Episode 5

"Ah… That blow just now actually hurt a little..." A soft groan broke the tense silence in the room as the woman curled up on the floor suddenly stirred.

Watching as "Mother Lin" stood up while rubbing the back of her head, Lin Sanjiu felt a twitch at the corner of her eye—this was bad. Two against one. The tall and imposing man beside her was already a problem on his own, but in her current state—exhausted to the point of weakness—she barely had the strength to even defend herself.

"Mother Lin" straightened her body and cracked her neck. By the time she turned around again, she had transformed into a seventeen or eighteen-year-old boy, a complete stranger.

"My, my, what a pity. Of all the countless people in this world with both parents, we just had to run into an orphan..." The boy didn’t even glance at Lin Sanjiu as he sighed melodramatically to his companion. "Father Lin" nodded silently, taking two slow steps out of the bedroom.

With each step, his form shifted—by the time he halted, he had become a middle-aged Caucasian woman with striking red hair. In flawless Chinese, she turned to the boy and asked, "She didn’t break anything of yours, did she?"

The boy grinned, revealing a set of gleaming white teeth. "Of course not. She’s too weak for that."

Seeing how naturally they conversed, utterly indifferent to her presence, Lin Sanjiu felt her heart sink. She instinctively took a step back and, her voice trembling, asked, "Are you... also from the 'New World'?"

The boy's eyes lit up with interest. "Oh? So you know about that? I must have underestimated you. No wonder you fought back so decisively. Hmm, I noticed it earlier—your appearance suggests you’ve already begun evolving... Your potential must be quite impressive."

His tone was light, almost cheerful, as if discussing a game he enjoyed playing. If not for the fact that he had taken on the form of her deceased mother to lure her into this room, Lin Sanjiu might have actually let her guard down.

"...My friend... Are they really dead?"

The boy gave an exaggerated shrug. "In the washroom, I believe. Probably dehydrated, trying to find water. But your local reservoirs have long since evaporated, and there’s not a single drop left in the pipes... Oh, right, your friend’s corpse is shriveled up like the vegetables in an instant noodle pack. I’d advise against looking."

Tears welled up uncontrollably. Lin Sanjiu hastily wiped them away, her gaze locked onto the two figures before her as she took another step back.

She had already encountered one of these so-called "Evolved Beings" from the New World before—Ren Nan. And now, she was suddenly faced with two more. Her instincts screamed at her to be on full alert. "If you didn’t kill my friend," she forced out, "then why are you here? And why did you lure me in?"

The boy spread his hands. "We don’t exactly get to choose where we land when crossing over. Ending up in someone’s home is actually a stroke of luck—at least there’s a bed to rest on. Long story short, by the time we arrived, your friend was already dead."

"Then why did you disguise yourselves as my parents? How do you even know what they look like?" Lin Sanjiu carefully probed, realizing that this talkative boy had already let slip more than he intended.

Perhaps sensing her attempt to extract information, the red-haired woman cut in impatiently before he could answer. She raised a hand, silencing him with a sharp gesture, and said coldly, "Because I wanted you to come inside."

With a metallic hiss, her fingernails suddenly extended half a meter, glinting ominously in the dim light. She curled her lips into a smile. "I just wanted to see how far this world’s humans have evolved."

The moment those razor-sharp nails sprang out, Lin Sanjiu kicked a chair forward to block their path and spun around to flee. Luckily, she had left the door open when she entered—her only escape route remained.

Without looking back, she bolted for the staircase, taking the steps three at a time. As expected, the sound of pursuit immediately followed, the boy's voice interspersed between the hurried footsteps.

"...She hurt me again!"

Then, all sound faded. Lin Sanjiu’s mind was consumed by a single thought—escape.

Her lungs burned as though seared from the inside, each desperate gulp of air scorching her throat. The oppressive heat in the atmosphere only made it worse. Her body, already weakened from injuries, refused to move as fast as she needed. Just as she was nearing the compound’s gate, a sharp whistling sliced through the air.

Teeth clenched, she flung herself into a roll, barely dodging the red-haired woman’s elongated claws.

She tumbled a meter away, only to see that her pursuers had already caught up. The woman and the boy were both lunging toward her—

A flash of white streaked through the air.

With a thought, two massive iron doors materialized above them, plummeting down from the void with a deafening crash. The impact sent a pained shriek echoing through the night as the boy was pinned beneath the doors. Lin Sanjiu collapsed to the ground, legs giving out beneath her.

The boy wasn’t getting up anytime soon, but there was no sense of victory in her chest—because the true threat, the red-haired woman, remained standing outside the fallen doors, utterly unscathed.

But Lin Sanjiu had nothing left to give. Using her ability to summon the iron gates had drained her last ounce of strength. She could no longer stand—only glare fiercely at the woman from where she lay, her heart seething with frustration.

To her surprise, the red-haired woman merely sighed and sat down instead of attacking. She frowned, then turned toward the boy trapped under the doors.

"...Are you an idiot?"

Despite having over 300 kilograms of metal crushing him, the boy seemed remarkably unscathed. He let out a few strained coughs before snapping back, "Excuse me? My body is all-natural, flesh and blood! Unlike you, I can’t just dodge everything at lightning speed! Ugh… I feel awful... This is killing me..."

The woman scoffed. "All-natural fat, more like. I still don’t get how someone this slow has survived."

"Mind your own business! I’m a prodigy, okay? A rising star of untapped potential!"

Lin Sanjiu watched dumbfounded as her supposed pursuers bickered back and forth, completely forgetting her existence.

"...Aren’t you two supposed to be killing me?" she finally interjected.

"Huh?" The boy poked his head out between the iron bars, blinking at her. "Wait, you actually thought we were trying to kill you? No wonder you ran like hell... I kept calling out to you, but you just kept running. Look, I’m a highly evolved being—what do I gain from killing a newly developed chick like you?"

Lin Sanjiu's lips twitched as she stared at the so-called "highly evolved being," currently flattened under an iron gate. But at last, her pounding heart began to slow.

"Alright, fine, no hard feelings," the boy grumbled. "But seriously, could you move the gate? I'm getting squashed here."

Lin Sanjiu glanced at the red-haired woman, puzzled by her indifference. Then, in a cold tone, she said, "I will—after you introduce yourselves."

"Fair enough, fair enough. I'm Lu Ze. Nice to meet you. Want a handshake?" Seeing her roll her eyes, he quickly added, "Oh, and this is my other personality, Marse."

Lin Sanjiu’s eyes widened. "Another personality...?"

"Yep. Before the 'New World' arrived, I was the second person in history diagnosed with genuine dissociative identity disorder. Then, after evolving, I gained the ability to separate Marse into her own being. But we still can't be too far apart... As for how we knew your parents, well, let’s just say it’s part of my ability."

Before Lin Sanjiu could process this, a strange, guttural sound suddenly echoed from the nearby guardroom.

Marse sprang to her feet, her face darkening.

"...Trouble," she murmured.

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