The Final Showdown, Breaking Through the Storm and Returning to Love

The ice crystals reflected a fragmented silver glow under the moonlight. Bo Yu's wolf fur at the back of his neck stood on end, his heightened senses detecting the rhythm of the breath behind the second-floor observation window. Wu, the butler, concealed two poisoned Emei daggers under his suit, and his left leg shifted half an inch more than the right—this was a seasoned veteran who preferred using reverse-hand blades.

The tactical belt suddenly emitted a sharp, ear-piercing beep. Feng Hacker's drone exploded overhead like a shower of metallic fireworks.

Amidst the fluttering aluminum foil fragments, Bo Yu saw a holographic projection of Tang Yao curled up in a cultivation chamber. The glowing patterns on her collarbone twisted like living creatures, pumping some dark, blue-black substance into the transparent crystal at her chest.

"The symbiote requires ten liters of Rh-negative blood every month," Wu, the butler, said as he tugged at his dark purple tie, revealing the Emei daggers glinting in the moonlight. "Miss Tang volunteered to be a blood bag. It's much more graceful than your usual style of tearing through freezer doors."

A low growl rumbled in Bo Yu's throat, shattering the ice spikes on the wall. He deliberately staggered toward a metal rack piled with reagent bottles.

As Wu, as predicted, aimed for Bo Yu's left ribs with a strike, the fully expanded claws of his werewolf form tore through the air, creating dazzling sparks as they scraped across the metal tips of Wu's daggers.

The overload current from Bo Yu's tactical belt surged through the ice armor, sending arcs of blue and purple electricity crackling across the epoxy-coated floor.

"Brute!" Wu sneered and flipped onto a cooling pipe, a metal cabinet hurled into an emergency light as Bo Yu's clawed swipe sent it crashing.

In the dark, seven red dots suddenly lit up. Bo Yu could smell the distinct scent of nitroglycerin from the miniature tracking bullets. The shrill beeping of his tactical belt turned into a piercing alarm.

He kicked off the overturned liquid nitrogen canister, launching into the air. Moonlight, reflecting off the ice armor on his back, mixed with the fiery mist of the incoming missile.

When the third tracking bullet shattered a load-bearing pillar, Bo Yu finally saw the secret hidden in Wu's pants crease—each time Wu lifted his leg to attack, his crocodile leather shoes tilted awkwardly fifteen degrees.

"That titanium alloy bearing in your knee," Bo Yu suddenly said, ripping open the bloodstained wound on his left arm, allowing the scent of blood to trigger Wu's pupils to contract. "It was installed last June in a St. Petersburg orthopedic clinic, wasn't it?"

As Wu hesitated, Bo Yu deliberately exposed his back to the moonlight.

When Wu, like a predatory hawk, pounced on the apparent weakness, Bo Yu spun, tossing ice crystal shards that perfectly embedded into Wu's knee joint.

The sound of the metal bearings grinding against each other resembled rusty gears, and Bo Yu heard the sickening snap of his tibia as it collided with the target.

Wu crashed into the reagent rack, scattering white pigeons hiding in the ventilation shaft. Bo Yu stepped over the rolling glass bottles, closing in on Wu.

He grasped the bulging veins in Wu's neck, and suddenly noticed the intricate patterns embroidered on his collar—identical to the wisteria flowers on Tang Yao's qipao.

"Mr. Xu's study also has this embroidery," Bo Yu's canine teeth pierced his lower lip. Blood mixed with ice crystals dripped onto Wu's twisted face. "Your daughter's account at Cornell Medical School received three overseas transfers last week."

The body beneath him spasmed violently. Bo Yu dodged the anesthetic dart that shot from the observation window, finally rendering his tactical belt useless.

He yanked Wu's tie, throwing him into the broken blast-proof glass. Moonlight filtered through the broken ceiling, illuminating a glinting metal shard amidst the chaos.

It was a mini storage device that had fallen from Wu's teeth, showing a live feed of Tang Yao in the cultivation chamber.

As Bo Yu bent to pick it up, he suddenly noticed the melting ice armor's water puddle, and saw his pupils, now golden, encroaching upon the blood vessels in his sclera.

The sensation of his back teeth grinding bone made him recall Feng Hacker's warning: the glowing patterns of the symbiote were referred to in the ancient scrolls as "The Moon Goddess's Love Letter."

Bo Yu's fingers, as soon as they touched the metal shard, exploded with ice shards. Moonlight cut across his hand, casting alternating shadows on the cracks in the steel table.

In his nostrils, the cedar fragrance Tang Yao often wore mixed with the rusted, iron-like scent. He saw blood beads congealing in the crevices of his nails, following the lines of his palm, moving toward his wristwatch. The reflection in the watch's surface revealed his pupils had become a swirling vortex of molten gold and crimson.

"Bo Yu! Third vent pipe!" Feng Hacker's shout cut through the electrical static, "Mr. Xu has a biological tracker in Tang Yao, and you still have... tick-tick-tick..."

The voice abruptly stopped.

Bo Yu, clutching the metal shard, burst through the fire escape door, and the discomfort in his back teeth spread to his cheekbones.

Amidst the red blood-colored light flashing on his retina, he saw the red dots of the surveillance cameras at the end of the hallway transform into the glowing patterns on Tang Yao's collarbone. Those strange blue vines stretched with each of her heavy breaths in the cultivation chamber.

"The symbiote requires ten liters of Rh-negative blood."

Wu's mocking laugh, from the moment of his death, suddenly echoed in Bo Yu's ears. Staggering, Bo Yu collided with the fire door.

