*Bai Ning's POV after leaving the room*
The click of the door behind me sounded like a bone snapping.
My smile evaporated.
I stood still in the hallway for a moment, my hand still resting on the doorknob, feeling the echo of that moment — his scent on my skin, the taste of his hesitant gaze, the way his eyes trailed down my body as I turned to leave.
Ah, Ryuu.
You thought I didn't notice, didn't you?
His heart was racing. His pupils dilated. His breath caught in his throat.
I saw it.
I always see.
He is so afraid that I'll see his true thoughts, and yet, he can never hide them completely from me.
It's adorable. It's exasperating. It's... exciting.
But now was not the time for that.
I turned on my heels and began walking down the white, sterile corridor. My heels echoed in the silence like the ticking of a clock, marking each step with mechanical precision.
The soldiers were positioned exactly where I had left them. Three men in dark suits, standing like statues in front of the elevator door. Their eyes turned to me the moment I approached.
I did not slow my pace.
"Reinforce surveillance in this sector."
My voice came out cold, stripped of any warmth I had used with Ryuu seconds earlier.
"No one enters. No one leaves. Any attempt to approach that room is to be intercepted with lethal force. Understood?"
"Yes, Madam Bai," they replied in unison.
I passed them without looking back.
There was no need for further words. They knew the price of failure. I had carved that price into their minds myself years ago.
This hospital belonged to the Gu family, yes.
Gu Sheng boasted about his little medical empire, his cutting-edge technology, his absolute control over the institution.
Watching him brag about his achievements was as entertaining as a circus monkey's performance.
But in some way, he also bothered me... although I myself didn't know why.
The elevator doors opened with a soft sound, and I stepped into the mirrored chamber. The cold metal creaked faintly beneath my feet as the elevator began its descent, and for the first time in hours, I was truly alone.
Alone with my thoughts.
I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the elevator's dull hum fill the silence. My mind, freed from Ryuu's immediate demands, turned to what had pulled me out of the room in the first place.
The call.
I had been sitting beside his bed, watching his chest rise and fall in the rhythm of induced sleep, when my communicator vibrated. I answered immediately, stepping into the corner of the room so as not to disturb him.
"Madam Bai," the laboratory director's voice was trembling. "We have a situation."
"Situation" was the word my subordinates used when they meant "problem," but were afraid of irritating me with the term.
"Speak."
"It's Subject 7, ma'am. He is... he is trying to escape."
I tightened my grip on the communicator.
"Escape?"
"He's throwing himself against the walls of the cell, ma'am. Repeatedly. We don't know what triggered it — he was stable, the tests showed nothing abnormal, and then suddenly, he started to—"
The director's voice cut out for a moment, replaced by the muffled sound of something heavy colliding against metal.
BANG.
The sound reverberated through the communicator, and I felt my fingers twitch.
"Was that him?" I asked, my voice dangerously calm.
"Yes, ma'am. He's been doing this for hours. We tried to restrain him, but—"
"But what?"
"He broke the restraints, ma'am. Tore the straps like they were paper. Now he's hurling himself against the west wall, repeatedly, without stopping. We fear he might... injure himself."
BANG.
Another impact, louder this time.
I closed my eyes, massaging the bridge of my nose.
Fool.
Fool, fool, fool.
The walls of those cells were made of steel reinforced with SRL V26. Singularity Reactive Liquid — my pride, my creation, the substance scientists had extracted from the primordial sludge expelled by the singularity itself.
A material that bonded with matter at the atomic level, reinforcing it in ways that defied conventional physics. And Version 26, developed specifically for containment, had a particular affinity with metals.
It was far more likely that Subject 7's bones would turn to dust than for those walls to give even a millimeter.
"Let him," I finally said.
"Ma'am?"
"Let him continue. If he wants to break his own bones against steel, let him. Perhaps the pain will help him remember his place."
The director hesitated.
"But ma'am... if he dies..."
"He won't die." My voice cut through the air like a blade. "Subject 7 has my blood. My cells. My resilience. He may break, but he will not fall apart so easily. And if he is so determined to destroy himself, then perhaps I overestimated his usefulness."
