Chapter 38

A black box about the size of a thumb; the red dot flashes twice and then goes out.

Wen Zhiling held her breath, staring intently at the small black box in Zong Linhan's hand. His hand trembled slightly as the two waited anxiously in the darkness.

The darkness stretched out the time, but the red dot never lit up again. Zong Linhan put it back in his pocket. "Sometimes the signal is bad, and there are bugs."

Wen Zhiling detected a hint of sadness in his feignedly lighthearted tone. She asked, "Why did your brother disappear?"

The heavy metal door opened silently inward, and the two stepped into the darkness, gently closing the door behind them.

Zong Linhan: "My second uncle works for the Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. Our family has always been a key training target for the bureau. My brother is very interested in supernatural abilities and has been researching them for a long time."

Beyond the second door was another long, dark road. The two walked forward in the darkness, and Zong Linhan briefly explained the laboratory explosion to Wen Zhiling.

Wen Zhiling: "You joined the Bureau of Extraordinary Investigations to find him?"

“I was fourteen when he disappeared. I was depressed for a long time and didn’t want to eat or drink. My second uncle took me to the training ground and told me that people who starve to death cannot find missing people. He withstood the pressure from my parents and asked me if I wanted to join the Bureau of Surveillance to find him. After that, he took me through a lot of training and exposed me to dangerous missions.”

"But the idea of ​​joining didn't come about because of this. I had the idea when I was eight years old because of a child."

“My brother joined the Bureau of Surveillance’s affiliated laboratory a long time ago. He’s very busy every day. If I want to have lunch with him, I have to write a three-page report. I really want to spend more time with him. Once, after lunch, I didn’t leave with the others. I found a room to hide in, and when I came out, I got lost and ended up in a place that looked like a kindergarten. The bureau built it so that family members could pick up their children after get off work.”

“A child was shoveling sand under the slide. He had short hair, wore a mask, and I couldn’t tell his gender. He was very thin and looked sick. He was surprised to see me, and I was afraid he would tell on me, so I let him go.”

Zong Linhan said with a hint of helplessness, "Then he got very angry and shoveled sand into my eyes."

Wen Zhiling couldn't help but laugh out loud, "Such a temperamental child?"

Zong Linhan: "We got into a fight, he bled, the alarm went off, my brother came, his face was very dark, and I was grounded for half a month."

He lowered his voice a little: "The second time I went to the lab, I saw him in the ward. He was covered in wires from instruments and was so weak he looked like he was about to die. I thought I had hit him and I was scared and felt guilty. My brother took the opportunity to tell me that this was a side effect of his superpower. It was probably around that time that I had the idea to change all of this."

Enter the password in front of the third door, and once it opens, it's pitch black inside; it's no longer a passageway, but a room.

Zong Linhan's flashlight provided limited light, and the air was filled with the smell of disinfectant, contrasting with the damp and musty smell outside.

Rows of lab benches and computer equipment were arranged, with a large glass container in the center. The outer shell was shattered, and broken tubing and electrodes were visible among the glass shards. A label was attached to the bottom of the container.

Project Number: 001

Status: Activity maintained

Wen Zhiling couldn't help but wonder if someone had been imprisoned here, treated like a test subject, with tubes inserted all over their body.

She felt uncomfortable watching this and followed Zong Linhan inside. "Is this also a laboratory?"

Zong Linhan nodded: "A long time ago, there were rumors that some high-ranking members of the Ecological Faction were actually secretly cooperating with the superhumans. On the surface, they insisted that superhumans were a species that had existed since ancient times, but behind the scenes, they worked with the superhumans to create more of their kind, eliminate their self-will, and turn them into walking killing machines. I once suspected that this was the laboratory base that the Ecological Faction had secretly built back then. It was just that the distribution of benefits among the high-ranking members was uneven, which led to the explosion and the situation like this. On the day of the raid, my second uncle's men were sent. They stole the key to the light ring, which is why they could neither destroy it nor enter to search for it."

This is a large underground testing ground. The further you go in, the more the ground changes from cold cement to damp, soft soil. There is almost no sound when you step on it. The smell in the air also changes, mixed with the smell of damp soil and some kind of fungus. The beam of a flashlight can only barely illuminate the area in front of you.

Although the distance was not far, it felt like stepping from a modern laboratory into a man-made underground cave. The walls were covered with fleshy, vine-like tissues that were still pulsating slightly, and slippery, sticky fluid dripped down the walls.

Wen Zhiling whispered, "Are they... still alive?"

Zong Linhan: "Dead. It's a vine-type creature with supernatural abilities. Even if it were alive, it wouldn't pose much of a threat."

Wen Zhiling: "So you're going to put it here as a landscape feature?"

Zong Linhan: "To help cool down the laboratory."

Wen Zhiling: "This place is really giving me the creeps..."

Her voice grew softer and softer, as if afraid of disturbing something.

Winding through the intricate vines, bending down to pass through a blasted low door, the two entered a relatively open space with a higher ceiling, like the center of a nest, with the four walls covered with cables that resembled bundles of nerves.

Above the platform in the very center, there is an object suspended, a prismatic crystal about one meter high, with a frosted glass-like texture, and you can't see what's inside.

“This entire area is the ‘Aperture,’ including those vines.” Zong Linhan took out a coin-shaped circular chip: “The Aperture Code.”

Wen Zhiling: "I thought it would be like in Hollywood movies, with things like glowing softening glass screens."

However, this frosted glass soft screen looks quite impressive.

Wen Zhiling: "What do we need to do now?"

Zong Linhan: "Current technology cannot distinguish between genuine and fake apertures, so we cannot rashly use the key to analyze them, for fear of damaging the content."

Wen Zhiling thought for a moment: "Was it said before that I could act as a guide? I sense?"

Zong Linhan: "Mm."

Wen Zhiling: "How do we do it?"

Zong Linhan: "How are Hollywood movies made?"

Wen Zhiling pondered for a moment, then closed her eyes and focused all her attention on sensing.

Time passed second by second. She sensed the strange smell in the air, the cold, hard ground beneath her feet, the faint glow of the glass screen, and Zong Linhan's low laughter.

"..." I've been tricked.

Wen Zhiling's ears turned bright red. She lowered her hand from the glass screen and glared at him fiercely. Zong Lin couldn't suppress a cold smile. "Baby, you're too..."

Beep beep beep—

The glass screen emitted an alarm, followed by the pop-up of an interface at the bottom layer. Both of them were stunned. There was clearly an interface on the outermost layer, but this one that popped up was exactly the same. Zong Linhan tentatively inserted the light ring key into it.

[Data transmission in progress...]

[Transfer complete]

A key popped out from the interface, and Wen Zhiling asked blankly, "Is that all?"

Zong Linhan frowned but remained silent.

Wen Zhiling: "It's going so smoothly that it scares me. If this were a movie, something unexpected would happen at any moment..."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a loud metallic clang echoed from outside. The ground shook violently. Zong Linhan steadied Wen Zhiling, who nearly fell over, and drew a gun from his waistband, his expression grave. "I'll go check it out. You wait here for me."

Wen Zhiling tugged at his sleeve, "Be careful, don't get hurt."

She had almost no medicine left, and if he bled, she wouldn't be able to control it. The two of them had better get back before dawn to avoid the production crew arranging a break for a surprise interaction.

Zong Linhan grasped Wen Zhiling's trembling hand, his voice calm and collected, "Everything will be alright, don't worry."