Enthralled in the Enemy's Lair, Love Unwavering Against All Odds
Bo Yu's fingers trembled slightly, blood streaming from the gunshot wound. In his blurry vision, he thought of Tang Yao, just as the heavy punch of the steel automaton was almost upon him. The downpour was relentless, and danger loomed. Just as the punch was about to strike, he snapped back to his senses, and as the red light swept over his brow, he moved.
When the red light from the automaton's single-eye scanner passed over Bo Yu's brow, he caught the faint scent of jasmine from Tang Yao's hair.
The illusionary scent, mingled with the sharp stench of hydraulic oil, caused the wolf fur on his fingertips to bristle—just as the massive, truck-sized alloy fist, carrying a fierce wind, descended. The faded logo of the Tang family, resembling an old scar, was emblazoned on the fist.
"Spread out!" Bo Yu gripped Dr. Shangguan by the collar and rolled to the right. The scalpel whizzed past his ear and embedded into the concrete wall.
The debris from the shattered heavy fist rained down like a storm on the bulletproof vests, and Duanmu, the reporter, had his camera reduced to fragments in the smoke and dust. A magnetic grenade, modified by Zhuge, rolled into a drain.
The red cord Tang Yao had tied around his wrist three days ago suddenly snapped.
Bo Yu stared at the quickly fading red line in the bloodstains, his throat tightening. Was her hand, the one that traced circles on his chest that night, now bound to some metal table filled with instruments?
"Joint hydraulic tubes!" Sima, the undercover agent, suddenly threw a hook to ensnare the automaton's knee. Special fibers sparked blue flames as they scraped along the hydraulic tube's surface. "The 'Thousand Machines' method from the Murong family!" The undercover agent, usually deep in underground intelligence networks, now had veins bulging like the roots of an old tree.
Before he could finish speaking, the automaton's elbow suddenly released high-pressure steam, sending Sima crashing into the power distribution box.
Bo Yu's wolf eyes contracted sharply.
In the instant the steam cloud obscured his vision, he saw blue light flickering at the automaton's neck, following the cracks in the floor tiles.
The copper wires hidden in those cracks emitted an eerie hum, and magnesium powder scattered from Duanmu's bag floated into a bizarre vortex mid-air.
"Magnetic field!" Bo Yu tore off the blood-stained sleeve of his combat suit and flung it into the air, watching as the fabric was shredded by an
Dr. Shangguan suddenly raised her bloodied scalpel, its blade vibrating at high frequency, resonating with her silver earring. "It's magnetic resonance!" The usually gentle military doctor suddenly slashed open her white coat, revealing a tactical belt wrapped with magnetic force patches. "It's drawing power from metal objects!"
The automaton's single-eye turned a deep blue.
Bo Yu watched as the titanium alloy lighter Tang Yao gave him floated out of his pants pocket, and as Sima spat blood and shouted the words "Murong family," he suddenly remembered the Tang family's abandoned space elevator project from three years ago—those magnetic levitation tracks that the Murong consortium bought at a low price were now groaning beneath the ground.
"Duanmu!" Bo Yu suddenly grabbed the reporter's bag, which was full of magnesium powder. "Throw all the metal objects in your bag to the southeast corner!" As Duanmu hastily dumped the windproof lighter and miniature tripod, Bo Yu's canine teeth pierced his lower lip.
The scent of blood, mixed with the memory of Tang Yao's whispered words, exploded on his tongue: "When the magnetic field is disturbed, a werewolf's sense of smell can pierce through the electromagnetic fog..."
The automaton's alloy fist began charging again, and the emergency lights along the corridor flickered.
Bo Yu watched as Duanmu threw metal objects toward the magnetic vortex, then suddenly ripped open the bandage soaked in blood at his collarbone.
Blood droplets spilled from the bullet hole, suspended in the magnetic field to form a red star chain, pointing toward the automaton's core, marking the death path.
"Thirty seconds!" Dr. Shangguan suddenly injected two vials of adrenaline into his thigh. "The werewolf transformation will accelerate blood loss!" Her silver earrings danced dangerously on her earlobes, while Bo Yu used the hook thrown by Sima to leap into the air.
The moment the automaton's scanner locked onto him, he saw his reflection in the automaton's alloy shell—behind his bleeding wolf ears, faintly appeared the smiley face drawn by Tang Yao in lipstick.
Bo Yu's fingers swelled three times in size under the transformation, the dark silver wolf fur standing upright in the magnetic storm.
He leaped, stepping on floating metal fragments, each piece of titanium alloy resonating with the werewolf blood inside him—this was the electromagnetic resonance curve Tang Yao had drawn on his palm with lipstick when she had laid her head on his lap three days ago.
"Seventeen seconds!" Dr. Shangguan's silver earrings scorched her earlobe, and the magnetic patches on her waist hummed as they neared overload.
Bo Yu's fist, wrapped in blood mist, slammed into the automaton's elbow joint, and the corridor's emergency lights exploded in blue arcs.
