Skinwalker Belle – Chapter 552 – Let’s Pinky Swear

“I’m not talking nonsense.”

Lin Li tilted her head, her eyes as clean as a newborn’s, filled with pure bewilderment.

She withdrew her finger and looked at Chu Chen very seriously.

“There really is a big, old lock in your head, wrapped in lots of rusty chains.”

She gestured with her hands as she spoke.

“It’s locked up a place that’s very, very bright, with so many stars in it. But right now, the light from those stars can’t get out.”

“Your brain… isn’t happy.”

Isn’t happy…

Chu Chen’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

He thought of that ice-cold sterile room, of Chen Dingjun’s gaze devoid of any emotion, of the searing pain of cerebrospinal fluid churning inside his skull after every electric shock.

That wasn’t unhappiness.

That was the cruelest lockdown he had ever imposed on himself—just to survive.

Lei Li stepped forward, pulling Lin Li slightly behind her, and stared coldly at Chu Chen.

“Chu Chen, drop that interrogation act of yours. Her mind isn’t clear—just take whatever she says with a grain of salt.”

“Mind not clear?” Chu Chen suddenly laughed.

He straightened up, the surprise fading from his face, replaced by a fervent gleam in his eyes.

He stared at Lin Li as if he had discovered an entirely new universe.

Chu Chen spun around abruptly, strode back to the table, pulled a handful of candies from his pocket, tore the wrappers open roughly, and shoved them into his mouth one after another, chewing frantically.

The sweetness exploded in his mouth, but it couldn’t suppress the tremor in his heart at that moment.

Unlock that lock?

Of course he wanted to.

He dreamed of it.

Ever since that self-imposed lockdown, his brain had been running at low power for a long time, like a top-tier supercomputer forcibly installed with the most primitive operating system.

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He needed to constantly consume high-purity sugar just to barely sustain his thinking.

Every complex calculation felt like dancing on the edge of a blade, draining the already scarce Mental Strength he had.

If he could unlock that lock and recover even half of his peak processing power, he was absolutely confident he could use his formidable computational abilities to contend with the Dragon Clan.

But…

Chen Dingjun.

That man’s face was etched into the deepest recesses of his memory, impossible to erase.

“His Brain Domain Development is fifteen times that of an ordinary person… If we can dissect his neural structure and clone it…”

The moment he unlocked the seal, that terrifying level of computational power would absolutely not escape the pervasive infiltration networks within the Federation.

He could even be certain that among the demon capital’s garrison forces, there were plenty of eyes and ears belonging to Chen Dingjun and Wang Shan.

Chen Dingjun and Wang Shan were still locked in a standoff.

If Chen Dingjun discovered that this “scrapped Experimental Subject” had regained his value…

The outcome would only be worse than when he was ten years old.

The brothers who had followed him through life-and-death situations—Sun Jing, Xiao Wang… they couldn’t withstand the Federation’s machinery of violence.

He couldn’t gamble.

He couldn’t afford to.

“Hey.”

A soft, gentle voice interrupted Chu Chen’s thoughts.

Lin Li had somehow walked up beside him and was curiously looking at the bag of candies in his hand.

“You look really troubled.”

Chu Chen stopped chewing and turned to look at her.

Troubled?

It was more than troubled.

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This was an unsolvable problem.

If he unlocked the lock, he’d immediately be targeted by even more terrifying enemies and die without a burial place.

If he didn’t unlock it, facing the impending Dragon Clan army, Blue Star was doomed anyway.

Death on the left, death on the right.

“You…” Chu Chen looked at Lin Li and, almost involuntarily, asked, “You give me a very familiar feeling, like we’ve been friends for a long time.”

Lin Li’s eyes lit up when she heard this.

“You feel that way too? So do I!”

She seemed to have found a kindred spirit and happily hopped in place.

“Seeing you is like seeing an old friend I haven’t met in ages, even though I can’t remember who you are.”

She leaned in closer and lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret.

“Are you worried that after unlocking whatever’s locked in your head, some bad guy will come after you?”

Chu Chen’s breath caught.

This woman… what exactly is she? She could even see through his concerns?

“I…”

“You don’t need to worry.”

Lin Li didn’t wait for him to answer. She simply patted her heaving chest, her tone carrying a matter-of-fact pride.

“Just rest easy.”

“I don’t know who the bad guy trying to catch you is, and I don’t know how powerful he is.”

Lin Li lifted her chin, and in those eyes that shimmered with starlight flickered a pure radiance—one that felt utterly foreign to Chu Chen.

“But don’t worry. If he dares to come, I’ll punch him flying for you!”

“Punch… flying?”

The candy Chu Chen hadn’t finished chewing fell out of his mouth and dropped to the floor.

Everyone in the meeting room was frozen in shock.

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Sun Jing’s mouth hung open, forgotten to close.

Lei Li pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

What had they just heard?

A frail, amnesiac girl who couldn’t even lift a chicken was promising Blue Star’s greatest mind that she’d “punch flying” the Federation’s shadowy mastermind?

That sounded even more absurd than Ah Hu claiming he could take on a Pureblood Giant Dragon single-handedly.

But Chu Chen didn’t laugh.

He looked at Lin Li’s face, which was written all over with “I’m completely serious,” and at her eyes, which held not a trace of impurity.

Suddenly, a question he’d never considered before crossed his mind.

Why did it have to be a multiple-choice question?

Why did he have to choose between “being killed by the Dragon Clan” and “being killed by Chen Dingjun”?

Chu Chen’s usual way of thinking was to operate within established rules, using calculation and game theory to find the optimal solution.

But this woman before him—her logic contained no “rules.”

Her logic was simple and crude to the extreme.

Whoever stands in the way, take them out.

Can’t win? That’s your problem. I can win, anyway.

Punch flying.

Such a plain, unadorned word. And so utterly unreasonable.

Chu Chen’s mind, crammed full of data and conspiracies, felt like something had just slammed hard against it.

He stared at Lin Li for a very, very long time.

Then, slowly, slowly, he broke into a relieved smile.

“Alright.”

That was all he said.

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“Commander Chu!” Sun Jing grew anxious. “You can’t trust her…”

“I do trust her.”

Chu Chen cut her off, his gaze never leaving Lin Li’s face.

“I’ve decided to take a gamble.”

He extended his hand toward Lin Li. “Pleasure working with you.”

Lin Li glanced at his hand but didn’t take it.

Instead, she extended her own pinky and gently hooked it around Chu Chen’s pinky, giving it a little shake.

“Let’s pinky swear.”

…

The meeting room’s farce came to an end in a way no one had expected.

In the end, Chu Chen decided to stay at Fragrant Hills International—in his words, to “closely observe a brand-new research subject.”

Lei Li offered no opinion on the matter, but she kept an even closer watch on Lin Li.

Late that night.

Xiao Yao sat in the chair nearby, yawning as she jotted something down.

Suddenly.

From the other end of the corridor, in that intensive care ward that had remained tightly shut all along—

“Beep… beep… beep beep beep beep!”

The monitoring device connected to the unconscious patient’s brain suddenly let out a rapid series of alarms.

The sound was especially piercing in the dead of night.

Xiao Yao shot to her feet, her face turning pale, and rushed out in a panic.

She shoved open the door to the ward.

On the hospital bed, the black-haired man who had been unconscious for nearly a week—his fingers twitched, ever so slightly.