He had awakened from the mire of the human world.

An Yu​‍‌‌⁠​⁠‍‌​⁠‍‍⁠⁠​‍‍​‌‌​​‌ opened his eyes for the third time and found himself in a cramped storeroom.

Outside, there was the rumble of machines, and the dim, decaying light cast shadows on the man’s face before him.

A-Fei was the foreman of the female workers. She had entered the factory at sixteen, and in the blink of an eye, twenty years had passed.

“I asked you to notify everyone, did you do it?”

The man, with a cigarette in his mouth, spit out foul-smelling smoke rings. “Only the girls in our factory can get such a good opportunity, do you understand?”

A-Fei hesitated, “Yes, yes, I understand… but… where are the first two batches of test subjects, Shen He and Zhou Ru?”

“They’re recovering. Didn’t I tell you already? The kids’ genetic entropy didn’t meet the standard, so we cut our losses. Adults need some time to rest.”

“Weren’t the probabilities for the six people in the first batch over 70%, and for the ten in the second batch over 60%?” A-Fei muttered in confusion, “How come none of these girls make it? Could it be the probabilities were wrong?”

“You don’t know a damn thing! It’s just a matter of passing a message. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll find someone else!”

“Wait!” A-Fei called out, “Do all the girls who signed up have to go into the warehouses? What about the workshop?”

“They don’t need to go into warehouses. Girls with a probability over sixty or seventy are rare, but below that, there’s a crowd. We’re talking over a thousand people, how could we give special care to each one?” The man squinted. “We’ll arrange for them to get pregnant, then they’ll keep working while carrying the babies. After two weeks, if they conceive, we’ll take them away. If not, we’ll cut our losses. Everyone’s guaranteed the fifty thousand yuan.”

“How do you check if they conceived after two weeks?”

The man kicked over a cardboard box from the corner. Inside, water bottles were neatly arranged, each with a small goldfish swimming in it.

“These are the test kits. Each person gets one. After insemination, they just place it in their dormitory. Nothing else needs to be done.”

A-Fei’s heart was filled with doubts and unease. She hesitated for a while, then reluctantly reached for the stack of flyers.

—The women who had voluntarily come to this factory were only a small portion. Most of the girls had been sold here by their families for a few thousand yuan. No one could leave before the age of forty or fifty. She knew they longed to escape, and some still held out hopes of starting a family—even if they were destined to live and die in Bait City, they still clung to the last shred of hope for the future.

A-Fei finally took the flyers.

But just as she turned to leave, a subtle feeling ran through the depths of her mind, as if a faint yet powerful thought was interfering with her.

She turned back and stared at the man who was sent by the higher-ups.

“I have a few questions.”

Her voice also grew solemn.

The man, surprised, unconsciously stood up a bit straighter. “What is it?”

“Where did the genetic matching come from?”

The man replied, “I don’t know. But I’d guess the Group’s been funding top human genetic research projects. Getting access to the database shouldn’t be a problem.”

A-Fei was silent for a moment. “How do the test kits work?”

She seemed to cherish every word like gold and refused to say more than necessary.

The higher-ups didn’t allow too much explanation, but the man, as if out of control, replied, “The goldfish are specially bred aberrants that increase the infection rate in pregnant women. But if the fetus has high genetic entropy, it can protect the mother from infection.”

The stairwell was silent for a full minute.

“How do you ‘cut the losses’?”

“That… I can’t tell you…” The man’s expression began to twist as if it was being pulled by two forces. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead as he mumbled, “Knowing too much is dangerous. Don’t ask things you shouldn’t know, and don’t look at things you shouldn’t see…”

He didn’t finish.

An Yu’s consciousness jumped again. This time, the host’s body was particularly small, and the factory uniform hung loosely on her, like an oversized sack.

Xiao Yu, 17 years old, had only been sold to the factory by her father two months ago. At that moment, she was pressing herself against the iron door, looking through the gap in the door with wide eyes.

The spare parts storage room was filled with body bags

Workers, covered head to toe in protective gear, were unzipping the body bags one by one to check IDs. After verifying each one, they retrieved a coin from the corpse, zipped the bag back up, and threw it into the garbage chute.

The long, narrow chute led directly to the underground, burying Bait City’s filth.

As one zipper was pulled open, through Xiao Yu’s eyes, An Yu saw the corpse of a woman inside—her body was covered in thick, greasy fish scales. From her lower half, she was part human, part fishtail. In the region of the pelvis, a grotesque eye had grown.