The automaton's alloy shell twisted like melted chocolate, its magnetic storm core buried in the chest cavity, frantically drawing energy through copper wires from the ground.
Bo Yu's canine teeth pierced through his tactical gloves, and he smelled the hand cream Tang Yao had left on his collar three days ago—the cold fragrance of white tea mixed with cedar, now drifting out from the automaton's cracked joints.
"Retreat five meters!" Duanmu suddenly threw magnesium powder into the air, the floating metal fragments forming arrows in the magnetic field.
In the heightened neural acceleration of his werewolf state, Bo Yu saw the flashing trajectories—the same malfunctioning indicator lights he had often seen in the Tang family's old laboratory.
When his fist hit the same crack for the third time, the automaton's single-eye suddenly exploded in sparks.
The hook thrown by Sima caught the collapsing knee bearing, and the "Thousand Machines" method of the Murong family let out a sizzling hiss as the werewolf blood corroded it.
"Kneel before me!" Bo Yu roared, and the automaton's steel head crashed heavily into the floor tiles.
As the splintering gears skimmed his neck, the red string Tang Yao had tied around him glowed faintly. The blood-soaked threads began to reassemble into a nanotech biological chain.
Before anyone could catch their breath, Bo Yu had already smashed through the blast door on the east side.
The one-way glass in the cell reflected Tang Yao's pale face, her biological electroshock shackles scanning her heartbeat frequency—this was Zhuge's greatest pride, the living biometric lock.
"Don't move." Tang Yao's lips were pressed against the inside of the glass, exhaling white mist as she wrote a Morse code only they could understand with lipstick.
Bo Yu's wolf claw left four scorch marks on the tempered glass, and he suddenly bent down, pressing his forehead against the reflection of her figure on the glass.
When his fangs pierced the bulletproof glass, Tang Yao was already using her knee to smash the ventilation hole at the top of the cell.
The 37 werewolf claw marks formed a violent code, and with the falling blue jacaranda petals in the ventilation pipe, they activated simultaneously—this was the escape code they had agreed on when they first met.
"You're three minutes late." As Tang Yao fell into his arms, the micro-signal transmitter in her hair was still dripping condensation.
Bo Yu placed his palm on the bruise on her lower back, and her body, which had been sedated three days ago, was now warming up again in his embrace.
The reporter, Duanmu, was about to raise her camera when Dr. Shangguan flicked the memory card out of her hand with the scalpel.
As Sima wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, laughing, the supporting walls of the building suddenly began to vibrate at high frequency—the second stage of Zhuge's self-destruct program was activated.
"Dear audience, now a special announcement..." Duanmu suddenly broke the tense atmosphere with a broadcast-like tone, throwing magnesium powder into the collapsing ceiling. "How about we cross this damn rotating blade array in three minutes?"
Tang Yao's fingers quickly traced on Bo Yu's palm, the leftover lipstick drawing out the structure of the laboratory.
When they rounded the third corner, Bo Yu suddenly pressed Tang Yao against the wall—his wolf fur brushed against the spinning alloy blades, and the tips of her hair were gently bitten by Tang Yao's mouth.
"Still playing romance at a time like this?" Dr. Shangguan threw the magnetic patch, which adhered to the blade array's bearing, and the entire death trap transformed into a floating metallic lotus.
Tang Yao took the opportunity to insert the lipstick tube into the control panel, and the LCD screen immediately displayed a string of pink heart-shaped codes.
When the last laser net was broken by Sima, using the Murong family's secret weapon method, a bright blue energy shield suddenly lit up at the end of the corridor.
Bo Yu's wolf eyes contracted into vertical slits as he saw the biological chip that Tang Yao secretly stuffed into his combat boots three days ago. It was now projecting Zhuge's quantum projection on the surface of the shield.
"Does Mr. Bo like the gift I prepared?" Zhuge's phantom flickered in the energy ripple, and the folding fan in his hand was dripping with dark red liquid, similar to wolf blood. "Your father's magnetic levitation key from twenty years ago left in the space elevator, shouldn't it be returned to its rightful owner?"
Bo Yu's nails dug deeply into his palm.
He smelled the scent drifting from the energy shield—it was a unique fragrance, blending his father's old pocket watch oil with Tang Yao's blood, as though someone had sliced their memories and soaked them in formaldehyde.
Tang Yao suddenly tiptoed and bit his earlobe. "I left a surprise in the medical room." Where her fingertip traced, the wolf fur began to recede back to normal skin color.
A familiar hum of biological electricity came from the depths of the corridor, and a "First Aid Kit No. 3" labeled metal cabinet started leaking light blue liquid.
The sound of gears meshing came from the shadows beyond the energy shield, and Bo Yu's retina still held the family crest from Zhuge's fan—a pattern that perfectly matched the blueprint of the space elevator he saw during his wolf transformation. It felt like a bloody joke from fate.