Luo Ning dared not move; the way things were unfolding had taken her somewhat unexpectedly.
A lean waist, burning hot skin, and every inch of muscle beneath that skin exudes burgeoning power.
In the dim light, his gaze was intense and vibrant, as if he wanted to penetrate her body.
Even if she hadn't had any relationships with men, it was clear that Lu Xinghe was currently in a state of heightened desire.
Lu Xinghe reached out and brushed her loose hair aside, revealing her small ears and fair neck. It seemed he had done this before, on a sunny day, under a pink flowering tree, the wind blowing her hair, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoe, and commanded him: Kiss me, I won't bite you...
"Don't bite me." He lowered his head and whispered this in her ear, lost in passion, before turning to seek her lips.
The moment she was kissed, Luo Ning's mind went blank, but she quickly came to her senses and pushed Lu Xinghe away with all her might.
The drone flew by again, its bright light sweeping in and striking the wall like a mark.
Upon seeing the beam of light, Lu Xinghe paused for a moment, then immediately released his grip and stepped back, creating some distance between them.
Luo Ning's body was trembling slightly, her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. She was swallowing small sips of air. If he was just following orders in the lab last time, what about now?
The drone left, the lights went out, and the room became dark again.
Lu Xinghe got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Splashing water on his face, he finally became more awake and muttered a curse at himself.
Luo Ning was at a loss. She wanted to leave first, as the ventilation ducts of the alien prison were also a good hiding place. However, after walking to the window, she turned back. Escaping like this was not a good option. She had to find out the truth.
Lu Xinghe finally came out. He picked up his clothes and prepared to leave, as it was inappropriate for him to stay there. However, she grabbed his clothes and handed him the notebook.
There's a line of text above: Is it because of the breeding mission?
This was the first reason she could think of for him, unaware that five years ago this man had fantasized about her countless nights.
“No,” he said in a low voice, though he could say that.
She wrote another line: Was it because of a momentary impulse?
He was an adult, in the prime of his life, that's what she thought.
But Lu Xinghe did not answer immediately. He thought it was true, but it didn't seem to be entirely true. He couldn't explain his feelings. It was almost the same as the last time in the laboratory, as if his body was not obeying his commands.
"Hmm," he said softly.
Luo Ning got the answer she expected, but for some reason felt a little disappointed. She continued writing, "I'll move out tomorrow. I can hide in the ventilation ducts of the alien prison. If I have the chance to leave here, I will leave as soon as possible."
Seeing that every word she spoke was about leaving, Lu Xinghe became somewhat agitated: "Du Lu could discover the alien prison at any time, and there's no suitable opportunity right now. You can't leave."
Although his voice was low, it was filled with anger. Luo Ning could see that he was still upset, even though it was clearly his fault.
"I'll find you a new place to stay. Wait for my news." Lu Xinghe opened the door and walked out, then slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
The soldiers on duty heard the door slam and immediately looked over. They saw Lu Xinghe walking over with a cold face and immediately stood up and saluted: "Major."
Lu Xinghe walked straight to the Information Department with a cold face. Inside the Information Hall, hundreds of electronic screens were monitoring every important corner of the base in real time.
The person in charge came over immediately when he saw him: "Major Lu, what brings you here?"
Lu Xinghe did not see any surveillance footage from the drone: "Why is there no footage of the drone patrolling?"
The person in charge replied, "The drones are for supplementary patrols. They are currently under the responsibility of the military and will be handed over to our information department in two days."
As expected, it was the military headquarters. Lu Xinghe understood. Luo Ning could no longer hide here, but who was the person who suspected him?
Genetics Department.
Dai Wanglin and Qi Xiaowei stood by the window watching Lu Xinghe walk away. Qi Xiaowei said, "Do you think Major Lu's seventeenth test subject might already be dead?"
"Why do you think that?" Dai Wanglin asked.
“So many days have passed, and there haven’t been any reports of humans being eaten. Besides, she was injected with the second drug, so there haven’t been any reports of men being assaulted. Unless she’s dead, how could she overcome her appetite and physical desires?” Qi Xiaowei analyzed.
