Chapter 82

Chapter 82: The Only Master

At the end of Heaven’s Edge, two men in silver tech suits stood facing a vast, suspended projection of a small world.

One wore a half mask. The air around him churned with unstable energy, as if his restraint had already been dragged to the breaking point. Behind him, a silver-haired man seized his arm, holding him back—barely keeping the storm inside him from exploding outward.

“Are you insane?” the masked man snarled, voice rough with violence. “Do you have any idea you almost let her discover you just now?”

The silver-haired man didn’t flinch. His gaze remained fixed on the scene that had just unfolded—moonlight, a sofa, a woman leaning over a sleeping man as if he belonged there.

“When you let her leave,” he said evenly, “you should’ve expected things would end up like this.”

The masked man’s shoulders went rigid.

Their eyes—cold, inhumanly clear—seemed to still be trapped on the intimate moment they’d witnessed.

The masked man lowered his head, his voice dropping into a hoarse murmur. “Yeah. I should’ve expected it.”

Regret threaded through the words. And something sharper beneath it—unwillingness.

She always handled missions cleanly. Efficiently. Never dragging them out.

A mission was a mission. She never poured in a scrap of emotion that didn’t belong.

You could even say she completed missions the way a blade cut—without hesitation, without mercy.

And later, when she grew bored, she decided to destroy the Quick-Transmigration Bureau.

That was her—wearing a thousand faces, never once belonging to any of them.

“Either you take her away right now,” the silver-haired man said, voice calm as an ancient bell, “or you let her be reborn and start her own life.”

He paused, and the words that followed sounded less like advice and more like a law.

“You should understand—she was destined, from the very beginning, to belong only to herself. No one can interfere with her decision.”

She didn’t belong to the Quick-Transmigration Bureau.

And she didn’t belong to—

The masked man drew the surging energy back into his body. The storm receded. Silence returned.

In the end, he didn’t say another word. He simply vanished into the night like a blade swallowed by darkness.

The silver-haired man turned.

In the air nearby, Little Tabby Cat’s virtual form hovered, trembling so hard its outline flickered. A moment ago, it had truly thought it would be erased under that berserk pressure.

The silver-haired man’s gaze fell on it.

“001,” he said. “From now on, you don’t need to send any news about her back to headquarters.”

Little Tabby Cat’s breath stuttered.

“Follow her well,” the silver-haired man continued, tone steady and absolute. “From now on, your master is her.”

Little Tabby Cat shook, its mind blanking. “Elder, you—”

The silver-haired man nodded once. “Yes.”

His voice softened, not with weakness but with inevitability—like an ancient prayer spoken into an endless sky.

“Your master is only one person. Her.”

Originally, it belonged to her.

The silver-haired man lifted his eyes to the distant skyline of tall buildings, the small world glowing in the projection. For the first time, something like emotion—quiet and restrained—passed through his gaze.

“A Yan,” he said softly, “in the future… it’s up to you.”

Then he, too, disappeared beneath the night sky.

Little Tabby Cat remained suspended there, staring blankly at the small world in the distance.

Its entire existence felt like it was swaying on the edge of collapse.

—

At the horizon, pale fish-belly white bled into the sky. Dawn lifted the veil of night, spilling bright morning clouds across the world. A beam of sunlight slid into the room like a thin golden thread.

The morning breeze carried a faint coolness as it slipped through the gap in the window. White curtains fluttered wildly, bright and restless in the golden light.

The man on the sofa raised a hand to press against his eyelids. His brows drew together, a tight line of fatigue and pain.

After a long moment, he opened a pair of beautiful phoenix eyes.

Fu Yan Shi sat up and leaned back against the sofa, studying the room with a cold, careful gaze.

This apartment was a standard two-bedroom, not very large. Yet everywhere he looked, there were glittering things—so bright they were almost blinding.

The entryway cabinet and the door were covered in mirror surfaces. Tiny sparkly pieces were pasted in rings around the edges like excessive jewelry.

In the living room, a huge full-length mirror stood like a silent witness.

An entire wall had been turned into a transparent 3D display cabinet, filled with handbags, shoes, jewelry—objects arranged with the precision of a showroom.

Mirrors. Glitter. Shine.

And yet, the feeling of actual living was strangely thin.

The whole place felt less like a home and more like an exhibit: beautiful, polished, and cold, with no warmth in it at all.

The only trace of real life was out on the balcony beyond the living room, where a pothos sat in a pot. Its lush green leaves looked vivid in the sunlight, as if they were the only thing in this space that breathed.

The vines swayed gently in the breeze, dancing as if happy.

“Awake?” a light voice asked behind him—soft, slightly seductive.