Gilded Rose

The air in front of the Gilded Rose seemed frozen.

Two heavy combat servitors named Talos stood like two silent idols, guarding this door leading to paradise.

Their modified, bulky bodies were wrapped in red velvet, revealing only a pair of dead electronic eyes and that pair of hydraulic power hammers capable of crushing a tank.

Li Wei stood below the steps, not rushing to go up.

He straightened his collar, taking advantage of the motion to make one final check of the things inside his jacket: the flash drive was tucked close to his body, and the las pistol with only half a magazine of battery was hidden at the small of his back.

As for that assault rifle he had managed to grab?

Thrown away.

Or more accurately, he found an unremarkable trash can to hide it in before entering the district.

Bringing a long gun into such a high-end establishment was equivalent to pasting "I am here to smash the place" on his forehead.

He was playing the role of a "messenger delivering important intelligence" right now, rather than a home-invading bandit.

Hoo... Li Wei adjusted his breathing and stepped onto the steps.

"Please wait a moment, sir."

Stopping him was not those two lumps of iron, but a middle-aged waiter wearing a tailcoat and slicked-back, greased hair.

He wore white gloves, and his face wore that strictly trained, faultless smile that exuded a keep-your-distance arrogance.

"Tonight is a private party." The waiter looked Li Wei up and down.

Although Li Wei's outfit wasn't cheap, that "outsider" temperament carved into his bones, along with that inexplicably unsettling aura, still made the waiter frown.

"If you don't have a membership card or an invitation, I'm afraid I cannot let you enter."

The waiter politely extended a hand, blocking the way.

Yet the moment he drew close to Li Wei, that white-gloved hand froze.

The waiter's complexion turned slightly pale, and his Adam's apple bobbed as if enduring some sudden sense of nausea.

"I don't have an invitation." Li Wei took off his sunglasses, his cold eyes staring straight at the waiter.

Instead of retreating, he pressed forward a step, overlooking the other man by leveraging his height advantage and that damn aura.

"I am here to see Chief Valorian." Li Wei's voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear and forceful. "Just say that an old friend carrying 'greetings from the lower levels' has a big business deal concerning 'family health' to discuss with him."

"Lord Valorian?" The waiter paused, trying to maintain that arrogance. "The chief does not see nobodies. And your smell..." The waiter finally couldn't help it, covering his mouth and taking half a step back. "Did you just crawl out of a morgue? This is too rude."

Li Wei did not get angry.

He knew this was his pariah constitution acting up.

He fished a glittering coin out of his coat pocket—this was one of his last remaining high-denomination currencies.

Instead of handing the money to the waiter, he pinched it between two fingers and waved it in front of the waiter's eyes.

"What's rude is letting Chief Valorian's business slip away." Li Wei flicked the coin into the waiter's breast pocket. "Go report. Or should I shout it out myself? I believe the distinguished guests here won't like that kind of scene."

The waiter touched the coin in his pocket, then glanced back at Li Wei's unbothered demeanor.

That nauseating oppression made him not want to stay a single second longer.

"...Please wait in the foyer." The waiter hurriedly turned around, his tone lacking the arrogance from just moments ago as he simply wanted to escape this plague god quickly. "I... I'll go ask the head of security."

The heavy doors slowly opened. A richer, cloyingly sweet fragrance rushed over his face.

Li Wei stepped inside.

The interior of the Gilded Rose was far more luxurious than it looked on the outside, and also—grotesque.

The dome of the hall reached twenty meters high, painted with a massive mural of gods reveling.

Yet looking closely, the expressions of those "gods" were not benevolent; instead, they radiated a frantic euphoria, their limbs entwined to the point where it was impossible to tell who was who.

The massive crystal chandeliers cast ambiguous warm light.

Floating in the air was a pale purple smoke known as euphoria dust.

This was an expensive hallucinogen, contraband in the mid-hive, yet sprayed here as casually as air freshener.

Li Wei stood in the waiting area at the edge of the hall, trying his best to rein in his aura.

Even so, he remained like a drop of cold oil falling into hot grease.

The surrounding noble men and women, clad in gorgeous robes and wearing exquisite masks, would instinctively pause their dancing and frown in this direction as they passed him.

"What is this feeling? So cold..."

"Who is that person standing in the shadows? Just looking at him makes my heart race."

