The air in the cramped washroom was thick with the metallic tang of old pipes and the faint, clinging sweetness of cheap synthetic soap. Dust motes danced like forgotten spirits in the slanted, grimy light filtering through the small, high window, illuminating the fear etched onto the face of the young man known as Oaks. He—or rather, the consciousness inhabiting him, the soul that was Yao—pressed his back against the cold, unforgiving ceramic tiles, the chill seeping through his thin shirt. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a trapped bird beating against the cage of this stolen, male body. Every instinct screamed at the imposing figure of the black-armored leader who filled the doorway, a mountain of polished obsidian and cold intent. The man's presence sucked the warmth from the room, his silence more threatening than any shout.
"Y-You… is there something you need, sir?" Yao stammered, layering her voice with a convincingly pathetic tremor. She let her eyes dart around, wide with a feigned panic, ensuring her posture remained slumped, submissive. Play the part. The coward. The worthless leech. They expect Oaks to be terrified, so be terrified.She could feel the phantom stickiness of the blood she'd coughed up earlier, a dangerous secret simmering just beneath the surface of this charade.
The leader didn't move, but his head tilted a fraction, the light glinting off the impersonal surface of his helmet. "You seem unwell," he stated, his voice a low, synthetic rumble that vibrated in the small space. It was not a question of concern, but an accusation disguised as observation.
Yao's mind raced. He's probing. Testing the cracks in the performance.She wrapped her arms around herself, a gesture of self-preservation. "I… I coughed up blood," she whispered, letting real shame and fear color the lie. "I swear, I didn't hurt that girl! I didn't kill anyone! She… she came onto me, and the fire… it was an accident! She knocked over a lamp!" The words tumbled out, a rehearsed script of denial fitting for the scum she was impersonating. She needed to anchor his suspicion to the obvious crime, away from the deeper, more dangerous truth of her identity.
A flicker of something—disgust? understanding?—passed through the leader's posture. He took a step further into the room, his armored boots clicking softly on the stained floor. The space seemed to shrink further. "Blood? Are you ill?"
Here it comes.Yao forced a shudder, making her hands tremble visibly. "M-money…" she mumbled, as if ashamed.
The leader's focus sharpened, a predator sensing a shift. "Money? What about money?" The question was sharp, eager. The item. He thinks I'm talking about the item.
Yao seized the misdirection. "Prostatitis," she blurted out, injecting a dose of pathetic vulnerability. The memory of the real Oaks, his pants around his ankles, flashed in her mind, a wave of genuine revulsion lending authenticity to her performance. "Is… is that serious?"
The leader went perfectly still for a moment. Even through the helmet, Yao could feel the sheer, incredulous disdain rolling off him. The absurdity of it was a perfect shield. A man with such a condition, still driven by base urges—it was exactly the kind of sordid detail that defined Oaks.
"That doesn't cause internal bleeding," the leader said, his tone flat, dismissing the medical lie but seemingly accepting the underlying character flaw.
"I fell! Running out… I hit the doorframe," Yao insisted, layering the lie with a whine. She subtly brought a hand up to her chest, where the scratch marks were. Let him think it's about the assault, the fire. Not about the Devouring Scroll's backlash.She analyzed his patience. He was humoring her because he was uncertain of her standing. His master's orders likely demanded caution until her bloodline was confirmed. She had a narrow window to maneuver.
The leader seemed to file the exchange away, shifting tactics. His voice softened, a practiced attempt at camaraderie that felt more sinister than his earlier coldness. "Your mother… before she passed. Are you certain she didn't leave anything behind? A keepsake? A box, perhaps? We were… friends. She was safeguarding something valuable for our employer."
Yao's internal alarms blared. Friends? They didn't lift a finger to help her when she was alive. This 'item' is the key.She contorted her face into a mask of dim-witted recollection. "Mom? She loved drinking, eating, dancing… her most treasured possession? That was me, of course! She always called me her precious treasure." She injected a note of vacuous pride into her voice.
