After leaving Room 666, Dean Hao stepped outside, walking across the psychiatric hospital's grassy grounds. He searched quietly, scanning the shadows, until he found exactly what he had suspected.
Indeed—it had come through the sewers.
The manhole cover lay discarded to one side.
"They came all this way, and didn't even bother to replace the cover. Sloppy."
Dean Hao's silhouette gradually faded into the darkness.
Inside his office once more, he pulled the canine tooth from his pocket. Under the desk lamp, it gleamed coldly with a sinister luster.
"This… is no ordinary dog's tooth."
He retrieved his phone, dialed a number, and pressed it to his ear. The call was quickly answered.
"What is it?"
"The way you ask makes me want to hang up. But I've got something here you might find interesting. Although, judging by your tone, perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe I should hang up."
"It's not that I'm uninterested," came the voice on the other end, "it's that we just recovered their bodies—all very young. Died inside the city. Cleaning up is going to be a nightmare."
"Then get over here. I've got something you definitely want to see."
"Fine. I'm on my way."
Dean Hao ended the call and continued to examine the tooth. He pressed it against the desk's surface—clean, effortless, it carved a mark as though through butter.
Sharp enough to tear through flesh with ease.
"Their intelligence is evolving…"
Before returning, he had stopped by the surveillance room. In one of the corridor feeds, he spotted a tiny, adorable dog.
But dogs were not allowed in the facility.
That could mean only one thing: the creature had infiltrated via the sewers. A camouflaged intruder—one that could charm and disarm humans, earning their affection and protection. A perfect disguise. No one would suspect such a cute animal could be a malevolent entity.
He sighed.
"Of all the places you could go, you chose this one. And not just this hospital—but Room 666, of all places. Truly courting disaster."
To Dean Hao, Room 666 had always been the most dangerous place in the entire institution.
Time passed.
There was a sudden noise at the door. Someone entered without knocking.
"You still haven't learned any manners, have you, Cyclops?" Dean Hao said without turning.
The man with the black eyepatch remained stone-faced.
"What exactly am I looking at?" he asked, wasting no time. He was in no mood for small talk.
Dean Hao tossed him the canine tooth.
"Here. Take a look for yourself."
Cyclops caught it, inspecting it closely. It was icy to the touch. He retrieved a palm-sized metal case from his coat, opened the lid, and placed the tooth inside.
This was no ordinary box.
A product of cutting-edge science, it was designed by elite researchers working around the clock—fusing the genetic signatures of numerous entities. With a simple scan, it could identify the precise species of malevolent being.
A soft hum filled the air.
Beams of light shot from the box's four corners, coalescing into a rotating 3D hologram.
A distinctly futuristic sight.
"Class II Entity: Scavenger Hound."
Cyclops frowned.
All four of the victims had been recent academy graduates. Statistically, they shouldn't have died to a mere Class II creature. But considering their inexperience—one of them being the pampered daughter of a prominent family—and the claustrophobic, shadow-choked sewers, the conclusion wasn't impossible.
"Where are the bodies?" Cyclops asked.
"I knew you'd ask," Dean Hao replied. "But before I answer that, I think you should watch this footage."
He handed over his phone, the surveillance video already loaded.
"Just… watch."
Cyclops' expression darkened as he viewed the footage.
Dean Hao sipped his goji-jujube tea and spoke quietly.
"As you can see, their intelligence is growing. They're learning to mimic us—learning to blend in. Just as we study them, they study us. They become adorable animals, slinking into society, invisible."
"It's a terrifying development."
"And the average person? They'd never suspect a thing."
Cyclops finished watching the video, his brow furrowed deeply.
"Alright," he said gravely. "Tell me—where are the bodies? There's nothing you can say that I won't believe now."
Dean Hao answered plainly: "They were eaten."
Silence.
A thick, awkward pause filled the room.
Cyclops fixed his one eye on Dean Hao.
Are you kidding me right now?
Dean Hao met his gaze without flinching, nodding slowly. "I'm serious. I'm not lying."
"Did you eat them?" Cyclops asked, deadpan.
"Do you know where we are?" Dean Hao replied.
"A psychiatric hospital."
"Exactly. And they wandered into the wrong room. They were devoured—reduced to nothing but a single canine tooth. You could say there's not even a corpse left."
Cyclops looked incredulous.
"You're telling me a Class II entity was eaten by mental patients? Why not just say an ant devoured an elephant?"
"But ants can devour elephants," Dean Hao countered calmly. "Didn't you watch that episode of Planet Earth? If not, I recommend it. Nature is astonishing. Numbers have power."
Silence fell again.
Cyclops exhaled sharply, then said flatly, "Hao Ren, you've officially gone mad. You've been running this asylum so long, it's infected you. That was a Class II entity. No matter how many people you throw at it, they'd all die. Mental patients are no exception."
Dean Hao shook his head slowly. "And yet all we have left… is this tooth. There's no deception here."
"You're going to tell me next who did it, aren't you?"
Dean Hao smiled. "Not so fast. First, read this."
He pulled a file from the drawer and handed it over.
Title:
Behavioral Analysis of Patient #666
Cyclops accepted it without protest. He flipped through the pages with disinterest at first, but soon, his eyes narrowed. The more he read, the slower he turned the pages.
Dean Hao did not interrupt.
This file had been compiled over years—ever since Lin Fan first entered the facility. It was a long-term case study.
Cyclops read on in silence, the only sound being the soft rustle of paper.
Finally, he finished.
"That file," Dean Hao said, "is the culmination of years of research. I've never shown it to anyone before. But you? We go way back."
"So… what do you think?"
Dean Hao had known for a long time that there was something different about Lin Fan. No ordinary patient could do what he had done. Day after day, year after year, teetering on the brink of death—yet never truly harmed. Always walking the line. Always whole.
The odds of such a feat were lower than winning the lottery.
A living miracle.
Cyclops muttered, voice low and grave:
"Gifted beyond reason."