Chapter Two

My car sped through the night in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The accelerator was floored, and the engine roared like a beast. This ten-year-old Honda Civic was all I owned, and the worn-out shock absorbers made every cornering experience a piercing metallic screeching sound.

But I can't worry about that.

The red alert is still flashing on the phone screen:

[Eden System Warning: Vital signs in cabin 3 remain abnormal, heart rate 39 beats/min, blood oxygen saturation 82%, dangerous!]

Twenty-three minutes.

The normal drive from the penthouse to Crawford Private Hospital takes 45 minutes. I squeezed it down to 23 minutes, running six red lights, speeding three times, and nearly crashing into a garbage truck at the intersection.

When I rushed into the hospital's VIP area, the corridor was eerily quiet.

When the nurses on duty saw me, they instinctively took a step back—I bet I looked terrifying right now, covered in cold sweat, with bloodshot eyes, like a madman about to commit a crime.

"Cabion 3!" my voice was hoarse. "Restore power immediately!"

The nurse on duty was a woman in her thirties, wearing the distinctive white uniform of Crawford Hospital. She glanced at me, then lowered her head, her voice soft: "Excuse me, Mr. Arthur. We received instructions from Miss Crawford that Cabin 3 is undergoing 'equipment maintenance,' and unauthorized operation is strictly prohibited."

"What equipment is under maintenance?!" I grabbed the counter at the nurses' station, my knuckles turning white from the force. "My mom's dying! Didn't you see the alarm?!"

"I saw it." The nurse still didn't dare to look up, "But... rules are rules."

Regulation.

The rules of the Crawford family.

Isabella's rules.

I let go of his hand and turned to rush towards the ward.

When I pushed open the door to cabin number 3, a blast of cold air hit me.

No—it wasn't the air conditioning that was cold, it was the sudden drop in temperature. On the temperature display screen in the ward, the number was frozen at 19.8°C, and the red warning light flickered in the darkness.

The mother lay in the transparent life support capsule, her face as pale as paper beneath the breathing mask.

I rushed to the side of the pod and saw that half of the life support equipment had entered low-power mode—the temperature control module, circulation pump, and auxiliary oxygen supply were all lit up with glaring yellow lights.

"mom……"

My hand rested on the glass of the cabin, my fingertips able to feel the faint warmth emanating from within. My mother's eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling extremely slowly, and the waveform on the electrocardiogram monitor had begun to beat erratically.

I turned around and rushed toward the power control box on the wall of the ward.

However, the box had an electronic lock on it, and the screen displayed the words "Insufficient permissions".

"Mom, hang in there..." I whispered, my voice trembling, "I'll be right there..."

"What will happen soon?"

A languid female voice came from behind.

I froze.

Turning around, I saw Isabella, arm in arm with Leon, walking into the ward in twelve-centimeter heels. Tonight, she wore a black Chanel evening gown and a five-million-dollar diamond necklace around her collarbone—a congratulatory gift from the board of directors when Crawford Group went public last year.

Leon, dressed in a custom Tom Ford suit with his hair neatly combed, looked like a star about to go on stage to accept an award.

Seeing my disheveled state, he feigned surprise: "Wow, Arthur, you drive really fast! I thought you were going to wait until your mother died before you got here."

I didn't say anything.

At that moment, all my attention was focused on the tablet in Isabella's hand—the screen displayed the highest-level management interface of the "Eden" system.

She can restore power with just a flick of her finger.

"Isabella," I said, keeping my voice as calm as possible, "Restore power. Now."

"Oh?" She raised an eyebrow. "Are you ordering me around?"

"Please," I changed my tune, "Please restore the power."

"That's more like it." Isabella walked to the life support pod, looking down at her mother lying inside. "However, Arthur, I think we should renegotiate... our contract."

My heart sank.

"You see, for the past three months, I've tolerated you staying in my apartment, using my medical resources, and spending my money," Isabella said slowly. "But frankly, I'm fed up. Your presence... is an eyesore to me."

Leon chuckled, "Honey, you're too direct."

"What's wrong with being direct?" Isabella turned to me, her eyes icy. "Arthur, I brought a document with me tonight. Sign it, and I'll restore power and approve tonight's targeted drug injection. Refuse—"

She paused, then gently tapped her finger on the tablet screen.

The temperature display inside the life support capsule jumped from 19.8°C to 19.5°C.

"If you refuse, your mother won't live past tonight."

I clenched my fist again.

Leon took a document from Isabella, deliberately walked up to me, and handed it to me in a condescending manner: "Here, sign it, you piece of trash."

I took the document.

The kraft paper cover is printed with a gold-stamped title: "Unconditional Agreement for Leaving with Nothing and Giving Up Legal Partner Rights".

I quickly glanced through the contents:

Arthur Gray voluntarily relinquished all property rights in his marriage to Isabella Crawford.

Arthur Gray promised to vacate all real estate owned by the Crawford family within 24 hours of signing the agreement.

