Chapter 49
The blindfold blocked my vision, but my other senses became acute. The wind whistled, and the air smelled of damp, soft earth and weeds.
Zong Linyang took her out of the house and threatened her that if she didn't want anything to happen to Zong Linhan, she had to go with him to a certain place.
The car drove for a long time, and we walked for a long time after getting off the car.
Zong Linyang supported her arm, his movements not exactly gentle, just to make sure she wouldn't fall.
They seemed to have entered the interior of a building, where the air became stuffy and metallic, followed by a continuous feeling of weightlessness as they rose. When the door opened, he led her a little further, and the wind picked up.
Wen Zhiling remained quiet, which aroused Zong Linyang's curiosity. "I thought you would cry."
Wen Zhiling: "I didn't used to cry a lot."
Zong Linyang paused, glanced at her, and asked, "Finally remembered?"
Wen Zhiling's black eye patch concealed most of her expression. "Some things are clear, some are blurry. But I can roughly guess that you were the mastermind behind the lab before."
"The mastermind behind the scenes..." Zong Linyang chuckled and repeated, seemingly finding the term rather villainous, "Aren't you afraid I'll hurt you?"
Wen Zhiling: "You've never hurt me before."
Zong Linyang paused for a moment: "Didn't those things count as harm? If we expose life in the lab now, protesters could fill the entire street in three minutes."
Wen Zhiling: "That's still better than staying in the orphanage. Back then, if we hadn't been allowed to participate in experiments, wouldn't we all have died?"
At that time, a teacher was bitten by a superhuman and mutated, attempting to transform all the children in the orphanage. Despite conducting the experiments, she was the only one who survived.
For some reason, Zong Linyang didn't say anything, and his grip on her arm tightened. Wen Zhiling felt a little pain and wanted to walk on her own.
Wen Zhiling: "Are we almost there? There's no need to wear an eye mask anymore. I'm not planning to run. I'm serious about solving this problem."
Zong Linyang: "Are you sure?"
Wen Zhiling: "What's uncertain?"
Zong Linyang reached out and placed his hand under Wen Zhiling's hand, "Help me."
He said, "I won't let my brother know."
Wen Zhiling: "..."
Wen Zhiling said tactfully, "Your acting addiction is even stronger than his."
Zong Linyang smiled and unlocked her handcuffs.
Wen Zhiling removed her blindfold, and light suddenly flooded in. She squinted uncomfortably, but after a few seconds, her vision gradually cleared. She gasped and instinctively took a step back.
Although I knew they were standing at a high place, my legs suddenly went weak when I saw the scene in front of me.
They were standing atop an extremely tall tower, surrounded by waist-high transparent glass railings. In the distance lay their city, a metropolis of lights that now appeared as distant as a galaxy.
The near end of the tower is a dark gray area with low-rise buildings, resembling a dilapidated industrial park, exuding a sinister and dangerous atmosphere.
“Welcome to the Watchtower,” Zong Linyang’s voice sounded beside her as he looked across the way. “That’s the abandoned base of the ‘Ecological Faction’ down there. Given Lin Han’s personality, he probably never told you about what’s going on underground. Almost every single one of the Ecological Faction members, from radicals to ordinary staff, wants you dead.”
Wen Zhiling frowned: "Why?"
“Because you are the key,” Zong Linyang’s voice was flat. “You are the only example of someone who has successfully avoided the complete absorption of reason by superpowers. It works slowly in your body, but it has never completely broken through. In fact, with certain technical means, it can achieve the longest dormancy period. This has also been confirmed in the extracted blood. There is a great possibility of complete recovery.”
Wen Zhiling: "But Lu Qin still easily triggered my vampiric instincts."
Zong Linyang: "At most, you'll make my brother suffer a little, but the purpose is something else."
Wen Zhiling suddenly remembered the person who attacked her before, "I was attacked three years ago, it was someone from the Ecological Faction, right? Someone gave me a suppressant drug right away, was it one of your people?"
“It was my arrangement,” Zong Linyang readily admitted. “Including the nurses who later guided you to the hospital. If you had listened to them at the time, you would have been placed in a safer environment. My purpose was always to confirm what stage your memory had recovered to.”
Wen Zhiling: "Wouldn't it have been a better choice to take me away three years ago?"
Zong Linyang glanced at her and said half-jokingly, "I thought you would crave freedom more?"
He continued, "The ecological faction has been losing ground in the resource competition in recent years and has been driven to a dead end. Especially after confirming the role of blood, destroying the key, which is you, is their simplest and most direct way to turn the tide. Now it can be said that we have reached the final round."
He said no more, turned and walked to the end of the platform, opening a metal door through iris recognition.
The stairs spiraled down, leading deeper into the tower, where the air grew cold and carried the low-frequency sounds of instruments running.
At the end of the stairs was a vast, unsettling underground space. It was less like a laboratory and more like a control center, with a huge and complex instrument cluster in the center, composed of countless flashing indicator light modules, emitting a pale blue light and exuding a cold, technological feel.
There is a huge screen in front of the instrument, constantly scrolling through complex data and instruction codes.
Zong Linyang walked to the instrument, operated it a few times, and the screen displayed a status waiting for input.
"The data should be clearer than the memories of people being recovered?" he asked, his voice echoing in the empty space, his back to her.
Wen Zhiling remembered that before the final explosion, the project director forcibly compiled a very long and complex string of code into the deep memory area of her brain. It was that code that caused her later memory blank.
“That’s a sequence of multiple encryptions that can seal off your superpowers and stabilize your genes, hidden deep in your subconscious. Back then, the news leaked during the testing phase, and the Ecological Faction wanted you dead. Only by creating the illusion of an explosion that killed you could they possibly fool them.” Zong Linyang stepped aside, his tone carrying an almost cruel calmness. “You need to input them completely, without a single character missing.”
Wen Zhiling walked to the control panel, her fingers hovering over the virtual keyboard, hesitating, "But why did you do all this behind Zong Linhan's back?"
“Zhi Ling,” Zong Lin Yang’s voice remained calm, but Wen Zhi Ling felt a chilling killing intent spreading from behind her. “I have been hiding in the shadows for many years to restrain the Ecological Faction. All the forces I have deployed have come out in full force today. I even had to go to great lengths to lure my brother away, all to buy you some time.”
"The Ecological Faction sent people to the tower the very first minute we entered. Although it took them some effort to find this place, it wasn't entirely impossible. The people who want to kill you are already on their way. You and I don't have much time left; it's all in the minutes."
“I have a foolproof way that can perfectly avoid your input errors or memory mistakes,” every word he spoke was as cold as an icicle, “Before your vital signs disappear, I put your brain directly into a neural signal reader and extract the signal that is least affected by your conscious mind through the brain waves at the moment of death.”
“Lu Qin’s insistence on using the gentlest methods to induce you to regain your memory is already my biggest concession,” he raised the gun, pointing it at her, his finger on the trigger tightening slightly. “So, if you don’t remember, I really will take action against you.”
Zong Linyang smiled: "The countdown has begun."
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Author's note: All that talk about gene sequences is just nonsense based on memories from science fiction movies...
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