Dai Wanglin disagreed: "A mutant can survive without food. The fact that no male was violated does not mean she is dead. It could also mean that the medicine was ineffective against her."
“How could it not work? We’ve conducted so many clinical trials, and there haven’t been any failures.” Qi Xiaowei didn’t believe it.
Dai Wanglin replied, "The subjects of our clinical trials are all alien species without a sense of morality. They cannot control themselves, so we do not know whether this drug will be effective on alien species with a sense of morality."
"You think Subject Seventeen has a human sense of morality? How is that possible? She's a mutant." Qi Xiaowei found it unbelievable.
Dai Wanglin frowned: "She is indeed a mutant, but I suspect that she is the mutant that Lu Xinghe and An Xiaoruo raised back then, and it is very likely that the manifestation of Experiment No. 17 is in Lu Xinghe's hands."
Qi Xiaowei paused, then asked, "What's the reason for your suspicion?"
Dai Wanglin glanced at her: "When have you ever seen Lu Xinghe let a mutant escape for more than 24 hours? But Subject 17 has been gone for more than ten days, yet he keeps saying he can't find him."
Qi Xiaowei immediately said, "It's fine if you say this to me, but not to mention you don't have any evidence. Even if it were true, if others knew that the base's strongest security officer had been successfully bred by a mutant, do you know how much panic it would cause?"
"Of course I know." Dai Wanglin's eyes were fixed on Lu Xinghe, who was about to walk out the door.
Lu Xinghe suddenly stopped and turned to look at them. Dai Wanglin smiled and waved to him. Lu Xinghe nodded and turned to leave.
"Wow, he can sense us even from this far away, that's terrifying." Qi Xiaowei breathed a sigh of relief.
The smile on Dai Wanglin's face slowly disappeared: "Let's leave this matter to time. I believe we'll have an answer soon."
Lu Xinghe walked outside. It seemed that Dai Wanglin was suspicious of him. He was the only one who paid the most attention to this matter and also had the authority to mobilize the military's drones.
Knowing who was suspicious, he had already devised a plan: first, to move Luo Ning away from here; if Dai Wanglin continued to follow her, he could then track his movements before taking action. He would not allow Luo Ning to fall into Dai Wanglin's hands again and be bred with others.
He found an empty room, sat down on a chair, and couldn't help but think back to the scene from earlier: the warm body, the fragrance of orchids, the soft lips...
He leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, half-asleep, when he heard someone say to him, "There are many paths to take, each to their own."
No, he didn't want to; he didn't want everyone to go their separate ways.
The man then said to him, "Develop a medicine that will allow me to be a human again."
He woke up with a start, but there was no one beside him. He had this dream many times before, but the voices were always unreal. But just now it felt real, and it sounded like Luo Ning's voice.
He thought it was because he had been too preoccupied with his own situation lately that he mistook it for her voice.
Luo Ning didn't sleep all night, and Lu Xinghe still hadn't returned. She wanted to go out, but she was worried that if she was discovered, it would implicate Lu Xinghe, so she could only continue to wait for the night to come.
She packed her clothes and then prepared to take some more paper and pens, but the ones she had used up were almost empty. So she opened the drawer to look for them and found a needle gun filled with blue liquid in the last drawer.
She looked at it for a long time but still couldn't figure out what it was, so she put it back where it was.
At 10 p.m., Lu Xinghe finally reappeared. He found a place for her to stay temporarily and then drew a map for her.
"Stay here for now, no one will notice. There's food inside too. Don't wander around." Lu Xinghe didn't dare look her in the eye when he spoke.
Luo Ning also avoided eye contact: "Okay, I'll go now, thank you."
"Mm," Lu Xinghe replied.
Luo Ning put on her clothes and disappeared into the night. Following the map he drew, she quickly found a place of refuge. It was an abandoned building that had been burned down. The exterior looked dilapidated, but there was a room inside that was very clean. It didn't look like it had just been cleaned up; it seemed like someone often came here.
