Chapter 169 A Step into the Void 1
Reading out the identity information of the person being interrogated in front of them is a fairly common interrogation technique, intended to put pressure on them.
If the person in charge of the interrogation is a member of an illegal organization, the pressure will be doubled. The implication is that we have information about your interpersonal relationships, and if you do not obey us, we will then take action against those close to you.
The problem is that the information this senior researcher is holding isn't even about me; in fact, the person described in his information probably doesn't even exist in this world. Far from putting any pressure on me, it actually forces me to control my facial muscles and try my best not to burst out laughing.
Perhaps noticing my wavering expression, the senior researcher's expression softened slightly, and he said in a deliberately amiable tone, "You can rest assured. As long as you cooperate with our research, your parents and friends will be safe."
"Then, can you let me go?" I deliberately pretended to be a weak child.
"Can't."
As he spoke, he took a small, sharp instrument from the torture tools laid out beside him. It looked like a small electric drill used by a dentist, but its surface was extremely filthy, covered with rust soaked with blood. It felt like getting tetanus from a cut from this thing.
“You can never go home. You are a test subject here while you are alive, and you will become a ghost here when you die. Not even a single grain of your ashes is allowed to leave this place,” he said.
“An experiment?” I asked. “I just feel like you’re trying to interrogate me.”
"Do you think all laboratory equipment looks like torture instruments to a child your age?"
He waved the dirty little electric drill in his hand, glanced at the torture instruments around him, and said without any self-awareness, "How ignorant... Never mind, maybe you're just joking now, but after a while, perhaps these things will really become similar to torture instruments in your mind."
As he spoke, he slowly walked towards me.
Just then, I felt a slight vibration in the fragment of the divine seal stored in my consciousness. Suddenly, the iron door was pushed open, and a man wearing a blood-stained white coat and a silver mask walked in.
The senior researcher turned around abruptly, and upon seeing the newcomer, uttered a somber voice: "Doctor?"
"What's going on with you?" Dr. Silver Mask said coldly. "Didn't I just tell you not to hurt this child?"
"Look at what you're saying. I just want to collect some of his bodily fluids," the senior researcher said.
The silver-masked doctor said in a deep voice, "Get out."
"Doctor, that's not right of you." The senior researcher's voice also became impolite. "Our research here is about how to enable ordinary people to possess powerful demon-hunting abilities, which is why we captured those demon hunters from the outside world... And in the process of experimentation, ordinary people are also indispensable test subjects. It's not like we haven't done human experiments on ordinary people before, so why are you suddenly being soft-hearted now?"
“He’s still a child,” Dr. Silver Mask said.
"What's wrong with the child? I even think he's too big." The senior researcher said without any shame, "According to the educational theories of those witcher families, the learning and practice of magic should ideally begin before puberty. Perhaps we ordinary people should also undergo transformation in childhood in order to better adapt to that power."
"It would be best to start from infancy, no, from the fetal stage. I applied to you for pregnant women to be my experimental subjects months ago, and you rejected me every time on the grounds of unethical conduct. I didn't know we were still at the stage of adhering to worldly ethics? Haven't enough experimental subjects died at your hands?!"
"What do you mean he's just a child... Stop spouting those hypocritical platitudes! You're the one who forced me to kill people on the lab table back then!"
The more he spoke, the more agitated his voice became, until he even lost his composure and his voice cracked, as if he had been accumulating a lot of negative emotions towards the man in front of him.
"Are you finished?" Dr. Silver Mask asked.
"...Your ex is not like you. I dared to curse him out, but he would have killed me long ago." The senior researcher said coldly. "I heard that he is now spreading the Seed of the Heart in society, turning ordinary people into bloodthirsty cyborgs, just to collect data on the conflict between cyborgs and demon hunters, while our backers remain unmoved."
"Don't you understand what this means? Our mortal situation is already so dire that we can no longer concern ourselves with such trivial matters..."
Dr. Silver Mask remained unmoved and said, "If you're done talking, then get out."
The senior researcher glared at him hatefully, then put down the torture instruments in his hand, walked outside, and slammed his fist on the iron gate with a deafening roar.
Without turning his head, the silver-masked doctor merely shifted his gaze to me, silently stared at me for a long while, and then said, "...I'm sorry, you must be very scared."
I wasn't really scared.
Instead, I'm thinking about whether I should just kill him.
The "predecessor" mentioned by the senior researcher is probably Ying Lingyun, while Dr. Silver Mask is most likely his "possible alter ego".
Chenlong isn't with Dr. Silver Mask right now, and even if he were, it wouldn't stop me from killing him. My main objective here isn't killing, but investigating clues about the apocalypse and rescuing Chang'an.
Killing Dr. Silver Mask would certainly yield the fragment of the divine seal that he might possess, but rashly killing the highest authority could easily trigger chaos at the secret base. The value of the divine seal fragment to me wasn't so great that I would disregard everything else.
Of course, I have no intention of letting Dr. Silver Mask go, and in the end, Luo Shan's forces and I will definitely destroy this secret base. However, everything must be done in order of priority, and for now, the investigation is the priority.
I continued to pretend to be an ignorant little boy and probed, "Who are you? And why are you doing such terrible things?"
“The less you know, the better,” Dr. Silver Mask said with pity. “Besides, after a while, you’ll forget everything here.”
"You want... to let me leave?" I asked.
“Yes. But don’t mention this to anyone,” he said. “During this time, I will do my best to keep you away from the clutches of the other researchers. You just need to stay quietly in this room, and everything will be over eventually.”
As he spoke, he came forward and helped untie the rough straw ropes binding my hands and feet.
He freed me from the cross, and my feet touched the ground. At this moment, I was only wearing a white straitjacket, and I had no shoes. I could only walk barefoot on the slightly hot wire mesh floor, and I could feel my feet hurting a little from the floor.