"Don't look at him, darling. Probably some jinxed bodyguard."

Li Wei turned a deaf ear to these discussions.

He found a velvet sofa to sit on, refusing a floating servo-skull whose tray held various hallucinogenic drinks. He only asked for a glass of water.

Through his sunglasses, he carefully observed this "high society."

Gradually, he noticed something amiss.

The rhythm was too slow.

Everyone here—speaking, toasting, laughing, moving—shared an eerie sense of synchronization.

It was as if an invisible thread was manipulating this group of puppets.

Moreover, the fashion here... was very strange.

Li Wei saw many nobles wearing heavy headscarves or keeping their collars propped up high, concealing the backs of their heads and foreheads.

Some people's skin displayed a sickly pale purple hue, which, though covered with thick foundation, could still be discerned from certain angles.

What made Li Wei feel the most spine-chilling was the gaze.

When those people conversed, their eyes weren't focused on each other's faces; instead, they held a hollow fanaticism.

Is this the sign of genestealer infiltration? Li Wei's fingers gripping the water glass tightened slightly.

He remembered the warning on the shopkeeper's flash drive: Infection Confirmed - Upper Noble District.

The most terrifying thing about the Genestealer Cult was not that they looked like monsters.

It was that they could subtly control humans through a psychic network called the broodmind, worshiping xenos as gods and even actively procreating with them.

This was no club.

This was a cult den.

Or a cult's "cafeteria."

"Sir."

A low, emotionless voice sounded behind Li Wei.

Li Wei whipped around, his hand instinctively reaching for the gun at his small of his back.

Standing behind him was not the waiter from earlier.

Instead, it was a bald man in a black trench coat who was shockingly tall.

This man was at least two meters twenty tall, his shoulders broader than any normal person's.

His skin presented an off-white color, lacking eyebrows, and within those sunken eye sockets, his pupils were pitch-black without any whites.

Most importantly, there was an inconspicuous bony ridge on his forehead; although sanded down, its outline could still be discerned.

This was a third or fourth-generation hybrid.

Li Wei's heart skipped a beat.

He had run straight into the real masterminds?

"I am the security head here, you can call me 'Gore'." The bald man looked down at Li Wei from his height.

Oddly enough, this fellow who was obviously a xenos hybrid did not look at Li Wei with the "disgust" typical of ordinary humans; rather, he wore... extreme confusion and vigilance.

To a genestealer connected to the broodmind, Li Wei—this soulless one—was more than just disgusting.

He was a signal jammer.

In the ten minutes Li Wei had been sitting here, Gore had felt intermittent static disrupt the warm "voice of the god" that had continuously echoed in his mind.

"You are making our guests very uncomfortable." Gore's voice sounded like two stones grinding together. "What on earth are you?"

Li Wei forced himself to calm down.

He slowly stood up, trying his best not to let fear show on his face.

In this den full of monsters, fear was an invitation to death.

"What I am doesn't matter." Li Wei patted his chest, where the flash drive was hidden.

"What matters is that I hold something Chief Valorian is looking for. Or... something you are looking for."

He took a gamble.

He gambled that even though this hybrid guard was a xenos, he still had to obey the human chief named Valorian.

Gore's pitch-black eyes stared dead at Li Wei, seemingly weighing whether to crush this signal-cutting source right now or take him upstairs.

The air was thick with the smell of gunpowder.

The surrounding nobles who had been dancing also stopped, turning their heads to stare blankly in this direction.

That uniform gaze was more terrifying than any weapon.

Finally, some instruction seemed to arrive in Gore's earpiece.

His tense muscles relaxed just a fraction.

"The chief is willing to see you." Gore turned sideways, making a "please" gesture, though it looked more like he was about to escort Li Wei to the execution ground.

"Top-floor office. No funny business, pariah. Down here, no one can hear you scream."

Li Wei let out a breath, though the cold sweat on his back had already soaked his shirt.

He nodded, putting down the water glass he had only taken a single sip from.

"Lead the way." Li Wei straightened his coat, following this massive xenos hybrid toward the private elevator leading to the top floor.

As the elevator doors closed, the suffocating sweet fragrance and eerie music were shut outside.

Yet he knew he was stepping out of a wolf's den and walking right into a tiger's lair.