CHAPTER 134: BETWEEN WRATH AND CHAINS

The silence that followed Sian’s terrifying words was like a blade pressed against the skin—thin, sharp, suffocating. His threat had cut through the air, leaving it trembling. The others in the room barely dared to breathe, their fear thick enough to taste. The atmosphere was on the verge of collapsing into chaos when Sian’s hand twitched, ready to swing in ruthless execution.

But before steel could carve flesh, a hand clamped firmly down on his shoulder.

Sian froze—not because he hadn’t known. He had felt the disturbance in the air even before it happened. His senses, honed through blood, betrayal, and endless battles, could detect killing intent long before the blade fell. And yet, when that touch landed on him, he didn’t resist. He already knew whose hand it was.

Lan Qisheng.

Anyone else and their wrist would have been snapped before they dared brush against him. But this man... this man was different. Despite the storm raging in Sian’s chest, despite the searing fury that demanded blood, he allowed the touch. He allowed himself to pause.

Sian was not merciful by nature. He had been bred in cages, broken in laboratories, sharpened into a weapon. Mercy had been stripped from him long ago. And yet, here he was—allowing himself to be restrained, if only slightly, because Lan Qisheng’s presence made the killing edge of his wrath dull by a fraction.

Lan’s voice broke through, soft but trembling with urgency. "Sian... please. Let’s find another way. I told you—I don’t want you to become a criminal."

The words struck something raw inside Sian, something buried so deeply that it rarely stirred. He wanted to scoff, to laugh at the absurdity. Criminal? He had already been branded a monster, a devil, a thing unworthy of life, back in his original world. What did it matter what name they pinned to him now? And yet... he couldn’t ignore Lan’s plea.

Because it was Lan who spoke them.

He turned, slowly, reluctantly, his cold gaze meeting those ocean-blue eyes. They weren’t simply beautiful—they were piercing, storm-filled, desperate, spilling with emotion he didn’t deserve. And in that gaze, for just a moment, Sian felt something twist in his chest. The killing urge faltered.

The air remained frozen.

Every person present—the guards, the researchers, the trembling staff—watched the silent battle between violence and restraint.

They didn’t dare move.

They didn’t dare breathe.

They looked like obedient schoolchildren waiting for the teacher’s verdict, terrified of making a sound that might trigger the beast among them.

All except one.

The head researcher.

The man who had nearly died under Sian’s hands not long ago. His survival had been a thread dangling between life and death, and yet instead of gratitude, his heart had rotted with obsession. His eyes now glistened with mania, with hunger so twisted it was enough to chill the bones of anyone who saw them. He wasn’t merely looking at Sian as a man.

He was staring at him as if he were a specimen laid bare on a table, already sliced open, organs cataloged, blood measured, bones crushed for study.

Sian noticed, of course. He always noticed. But to him, such gazes were nothing new. They had followed him forever.

In his original world, he had lived and died under those stares, stripped naked, torn apart, pieced back together, broken again and again. This man’s eyes were nothing compared to those memories. He dismissed them, or tried to.

But obsession left unchecked was a dangerous thing.

Like a starving dog always beaten back, it always ran for more.

And that was exactly what the researcher did.

When he realized Sian was preparing to take the child and leave, madness overtook reason. Crawling forward, froth nearly at his lips, he screamed with a shrill desperation that clawed against the walls. "You can’t leave! You can’t go! You must stay here—we need to study you! I want to study your body! Don’t let him go!"

The words echoed like sparks in a powder keg.

Lan Qisheng felt Sian’s body tense under his hand, felt the controlled storm unraveling strand by strand.

Rage swelled, a monster desperate to be unleashed.

All of Lan’s earlier efforts to anchor him began to crumble—because of this foolish, greedy old man.

Even Lan himself felt the snap of fury lash across his chest. [How dare he?] The thought hissed like venom. [How dare he say he wants to lock away the man I...] He bit down on the rest of the thought, but his heart roared it all the same. [How dare he say he wants to dissect my beloved? Does he think I’m already dead?]

