Chapter 26

The villa was quiet late at night.

Silvery moonlight streamed in through the French windows, casting a frosty glow on the floor. Xie Yan emerged from his room and silently made his way to the tea bar in the living room.

His gaze fell on the half-full glass, which Jiang Minghua had just used, with a faint trace of her lipstick still remaining on the glass.

He stretched out his long, pale fingers and slowly ran them along the inside of the cup, as if trying to feel the lingering warmth that had long since dissipated. Then, he picked up the cup, placed his thin lips on the mark, and took a small sip.

The cool water slid down his throat, a burning sense of satisfaction spreading through his heart. A flicker of almost manic obsession flashed in his gloomy black eyes under the dim moonlight. This secret touch was the only light in his dark world.

She turned around and met Xie Mo's shocked gaze, as if asking her brother, "What are you doing?"

He walked toward his younger brother, his voice low and hoarse: "Don't worry, your older brother knows what he's doing."

Just before dawn, Jiang Minghua was awakened by a commotion. She followed the sound to the basement level and found a light shining through the crack in the bathroom door, standing out starkly in the silent darkness.

Before she could get close, the door suddenly opened a crack, and Xie Mo's figure flashed out. He then quickly closed the door behind him, pressed himself against it, and looked flustered.

He blocked the door, his small frame filled with resistance, refusing to let Jiang Minghua in. She frowned slightly, her tone carrying a hint of feigned anger:

"Xie Mo, open the door. This is my home. If you don't want to be kicked out..."

Before she could finish speaking, Xie Mo opened the door shakily, stood to the side with his head down, like a child who had done something wrong and was waiting to be punished.

Just then, a broken, muffled murmur, filled with suppressed pain, came from the direction of the bathhouse. Jiang Minghua looked in the direction of the sound and involuntarily held her breath.

Xie Yan leaned against the large bathtub, wearing only a thin white shirt. The gentle ripples of the water softly lifted him up, the fabric of his shirt becoming almost transparent as it clung to his slender frame.

His eyes were closed, and fine droplets of water clung to his long eyelashes, trembling gently with his weak breathing. His pink hair clung wetly to his forehead and cheeks, making his skin appear even paler, almost revealing the pale blue veins beneath.

Jiang Minghua could tell at a glance that Xie Yan was not in a good condition. She reached out and touched his forehead, and found it was burning hot.

Xie Yan was delirious with fever at this point. Just as Jiang Minghua was about to pull her hand away, he grabbed it, like a dying fish desperately trying to draw oxygen.

He pressed her hand tightly against his cheek, then looked up at her with his misty, wet eyes:

"Minghua, you are so good to me. Without you, I would definitely die."

Then he fell asleep again, but his hand was still tightly gripping Jiang Minghua.

Jiang Minghua: !

This villain is not only illiterate, but also has psychological problems. Why does he keep threatening to die and self-harm?

Jiang Minghua decided to hire a psychologist for Xie Yan once he was almost fully recovered.

Jiang Minghua pulled her hand out, took out a blanket, wrapped it around the part of him that was not in the water, turned around and went out to call her family medical team, asking them to come over right now.

No sooner had Jiang Minghua left than Xie Yan, who was in the water, began to smoke, his face filled with pain and despair. He habitually bit his lower lip to keep himself from crying out, as if he had experienced this pain hundreds of times before.

Xie Mo knelt by the bathtub, his eyes filled with anxiety and worry, yet he kept glancing towards the door, as if worried that Jiang Minghua might suddenly return.

A short while later, the blanket draped over Xie Yan floated on the water, and Xie Yan disappeared without a trace.

Xie Mo lay on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the water for a while. When he saw a pink shadow, he quickly pulled it out of the water and hurriedly left with his brother.

His brother once said that if people discovered he could turn into a seahorse, he would definitely be treated as a monster.

He will protect his brother. He can do it. He has protected his brother several times in the Xie family before, and he will definitely do it this time as well.

But where could he go? Besides Minghua's house, the only other option was to go back to the Xie family.

When Jiang Minghua returned after making the phone call, she only saw an empty bathroom; the two brothers were nowhere to be seen.

Is Xie Yan alright?

When Xie Mo appeared at the Xie family gate, the butler frowned. His first reaction was to drive the little mute away, but remembering that the head of the family had said that the two brothers were still of some value to the Xie family, he opened the iron gate and let him in.

