Chapter 4 – Gui Ling

Wei An became the person in charge of this incident within his department simply because transferring responsibility would have been too troublesome.

Bureaucratic institutions are always like this—unless absolutely necessary, they won’t make last-minute changes to personnel in charge. Whether the task is good or bad, a lucrative opportunity or something that devolves into a disaster, such changes inevitably lead to complicated interpersonal dynamics and subsequent accountability issues.

In any case, Wei An diligently investigated what needed investigating, did what needed doing, and killed those who needed killing.

But then, an… accident occurred. Probably due to excessive stress and a bit of alcohol…

Wei An skipped over this part. He didn’t want to recall the details of that incident at all.

In the end, though his “retirement” was a bit bloodier than expected, he managed to clean up the aftermath quite thoroughly.

Those who deserved to die were dead, everything that needed burning was burned, and even genetic testing wouldn’t turn up anything—a testament to his years of professional experience.

Of course, various factions would conduct their investigations, but they would ultimately confirm that he was indeed dead, with his contract destroyed in the explosion. The incident would fade away, and Wei An could live out his peaceful days…

But who could have predicted that the lackluster, boring, strategically insignificant province he had carefully chosen would suffer such a catastrophe?

Wei An glanced in the direction of the drawer, then irritably averted his gaze.

After obtaining the “contract,” he hadn’t wanted to look at it even once, tossing it aside carelessly and never bothering with it again.

Only now, when it was far too late, did that long-forgotten common sense thought finally surface—What was I thinking? Why didn’t I destroy that contract on the spot?!

Wei An pressed his fingers to his forehead and thought, Probably because… it was really expensive.

Too many lives had been sacrificed for it—so many that casually destroying something like that was hard to justify.

Now, the local Ministry of Science administrator who had held Gui Ling’s contract was undoubtedly dead. Whoever was behind the attack would have made absolutely sure of that.

The Ministry of Science would send someone to take over Gui Ling, but the journey was long, and with the contract reset and various procedures to follow, it would take at least three months at the earliest.

That person was like an important weapon no one could move, left in place—when the administrator died, he had to remain within a hundred square meters of his last known location, meaning that bombed-out mass grave—until the next staff member with a copy of the contract arrived to authorize his actions. For the Ministry of Science, this was a relatively safe arrangement.

But no one knew that in this remote province, there was a contract believed to have long been discarded.

Wei An turned to look out the window. When he had woken up, the sky had been so dark that not a sliver of light could penetrate. Now, it was faintly brightening.

The Ministry of Science’s movement restrictions on Gui Ling were strict, but contracts still had basic provisions: if a new administrator appeared within the same planet, he had to “report as soon as possible.”

And Silver Bay was very close to Tongyun.

From the incident yesterday afternoon to now, nearly fifteen hours had passed.

Wei An’s fingers unconsciously twitched against the blanket, then stilled.

He sat there avoiding reality for a moment longer, then, as if sensing something, turned his head.

The sky wasn’t fully light yet. The world was a translucent blue-gray, with soft warm tones faintly bleeding into it. Occasionally, a bird let out a dreamlike chirp—dawn was only a prelude.

That person stood on the balcony, wearing a long coat, his face obscured by the backlight so only his silhouette was visible—tall and slender. His hair was disheveled, falling past his shoulders, not in an intentional long hairstyle but more like he simply hadn’t bothered to cut it.

Gui Ling had arrived.

The figure took a step forward, stepping down from the railing and landing on the ground with a grace that surpassed human capability.

Wei An remained seated, unmoving.

Outside, the morning breeze rustled through the trees. The surroundings were still dim.

After a while, Wei An spoke softly: “Gui Ling.”

The person on the balcony said nothing.

“Come in,” Wei An said.

The man stood still for three seconds, then slowly walked inside.

His short boots were stained with black mud, tracking onto the warm-toned teakwood floor of the room, bringing with him the scent of blood and gunpowder—the smell of mass death from the Silver Bay outpost.

Wei An looked up at him.

The light was too dim to make out his features clearly, but the acrid stench of gunpowder clung to him.

It was too strong. Chilling.

The man stopped in the center of the bedroom.

Every pore on Wei An’s body tightened—the kind of primal dread one feels when a massive predator draws near in the dark.

He forced himself to remain calm. At this moment, he was wearing loose cotton pajamas with a checkered pattern, his hair messy from sleep, his face appearing even softer in the gray light before dawn—just the image he always projected.

“You can call me Wei An,” he said.

The monster said nothing, standing there ominously.

He was wearing a Federal military coat—a stylish gray overcoat with the rank of colonel. Now, it was filthy, torn, saturated with gunpowder, and likely coated in the dust of countless human corpses burned to ash.

This outfit had probably been given to him by Dexin Ming. Silver Bay had been preparing for a grand banquet, with many people coming and going. An officer’s coat was the simplest way to make the monster blend into the crowd.

Wei An’s fingers tapped nervously against the blanket. Noticing the motion, he immediately stopped.

“I think we both understand the current situation,” he said again. “I don’t know what happened at Silver Bay, and I don’t want to know. The waters run deep there, but it has nothing to do with me, and I don’t want to get involved.”

His voice was still as soft as cotton. The monster stood in the shadowy depths of the bedroom, his eyes faintly reflective—definitely not human, more like something from a horror movie.

The entire space felt wrong, as if a fragment of a nightmare had seeped in, carrying an eerie and ominous texture.

The monster stood silently in the darkness. After a while, he spoke.

“New administrator?” he said.

His voice was slow and gentle—the kind that raised goosebumps.

“Yes,” Wei An said.

He looked at him with his most composed expression.

“Hello, Gui Ling of the Ministry of Science,” he said.

The shadowy figure looked back at him, unmoving, maintaining a posture that barely qualified as obedient.