She watched the minute tightening of the leader's gauntlets. Her performance was working. He saw only a venal, stupid man, concerned with trivialities and his own skin. He barked an order to his men outside, and the sound of a renewed, violent search echoed through the small apartment. Yao made a show of cringing, of wringing her hands as they tore the place apart, all while her mind worked furiously.
Where would a hedonistic, yet cunning, woman hide something she knew was dangerous?The leader's team was thorough, but they thought like soldiers, like operatives. They looked for hidden compartments, false bottoms, behind loose bricks. But Oaks's mother thought differently. Yao's eyes, seemingly glazed with anxiety, scanned the chaos. And then she saw it, tucked away in a corner of the now-ransacked storage room: the old, unused gas canister. It was an anomaly in the otherwise updated, if cheap, kitchen. A relic. Why keep an empty, obsolete canister unless it was itself the container?
The search yielded nothing. The leader's frustration was a physical weight in the air. He left her with a communications code and a warning to stay put, his tone implying a leash she couldn't see. The moment the door clicked shut, Yao leaned against it, the manufactured fear melting from her face, replaced by cold calculation. They're watching. Of course they are.She could almost feel the electronic eyes on her. She had to act naturally, lead them to the discovery without revealing her own hand.
She spent the next hour performing a pantomime of recovery and then growing curiosity. She ordered a servant to come and clear the junk away in the morning—a deliberate ploy. If the watchers thought their surveillance devices were about to be sold for scrap, they'd be forced to retrieve them. She ate a simple meal, her back to the windows, feeling the prickle of unseen gazes. Then, she pretended to sleep.
Hours later, in the profound silence of the fake night, she felt it—a presence. A whisper of movement, a shift in the air pressure. She held her breath, every muscle taut, playing possum. Through slitted eyelids, she saw a shadow detach itself from the wall, a specter of technology and stealth. It moved with an unnatural grace, locating and plucking tiny, almost invisible devices from the lamp base, the picture frame, the bookshelf. There was a soft, sibilant chant—a low-level obfuscation spell—and the figure melted back into the wall, leaving behind only the scent of ozone and the profound silence of true solitude.
Yao waited, counting her heartbeats, until the feeling of being watched evaporated. Only then did she slip from the bed, moving like a wisp of smoke across the cold floor to the storage room.
The gas canister was heavy, cold to the touch. Her fingers, skilled from years of delicate alchemical work, found the seal. With a soft hiss, she broke it. No smell of gas. Empty.Inside, nestled among worthless scraps of cloth and metal shavings meant to simulate weight, were two objects: an ornately carved box and a set of whale-bone mahjong tiles.
Her pulse quickened. The box contained what she expected: a stack of love letters, filled with such cloying, insincere prose that she nearly gagged. 'You are my sun'?She scoffed. The man who wrote this left them to rot. This wasn't the threat. Her eyes fell on the mahjong tiles. They were smooth, ivory-white. But one felt different. Slightly heavier. The seam around its edge was a hair too perfect.
With the tip of a small knife, she applied pressure. There was a faint click. The tile split open cleanly, revealing a hollowed-out chamber. Nestled within, glowing with a soft, internal luminescence, was a single, perfect orb the size of a marble. It was a mesmerizing specimen, the color of clarified emerald, and deep within its crystalline heart, a double helix of what appeared to be solidified blood swirled in a slow, eternal dance. It pulsed with a faint, magical hum that vibrated against her fingertips.
Yao's breath caught in her throat. All the tension, the fear, the relentless performance, melted away in an instant, replaced by a surge of pure, unadulterated triumph. She knew this object. In the game's lore, it was a legendary catalyst, a Genesis Seed, said to contain the purified genetic code of an ancient, powerful lineage. It wasn't just a treasure; it was a key. A key to power, to bloodline awakening, to everything she needed to survive and conquer this world.
A slow, genuine smile spread across Oaks's face—the first true expression Yao had allowed herself in this new skin. The game was far from over, but she had just drawn the winning card.