CHAPTER 58: LITTLE CUTIES FIRST MISSION

Yu Xi met her gaze, steady. "Understood." She smiled, just barely.

He stood before the mirror, the soft blue light casting a cool sheen over his gear. His infiltration suit clung to him like a second skin, woven with psi-conductive threads that shimmered faintly.

He holstered his weapons with precision: three whisper-sharp daggers and two compact plasma pistols, their cores pulsing with restrained energy. He was ready.

He approached the floor-to-ceiling window, the city lights of the capital glittering below like a sea of stars golden, scattered and endless. Yu Xi stood still for a moment, letting the silence settle into his bones. Then he took a breath, steady and deep, and activated his psychic field.

In an instant, he vanished with no sound or shimmer. Just poof, gone.

Across the room, Amelia’s brows furrowed. She stared at the empty space where he had stood, her expression unreadable. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned her communicator. A floating screen appeared, its interface pulsing softly as it displayed Yu Xi’s dossier.

"A-rank esper," she murmured. "High marks in stealth and resonance control. Exceptional adaptability." But something didn’t add up.

"There’s no way he’s below S," she muttered. "Not with that kind of displacement fidelity." She found it quite interesting.

Meanwhile, one floor above, Yu Xi reappeared in the shadows of Carmine’s suite. The room was pristine, minimalist and untouched. Psychic sensors lined the walls, but the dampening device clipped to his collar pulsed steadily, feeding false readings into the system.

He moved like a shadow, each step calculated and silent. At the closet, his fingers brushed the panel. A soft chime responded, and the doors slid open with a sigh. Yu Xi’s eyes narrowed.

Inside, nestled behind a row of pressed uniforms, was the safe. It was identical to the one in the room below. He crouched, retrieving the hacking device Amelia had handed him.

It fit perfectly into the panel, and the moment he plugged it in, the interface shimmered to life. Lights blinked in a rhythmic sequence, and within seconds, the lock disengaged with a soft click.

Yu Xi opened the safe.There was jewelry and a few data chips. There was also an expensive plasma gun, polished and untouched. That was all.

He bit his lip, frustration flickering behind his otherwise calm expression. He tapped into the secure communicator Jian Rui had assigned to him for the mission. He typed in the safe is clean. There is only jewelry, a weapon and nothing else.

Seconds later, Amelia’s reply blinked across the screen: Search elsewhere. Check luggage. Drawers. Be precise. Leave no trace.

Yu Xi nodded to himself and got to work. He moved through the room checking the suitcase first, flipping through layers of clothing, scanning for false bottoms. Then the drawers, lifting lining, examining the seams of jackets and the soles of shoes. Every item he touched, he returned exactly as it was, down to the fold.

His hands were steady and his mind, sharp. He wasn’t just following orders. He was trying to prove something to Jian Rui, that he was indispensable and useful.

While putting back the suitcase, something tugged at his attention. There was a faint asymmetry in the room’s layout. He turned toward the bedside table.

The lamps in this hotel were uniform. But this one was taller. Slightly. Just enough to be wrong.

Yu Xi walked over and picked it up. Under his grip, the lamp shimmered, its surface rippling like water. The disguise peeled away, revealing a sleek, encrypted drive. It was a shape-shifting device designed to mimic household objects. Hidden in plain sight. Too bad its camouflage wasn’t perfect. Yu Xi’s eyes narrowed thinking Carmine was too sloppy.

He retrieved the transfer tool Amelia had given him and plugged it into the drive. It pulsed, data streaming into his secure core. There were schematics, diplomatic logs and encrypted messages. The progress bar climbed. Ninety-eight percent. Then there were voices.

Yu Xi’s breath stilled. With a flick of his wrist, the drive reformed into the lamp. He placed it exactly where it had been and slipped beneath the bed in one fluid motion, his body folding into the shadows.

His hand gripped the hilt of his dagger, but his pulse remained steady. The door opened. Light spilled into the room and slow, and measured footsteps followed.

The plush carpet fibers tickled Yu Xi’s nose, a tiny, maddening sensation that he could endure. He forced his breathing into a shallow, silent rhythm, each controlled exhale a victory against the crushing weight of the bedframe above him. The hotel suite door hissed open.

"Are you sure you want to do it here?" a woman’s voice asked, low and laced with uncertainty. "This is a little risky."

"That’s what makes it fun," another woman replied, her laugh a soft, husky thing that promised trouble.

Yu Xi stayed frozen in place. His mission was reconnaissance, not... whatever this was.

"I mean... he hasn’t touched me since we got married," the second woman continued, her voice taking on a sharp, bitter edge. "He’s a pervert. Obsessed with Espers. I heard he has a whole dungeon of them—female espers, just to toy with."

Yu Xi’s grip tightened on the cold handle of the dagger. The Imperial Lord’s new concubine.

The first woman hesitated. "Won’t you get in trouble with the general if you don’t produce an heir?"

"You think this is about me?" the second woman scoffed. "My father doesn’t care about heirs. He’s more interested in Prince Rui."

Jian Rui? Yu Xi’s brow furrowed beneath the bed. What did the Republic of Elaris want with Jian Rui? His mind raced, piecing together treasonous implications, but the thoughts were abruptly severed.

The women stopped talking. The only sound was a sharp, quick intake of breath, followed by the unmistakable, wet sound of a kiss.

It wasn’t chaste. It was deep and searching from the very start, a desperate, hungry meeting of mouths. Yu Xi heard a soft moan, a sigh of pure relief that seemed to melt all the tension from the room.

The rustle of clothing became frantic. A zipper hissed down. Expensive silk whispered against skin as it was pushed from shoulders and pooled on the floor.

Then, the atmosphere thickened, charged with a palpable energy that made the fine hairs on Yu Xi’s arms stand up. The unique, electric hum of an Esper’s aura mingled with the calming, resonant frequency of a Guide, the two powers intertwining in the air like invisible smoke.

The bed groaned, the center dipping down violently just inches above Yu Xi’s face, trapping him in a new, suffocating darkness.