Chapter 2

Ode’s heart skipped a beat, his mouth suddenly going dry.

Before he could muster any forceful clarification, Qian Ning—unable to keep his cool any longer—sucked in a sharp breath from the side. The look he shot Ode was pure horror. “You… you… you…”

Holy shit! I thought you were just some nobody a second ago, and now the government’s rolling out the SAS just to nab you?! Qian Ning’s face screamed it all. Even without telepathy, Ode could read Qian Ning’s thoughts plain as day on that eternally youthful, clear-eyed face of his.

Ode itched to roll his eyes, but he was genuinely afraid Qian Ning would misread the gesture as a hint to “look up.”

The next second, though, Qian Ning whipped his head around toward the SAS operatives behind him and blurted out something that left Ode utterly stunned. “I—I have to say, is there some kind of misunderstanding here? Ode isn’t the type to do bad things—I mean…” Qian Ning hurriedly tacked on some self-preservation, “he’s definitely got the chops for it, high-IQ crimes, financial scams, whatever… but I really don’t think he’d stoop that low! Look, back at school, I—uh…”

Qian Ning trailed off awkwardly, probably realizing his own history of failed bullying attempts wasn’t exactly shining armor material. Truth be told, it surprised Ode that Qian Ning had even clocked that much—from their earlier chat, Ode had pegged him as the type proud of picking on classmates. “I… I…”

Qian Ning racked his brain but couldn’t figure out how to sell “sure, we don’t get along and I hate the guy, but he’s actually a stand-up classmate.” Sweat beaded on his forehead. After a helpless moment, he instinctively glanced at Ode for backup. Those big blue eyes brimmed with pitiful hope, practically pleading: I know you’re innocent—jump in! Just like you always roast us, go off on these guys!

“…” Ode subtly averted his gaze.

This time, he was probably going to let Qian Ning down. He just didn’t have the confidence in his own innocence—not completely, anyway. He was certain he hadn’t broken any laws, but…

Qian Ning had asked about his back injury earlier in their chat, and Ode had dodged it on purpose. The truth was, he had no idea how it had happened.

He’d lost all memory from the afternoon of May 24th right up to the morning of June 2nd—a full seven days gone.

No way that would satisfy the SAS, but Ode didn’t panic. He kept his head pressed against the wall in a show of compliance and addressed the men behind him with clear, deliberate intent.

“You can search me. I’m not carrying any weapons. I’m no threat.”

“As long as you let me finish my business with Qian Ning, I’ll cooperate fully with whatever you need. Hell, you can stand right here and listen in on our conversation if you want—”

The operative holding Qian Ning snickered through his mask and turned to drag Qian Ning away, clearly suspecting they were in cahoots.

Ode quickened his words. “—Even if I were a terrorist, overhearing our intel swap would help your investigation, wouldn’t it?”

Truth be told, Ode didn’t care if they hauled him off. He wanted answers about those seven lost days himself. But first, he had to settle the matter of the family estate and Grandfather’s remains.

Qian Ning’s sluggish brain finally sparked for once. He jumped in eagerly. “Yeah, yeah! You can listen. It’s all legit business—totally above board, nothing shady—uh, but can I ask what Ode’s even accused of?”

He added hesitantly, “It’s kinda important for me deciding whether to take his offer… Financial fraud? …Uh, what other high-IQ crimes are there?”

As if the SAS would spill. These were elite soldiers, not cocktail party chatterboxes. Ode had just thought that when the operative holding Qian Ning let out a low chuckle, his English laced with a thick Egyptian accent. “Why not think in a scarier direction?”

“…!” Ode’s expression shifted in an instant, but Qian Ning’s brain chose that exact moment to short-circuit again. He didn’t even notice Ode’s pointed stare.

Eager to keep chatting with the SAS guy, Qian Ning latched on with a forced laugh. “Ode? This throwback still clinging to that medieval ‘Creed’ relic? What’s scarier than that—murder? Arson?”

