Novel-novel oleh Scarlett Vex

Wang Po and Dazhuang meticulously prepared the evening meal, then pretended to knock politely before enthusiastically welcoming Skylar Vance to the small table.“Please, sit. We only have simple food in the mountains. Please don’t mind the plainness, Miss Vance,” Wang Po said, her old face contorted into a mask of false hospitality.Skylar gave them a sweet, obedient smile and delicately ate a small portion of the food, giving the impression that she was oblivious to Dazhuang’s intense, perverted staring.After consuming a bowl of gruel—which she had secretly rendered harmless using her Spatial Ability—Skylar announced that she was overcome by fatigue and needed to sleep. She retreated to the inner room, lay down on the heated brick bed (the kang), and immediately went silent.Wang Po, satisfied the drug should have taken effect, nudged her son. “Go in and fetch her. Take her down to the cellar first. We don't want the neighbors to see her.”“Yes, Mother.” Dazhuang eagerly agreed. He

The Old Pit Glass Apple Green jade, the flawless Ice Jade with Floating Flowers, and the exquisite Ice Lavender Jade—with these three breathtaking treasures, Jade Fortune Jewelry became the undisputed, sensational winner of the auction. The entire industry was now buzzing. To seal the company's fate and future, all three pieces were acquired by the representative of the formidable Bentley family. The aristocratic Quinton “Qu” Bentley himself had presented a business card before departing, an undeniable declaration of support. This deliberate act triggered a massive, envy-inducing ripple effect across the entire jewelry world.That night, Alan Sterling was immersed in endless social engagements and celebratory banquets with eager jewelers. Skylar Vance, meanwhile, made a final stop at the internet café to finalize the detailed, topographic maps and routes for the remote mountain area she was heading toward.As she stepped out, a sleek, black Mercedes sedan glided to a silent halt befor

Mr. Sun’s maneuver was a blatant, unapologetic use of his power and connections—a demonstration of absolute authority meant to reclaim his son’s lost face and assert his dominance over the market.The crowd of onlookers murmured anxiously, deeply concerned for the seemingly frail Skylar, but terrified of Mr. Sun’s known local connections to the criminal underworld. Not a single person dared to intervene.“Hit him. I’ll handle the consequences,” Mr. Sun stated flatly, his words ringing with a lethal finality. He clearly held zero regard for the young man’s life.Skylar smirked internally. Like father, like son. Both arrogant to the core.The skirmish had been insufficient to warm up her body. She side-stepped, lowering into a combat stance, ready to fully test her enhanced physique against a group of trained bodyguards.“Stop right there!”A furious shout ripped through the crowd. Alan Sterling burst through the throng, his face a mask of panic, immediately placing his body between Sky

Skylar Vance’s outstretched fingers were inches from a chunk of rough jade when a branded sports shoe deliberately stomped down on it. She paused, her gaze lifting slowly. Three young men stood over her, posed with the arrogant confidence of inherited wealth, their leader the one who had just hurled the insult.All three boys were momentarily stunned by the face they finally saw. They hadn't expected the scruffy teenager kneeling in the dirt to possess such striking, almost ethereal beauty. In stark contrast, their own expensive, well-groomed appearances and sneering expressions suddenly looked gauche and inferior.This crushing sense of inadequacy only fueled the leader’s—Sonny Sun—smoldering resentment. He scowled, his voice thick with cold disdain. “Hey, I’m talking to you. Can’t you see where you are? This is not a common market. If you’re an amateur, stop making a fool of yourself. Go back to whatever slum you crawled out of.”Her patience had evaporated. Even Skylar’s naturally

The sign read: Internet Café.In the generations to come, internet cafés would be ubiquitous, scattered throughout every city. But in this era, where personal computers were a distant dream for most households, the storefront on the street corner possessed an aura of advanced, almost futuristic technological sophistication.Had she not stumbled upon it by chance, Skylar would not have expected to be reunited with her “old partner” so soon.The computer. It had been Skylar’s only true companion, her single most faithful ally throughout her years as a global fugitive and an elite assassin. She had never feared the long arm of international law because her unmatched hacking skill meant that no matter how many databases the world’s governments established, she could—and did—systematically delete every trace of her existence. She was a phantom in the digital world.The small internet café was filled with the low hum of machines and the clicking of keys, but most patrons were engaged in sim

Skylar Vance had never been ugly, nor was she afflicted by low self-esteem. On the contrary, her facial features were exquisitely refined and strikingly dimensional—a true testament to delicate bone structure and flawless symmetry. Her skin was porcelain smooth, and her large, clear eyes, framed by long lashes, curved upward in a graceful arc. She was a world away from the common image of a rough country girl, often cursed with dry, chafed skin or perpetually flushed cheeks.The virulent jealousy that drove Tina Vance, Mia Vance, and Tiffany Reid to torment Skylar had always stemmed from the moment they first saw her unadulterated beauty during their initial days of middle school. A woman’s envy, fueled by inadequacy, could twist into something far more toxic and corrosive than any conventional malice.Now, as the breeze feathered through the short, choppy layers of her new haircut, Skylar lifted her gaze to the vast, open sky. A profound sense of relief washed over her. She had shed

