Translator: ThatLazyPotato
Translation Checker: Anonymous
Editor: yuki_shuichi
The peach blossoms at the corner of the street were in full bloom. In the evening, several old folks chatted under the tree with their canes, watching the children running around in the open space.
This narrow street was a tourist street. The handicraft shops on both sides of the road were booming with business. The shopkeepers would try their best to attract customers, hoping to make enough money for the day before it got dark. The law and order here was very poor, and there were often gangsters stealing and even robbing with knives at night. Thus, most of the shops close at six o’clock in the evening.
The lights of the small shops on the street were dimmed; only one doll shop was brightly lit. Wooden cabinets were placed in a glass display window, and four to six doll heads that had been fired and had makeup on were placed on each shelf. There were no eyeballs attached to them, and the hollow heads looked a little terrifying under the warm light. Another wooden cabinet had porcelain hands and feet with different shapes on each shelf.
There was no one soliciting business in front of the store; there was only a golden and blue glazed macaw hanging on a suspended piece of wood in front of the door and the occasional people who would come to pick up a custom-made doll.
The price of these dolls was astonishingly high, but if a bold tourist dared to look closely, they would find that the head and expression of each doll were completely different. The eyelashes were distinct, the blue blood vessels were faintly visible on the rosy cheeks, and their expressions were vivid and realistic—it was really worth its price.
The display window of the doll shop was tightly closed, and the shop owner in charge of the business couldn’t be seen through the gap between the two wooden cabinets in the window.
A medieval European-style round table and matching chairs and stools were placed in the slightly cramped shop. The long room was separated from the middle by a counter, and behind the counter seemed to be a workshop. Three of the walls had shelves on them. There were a large number of unfinished dolls stacked on the shelves, while the hands, feet, and ball joints that had just been fired and had not been polished were in the drawers on the floor. The room was very dark, and only a warm-colored desk lamp was on the workbench in the corner.
A suit was hung on the wall, with plastic wrap covering the suit to keep the room’s pervasive dust from getting on the expensive fabric.
The Puppet Master, dressed in plain overalls, a dark brown leather apron with buckles, and black half-fingerless gloves, sat at his workbench holding a resin-made right forearm and right hand. He was using a knife and sandpaper to refine some details.
Eris was sitting on the workbench, holding a wine glass in his left hand, the wine in it was shaking slightly. His right arm disappeared from his elbow, revealing the spherical bony joint and blood-red section of the elbow. Although the arm that was amputated by Bai Chunian had regrown due to the physique of being an experimental subject, Eris couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable.
The Puppet Master stretched the resin right arm and connected it to Eris’ ball joint elbow, then had him try moving it.
“Did you make this yourself?” Eris held up his resin arm and clenched his fist. The fingers were very flexible, but the arm had not been painted, so it looked very pale.
“No.” Knicks showed him a receipt. “It’s an arm imported from France. It even has the artist, Mawr’s name, engraved on the inside. It’s considered a collectible.”
“I don’t like it.” Eris scanned the fired arms that were all over the floor. “Pick from one of those for me.”
Knicks had long been used to Eris’ unreasonable tantrums. He took off his gloves and rubbed his neck. “It’s almost time to do the things I’ve entrusted to you.”
There was a soft sound of glass cracking—the wine glass in Eris’ hand was crushed by the snow-white resin fingers, and he held the sharp end of the glass to Knick’s throat. “I’ll go when it’s done, or else I’ll take this collectible arm and saw it to shreds.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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“It’s done.” Knicks put a new porcelain arm back on him and tried to check the strings in each finger. “This one is very cheap and not as durable as the other one.”
“I don’t care, I like this one. This one is pretty.” Eris clenched his fist, spread out his nimble fingers, then closed it again, holding Knicks’ fingers. “Do you think such an arm can feel pain and warmth?”
“No.” Knicks smiled perfunctorily.
“It can.” Eris’ light green eyes reflected the desk lamp and the snow-white porcelain arm. “It’s warm, nearly ninety-eight degrees Fahrenheit; a temperature I don’t have.”
“By the way, is your name engraved on it?” Eris asked.
