Urban Hidden Wolf

Chapter 8: The Silver Needle Seal

Dawn stretched golden fingers across the hardwood floor as Su Heng knelt by the coffee table, her silhouette motionless for thirty straight minutes.

The glass vial in her lap cast diamond-shaped reflections, the clear liquid inside the syringe trembling with each micro-shake of her wrist—a modified inhibitor brewed from the remnants of Shen Huaiyuan’s blue serum, distilled with her own blood.

Fang Yan watched from the couch, his gaze tracing the loose strands of her hair.

A drop of reagent stained her nape, glowing faintly blue in the morning light, like the cerulean flowers that used to climb the orphanage’s back wall.

Back then, when the other children called him monster, she’d been the one plucking those blossoms at dawn, tucking them behind his ears with dirt-smudged fingers: "See? Even monsters can bloom."

"This might sting." Su Heng’s voice startled him. The metallic ping of the needle cap hitting the floor made his lashes flutter.

Her fingertips pressed against his bicep through his sleeve—even the fabric couldn’t hide the dampness of her palm. Just like last night in the parking lot, her hands always betrayed her before her words did.

Fang Yan caught her wrist. "Heng, this serum—"

"It’s based on Deputy Director Shen’s formula." Her other hand closed over his, nails leaving half-moon indents on his skin. "The blue serum suppresses adrenaline but damages nerves. I added human serum albumin as a buffer." She lifted her face, the shadows under her eyes like ink-stained cotton. "Last night, your mark was hot enough to fry an egg. I counted every second, waiting for you to lose control." Her throat moved. "I can’t wait anymore."

Fang Yan’s grip loosened.

Memories flashed—the glint of a silver needle in her coat pocket, the test tubes lined up on the coffee table at 3 AM, glowing like frozen tears.

He knew this stubbornness. When she was twelve, after her mother was beaten by a patient’s family, Su Heng had stood in the rain all night clutching her mother’s bloodied white coat. From then on, she’d practiced injections until her hands never shook, muttering, "Steady hands save lives."

The needle pierced his skin.

Fang Yan hissed—not from pain, but from the cold, a winter-river chill slithering up his arm to his neck.

He touched the mark on his nape. The feverish heat had dulled. Even his heartbeat felt slower.

"It’s working?" Su Heng’s eyes lit up, her fingers hovering near his carotid artery. "Adrenaline levels dropped 17%. Gentler than the blue serum—"

His phone buzzed.

Ah Mao’s raspy voice crackled through: "Fang-ge! Hospital alley, behind the dumpster—get here now!"

Ten minutes later, Fang Yan crouched under a magnolia tree in the hospital’s back alley.

Ah Mao huddled by the trash bins, his school uniform sleeve torn, revealing a bruise the color of rotten plums—courtesy of Zhao Jiu’s brass-knuckled rings.

"Scar-Eye’s taking a ‘pureblood’ to the new fighting pit tonight." The kid shoved a crumpled map into Fang Yan’s hand, his fingernails crusted with grime. "I heard them say it’s the last test subject with the Wolf King’s bloodline." His grip tightened, knuckles whitening. "Fang-ge, they… they drove silver spikes into its neck. The blood looked like—" He gagged. "Like yours when you lost control."

Fang Yan unfolded the map. A red circle marked Abandoned Steel Mill—Sublevel 3.

His thumb traced the indentation on the paper’s back—Ah Mao had pressed so hard the pencil nearly tore through.

The mark on his neck pulsed. Was the inhibitor already wearing off?

"How’d you escape?" he asked, suppressing the wolf’s growl in his throat.

Ah Mao wiped his nose, pulling a small vial from his pocket. "Stole Zhao Jiu’s insulin." He shook the bottle. "Three days without this, and the diabetic bastard croaks." Suddenly, he grinned, revealing a missing front tooth. "You said even monsters can be heroes. I wanna… be your sidekick."

Fang Yan tucked the map into his inner pocket.

He fished out a mint—Su Heng always said he chewed them when nervous—and dropped it into Ah Mao’s palm. "Go home. Lock the door."

As the kid scampered off, Fang Yan glanced up at the seventh-floor window of the hospital. Su Heng’s office light was on.

She must’ve gone to pull his medical records while he was out.

He touched his nape. The mark was warming again, but not as scorching as last night.

Maybe her serum did work.

The steel mill’s rusted gate groaned shut behind Fang Yan, sealing him in with the stench of oxidized metal and old blood.

Motion-activated lights flickered on as he descended to Sublevel 3, stretching his shadow into something serpentine along the concrete walls.

He sidled along the corridor toward Cell Block C, but at the turn, a metallic screech gave the trap away.

Three steel cables dropped from the ceiling.

Fang Yan rolled—but his body moved sluggishly, weighed down as if submerged in tar. The cables grazed his shoulder, sparking against the wall.

Three guards lunged from the shadows. Scar-Eye twirled a silver dagger. "Officer Fang, slumming it at the fighting pits?"

The first stab came for his heart.

Fang Yan caught the man’s wrist—but his grip was pitifully weak. The blade skimmed his ribs, white-hot pain blotting his vision.

Su Heng’s serum. It was suppressing his adrenaline—the very thing that fueled a werewolf’s strength.

The second dagger sank into his thigh.

Fang Yan bit down until his molars threatened to c***k. He groped for the stun g*n at his waist—but a knee slammed into his nape, the silver blade pressing to his throat.

"The great Wolf King’s bloodline?" Scar-Eye sneered. "This is it?"

Then—

"GROOOOAAARRR—"

The howl that erupted from Cell Block C wasn’t lupine. It was primordial, a sound that vibrated Fang Yan’s skull like a struck gong.

Memories surfaced—Old Fang telling him wolf legends by the orphanage stove: "A true Wolf King can awaken dormant spirits. Their call resonates in the blood."

The mark on his neck burned.

Scar-Eye’s pupils dilated. The dagger clattered to the floor.

Fang Yan pushed up, fingers finding his nape—something writhed beneath the skin, straining to break free.

From the cell block, chains rattled. A voice, guttural and wet, gasped: "King… awakens…"

Fang Yan’s vision blurred.

His heartbeat pounded ten times faster than humanly possible, lava surging through his veins.

The fire spread from his nape to his limbs. He thought of Su Heng’s "This time, it’s my turn," of Ah Mao’s crumpled map, of her silhouette bent over the coffee table—just like when she’d gathered his fallen building blocks all those years ago.

CRACK.

Was that the sound of his mark splitting?

Fang Yan touched his nape. His fingers came away b****y.

In the cell block’s darkness, two emerald eyes ignited.

The guards’ shouts faded into white noise as a new sound rose from Fang Yan’s throat—a subsonic growl no human could produce.

Old Fang’s dying words echoed: "Xiao Yan, your power isn’t a curse."

With a sound like snapping bones, the mark on Fang Yan’s neck seared through flesh, glowing crimson under the flickering lights.