In the Midst of Desperation, Seeking Love to Break the Scheme and Trace the Scent

Bo Yu's claws scraped along the damp brick wall, sparks flying in the rain.

He looked down at the glowing lava markings on his palm. The golden veins pointed towards the direction of the fishing market—Tang Yao's lingering jasmine scent mixed with the salty, fishy sea breeze, like a thread on the verge of snapping.

"Target detected on Area 3's holographic billboard!" The sound of mechanical eyes turning echoed from the corner.

Bo Yu took a step back, letting a neon sign above him crash down and smash the skull of the tracker behind him.

As the dark red blood splattered on the convenience store glass, he had already climbed the fire escape and leaped onto the roof.

Raindrops pelted his left arm, wrapped in chains, where the dragon scale pendant given to him by Zheng, the old fisherman, dangled. The old man's rough, calloused hand had patted his shoulder earlier that morning, "When you run into trouble, use this. Back in the South Sea…" The pendant now emitted a faint blue glow, illuminating the figures of three men with pulse guns down the alley.

Bo Yu ripped the pendant off and tossed it into the air. The siren-like shriek it produced immediately shattered all electronic devices within a ten-meter radius.

Taking advantage of the pursuers covering their ears in pain, he flung the chain, wrapping it around a clothesline, swinging like a human pendulum, crashing through the painted glass of a loft.

As shards flew, he caught a glimpse of a half-used lipstick on the vanity—a cherry red shade, identical to the mark Tang Yao had secretly left on his collar the day before.

"Your heartbeat is erratic," he remembered Tang Yao's fingertip on his chest, her starry moonlit gown rippling in the quantum glow, "As a killer, you need to learn…"

The roar of engines from below abruptly interrupted the memory.

Seven mag-lev motorcycles burst through the rain screen, their headlights pinning Bo Yu's shadow against the mottled wall.

The leader, with a wolf head tattoo on the back of his neck, flickered in the lightning. It was Qian Sen, the man who had handed him a drink at the BBQ stand three days ago.

"Brother Yu, don't blame me," Qian Sen said, twisting the electromagnetic cuffs on his wrist. His oil-coated eyes glowed an unnatural green. "Boss Xu's offer is just too…" He suddenly cried out in pain.

Bo Yu's claws had already latched onto his throat, the lava markings burning as they scorched his veins. "Who did she meet before she disappeared?" Amid the blaring alarms, Bo Yu saw the miniature projector pinned to Qian Sen's collar—a fleeting image of Tang Yao entangled in data streams.

As the steel cables smashed through the window, Bo Yu ripped the projector off and tumbled down from the building.

At the moment of falling from the fifth floor, he tore open the mechanical fishing net given to him by Zheng.

Nano-fibers automatically weaved into a glider wing in the rain, carrying him over the heads of the pursuers.

Behind him, the furious shout of Xu's butler echoed, "He's headed for the bell tower! Activate the electromagnetic…"

When the explosion from the copper bell at the tower's peak sent shockwaves through the air, Bo Yu crouched between the rusted gears, panting.

The holographic projection of Tang Yao appeared in his palm. Her hair shimmered with dark matter crystals, and she was speaking rapidly in a glass chamber in some lab, her lips forming the words "Moon Phase Map."

When Bo Yu finally deciphered "Moon Phase Map," the hologram shattered into golden code, scattering in the rain.

In the distance, the third moon rose over the sea, and the wolf king's totem on his chest began to burn.

In the broken mirror, shattered like a spider's web, Bo Yu saw the starry totem slowly unfolding behind him—the trial body werewolf genes weaving a new power map in his bloodstream.

His fingers brushed against the cherry red lipstick in his pocket when the sound of a freighter's horn reached his ears from the coastline.

Bo Yu snapped the chain around his wrist, letting his wolfish pupils consume the last traces of human warmth.

The same iron-rust smell he had sensed the night Tang Yao slipped the lipstick into his pocket returned with the sea breeze: "Wait until you find the real me…" Her unfinished words became raindrops, falling on his heart, pounding like a frantic beat.

Crouched behind the rusted fire hydrant, Bo Yu ran his fingers over the lipstick.

The sea breeze brought the salty mist near his lips, and for a moment, he tasted the peppermint left over from when Tang Yao had stolen a kiss—just like the night she pressed the lipstick against his shirt collar under the neon lights. "Wait until you find me here…"

The memory was abruptly interrupted by a truck's honking, and thirty meters away, the dock's warehouse area lit up with glaring electromagnetic barriers.