The room was cozy, with a bed, a table, chairs, and cabinets, as well as a dressing mirror, clearly indicating that a woman had once lived there.
Looking at all this, and thinking about what the woman said last night about him being of marriageable age, she felt that she might really be in his way. She set a limit for herself: if he still couldn't send her away in another week, then she would go to the archives again to check if there really was a drug that could turn a mutant back into a human. If not, she would find another opportunity to leave.
Lu Xinghe did not appear for five days in a row, and she listened to him and did not go out. Since some people had already suspected them, she naturally did not want to cause him any trouble.
When she's alone, she tends to overthink things. The images of him kissing her, the sweet and tender words he said to her, made her lose her composure.
Moreover, he must have been fully aware that she was a different species before he said those three words. If he knew that, why would he still want to do that kind of thing? Was he crazy?
"Damn Lu Xinghe!" she cried out, clutching her face. Her once calm heart was now in turmoil.
Just as her face flushed and her heart was pounding, there were three knocks on the door. She looked warily toward the door, thinking that if it was Lu Xinghe, he would have a key to come in.
When there was no response, the other party knocked three more times, and then An Xiaoruo's voice rang out: "Sister, are you inside?"
Luo Ning was overjoyed. An Xiaoruo had arrived. Lu Xinghe must have sent her. But who was the "sister" she was calling?
She immediately got up, walked to the door, and opened it. She saw An Xiaoruo standing outside the door, all bundled up. She pulled An Xiaoruo inside, closed the door, and then hugged An Xiaoruo, bursting into tears.
Five years, nearly two thousand days and nights, and today I can finally hug the little girl I raised with such difficulty.
An Xiaoruo was caught off guard and pulled into the room. She was also scared. Although she felt very close to this test subject, she was still a different species and would eat people.
But the test subject just hugged her and started sobbing. She couldn't help but hug the test subject back, saying, "Sister, why are you crying?"
Sister? Luo Ning was stunned for a moment. Although she hadn't aged at all and still looked like she was twenty, An Xiaoruo didn't need to call her sister.
Is it because she grew up and learned the difference between humans and other species that she is called that?
But it's okay if she calls me "sister," since I'm not her real mother.
She immediately brought over paper and pen: "Did your uncle send you?"
After reading what she wrote, An Xiaoruo said, "So it really was your uncle who had been hiding you all along."
Her uncle's sudden appearance in the archives that night made her suspect he had hidden the experimental subjects. Coupled with Zhou Yun's mention of the clothes last night, she became even more certain. That's why he wouldn't let her freely enter and leave his room back then. Today, she also went to his new room; although no one was there, there was a faint scent of orchids.
Then she thought of any place where she could hide people, and finally found the place where her uncle's biological mother used to live. Unexpectedly, the experimental subject was really there.
What's wrong with my uncle? Why would he do something so dangerous?
Luo Ning was a little puzzled; Xiao Ru seemed to know nothing about this.
“You weren’t spotted when you arrived, were you?” she wrote.
An Xiaoru shook her head: "No."
Luo Ning asked her to sit down on the stool. An Xiaoruo had been secretly watching her. She had come following her intuition, but was too nervous to know what to say.
"How have you been all these years? Has anyone bullied you?" This is what Luo Ning cares about most.
An Xiaoruo looked at the words on the paper, then looked up at Luo Ning in surprise: "Did we...did we know each other before?"
Luo Ning was stunned. She looked An Xiaoruo up and down carefully to make sure she wasn't lying, and wrote tremblingly, "Don't you remember me?"
An Xiaoru recalled for a while and said, "I can't remember, but I feel like I know you very well, like I've seen you somewhere before. I feel like you're a good person, and you're different from the other mutants."
Luo Ning slowly sat back down in her chair. What exactly happened? Why did An Xiaoruo not remember her? And why did Lu Xinghe still remember her?
“Do you remember how you got here?” she wrote again.
