Shadow Hunter

Ding--

As the shop door was pushed open, a gentle female voice sounded.

"Welcome."

Simultaneously, a beautiful face appeared on both doors: big, wavy blonde hair, bright red lips, a twinkling smile, and an exuberant sweetness.

But the person who entered didn't spare the beautiful face a second glance. Instead, they frowned and yelled towards the counter, "Xilin, tell Old Daiwen to change this face. How many years has it been!"

The young man busy with a wine bottle behind the counter shrugged, "Can't be helped, the boss likes it."

"Forget it, getting Old Daiwen to change the welcome video is harder than getting him to quit gambling," some people in the bar chimed in, laughing loudly.

As the dream lover of men across the planet thirty years ago, the face on the door had indeed captivated many. Time was the most brutal killer; beauty fades. However, before this killer could act, the beautiful singer, the screen lover, perished due to a failed gene alteration. In the first decade, many still kept holographic images, electronic posters, and the like of this beautiful singer in their rooms. But thirty years had passed. Tides had ebbed and flowed, and beauty had vanished like smoke. Emerging allure had drowned out the beauty of the past, and few were willing to revisit fantasies that no longer existed.

Of course, the owner of this bar, Old Daiwen, was a sentimental person. Even after thirty years, he still kept the image of this beautiful singer in the bar's welcome screen. Thirty years, unchanged, and this was one of the topics customers often discussed.

The newcomer pursed their lips, seemingly disapproving of the owner's actions. They couldn't be bothered to say more and walked to an empty seat at a table. Surrounded by familiar faces, they soon started chatting without ordering anything.

Xilin, the young man at the counter, took a bottle of wine named "Smile Under The Scorching Sun" from the wine cabinet, placed it on the newcomer's table, opened the cap, and then left to get wine for other customers.

Without any extra words, the newcomer continued chatting with the people around them, holding the uncorked wine bottle and taking a swig.

"Ha, this is the stuff! Spicy and satisfying!"

Xilin smiled and returned to the counter, recording the accounts in his Electronic Notebook.

This bar was ordinary, and the town was ordinary. Most of the patrons were common folk. In the words of those from the central city, they were "lower class," or even more offensively, "scum."

Scum had their own kind of happiness. They enjoyed sitting in bars served by human labor instead of high-end Robots, drinking cheap but potent wine, discussing the day's events with familiar drinking buddies, complaining about their oppressive superiors, and gossiping about the latest rumors. It was simple and good.

The "high-class" people in the prosperous areas couldn't understand the happiness of these poor people. It was like successful individuals in exquisite clothing, rushing along the path of money and power, occasionally passing a ruin and seeing a stray cat excitedly swatting at flies. They would think: How bored must one be to do such a thing? Truly a lowly life.

What is lowly? What is noble?

The Seven Yuan Gene Level divided everything. Inferior genes, inferior people; superior genes, superior people. That's all.

Everyone in the bar, including Xilin, was an F-class Gene Type. On this planet, they were classified as the lower poor. E-class Gene Type individuals were granted opportunities to work in the prosperous areas, while D-class and above could truly establish themselves there.

As for G-class, they were the most tragic. Innate genetic inferiority and defects led to diseases that simple treatment couldn't cure, such as severe deformities, premature aging, and other congenital illnesses. Xilin's former girlfriend, Hena, was a G-class Gene Type. Premature aging, congenital diseases, and poverty meant the lovely girl never got to experience the best years of her youth.

Offspring of superior genes and superior gene types would not be bad, even better. Offspring of inferior and inferior gene types were the opposite. The polarization became increasingly severe, leading more low-class gene types to attempt gene alteration. However, few succeeded. Besides the enormous financial cost, the success rate of gene alteration was extremely low, becoming harder the higher one went. This was the reason for the arrogance of those with high-class genes. And thirty years ago, that screen heartthrob became history due to a failed gene alteration...

Humans are destined to be unequal from birth, but habit makes people numb.

"Hey, Xilin, Old Daiwen hasn't shown up for days. Is he back from his blind date yet?" someone shouted.

"Yeah, the success rate should be pretty high this time," Xilin replied with a smile.

"Tsk—" The crowd was dismissive and began to recount Old Daiwen's failed blind date history.

Xilin just listened with a smile, offering no opinion. He hadn't told them that Old Daiwen had actually won the lottery, become rich overnight, and was pursuing his dream.

