Chapter 5

“Then how do we change you back?”

I clung to one last hope.

“If we find that machine, we can reverse it, can’t we?”

Chu Tu Dã shook his head.

“It isn’t that simple.

“Khương Lâm Phong values that machine more than his own life.

“I followed him for years and never once saw it.”

Suddenly, an idea struck me.

“Tu Dã, you said some people suffer rejection after the transplant, didn’t you?”

He nodded.

“Yes. In the early experiments, rejection caused multiple organ failure in many subjects.

“But Khương Lâm Phong hasn’t had that reaction.”

I fought to contain my excitement.

“What if we made him think he had?”

If he believed the body was failing, he would seek another.

That would be our chance.

But how?

Then I remembered.

Chu Tu Dã was allergic to cashews.

He did not like eating them and had never paid much attention to it. The allergen had only been identified during our premarital medical examination.

Khương Lâm Phong did not know.

A housekeeper came every day to cook three meals.

I secretly mixed cashew powder into all the seasonings.

Before long, he began vomiting and growing weak. His organs started to fail.

The symptoms matched the early stages of rejection.

A man as suspicious as Khương Lâm Phong would immediately look for another body.

There was no shortage of idle young men in the village.

But for the memory transfer to succeed, the two bodies had to be compatible in several ways.

When healthy young men began disappearing one after another, we decided to act.

I bought the best self-defense kit I could find.

Under Chu Tu Dã’s guidance, I practiced striking accurately with a knife, over and over.

Then I logged into his email account and wrote to Hứa Vĩ in his name.

“Tonight at midnight, Khương Lâm Phong’s accomplices will conduct a human-trafficking operation at the abandoned pig slaughterhouse west of Chu Village. Urgent backup required.”

I scheduled it to send at around ten thirty that night.

When everything was ready, we looked at each other.

There was fear in both our eyes.

But stronger than that was our determination to protect each other.

We embraced once, then strode out.

It was time.

At midnight, a car slipped quietly into the warehouse.

The slaughterhouse had been abandoned for years. Weeds choked its surroundings. The silence was unnerving.

I waited until Khương Lâm Phong had completed his consciousness transfer before stepping out of the shadows.

A miniature camera was clipped to my collar.

“Khương Lâm Phong!

“I recorded everything.

“Let’s see how much longer you can keep pretending!”

Seeing me alive, he gave a harsh laugh.

“Trang Đóa. You’re better than I thought.

“But you’re too late.

“You can’t stop me.”

This time, he had chosen the body of a highly dangerous wanted criminal.

Healthy. Young.

No family.

A few stray remarks would not expose him.

“So what if the identity isn’t respectable?

“Money is all that matters.”

His new body was immensely strong.

He took the knife from me with ease.

I ran for my life.

Only after he caught me and ripped away the camera did he discover its battery had died long ago.

At his stunned expression, I laughed with genuine pleasure.

“Khương Lâm Phong.

“You’ve lost this time.”

“Lost what? I can’t possibly—”

His face twitched.

He realized he had been lured away and wheeled around, rushing back.

The sight before him nearly drove him mad.

“Chu Tu Dã!

“You’re alive?”

Beside the machine, a deformed body lay next to Chu Tu Dã.

The brain-computer interface was connected.

The transfer had reached its critical stage.

Ninety-eight percent.

Before Khương Lâm Phong could reach it, I pressed a stun baton into his back.

Ninety-nine percent.

Then Chu Tu Dã’s closed eyes flew open.

[TRANSFER COMPLETE.]

Those eyes were once again deep and resolute.

Khương Lâm Phong went pale, backing away.

“I put a camera at the entrance.

“You couldn’t have got in!”

I lifted the machine and answered with a smile.

“Because we were hiding inside its crate all along.

“Just waiting for you to begin.”

How had we found the location beforehand?

The key was electricity.

Khương Lâm Phong himself had given me the idea by cutting off my network access.

“A brain-computer interface works on the same principle as uploading a video.

“So wherever you set up had to have backup power.

“An isolated place that still has electricity.

“Not so hard to find.”

We had cut power to the whole village in advance.

The only place still lit up was our target.

That deformed body had finally served a purpose.

Chu Tu Dã had slipped into the crate well beforehand.

For someone skilled at concealment, waiting a few days was nothing.

The two men fought fiercely.

Khương Lâm Phong was no match for him. Under the blows, he screamed.

“Chu Tu Dã!

“Spare me!

“We can work together!

“Do you know how many powerful people want my technology?

“The people at the very top of the world...

“In ten minutes, we could take their bodies!

“Power! Money!

“All within reach!

“Why stay in a body covered in scars?

“All you have to—”

Chu Tu Dã cut him off with a cold, hard punch.

Before the police arrived, I took the machine away.

The scene was chaos.

When the wanted criminal woke, he was bewildered. He said he remembered nothing from the past few days.

The deformed beggar’s body lay dead in a corner.

Chu Tu Dã gave the following report:

“I received an anonymous tip.

“The beggar may have been the one who discovered what was happening.

“The fugitive killed him to stop him talking.”

It was a perfectly plausible explanation.

An unidentified beggar. No relatives.

Who would investigate further?

Everything seemed to return to normal.

We moved into our marital home and planned another wedding in the city.

As for the machine, I thought it was too dangerous.

“We should destroy it.

“If someone ambitious gets hold of it, it’ll become Pandora’s box.”

Chu Tu Dã said nothing that day.

When I opened the safe to take out the machine, it was empty.

I turned in shock.

My husband stood in the shadows, one hand in his pocket, his face divided between light and dark.

“Đóa Đóa.

“Whether it’s Pandora’s box or a treasure...

“Only the person who owns it gets to decide.

“I want to own the whole world.

“Will you...

“Join me?”