"You have forty-two minutes," said the holographic projection sent by Feng, the hacker. The young man with dirty braids was fiddling with a data line. "Boss Xu's freighter sets sail before the tide comes in, and Miss Tang's quantum signal was last detected—" The image suddenly distorted into static, and Bo Yu's claws instantly crushed three mechanical spiders trying to approach.

He pressed against the shadow of a container, his left wrist's lava veins suddenly heating up.

It was the third time today he had sensed the same energy fluctuation—data streams wrapping around Tang Yao's ankle were now leaking from Warehouse C in purple-black quantum remnants.

But when he was about to scale the wall, a holographic billboard suddenly rose, showing Tang Yao's face, flashing a strange smile in the neon glow: "Darling, come catch me."

Bo Yu's claws dug five deep scratches into the concrete wall, forcing himself to shut his eyes.

The real Tang Yao would never make her voice sound so sweet, the girl who always pinned her hair with a starry moon clip had that cool defiance, even when speaking sweet words.

When he opened his eyes again, the billboard had turned into Xu's mocking grin, and the electromagnetic screen hissed like a snake's tongue.

"Need some help? Little wolf cub." A woman's voice, crackling with electronic static, came from the drainpipe.

Bo Yu turned sharply and saw the fluorescent blue jellyfish projection emerging from the grate—a distress signal from Feng the hacker.

As he lifted the manhole cover and jumped down, three laser beams scanned overhead.

The underground passage was illuminated by eerie phosphorescence, with swarms of mechanical fish exploding into electric sparks by his feet.

Following the jellyfish projection around the seventh turn, Bo Yu's wolf ears caught a faint humming sound.

It was the lullaby Tang Yao often listened to, now seeping from the moss-covered walls.

"Do you like the gift?" A mysterious figure in a gas mask sat on a discarded aquarium, tossing Tang Yao's starry moon clip in her hand. "Just intercepted it three minutes ago." She suddenly lifted the aquarium lid, and twenty mechanical octopuses leaped toward Bo Yu's face. "Prove you're not one of those tin cans!"

Bo Yu's pupils instantly narrowed into slits. As his claws ripped through the octopus tentacles, arcs of electricity illuminated the walls.

On the flickering circuit boards, Tang Yao's initials were carved, and strands of her jasmine-scented hair clung to the severed wires.

The mysterious figure whistled and tossed a magnetic card at him. "C-zone ventilation shaft, the code is the moon phase number from the day you two first met."

When Bo Yu slammed open the rusted iron door, the sea breeze rushed into the tunnel.

He smelled it—cherry lipstick mixed with dark matter crystals—just like the night Tang Yao had pressed the pendant into his palm, the sea mist crystallizing into ice at their touch.

But the passageway to the warehouse was now crawling with writhing biological cables, their surfaces oozing fluorescent liquid, corroding the concrete.

"I knew it wasn't going to be this simple," Bo Yu muttered as he tore off the dragon scale pendant from his neck, the one Zheng the fisherman said could ward off sea monsters from the South Sea.

As the blue glow flared, the cables screamed like babies, retreating into the dark.

But the pendant cracked, ancient sea sand sifting through his fingers.

At the end of the ventilation duct, eerie pink-purple light glowed, and Bo Yu's wolf claws brushed against the barrier, smelling the pungent chemical odor.

This was the same scent he had inhaled countless times in his nightmare-filled labs—the formalin solution used to soak the werewolf corpses.

When he inserted the magnetic card into the slot, the entire tunnel tilted, and the sound of heavy objects crashing into the sea echoed behind him.

"You never learn to be careful," Tang Yao's ghostly image appeared again on the condensation-covered wall. This time, there were tears in the corners of her eyes—something Bo Yu had never seen before. "When your heartbeat accelerates to 120 beats per minute…" Her warning was cut off by a sudden loss of weight, and as the collapsing tunnel plunged into darkness, the starry moon clip in his hand began to heat up.

As he fell, Bo Yu saw moonlight streaming through the broken ceiling of the warehouse.

It was the direction where the third moon rose, and the wolf king totem on his chest began to awaken.

But what was clearer than that was the scent suddenly flooding his nostrils—cherry lipstick, jasmine shampoo, and... fresh blood.