Chapter Thirty-Five: Swept Away in One Fell Swoop

Ejecting the magazine, Mu You checked—it held only a single bullet. He slid it back in, tucked the gun into his pocket, then, with a running start, leapt high and cleared the electric fence, landing safely on the other side.

He glanced back at the electric-blue barrier of lightning behind him, pondered for a moment, then found the generator and switched it off. Instantly, the darkness deepened into absolute silence.

In the hush of night, Mu You’s lips curled into a strange, enigmatic smile.

Five hundred meters away, at the artificial rock park.

This place served as the death row inmates’ rest area—the jagged stones and towering ancient trees provided the best cover for the hunted tonight. Naturally, it became a fiercely contested ground among the residents of the various floors. Thanks to Mu You’s instruction for He Jing, Xu Chen, and the others to seize the spot first, the entire thirteenth floor’s contingent now occupied it, while the inmates from the twelfth and sixth floors gathered outside, ready to force their way in.

At that moment, Hulei surveyed the faces around him and nodded to the fat man beside him. In every game, he teamed up with this dangerously overweight inmate from the sixth floor; their two groups advanced and retreated as one, covering each other in times of peril.

Yet Hulei harbored his own secret motive—he had to ensure his daughter’s safety.

He had sworn to himself that he would never let her suffer harm again.

When he lost a brutal underground fight and cost the casino a fortune, the enraged owner stormed into his home with his men and pressed a black gun to Hulei’s head, bound like a trussed pig. From the next room came his daughter’s terrified screams and sobs, and the thugs’ malicious laughter.

Kneeling in agony before the casino boss, Hulei begged for his life to be taken in exchange for his daughter’s safety, appealing to the years he had risked his life for the boss.

Hulei hailed from a poor village on the coast near Halfmoon Island. Driven by dreams of the city, he left home alone at twelve, started as a child laborer, and bounced from job to job, enduring humiliation and scorn for lack of education. In desperation, he became an underground boxer.

Every fight, no matter how injured, he forced himself to knock out his opponent—he couldn’t afford to lose. He wanted a good life, a foothold in the city, to make those who once scorned him regret their actions, to rise above them all.

Even if he could not achieve that in his lifetime, he would sacrifice everything so his child could have what he’d longed for—a happy childhood, equal education, all those unattainable dreams. For that, no price was too great.

Even if it cost him his life.

After each match, when he was battered and broken, a beautiful ring girl would tend to his wounds. Over time, love grew between them, and a year later, their daughter was born.

The moment he held his child, he wept. Those present were stunned to see such tenderness in this scarred, fierce man. He cradled the baby as if she was his entire world.

For the first time, Hulei owned something wholly his own.

His daughter.

In that moment, he vowed to devote everything to securing her future.

Halfmoon Island was famed across the Central States—every inch of land more precious than gold. Buying a home there was a pipe dream. Their meager incomes, now with a child, made life even harder.

They worked desperately for money. His wife took hormones to become a first-tier showgirl, making her figure more voluptuous, but the side effects left her unable to produce milk. To ensure their daughter’s health, they bought only the most expensive imported formula, which consumed most of their earnings each month.

Hulei fought even harder, entering every match, winning frequently, and soon, he drew the attention of his boss’s rivals.

They kidnapped his wife, planning to infect her with HIV so that, once she returned to him, he would inevitably contract the virus, his body destroyed over time, leaving him no place in the ring.

But his wife, streetwise and sharp, realized their plan when she was tied to a bed and saw the frail, sickly old man enter. In a desperate struggle, she struck her head on the bedpost and died instantly.

When Hulei heard the news, his world collapsed. The only person who had ever believed in him was gone.

He drifted, lost to the world, until his daughter’s cries for milk snapped him back to reality.

Watching her nurse, he knew—she was his last hope.

His daughter was diligent and excelled at her studies. With only a year left before the adult entrance exams, Hulei was told she had no Halfmoon Island residency and would be sent back to their old home to take the test, barred even from applying to the island’s universities.

At that moment, he felt his lifetime of struggle crumble to dust—after all the effort, he was right back where he started.

The fate of the underclass was unbreakable. Even a daughter raised among the privileged could not escape it.

Why couldn’t this world spare the lower class a chance to live?

That night, he lost disastrously in the ring; the boss suffered heavy losses…

Later, as he stared down the barrel of a gun, Hulei regretted everything. He’d forgotten that even his miserable survival was a gift from the privileged. Without their platform, he didn’t even have the right to live.

Just like now—he could never bear the wrath of the upper class.

But seeing the resolve in Hulei’s eyes, the casino boss suddenly thought of a more entertaining punishment.

“Killing you is too easy. I’ve thought of something better,” the boss sneered, holstered his gun, snapped his fingers, and had Hulei dragged away. All the while, his daughter’s terrified screams and the sound of tearing fabric echoed in his ears until a blow rendered him unconscious.

Half a year later, Hulei emerged from “reformation,” permitted to leave the pod. Returning to Building A, he stepped into the elevator—and saw his daughter, standing inside, her face cold and unfamiliar. When he tried to embrace her, she recoiled in fear, as if she didn’t know him.

His daughter’s memory had been erased, her personality altered, and her body had been changed.

In that instant, Hulei understood the true extent of the boss’s punishment.

Never in his life had he felt such a murderous urge.

He would never allow anyone to touch his daughter again.

Now, with his daughter standing at his side, Hulei smiled and pulled her close. He dared not imagine what she had endured over those six months, so he would devote himself to making it up to her, to keeping her safe, helping her grow strong under his protection.

After Zuo Ba from the thirteenth floor vanished following a failed “second transformation,” the position of dangerous inmate became vacant. On the sixth floor, the only level with two superpowered inmates, one was the fat man, and the other his daughter, still classified as an ordinary prisoner.

With her abilities, she could have easily taken the thirteenth floor’s dangerous inmate slot—if not for Mu You’s unexpected rise.

Hulei held his daughter tighter, his face darkening with murderous resolve as he eyed the anxious thirteenth floor inmates.

He had to strike before that boy consolidated his place—wipe them all out and make his daughter the dangerous inmate.

In this world, without status, everything else is just empty words.