BANG.
The silence on the other end of the line was heavy, laden with fear.
I should have ended the call there. I should have given the final order and turned my attention back to Ryuu, who slept so peacefully just a few meters away.
But I didn't.
Because there was something about that situation that bothered me.
Not the escape attempt itself — that was expected. All my experiments went through phases of rebellion. It was natural. They had my blood, my strength, but not my mind. They were children in monstrous bodies, trying to understand limits they could not comprehend.
What bothered me was something else.
The timing.
Why now?
Why, after months of stability, did Subject 7 decide to rebel exactly when Ryuu was waking up? Exactly when Bai Xue was imprisoned? Exactly when everything was converging to a critical point?
I did not believe in coincidences.
"Director," my voice came out lower, more calculated. "Increase security in the laboratory. Triple surveillance in all cells. I want hourly reports on the condition of every subject."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And cancel physical containment. If Subject 7 wants to throw himself against the walls, let him. But prepare a medical team for when he finally collapses. I don't want him to die before I understand what triggered this."
"Understood, ma'am."
I was about to end the call when an idea surfaced, and I changed my mind.
No.
Canceling containment was not enough.
Increasing surveillance was not enough.
This was one of my children — one of the few who carried my blood, my genetics, my perfection. If he was behaving like a misbehaving child, then it was my duty, as his mother, to discipline him personally.
After all, I was a good mother.
The best mother.
All my children — Ryuu, Xue, Yue, and even the experiments in the laboratory — all of them owed me their existence. I had created them, shaped them, given them the gift of life. And a mother who does not discipline her children is a negligent mother.
Yes.
I would go to the laboratory.
Personally.
"Director," I said, and my voice now carried a tone of anticipation. "Prepare the Discipline Chamber. I will visit Subject 7 today."
"Ma'am? Is that really necessary? We can handle—"
"I did not ask for your opinion."
Silence returned.
"Prepare the chamber. I will arrive in a few hours."
"Yes, ma'am."
I ended the call and slipped the communicator into the pocket of my dress.
The elevator continued its descent, its soft hum filling the air.
I let the memory of the call dissipate slowly, like smoke in the wind, and my thoughts naturally drifted to something far more pleasant.
Ryuu.
An involuntary smile curved my lips.
Whatever he was hiding from me today — and he was hiding something, of that I was certain — there was something different about his behavior. Something more... open. More vulnerable.
"Aren't you uncomfortable with him?"
His question echoed in my mind, and I almost laughed out loud.
My little son, worried about his mommy's comfort.
So sweet.
So precious.
I knew he still resisted me on some level. I could feel it in the slight tremors of his body when I touched him, in the way his breathing changed when I got too close. He still didn't fully understand. Still didn't fully accept.
But today...
Today he looked at me.
Not with fear, not with disgust — or at least, not only that.
There was something else in those eyes. A spark of... curiosity, perhaps. Or desire.
Yes, there was definitely desire there, mixed with fear.
He was beginning to understand. Beginning to accept that his place was by my side, under my care, under my protection. Beginning to realize that no one in the world would love him the way I loved him.
"He's being honest with himself," I murmured to the elevator mirror, and the thought filled me with such deep satisfaction that it almost made me dizzy.
As a reward, I planned something special.
Something he would never forget.
The image formed in my mind, vivid and delicious: me entering the hospital room dressed as a nurse — but not one of those functional, dull outfits real professionals wore. No. Mine would be special.
The white fabric, tight, hugging every curve of my body like a second skin. The generous neckline, emphasizing the fullness of my chest. The short skirt, so short it would barely cover my thighs, revealing just enough to inflame the imagination.
And with every step I took, Ryuu would look at me.
He would try to avert his gaze, of course. My little son was so shy, so easily embarrassed. But his eyes would betray his desire. They would trail down my body, following every movement, every sway, every inch of exposed skin.
And I...
I would savor every second.
I felt a blush rise to my cheeks, a bubbling excitement that made my heart race. The idea of displaying myself for him, of seeing him blush and stammer, of feeling his eyes on me — it was almost as good as touch itself.