The Egyptian-accented soldier laughed along, his tone mocking. “If the thing we’re tracking is really your buddy’s handiwork, you ought to count yourself lucky you’re still in one piece, schmoozing away—”

“They’re not SAS!!” Ode finally snapped. He bellowed at the top of his lungs, praying the whole office—hell, the entire bank—would hear. “Can’t you hear the accent?! SAS doesn’t chit-chat with targets! I’m warning you, I’m from the Douglas Family. I’ve inherited a viscountcy—mmph! Mmph!”

The man who’d come up behind him clamped a hand over his mouth, letting out a soft tsk. The sharp tang of cigar smoke flooded Ode’s nostrils.

In his struggles, Ode felt an eerie sensation—like the strength was being siphoned right out of his body. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if it was some knockout drug in the cigar or just another blood sugar crash.

His vision blurred uncontrollably. It was as if his body had sprung a leak, strength pouring out in a rush. Straining to keep his eyes open, he vaguely made out Qian Ning screaming in terror as he was roughly slammed onto the desk. The “soldier” pinning him jammed the muzzle of his submachine gun against Qian Ning’s head—

“No!!” A surge of defiance raced through Ode’s chest and bones. In a flash of returning clarity, he stomped down hard with the riveted heel of his dress shoe on the enemy’s foot. Mouth sealed by a fist, he bit down viciously into flesh.

“Hiss…” The man behind him inhaled sharply and released his grip.

Seizing his last shred of awareness, Ode roared—though his voice was so weak, he put everything into it just to be heard. “If you hurt anyone!! You’ll never get my cooperation!!”

His strength ebbed away completely. Darkness swallowed him whole.

“…” The office fell silent for a few seconds.

The Egyptian kept his gun trained on Qian Ning’s head, finger hovering over the trigger. He hesitated, then switched to his sandbag-sized fist instead, knocking the finally-aware-and-struggling hapless Qian Ning out cold with a solid “thunk.”

He slung the limp Qian Ning over his shoulder, then whistled at the unconscious Ode, eyeing his target with an odd mix of appreciation.

“Feisty one, this kid. First time I’ve seen someone last that long under your knockout brew—and still managing stomps and bites. Load him up with extra ‘shackles,’ Faust. I’m half-worried he’ll wake up and bolt midway.”

“—What’s the play now? We made too much noise. Cops’ll be here soon.”

The man called Faust rubbed the bloody bite mark on his hand with a huffing laugh. He sauntered to the window and shoved it open. Removing his cigar with one hand, he ignored the growing, murmuring crowd outside and tilted his head back, exhaling a thin veil of pale white smoke toward the sky.

“—”

The clear sky clouded over in an instant. A fierce gale whipped down the street, snapping branches that crashed onto nearby cars, setting off a cacophony of blaring horns.

By the time the cigar-chomping man pulled back inside, a torrential downpour had erupted, drenching the onlookers.

“Click…” He shut the window with elegant grace, sealing the misty rain—and the suddenly dazed, eerily silent crowd outside, frozen like hollow puppets—beyond the glass.

“I’ve wiped the bystanders’ memories. You lot—” Faust scooped up Ode with one arm and barked at his subordinates filing through the door. “Handle everyone inside the bank.”

“Leave the SAS op memory intact, but scrub every trace of the kid yelling about his ‘viscountcy’ and our ‘fake SAS’ disguise. Clean slate.”

He took a black umbrella from one of his men, popped it open, and strode into the devouring rain with Ode in tow. His team swiftly carried out the orders, weaving wordlessly through the bewildered masses before vanishing into the street moments later.

·

Ode had a dream.

In it, he was back to the age of toddling around the ancestral home in little dungarees and shiny patent leather shoes. But this time, he wasn’t scampering about. He was crouched outside the study door, butt sticking out, ear glued to the wood as he held his breath, straining to eavesdrop on his parents’ conversation.

“You’re insane?!” His father’s voice was sharp and agitated. “What were you thinking, taking a five-year-old to learn to shoot?!”

“I just wanted to teach him self-defense—”

“Thud!” His father slammed the desk, then muttered an embarrassed apology to the furniture before lowering his voice to his wife. “I get it—you love Ode, and so do I. But think about it: letting a child handle guns from the cradle, starting with live targets in the woods. What kind of man will he grow into?”