Suddenly standing on my own two feet, I was momentarily disoriented and almost fell. Luckily, he reached out and caught me in time.
However, there were other reasons why I almost fell. Besides the straw rope, something else was still binding me, and that was the wooden frame.
Simply put, it's a wooden board with holes for hands and feet to pass through; it's a kind of ancient handcuff, the "shackle" in "shackles" refers to this kind of thing. Usually, wooden shackles would fix the hands and neck together, but this wooden shackle only bound my hands, preventing me from maintaining my dynamic balance with my arms when I landed.
Why use such ancient handcuffs when this is supposed to be a base for research in dark science?
"This is a magic-sealing lock, capable of sealing a Witcher's magic. Although you are not a Witcher, it's fine to remove it for you, but removing this thing requires a rather complicated procedure. I'll just have to trouble you to wear it for now," said Dr. Silver Mask. "Don't even think about removing it yourself. With your strength, you absolutely cannot break this restraint. If you hit it hard, it will trigger an alarm."
Having said that, he seemed to feel there was nothing more to say, so he turned and left the room. I had a few more questions to ask, and tried to persuade him to stay. But he ignored me and closed the door behind him.
I had no choice but to turn my attention back to the wooden shackles on my hands.
Does this thing require a rather complicated procedure to unlock? But I clearly see a keyhole in the middle of the wooden yoke; shouldn't it just need to be unlocked by inserting the corresponding key?
Moreover, from the beginning, I felt that their words subtly contradicted my own understanding. Although they both admitted to conducting inhumane scientific research, they seemed completely unmoved by this scene, which clearly had nothing to do with scientific research.
It's not that this scene has any special scientific research significance, but rather that they all accept it and are used to it. At least, that's not my feeling. If I had to say... what they see seems to be different from what I see.
The same goes for the witchers carried by crosses; they all seem to have no doubt about this darkly humorous scene, assuming that they have been kidnapped to an inhumane experimental site.
I began to doubt again that perhaps the problem wasn't with my surroundings, but with myself.
Thinking about it carefully, is there really no overlap between the scene I saw through Lu You's illusion and the scene I'm entering now?
In Vision's scene, there were many large, square mechanical devices standing like tombstones, surrounded by human figures. The scene I entered also had many upright crosses, surrounded by some "jailers." The mechanical devices were all slowly moving in a certain direction, as were the crosses binding the experimental subjects.
Could those mechanical devices actually be used to restrain witchers?
Could it be that my perception has been distorted by some accident, causing me to see those mechanical devices as crosses and the cold, impersonal research facilities as fiery, terrifying places? Perhaps even those obese, decaying researchers actually have normal appearances, only distorted into monstrous forms in my vision?
Okay, let's assume that's the case for now. So why do I seem to have traveled back to the time when Lu Youxun was captured by the Humanitarian Affairs Bureau two years ago?
Could it be that Lu Youxun used divination to see past scenes, while I teleported myself to the past? My flame teleportation can actually travel through time and space? Does that mean I can travel to the corresponding time period by watching a black-and-white historical documentary on TV?
Even if I truly possessed such supernatural powers, how could I explain the exchange between Chenlong and the Silver Mask Doctor? Perhaps I am still in the "present," but for some reason, the surroundings present a scene from the "past"?
The most puzzling character is undoubtedly the young girl, Lu Chan.
What's wrong with her?
Next, I'll go find her. She's probably being held nearby, and I have a lot of things I want to ask her in person.
I walked to the iron gate and tried to open it, but it was locked. Forcing it open wasn't impossible, but I didn't know if there were any "prison guards" patrolling the corridor outside. Thinking of this, I activated my thermal perception.
As expected, my senses couldn't penetrate the iron door properly. However, I don't know if the anti-detection mechanism here is mainly aimed at people outside the room. When I was inside the room and activated my heat perception, my senses could barely penetrate the adjacent wall and detect the scene in the next room.
The room to my left was empty, while the room to my right was occupied. It was a strange witcher, bound to a cross like a victim, his face showing tension and fear, yet he seemed to be forcing himself to calm down, constantly looking around for anything that could help him, while trying to break free of the cross.
Just then, a researcher who looked like a monster suddenly pushed open the iron door and walked into the room.
Seeing this, the witcher struggled even more violently, while cursing the other party. The researcher, seemingly used to it, silently went to the sink next to him, turned on the tap, and vigorously scrubbed his hands with the gushing brown, dirty liquid.
A moment later, he turned off the tap, turned around, picked up the torture tools next to him, and walked towards the Witcher.
If things continue like this, the witcher will either die or suffer a fate worse than death.
I've decided to rescue him first, but I don't intend to reveal myself yet. I'll remotely control the flames to kill the researcher first, then release the Witcher. The Witcher should then escape the room. I can lurk in the shadows and observe the base's reaction based on his actions.
Although I don't think this witcher has a chance to escape this stronghold, and will probably still die in the end... Oh well, there's no time to think about that too much, let's take it one step at a time. This person is about to be operated on, saving him is the most important thing.
I quickly focused my mind, and my superpowers activated according to my will, causing flames to surge out of thin air in the next room.
The researcher's head was suddenly ignited and reduced to ashes. He probably couldn't even realize that he had been killed. The headless corpse fell to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
The ropes binding the witcher were released by the flames, the wooden yoke was burned to ashes, and the iron gate in the distance had its lock melted. The witcher cried out in astonishment and involuntarily fell off the cross, crashing heavily to the ground.
At the same time, a sudden, strange experience overwhelmed my entire body.
As if the floor had suddenly disappeared, I abruptly "stepped into thin air," and my vision was plunged into darkness.
(End of this chapter)
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