Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Zhou Zhengde sat back down in his chair, took off his reading glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

My fingers are trembling.

He had spent his entire life waging bureaucratic battles, and he knew how to deal with both superiors and subordinates, but when faced with a monster that could topple a six-story building with one hand, he was at a loss.

If she can demolish a mental hospital, she can certainly demolish a city hall building.

She killed Sun Guodong, so of course she would dare to kill him too.

All he can do now is to clean up the traces of the research center.

As long as no connection can be found between the research center and the city government, Li Su will not come looking for him again after killing the people at the research center.

—If she really is only going to the research center.

Zhou Zhengde closed his eyes and mentally went through the logic.

Then he opened his eyes, picked up his personal cell phone from the table, and dialed a number.

"Hey, Old Qian. Run! Right now, immediately!"

He hung up the phone, pulled out the SIM card, and threw it into the shredder in the drawer.

The shredder emitted a low hum as it shredded the tiny wafers into pieces.

Just then, the red phone on the table suddenly rang.

Zhou Zhengde stared at the red telephone, his Adam's apple bobbing once.

This phone line is a dedicated line and it only rings in one situation—when there are urgent instructions.

He took a deep breath and picked up the receiver.

"I am Zhou Zhengde."

The voice on the other end of the phone was calm and steady, speaking slowly and deliberately, but every word carried an undeniable sense of authority.

"I am Cheng Yanqiu, Deputy Director of the National Center for Response to Abnormal Events. We have already witnessed the events in Shanyang City. From now on, all security forces in Shanyang City related to supernatural events will be under my unified command."

Zhou Zhengde's fingers tightened slightly as he gripped the receiver.

National Center for Response to Abnormal Events

He knew about this organization; it was newly established after the Song Dynasty case in Jeolla Province, directly under the Political Affairs Committee of the Daesungungwon (Imperial Secretariat), and its authority was terrifyingly vast.

The deputy director called personally to explain that the higher-ups had placed Li Su's case as a top priority.

"Director Cheng."

Zhou Zhengde's voice remained calm.

"We have activated a Level III emergency response and are conducting a city-wide manhunt for Li Su. Changning City has also notified us that the research center is being evacuated. We will fully cooperate with any instructions you may have."

"Evacuating the research center was the right thing to do. But a city-wide manhunt was unnecessary."

Cheng Yanqiu's tone left no room for negotiation.

"Our initial assessment of Li Su's abilities is that she possesses telekinetic powers. Her flight speed and attack range far exceed the limits that conventional security forces can handle. Your men can't catch up with her, can't stop her, and even if they do, they'll just be throwing their lives away. You know about the Song Dynasty case in Jeolla Province, right? A 30,000-strong encirclement resulted in 2,000 deaths, and in the end, she still managed to escape."

Zhou Zhengde's lips twitched.

He wanted to say something, but ultimately chose to remain silent.

"Withdraw your people, seal off the scene, evacuate the crowd, and do not make any further contact with Li Su. She will go to the research center; we will wait for her there."

"Wait for her?"

Zhou Zhengde subconsciously repeated the word.

"Yes. Wait for her."

Cheng Yanqiu's voice remained calm.

"Everyone she killed had a reason to be killed. Qi Jianmin forcibly injected her with antipsychotic drugs, Sun Guodong cooperated with the research center to illegally arrest her, and the people at the research center killed her children and husband. What she was doing was essentially carrying out a ruling that our legal system failed to enforce."

"Director Cheng, what do you mean by that?"

A slight fluctuation finally appeared in Zhou Zhengde's voice.

"What I mean is, confronting her head-on is the most foolish option. We will try to communicate with her. If communication fails, then we will consider a forceful approach. But before we try to communicate, we must not provoke her further."

Cheng Yanqiu paused for a moment.

"Mayor Zhou, there's one more thing I need to remind you of."

"Please speak."

"Li Su's abilities awakened because she was driven to a dead end. The reason she was driven to a dead end was the illegal cooperation between the Third Mental Health Prevention and Treatment Center of Shanyang City and the Shannan Provincial Eugenics and Childbirth Research Center. Behind these two institutions are dereliction of duty and corruption in multiple government departments in Shanyang City. Once Li Su's matter is settled, the Disciplinary Committee will intervene to investigate. As the mayor of Shanyang City, I hope you will think carefully before acting."

The red phone indicated a busy signal.

Zhou Zhengde stood there, holding the receiver, his face ashen.

Cheng Yanqiu's last words were not a reminder to him.

It was a warning to him.

The involvement of the Disciplinary Committee in the investigation means that the chain of interests behind the research center will be uncovered layer by layer.

The money he received from the research center every year, the cover-ups he provided for the research center, the whistleblower reports he helped the research center suppress—every single one of these things will be brought to light.

Normally, he would have a hundred ways to suppress these things.

But not anymore.

Because Li Su poked a hole in the sky.

The National Center for Response to Abnormal Affairs has directly intervened, which means that this matter is no longer something that a local official like him can handle.

Zhou Zhengde slowly put down the receiver and sat back in his chair.

His fingers were still trembling.

It wasn't because I was afraid of Li Su.

It was because he was afraid of Cheng Yanqiu.

They were afraid of the disciplinary committee.

He was afraid that the secrets he had buried with his own hands would be dug up.

------

Western suburbs of Changning City.

Shannan Provincial Research Center for Eugenics and Childbirth.

The basement level houses the gene editing laboratory.

Zhou De'an, wearing a white lab coat, stood in front of the microscope, holding a micropipette in his hand.

His fingers were steady; the tip of the pipette touched the top of the culture dish gently, and a drop of clear liquid was accurately dropped into the cell culture medium in the dish.

He looked up and glanced at the live imaging screen next to him.

The cells on the screen were magnified four thousand times, and each cell nucleus was stained with a green fluorescent marker.

The newly injected gene-editing reagent is slowly penetrating the cell membrane, and the intensity of the fluorescent label is increasing frame by frame.

"The editing efficiency of sample number eleven is 73%".

The assistant reported to the leader from the side.

"It's a ten percentage point improvement over the previous generation."

Zhou De'an's lips curled up slightly.

These are the numbers he likes to see.

Seventy-three percent means that at least seven out of ten infants who underwent the experiment were able to successfully activate the gene sequences associated with superpowers.

This figure was only 18 percent six months ago.

Since the Song Dynasty emerged from Jeolla Province, the entire Federation has entered a state of frantic infighting regarding the research of extraordinary powers.

Major biotech companies, pharmaceutical companies, and underground laboratories are all racing against time to collect data and samples.

Whoever deciphers the genetic code of extraordinary power first will gain an absolute advantage in this new arena.

Although Zhou De'an's research center is labeled as "eugenics and healthy parenting," its real core project is only one thing—super gene activation.

Using infants with gene mutations as experimental subjects, CRISPR-Cas13d technology was used to precisely edit specific gene sites in an attempt to artificially activate the expression of superhuman abilities within the infants' bodies.

Although the success rate is low, each success represents a piece of invaluable experimental data.

As for those that fail—the death certificates will always say "multiple organ failure" or "gene editing rejection".