“He’ll treat pulling the trigger like it’s nothing. He’ll lose all reverence for life! While other kids cuddle kittens and fawns, he’ll be coldly scanning for vital points—and he might even get a thrill from taking lives!”

The little kid outside shivered. Ode knew his father had nailed it—that was exactly how he’d felt as a child, holding the pistol with his mother’s help and successfully dropping a rabbit.

His father went on. “I don’t want my son turning into that kind of monster—” The kid outside sniffled.

His mother scoffed. “Monster? Gordon next door goes to the Arctic every summer to hunt bears. You calling him a monster?”

“He is!” his father shot back, furious yet restrained, his words ringing with conviction. “If he didn’t hunt, would Gordon starve? No! He takes lives not for survival, but for kicks! Look at me, Marr. Tell me—is it reasonable to toy with other creatures’ lives for sport?”

His mother fell silent for a moment, her tone softening just a touch, though it remained as icy as ever. “I’d rather my child be the one taking lives than end up like the polar bear Gordon killed—skinned, stuffed, and put on display as a trophy.”

Adult Ode stared unblinkingly at the study door, for he still remembered what came next. The young version of himself would feel crushing guilt over his father’s words and his parents’ argument, then push the door open.

He held his breath, waiting one second… two seconds…

With a creak, the heavy oak door finally swung open—just as he’d hoped, just as he remembered—as his pint-sized younger self shoved it with all his might.

Ode strained his eyes wide, staring intently as his parents in the study turned toward the door with surprised looks.

He saw his mother in that orange floral dress with scattered yellow blooms—the one his father had helped him secretly sew for her that Christmas when he was five, hiding in the woods behind the manor. The stitches were a bit crooked, but the color glowed brilliantly in the sunlight, as if it had captured every bit of summer on the estate.

He saw his father with a neatly trimmed beard, the kind he groomed every morning, paired with a dark shirt and vest sans jacket—exactly the look his mother loved most.

“Ode—what are you doing here?”

The mother from his memory opened her arms to him. A few seconds passed before Ode, who had instinctively raised his own hand, realized she was reaching for his younger self.

All he could do was watch as the little kid who had pushed open the door pretended to be carefree, launching himself into his mother’s embrace. Then he twisted his head toward his father—who looked envious and jealous—and proudly wrinkled his nose, smugly boasting that he was the one his mother loved best.

“I don’t like playing with that heavy thing from this morning,” young Ode complained, holding out his little hands for his parents to see. “It hurt my hands! I want to play something else, Mommy, Mommy, teach me something else!”

His mother kept a straight face, as if she still wanted to persuade him otherwise, but in the end, she could only say helplessly, “What do you want to learn?”

Young Ode turned his head to the nearby bookshelf and randomly pulled one out. “This one!”

It was a book of political essays by Bertrand Russell.

Ode remembered.

In fact, the direction of his studies and career for the next decade or more had been set that very afternoon.

He watched without blinking as the parents from his memory began to play with the child. His mother tickled his soft belly, teasing, “Does that mean we’ll have a little prime minister in the family someday? Then Mommy will have to teach you how to be a good one.” His father chuckled lightly. “Even the predecessors sitting on Downing Street might not know the answer.” Then he scooped the boy up and buried his face in the child’s belly like he was nuzzling a cat’s tummy, wriggling around wildly.

…And then he woke up.

The jolting rumble of the vehicle seeped into his ears, while the cold leather seat pressed against his cheek. Ode’s throat ached fiercely, as if all the unshed tears had turned to razor blades lodged in it.

He didn’t open his eyes. Reason had already snapped back into place. The self-control honed from childhood let him keep his eyelids from twitching, maintaining the perfect pretense of unconsciousness.

But it was hard—agonizingly so. It took tremendous effort to keep his breathing steady despite the surge of emotions. Only after several seconds could he force himself to detach from the dream and focus on the urgent reality at hand.

He seemed to be lying sideways on the back seat of some sedan, which was currently bouncing over a stretch of terrible mountain road, jarring violently with every bump.

The hard leather cuffs chafed at his ankles and wrists, stinging a bit, but overall, it was better than Ode had feared. At least these lunatics masquerading as SAS troops hadn’t truly shackled him hand and foot.

