Night Frost ran to Yin Chen Yue’s door. She stared at the tight-shut panel; her mind spread like frost on glass, sensing the steady breath within—fast asleep.

Her mental reach had widened like a tide, but she felt nobody else nearby. It suggested Yin Chen Yue’s father had left… wait.

One person?

Lin, who clung like stubborn plaster to her shadow, was gone. Something abrupt must’ve happened; these days he rarely left her side.

Just now, on the stairs, he’d dogged her heels like a stray. Minutes later, he vanished like mist. Thinking back, that man’s route seemed suspect.

From the angle, it looked like he came from here. Yin Chen Yue’s room held only her. Could that man have been her father?

Did Night Frost bump into him by accident, stalling Lin’s hunt? Yin Chen Yue’s father smelled unusual—threads bound him to the boss, or he was the boss.

Possibilities branched like roots. Night Frost couldn’t pin it down, but the weight felt real—he was important.

Regret surged, hot then hollow, as if a wave broke inside her chest. The one she knocked down might’ve been Yin Chen Yue’s father.

If so, she’d let a ladder slip—missed a chance to ask for a path, to knot a tie.

By now he’d have exited the elevator shaft like a swallowed star, heading elsewhere. Even if she rode now, she’d lose Yin Tiancheng’s trail.

A chance dangled at arm’s length, then fell through her fingers.

Night Frost wanted to crawl back to sleep, to soothe the ache with quiet, like snow over embers. She walked to her door.

She pulled out her Key. In the lock, half a broken Key still bit metal. The Doctor hadn’t returned. No one fixed the door.

Her heart sank like a stone into cold water. Yin Chen Yue slept; Night Frost didn’t dare knock and wake her. Her own door refused her.

She stood, thinking in circles like a moth at a lamp. At last, she could only return to her hospital bed.

No. That felt wrong.

With Lin gone, Night Frost could finally do her own work. Time was thin, but even a sliver could cut.

Yin Tiancheng had just reached his office. He immediately summoned Chu Qing, Lin, and several key Rouge Rabbit staff.

To outsiders, their boss was a still lake—no ripples. Today, a vein of anger darkened his calm like ink in water.

It was his first time raging before others, the storm slipping from the mountain’s face.

The office held its breath. A dozen people, heads bowed, stood in silence; only Chu Qing and Lin kept their eyes up.

They raked their minds, like sifted ash, for any fault in work or life that might spark the boss’s wrath.

The air was so still you could hear human breath, a soft tide against stone. Cold sweat dotted necks. Pressure lowered like a lid.

Just before the room buckled, Yin Tiancheng spoke and snapped the calm.

“Seems someone’s been restless.”

His voice landed like a pebble in a pond. Most flinched and bowed lower, refusing his gaze like moths fleeing flame.

Some had missed a page at the printer. Some had skimmed food and tickets. Some had done nothing and still trembled under hierarchy.

But Yin Tiancheng faced Chu Qing head-on. He made it plain who and why.

“An underground riot broke out. Fifteen or sixteen, dosed with gene serum, cornered an important guest.”

Chu Qing folded her arms, a blade laid across her chest. His stare slid off her; she looked unimpressed.

She believed she’d wiped it clean. Even if he knew, he couldn’t touch her.

“Riots aren’t new. They were resolved. No casualties. The system had gaps. I didn’t hunt your blame back then.”

“But this time, that guest—vital to our future—almost died in their hands.”

Yin Tiancheng paced around them, a circling hawk. Some, struggling for air, confessed their dereliction first.

Most hid their ties with Chu Qing, slick as eels. They ran the underground district.

Down there, Chu Qing’s word sometimes cut deeper than the boss’s. They feared her, and him.

Inside, Yin Tiancheng sighed like wind through bamboo. Last year, he’d traveled two months to broker relations with a neighboring underground group.

When he returned, half the underground departments had knelt at Chu Qing’s blossoming skirts.

Back then, she lacked a clear aim. Those departments still had iron spines. She could press them, not move them, except for gray-line tasks.

She kept quiet, more or less. Besides, she was a subordinate he had “cultivated.” He turned one eye closed.

She grew bolder. He saw his leniency had become a leash around his own throat. She inserted herself everywhere, tried hollowing the boss’s authority.

