Chapter Sixty-Four: The Wound

The walls were snow-white, the damp smell from the floor mingled with the odor of disinfectant, various medical instruments dripped and dripped, and white coats swayed back and forth...

This is Qi An's childhood.

Of course, she had a more normal childhood before the age of 7.

Although the apocalypse had only been going on for a few years at that time, the base was still in chaos. Orphans and their guardians were busy building up the base's children, and during the day they all stayed in the base's nursery and were not allowed to go out and run around.

But back then she had friends and could play with other children of different ages.

She was small from a young age. According to the nursery teachers, her father brought her to the nursery when she was an infant, and she was so thin that it seemed she couldn't survive.

But she was very resilient; not only did she survive, but she also learned to walk and talk just as quickly as other children.

Qi An was 5 years old but looked like a 3-year-old child and was always bullied.

But she is also fierce, mainly because she is resilient and has a very fast recovery time. She will definitely fight back if she is bullied.

The older kids could pin her to the ground and beat her up, but they couldn't resist her persistence, and in the end, she would always end up riding on top of them, covered in bruises.

Stumbling and fumbling, she eventually blended into the group of children. The kids had so much energy that when they weren't learning to read or do addition and subtraction, they would roam freely in and out of the nursery, even prying open the shells of passing snails for a quick look.

Qi An has memories from a very young age, and he can still vividly recall the joyful memories of those years.

She felt just like she does today, eating and fighting together with her teammates and friends. Although there were dangers at times, she was never alone.

However, as Qi An grew up, it gradually became apparent that she did not react to the source of pollution.

Children are the future of humanity. The children in the nursery are well protected, and no source of pollution is allowed in the surrounding environment.

However, information about pollution is everywhere.

The year Qi An started learning multiplication, he saw a man undergoing a strange transformation on the street when he returned home from the nursery!

This triggered a chain reaction of mutations.

It was right at rush hour, and several things suddenly changed on the busy commercial street!

The first fallen insects rampaged through the crowd, devouring anyone they could find, causing chaos and screaming as people fled through the streets.

Qi Wanquan is a sheriff. He has a gun and shoots the fallen insects, but the remaining fallen insects target and attack him.

Qi An was right beside him when a fallen insect's tentacle wrapped around Qi Wanquan, who was standing next to her, and Qi Wanquan's contamination level skyrocketed! But she didn't react at all.

Even after falling, she struggled to get up and desperately tugged at Qi Wanquan's clothes, trying to rescue him!

Qi An could still recall the way Qi Wanquan looked at her back then.

He was shocked, bewildered, and seemed to have finally confirmed something. He felt a sense of fear, but also a strange sense of joy!

Later, a large number of security personnel arrived in time, the chaos was quelled, and Qi Wanquan was sent to undergo purification.

The police station was packed with people who needed purification. Qi An was in a corner, and the purifier, seeing that she showed no signs of change, immediately moved on to the next person.

At that time, Qi An was 7 years old, and as the teacher at the nursery said, she was very smart.

Looking at the noisy crowd in the hall, she realized her own abnormality and huddled in a corner, feeling anxious and uneasy.

This unease reached its peak after following Qi Wanquan home.

Because Qi Wanquan started testing her.

He played her audio of the screaming worms and showed her pictures of those distorted symbols.

Qi An didn't know how to react; she just found what she heard and saw unpleasant and incomprehensible.

How should she react to make her father's gaze less frightening?

Crying was useless, begging was useless, and even trying to go to the nursery to seek help from the kind teachers and her friends was futile.

Qi Wanquan locked her in the house for two days, tried every testing method he could think of, and then took her to the research department.

The research department originally did not accept them because the base stipulated that all children must be 10 years old or older before they could undergo the mental enhancement value test.

Mental strength tests mainly measure resistance to pollution, which is harmful to children.

If Qi An is exposed to a source of pollution on the street and doesn't react much, it's very likely that she has extremely high mental strength and the talent to become a purifier.

But Qi Wanquan recounted his testing process in one breath, explaining that Qi An's body and mind were different from others even in infancy.

This finally piqued the interest of Wu Liyan, the head of the gene enhancement laboratory.

Then, the secret laboratory was built.

For the next five years, Qi An lived deep underground.

Her childhood, which consisted of learning with her friends, being praised for her intelligence by her teachers, playing with her friends, and receiving wildflowers from little boys, turned into white walls, instruments, and needles.

Her name changed from "Xiao An" to "Little Monster".

Whatever she encountered within the white walls—whether it was being cut open to test her self-healing abilities; being fed rotten flesh to test her digestive abilities; being given poison to test her resistance to toxins; or being locked up with a singer to test her resistance to pollution...

Professor Wu, standing outside the glass, never frowned. When her father visited her, he always spoke to her with hopeful eyes:

"Xiao An, don't be selfish! Listen to the scientists, you might be able to save everyone!"

Help! Help!

Qi An grabbed the plastic cup on the table and crushed it!

She couldn't save anyone during her five years in the underground laboratory!

Did those researchers who called her "little monster" create any serum to save all of humanity? Did they figure out why she wasn't contaminated?

Qi An, leaning on his head in the dimly lit private room, suddenly burst out laughing.

"Were you transferred away a year before the base was destroyed?" she asked Xiang Shiyang across from her.

Xiang Shiyang had been on guard ever since she crushed the plastic cup, and now he nodded cautiously.

It seems that Qi An really remembers him, one of the outer guards, and even recalls when he was transferred.

"So you don't know, I was later able to be contaminated, and I'm nothing special," she laughed.

In her last six months in the lab, amidst daily anger and longing, she learned... to control pollution in turn!

Qi An's pupils split one by one, his skin gradually turned pale, and the flesh on his fingertips twitched, gradually covering his nails.

She suddenly changed right in front of Xiang Shiyang in this small private room, where there was no source of pollution!

Xiang Shiyang was shocked and suddenly stood up.

"Monster! He's a fucking monster!" he cursed. "This is the base. If you mutate, you won't be able to escape!"

This noise drew Wang Ming, a young man from the doorway, in, and caused the owner downstairs to rush out of the kitchen.

This sound will attract the police, the army, and perhaps even her teammates.

Qi An's pupils focused again, and his skin returned to normal.

It happened in the blink of an eye; she switched between 50% and 25% pollution levels in the blink of an eye.

Still shaken, Xiang Shiyang quickly took out a Gan Ning pill and put it in his mouth.

Qi An looked at him: "If you want to use the secret that I was once an experimental subject to blackmail me into doing things, you can try!"

Xiang Shiyang could easily tell everyone that she wouldn't be contaminated, but who would believe her?

She passed the mental enhancement value test, and last month she precisely controlled her pollution behavior, resulting in the tester giving her a stable "8".

As Xiang Shiyang's scar twitched, he said that Qi An must have some hidden means to be able to work peacefully as a purifier.

But there are some things she just can't hide!

Xiang Shiyang tried to calm himself down, slammed his hands on the table, and leaned closer to Qi An:

"Your genes are different from those of normal people!"

I heard that the gene enhancement lab at this base is really amazing. To do a... gene sequencing, all you need is a drop of blood, a hair, and just one day!

Also, your teacher, she was the one who approached me first.

I just went to the Purification Alliance to try my luck and find out some information about you, but it turned out that everyone there knew you and said you were extraordinary.

What's unusual about it? No matter how well you hide it, something unusual will eventually slip up and arouse suspicion, right?

Your teacher is particularly interested in what happened at the original base!