“No.”
“Take it off and engrave it.”
“Eris.” Knicks’ face darkened. “Go do your job.”
“Fine.” Eris whistled and happily jumped off the workbench with his new arm. He took a look in front of the mirror, opened the door, and ran out like a gust of wind.
Knicks sat silently in front of the table. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the ripped clothes neatly folded into a square on the round table. He walked over, unfolded the clothes, and looked at the damaged sleeve on the right arm, which was simply stitched with the cursed golden thread. He took it to the workbench and laid it flat, threaded a needle, and sewed it back up. The Puppet Master was a redback spider alpha; compared to carving, his sewing was better.
Instead of going out through the main entrance, Eris walked through the back door on the side of the workshop. The back door had to be connected to a long and narrow corridor warehouse to lead to the outside.
On the two walls of the corridor were finished delicate dolls wearing gorgeous dresses and tailcoats. Natural gemstones from different origins were inlaid on their clothes and top hats.
Eris walked among them and, from time to time, raised his perfect right hand to show off to all the dolls, but the seemingly alive eyes of the dolls only looked forward.
“Tch, how boring.” He aimed his gun between the eyebrows of each doll, but he just made the gesture and didn’t shoot. He let out a “Fuck” and walked out.
By the time Eris arrived at a hot springs resort, it was already dark, and the moon wasn’t visible today. Some sparse spots of light hung between the clouds and flickered.
“The Queen’s Dreamland.” Eris took out a handwritten card from his pocket and compared the smooth cursive English on it with the name of the resort one word at a time. “Ah, it’s here. Looks like he knows how to enjoy himself.”
The appearance of the hot springs resort looked magnificent, it could be seen from the decorations that a lot of money was spent on it, but Eris didn’t care. He shot the attendant who stopped in front of him and asked him to show his reservation, and the attendant’s head was blown off.
Bodies fell to the ground one after the other as he walked by, blood dripping and spreading from the marble in front.
“Aiya… I forgot to ask which room it is.” Eris randomly kicked open a door, and inside was an overweight middle-aged alpha sitting in the bath with his mouth open and waiting for the pretty omega attendant to feed him grapes.
The door was kicked open suddenly, which startled the alpha. He impatiently picked up the phone to call the bodyguard outside but suddenly saw the shotgun in Eris’ hand. His hand stiffened, he slowly put the phone down and raised both hands above his head.
The little omega attendant was so frightened that they crouched on the ground holding their head.
Eris put the gun barrel on his shoulder, raised his chin slightly, and asked, “Have you seen a black panther alpha? Probably around six feet tall, wearing black clothes, and wearing a sapphire ring.”
The middle-aged alpha answered with trembling lips, “On the second floor… I saw him go upstairs…”
“Thanks.” Eris looked down and stared at the alpha. “Oh, it’s not as long as a shotgun shell. Is this already how long it is even when being used?”
“You…” The alpha was angry but didn’t dare voice it out.
Eris went upstairs with the gun.
The second floor was full of relatively luxurious large baths, only one of which was lit.
The warm light shone on the golden pattern on the wall, and the condensed water droplets slowly flowed down the wall to the ground.
The center of the wide square bath was steaming with hot mist, and an alpha was leaning on the farthest edge.
The alpha’s eyes were closed, his muscular arms resting on the edge of the bath.
“Hey, little black cat, you’re soaking so comfortably in there while I ran so far just to find you.”
The alpha in the bath slowly opened his eyes. There were two narrow lines in the center of his golden eyes.
“I don’t want to participate in this boring dispute anymore, don’t come looking for me.” said Black Panther.
Eris gritted his teeth and rubbed the barrel of the gun, took out a crumpled letter from his pocket, and threw it to Black Panther. “Knicks wants me to bring a letter to you, otherwise I wouldn’t have come.”
Black Panther took the crumpled letter, placed it on the edge of the bath, and continued to rest with his eyes closed.
“Whatever, I’m the only one Knicks need.” Eris looked at his haughty attitude, sneered, then walked away.
After Eris left, a while later, Black Panther rested his head on the bath edge and sighed lightly. “You should come out too.”
