Chapter 1

The cold metal casing of the flare gun pressed against my palm, and I steadily aimed the muzzle at the silver metal canister marked "AF-001".

"Martin, are you sure you want to take it this far?" My voice trembled from the cold, but my tone was resolute.

On the other end of the walkie-talkie, Martin Clay's laughter stopped abruptly.

This was followed by Lilian Saunders' panicked voice saying, "Sierra, don't be impulsive! T-That can't be messed with recklessly!"

"Oh? So now you know I can't just touch that?" I shot back.

I chuckled coldly, and my breath formed a cloud of white vapor before me. "When you locked me in here, why didn't you think about the consequences?"

Martin remained defiant. "Sierra, stop trying to scare us! It's just a prank, isn't it? Is it worth taking it out on the company's valuable cargo?

"Do you even know what that is? And you dare to randomly aim at it? Put the flare gun down now!"

I ignored him and instead used my free hand to lightly tap the metal canister beside me. The canister emitted a crisp echo, sounding particularly piercing in the dead silence of the freezer.

"That's Ms. Jameson's lifeline! In order to have an heir, she spent a whopping 200 million dollars to acquire it from an Almoran tribal chief! It's said to be top-tier genetics that occur once in a century!

"As the quality control supervisor, I personally handled the warehousing procedures. You tell me—do I or do I not know how important it is?" I retorted.

Silence fell over the walkie-talkie. I could imagine the sudden shift of Martin's and Lilian's expressions in the monitoring room outside.

They knew better than anyone the value of this item.

Our boss, Ms. Jameson, personally supervised the process on the day this item was stored. She even demanded that the movers use brand-new gloves.

She said that if anything went even slightly wrong with this, everyone involved would be erased from this planet.

Lilian, now sounding tearful, spoke up. It was as if she had suffered a great injustice. "Sierra, we really just meant to play a joke on you and lighten the mood… You're the one who's always so cold and aloof that everyone is kind of afraid of you.

"Quickly put the gun down, okay? Martin will open the door for you in a moment."

As soon as she finished speaking, Martin immediately chimed in, "That's right, Sierra, we were just joking. I'll find a way to open the door right away. Maybe the door's too old, and the lock's circuit froze over. Don't worry. I'll go get the tools!"

While listening to their coordinated act, I felt the last bit of warmth in my heart vanish completely.

The circuit froze over? This Gorban-imported constant-temperature freezer door could operate normally in environments as cold as -58°F.

Martin seriously thought I was a fool.

"Stop pretending," I said, my voice turning cold. "You have ten seconds to open the door. Don't forget that you're still live-streaming. If Ms. Jameson sees online that her lifeline was completely destroyed because of you, do you think you'll live to see tomorrow?

"I'm giving you ten seconds. Open the door now! Ten… Nine…"

I began the countdown as my frozen finger rested on the flare gun's trigger.

The sounds of Martin's furious growl and Lilian's sobbing transmitted over the walkie-talkie.