The corpse’s eyes were closed, but the eye in the pelvis stared, wide open, at the people in protective suits.

One of the workers sighed, “The probability was between 0.7% and 0.2%. We’ve tested nearly a thousand people, and not a single one has worked out.”

Another person said, “For a single person, the odds are just too low. How did they even agree to this?”

“The probabilities were exaggerated a hundred times when they received the information. People from Bait City are just stupid; they don’t even think about it. How could the odds ever be that high?”

Xiao Yu, clutching the consent form she had just signed, backed away in terror. Her foot slipped, and she suddenly bumped into someone.

In that instant, her blood froze.

She turned her head and saw the tall figure standing behind her—a protective mask covered the person’s face, revealing only a pair of lifeless eyes. Those eyes stared at her as if staring at a small fly that shouldn’t have landed on the table.

Something that could easily be picked up and crushed.

The memories of the four hosts cycled over and over, and no matter how hard An Yu tried, he couldn’t reach the day of the genetic test.

The painful memories had already been deeply buried by their brains, unless something could awaken them.

After countless cycles of being in Xiao Yu’s body, An Yu peered through the crack in the door into the morgue and suddenly focused on something.

—It was a dirty blue trash can. Each time the staff verified the identity of a corpse, they would toss the ID-engraved coin from the body into the can. There were already thousands of coins inside, and on a few of them, An Yu detected a faint trace of a familiar consciousness.

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

Thump! 

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

“Okay…”

Don't scrape

She licked her cracked lips, “Um… didn’t they say human technology can’t measure a fetus’s genetic entropy?”

“That’s correct. Because once the fetus starts forming, its genetic entropy gradually increases and only stabilizes after birth.”

Don't copy

Read at Mizushi Novels

As he spoke, the man unscrewed a water bottle and poured out its transparent liquid. A slippery goldfish fell into his palm, flapping its tail against the protective glove.

Visit Mizushi Novels

Support the original translation

A cold command.

Read on Mizushi Novels

Don't scrape

Everything was already destined. The doctor in the protective suit picked up a scalpel and made a cut on her lower abdomen.

Don't copy

Read at Mizushi Novels

This fetus didn’t protect its mother.

Visit Mizushi Novels

Support the original translation

But in the next moment, he entered Zhou Ru.

Read on Mizushi Novels

Don't scrape

They were all in the same room, seemingly trapped in an endless cycle of nightmares.

Don't copy

The overwhelming rage almost shattered An Yu’s consciousness, and once again, he felt that thing deep inside him losing control, roaring and surging out.

The long-dormant sacred site suddenly shattered as the towering carved pillar exploded!

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

The intense psychic shockwave left Zhu Tao and the others barely able to stand.

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

When An Yu opened his eyes, he was greeted by the scene of countless terrifying fishmen viciously attacking the worshippers who’d just awakened. Panic and cries filled the air, not only from the humans who had just woken from a long sleep but also from the fishmen who were eternally doomed to mindlessness.

Don't scrape

Don't copy

An summoned the large white butterflies to shield Zhu Tao. He suddenly looked up at the sky and said, “An Yu! Get away from there!”

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

As An stood there in shock, the air currents and vortexes in the sky began to twist irregularly. It seemed as if space itself was being compressed and rebounding in waves, with the scattered fishmen merging together one by one, like snowflakes forming a snowball. They roared and shoved each other, but they could not escape its grasp.

Support the original translation

Read on Mizushi Novels

Apart from that giant sun, there was only one thin figure left in the sky.

Don't scrape

Don't copy

He drew the first and shot it straight into the cluster of fishmen! The fuel ignited upon impact but failed to kill the aberrants, only fueling their furious screeches.

Read at Mizushi Novels

Visit Mizushi Novels

But An Yu ignored her warning.

He listened quietly to the angry screeches for a moment, then reached for the last arrow and drew his bow.

The white-feathered arrow sliced through the air while he swiftly drew his short knife and slashed his wrist.

An on the ground froze for a moment before seemingly realizing something. In an instant, the swarm of butterflies rushed toward An Yu, and as they surrounded him, both he and the butterflies teleported together to the tip of the arrow flying through the air!

The people on the ground looked up in awe, seeing the figure enveloped in white butterflies dive along with the arrow straight into the aberrant cluster.

