Chapter 304: Fog

Chapter 304: The Great Fog

The orange arced through the air and landed in Jiang Qi's hand—round, golden, and perfectly ripe. Jiang Qi lowered his gaze and stared at it for a moment before peeling a segment.

He ate a slice quietly. The oranges served to the major general at the research institute were, of course, the finest—crisp, sweet, and richly fragrant.

Ye Wang started the aircraft, set the autopilot system, and glanced at him. "So? You do like oranges, right? I noticed your new shampoo is orange-scented."

"..."

"Hey, hey, don’t crush it—you’ll make it explode and splatter juice all over my car." Ye Wang pointed at himself with a grin. "If you can’t finish it, peel a slice for me."

It wasn’t that the commander was genuinely craving a piece of orange—he just liked messing with Jiang Qi. With both hands on the controls, if he wanted to eat, Jiang Qi would have to feed him.

For the Imperial Star to stoop to feeding an orange to a noble descendant he despised? Jiang Qi must’ve hated every second.

Yet, after a brief pause, the man actually peeled a segment, cupped it in a tissue, and brought it to Ye Wang’s lips.

His pale, detached gaze fixed on Ye Wang. "Here."

"..."

The cold fruit pressed against his lips, and it was Ye Wang who felt weirdly flustered first.

He quickly parted his lips, taking the orange with his teeth. A gentle squeeze, and the juice burst across his tongue. Then, fiddling with the controls, he focused on driving.

He glanced at the screen. "Weather says the lower district’s fogging up fast. We should hurry home."

The lower district at night was already a den of lawlessness—even more so in the fog.

He brought Jiang Qi home and left him in his room. But as dusk fell, Ye Wang claimed he had work to discuss with colleagues, stepped out for a stroll, and returned to the lower district.

This time, he didn’t parade around conspicuously. Instead, he threw on a hooded cloak, hiding his face as he slipped into the alleyways.

The lower district’s sky was perpetually shrouded in haze, but now, at night, it was dead quiet. The alleys were thick with gray-yellow mist, reeking of chemical waste and sulfur. Neon signs smeared into foggy glows, making figures indistinguishable beyond two meters.

Ye Wang pushed open the bar’s door, its rusted copper hinges screeching in protest. The sound roused Colonel Bu Nian from behind the counter.

Bu Nian looked up. "Look what the fog dragged in, Major General. Seems you’ve returned safely."

This was the first time Bu Nian had addressed Ye Wang as "Major General" in public.

Ye Wang scanned the empty bar, casually hanging his damp overcoat on a rack and peeling off his leather gloves. "Slow night, Colonel?"

Bu Nian snorted. "In this weather, even the dogs in the lower district have found bridges to hide under. Only suckers like us, pulling shifts, would bother coming out."

As winter deepened, heavy fog and snow enveloped the district, especially at night, when the cold outside was unbearable.

Ye Wang unclipped his badge and tossed it to Bu Nian from a distance. "Cut the small talk. I’m on the clock and shouldn’t linger. The camera’s in there—footage of the outer warehouses, some drug labels, and a researcher’s iris. Hope it’s useful."

Bu Nian caught it deftly, dismantling the hidden camera with practiced ease and placing it in a silk-lined box. "Don’t worry, Major General. Our tech team will pick apart every pixel. Every frame, every detail will be analyzed."

Ye Wang nodded in acknowledgment and gave a casual wave. "Good. I’ll head back then."

"Wait, Major General." Bu Nian stopped him. "There’s one more thing."

Ye Wang paused. "About the test zone?"

"No." Bu Nian hesitated. "Regarding your... spouse."

He murmured, "Do you remember, when we tracked his movements earlier, we discovered he had been secretly keeping two other test subjects? So we bought several nearby houses and installed surveillance equipment inside. From the feedback of the cameras, the bedridden girl among the two... her condition seems to have deteriorated."

Ye Wang frowned, "Worsened?"

"Yes," Bu Nian replied. "Her body has undergone long-term radiation and induced modifications, leaving the genetic chains in her cells in a state of chaotic collapse. That’s why she requires constant stabilizer injections to maintain her condition. But as the disease progresses to its later stages, conventional stabilizers can only sustain her for a very short time."

Ye Wang asked, "How long since her last injection?"

Bu Nian answered, "Less than half a month."

Both fell silent.

Bu Nian continued, "I don’t quite understand the nature of your relationship with your spouse now, nor do I know what connection your spouse has with that girl." He patted Ye Wang’s shoulder. "But... you might need to have him brace for the inevitable."

Ye Wang replied quietly, "...I understand."

He turned and disappeared into the rain and fog.

*

On a night thick with fog, when the defenses along the border between the upper and lower districts were most vulnerable, both Ye Wang and Jiang Qi chose to leave home.

Meanwhile, Jiang Qi had just stepped out of District 13.

He passed through a long, narrow alley, his jacket already soaked from the fog, his eyelashes coated with a layer of condensation. It was cold.

But Jiang Qi didn’t leave immediately. He stood at the end of the alley, leaning against the concrete wall, staring at the illuminated cottage in the distance. Through his pocket, he felt something square.

It was a piece of candy—unfortunately, he hadn’t managed to give it out today.

The wrapper wasn’t waterproof and had half-stuck to the candy. Jiang Qi peeled it open and put it in his mouth.

