“So, this is your secret hideout? A barn?”
Yishan looked around at the dusty environment, her face twisted with undisguised disgust.
Guan Tong had already packed up all the documents and files in the barn, leaving only a few long tables and several screens behind.
After speaking, Yishan looked at Guan Tong with curiosity. “How did you get me out? Those caretakers—a lot of them were actually agents. Did you kill them?”
When Guan Tong promised to take her out, she only felt a flash of darkness, as if she had been swallowed by a huge shadow. By the time her vision returned, she was in the barn, completely clueless about the entire process of getting there.
“That’s not important,” Guan Tong said. “I’ve brought you out. Now you need to fulfill your obligation.”
Hearing this, Yishan’s face turned unpleasant, and she guiltily averted her gaze.
Guan Tong frowned. “Don’t tell me you don’t know anything.”
“...My father, Bruce, doesn’t trust anyone. Even though I’m his daughter, it’s hard for me to see him on a regular basis, so...”
“Yishan,” Guan Tong interrupted with a serious warning. “If you can’t keep your promise and provide me with valuable information, I’ll take you back to the mental hospital exactly the same way I brought you out.”
Yishan was stunned. “You can’t do that!”
As she spoke, she saw shadows creeping toward her and quickly backed away until her body hit a table and she stopped.
“Wait, I can tell you something valuable! I have something!”
The spreading shadows halted at her feet, slithering around like a snake ready to strike at any moment.
Guan Tong crossed his arms over his chest, his expression blank, clearly indicating an “I’m listening” attitude.
Yishan swallowed hard. “I... I know about Bruce’s exclusive item. After the first rule ended, I secretly saw him obtain that item in his office. It was a scepter.”
A scepter.
Guan Tong remembered the scepter Bruce held in Wensilisa Castle, the one that could unleash a special defensive barrier. But he also recalled that deploying that barrier came at the cost of breaking the scepter.
“I heard him call it the ‘Scepter of Royal Authority,’” Yishan continued. “Holding it allows you to exercise the ‘King’s power.’ And it seems to be upgradeable... because I remember the scepter was very small at first, but every time I saw it later, its appearance had changed.”
Guan Tong wasn’t surprised by item upgrades.
Every Ascendant’s exclusive item or ability could be enhanced through personal development, gaining advanced functions and power.
In contrast, most other Mind Power items, regardless of their strength, had no growth potential—the “launch version” was the “final version.”
That was also why the “item frenzy” trend from the early days of the Doomsday Rules had faded over time.
As time passed, Ascendants gradually realized that Mind Power and exclusive abilities or items were the foundation. Investing resources in continuously developing them was the long-term strategy.
Conversely, pouring resources into buying powerful items was shortsighted, only suitable for emergency purchases at critical moments.
This was also why, approaching the third year of the Doomsday Rules, most Ascendants had reduced item trading. Some top Ascendants hadn’t bought any items for a long time, focusing solely on cultivating themselves.
Among the people Guan Tong knew, Shi Jingyi was the first to adopt this approach. As far as he could remember, he had never seen her use an item. The only time was when she spotted a martial arts manual in the Market and borrowed money from him to buy it.
As for himself, he had long since stopped casually browsing the Terminal’s item Market and buying things. He spent most of his time developing the functionality of Shadow.
“Did you see Gaelid holding that scepter before the wedding?” Guan Tong asked.
At the mention of “wedding,” a flash of venom flickered in Yishan’s pupils. “No. I never saw him at all. He directly had me thrown into the mental hospital!”
...
Guan Tong speculated that if the “Scepter of Royal Authority” was Bruce’s exclusive item, even if it broke, it should be able to regenerate.
Because, based on current understanding, an Ascendant’s exclusive Mind Power item could be damaged but not completely destroyed.
Unless the holder died, in which case the item would vanish along with them. As long as the person was alive, the item would exist.
Guan Tong remembered that Bruce controlled the modified bodies through the scepter and deployed the special defensive barrier through it. That fit Bruce’s style.
The Senate couldn’t be trusted. The Security Bureau couldn’t be trusted. The Capital Guard couldn’t be trusted...
Yishan was right. Bruce only trusted the power he could control himself. So the final manipulation of the modified bodies was directly connected to his scepter through some method, ensuring no one could take that power away from him.
“What else do you know?” Guan Tong pressed.
Yishan glared. “Isn’t that enough?”
“The scepter being Bruce’s exclusive item—I had already guessed that much. It’s only so valuable. I need information of higher value... For example, tell me about your brother Gaelid’s situation.”
Guan Tong had to fulfill Adam’s dying wish and rescue his daughter Ai Ya. To do that, he needed to resolve the issue of Gaelid’s consciousness.
As Gaelid’s younger sister, Yishan must know something.
When Guan Tong brought up Gaelid, Yishan showed a rare flicker of complex emotion and fell silent for a moment.
“Gaelid, my brother... he was the successor Bruce focused on cultivating, at least before the incident. Now it seems, even after the incident, Bruce hasn’t given up. The public announcement of his death was a complete lie.”
