In a groggy haze, a faint sting came from his forearm.

It was the pain of a needle piercing the skin.

The pain gradually brought Yu Bai back to consciousness, his nerves tightening.

But his eyelids still felt unbearably heavy. After an unknown amount of time, he barely managed to open his eyes.

The world before him was still a bit blurry, but it wasn’t hard to tell that he was lying in a large room. A needle was inserted in his left forearm where the pain had come from. Following the line of sight upward, Yu Bai saw a drip bag hanging high at the head of the bed.

The clear liquid silently flowed through a thin tube into his body.

This scene instantly triggered many unpleasant memories. Almost reflexively, Yu Bai tried to pull the needle out.

It was then that he realized his free right hand was fastened to the other side of the bed with a metal cuff. As he moved, the chain restricting his movement gave off a few soft clinks.

Biting the tip of his tongue, Yu Bai sat up.

There was a lingering trace of a familiar mental wave in the air. Though he didn’t know why the man would be on Planet Tarl at this time, Yu Bai was certain—

this was the room of the man he had met in the alley.

For now, it was safe…

At that thought, the little mermaid lifted his eyes, and a transparent mental wave rapidly spread outward from him in all directions.

Light and silent.

As the mental force expanded, the surrounding layout gradually formed a complete map in Yu Bai’s mind.

It was near midnight, and very quiet.

He was in a suite. Right now, he was alone inside. Out in the hallway, two robots and a cart had just passed by.

Cautiously scanning his surroundings and finding no immediate threat, Yu Bai’s tense nerves finally relaxed a bit.

But just as he was about to withdraw his mental force, the metal door at the end of the corridor suddenly slid open.

“The signal’s definitely in here?” Scarface frowned. “From here up, these are all VIP rooms.”

“It’s this direction.” The person beside him held a receiver in hand, and the screen was flickering with a faint green light. “It’s just… there are too many signal blockers here, we can’t precisely locate which floor he’s on.”

“The auction’s about to start. Searching this place still needs the boss’s approval…”

Because Yu Bai had withdrawn his mental force in time, he didn’t hear the rest.

In fact, even the part he did hear, he didn’t fully understand.

In his previous life, he had wanted to learn the human language. Unfortunately, those guarding him seemed to notice his intent quite quickly. Not long after he showed interest, they stopped speaking in front of him entirely.

Moreover, forcibly using his mental power just now made his not-yet-fully-awake brain spin again, so Yu Bai only managed to catch a few scattered words:

auction, signal, block, locate, search.

These, he could understand.

His right hand was still cuffed. Yu Bai lowered his head slightly, inspecting the structure of the handcuffs.

Then he picked up the needle he had just removed, bent it slightly into an arc using both hands.

He aimed one end at a specific gap in the metal cuff, gently pushed it in, then swiftly twisted it several times.

With a soft click, the handcuff popped open.

Next, his long, slender pale fingers moved deftly across his wrist, shoulder, sternum, abdomen, ankle…

Yu Bai patiently felt around every spot where a tracker had ever been injected. Finally, he touched a small, barely noticeable bump just above his last cervical vertebra.

He had found the tracker. The little mermaid got off the bed, supported himself against the wall, and walked out of the room.

The suite’s decor wasn’t complicated — bedroom inside, dining area outside.

Glancing around, Yu Bai picked up a small dinner knife from the table and pressed it against the subtle bump at the back of his neck.

There were no better tools. He gritted his teeth and cut into that small patch of skin.

The dinner knife wasn’t very sharp, so the incision was ragged.

Blood immediately flowed from the wound, leaving a winding crimson trace on his porcelain skin.

The intense pain clung to him like a shadow. Yu Bai clenched his teeth, steadied his breathing — his fingertips turning pale.

A thin layer of mist quietly formed in his eyes, but even as the pain made him tremble all over, not a hint of hesitation could be seen in them.

Before long, the blood-stained tracker was clutched in his palm.

When the knife fell to the carpet, it made only a soft, muffled thud.

After enduring the worst wave of pain, the little mermaid reached with his other hand to touch the device on his ear, then tilted his head to glance toward the mirror by the door.

In the full-length mirror, his silver long hair had been replaced with short black hair. His facial features looked completely different from his original appearance.

Only the color of the eyes remained unchanged — still a clear ocean blue.

This face was unfamiliar, yet oddly familiar.

In his past life, when he had left the laboratory, the man had put a disguise device on him. The randomly generated facial features at that time were exactly the same as now.

Only, this time, the clock had been turned back three years, and he didn’t know him yet.

