Chapter 73: Treachery (1)

This was γ-Zone.
Or rather— it used to be.

Su Xiaoli’s fox-like golden eyes narrowed slightly as she swept her gaze across the devastated battlefield before her.

The walls and floors were riddled with bullet impacts of varying depth and corrosive craters.
The air reeked of the ominous aftertaste left behind by violent, uncontrolled psionic discharge.

(Such exaggerated destruction… No way a C-class pollutant caused all this.)

She evaluated silently, her steps light and soundless, like a cat stalking through ruins.

As an operative specializing in the Curiosity lineage, she knew better than anyone that “seeing” did not always mean “truth.”

Her eyes quickly locked onto a cluster of markings.

Most of them were the clean, blue scorch trails left behind by standard psionic weaponry — neat, efficient, controlled.

But among them, on a massive dent in the ceiling ventilation duct, she sensed something completely different — a residue of power filled with will.

(This is…)

Su Xiaoli sifted through the records in her memory.

(Right—the report mentioned that C-Zone’s “Gray Crystal” awakened a special ability called Intent Overwrite during the aquarium incident. Looks like she really went through one hell of a fight here.)

A faint worry — the kind a senior felt for a junior — quietly rose in her chest.

They had only crossed paths briefly, but that slightly clumsy, desperate-for-money, gray-haired girl had made a decent impression on her.

For caution’s sake, Su Xiaoli stopped walking.
Her slender fingers brushed the golden bell at her waist and shook it lightly.

【Mind’s Eye Unsealed — Bell Divination】

“Ring—”

The crisp chime rippled outward like waves through water, cleansing the chaotic energies in the air.

Her field of vision shifted.
The physical world peeled away, replaced by an intangible plane composed of flowing energies and information threads.

Normal energy appeared gentle.
Residual energy from Curiosity-lineage pollutants was venomous—black-violet—and chaotic.

She quickly spotted clues.

A faint, pale-gray psionic trail stretched toward a corner of the zone.

On the opposite side of the battlefield, beside a humanoid mass of spent energy, a massive cluster of black-violet energy pulsed like a living heart.

“That is…”

She hurried toward it—
and inhaled sharply when she finally saw the body.

It was Lu Ze.
Or more precisely—
Lu Ze’s corpse.

His head was completely shattered.
His chest pierced clean through by some unimaginable force.

A thin layer of purple crystal covered him — there was no saving someone in that state.

(Sorry, Mr. Researcher. Looks like I still came one step too late.)

Su Xiaoli mourned him for half a second—no more—then locked back onto her mission.

Following the pale-gray trail, she circled around the massive “World Tree” reactor core and finally found a curled-up figure wedged within a narrow gap between backup energy pipes.

Gray Crystal.

She was still alive.

The girl was huddled in the cold metal crevice like a frightened baby animal returning to its nest after barely escaping death.

Her short gray hair hung in messy strands across her cheeks and forehead, sweat-dampened pieces sticking together.
Her loose hoodie was torn beyond recognition, and beneath the shredded hem, her long, slender legs were exposed — pale as jade, marred only by a glaring bruise on the knee.

Dark, dried streaks of blood painted her arms in shattered strokes of brutal beauty.

Overwhelmed by terror, she trembled violently, eyes tightly shut, as pitiful as a wounded fawn.

Su Xiaoli’s heart tightened.
She softened her footsteps and approached slowly.

“…Gray Crystal-chan?”

She called out gently:

“Don’t be scared. It’s me — Su Xiaoli. You’re safe now.”

The figure flinched violently.

Then, slowly, she lifted her head.

A tear-streaked face—
like pear blossoms in the rain.

“Eh…”

The moment she saw the nine golden fox tails billowing behind Su Xiaoli, her eyes welled with red, as if she had found salvation.

“S-Senior…?”

Lin Yu’s voice was hoarse, trembling with grievance.

“Why are you… here?”

“Your Contract Bracelet signal suddenly cut off. The company flagged it as an emergency, so they sent me — your examiner — to check on you.”

Su Xiaoli crouched down, her voice gentle and reassuring.

“Looks like you got into big trouble. But it’s okay now. With me here, you’ll be fine.”

“What… what happened just now?”
She asked with concern.

“That supposed ‘Mirror Man’ remnant? And Mr. Lu Ze… what exactly happened?”

Mentioning the earlier events instantly shattered Lin Yu’s barely stabilized emotions.

“Uuu… It wasn’t a Mirror Man at all! And definitely not some C-class pollutant!”

Her voice broke into sobs, panicked and disjointed:

“I saw… a terrifying bird-man! Covered in eyes… he was so strong—and my attacks did nothing! Uuuuu… How could the company do this!? What kind of test is this!? They were trying to kill me!”