“What happened to him?”
“He...”
Yishan looked at Guan Tong.
“He’s a parasitized form.”
“...!”
Guan Tong raised an eyebrow in surprise.
If Yishan hadn’t told him, he would never have guessed that Gaelid was a parasitized form.
He knew that after the [Extraterrestrial Parasitism] rule was announced, humans went through several stages from ordinary infection with alien spores to eventually becoming a parasitized form, where the spores completely replaced their free will. It was a long transformation process.
Unless it reached the final stage, as long as it was caught early and blocked—by isolation or sealing to prevent inhaling more spores—the person wouldn’t develop into a parasitized form.
Guan Tong himself had inhaled alien spores back then, but he never developed a deep infection or became addicted to the spores, so he easily completed the rule challenge.
Logically, someone with Gaelid’s background and resources shouldn’t have progressed to the point of becoming a parasitized form.
As if guessing what Guan Tong was thinking, a self-mocking smile appeared on Yishan’s face. “It was all my father’s doing. Bruce, that control freak—he brought this on himself.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He was too strict. From the moment he decided to groom my brother as his successor, he subjected him to the most rigorous education. He wasn’t allowed to touch anything addictive, let alone see it. He wouldn’t even let those things exist in my brother’s world.
When I say addiction, I’m not talking about smoking, drinking, or even stronger substances. That control freak Bruce wouldn’t even let my brother drink cola or coffee, just because the tiny amount of caffeine in them is technically an addictive substance... Can you imagine what my brother felt?”
Guan Tong fell silent, watching the mocking expression on Yishan’s face.
It was one thing for a parent to forbid their child from smoking or drinking, but banning coffee and cola was downright psychotic.
And the problem was that such extreme measures often backfired. The more you forbid something, the more curious the child becomes. Once they get a chance to escape parental control, they might indulge excessively, possibly even developing an addiction.
Gaelid never got that chance simply because Bruce’s power was too great.
If a monarch with real power had excessive control, they could absolutely manage every aspect of a child’s life.
Out of fear of Bruce’s power, no one would dare make exceptions for Gaelid privately. If Bruce ever found out, the consequences would be unimaginable.
It was like a kid sneaking into an internet cafe, and the owner being caught by the parents. A normal parent might scold the kid, but they wouldn’t dare do anything to the internet cafe owner.
But if the parent was a high-ranking official—or a king like Bruce—and put the word out, that internet cafe owner would go to any lengths not to let the kid in, even if it killed him.
“...So, your brother’s psychology was already messed up from being controlled too tightly? That’s why, after the [Extraterrestrial Parasitism] rule was announced, he actively inhaled a large amount of spores?”
“Exactly,” Yishan said. “At least then, my brother was happy. For the first time, he could break free from control and do what he wanted—Bruce could control everything, but he still couldn’t control the Doomsday Rules!”
Seeing Yishan’s indignant expression, Guan Tong felt she sympathized with her brother and hadn’t become jealous because Gaelid was their father’s favored successor.
But thinking about it, if the price of being the chosen successor was having every aspect of life forcefully controlled, not many people would want to be that “crown prince.”
“Anyway, by the time Bruce found out, it was too late. My brother had inhaled too many spores and reached an irreversible stage... It’s ironic—that was the first time I ever saw Bruce, my king of a father, completely lose control and fly into a rage.
After that, I didn’t see my brother for a long time. Later, Bruce said my brother died, that it was suicide... I believed him. But only that day did I realize my brother wasn’t dead—he had been... had been...”
Yishan couldn’t continue.
Even she found it hard to accept that Bruce had transferred her brother’s consciousness into a little girl’s body. It was a madness beyond her comprehension.
Hearing this, Guan Tong realized a problem.
“If your brother was already a parasitized form, his original consciousness would have been replaced by alien spores. He would essentially be dead. Why did Bruce go to such trouble to ‘resurrect’ a dead man? Did he think your brother was still alive?”
It was universally accepted that a parasitized form wasn’t human, but a walking corpse driven by spores, carrying the host’s memories.
That was why during the [Third Contact] rule, humans could capture them and feed them to the nano-intelligence without any psychological burden.
If Gaelid was already a parasitized form, what was the point of Bruce’s efforts? His son was already dead. What was alive was merely a host for alien spores.
Yishan snorted. “That control freak—how could he accept that after controlling everything for his whole life, this was the outcome? He’s just denying reality.”
Denying reality, huh...
Guan Tong didn’t think Yishan was wrong. But if Gaelid was a parasitized form, how would the memories transferred into Ai Ya’s brain affect her?
Could they turn Ai Ya into a parasitized form too?
His heart grew heavy at the thought.
He hadn’t expected the situation to be more complicated than he imagined.
Just finding Ai Ya and rescuing her from Bruce’s control was already difficult. Adding the layer of parasitized spore consciousness erosion on top of that would undoubtedly make it even harder to handle.