“I can’t say I’m happy to see you. As you can see, I have my own life,” Wei An said. “I know you’re powerful—you’ve helped destroy what could be called dynasties—but this place is peaceful. There’s no need for killing, and I don’t need a weapon.”

His tone remained steady, mild.

“You found me, and I don’t have a choice. But here, you’ll follow my rules,” he said.

A few seconds of silence passed. The monster slowly surveyed the surroundings.

“Did you defect, ‘new administrator’?”

His tone was mocking and icy.

“I know your type—’Federal officials.’ I’ve killed a few,” Gui Ling said. “People like you always die ugly.”

“You should learn how to speak,” Wei An replied.

The monster stood there, his eyes glinting faintly in the dark—so chilling that he seemed like something outside the bounds of human civilization.

“No matter how pretty your hiding place is, they’ll catch up to you eventually,” Gui Ling said.

He looked at Wei An.

“If you’d like, I can go destroy the Federation for you, ‘new administrator.’ I promise to make everyone you hate pay, and no one will ever bother you again.”

Wei An’s fingers stilled for a moment.

The sky had brightened slightly, allowing him to see the man’s face.

Gui Ling’s appearance… Wei An had known before—he was strikingly handsome, not in an ordinary way, but in a radiant, flawless manner that stood out in any crowd.

Right now, he looked disheveled—his coat torn, three buttons missing from his shirt, wearing a smile that exuded a terrifying allure from the bones outward.

Wei An fell silent for a while. He could hear his own heartbeat, discomforted by the proximity to such power and madness.

“You do realize this is a nation with seventy-four provinces, right? You know what kind of military and weapons they have,” he said. “If I send you, you’ll die.”

“What does that matter?” Gui Ling said. “It’d be thrilling.”

His silver-gray eyes were as cold as a frozen lake in the depths of a nightmare. Wei An could smell the bloodlust in them—an aura of decay, chill, and hopelessness.

Wei An once had an informant who spoke of Gui Ling in the tone of a horror movie prophet.

He said the existence of this monster from the Ministry of Science was itself a moral corruption. Whether he had always been insane or was driven mad by the Ministry, the only reason he still obeyed orders was because they held his contract. Using ancient civilization’s power in this way would inevitably exact a price.

At the time, Wei An had dismissed it as urban legend. Now, he realized the informant had been entirely correct.

“There’s nothing bloody to be done here,” he said. “I’m retired. I have a nice garden, plenty of friends, and a pleasant life.”

The person across from him stared, those inhumanly eerie eyes making it seem as if he couldn’t comprehend anything about peace or normalcy.

Wei An smiled at him warmly, his harmless demeanor seemingly ingrained in his bones.

“So let me make this clear, Gui Ling. I know you have some degree of freedom in how you execute contracts. If I find you deliberately causing even the slightest trouble for me…”

He paused thoughtfully for emphasis.

“I’ll take you to the most remote place outside Taoyuan, find a basement, and seal you inside. The Ministry of Science at least gives you a light and lets you out occasionally when they need you. But with me, you’ll be trapped forever in a tomb so small you can’t even turn around—no end, no escape.”

“In that place, I can guarantee the Ministry’s chances of finding you would be about the same as some legendary hero stumbling upon alien ruins in a movie.”

He looked at the other man with a reasonable expression.

“Understood?”

The monster stared down at him.

As if weighing something, those eyes were like a terrifying abyss—a swamp in the depths of darkness.

“Understood,” the monster said softly.

It was a submissive statement, his voice pleasant yet chilling.

“Good. Now let’s discuss the current situation,” Wei An said.

His tone was light, as if making casual conversation: “Tell me, what exactly happened during the bombing at Silver Bay?”

“They detected the attack, but all defense systems were locked,” Gui Ling said. “Someone came to me and asked if I could do anything. I said I needed official authorization.”

“He called for the administrator to come, but they were in another building for a meeting. Then the bombs hit.”

His description was brief and indifferent, but Wei An could imagine the scene—desperate, almost absurd. And given his injuries, he had likely only done the bare minimum of protection allowed by his contract after the bombing.

Wei An nodded, then moved to the next question.

“What were your basic contract instructions when you arrived in Taoyuan?” he asked.

“Comply with all of Mr. Dexin Ming’s requests related to the ‘God Cleansing Project,'” Gui Ling said.

Wei An repeated the project’s name. “What does that entail?”

“Your clearance isn’t high enough,” the monster said.

Wei An rubbed his fingers together, considering the Ministry of Science’s hierarchy. “So this is a plan only the highest echelons of the Ministry are privy to. Dexin Ming’s mission here is bigger than I thought—Taoyuan really has some clout.”

The other man remained silent.

And here Wei An was, sitting far away in his Tongyun mansion, already sensing the goosebump-inducing tension before the storm. But thankfully, he was safely ashore now, with no intention of stepping back into it.

“Never mind. I don’t actually want to know,” Wei An said.

He turned to Gui Ling.

“Whatever the mission was, you don’t have to do it anymore.”

“You need official authorization for that.”.

“I’ll handle it,” Wei An said. “As your administrator, I’m temporarily suspending your previous mission and placing you in standby.”

The monster said nothing, acquiescing.

Wei An stood. “Follow me.”

He walked out barefoot, the wooden floor cool beneath his feet.

At this hour, the mansion was quiet—only the sound of wind, footsteps, and birdsong drifting through.

The hallway outside was wide, the morning light spilling over them. The air was crisp, the garden plants still asleep. It was early spring; most flowers were still in bud, their colors soft in this light, like illustrations from a fairy tale.

Everything was perfect—the tranquil life Wei An had built for himself.

Behind him came the sound of Gui Ling’s boots stepping slowly forward, heavy with danger.