He demoted her. He clipped the power she’d gathered until it wouldn’t congeal. He set Lin to check her, a stone always in her path.

Even so, Chu Qing ran wilder. If it weren’t tied to Yin Chen Yue, he’d have scolded and lowered her rank. Today, he would not forgive.

“Why were there no patrols on the street? Why were restaurant pros replaced by underground patients?”

“And why, after all that, did only one report reach me?”

“You’re good at scrubbing evidence. If I dig, I’ll still find bones.”

Finally, one man dropped to his knees. He spilled everything, bead by bead, including Chu Qing’s part in full detail.

Then more knelt. They confessed what she had ordered, their words tumbling like beans from a cracked jar.

Chu Qing’s face chilled, a blade’s edge gone gray. The first kneeler wasn’t hers. He’d fabricated half of it.

Yin Tiancheng had no proof at first. These people cracked under light pressure, their secrets ripe and easy to pluck.

He meant to drive Chu Qing to the edge. She had tugged at his unknown reverse scale. Was it that girl called Night Frost? Or someone else?

“So I’ve decided to strip Chu Qing of all posts. Expel her from Rouge Rabbit. Effective now.”

Yin Tianchen finally resolved to yank this nail free.

However, Chu Qing’s plan had reached its last movement. Even expelled, she could finish it.

“Those tangled with Chu Qing will be replaced by their subordinates for now.”

He spoke at length, mostly about Yin Chen Yue. Other ministers exhaled; temporary replacements were bearable. They could recover their powers later.

The punishment skimmed like a shallow cut.

In their eyes, Chu Qing was doomed. The ugly duckling he’d picked, turned swan, had spurned grace, plotted a coup, fallen from peak to pit.

Now, anyone could step on her shadow.

One more order mattered. Yin Tiancheng required more patrols, stronger underground security. No one dared disobey.

As the meeting ebbed, Yin Tianchen dismissed the room.

He strode to the bookshelf. He spoke to the figure behind it, voice low as dusk.

“Go take care of my daughter.”

The shadow nodded. She slid through the half-open door like a ribbon of smoke, hid in a corner of Yin Chen Yue’s room.

Dim Mana veiled her form. The girl slept completely, no ripple, no sound.

Chu Qing walked fast to the elevator, ministers trailing like loose leaves. Their fear had drained.

They looked at her with a peel of contempt. She used to ride their backs. Now, they thought they could ride hers.

She had nothing left. If she wanted to stay in Rouge Rabbit, she’d have to borrow strength.

Before their thoughts finished, Chu Qing kicked. Her heel thundered; the metal panels on both sides punched through.

One minister jammed into the wall, blood stringing down like a dark vine.

“You… you!”

The rest panicked, scattering like sparrows. Chu Qing ignored them. She only needed to complete her plan.

She hadn’t meant to go this extreme. Maybe time had narrowed. Maybe Rouge Rabbit’s indulgence had made her wild.

“Ms. Chu, these files…”

She rode the elevator, descending past the underground district. At a certain depth, she pushed open the inner wall.

Behind lay a lab tailored to a singular mind, instruments gleaming like teeth in low light.

After her “expulsion” from District Two, she arrived here wearing a fabricated tragic past. This was Rouge Rabbit.

District Two’s largest underground organization had won the Earth Dragon’s heart after that hunt.

Back then, the periphery of District Two had ripped open with an Abyssal Rift. From it climbed a Monster newly advanced to Chapter Three.

It wore golden dragon scales and commanded Abyssal Aura from deep earth. People called it the Earth Dragon.

The first appearance of an Earth Dragon shocked the land like thunder underfoot.

Luck shifted their way. That Chapter Three Earth Dragon was gravely wounded, crippled by a combined Cantata Two.

When Magic Maidens and researchers rubbed their hands, eager to dissect a never-seen creature, a group called Rouge Rabbit stepped in.

They offered an unheard-of price for the Earth Dragon’s heart.

The Magic Maiden government wasn’t founded yet. District Two’s Magic Maidens moved in shadow, pockets empty, stomachs hollow.

Such funds were impossible to refuse for them and the researchers.

Besides, the heart was the most complex piece. Back then, even a Monster’s skin composition took ten days to analyze.

This dragon heart was weak, fading like a candle in wind. With their budget, it wouldn’t survive until analysis finished.