Selene stood frozen, looking at the tension and longing on the child’s face, and suddenly her eyes turned red.

Children who performed well at the academy received contribution stickers, which could be traded for snacks and prizes they liked. But Andy had never traded his; he had always saved them, and he wouldn't tell anyone why when asked.

So it was for…

Silas took a casual look, reached out, picked up the notebook, and set it aside, his tone indifferent: "I have a mission tomorrow."

Andy stood frozen, his hand unconsciously clutching his sleeve. Seeing his eyes follow the man, the man paused after his trailing sentence, uttering something Selene never expected.

"The weekend is fine."

It wasn't until Andy was coaxed to sleep that Selene came to her senses.

She never expected Silas would be willing to go to the ecological garden, and the fact that he was sleeping at home tonight made her feel as if she were drifting in a dream.

On the weekend, the ecological garden was crowded.

As Selene was holding her son’s hand, nearly falling in the throng of people, a bony palm firmly wrapped around her shoulder.

She froze and looked up at Silas’s jawline, inches away. Before she could react, he let go. The avoidant, distancing way he pulled back made Selene’s heart, which had finally begun to warm, turn cold again.

Walking to a glass window, Andy looked longingly at a small shop nearby, staring at candies shaped like seashells made from low-tier crystals.

Selene took Andy to the store, while Silas stood outside waiting for them.

Inside the bustling store, Andy carefully took two bags of candy.

"This is for Uncle."

Selene couldn't describe the feeling in her heart, but she queued up with Andy to pay.

When she came out, she found the tall figure gone.

"Where did Uncle go?" The boy looked back in confusion several times, then suddenly said with red eyes: "Is Andy too greedy for candy? Did Uncle think it was a bother and leave?"

Selene quickly stroked her son’s head, gave him the candy in her hand, suppressed her inner unease, and smiled: "It’s okay, Mommy will make a call."

Stepping slightly away from the anxious Andy, she dialed the top number on her communicator. The old photo of them playing together popped up alongside the call interface. She waited a long time for the call to connect.

"Silas, where are you? I’ve already finished lining up and buying the candy…"

A static sound came from the communicator, followed by the man’s indifferent, perfunctory tone: "I had something come up and left. You two go ahead and play."

As soon as the words fell, happy laughter from a child came from the other side.

"Daddy, hurry up! I want to fight zombies with Daddy!"

Selene looked at her son, who was watching her with anticipation and nervousness, an unprecedented sourness and anger wrapping around her heart, her voice becoming hoarse and choked.

"How… how can you break your promise to your son? Do you have any idea how much he looked forward to going out to play with his Daddy!"

The other side was silent for a moment, the tone cold to a horrifying degree.

"He's just an abominable bastard child; it has nothing to do with me."

Chapter 5

"Beep... beep..."

Listening to the long, disconnected tone on the communicator, Selene felt as if she had been yanked from a dream. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and a throbbing, numbing pain radiated from her temples.

She neither cried nor made a scene, simply stumbling along with a dazed, unfocused gaze.

She couldn't remember how she had spent the day coaxing her son, only that she had curled up in bed in a daze, eyes wide open, unable to sleep through the night.

Silas had not returned home, as expected; the scene of him lying beside her the day before felt like nothing more than a dream.

The next day, as Selene dropped her child off at the Academy and prepared to get back into the car, strange looks kept being cast her way. She couldn't understand why, so she simply prepared to get into the vehicle.

The orderly called out anxiously, "Ma'am, get in the car quickly, something has happened!"

Selene’s heart trembled, and a thick sense of unease engulfed her. Before she could even reach the car, a figure suddenly lunged at her.

"It’s you, this murderer who writes nonsense books that get people killed!"

A rough hand grabbed Selene’s hair and yanked it downward. A sharp, searing pain exploded from her scalp; before she could even process the panic, she was dealt a brutal slap to the face. Her cheek went numb, and her ears began to ring.

The little boy, who had been standing by her legs, immediately rushed toward the assailant. "My Mommy is not that kind of person!"

He then lunged forward, using his tiny arms and legs to pummel the person struggling with Selene, shouting, "I won't let you bully my Mommy!"

Selene’s heart pounded violently, filled with both terror and heartache. She couldn't spare a thought for the burning pain on her own face as she reached out to pull Andy back, only to be shoved away by the assailant, stumbling and nearly falling.

She watched in horror as her child was dragged into the chaos, her voice turning hoarse from screaming: "Andy, come back!"

"Fighting! They're fighting—"

The crowd turned noisy in an instant; some tried to pull them apart, others shouted, and the entrance to the academy descended into total turmoil.

It wasn't until the sirens of the base’s law enforcement officers sounded that the instructor rushed over, took Andy, and escorted him to safety inside the academy.

Half-dazed with pain, Selene was helped up by the orderly and taken to the medical station to have her wounds dressed.

Before she could even speak, the agitator pointed at her and unleashed a torrent of abuse.

The accusation was that she had recklessly published her theory manuscript on purification abilities, leading her daughter to blindly practice it during a purification qualification exam, which resulted in an energy backlash and death by explosion. Now, she demanded that Selene be taken away for execution.

The surrounding crowd, upon hearing this, couldn't help but whisper, their eyes filled with skepticism and malice.

Selene’s body trembled slightly. Facing the furrowed brows of Silas, she felt a profound chill in her heart and couldn't help but explain: "That was an unfinished private research manuscript. I never intended to publish it; it was stolen..."

Yara, who had been watching coldly, suddenly turned pale upon seeing the agitator and took a subtle step back.

Selene happened to catch her expression and suddenly remembered that when she was preparing for the purification exam, Yara had been in their study. Afterward, that unpublished manuscript had appeared in the base’s mission hall and was even used for assessments.

Just as she was about to speak, the agitator spat hatefully:

"Since Miss Selene won't admit it, why not perform a purification ability for us right now to show how 'talented' you are, instead of writing blind nonsense!"

"I can't… I'm injured…"

Selene’s face turned ghastly white, her body shaking uncontrollably. She tried hard to open her mouth, but couldn't utter a single complete sentence.

The perpetrator of that incident had not only stolen her innocence but had also completely crippled her hands.

She looked helplessly at Silas, her body trembling. He was the one who had treated her hands; he knew better than anyone that she could no longer use her abilities.

But all she was met with was his cold, indifferent gaze.

"Enough, Selene. Stop the desperate excuses."

The reprimand from the man sharing her bed instantly silenced her. She stared straight at him, feeling dazed and helpless, as if sleepwalking through hell.

For a moment, she felt the pain from the malicious assault burning fiercely, so intense it was unbearable.

Was this, too, part of the revenge?

Seeing that the atmosphere was wrong, the law enforcement officer stepped forward to mediate.

"Making a scene is wrong, and hitting people is even worse. Regarding the claims made by this lady, we will dispatch people to investigate. Once we have results, we will contact and notify everyone..."

The enforcement team took the agitator away, and the onlookers dispersed, seeing no more entertainment. Only Selene remained, eyes vacant, clothes soiled, sitting there covered in scars.

As for Silas, he had long since left with Yara.

Selene couldn't say a word. The sour sensation in her nose made her unable to hold back the tears, which felt numb as they slid down her swollen, stinging cheeks.

The communicator in her bag suddenly rang. She opened it to find a message from the Base Purification Qualification Institute:

【Notice of Cancellation of Level 3 Purification Master Qualification regarding Miss Selene Rivers' severe negative influence】

Selene’s hand holding the communicator trembled slightly. She had the orderly take her back.