As soon as Xie Mo entered, he quickly ran towards the small attic where they were staying.

Xie Family Laboratory.

"Manager, look at this!"

A researcher pointed to the surveillance footage on the screen, his voice trembling with excitement. They had secretly installed a pinhole camera in Xie Yan's room while he was away. In the footage, Xie Mo placed a small pink seahorse on Xie Yan's bed. Shortly after, the seahorse began to smoke, accompanied by a suppressed, painful roar. Then, the seahorse disappeared from the bed, replaced by Xie Yan himself.

"Hippocampus Genetics! He succeeded! We succeeded!"

The supervisor's eyes gleamed with an almost fanatical scientific fervor and greed.

"Immediately! Bring him here! This is the perfect living specimen; we must immediately conduct an in-depth anatomical study to thoroughly unravel the secrets of his genetic stability!"

After Xie Yan woke up, he immediately saw Xie Mo by his bedside. He had a weak smile on his lips and reached out to rub Xie Mo's head. Before he could praise Xie Mo for doing a good job, the door to the room was kicked open with force, and five or six researchers in white coats and full protective gear entered.

Upon seeing this, Xie Yan's pupils contracted sharply, and his body trembled uncontrollably. Were they here to conduct experiments on him again? Xie Yan thought he could endure the pain of experiments indefinitely, but the warmth he felt with Jiang Minghua made him never want to return to the darkness and suffering.

He hugged his younger brother tightly and refused for the first time.

"I don't want to, Jiang Minghua doesn't agree."

He expressed his thoughts in a hoarse voice. To his surprise, the leader scoffed and looked at Xie Yan with an arrogant disdain for trash. Xie Yan's thoughts were of no importance to him. With a wave of his hand, amidst Xie Mo's desperate cries and struggles, he injected a powerful sedative into the violently struggling and terrified Xie Yan. Then, like dragging an animal, he forcibly took him back to the core laboratory of Xie's Biotechnology.

The cold operating lights came on, casting a chilling glow on the operating table. Xie Yan was firmly restrained by straps, his consciousness blurred by the medication, but his body instinctively sensed the extreme danger and trembled slightly.

He stared wide-eyed as the scalpel fell, the indescribable, intense pain causing him to utter incoherent hoarse sounds. His eyeballs bulged outwards from the extreme agony, blood vessels rapidly spreading across them.

The scalpel slowly dissected his flesh, exploring the secrets within his body. Each cut was accompanied by excruciating pain, like being slowly sliced ​​to death. His empty eyes were wide open, and he was acutely aware of being dissected bit by bit. In agony, he once again faced his death.

After the surgery, the supervisor held Xie Yan's heart, which still seemed to retain a little warmth, and a wild, satisfied laugh spread across his face. They carefully collected the last drop of blood from Xie Yan's body, sorted each organ, and preserved them perfectly in cold containers.

However, shortly after this surgery, another strange thing happened:

The person in charge of this live dissection project suffered a sudden brake failure on his way home, causing his vehicle to plunge off a bridge and leaving no trace of his body.

The lead researcher in charge of the surgery died suddenly in his own closed bedroom from an unprecedented neurotoxin, his death extremely painful.

Following this, the core members involved in the project encountered a series of "accidents": acute organ failure, mysterious drowning in a shallow pool, and even the inexplicable leakage and contamination of precious laboratory samples...

In just a few days, all those directly involved in the forced removal and planned autopsy of Xie Yan died violent deaths, with all sorts of bizarre causes.

Xie Yan, who died in agony from the dissection, was miraculously resurrected and lay peacefully on his bed, only now in the form of a seahorse.

The Xie family was shrouded in immense fear. They were forced to believe once again in the curse upon Xie Yan: anyone who had harmed him would ultimately meet a terrible end.

Because of this curse, they dared not keep him any longer, lest he bring utter destruction to the Xie family.

"Get rid of him and send him to Auction House D."

The Xie family patriarch, his face grim, ordered, "They don't care about background, they only care about money. This way, we can get rid of this hot potato completely and make one last profit. As for whether he lives or dies, that's none of our business anymore!"

So, the pink seahorse, still unconscious, was secretly moved and sent to the D Auction House, a famous underground auction house that specializes in auctioning all kinds of special items.