The polar night of Iceland was an infinite black shroud, an absolute void that swallowed the horizon and refused to spit it back out. Outside the fortress, the gale-force winds whipped fine, razor-sharp grains of snow against the reinforced titanium exterior, creating a relentless, scratching hiss—like a thousand jagged fingernails clawing at metal. Inside the subterranean command center, the air-conditioning hummed with a clinical chill, yet the air felt thick and stagnant. It was a suffocating cocktail of smells: the sterile, icy scent of titanium alloy, the faint, bitter acridity of engine grease, and the persistent, ghostly brine of the Atlantic Ocean clinging to Ava’s skin. That smell—the salt and the memory of the Bermuda Triangle—was a nightmare that refused to dissipate, coiling around her like a living thing.Ava stood before the holographic projection table, her silhouette sharp and lethal. Her black tactical suit was a second skin, but where the cold sweat had soaked throug

The subterranean fortress of the North European Black Rose headquarters sat like a prehistoric behemoth buried beneath the frozen skin of Iceland. Outside, the world was a monochromatic void of white and absolute black, the polar night refusing to yield to a sun that had long since forgotten this latitude. Massive drifts of snow, hardened into crystalline armor by the screaming arctic winds, concealed the titanium plating of the bunker. Only the occasional hiss of steam from the ventilation shafts—rising like the ghostly breath of a sleeping dragon—betrayed the life pulsating deep within the permafrost.Inside the command center, the air was pressurized and sterile, yet it felt heavy with the scent of impending ozone and old blood. Ava stood at the center of the room, her silhouette a sharp, dark inkblot against the glow of the massive holographic projection table. She wore a high-collared black tactical suit, but she had left the top three fasteners undone. It was a deliberate act of

The polar night of Iceland was an eternal shroud, a heavy, velvet curtain of absolute black that refused to be lifted. Outside, the arctic winds howled across the volcanic wasteland, but inside the subterranean medical center, the world was reduced to a suffocating, sterile white. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed with a deathly, clinical persistence, reflecting off the glass of the decontamination pods like shards of frozen bone.The only other sound was the rhythmic, mechanical hiss of the oxygen concentrator. Hiss. Click. Exhale. It was a haunting metronome, marking the seconds Nora had left. Every breath the woman took looked like an act of defiance, a final, desperate grab at a world that had already turned its back on her.Ava sat on the cold metal bench outside the pod, her cashmere coat wrapped tightly around her frame. Despite the artificial heat of the facility, she was shivering—a deep, violent tremor that didn't come from the skin, but from the very marrow of her bone

The cold, clinical lights of the destroyer’s holding cell felt like a thousand frozen blades piercing through the gloom, pinning the shadows of the three occupants to the reinforced metal floor with merciless precision. The atmosphere was a volatile, suffocating swirl of copper-scented blood, the acrid bite of gunpowder, and the lingering, dominant ghosts of cedarwood and tobacco. It was an olfactory assault that felt tangible enough to grasp. On the bulkhead, the countdown timer pulsed a violent, rhythmic red.09:47... 09:46... 09:45...Each digital blink was a sledgehammer blow against the ribs, a rhythmic reminder of impending annihilation.Ava stood paralyzed in the center of the iron box. Her wrists remained snapped behind her back in the magnetic locks, the skin beneath the metal raw and throbbing. Her black tank top was plastered to her skin, soaked through with a cold, frantic sweat that traced every curve—curves she felt disgusted by in this moment, feeling like a prize being

The lowest level of the destroyer’s holding cells was less of a room and more of a black iron coffin swallowed by the abyss of the midnight sea. Titanium alloy walls, reinforced to withstand the crushing pressures of the deep, pulsed with a rhythmic, mechanical hum that vibrated through the floorboards and into the marrow of one’s bones. Above, harsh fluorescent strips flickered with a clinical, unforgiving white light, casting distorted shadows against the metal that stretched and twisted like the specters of those who had died in the dark.The air here was a suffocating cocktail of sensory overload. It was thick with the brine of the Atlantic, the sharp, acrid tang of gunpowder residue, and—most dominantly—the scent of Landon. He smelled of expensive cedarwood and aged tobacco, a fragrance so heavy and masculine it felt as though it were congealing into a physical weight against the lungs.Ava stood in the dead center of the cabin, the focal point of a nightmare. Her wrists were sna

The polar night in Iceland was a suffocating shroud of absolute black, broken only by the low, ghostly howl of the wind through the fortress ventilation shafts. It sounded like a choir of restless spirits wandering the frozen wastes outside. In the command center, the holographic projection hummed, freezing the final, agonizing frame of the live feed: Summer, bound and broken on the deck of the Black Snake, her face a mask of pallid terror. Tears mingled with the dark streaks of blood on her cheeks, and her lips moved in a silent, desperate plea that Ava could read with haunting clarity—Ava, don’t come.Ava stood before the display, her hands gripping the cold titanium edge of the console until her knuckles turned a ghostly white. Her heavy cashmere coat hung open at the neck, letting the subterranean chill bite at her skin, but it couldn't extinguish the white-hot rage simmering in her marrow. She stared into Summer’s recorded eyes for a long time, her breathing shallow and dangerous