33: This moment of "breakup" is the real gamble, putting everything on the line.

The metal chair was like a piranha plant that had crawled out from the depths of hell, the dense neural probes on its back vibrating slightly in the red light.

Su Chen showed no mercy, pressing down hard on Lin Mengyao's shoulder with his right hand.

Lin Mengyao's long legs, which were enough to make top car models blush, kicked powerlessly twice in the air before she was pinned firmly against the cold metal surface.

"Don't struggle. This thing is stubborn; the more you resist, the deeper it stabs."

Su Chen whispered into her ear, his breath grazing her pale, almost transparent earlobe.

With a sharp "shing," over a dozen hair-thin probes instantly pierced through Lin Mengyao's uniform, accurately stabbing into the gaps of her spine.

Lin Mengyao's delicate neck jerked back violently, tensing into a breathtaking curve.

Her pupils suddenly lost focus, and her originally cold gaze became vacant.

At this moment, her consciousness was forcibly dragged into an abyss named "Illusion" by the probes.

It was a late night with pouring rain.

It was the first day of the apocalypse.

A zombie covered in pustules was tearing open a bus window, its foul stench nearly making her faint.

Just as those claws were about to crush her throat, a chest that wasn't particularly broad but was extremely hot slammed into her.

In Lin Mengyao's flashback.

Su Chen's face appeared blurred due to the intense movement, but the sensation coming from her waist was scaldingly real.

It was a calloused, aggressive palm, pressed against her waist like a branding iron, dragging her back from the clutches of death.

"Huff... huff..."

Lin Mengyao panted heavily on the chair, the frequency of her chest's rise and fall reaching the physical limit of her body's load.

"Su Chen, stop! This thing is overloading!"

Qin Ya screamed and rushed toward the nearby distribution box.

This usually dignified and elegant Class Teacher was now trying to rip apart the exposed cables with her bare hands, heedless of her image.

However, before her hand could touch the metal casing, it was tightly bound by a cluster of golden silk threads that had spread over at some unknown time.

"Don't waste your strength, Teacher Qin."

Zhao Wanting's voice rang out eerily from behind the checkout counter.

Her state at this moment was eerie to the extreme; her eyes had turned completely white, and her ten fingertips were connected to the circuits in every corner of the supermarket.

Those golden silk threads seemed alive, dancing and entangling on the cables.

As if she had become the incarnation of a rule enforcer.

"Abnormal emotional fluctuations detected..."

Zhao Wanting's voice became as dry as an old radio, carrying a non-human coldness.

"Loyalty value below 80%... Determined as a potential defector... Executing purge protocol."

Qin Ya's scalp tingled with fear.

She finally understood; this wasn't some automatic checkout at a supply station, this was a filter to screen for "tools."

It didn't want your obedience; it wanted absolute submission from the depths of your soul.

Su Chen narrowed his eyes, looking at Lin Mengyao's painful state, but a playful curve tugged at the corner of his mouth.

He didn't intend to just watch his "number one part" get burned out.

He reached out, pretending to messily adjust the device behind Lin Mengyao's head.

In reality, with a slight movement of his fingertips, three strands of Sacred Yang Qi, condensed like steel needles, silently pierced into the acupoints behind Lin Mengyao's ears.

Internal Martial Arts technique: Acupoint Sealing and Meridian Blocking.

Since the machine wanted to toy with memories, he would help it add some fuel to the fire.

Lin Mengyao's whole body trembled violently, and the Illusion before her eyes suddenly changed.

The warm scene of the hero saving the beauty in the rainy night disappeared.

In its place was a sea of fire.

In the fire burned the surveillance tapes she had secretly collected of Su Chen practicing on the playground.

That was her last bit of unknown, even somewhat pathological, private desire as a chaebol heiress.

And Su Chen stood on the other side of the sea of fire, his face—half handsome and half covered in golden scales—filled with mockery.

"campus belle Lin, your so-called 'love' is nothing more than a desire to collect based on surveillance and calculation. So your formerly unapproachable appearance was just to hide this dark voyeuristic desire?"

The Su Chen in the Illusion slowly walked toward her, his tone so cold it felt like falling into an ice cellar.

"Even your peeping is calculated, for fear that people might find out you like a poor kid? Is a bargaining chip like you even worthy of staying in my car?"

"No... it's not like that... don't..."

Lin Mengyao shook her head frantically in reality, letting out a shrill scream.

Her fingertips dug hard into the metal armrests, her nails snapping from the excessive force as blood dripped from between her fingers.

Something strange happened.

Those drops of blood fell onto the floor of the checkout counter without spreading out.

Instead, they rapidly solidified and twisted, turning into tiny golden gears in the blink of an eye, fitting perfectly into the gaps between the floor tiles.

"Ka—Kacha!"

The entire supermarket ruins began to vibrate violently.

The heavy shelves that were originally scattered about now collapsed to both sides in a synchronized manner, like falling dominoes.

Amidst the dust, the floor behind the checkout counter slowly slid open to both sides.

A massive Bronze Scale slowly rose from underground, every beam exuding an ancient and bloody aura.

On the left tray, various items were now piled up out of thin air.

A locked diary, a faded hair tie, a half-written love letter, and even a school badge Su Chen had lost before... these were the manifestations of all Lin Mengyao's "girly secrets" over the years.

The right tray was empty.

The scale tilted heavily to the left, pressing hard against the base.

"This is the so-called 'bargaining chip'?"

Su Chen snorted coldly, ripped out the probes connected to Lin Mengyao's spine, and slung the near-collapsing girl over his shoulder like a sack of rice, walking with long strides toward the suspended scale.

He stood at the edge of the right tray and slashed his wrist with a dagger without hesitation.

Blood as hot as lava dripped down.

"My life, in exchange for all her hypocrisy and schemes—is that enough?"

Su Chen's voice was extremely arrogant.

He was the only Sacred Yang Divine Body; his blood was the highest grade of energy in this apocalypse, and the hardest currency.

However, the scale didn't budge.

Su Chen's brow furrowed. This damn thing didn't buy it?

Just then, Lin Mengyao, slumped over his shoulder, began to cough violently.

The progressive collapse of her psychological defenses seemed to have finally made her see something clearly in this absurd apocalypse.

She suddenly bit the tip of her tongue and spat out a mist of blood with a "poof."

The blood mist didn't dissipate; instead, it condensed into the image of a yellowed piece of paper in the air.

It was a ten-billion-dollar marriage alliance agreement of the Lin Family.

In the image, Lin Mengyao, who had originally signed it, suddenly tore it to shreds like crazy, the fragments turning to ash in the wind.

This was something she had long wanted to do but never dared.

Even before the apocalypse arrived, she had only suppressed her feelings for Su Chen in her heart, prepared to obediently accept the family's arrangement.

This moment's "break" was the real gamble of putting everything on the line.

"Boom—!!!"

The scale instantly lost its balance.

The right tray was as if it bore the weight of Mount Tai, crashing heavily onto the ground with irresistible force, sparks flying everywhere.

With that loud bang, the rusted iron door behind the scale finally opened with a tooth-grinding grinding sound.

A strange current of air, mixing incense and rot, swirled out of the secret room.

Su Chen raised an eyebrow and walked in first.

In the center of this underground secret room, hundreds of Ancient Bronze Coffins were displayed densely.

On each coffin lid, a line of chilling words was carved in crimson ancient seal script:

[Sacred Yang Divine Body Adapter — Subject Zero]

On the surface of the pitch-black coffins, faint golden lights were now traveling between the runes.