Foundation Exusiai, Containment Failure!

Meanwhile, the entire base's alarm system suddenly blared to life, its piercing buzz echoing through the corridors.

Rumble!

The ground began to tremble.

The Reality Stabilization Anchor readings on the surveillance screens fluctuated wildly. The once-stable values now shook violently, like the sea in a storm.

Manager Jin's earpiece was instantly filled with an urgent shout from the command center. "Manager Jin! What happened over there?! The reality stability index is plummeting!"

His throat was too dry to make a sound. He could only stare fixedly at the cake.

Creating something from nothing.

Conjuring matter out of thin air.

When she had produced a gun earlier, Jin Li had already sensed that something was off. He had assumed it was simply the entity's own ability.

But once the cake appeared, he understood everything.

There was no doubt about it. This was reality-warping.

Jin Li knew she possessed such an ability, but he had never expected it to be this powerful.

She had created this cake while resisting the Reality Stabilization Anchor of an entire large-scale facility!

It was worth mentioning that Xiao Huasheng had used 4% of her energy to make this cake.

The expenditure could be called enormous. After all, 4% of her energy was enough for her to unleash thousands of rounds of indiscriminate bombardment.

"You..." Jin Li's voice was almost squeezed out through clenched teeth. "You... never showed this ability before."

Xiao Huasheng tilted her head, looking completely innocent. "Huh? You never asked."

Jin Li's temples throbbed. The side effects of the memory-enhancement drug made his thoughts incomparably clear—Foundation had made an enormous mistake.

They had believed Xiao Huasheng was merely a dangerous entity who could run away and breach containment with ease, one they could deal with no matter what.

They had never considered... that her true ability was to rewrite reality itself.

"Huh? This cake is smaller than I expected?" Xiao Huasheng looked at the cake in confusion as she spoke to Jin Li.

The red-haired angel compared its size with her hands. Upon discovering that it was a full size smaller, her eyes filled with curiosity.

She could not understand why it had turned out this way.

As for Foundation's everyday rumbling earthquakes, she was already used to them. She thought there was simply some entity in Foundation that caused the place to shake two or three times a day.

"Level Three... no, it needs to be higher?" Jin Li bit his finger as he assessed Xiao Huasheng's classification.

A reality warper capable of making a cake despite a large facility's Reality Stabilization Anchor.

Her danger rating had already reached an utterly horrifying level.

But it was not over yet. After demonstrating her ability to create a cake for Jin Li,

Xiao Huasheng directly released one of the employees from her Lobotomy Corporation.

"Oh, right. I actually have the ability to store souls too... the souls of those unwilling to die will be stored with me. I can give them bodies as well, but the downside is that they are not truly resurrected. They must rely on me to survive," she explained as simply as possible.

To show her sincerity, she revealed another card.

Ku Tang, wearing the EGO Gear Angela had just made for her in Lobotomy Corporation.

She appeared in Foundation in a daze, standing before Jin Li.

"Ah!!"

The instant he saw her, Jin Li cried out and shot to his feet.

When Pandora's Box Opened, No One Was Spared

Ku Tang froze for a moment, then quickly understood that this was mentioned in her employee handbook.

External assignment!

During an external assignment, she needed to assist the Manager.

Any kind of help was required.

When she saw Xiao Huasheng, she quickly realized that this was part of the external assignment.

But then she saw Jin Li staring blankly at her.

She immediately replied in delight, "Manager!"

Then Ku Tang became somewhat hesitant.

She had clearly wanted to build a proper career in Lobotomy Corporation, yet she had barely changed jobs before returning to Foundation.

"Ku Tang didn't think she'd see you again so soon... though Ku Tang really missed you."

Ku Tang spoke happily.

After hesitating for a moment, she slowly walked over, then embraced Jin Li and smiled softly.

"Oh, right. I'm not with Foundation anymore, so I can call you that now, right? Father?"

Ku Tang held him as he blankly felt the warmth she brought him.

He felt that little head constantly nuzzling against his chest.

"Luckily, I still replaced you as Manager at Foundation for a while... that counts too, right?"

Out of habit, Jin Li wanted to slowly stroke her head.

But his hand reached out, then immediately withdrew.

Jin Li's hand hovered in midair, his fingertips trembling slightly.

Ku Tang's body heat came through her clothes. Her soft hair brushed against his chest, and the familiar scent of shampoo lingered at his nose.

Everything was so real—so real that it made him suffocate.

"This is impossible..."