A rustle of clothing came from the front seat as the fake SAS maniacs apparently changed out of their disguises.

During this, they chatted casually in accents from various countries, never imagining—or perhaps simply not caring—that a guy sprawled in the back who had planned to join the Foreign Office and spoke multiple languages fluently was listening.

“Why’d they pull everyone else away, leaving just us two to slog back to base like this… Hey! What about these SAS uniforms?”

“Burn ’em. Quickest and easiest way to dispose of them. Faust won’t mind—”

“He’s got no mood to weigh in! He’s pondering the meaning of life right now. Earlier, he ran a quick check on our feisty colt in the back seat with the portable scanner. Report says the guy’s been chronically malnourished. That recent faint might’ve been low blood sugar… or maybe just Faust’s knockout drug.”

“Huh? Malnourished? Isn’t this Ode Douglas a viscount or something? The Douglas Family wasn’t exactly destitute before Old Douglas died—starving their kids? …Speaking of which, why did the whole Douglas family business tank right after Old Douglas kicked the bucket? And what’s the deal with all the debts?”

“Ha, no clue. Noble family drama—not our business. Wait, what are you even focusing on? Damn! Didn’t you notice this guy just now was fighting Faust while tanking both low blood sugar and the knockout drug? …Uh… hold on. Thinking about it, shouldn’t we have tied him down tighter?”

Ode, who had been straining to eavesdrop in order to confirm Qian Ning wasn’t in the car, had just started to relax when this comment made him choke. He thought to himself that he wanted none of this “praise”—better to keep being treated like a useless bum.

Fortunately, the vehicle creaked to a halt with a sway just then. The two up front, debating whether to add more restraints to Ode, dropped their chatter. “Alright, home sweet hideout. You grab him from the back seat; I’ll fetch the coffin from the trunk. If we can’t beat ’em, we’ll steer clear—skirt around those church folks up ahead, yeah?”

Dong… The church bell tolled right at that moment, its resonant peals drifting into the car.

Ode counted carefully: nine chimes in all. It was already nine o’clock at night.

Less than five hours until the auction began.

…

His heart rate quickened. Forcing down the anxiety, he concentrated:

“Home sweet hideout”—did that mean this gang was heading into their base?

“Can’t beat ’em, steer clear, skirt around the church folks”… So these psychos did have some reservations—hell, even fear—of the church?

This might be his one shot at escape.

He wasn’t sure he could break out after being dragged into the enemy lair. The best play might be to bolt for the church and beg for help before they reached their hideout. It was his only hope.

“He’s so light,” someone said as they scooped up the patiently waiting Ode, chatting idly with their companion while climbing out of the car. “All that height for—Whoa!”

Ode’s eyes snapped open. He threw his arms around the neck of the man holding him, slamming his forehead viciously into the unprotected temple where the gas mask no longer shielded it.

As the man stiffened in pain, Ode leaped from his arms. He snatched the pistol from the enemy’s waistband on landing—not caring if he even remembered how to use it after so long—flipped off the safety with his finger, and squeezed the trigger right into the leather strap on his wrist.

He was a beat too slow.

The Tall Guy, traveling with his comrade, bellowed “Damn it!” and lunged, twisting Ode’s wrist to yank the gun away before slamming him to the ground.

…

Ode’s head hit the grass, drawing a pained grunt from him as physiological tears welled in his eyes. But he didn’t stop. He kicked at the Tall Guy while bellowing toward the church, “Help! Somebody help! They’re gonna set fire to the church!”

The shout rippled outward like a stone in a pond.

Lights flared instantly from the church direction. At the same time, the Tall Guy—who had been bearing down to pin Ode with his weight and arms—suddenly froze, staring dumbly at Ode’s face for some reason.

Ode didn’t pause to wonder why. He ripped the gun from the Tall Guy’s waistband, blasted the strap on his ankle, then kicked hard to shove the man off him.

His wrist throbbed agonizingly from the hot bullet and recoil, but Ode ignored the injury. With his one still-functional hand, he fired at the strap on his ankle: Bang!

The strap snapped.

He didn’t dare take a breath, scrambling to his feet and staggering toward the approaching church lights. “Help! Help! There are psychos trying to kill people—”