An Xiaoruo replied, "I was born in the base, but I was injured later and forgot a lot of things. But I feel like I know you very well. Have we met before?"
Luo Ning immediately understood. An Xiaoruo had lost her previous memories, but even though she didn't remember them, she was still very familiar with her mother, who had appeared out of nowhere, so she was willing to take the risk to come see her.
“Yes, we’ve met. I found you after you got lost outside the base. We lived together for five years. You were so well-behaved and adorable back then,” she told her.
An Xiaoruo's eyes were filled with shock: "We even lived together?"
Luo Ning nodded: "And your uncle, the three of us live together, has your uncle never told you this?"
“No, my uncle has never mentioned it,” An Xiaoruo murmured.
Where is he now?
An Xiaoruo replied, "He left the base for the mine two days ago and won't be back for five days."
He left the base? Luo Ning thought she had misheard. So he was allowed to leave the base, but why hadn't he told her?
"Your uncle is allowed to leave the base? Was it a last-minute notice?" She was a little uneasy, hoping that Lu Xinghe's departure was just a last-minute notice.
However, An Xiaoruo denied it: "It wasn't a last-minute notice, it was all planned in advance."
Luo Ningxin felt a chill. She felt that she had been deceived by Lu Xinghe. She remembered what he said that night, "three days later." So he must have known then, but he didn't tell her. And that night, he... he treated her like that.
How could he be so calm, you ungrateful bastard?
The sound of hurried footsteps came from outside. Luo Ning immediately turned off her flashlight. She knew this was the daily routine patrol; the soldiers wouldn't come in, they would just watch from the outside for a while and then leave. But An Xiaoru was a little nervous. She had come secretly, and now she had to go back.
After those people left, she was about to leave: "Sister, I will find time to come see you again. Don't leave here, it's dangerous outside."
Luo Ning hugged her affectionately. An Xiaoruo left her gloves and scarf behind and then quickly left.
After An Xiaoruo left, Luo Ning was left alone in the darkness. She scribbled on paper and finally realized that Lu Xinghe's forgetting of her before was probably due to a head injury like An Xiaoruo's. Although he had regained his memory, five years had passed, and their past feelings had faded. The security officer was absolutely loyal to the base, so in the end, humans and aliens were different.
As for why he had ill intentions towards her, it's probably because of the breeding issue. The fact that she's been able to live safely under the base's nose for so long isn't because she's lucky, but because the base allows it. Perhaps she's even being monitored right now.
She checked the entire room but found no hidden cameras or anything like that. She then decided to proceed with her original plan and go to the archives.
However, once she arrived at the command area, she was unfamiliar with the area and didn't know where the archives were located. Moreover, the number and intensity of patrols had clearly increased, so she couldn't take any risks and had to leave again.
She glanced in the direction of the alien prison. The only thing she could do now was to ask Wenxi again. It had been almost a week since she last saw her, and she wondered how she was doing.
After easily climbing into the ventilation duct, she first went to the small room where Wenxi had been imprisoned, but there was no one inside. She then went to the ventilation shaft that led to the atrium. The atrium, which should have housed over fifty alien species, was empty, and she had no idea where they were being held.
She closed her eyes and sensed that the alien species were still in the building, but their numbers had halved. The other half must have been sent to the genetics department's laboratory, and perhaps Wen Xi had also been sent there.
But halfway back, she suddenly heard Wen Xi's voice in the room next to her, but she could no longer sense the strange aura emanating from Wen Xi.
Has Wenxi turned into a human?
She approached the room with delight and saw Wen Xi curled up on a single bed, softly calling someone's name. She listened carefully and realized she was calling Zhuang Yu.
"Zhuang Yu, I'm so cold..." Wen Xi's body was trembling.
Luo Ning didn't know what had happened. She could no longer sense Wen Xi's alien aura, but she also couldn't tell that he was human. Then she saw a needle gun on the bedside table, with blue water droplets on the transparent barrel.