Although Yu Bai didn’t quite understand the current situation, it didn’t give him much time to think. Why would he appear on Tarl Star at this time…

But the auction house personnel were still looking for him, and according to his memories from his previous life, they would thoroughly search every room on these few floors.

No matter the reason, he absolutely couldn’t let the auction house people know that the one who saved him was him.

At this thought, Yu Bai’s gaze landed on the tracker clutched tightly in his hand. After adjusting the disguise device to ensure it wouldn’t fall off, he gently pushed open the door and stepped into the long corridor.

The floor was covered in thick carpet, which appeared an oppressive deep red under the dim, ambiguous lighting. Stepping on it made almost no sound.

His legs still felt weak, and his ankles ached slightly. With his head down, Yu Bai began probing the path ahead with his mental power.

The wound on his neck throbbed with a constant dull pain. He carefully avoided the ceiling-mounted surveillance cameras, making sure to walk in their blind spots, moving forward with extreme caution.

However, even with such caution, he quickly encountered trouble.

The elevator doors at the end of the corridor suddenly opened. Yu Bai recognized the people stepping out—the one in the lead was the scar-faced man.

Luckily, they didn’t seem to notice the little mermaid around the corner. After glancing around and confirming there were no other guests nearby, they opened the nearest room door.

…But they had just been on the other end of the corridor.

As he silently backed away, Yu Bai couldn’t help but frown.

Now what?

In one of the VIP rooms on the second floor of the auction venue, Imperial Marshal Fu Linyuan was seated before a screen displaying tonight’s auction item listings.

In front of him stood a large floor-to-ceiling window, through which he had a clear view of the auction display stage below and the seats on the first floor.

From rare minerals to illegal drugs, and even bizarre little parts, the auction items tonight were diverse, with a wide price range.

But the most attention-grabbing item was the last one on the list.

Most of the guests who came tonight were likely here for this final auction item.

The Mermaid.

A mermaid that could heal spiritual trauma.

Mermaid generally had low intelligence, often not much different from wild beasts on land. Yet their temperament was extremely ferocious—they were easily enraged and highly aggressive.

Most importantly, they were nearly impossible to capture alive.

Once they became aware of their loss of freedom, they would go completely berserk, indiscriminately attacking everything around them until they collapsed from exhaustion and died.

But despite being such a vicious species, the blood flowing through their veins was a lifeline for those suffering from spiritual storms. It could effectively stabilize the spiritual sea.

Tarl Star, being the largest black market territory outside the Interstellar Federation’s jurisdiction, attracted guests who weren’t just human.

Because within the Federation, no race was immune to the torment of spiritual storms.

The higher one’s mental power level, the greater the chance of being affected.

The Mermaids were nothing short of a life-saving elixir, which made tonight’s auction especially lively.

With only about ten minutes left until midnight, the first floor was already completely packed.

However, Marshal Fu Linyuan hadn’t come in disguise to the auction for the mermaid.

His attention was fixed on an earlier item in the list.

The exhibition screen displayed a palm-sized transport vial filled with pale green powder.

They had been investigating this powder for some time.

It was highly addictive and came with extremely severe side effects.

Users’ spiritual seas would enter an extremely unstable state — some would even experience immediate spiritual outbursts.

And once the effect subsided, the user’s mental power level would permanently decline, and their internal organs would suffer various degrees of hardening.

This powder was called Medusa in the Aon Empire and had long been classified as an illegal drug.

Yet recently, sightings of Medusa within the Empire had increased suspiciously.

Fu Linyuan had been sent to trace the source of this wave of Medusa smuggling.

Still, at this moment, the Marshal seemed a bit distracted — his attention not entirely on the introduction on the screen.

There was still some time before midnight, and the auction’s host had not yet appeared.

Lost in another thought, Fu Linyuan once again seemingly unintentionally glanced down at the stage.

Then he stood up and left the private room.

___

Keeping a close ear on the sounds ahead, Yu Bai almost held his breath as he silently retreated.

Among those thugs, at least one had a fairly high level of mental power — he’d already sensed their use of spiritual force to scan rooms twice.

His own mental power wasn’t at its peak, so Yu Bai dared not make any large movements. He could only suppress his presence while cautiously retreating, step by step.

But he didn’t notice the pair of hands reaching toward him from behind.

“…Are you hurt?”

The person caught Yu Bai, who had nearly stumbled. His sharp eyes immediately noticed a trace of red between Yu Bai’s fingers, and he asked in a low voice: “Where are you hurt?”