It was a brand only sold in upper-district supermarkets, expensive and supposedly popular among the young girls there. Jiang Qi had chosen the strawberry flavor, but he couldn’t taste anything—only the acrid bite of sulfur lingering on his tongue from the cold fog.

Close to midnight, Jiang Qi returned home.

He was almost completely drenched, his clothes clinging to his skin, the icy wind creeping through his sleeves, chilling him to the bone. He only wanted to take a quick shower, but through a gap in the curtains, he noticed the light was still on downstairs.

Ye Wang was still awake.

So Jiang Qi stood on the doormat, checking himself over.

The upper district was also foggy, though not as thick as the lower district. He looked like a mess—if Ye Wang questioned where he’d been or what he’d done, he’d have no good explanation.

Jiang Qi thought he needed a plausible excuse.

But his thoughts were scrambled, as if frozen stiff by the night’s cold wind. One moment, he saw the girl’s pale, gentle smile; the next, her swollen, purplish skin. Then the high-walled laboratory, then Ye Wang’s clean and tidy bedroom—disjointed, dreamlike, until it all faded into blank numbness. Finally, he pressed his back against the door and slowly slid down.

But before he could fully sit, the door swung open.

Jiang Qi staggered but steadied himself, meeting Ye Wang’s gaze.

The commander stood in the doorway in his pajamas, arms crossed, displeased. "Seriously, Jiang, Colonel Jiang, my dear spouse—have you forgotten that we have a video doorbell? You just stood there, and the camera couldn’t even make out your face. The damn thing kept triggering alerts inside, woke me up after I’d just fallen asleep. What the hell are you doing?"

Jiang Qi instinctively smiled. "Sorry, sir."

Ye Wang grabbed his wrist—his skin was icy cold—and pulled him roughly inside. "Stop standing out there. You’re letting all the warm air out. What, trying to turn me into an icicle?"

"...Wasn’t the plan."

Jiang Qi paused, a flicker of life finally returning to his pale face.

Ye Wang pulled him inside but he remained standing in the entryway without moving—Ye Wang's home had a handmade carpet, and he was dripping wet.

Ye Wang tsked, tossing a towel from afar, still holding an unopened pair of pajamas in his hand.

But his fingers twitched, and in the end, he didn’t open it.

Earlier that day, after his nemesis fed him an orange, the commander felt he hadn’t acted generously enough, embarrassing himself. He pondered where to regain some dignity and, before heading home, wandered aimlessly around a supermarket. There, he found a fruit-themed plush pajama set on sale—coincidentally featuring strawberries and oranges—and, on impulse, bought it.

But seeing Jiang Qi in this state, Ye Wang lost the urge to tease or mess with him.

He took a step back, eyeing Jiang Qi up and down. “There’s milk in the fridge. Heat it up in the electric kettle and drink it… Wait, do you know how to use an electric kettle?”

The fiasco from their first day was still fresh in his mind, and Ye Wang didn’t want to wake up to a kitchen explosion.

Jiang Qi: “I do,” he said dryly.

“Forget it. You said the same last time and nearly burned the pot.” The commander eyed him skeptically. “Just wait.”

He took the milk from the fridge, poured it into the pot, and waited until it came to a gentle boil before transferring it to a glass. He then placed it in front of Jiang Qi. “Here.”

Jiang Qi held the cup and sipped slowly.

The milk was just the right temperature, its warmth seeping through the glass and thawing his numb fingers. When the cup was empty, Jiang Qi suddenly said, “Sir, I heard that back in prison, you worked as an interrogator and left behind many case notes. May I take a look?”

Ye Wang: “…?”

Pei Gu did indeed have many records, but they were all from the past and unrelated to Jiang Qi’s case.

Why suddenly ask for records? What was he planning?

The commander poked 66: “Is this part of the plot?”

66 was just as confused as him: “No, Host.”

It flipped through the next few chapters. “In the plot, Jiang Qi never asks for this. In fact, Pei Gu is a pretty minor NPC—aside from getting married and assisting with investigations, he doesn’t have much role.”

Ye Wang tried to read Pei Gu’s character. “They’re in the study. You’ll need to go get them.”

Jiang Qi: “Thank you, sir.”

After finishing the milk, he washed the cup, returned it to the cabinet, bade goodnight to Ye Wang, then walked past him and went upstairs, heading straight for the study.

Jiang Qi opened Pei Gu’s manuscripts.

He didn’t read the cases—he focused on Pei Gu’s handwriting.

Pei Gu’s handwriting was angular, with slight tilts at the ends of strokes. Graphologically speaking, it betrayed a stubborn, abrasive personality.

He lowered his gaze and began practicing.

Handwriting replication was part of military training, and Jiang Qi had completed the full training. He naturally learned faster than others, even excelling in specialized courses like this with an A+. His imitations were so precise that even experts struggled to tell the difference.

In just half a night, he achieved near-flawless imitation.

Jiang Qi laid out a blank sheet of paper.

“I, Major General Pei Gu of the Third Army, intend to report to my superiors that the surveillance subject Jiang Qi is displaying suspicious behavior…”

As he wrote, Jiang Qi’s expression remained calm, his face looking eerily calm under the pale light. He wrote several hundred words fluidly, but as he dated the document, he suddenly checked his communicator to see the weather.

In the Interstellar Era, weather forecasts were extremely accurate.

The next foggy day in the Lower District was predicted for December 17th.

Jiang Qi neatly jotted down the date.

—December 16th.

Just under ten days away.