She understood. So it was because she had been injected with inhibitors. That's why Wenxi was neither a mutant nor a human, but just a body containing a temporarily inactive virus, just like herself when she was confined to the laboratory.
She had seen similar injections in Lu Xinghe's desk drawer that day. Did he have the same intention towards her?
She felt a chill in her heart.
I looked at the room layout again and didn't find any surveillance equipment. Strange, it's understandable that there is no surveillance in the solitary confinement room, but why is there none in this room that looks like a human dwelling?
Just as she was about to knock on the blinds to get Wen Xi's attention, the door suddenly opened, and Du Lu walked in, carrying a bowl of steaming, fragrant meat soup.
The alien species cannot eat human food. Du Lu is probably going to use this to torture Wen Xi. Luo Ning clenched her fists tightly. She always felt that killing was acceptable, but torture was wrong.
Wen Xi, who had been quietly calling Zhuang Yu's name, immediately fell silent after hearing the door open. She sat up from the bed, half-kneeling, her eyes fixed on the soup in Du Lu's hand.
"Want some?" Du Lu asked.
Wen Xi nodded immediately. Du Lu fed the soup to Wen Xi's lips, and Wen Xi immediately picked up the bowl and gulped it down without vomiting.
Luo Ning watched all this in surprise. Wen Xi was actually able to eat human food. Was it because of the inhibitor?
Wen Xi only drank a little over half of it before Du Lu took the bowl away: "Is it good?"
"It tastes good." Wen Xi nodded obediently.
However, Du Lu did not give her any indication, but simply looked down at her without saying a word.
Wen Xi climbed off the bed and knelt in front of Du Lu's legs. Her slender white hands unbuckled the belt buckle at Du Lu's waist, while Du Lu's hands, clad in black leather gloves, gently touched Wen Xi's beautiful face.
Luo Ning immediately turned around and went back the way she came. After she had gone a short distance, she heard Du Lu's indistinct voice, which seemed to be saying, "Don't bite, be gentle."
She couldn't quite describe how she felt. She already knew what was going to happen between the two of them, and Wenxi seemed to be doing it willingly.
Outside the base, the Xenomorphs are the absolute rulers, for that is their domain.
Inside the base, the mutants are reduced to playthings and experimental subjects to be slaughtered at will, because this is a human domain.
Will the world bound by law and morality before the apocalypse truly never return?
After being released from prison, Luo Ning arrived at the edge of the canyon. On the other side of the canyon, alien creatures were jumping down, trying to cross the deep and wide canyon to enter the human world and feast, but in the end, they were smashed to pieces.
She stood in the howling wind, the wind blowing straight into her clothes. She took a few more steps forward and came to the edge of the cliff. Under her feet were hard rocks and a rushing river. If she took one more step forward, she would fall. Even if she didn't fall on the rocks, she would be swept into the abyss by the river.
Is there really no other way to get out besides those two bridges and airplanes?
She sighed deeply, and just as she was frowning, she suddenly heard Lu Xinghe's anxious voice: "Luo Ning, no."
Luo Ning was startled and looked around, but did not see Lu Xinghe. Then his voice came again from the locator on her wrist: "Go back, please go back."
He was really anxious, Luo Ning could tell; it turned out he had been watching her all along.
But the thought of the inhibitors he kept in the room, the things he did to her, the horrible equipment in the lab, and Wenxi giving herself to him for half a bowl of soup made her angry.
You ungrateful bastard, you actually lied to me.
She forcefully ripped off the locator and said to Lu Xinghe, "Lu Xinghe, you big liar, you ingrate!"
The voice was so muffled and unclear that it was impossible to hear clearly, as ethereal as the wind. It was unknown whether Lu Xinghe could even hear it.
Then she let go of the locator and it fell into the abyss, instantly swallowed by the surging waves.
She immediately took two steps back, determined not to fall; life was precious, but her life was more important.
However, this would make them think she was dead and give up the search for her, which would make it easier for her to move around in the future. She still has to rely on herself to leave this place. The most important thing now is to find a secluded place to hide and wait for the right opportunity.
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