Behind the screen near the carved window, Bai Chunian came out with his hands in his pants pockets, squatted on the edge of the bath next to Black Panther, and stirred the water with his hand. “Huh? It’s a bit cold.”
Black Panther half opened his amber eyes. “Spit it out.”
“Wow, how cold of you.” Bai Chunian placed his hands on Black Panther’s shoulders. “Since you don’t want to go to their side, then come to our side. We don’t need you to do anything, you can just eat and sleep. Just don’t become our enemy and we’re good. How about it? Isn’t it very laid-back? I swear on my integrity, really.”
“Your integrity is worthless.” Black Panther took his hands away from his shoulders. “If your purpose is the same as Eris, just go back and coax your wife as soon as possible.”
“No worries, no worries. My wife is also here.”
A blond-haired merman emerged from the water, leaped lightly, and sat on the edge of the bath. He held a sapphire ring in his hand, looking at it against the light.
Only then did Black Panther realize the ring on his right index finger was gone.
Rimbaud looked at the ring and tried it on his finger. “It’s said that the ring finger of a person is slightly thinner than the index finger. If you wear a suitable ring on your index finger, it will be more suitable for someone with a slightly thicker finger than your ring finger.”
Black Panther lightly gritted his teeth, his canine slightly peeking out of his lips.
Bai Chunian crouched next to the bath and said with a chuckle, “Have you seen the newspaper? The warden of the International Prison was dismissed.”
Black Panther’s expression didn’t change, only the blue veins on his arms slightly bulged.
The USB flash drive that Bai Chunian handed over to the president contained the photos and videos of Samael’s final death beside the cultivation pod.
At that time, the incident of the Looping Virus zombies in Enxi Hospital caused a lot of noise and attracted the attention of many media outlets. In the end, Samael was killed and his body was kept in the International Prison. This news was also hyped to reassure the people.
Right now, the experimental subject that was supposed to be placed in the dissection room of the International Prison main building appeared outside again, which caused a huge sensation. The International Prison therefore decided to go through a thorough investigation.
This investigation just happened to implicate the case of Patissier deteriorating and severely damaging the prison. The warden insisted that Patissier deteriorated for no reason, but after a thorough investigation, the truth behind his deterioration came to light through little clues and from people who couldn’t keep mum.
The warden took the blame and resigned because of this. As soon as this shocking case broke out, even the words clarified by the 109 Research Institute at the press conference a few days ago became unconvincing. Anti-109 organizations have even emerged among the people.
In the eyes of some ordinary people and public welfare volunteers—since they have never seen a real experimental subject—they feel that experimental subjects were like cloned human beings; created without choice, without human rights, pitiful, weak, and helpless. They have a compassionate attitude toward the experimental subjects themselves and have a strong resistance to the 109 Research Institute.
“The warden has disappeared since he left office. No one knows where he is now. However, I saw him get into a car with a black umbrella.” Bai Chunian smiled and gave him a card. “If you’re interested, call this number.”
“Not interested. He’s better off dead.” Black Panther stood up from the waters and took back his ring from Rimbaud. Stepping on the edge of the bath, he picked up a towel and wrapped it around his lower half, and walked out slowly.
There was a scorpion tail pattern on the middle spine of his broad and tight back, each spine coinciding with each scorpion tail. After he walked into the darkness, the black pattern radiated light green fluorescence.
Thank You for the new chapter (๑°꒵°๑)･*♡
Black Panther is hot alright and I’m already falling for him but please be on the good side T-T. Is Eris interested in Knicks…. And they are both alpha too right??? Holy fudge I love alphaxalpha!!!!
Eris is an omega actually.
oh? my bad…TvT
Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble. There haven’t been any alpha x alpha pairings in this novel yet, but don’t give out all hope because you never know!
i have my fingers crossed >.<
Actually, OP is correct lol. He’s an alpha
I stand corrected.
It’s good to know that one of the enemy organizations has been incapacitated. Unfortunately, this new group headed my the puppet master looks like it’s going to be much more annoying. At least we can be sure they aren’t going to team up with the other hostile forces.