The call ended.
Ignoring his injuries, Ji Xi struggled to get out of bed. The caretaker rushed in, seeing him nearly fall, and hastily pushed him back down.
"You need to rest—doctor's orders!"
If anything happened to Ji Xi under her watch, the supervisor would surely blame her. At best, she’d lose pay; at worst, she could lose her job entirely.
Jobs weren’t easy to come by these days.
"Call him! My mother’s in trouble!!"
"Now!!"
In his struggle, the wound on his neck reopened, staining the pristine white bandages with blood.
Fearing the worst, the caretaker hurried off.
Ji Xi’s guess was right.
Something had happened.
"Who… are you…?"
A blade flashed across the man’s throat. His body collapsed, his dying gaze fixed on the woman before him. In his final moments, he realized with horror that the ground around him was littered with the corpses of his comrades.
The woman wore nondescript black attire, her long hair loosely pinned up. The only splash of color was the striking rose hairpin.
Kicking aside a corpse blocking her path, Zhiliao emotionlessly flicked the blood from her blade and strode toward the inner room.
The door creaked open.
A sickly sweet fragrance wafted out. Without hesitation, Zhiliao pulled out a syringe and injected herself with a universal antidote before stepping inside.
The room was opulent, dripping with extravagance and the cloying scent of decay.
Empty.
No—
Not entirely.
Zhiliao’s gaze landed on a corner, where a starkly out-of-place incubation pod stood, connected to tubes and machines. Inside, a human brain floated in pale green nutrient fluid.
As she approached, the brain seemed to react—as if it were still alive.
The tubes had been ripped out, spilling green fluid across the floor.
Clearly, whoever had been here fled in too much of a hurry to take it with them.
After a thorough search confirmed no one remained, Zhiliao turned and headed back to find Ji Tingzhou.
Outside, on the grassy lawn, Ji Tingzhou lounged on an inexplicably placed sofa, idly waving a long-stemmed weed to tease a one-eyed calico cat, keeping it at bay.
The winery’s supervisor knelt nearby, head bowed in supplication to the much younger Ji Tingzhou.
As the person in charge, he’d been oblivious to the massive underground space dug beneath the forest cabins—especially the fact that it had housed the Ji Family’s eldest daughter, Ji Wanting, who was supposed to have died in the family’s internal power struggles.
The realization nearly made him faint.
After the explosion, Zhiliao had slipped in alone—and emerged unscathed.
The closer she got, the stronger the metallic tang of blood clinging to her became.
No one dared comment. Only Ji Tingzhou wrinkled his nose, shooting her a disdainful look.
Zhiliao ignored him. It wasn’t like she could strip and shower on the spot.
"She’s gone. The place was laced with poison. There’s a hidden passage deeper inside—I’ve already sent people to cut her off."
"And there’s something alive in there."
She summarized what she’d found below.
At the mention of the living brain, the supervisor paled, gagging.
"Also found this."
Zhiliao handed over a greeting card adorned with an ink-wash painting of an eagle catching chicks on the back.
Before even seeing it, the faint, cloying scent clinging to the card made Ji Tingzhou’s stomach turn.
That revolting fragrance—only one deranged person in his memory would use it.
Ji Tingzhou didn’t take it. Zhiliao knew he wouldn’t, so she opened it herself and held it at a distance for him to read.
The message was scrawled in hurried, crimson strokes—lipstick, likely—written in a rush.
Whoever fled had left in a panic.
‘Xiao Zhou, jiejie is back.’
At the word ‘jiejie,’ Ji Tingzhou tilted his chin up, signaling Zhiliao to burn it.
He’d expected this. His reaction was muted.
"Someone tipped her off."
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, his gaze snapped toward the crowd, landing on an unremarkable man standing among the bodyguards.
Recognizing Ji Tingzhou’s look, the man stepped forward without prompting, handing a phone to Zhiliao.
"Master Ji, the Madam wishes to speak with you."
Ji Tingzhou’s eyes flickered.
Everyone except Zhiliao withdrew.
After disinfecting the phone, she held it to Ji Tingzhou’s ear.
"Xiao Ji."
A gentle, matronly voice greeted him.
"Madam. Were you the one who arranged Ji Wanting’s escape?"
Though he used an honorific, his tone was edged with accusation.
Unfazed, the woman replied soothingly, "Xiao Ji."
"I still have use for her."
Ji Tingzhou’s eyes darkened. "What did Mu Xiu offer you?"
She chuckled. "So you already know."
"That child Mu Xiu is quite resourceful."
"Once he delivers what he promised, Ji Wanting is yours to deal with."
The one-eyed calico, exhausted, flopped onto its back, its single round eye fixed curiously on Ji Tingzhou.
Two taps of his fingers against the armrest. Without hesitation, Ji Tingzhou agreed.
"Fine."
Those in power were cold, swayed only by profit.
Years ago, before she’d risen to her position, she’d backed Ji Tingzhou precisely because he’d demonstrated the strength to seize control.
Watching the call end, Zhiliao glanced at Ji Tingzhou and sighed inwardly.
Did anyone really believe he’d obediently let this go?
The answer was obvious: No.
Pushing himself up, he stretched lazily.
The cabin that once stood here had been blown apart, revealing a half-buried, pitch-black hole in the ground.
Earlier, because of Ji Xi, Ji Tingzhou had met with her and learned why the general favored the boy—
The general’s wife suffered from a rare illness. Ji Xi had appeared out of nowhere, showcasing an uncanny talent for pharmacology, concocting a treatment that alleviated her symptoms. In exchange, he won the general’s protection.
Ji Wanting’s way of raising children was… interesting. Throwing a child into a world of scheming adults and leaving him to find his own patron.
Then again, it made sense.
That woman had no patience for useless people. She only valued those who proved their worth.
Mu Xiu had been ostracized early on. She’d seen it—she just hadn’t cared.
Worthless things didn’t deserve her attention.
Who could’ve guessed that in the end, the one she dismissed would be the one to save her?
Ji Tingzhou’s gaze lingered on the belly-up cat, lost in thought.
His time was running out.
He’d thought he’d at least make it until the kid came of age, but fate had other plans.
Ji Tingzhou had always known about his latent genetic condition.
At first, he’d brushed it off—even secretly looked forward to the day it took him.
But then Ji Nian came into his life.
Suddenly, the threat of mortality wasn’t so easy to dismiss.
All relationships ended eventually. Some just came sooner than others.
Like how, years ago, he’d never imagined Shen Rushan would leave.
"Back to the Ji Family."
Ji Tingzhou understood the logic, but he refused to let Ji Wanting have her way—to drive him into madness. He had endured torment before and held on. Now, with Ji Nian in his life, he was even more determined not to lose his sanity.
How could his child lose a father at such a young age?
Destroying Ji Wanting wouldn’t happen overnight. He needed to stay alive—for a long, long time. Ji Nian was fighting so hard to give him a chance at survival; how could he just sit back and do nothing?
"Seems I’ll have to rely on my kid for a while."
He touched the watch on his wrist, the one the child had specially brought for him. A faint smile crossed Ji Tingzhou’s lips.
Genius pharmacist?
Had they even asked his kid about that?
