After everything—after the blood draws, the screaming, the restraints that chewed purple into his wrists like rotting vines, and the mana drains that peeled his skin off in slow, flaking ribbons—Liu Xian thought he'd catalogued every variety of hell this place had to offer. He thought he knew every face that drifted into that white, humming room with its too-bright lights and the constant antiseptic stench. Thought he'd stopped reacting, stopped feeling.
But then they brought him back—slumped like a corpse over someone's shoulder, dropped into the cold metal chair like a sack of meat—and she walked in.
A new face.
That was rare. Faces here didn't change much. The staff blurred together—same pale coats, same dead eyes, same rubber-gloved hands dragging carts stacked with vials, scalpels, and machines that buzzed like angry insects. But her?
She was new.
And worse—she was smiling.
Liu Xian blinked, slow and gritty, vision swimming through the film of pain and exhaustion. The smile didn't make sense. It didn't belong here. It was the kind of smile you'd see on a travel ad, not in a torture lab. Too bright. Too... fuckingalive.
Q24. That's what the badge pinned to her chest read. No name. Just a sterile designation, like all the others. But everything else about her screamed she didn't belong to this place.
She moved like a hologram. Her silvery-white hair was braided with mathematical precision, not a single strand out of place, and it gleamed like frost under the lab's sterile lights. Her eyes caught him: golden, reflective like a river catching sunlight. They were calm, clear, kind even—but not innocent. No! Absolutely not innocent! There was something too steady in her gaze for that.
For one, she didn't flinch when her eyes settled on him.
And she should have.
Liu Xian looked like he'd clawed his way out of a fucking coffin. His skin had gone the sickly gray-white of old ash, pulled tight over jutting cheekbones. His lips were cracked, raw, with dried blood painting the corners of his mouth like rust. There was a crusted split on his cheek from the last time the muzzle had been wrenched off too fast. The veins on his arms were bruised and swollen beneath fraying bandages.
He didn't move.
Nope, didn't even lift his head.
Just breathed... barely.
He didn't give a flying fuck who she was.
He was used to them poking him, stabbing him, whispering about mana fluctuations and familiar anomalies and suppressor settings. So when she walked in with that bright ass smile, Liu Xian immediately assumed she was about to do something equally awful, but just wanted to look pretty while doing it.
Just another pretty monster.
"Hi!" she chirped, her voice light and disturbingly cheerful. "You must be Liu Xian. I've heard a lot about you."
He didn't answer.
His eyes were half-lidded, fixed on nothing. He barely even breathed through the bone-deep fatigue pressing down on him like wet cement.
Click. Click. Click.
Her heels were quiet against the tile, but he still heard them. Her presence dragged the air behind her—like something warm cutting through the chill. Odd. She came in alone. That didn't happen.
She pulled a stool across the room and sat, folding her legs with fluid grace. Her white coat shimmered under the lights, pristine and unwrinkled. Even her nails looked elegant—clean, clear polish, the kind you only maintained if you weren't elbow-deep in experiments or blood.
"You look tired," she said, tilting her head with a kind of softness that grated.
Still nothing.
But eventually, his eyes—dark, sunken, and far too alert for someone who hadn't spoken in days—drifted toward her.
She didn't look away.
"I know this place has been... a nightmare," she continued. Her voice softened, lost its cartoonish edge. "I don't agree with the Head scientist's methods."
That made his lip twitch. Barely. A flicker of something. Laughter, maybe. If it was, it was bone-deep and bitter. He'd been through too much to believe anyone here had a fucking conscience.
She didn't try to fill the silence.
Instead, she reached into her coat and pulled out a sleek, matte-black clipboard. Digital. High-end. With a quiet tap, the overhead lights dimmed just a hair. The shift was barely noticeable, but it gave the room less of a surgical glare.
"I'm here to talk about your future," she announced, her words careful.
That got a reaction.
His brows twitched downward. "Future?" His voice came out like sandpaper. Dry and strained. It scraped past cracked lips like it hadn't been used in weeks. Which, honestly, it probably hadn't.
"Yes," Q24 said with a small nod. "You have a spot at the academy."
He stared at her like she'd spoken in another language.
"Not as a subject," she added quickly. "As a student."
That actually made his body shift a little. He lifted his head enough to blink at her properly now. The red marks around his neck—still visible from the last suppressor collar—looked angrier in this light.
She kept going. "You don't have to say anything now," she told him, standing. She walked over to the glass desk at the far wall, her coat fluttering slightly with her movement. "Just… think about it."
She laid the clipboard down. A soft chime sounded as the display lit up, revealing two options:
[Sign]
[Decline]
She paused, fingertips lingering on the surface. Her smile faltered—not by much, but enough for him to see it.
"I'm sorry for what's happened to you, Liu Xian," she murmured. Her voice had dropped an octave, no longer trying to be sweet.
For the first time, she looked less like a manufactured angel and more like someone human.
But Liu Xian didn't respond.
He just stared at the screen, fingers twitching faintly in his lap.
It had to be a trap.
But if it wasn't—
Q24 turned and walked away. Her heels clicked gently behind her, the only sound in the room. The door hissed as it sealed shut.
Liu Xian didn't move.
Not right away.
But his gaze, dull and red-rimmed, flicked back to the glowing clipboard.
And this time, it stayed there.
Sign Or
... Decline.