"You're going to look so beautiful when you see me, Ryuu," I whispered to my reflection, as if he could hear me through the glass. "So flustered... so excited... so mine."
I pressed my thighs together, feeling the dampness already beginning to gather there.
But there was more.
I wouldn't just go to the laboratory to discipline Subject 7. Since I would already be there — so close to the containment wing where Bai Xue was imprisoned — I would pay a small visit.
After all, what is a mother without the habit of checking on all her children?
The smile that crossed my lips now was different. Sharper. Darker.
Ah, Xue.
My sweet, foolish, pathetic daughter.
I had news for her. Wonderful news about Ryuu — about how well he was adapting to my care, how he responded to my touch, how he was finally letting go of that childish resistance.
I wanted to see her face as I spoke.
I wanted to see her eyes fill with tears.
I wanted to watch her break, piece by piece, as I described every detail of what I did to him. Every sound he made. Every time his body yielded to my touch. Every time he forgot she existed.
That's what I wanted.
Not just to defeat her.
Not just to imprison her.
I wanted to crush her.
Completely. Irrevocably. Until nothing remained but an empty shell, a pathetic ghost of the woman she once was.
Because she needed to learn.
Needed to understand that no one — NO ONE — touched what was mine.
But more than that, I needed to prove a point.
What point?
The question floated through my mind, and I let it linger there, unanswered. Because the answer was there, deep down, buried beneath layers of unshakable certainty. But I didn't need to articulate it now.
What mattered was the result.
Xue would be destroyed.
Ryuu would be mine.
And the world would finally bend to the natural order of things — the order I had established, cultivated, and protected with every fiber of my being.
The elevator let out a soft sound, announcing its arrival at the basement.
But before the doors opened, I turned to the full-length mirror lining the cabin wall.
My reflection stared back at me.
And I froze.
Because my eyes were not Bai Ning's eyes.
They were two spheres of absolute darkness, without iris, without sclera, without anything but a black so deep it seemed to swallow the light around it. And on my scalp — the roots of my hair were stained with a sickly black, as if the darkness from my eyes was leaking outward, staining my skin.
I pressed my lips together.
This always happened when I lost control. When the emotions I kept so carefully sealed began to leak, like cracks in a porcelain dam. The facade crumbled, and what remained was... this.
The real me... or what was left of it.
"This wretched semblance..."
I closed my eyes and brought my hands to my face, rubbing my eyelids with my fingertips. Once, twice, three times.
"Control yourself," I whispered to myself. "Control yourself."
When I opened my eyes again and lifted my gaze to the mirror, the woman staring back at me was Bai Ning.
Eyes as blue as a spring morning sky — clear, crystalline, infinite. They did not reflect light; they generated it, as if each iris were a miniature sun trapped in human form.
Hair as golden as the first light of dawn, cascading over my shoulders in soft waves that shimmered even under the elevator's artificial lighting. Each strand was a ray of sunlight woven into silk.
My lips — ah, my lips were lotus petals, soft and pink, slightly parted as if always on the verge of whispering a secret. The curve of my neck was the arch of a swan, elegant and elongated, inviting touch.
My body was a landscape of curves and valleys, each contour shaped with the precision of a divine artist. The full breasts that defied gravity, the waist that tapered like the stem of a flower, the hips that widened in a promise of fertility and power.
My legs were columns of polished marble, long and sculpted, ending in delicate ankles that supported the whole with innate grace.
I was perfection incarnate.
I was the masterpiece my father had spent his life trying to create.
I was the goddess who walked among mortals, untouched by time, immune to decay.
And they — all of them — were nothing more than worshippers at my feet.
But Ryuu... Ryuu was different. He was my offering. My most precious treasure.
And I would keep him safe, protected, and loved, even if the entire world had to burn for it.
The mirror reflected my smile — a smile as perfect as the rest of me, white, aligned teeth, lips curved at the exact angle of maternal benevolence.
"I truly am a perfect mother."
*End of POV*