The Web of Emotion, Breaking the Deception Amidst Affection

The briny sea breeze slipped through the cracked warehouse windows, causing the steam rising from Feng Hacker's cup of instant noodles to twist and swirl.

Zheng Yufu squatted by a rusted diesel barrel, mending fishing nets, his copper pipe releasing a constant "sizzle" sound between the flickering lights of the lantern.

Bo Yu slapped his tactical belt heavily on the steel table, the metal clasp vibrating enough to stir the cold condensate in the bottle beside him.

"Shen Killer even checked out the mistress Mr. Xu is keeping in Southeast Asia," he said, tugging his collar down to reveal the unfinished claw marks on his shoulder. The wound had been inflicted three days ago during a battle with the mutated security guard at the docks. "That woman's phone was full of payment records to cosmetic surgery clinics—Mr. Xu has over twenty decoys prepared."

Feng Hacker suddenly shoved his fork into the cooling vents of the mainframe, the gene map on the LCD screen warping under the pressure. "The symbiote enters its maturation stage and secretes neurotoxins. Miss Tang is currently...," he paused as he noticed Bo Yu's jawline tighten, swallowing the rest of the sentence.

The rapid clicking of the keyboard continued, syncing with the rhythm of the heavy rain outside the window.

Bo Yu grabbed the cold condensate and drank deeply, the chilling liquid sliding down his throat, but it couldn't douse the simmering heat in his chest.

Memories from three days ago surged again, like the rain—Tang Yao barefoot on the cruise ship's deck, her chiffon skirt fluttering in the wind like the wings of a white bird.

As she turned, her hair brushed past his nose, carrying the scent of sea salt and tequila, more intoxicating than any liquor.

"Thirty nautical miles northeast," Zheng Yufu suddenly tapped the glass bottle hanging from the beam with his copper pipe, and the condensate inside reflected an eerie blue light under the moon. "The iron box I salvaged twenty years ago—when it was opened, the spores inside made three tiger sharks flip belly up."

The tactical belt suddenly emitted a sharp, high-pitched beeping. The red light from the life monitoring system on Bo Yu's waist flashed brightly.

He clenched the vibrating metal clasp, his knuckles turning white as if he might crush someone's throat.

On the screen, Tang Yao's life signs were plummeting rapidly. Feng Hacker frantically pulled up the deep-sea pressure simulation map, cold sweat dripping from his glasses onto the keyboard.

"Mr. Xu installed a sonar barrier at the wreck site," Bo Yu suddenly ripped open the layer of his tactical belt, pulling out a USB drive etched with an octopus symbol and tossing it to Feng Hacker. "Last time, Tang Yao hacked his private satellite key. Is it enough to create a breach?"

The glass bottle suddenly cracked with a sharp "crack," and Zheng Yufu's fishing net, seemingly without wind, automatically stirred. The glowing text that had been scattered by the sea breeze began to reassemble within the net's mesh.

The old fisherman hummed a warped version of "The Cry of the Fisherman's Wife," his murky eyes reflecting the gradually forming nautical map. "A big tide's coming, the sea creatures are most afraid of the red tide during a full moon..."

Bo Yu's temples throbbed.

Tang Yao's pearl earring, now tucked inside his tactical vest, was pressed against his chest, growing warm.

That night on the cruise ship, when she had deliberately used the cold pearl to graze his collarbone while removing her earring, the shadow of her eyelashes trembled under the bedside lamp. "Mr. Werewolf, would you like to try what it's like to be parasitized by deep-sea creatures?" As their breaths intertwined, he bit down on her fingertip, tasting the sweetness tinged with rust.

Feng Hacker suddenly cursed loudly as the warning alerts flooded his laptop screen.

The 3D model of the sonar barrier was disintegrating. A hidden port suddenly erupted with a stream of encrypted data.

"Someone's opening the path for us!" Feng Hacker's fingers raced across the keyboard, his voice frantic. "They've gone through seventeen virtual servers... Wait! This checksum is from Tang Yao's casino hack last month..."

At that moment, the heavy rain outside stopped abruptly.

Bo Yu looked out the window, where the sea horizon was glowing with a strange purplish-red, eerily reminiscent of Tang Yao's silk nightgown, torn that night.

The tactical belt stopped beeping, and the red light from the life-monitoring system shifted to a faint blue, casting a pulsating countdown in the damp air.

Zheng Yufu's copper pipe dropped with a clang onto the steel floor as he stared at the glowing patterns now appearing in the fishing net, his face etched with deep lines in the blue light. "This isn't the coordinate for the WWII wreck," he murmured, his rough hands tracing the moving lights. "It's the star map for Xu's ancestral tomb."

Bo Yu tapped the nautical map on the steel table, the moonlight filtering through cracks in the warehouse ceiling, casting tiny silver flecks on his brow.

Zheng Yufu's repair needle paused mid-stitch — the claw marks on the young man's collarbone were visibly healing, the new skin tinged with an unnatural bluish-gray.

