49: Chapter 49 Abyss

"Speak."

"First. This card currently only has the Monthly Exam footage as reference data. It hasn't undergone standard military testing procedures. There is no real-combat environment data. There is no long-term side-effect tracking. Even its creator himself admits—he doesn't fully grasp the specific parameters of certain functions. That one cut at the Monthly Exam scene was indeed stunning, but that was based on Li Qingyue's eighth-order puppet clone. If used by a living person, would the effect be the same? I don't know."

He flipped open the notebook in his hand.

"Second. The cost of the Magical Girl transformation—soul gem integration + physical gender reversal—is irreversible. Once the contract is signed, a male user will be permanently transformed into a female. This is an irreversible physiological modification. Under the evaluation standards of the Military Ethics Committee, it requires at least a three-year approval process. And—"

He paused.

He looked up, staring directly at Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan.

"Deputy Commander Xiao, if I may be blunt—you seemed a bit overexcited when you said 'everyone can become a Magical Girl' just now?"

Director He Jin closed the notebook.

"So, I will boldly ask one question this time."

"Do you genuinely believe this card can change the battlefield landscape?"

Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan raised an eyebrow.

"Or—is it purely because you want to see that whole bunch of rough men in the army turn into little girls?"

The conference room went quiet for a beat.

Then—pfft.

I don't know who laughed out loud first. Then a second person. A third. Suppressed laughter rose and fell like leaking balloons.

Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan didn't speak.

She just stared at Director He Jin.

She stared for a full three seconds.

Then she laughed.

"Director He Jin, oh Director He Jin."

She walked step by step in front of Director He Jin.

"How many years have you worked under me?"

"Fi—five years—"

"Five years. Why is your brain still on the first floor?"

Director He Jin opened his mouth.

Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan reached out and poked his chest with her finger.

"I'm asking you. How many people die on the front lines every year?"

"About... one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand—"

"How many of them do you know?"

Director He Jin fell silent.

Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan withdrew her finger, turned around, and faced away from everyone. Her military jacket slid off her shoulders and landed on the back of the chair.

"The ones I knew. They're all dead."

"So don't give me any nonsense about ethical approval and side-effect tracking. If this card can significantly reduce the mortality rate, that's enough!"

"As for men turning into women—"

She paused. A curve appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"If you want to come back alive, you have to pay a price. Compared to a life, changing gender, I don't think it's a loss."

As her voice fell, the conference room was silent for a full five seconds.

Then Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan slapped the table.

"It's decided!"

The volume startled the burly staff officer next to her, who almost flipped over backward out of his chair.

"I'm going to Jinghai right now!"

"—Huh?" Director He Jin looked up abruptly.

"To go see that kid named Su Bai!"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait—" Director He Jin stood up in a panic. "Deputy Commander Xiao, you are currently a ninth-order military officer. You need to report to the General Command Headquarters for travel—and even if you go, the Truth Sanctuary has already sent people to make contact. If someone of your rank shows up directly, what will the various major families think? More importantly, the current test data for this card only has one puppet clone, not even a single living user. If you rush over there now, isn't it... isn't it a bit too hasty?"

Are you kidding? This is just a first-order card! For the military, what does it matter if this kind of card has strong versatility? It's the ninth-order that decides the battlefield, never the first-order. This isn't a modern war!

However, Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan was already walking toward the door. Her military boots stepped on the floor, each step sounding crisp and decisive. She walked to the door. Stopped. Turned back.

"Director He Jin."

"...Yes?"

"You're coming with me."

"Me? I'm just a logistics officer—"

"Correct. Didn't you say there was no data for living users?"

Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan winked at him.

"Then you go test it."

Director He Jin's expression froze. It froze for about three seconds. Then, in a tone of someone dying—

"—I go test it?! Me?! A man?! Turn into a woman?!"

"You questioned it the most logically just now. That means you studied it the most thoroughly. If I don't pick you, who do I pick?"

"That's because I was writing a risk report!!"

"Then just write a user experience report while you're at it."

Director He Jin's face instantly flushed a deep red that completely contradicted his surname. His mouth opened and closed, opened and closed again, like a fish pulled out of the water.

Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan had already pushed the door open and left. Her crisp footsteps and a suppressed laugh echoed in the hallway.

Director He Jin stood in place. He was still clutching the unfinished risk report in his hand. His glasses slid to the tip of his nose. The corners of his mouth twitched several times. Then, with a voice between resignation and breakdown, he squeezed two words out of his throat.

"...It's over."

He shoved the report haphazardly into his briefcase. He stumbled to catch up.

The conference room door closed behind him. The remaining eleven people looked at each other. It was quiet for a long time.

The burly man with the crew cut spoke first.

"So—Deputy Commander Xiao Hongyan actually went. She took the logistics director. She's going to bring that kid who makes cats back."

"The last time she was this excited was when she dragged a seventh-order Abyss Lord out of its lair."

"Did you guys see Director He Jin's expression just now?"

"Saw it."

"Doesn't it look like the last look of a death-row prisoner before going to the execution ground?"

"...Now that you mention it. It really does."

"How pitiful."

"Agreed."

The conference room was quiet for a few more seconds. Then Old Liu picked up his tea and took a slow sip.

"But having said that—Director He Jin, that kid, his features are naturally delicate. He shouldn't look ugly as a woman."

"Pfft—" The staff officer across from Old Liu sprayed his mouthful of tea all over the table.

...

Jinghai City. Underground. A place where the light does not reach.

The Li family's secret chamber is not under any villa. It is not on any map. Its coordinates have been deliberately erased by some spatial law that does not belong to the human faction. Even if the Truth Sanctuary's ninth-order Mental Power scans the entire city, it would only scan a normal layer of rock.

On the walls of the secret chamber. It is not stone. It is flesh.

Dark purple, covered in blue-black veins, pulsating at a very slow rhythm—Abyssal tumors. They clung to every inch of the surface, like the internal organs of some giant creature. The air was filled with a rotten, sweet smell—not the stench of corpses, but more like honey left in a confined space for too long. Corpses soaking in the honey.

Two people stood in the center of the secret chamber. No. Two "people."

One of them is a human—the head of the Li family, Li Chengyuan. In his fifties, wearing a crisp suit, his hair combed meticulously. His posture in the chamber filled with tumors was as calm as when he stood in the Chamber of Commerce conference room presiding over the annual shareholders' meeting.

The family behind him—a four-generation card-making prestigious family, holding three rare material supply chains, two magic crystal mines, and a private card-making research institute—in this country, no one would doubt the Li family's loyalty. No one.

The other person—let's call them a person—stood opposite Li Chengyuan, their figure shrouded in a mass of constantly writhing black mist. On the surface of the black mist, distorted eyeballs, half-open mouths, and appendages similar to fingers but with the wrong number of joints appeared from time to time.

An Abyssal Messenger. Not an Abyssal monster. Not a corrupted fallen one. But a humanoid terminal directly projected into this dimension by the will of the Abyss.