The massive sun in the sky shook violently, and with each tremor, the innermost fishmen vanished instantly. The giant sun continued to shrink, until only An Yu, wrapped in white butterflies, remained.

He was covered in tiny wounds from head to toe, and the endless white butterflies descended onto his cuts, almost enveloping him entirely.

The health value indicator on his terminal showed steady recovery as the butterflies gently lowered him back to the ground.

In the sky, four enormous koi projections reappeared, spinning rapidly before descending toward An Yu. They quickly coiled together into a single coin, which fell onto his chest.

An Yu placed his hand over his chest, gently stroking the coin.

The inner space within the Prayer Coin crumbled apart in silence, and after a burst of air, everyone returned to the Prayer Lake in Zone 84.

The sudden eruption of fishman corpses from beneath the lake took the soldiers by surprise. Amid the overwhelming stench and the shouting, An Yu lay silently at the center of the pool, eyes closed, his left hand covering the coin on his chest, his breathing calm and steady.

He seemed to be in a peaceful sleep, and no one dared approach to wake him.

Zhu Tao and the others stood nearby, while the soldiers carefully avoided him.

An was held in Ning’s arms. Seeing that the survival indicator on the terminal showed An Yu’s health rising back to 90%, he retracted the white butterflies and nestled into Ning’s embrace, yawning tiredly.

The goldfish aberrants had little aggression, and even before their self-destruction, they only left shallow cuts on An Yu, wounds that weren’t life-threatening even without treatment.

However, the countless tiny wounds made An Yu appear fragile and broken.

Witnessing An Yu about to charge into the aberrant mass alone, no healer could stand by without taking action. No matter how rationally one believed he would be fine, they would instinctively do everything in their power to protect him.

Perhaps this is the nature of every healer.

After a long while, Zhu Tao cautiously stepped forward to check on An Yu’s condition.

Although the terminal showed a high survival rate, it was clear his body had been overworked and was on the verge of collapse.

At that moment, An Yu’s terminal began to ring.

With his eyes still closed, he fumbled with his right hand in his pocket for a long time before managing to place the terminal in his ear.

Zhu Tao froze mid-step but couldn’t suppress his curiosity, staying in place to eavesdrop on An Yu’s conversation.

“Good evening, sir.

“Have you returned? Was everything smooth?

“Yes, Yan Xi gave me a brief explanation of the Equality Zone.

“A small gift? For me? Thank you… I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’ve just completed my task. Five thousand and five… no, Xu Shuangshuang has been rescued. The aberrants have been eliminated, and the space within the Prayer Coin has been shut down.

“Hmm… I’m not sure if they qualify as super-aberrants, but they’re in my possession now and pose no threat.

“I’m fine. The healers are also fine; none of them were drained by me. Please don’t worry. We’ll be returning soon.

“Once I’m back, I need to stop by the Huang Group to handle some… follow-up tasks.

“Alright, sir, we’ll leave it at that. I… what?”

The weak An Yu suddenly sat up straight.

He opened his eyes wide and the red glow in his pupils rapidly faded away and turned back to a bewildered golden hue.

“Uh… um… huh…”

Zhu Tao keenly noticed that An Yu’s hands were trembling.

In the distance, Ning, who had already laid the sleeping An down, also looked over with a puzzled expression.

An Yu clutched his forehead in pain, “Can you please let me explain?”

On the phone, Qin Zhilu’s voice was calm and emotionless.

But after working together on missions and recently spending time with him, An Yu could faintly sense his Commander’s anger.

Qin Zhilu said coolly, “I’ve reminded you more than once.”

Ling Qiu had once told him, “If even you think the other person is angry, don’t hesitate—they definitely are. Also, if someone is angry but sounds calm, you’d better grab all the bread and run as fast as you can.”

“Yes… I’m really sorry… I…” An Yu paused, recalling how Ling Qiu had described him, “I’m a heartless moneygrubber. I apologize.”

Zhu Tao’s face was full of question marks.

After a long pause, An Yu took a deep breath and ended the call.

This time, it truly was as if he was completely drained. He spread out his arms and lay back down on the ground, staring hopelessly at the sky.

He muttered to himself, “How could I have forgotten…”

Even though he had made a stop in the Main City.

Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Zhu Tao finally asked, “Forgot what?”

“Bread.”

An Yu sighed, “The bread that I, following your suggestion,  promised the Commander I’d bake for making amends.”