Bodyguard, Reluctantly Yours || ONC2022

Chapter 16

Jayjay, as it turned out, was none other than Bunny91. His given name was Zeng Fangxi. Truth be told,  he was a better snitch than a bodyguard. Secrets like a gushing river flowed out of his mouth unfiltered as he begged for his life. I was glad to have made his acquaintance for once- for the first time in roughly two years that I had known him.

I was a little surprised when I saw that The Reach had only sent a single minion to receive us. However, when Jayjay confessed that he was the first of the enhanced humans (a very unoriginal title, if you ask me) from the Catalyst project, I could see why he was chosen.

At the moment, though, none of it mattered. Right now, we had to save Junjun's family and Ai-Jiejie, who were being held captive by The Reach somewhere underground on the reserve's premises.

Looking at Junjun's vial of blood hungrily, Jayjay had revealed that The Reach was an organization started by Haoyu's ancestors to protect the supernatural creatures that had survived the purge more than two thousand years ago. The shifters were the strongest among them. When unbound-blood, their blood could heal wounds and lengthen the lives of their supernatural counterparts.

Inopportunely, though, as a consequence of procreating with unmutated humans for almost two millennia, the once unique gene diluted, and now, hardly any of their original abilities remained.

Thus, The Reach lost its reason for existence and was shut down by Elder Huang, Junjun's great-grandfather. Unfortunately, some did not agree with the man. They worked in secret and started tracking down those they thought would react positively to their inhuman, immoral trials. However, with the elder backing out, there was no one they could rely on for shifter blood that made the creation of serum possible.

With only two families with pure shifter genes remaining, one of them being the all-powerful and influential Huang family and the other being the Jins, The Reach turned their attention to the latter.

Now working independently, The Reach contacted the Jins, only to be refused. What they couldn't have by request, The Reach took by force. They kidnapped their young son and sabotaged their car, causing it to crash, killing Mr. and Mrs. Jin on the spot, leaving their young daughter to pick up the pieces of their once happy family.

The young girl was none other than Ai-Jiejiei, who was betrothed to Haoyu then. Fearing that the accident was actually a well-planned attack on the ancient family, the Jin girl was given a new name and was kept away from the Huangs.

Her younger brother was presumed dead, but that was far from true. For years, The Reach used the boy's blood as the base ingredient to power the medicines invented by The Cure before moving on and trying their hand at creating enhanced humans who could do their bidding and replace Jin Cheng, Xueai's brother.

Slowly, bribing and scaring his way into the government, Zeng Liqin had made sure that none of his doings were exposed, and with the young man, who they rechristened as Alpha1, under his control, the future of The Reach was secure, or so they thought till he escaped.

Without their main ingredient, The Reach turned to the enhanced humans they had created to fill the requirement of their run-away missing ingredient: blood.

Alas, things didn't pan out as expected. The enhanced humans created using substituted blood turned out to be mindless monsters who sought nothing but blood, ripping out the throats of anyone they saw in front of them when the dormant mutant gene in them activated.

They killed and maimed their victims, leaving the mess to be cleaned up by The Reach.

Seeing as they had no way out, they decided to trap Junjun, who had left home years ago. They planned everything right to the T. Unfortunately, my arrival and Junjun's departure with me threw a wrench in their plans.