lit up like a predator catching silver scales; that invasive gaze prowled up and down her body. She drew a long breath, tamped down the itch to plant a fist, and asked, calm as winter bark:

“Who are you? Why are you in the Pharma Zone?”

She had clearly forgotten that brief encounter here; lately her mind was chiseled full of carving, Formation, spies—layer on layer—and that chance meeting never sank roots.

The man flushed with awkward heat, not expecting to be erased in a day or two. She had agreed to explore this Modification Center with him; now, a blank page?

Anger stiffened his wrist; he lifted his phone like a blade, a video glaring on screen—Night Frost and the Supervisor raging in an elevator. With that clip, he could cut short her path as a ghost in their ranks.

“You don’t want anyone seeing this—especially the ones who matter, undercover lady.”

Night Frost asked it only to mark the moment, her laugh dry as wind over stone—so he’d come to bargain, malice tucked under his tongue. Even if she wasn’t undercover, he wouldn’t walk away clean.

“Your terms?”

“They’re—”

He never finished. Night Frost yanked him inside; as the metal door clanged shut, her kick nailed him to it like a beetle pinned under glass. She plucked his unlocked phone, scrubbed it clean, and tossed it aside like dead ash.

She raised a finger to her lips—no cameras, no mics, walls thick as packed clay.

“Coming here alone? You should’ve known how this ends. Yet you still came. Are you stupid, or just stupid?”

Weariness slid through her bones; she meant to shift stance. The man bolted anyway, but with the door deadlocked he had nowhere to run. He limped into the sanitizing room, aiming to shout toward the workshop for help.

He staggered in and cried for saving, but his voice hit a quiet pond and sank.

The Supervisor now believed in poison the way frost believes in dawn, and Senior Wang stood with her for the moment; Senior Wang was an undercover sent by a different nest.

“Help me! Help me!”

The two inside didn’t budge; everything outside rang clear as metal on stone. Night Frost had already moved—noise that big doesn’t disappear.

“Are you in this together?”

Expression flat as a mask, Senior Wang glanced toward the doorway at Night Frost, whose pearl-bright eyes held silent expectation. Her cover had been “guessed,” and that guess felt like a spear pressed to silk.

Even if Senior Wang weren’t undercover, one fool shouting could turn rumor into iron. But she was, so she wouldn’t let the words fly.

She walked up and lifted the man with one hand, as if he were a wet rag.

Night Frost’s eyes lit—Senior Wang was power dressed as patience.

She settled to watch, guarding the door like a gate-stone. Hardly anyone makes it to a fourth visitor in here.

Senior Wang stopped at a test tube brimming with murky liquid; the alcohol lamp licked it hot, bubbles on the surface burst like blisters, and a strange scent, bright against the scum, drifted out.

“What’s that?”

“Poison. Drink it and I’ll let you go. I don’t know when it hits. If you feel bad, ask me for a slow-release antidote—unless you want your flesh to rot.”

The opening line cracked Night Frost’s composure; it felt like Senior Wang had stolen her playbook. Night Frost suspected it wasn’t poison at all—just a weird-looking drink wearing a wicked face.

Senior Wang corked the tube, set it on the bench, and released the man. She flicked a look at Night Frost, catching that layered, curious gaze.

She knew her method mirrored Night Frost’s; she didn’t deny it. Her progress through this place was crawling, and Night Frost’s arrival hit like a strong dose.

Threatening District Twenty One citizens with poison, forcing them to bend, enslaving them—inside the Order Keeper, that’s forbidden. But buried in the underground world, yearning to return early to the Order Keeper, she used underground tools like knives in shadow.

“My poison is my own mix. Besides me and a few friends who understand me, nobody knows the antidote. For now. I’ve already forced the Supervisor to drink it. Your potions are trash.”

Night Frost nodded, chagrin tight as a band; her potions were weak. They were Mana elixirs from the Order Keeper—another road entirely from poison.

She hadn’t expected Senior Wang to break Order Keeper rules, feeding poison to cage another’s freedom. Guilt pried at Night Frost—like she’d opened a Pandora’s box inside Senior Wang and let the dark wing out.