"Mr. Xu's been running three research teams on the high seas, each flying a fishing company's flag," Feng Hacker suddenly spun his laptop around, the screen displaying the equity structures of twenty-seven offshore companies. "But last month, they sent a special container to the Philippines, with a customs declaration for gene stabilizers."

Zheng Yufu's copper pipe sparked against the edge of the steel barrel, and the old fisherman squinted at the twisting ownership lines, which resembled seaweed. "Twenty years ago, Xu's family tomb was renovated, thirty trucks of granite were brought in." His fish-scented fingers traced the screen. "Those stones sank into the Junk Bay in the end."

Bo Yu's tactical knife suddenly pinned the nautical map, its tip perfectly stabbing into a blinking red dot.

Feng Hacker's tracking program started beeping frantically, showing that the GPS coordinates of Xu's group's cold-chain logistics fleet had vanished at this very spot.

"Westside cold storage," Bo Yu pulled the knife from the map, the blade leaving a trail of frost, "Those granite cold cabinets aren't storing grouper."

The asphalt road after the rain glistened with an eerie silver glow, and as Bo Yu's motorcycle passed through the water, his reflection in the rearview mirror showed his pupils narrowing into vertical slits.

The rusted iron gate of the cold chain center bore the sign "Fresh Produce Forbidden," and as Bo Yu scaled the wall, he caught the strange, sweet-salty smell wafting from the ventilation shaft — like the slime secreted by decaying coral worms.

The cold storage's access system suddenly lit up with red light, and Bo Yu quickly fastened his tactical belt around his waist.

The electromagnetic pulse device Feng Hacker had modified hummed in his palm, and three seconds later, the steel gate frosted over, the hinges creaking with an unbearable screech.

The white mist at -18°C hit him full force, and the hairs on his neck stood on end, a reflexive werewolf warning.

"Mr. Xu really has a thing for nostalgia," Bo Yu's combat boots crushed the frost that had formed on the ground, his tactical flashlight sweeping over the frozen cabinets adorned with the octopus symbol.

In one of the half-open cabinets, a glowing blue liquid seeped out. Bo Yu crouched down to pick up a strand of hair half-buried in the ice shards — it was the same phosphorescent glow that always lingered in Tang Yao's hair whenever she turned around.

The alarm screamed as it tore through the stillness of the cold storage.

Thirty-six liquid nitrogen nozzles turned toward the intruder simultaneously, and Bo Yu leaped onto the top of the shelves, the spot where he had been standing instantly riddled with ice spikes.

The mutated security guards emerged from the shadows, webbed hands with barbed membranes between their fingers and bulging eyes resembling deep-sea fish.

"You little wolf cub dare enter the dragon's den?" Wu, the butler's voice blared from the loudspeaker as the cold storage temperature dropped to -40°C.

Bo Yu's tactical gloves formed an icy crust, and as he tore them off, his claws extended to tear through the oncoming frost.

The shelves collapsed in the chaos of the fight, and Bo Yu used the momentum to kick off the wall, his enhanced werewolf vision locking onto the muscle movements of each enemy.

One of the mutated security guards was about to crush his shoulder blade with a slap when a spinning tactical knife severed the guard's wrist — the knife handle was wrapped with the pearl hairband Tang Yao had used that night.

"Miss Tang must be in a lot of pain right now?" Wu's mocking laugh echoed through the static, "When the symbiote matures, it will crawl out of the host's spine, just like..." He suddenly screamed in pain, and the sound of the monitoring screen shattering came through the broadcast system, ringing out loud and clear.

Bo Yu's claws sank into the last guard's throat, and the blood froze into red ice crystals in the extreme cold.

Panting, he tore away the hair stuck to his forehead, realizing that the floor of the cold storage was now covered in glowing blue lines — the same phosphorescent glow from Tang Yao's hair was resonating with his own.

The ventilation pipe suddenly exploded, and Feng Hacker's drone swooped down, smashing through the ice crystals and projecting the gene map that was being decoded.

"Mr. Xu is making reverse inhibitors!" The mechanical arm popped up a holographic screen, showing hundreds of life signs of Tang Yao, "The symbiote isn't parasitic—she's actively feeding that thing!"

Bo Yu's temples throbbed violently, and his tactical belt emitted an overload warning.

Tearing off his frozen combat gear, he found glowing lines forming on his chest, eerily similar to Tang Yao's — those lines twisted into ancient totems under the influence of his werewolf blood.

The cold storage ceiling suddenly opened, and moonlight poured down like a silver waterfall. His pupils turned amber with sharp pain.

"It's time to end this game." Wu's figure appeared in the second-floor observation window, and the red light from the remote control in his hand looked just like the alarm on the cruise ship that night. "Let Miss Tang watch you..."

Bo Yu's claws sank deeply into the concrete wall, and moonlight condensed into ice armor on his shoulders and back.

As the first mutated guard lunged, he heard a low growl in his throat, one that did not belong to a human. The glowing lines on the cold storage floor surged up like a deep-sea giant awakened by the moonlight.