CHAPTER 52: HE WANTED TO FINISH THIS.

As he left, Jian Rui turned to Jian Wei, voice low. "He was tormented in a lab for years. Don’t you think this will mess him up?"

Jian Wei didn’t answer right away. He didn’t have an answer for him. He could only watch Yu Xi closely during the process, monitor every shift, every reaction, and hope he could ease the burden if it became too much.

Lady Seraphyne’s voice cut through the silence, calm but commanding. "If it goes too far, you must stop. Even if he says it’s fine."

Jian Wei nodded solemnly. "Yes."

The weight of responsibility settled over him like a second skin. He had the formula, the tools, the theory, but what he didn’t have was certainty. And Yu Xi was walking straight into the unknown

Yu Xi lay on the medical table, the straps snug around his wrists and ankles, holding him in place. Floating screens hovered above and around him, displaying his vitals in glowing streams of data. There was his heart rate, neural activity and psychic field fluctuations.

The room was sterile, dimly lit, humming with quiet machinery. Jian Wei moved methodically, preparing the stimulation sequence that would trigger Yu Xi’s mental stress hormones, the first step in testing the serum’s reactive potential.

Yu Xi turned his head slightly, eyes finding Jian Rui. "Is this the room you keep Jian Ci in when he’s having a breakdown?"

Jian Rui hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. We have to restrain him when it happens. He becomes violent. He will attack anyone, and it doesn’t matter who."

Yu Xi’s chest tightened. The thought of Jian Ci, wild-eyed and lost in psychic chaos, strapped down like this, it made his heart ache.

When an esper lacked a guide, their powers often spiraled into instability. Psychic surges, emotional disarray, and sensory overload could fracture their minds. Without someone to anchor them, they risked drifting into fragmented identity, spiritual isolation, or even corruption by darker forces.

Guides were more than companions, they were emotional regulators, interpreters of visions, protectors in ritual and psychic realms. Without one, an esper’s journey became a crucible of tension, vulnerability, and pain.

Since no guide had ever been able to help Jian Ci, not even at the moment of his differentiation, he had been forced to rely on regulators and suppressants to keep his psychic field from spiraling.

But when the erratic surges came violent, unpredictable, and raw no sedative, no pain relief, no containment protocol could truly help. They could only restrain him, bind his limbs, and wait for the storm to pass.

Jian Wei stood beside Yu Xi, prepping the injection. "Are you ready?"

Yu Xi nodded. He was used to pain. Used to the cold metal of restraints, the sting of needles, the cruel experiments his father had inflicted on him. That had been torture and deliberate. But this different. These people weren’t trying to hurt him. And he was doing this for Jian Ci.

He would walk through another hell if it meant saving him.

"Take deep breaths," Jian Wei said gently. "If it’s unbearable, let me know. I will stop."

"I will," Yu Xi murmured, and closed his eyes.

A moment later, he felt the cool liquid enter his bloodstream. It was sharp, foreign, and immediate. His body tensed, but his mind stayed focused—on Jian Ci

***

Yu Xi’s vision went dark.

The hum of the lab faded, replaced by a chilling silence. When his eyes opened again, he wasn’t in the battle simulation Jian Wei had programmed. His psychic power had veered off course, dragging the simulation into a place far more personal, far more dangerous.

He was back in that lab.

The one where he’d been tortured.

He was younger now, smaller, his wrists raw from restraints. He remembered this moment. He had just helped Xiaobao escape this hell and his father was displeased.

Jian Wei, monitoring from the control room, frowned. "The simulation changed."

Jian Rui’s voice was sharp. "Bring him out. Reliving that... it’s not safe."

"We can’t," Jian Wei said, eyes locked on the screen. "His mind will just reshape it. We can’t interfere right now."

Jian Rui gritted his teeth, fists clenched.

Inside the simulation, Yu Xi trembled. This isn’t real, he told himself. He’s dead. I killed him.

But the fear was real. The hatred. The need for revenge.

Then Ganders grin twisted and cruel. "You didn’t disappoint, Xi Xi," he said, voice like poison, as he prepared the injector.

Yu Xi’s psychic field flared, trembling with rage.

***

Yu Xi gritted his teeth, his breath shallow, his body trembling with rage. The simulation had plunged him into the darkest corner of his memory, and Gander stood before him—smirking, cruel, reeking of disinfectant and blood.

"Where is Xiaobao?" Gander snarled, stepping closer. "Where is he going? Did that bitch tell you she had a family that cared about her, huh?"

The scent made Yu Xi gag. It was the same sterile rot that haunted his nightmares. Gander leaned in, voice low and venomous. "She was just a pathetic woman with nothing. You sold your brother a dream that doesn’t exist."

Yu Xi lunged, trying to grab Gander’s throat, twist it until he stopped breathing, but his hands were restrained. He could only glare, hatred burning in his eyes.

Outside the simulation, Jian Rui and Jian Wei watched from the observation room. Yu Xi’s vitals spiked. His hand twitched violently. Jian Rui’s brows furrowed. Jian Wei hovered over the controls, uncertain.

Inside, Yu Xi’s hatred surged.

Gander sneered. "Xiaobao will probably die in the streets. No food, no shelter. Just a destitute like your mother. I saved her."

"You didn’t," Yu Xi spat. "You destroyed her."

"I saved her!" Gander roared, and drove the injector into Yu Xi’s kneecap.

Yu Xi screamed. The pain was blinding, ten times worse than anything he’d endured in that lab.

Jian Rui stood abruptly. "End it."

Jian Wei initiated the shutdown sequence, fingers flying across the console. But halfway through, the simulation rebooted itself.

Yu Xi’s psychic field resisted. He didn’t want them to interfere.

He wanted to finish this.