Old Daiwen's dream was to find a woman with an E-class Gene Type, not too young and not too old, retrieve the sperm he had stored in a sperm bank years ago, and ideally have a child with an E-class gene. Then, he'd open a small shop in the city and live a stable life. As long as he had money, finding a woman with an E-class Gene Type wouldn't be a problem, even if Old Daiwen himself was a lower-tier F-class gene.

The annual water, land, and air triple-threat competition was an event the entire planet paid special attention to, and it was also the most anticipated by gamblers. The stakes were high, and even if bets weren't perfectly accurate, reaching a certain standard could make the poor rich overnight. It was precisely by winning the grand prize of this competition that Old Daiwen was able to escape his impoverished status.

Of course, Old Daiwen's ability to win this prize was largely thanks to Xilin. Every time Old Daiwen placed a bet, he would ask Xilin before daring to wager.

Although Old Daiwen was greedy for money, he treated Xilin very well; otherwise, Xilin wouldn't have helped him. Moreover, Old Daiwen had already transferred Xilin's share of the prize money that same day.

As night deepened, the guests gradually left.

Xilin took a shower, changed his clothes, sprayed a special potion to remove other scents, and then locked the shop door. He looked up at the black sky, where small points of light, like starlight, flickered.

The weather forecast predicted continuous moderate rain starting at midnight for one hour, and there were still forty minutes until midnight.

Forty minutes... that was enough.

Thirty minutes later, Xilin, using the cover of protruding eaves and external awnings, descended to a factory district. He skillfully and adeptly bypassed the outer scans, took out a pre-prepared magnetic card, opened the main gate, and silently infiltrated an employee dormitory next to a warehouse. After all, this wasn't the city center, and the Defense System in such a small place wasn't sophisticated or complex.

The person lying on the bed seemed to sense something, but before he could act, he lost consciousness, as if falling back into a deep sleep. However, on the back of his ear and at a certain spot on his neck, hidden by hair, three pitch-black fine needles were silently inserted.

Xilin's hand swept lightly, retracting the needles. After confirming that no other traces were left, he left, just as before, under the cover of the eaves and awnings.

There were "Sky Eyes" in the sky, and thermal weapons would be detected by the local detection network. To resolve matters secretly and without a trace, only primitive methods could be used, as they had no energy fluctuations.

As a Hunter, Xilin's path could be considered difficult. Due to his age and Gene Type, he couldn't become an openly recognized Hunter. More accurately, Xilin was a Shadow Hunter. The term "Shadow Hunter" referred to those who cooperated with Hunters but operated in the shadows, with sensitive identities that couldn't see the light.

From the age of 14 until now, Xilin had been a Shadow Hunter for nearly three years. He initially chose to become a Hunter for Hena's illness. After Hena passed away, Xilin continued this profession. This was because a large amount of money was needed to leave this planet safely.

Five minutes after Xilin left, another shadow infiltrated and carried away the person Xilin had already dealt with, to claim the bounty and split it.

In their nearly three years of cooperation, that Hunter had never known the identity of the "Shadow." Of course, the Hunter didn't care; as long as the prey could be successfully captured and the bounty claimed, nothing else mattered. Xilin also believed that the Hunter he chose wouldn't bother putting much effort into investigating the "Shadow's" identity. This was because before choosing a cooperation target, Xilin had painstakingly analyzed various possibilities from multiple perspectives.

For some Hunters who weren't entirely Qualified, without "Shadows," they couldn't complete missions or earn money; instead, they would lose their lives. Therefore, to some extent, these Hunters and Shadows were in a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship. As for top-tier Hunters, they didn't need Shadows at all. Of course, Hunter groups were an exception; they were a special kind of existence.

That Hunter would never have imagined that the "Shadow" he was cooperating with, who had a D-class Gene Type, was actually only F-class. No one would believe it if it were told.

At midnight, a pattering sound began. Xilin sat in a derelict building, watching the increasingly large raindrops outside. The rainwater washed away Xilin's residual scent and subtle traces, which was one of the reasons Xilin chose to act at this time.

Xilin didn't know what natural raindrops looked like; he had only seen them on television. They didn't exist on this planet. There were only precisely controlled weather patterns from meteorological stations, simulated sunlight intensity, and simulated wind, rain, thunder, and lightning. Everything was artificial.

A gust of wind blew through the cracked walls, and Xilin smelled the scent of cement and waste mine slag. In addition to that, there was a surprisingly familiar scent...

Xilin's eyebrows twitched. He carefully distinguished the scent in the wind and, upon confirmation, his expression became peculiar. He hadn't expected that in this era, someone would still be using that.