Arthur Gray waives all legal rights to pursue the Crawford family and Isabella Crawford herself.

Arthur Gray must not interfere in Isabella Crawford’s private life or business decisions in any way.

The last point, written in bold:

This agreement shall take effect immediately upon signing and shall not be revoked.

"How about that?" Isabella chuckled. "Fair enough? You sign it, get out of my life, and I'll guarantee your mother's life. If you don't sign..."

She tapped the screen again.

19.2°C.

The mother's heart rate has dropped to 36 beats per minute.

I looked up at Isabella.

Her face was etched with the arrogance of a victor—she thought she had everything under control and that I would continue to compromise indefinitely, as I had for the past three months.

Leon, on the other hand, seemed like a spectator enjoying a good show, his eyes gleaming with a morbid excitement.

I glanced at my mother on the hospital bed.

Her lips had begun to turn purple.

I closed my eyes.

Take a deep breath.

Then, I took the pen from Leon and signed my name on the last page of the agreement.

The sound of the pen nib gliding across the paper was particularly jarring in the quiet hospital room.

"Very good." Isabella took the agreement, carefully examined the signature, and nodded with satisfaction. "You see, Arthur, one should know when to be pragmatic. Now—"

She operated the tablet a few times.

A soft mechanical sound filled the ward as the power-off equipment restarted one by one, the yellow warning lights gradually went out, and the numbers on the temperature display screen began to rise again.

19.5°C.

20.1°C.

21.3°C.

The mother's heart rate also slowly recovered, jumping from 36 to 40, and then to 45.

"The targeted therapy will be administered in half an hour." Isabella put the agreement into her handbag. "Remember to move out of the apartment by 6 PM tomorrow. Just leave the key in the entryway; no need to come and say goodbye."

After she finished speaking, she took Leon's arm and turned to leave.

And I stood motionless next to the life support pod.

Leon stopped abruptly as he reached the door. He turned back to look at me, a twisted jealousy flashing in his eyes—probably because my overly calm demeanor while signing the document had made him uneasy.

"What?" I slowly raised my head and looked at him.

In that instant, there was no anger, no sadness, nothing at all in my eyes—only a deathly emptiness.

It's like looking at a corpse.

Leon was startled by that look and instinctively took a half step back.

But soon, he became enraged.

"What are you looking at!" he said viciously, then deliberately walked back, raised his foot, and kicked hard at the bracket connecting his mother's oxygen supply tube.

"Clang—"

The support frame collapsed, the oxygen supply tube detached, and the alarm sounded again.

"Leon!" Isabella frowned. "Stop fooling around, we're going to be late."

"Oh, okay, honey." Leon made a face at me. "Arthur, remember to put the tube back in. Don't let your mom really die."

After saying that, he laughed and left the ward.

I bent down, picked up the oxygen supply tube, and reconnected it to the cabin interface.

The movements were slow and gentle.

Because at this moment, only one thought is in my mind:

"They signed their own death sentences."

"They just don't know it."

I sat next to my mother's life support capsule, watching her heartbeat gradually stabilize.

The ward returned to quiet.

Outside in the corridor, the sounds of Isabella and Leon's high heels and laughter could be heard as they headed off to tonight's most prestigious celebrity dinner in Silicon Valley to flaunt the wealth and power of the Crawford family.

And I, the son-in-law who was kicked out of the house, am sitting in the cold hospital, guarding my only living relative.

I took out my phone.

The screen is still showing the alert page of the "Eden" system.

I stared at the interface, a slow, sinister smile curving my lips—not a smile, but something far more dangerous.

Because I know that there is a backdoor in the underlying architecture of this system that only I know about.

Five years ago, when I was writing code, I habitually left a key—a super administrator privilege encrypted in the seventh layer of the protocol stack.

It was just for the convenience of debugging at the time.

I never imagined that it would become my... weapon today.

My finger slid lightly across the screen, typing a sequence of characters that only I knew.

The screen flickered.

Then, a new line of text appears at the bottom of the screen:

Welcome back, Zero.

I turned off my phone, leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes.

"Almost there," I muttered to myself. "Just a little longer. Until Mom finishes her injection for tonight. Until she falls asleep."

"Then--"

"I will make the world see me in a new light."

Outside the ward, at the end of the corridor.

Leon stood at the elevator door and took his phone out of his pocket.

He glanced at Isabella—she was touching up her makeup and hadn't noticed them.

Leon quickly typed a text message and sent it to one of the thugs who remained at the hospital.

The text message contained only one sentence:

"Once the banquet starts, go in and completely unplug that old woman. Let Arthur go sleep on the streets."

Sent successfully.

Leon smiled smugly, put away his phone, took Isabella's arm, and stepped into the elevator.

The elevator doors slowly closed.

The mirror reflected their perfect figures—power, wealth, youth, and beauty.

Everything was so perfect.

They just didn't know—

The storm is coming.