The figure reflected in the blast-proof glass made him shudder—the wolf fur on his neck had spread up to his face, and his left ear had already transformed into the pointed shape of a beast's ear.

He bit his tongue, the taste of blood mixed with the snowmelt from his ice armor, barely suppressing the beastly rage rising within him.

As the cold air from the -2 level cold storage hit him, Bo Yu suddenly smelled the salty sea breeze.

The fibers of Zheng Yufu's faded denim jacket, left on the door handle, reminded him of the old fisherman's drunken ramblings three days ago at the dock: "Xu's cruise ship transports freezers to the high seas every fifteenth of the month, and those iron boxes need three layers of liquid nitrogen before they can even be loaded onto the ship."

Now, the rolling liquid nitrogen canisters on the floor confirmed the old fisherman's suspicions.

As Bo Yu kicked open the seventh hydraulic door, the glass shards stuck to the sole of his tactical boots began to beep—the modified sonar locator from Feng Hacker resonated with the jade pendant on Tang Yao's necklace.

The source of the sound was coming from behind three meters of reinforced concrete.

Bo Yu's claws scraped sparks off the wall. When his werewolf claws touched the hidden door's fingerprint lock, his pupils suddenly burned with pain.

Wu's severed fingers from his suit pocket were still in the tactical belt's compartment, pressed against the frostflowers from the freezer. As the LCD screen turned green, Bo Yu heard his bones groan under the strain.

As the blue light from the hidden room poured out, seventeen cultivation chambers flared with glowing intensity.

Tang Yao's transparent chamber slowly rotated at the center of the room. The blue vines had now covered her exposed back and shoulders, winding like an ancient spell around the crystal stone near her heart.

Bo Yu knocked aside the buzzing protective electric net, only to find the shackles on her ankles bore the Xu family crest—a wisteria flower, identical to the pattern on Wu's collar.

"…Bo Yu?"

The hiss of the pressure release valve echoed through the room as Tang Yao's ice crystals on her eyelashes began to fall.

As she tried to raise her hand, the glowing patterns on her collarbone surged, and the blue-black substance inside the crystal stone writhed like a living creature.

As Bo Yu ripped the shackles apart, the residual current in his tactical belt suddenly activated an internal device in the chamber, turning all the emergency lights to blood-red.

"Don't touch the crystal stone!" Tang Yao's voice, hoarse and filled with air, shouted, "This is a bi-directional symbiote... Mr. Xu bought it in the St. Petersburg black market..."

Her cold fingers pressed against Bo Yu's beastly wrist. The glowing patterns followed her touch, crawling up his veins.

It felt like being immersed in -50°C liquid nitrogen, freezing his wolf nature beneath his skin. Bo Yu suddenly realized that his fangs were retracting.

"The Moon Goddess's Love Letter isn't a curse." Tang Yao's pale face flushed with a sickly red hue, and the substance in the crystal stone began to form a blurred human face as she spoke. "It's... a key..."

The building suddenly shook violently.

Feng Hacker's drone wreckage smashed through the observation window and plunged into the room, projecting Zheng Yufu's flushed face. "Quick! Mr. Xu activated the self-destruct program!"

As Bo Yu pulled Tang Yao into his arms, he noticed a new glowing pattern on her neck—identical to the totem in the painting "Wolf Pack Under the Moon" in Mr. Xu's study.

The girl in his arms felt as light as a snowflake, but the blue glowing patterns grew warm as they touched his chest, as if moonlight had warmth.

When they crashed through the emergency exit, the salty sea breeze, mixed with Feng Hacker's frantic shout, hit them.

The old hacker was squatting on a rusty container, tapping on his laptop, while Zheng Yufu swung a ship's anchor at the surveillance camera's stand, like he was battling an octopus at the dock.

"Little brat's really got nine lives!" Zheng Yufu threw the anchor with a blur, "This building will—"

The explosion's shockwave hit faster than the warning.

Bo Yu shielded Tang Yao, rolling into the corner of the levee, as the fireball rising behind them burned a hole in the night sky.

Feng Hacker's computer screen flew in the blast, the final image that froze in Bo Yu's pupils — a file in the Xu family's internal network, showing three hundred different blood types of frozen human serum.

"Did you enjoy the party?" Feng Hacker climbed out from the rubble, his glasses cracked like spiderwebs. "Mr. Xu's offering fifty million on the black market for live werewolf specimens—he wants... cough, he wants the fur intact."

Tang Yao suddenly coughed violently, blood seeping from between her fingers, glowing a strange blue under the moonlight.

When she opened her palm, all three of them froze — the blood was slowly forming the pattern of wisteria flowers, exactly like the embroidery on the curtains in Mr. Xu's study.

"It's okay." She squeezed Bo Yu's trembling hand, the glowing patterns flowing between their fingers. "Do you remember the first time we met? You said the moonlight looked like diamonds scattered across the sea."

Two hundred meters away, the sea suddenly erupted in a column of water.

Bo Yu's wolf eyes, still not fully returned to human form, saw clearly the sinking cruise ship's bow. Mr. Xu's favorite golden silk nanmu pipe floated on the surface, the jade mouthpiece glowing with the same hue as Tang Yao's necklace.

Zheng Yufu was about to speak when Feng Hacker suddenly covered his mouth.

The old hacker, his fingers stained with oil, pointed at Tang Yao's heart. The place where the symbiote's crystal stone should have been was now just an area healing over, flashing with the characteristic blue light of nanomechanics.

The sea wind swept the burning invoices overhead, and one charred piece of paper bore the words: "Gene Editing Program - Lunar Cycle."

Bo Yu pulled Tang Yao closer, and suddenly realized her heartbeat was synchronizing with the rising and falling tides.