The woman in the qipao, driven out of her mind by Lu Qingtang, raised her gun and aimed it at Lu Qingtang’s heart. She was on the verge of pulling the trigger when a mercenary suddenly shouted, "Miss Sen, someone is coming!"
Sen Akemi was jolted in terror and spun around.
In the distance, an endless stream of black luxury cars was speeding out of the hotel. The terrifying momentum and sheer velocity were enough to make one’s skin crawl. Sen Akemi’s nerves tightened instantly. They were already in the country illegally; if they were caught on the soil of Country H while in possession of heavy firearms, they would never make it out of the country alive.
A vicious, murderous glint flashed in Sen Akemi’s eyes. She gave a grimace of a smile and said, "Miss, in order not to cause Sir any trouble, I’m afraid I cannot leave your body intact. I hope you’ll forgive me!"
As she spoke, she aimed her submachine gun at Lu Qingtang, ready to tear her to pieces.
"Kill me?" Lu Qingtang sneered, her eyes cold and piercing. Her slender figure suddenly soared into the air, and she delivered a lightning-fast kick to Sen Akemi.
The force of the kick sent Sen Akemi flying directly into the rock face with a loud *thud*.
Lu Qingtang endured the agonizing, tearing pain throughout her entire body and cast a look of disdain at her, her expression calm yet contemptuous. "You think you're worthy?!"
Sen Akemi coughed up a mouthful of blood, clutched her chest, and screamed in a mix of shock and rage, "Kill her—"
Behind her, a man lowered his voice and interrupted, "Miss Sen, Sir’s intention is for us to merely 'teach' the young lady a lesson..."
Hearing this, Sen Akemi’s derailed sanity suddenly returned. Although Sir had said to bring her back dead or alive, who would dare to actually kill Lu Qingtang?
A cold sweat broke out over Sen Akemi. Her face turned deathly pale, and her eyes, brimming with poisonous malice, glared fiercely at Lu Qingtang.
Lu Qingtang supported herself on the ground with one hand, gasping heavily. Most of her body was soaked in blood. Having been severely wounded and injected with a virus of unknown composition, she would likely die even if they didn't touch her. Furthermore, the people from Country H would arrive momentarily, and upon seeing such a scene, they would certainly not let Lu Qingtang go.
Suppressing the hatred in her eyes, Sen Akemi gritted her teeth and said, "I will report everything to Sir exactly as it happened. You had better take care of yourself, Miss!"
With that, she scrambled up, gathered her men, and sped off in their cars.
Once everyone had vanished, Lu Qingtang could hold on no longer and collapsed onto the ground.
The pain was unbearable. It felt as if an unknown force was tearing apart and rebuilding every bone and ounce of flesh in her body. The agony made her body convulse, her vision blacked out in waves, and she couldn't help but groan.
Before she lost consciousness from the pain, the last thought in Lu Qingtang’s mind was: *The future little husband I just slept with... his identity seems a bit more than simple...*
Immediately after, darkness descended like a shroud, and her consciousness plummeted into an abyss. She lay there, covered in blood, in the middle of a pile of corpses.
***
At the same time, a voice came through a comms device nearby.
"Young Master, we’ve found the Crown Princess’s tracks!"
"She’s just ahead. It looks like the Crown Princess was in a fight. We’ll be at the scene in one minute!"
A cold, enigmatic chuckle drifted through the phone from a man. "Bring her back to me..."
He paused, then added, word by word, "Unharmed!"
***
When Lu Qingtang woke up again, two explosive things had happened.
First, she had been saved by a young girl named Lu Wensheng. Moreover, the girl looked exactly like her, suggesting they might be related by blood.
Second—
Lu Qingtang picked up a mirror for the Nth time. When she saw the face reflected back at her, all the composure and calmness on her face vanished in an instant.
Lu Wensheng sat to the side, holding a puppy, watching the world-shattering expression on Lu Qingtang’s face. She spoke softly, her voice carrying an strange, heavy silence. "It was Xingxing who found you last night."
"After I brought you back from outside, you kept crying out in pain."
"I wanted to take you to the hospital, but in front of me, you..." She seemed to recall a bizarre sight; her clear eyes were filled with terror and confusion. "...You were shrinking, bit by bit."
Lu Qingtang stared fixedly at the face in the mirror. Exquisite, beautiful, lovely—and more familiar than anything else. It was, indeed, her own face. Only, it was Lu Qingtang at eighteen.
Even for someone like Lu Qingtang, seeing such a bizarre and uncanny sight left her bewildered for three or four seconds. Then, she meticulously inspected her body. Her arms and legs were slender, still bearing the youth and immaturity that had not yet faded. Even the wounds from the previous night had vanished without a trace overnight.
Lu Qingtang checked again and again, finally forced to accept a fact that defied both common sense and natural science. It wasn't just her face; her entire body had "reverted" from twenty-three back to eighteen overnight.
If she and Lu Wensheng had only looked similar before, at twenty-three and eighteen, one could still tell them apart. But now—both of them had become eighteen. Standing together, it was as if she were looking into a mirror.
Lu Qingtang’s fingers tightened on the mirror until they turned white. Her eyes were deep as she began to recall everything that had happened over the last few days.
She had inadvertently intercepted a message on the Dark Web, discovering that a man had stolen classified serum from the Capital Research Institute. She decided to beat him at his own game, drank the wine he offered, knocked him out, stole the item, and fled toward Country H. Only halfway there did she realize he had drugged the wine with an aphrodisiac; the effect kicked in, and she ended up sleeping with a man in the hotel. Afterward, she was hunted down, and in desperation, she had injected that vial into her own body—
*That vial!* Lu Qingtang’s pupils contracted violently.
Before injecting it, Lu Qingtang hadn't known what was inside. She only knew it was the highest research secret from the Country H Research Institute in recent years, one that Country M had been willing to spend up to ten billion dollars to acquire. She had assumed it was some kind of new virus and was worried that if it fell into the hands of the people from Country M, it would trigger chaos.
She never expected that it would be...
What kind of genius had developed this? If even a fraction of something that defied the laws of evolution were to leak out—
A chill ran down Lu Qingtang’s spine. Her face grew grave, and just as she was about to say something to Lu Wensheng, a heavy pounding began on the door, accompanied by a man’s vicious, venomous curses.
"Lu Wensheng, get out here! I know you're in there!"
The cheap, dilapidated rental unit shuddered under the force of the blows, the sound deafening. The door frame shook, looking as if it might collapse entirely at any moment.
Lu Qingtang paused.
Lu Wensheng’s slender body shuddered as if by reflex; her already pale face turned even paler. She placed the puppy in her arms on the floor and gently instructed, "Be good, Xingxing, don't come out."
The little black mongrel whimpered and licked her fingers anxiously.
While soothing the dog, Lu Wensheng spoke to Lu Qingtang without looking up, her voice low: "You rest well, I’ll be back in a moment."
Lu Qingtang watched Lu Wensheng’s thin, almost fragile back and narrowed her eyes slightly.