A hoarse whisper rolled from his throat as his sanity fought madly against it.

This was Xiao Huasheng's trick, an illusion, a trap meant to torment him.

His daughter had long since died. She had died on that bloody night, in the mutilated body shown on the surveillance footage.

But...

Ku Tang lifted her head. Her eyes sparkled with confusion and expectation. "Father?"

Her voice was like a blunt knife, slowly and cruelly cutting open his heart.

Jin Li's breathing grew rapid. His pupils shrank, and veins bulged at his temples.

He should have pushed her away. He should have roared and torn apart this false illusion. He should have taken the cruelest possible revenge on Xiao Huasheng...

Yet his hand moved beyond his control, slowly, tremblingly, to rest on Ku Tang's head.

He felt warmth.

In that instant, his world spun.

"Ku Tang..."

His voice was shattered beyond recognition. His eyes burned, and his vision blurred.

Noticing something was wrong, Ku Tang anxiously reached up to wipe away his tears. "Father? What's wrong? Did... did Ku Tang do something wrong? Did changing jobs make you sad?"

Even her worried expression was exactly the same.

Jin Li's sanity completely collapsed.

He suddenly pulled Ku Tang into his arms, gripping her so tightly that he nearly crushed her into his bones and blood.

A suppressed, beastlike sob rolled from his throat. His tears struck her shoulder, burning hot as though they could scorch through her clothes.

"Why... why..."

He did not know whom he was questioning. Xiao Huasheng?

Fate? Or himself?

"Why did you do this to me...?!"

His voice was hoarse, as if forced out of hell itself—desperate and crazed.

Ku Tang was held so tightly that it hurt, but she did not struggle. She merely patted his back gently and comforted him in a soft voice, like soothing a child. "It's okay, Father... Ku Tang is here..."

She should not have been here.

She had died long ago.

Yet he would rather drown in this lie, even if only for one more second.

Jin Li's nails dug deeply into his palms, blood dripping between his fingers. Yet he seemed unable to feel the pain, only clinging desperately to the phantom in his arms, as if she would vanish again the moment he let go.

He squeezed his eyes shut as large tears streamed from them.

Ku Tang curled weakly in his arms, gently comforting him.

"If work is too tiring, it's okay to take a break sometimes."

"No, that's not it."

As long as she was not blind, Xiao Huasheng had figured out their relationship.

They were father and daughter. She had only wanted to prove that she could make people appear again after death.

Yet, by sheer coincidence, it had turned into this.

After Jin Li calmed his emotions, he turned his bloodshot eyes toward Xiao Huasheng and asked,

"What exactly is going on? She... she isn't supposed to be an illusion, right?"

After examining her from multiple angles, Jin Li had noticed how meticulously detailed Ku Tang was. Even among her full head of white hair, there were a few black strands he had never noticed before.

If she were merely an illusion drawn from his memories, she could never have been this detailed.

Of course, it was also possible that this was a trap deliberately created to produce an illusion.

But regardless, Jin Li was more inclined to believe that she was a living person.

His daughter.

He held Ku Tang, unwilling to let go for a long time.

"Why would Ku Tang be an illusion?"

Ku Tang looked at Jin Li in confusion, her eyes full of bewilderment.

At that moment, Xiao Huasheng did not want to keep hiding things and prepared to tell her everything.

She saw Xiao Huasheng preparing to speak.

But just then, Jin Li spoke up. "You can put her away, right?"

"Of course... what are you planning to do?"

"There are some things she should not hear yet."

Ku Tang immediately pouted in protest. "What do you mean, things I can't hear! That's not fair!"

But regardless of how she protested, she was returned to Lobotomy Corporation the next second.

Xiao Huasheng then explained Lobotomy Corporation to him once more, including everything besides its primary function of generating energy for her.

And Jin Li truly deserved to be called an A-rank Manager. He understood it all after hearing it only once.

He bit his index finger and said,

"So, your body contains all sorts of dangerous entities, and you can release them whenever you want?"

Xiao Huasheng shook her head. "More accurately, it depends on whether they want to come out. I can't control them. They and I are actually separate individuals."

"By the way, 049 is inside your body too, right?"

"Yes. It signed a temporary employment contract with me. It is currently my temporary employee."

"And official employees can only be dead people, who become your employees in order to manage those dangerous entities within you?"

Jin Li muttered.

"Yes. Those dead employees are official employees. Likewise, they cannot exist far away from me. They came here to manage these Abnormalities."