As for Sian—he didn’t waste words. He never had.

Words were fragile things, easily twisted, easily broken.

Action, however, was absolute.

Without a flicker of hesitation, Sian’s leg lashed out.

The kick landed with brutal precision, hurling the old researcher across the ground.

Age meant nothing to him; frailty was no shield.

Mercy?

That word didn’t exist in Sian’s dictionary.

Who gave this man the courage to imagine caging him? Did he think he was entitled to such arrogance? If he truly wanted to know what Sian—the Sian Sian carried inside—was capable of, then perhaps he should have studied the corpses of those who had tried before. Seven days and seven nights of agony before death had finally claimed them. And within mere hours, they had been begging for the release of death. That was the mercy they had earned.

A fool who didn’t know how high the mountain stood, yet still dared to challenge it... No wonder he was destined to die without even a whole corpse left behind.

Lan Qisheng’s hand tightened on Sian’s wrist. He was angry too, but he knew—oh, he knew—that anger right now was as dangerous as gasoline on fire. "Sian", he said firmly, though his voice quivered with urgency, "don’t be reckless. We’ll find another way to deal with this."

Sian’s lips curled, half-snarl, half-smile, his voice dripping with venom. "Another way? Did they give me one, Lan Qisheng? You’re not deaf, are you? You heard me warn them. Step aside, I said. And they didn’t. So tell me—do you expect me to kneel? To beg?"

The contempt in his words was a blade all its own. Begging. That was something Sian had never done, not in his past world, not in this one. He had clawed, killed, and conquered for everything he had ever held.

Begging was weakness, and weakness was death.

Only power bent the world.

Only power granted desire. And he would never, ever, stoop to anything less.

Still, his fury burned, white-hot, unquenched. Memories from his past surged against him, torrents he could barely hold back.

Faces of tormentors.

Screams in sterile laboratories.

Chains biting into skin.

Blood dripping, blood boiling...

If he stayed here another moment, if the tide didn’t ebb, he didn’t know whether he would lose his mind completely—or if everyone else here would lose their heads instead.

Lan Qisheng stared into those eyes, the same eyes that had once frozen enemies in place with a single glance. They were colder now, colder than ice, a chill that seemed to sink into bone marrow, shattering it into splinters. He saw the edge of madness there, the line thinning, stretching, threatening to snap.

His fingers tightened unconsciously on Sian’s shoulder, desperate to anchor him. "Sian... I’ll call my grandfather. We’ll find a solution that works for both sides, I swear—"

"Oh, sorry," Sian cut him off, voice low, dangerous, mocking. "But I have no intention of pleasing these damned insects. Either they open the way... or—"

The threat hung sharp in the air, unfinished, like a blade still sheathed but vibrating with intent. But before the words could fully fall, the ground itself began to tremble.

Heavy boots pounded against concrete.

Voices rose in unison, echoing through the halls like a war chant, reverberating until it seemed the very walls quaked.

A storm was descending upon them.

Reinforcements had arrived.

The institute, after all, wasn’t some trivial outpost.

It was a state-level fortress of knowledge and secrets.

Its walls weren’t built to be breached, its defenses not meant to be broken.

Soundproofing lined every inch, designed to bury screams, to swallow secrets whole, to ensure nothing escaped—not even echoes of torment.

That was why none of them had noticed the helicopter until it was already there.

Until it hovered above the compound like a bird of prey.

Until ropes unfurled and figures descended from the sky like shadows.

They were clad in black.

Every inch.

Black uniforms, black masks, black weapons gleaming under the fluorescent lights.

This wasn’t the military rabble of common soldiers. This was something else entirely.

The elite of the elite.

The room constricted further as they flooded in, the air tightening, suffocating, a noose around the necks of everyone inside.

Researchers who had moments ago been trembling in fear now exhaled with relief, their faces pale but alive with hope.

The guards straightened their spines, reassured. Reinforcements. Safety.

Salvation.

But salvation had a cruel sense of humor.

Because when the black-clad troops leveled their weapons, the barrels did not aim where everyone expected.

Not at Sian.