The man looked at the tube, then at the three with cliff-face expressions. Choice was a rope looped both ends around his neck.

If he didn’t drink, he’d never leave; if he did, his life hung on their hook. It felt like the same sentence.

He stepped to the bench, drew in air like drowning, and chose neither.

He slapped the tube aside and rushed for the exit, but Night Frost had woven a wall of Mana, heavy as poured stone. He hammered, and the wall didn’t even flinch.

“Drink it now?”

Senior Wang hoisted him, a fresh test tube in hand. She popped the seal and poured the liquid down his throat and nose, a cold river forced through reeds.

Night Frost frowned—then what was the first one?

Senior Wang didn’t hide. It was the antidote she’d set down on a whim. She hadn’t meant to feed real poison; he refused to drink, so the river turned.

When it was done, Senior Wang tossed him aside like scrap and told him to walk back the way he came. If he dared speak one extra word today, he’d never see sunlight again.

He nodded so hard his neck clicked, then crawled for the door. As it swung open, a pair of big hands slid from behind the metal like seals breaching.

Scales, sticky as slick oil, armored the palms, flashing silver in the light. Beneath the layered plates, elastic skin held fat and blue-black veins like roots under ice.

The newcomer’s hair dripped; six scar-like slashes ran along both cheeks. His mouth opened and closed like a fish tasting the current, ears a shade sharper than human, eyes glinting black and lifeless. Short, thick, and strong, his arms dangled long enough to kiss the floor—wildly out of proportion.

He clamped the man’s head and, teeth like a basket of knives, asked softly:

“Why’re you in our Pharma Zone, kid?”

The man shrieked apologies and thrashed, trying to break free of a grip strong as a mooring chain. The monster didn’t budge.

Night Frost winced under her mask; ugliness hit like a bad taste. She murmured to Senior Wang, eyeing the half-fish:

“Who is he?”

“He’s the Manager of the Pharma Zone,” Senior Wang said. “Record says he used to work for Rouge Rabbit, one of their experimenters. A relatively successful genetic modification case. After splitting off, he came to the Divine Cult Modification Center for gene research.”

“Manager, huh…”

Night Frost didn’t want to collide with a Manager now. The Supervisor’s intel said their managers were a different tier—mostly Cantata Two.

Gene work… Night Frost thought of the Eye Orb. Wait—Rouge Rabbit. The ones who took the Eye Orb.

That was a rare bright thread in recent days.

“Will someone tell me what you’re doing.”

The Manager’s dead eyes widened, dorsal fin rising like a ridge; arm fins slid into sharp Blade. Malice seeped out like cold, and pressure pressed the room flat. The Supervisor and the man both stepped back, and Senior Wang feigned fear, inching away.

Night Frost was a beat slow, a still pebble in a stirred stream. His gaze found her; the Blade hissed, tearing air, and traced a cut across her skin where Blood bloomed.

“You’re not afraid?”

He caught the sweet copper scent, licked his lips, then glanced from the man to the trio inside, weighing his net.

“I’m staff. You’re the Manager.”

Night Frost’s answer was plain as bone. The monster laughed, belly-deep. He meant to spare the three; he’d heard everything, and with the reported video, Night Frost as an undercover was a nail driven to the hilt.

Orders from above said to hand Night Frost over to them. The Manager wanted to act, but orders were a chain; he grabbed the man and turned to leave… not really.

Orders were orders, but he still wanted Night Frost’s blood.

Night Frost lifted a guard stance, breath cold as steel. Then a ringtone buzzed from the Manager’s pocket—news that a fragment of the Mud King had drifted into the base. He was required to clean it up.

“You just bought yourself a life…”

He left with the man, currents tugging him away.

Night Frost let out a tight breath, like steam through a pinhole. So—exposed, or not? Likely exposed.

Senior Wang nodded, and Night Frost felt a helpless slump; her infiltration wasn’t stellar. But they hadn’t attacked her—that feather of mercy puzzled her.

On the way out, the monster Manager asked the man, voice low as deep water:

“Hey, kid. Want revenge? I’ve got a way.”