“Everything is loud, Zhi’er,” Xinyuan murmured, voice low. “It’s only quiet when you touch me.”

°°

In his past life, Shen Ran was a hitman forced into the underworld by crushing debt after borrowing money to pay for his mother’s cancer treatment. Even after years of bloodshed, it wasn’t enough. She died anyway.

On the night of his final job, just as he thought he would finally be free, Shen Ran was betrayed and shot in the head by his own boss.

He expected death.

Instead, he woke up in the body of Lin Wenzhi.

A minor, forgettable character in a guideverse BL novel he had read the night before.

A cannon fodder.

A B-rank guide who appeared only three times and died the third.

In this world, rifts tear open the sky, monsters pour through, and humanity survives through Espers and Guides. But the story doesn’t end in salvation.

It ends in destruction.

Because the male lead, a Disaster-Class Esper, eventually loses control and wipes out the entire universe.

Knowing this, Shen Ran makes a simple decision.

As Lin Wenzhi, he will stay out of the plot, avoid the main characters drama, and live quietly for as long as possible.

Eat. Sleep. Work less.

Survive.

Unfortunately, fate has other plans.

During a compatibility test, Lin Wenzhi is matched with the most dangerous Esper alive. Shao Xinyuan.

Compatibility: 107%.

The original protagonist’s compatibility? 97%.

Which should have been enough.

But Shao Xinyuan doesn’t care.

He chooses Lin Wenzhi.

Now, the cannon fodder who wanted nothing to do with the story is bound to the man destined to destroy it.

And worse, Shao Xinyuan isn’t letting him go.

*****

Cover created by KiXxX

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Duan Ze asked as Wenzhi recorded the shelter, capturing the overcrowding, the exhausted staff, the reality hidden from the polished cities.


"There are reporters who've tried to expose places like this," Duan Ze continued quietly. "Their reports never make it out."


"Too bad I'm not a reporter," he said dryly. "If every shelter near a red zone looks like this, then they should be building more of them. Bigger ones. Not wasting resources on pointless experiments."


Duan Ze smiled faintly. "You really don't care about breaking the law, do you?"


Wenzhi scoffed. "What do you mean? I've always been a lawbreaker."


Wenzhi ignored that. "I need a computer."


While the others followed the military commander deeper inside, Wenzhi approached a passing female soldier.


She paused, eyeing him carefully. "That depends. What for?"


Chapter 38 - Damned Secrets