Then suddenly, as if remembering something far more important, she grabbed Su Xiaoli’s sleeve with desperate eyes.

“Senior! My full-time assessment—did I fail?
Does this mean the employment contract… the 40,000 yuan salary… it’s gone!?”

“Uh…”

“Noooo… uuuuu… I really need that money! I can’t go back to being broke!”

“Please, Senior! Please talk to Manager Qian for me! Just one more chance! I really need this job! Uwaaaaa!”

“Give me another chance… uuu… even if I have to take… take swimsuit photos—”

Swimsuit photoshoots were fine!
Ah—no, she meant…

“Okay okay! Calm down!”

Watching her junior bawl her eyes out while clutching onto her salary, Su Xiaoli’s tension loosened in spite of herself.

(Sigh… Is this the adult world? Money is that important?)

(She almost died, and the first thing she worries about is her paycheck…)

(Adults are so hard to understand…)

She reached out like a true big sister, gently patting Lin Yu’s back.

“Don’t worry. I checked already — the energy corruption level here was very high. If Headquarters confirms that a B-class or even higher-class pollutant appeared, they won’t blame you. You’ll definitely get a re-test.”

She paused, becoming serious.

“You’re in bad shape. We need to leave first. I have a bad feeling about this place.”

Su Xiaoli comforted her a bit more and then took her hand, helping her rise.

“Come, let’s go.”

But—

The moment Lin Yu staggered to her feet—

Su Xiaoli’s free left hand moved faster than thought, drawing a crimson talisman and slapping it precisely onto Lin Yu’s forehead.

【Sealing Talisman】.

Lin Yu froze.
Her tear-reddened green eyes widened in confusion.

The crimson symbol sat quietly on her forehead like a vermillion brand.

This talisman didn’t harm—it simply “sealed” and “tagged” abnormal psionic flows.
It was her standard precaution when dealing with hosts under potential mental contamination.

“S-Senior…?”
Lin Yu blinked, completely baffled.

“Why… did you do that?”

Seeing her innocent, dazed expression actually made Su Xiaoli suddenly doubt herself.

(Ugh… what am I doing? She’s just a traumatized newbie who barely survived. Acting like this is really cruel…)

“Ah—sorry sorry!”
Su Xiaoli waved frantically, forcing a sheepish smile.

“My bad, I’m too jumpy! Occupational habit! You know how D-Zone is — we deal with mental contaminants every day. I kinda developed a bad instinct of sticking talismans on people first. It’s nothing, I’ll take it off now—”

She reached forward—

“HUM—!”

The brass bell — her magical core — emitted a sharp warning chime.

“—!”

Su Xiaoli’s pupils shrank to needle points.

Her body moved before her brain could.
She released Lin Yu’s hand and sprang backward like a launched arrow, retreating over ten meters instantly.

She looked down.

A fingernail-sized blot of black-violet corrosion was spreading across the bell’s once-pristine surface.

It was alive.

It gnawed viciously at the sacred golden psionic energy coating the bell, emitting a sickening zzzzz.

A soul-deep chill shot through Su Xiaoli’s entire body.

(Pollution!? Impossible! My Heavenly Fox Kagura has extremely high resistance to all negative energies—unless…)

She jerked her head up, her golden fox eyes locking onto the “girl” still wearing that harmless, innocent expression.

(Unless the pollutant level… FAR exceeds my purification limits!)

Nothing about the room had changed — not the light, not the air, not the temperature.

But in Su Xiaoli’s eyes,
the thing standing before her was no longer Gray Crystal.

The once-pitiable face now looked cold.
Fake.
Hollow.

Their entire conversation—
every word—
every expression—
every tear—
played backward in her mind like a slow-motion autopsy.

So many flaws.

Too many.

A newbie who had just survived a life-threatening battle wouldn’t regain clarity so fast.
Wouldn’t bargain for her salary so logically.
Her supposed “breakdown” resembled…

A perfect imitation.

An imitation of how a real Lin Yu would react under desperate circumstances.

And Su Xiaoli — softened by sympathy — had overlooked the deadliest details.

“…Hehe.”

A soft laugh spilled from “Lin Yu’s” lips.

“No wonder you’re Dawn Company’s specialist in dealing with lies. Your reaction is faster than I expected.”

“Lin Yu” slowly straightened.

The terror and pitifulness drained from her face like tidewater—
replaced by a divinity-soaked arrogance, as if a god was lowering its gaze to an ant.

The Sealing Talisman on her forehead ignited under the black-violet aura, burning silently into a trail of smoke.

Su Xiaoli’s heart plummeted.

The nine golden fox tails behind her bristled.
Every psionic channel in her body surged to maximum output.

Her voice was hoarse and tense:

“…What are you?”

“You’re not… Gray Crystal at all, are you?”