Wu An was going crazy; she desperately hoped this was just a nightmare.
But Ruan Chen remained remarkably calm, watching the creature's every move, his fingers constantly stroking a black leather cord on the side of its neck.
The creature tried for a moment and found that it could not squeeze through the narrow window; the tentacles could not make a way for it.
However, the mobile phone, a product of the human world, seems to have awakened its former human consciousness, reminding it that human buildings all have doors and windows.
If you can't get in through the window, you should open the door.
The creature stiffly turned its head, its body covered in countless festering sores from which dense tentacles extended. It waved them with delight, perhaps because it remembered the human world, or perhaps because it remembered how it entered this room to kill.
Wu An was so terrified that she almost lost consciousness, until her mouth was filled with the taste of blood, and she barely regained her senses.
Wu An searches for the source of the bloody smell—it's Ruan Chen's wrist.
She was so nervous that she almost screamed, but Ruan Chen, who had been holding her, stopped her from screaming by placing her wrist across his arm.
In her immense fear, she bit through Ruan Chen's wrist.
The window was broken, and the cold moonlight shone through it onto Ruan Chen's face. She must have been in some pain, as her delicate brows were slightly furrowed, and her face was as white as the moonlight.
Wu An wanted to apologize, but now was not the time to speak. She could only hastily lean out of Ruan Chen's arms to grab some paper from the bedside table, intending to wrap the wound on Ruan Chen's wrist that she had bitten.
Ruan Chen pressed her down firmly, pulling Wu An even closer into her arms, and gently shushed her.
Wu An's heart started beating even faster.
The tentacle creature's tentacles were already groping along the window frame towards the door, clearly heading for the lock.
Ruan Chen stared at the tentacles, which were dazzlingly bright.
She watched as the tentacles successfully touched the lock, their ends splitting apart to sprout more tiny branches that seeped into the lock like water, causing it to turn.
Ruan Chen calmly turned her gaze and looked around the dormitory room.
The space here is a bit cramped, and there are still pieces of glass that the tentacle creature had broken on the ground. She and Wu An are both wearing pajamas. This is definitely not a good place or a suitable time for a fight.
Wu An realized this too, and she gently shook Ruan Chen's arm that was around her, but Ruan Chen did not react.
She turned her head to look at Ruan Chen again, and then she noticed that Ruan Chen was calmly closing her eyes and breathing slowly, as if she was resting with her eyes closed.
Wu An's admiration deepened. She thought she understood why Ruan Chen did this; he probably wanted to create the illusion that there were no prey in the room for the tentacle creature, so that the creature would leave on its own.
So she closed her eyes and adjusted her breathing.
Ruan Chen was certainly not stupid enough to think that closing her eyes and slowing her breathing would save her from disaster.
However, Ruan Chen did not feel that the current situation should be described with the word "calamity".
After the initial slight unease caused by the unknown passed, Ruan Chen regained her composure.
She closed her eyes, but her mental network stretched infinitely in mid-air, monitoring every move of the entire Martial Arts Research Institute.
Within her coverage area, she "saw" that many others would also be sleepless tonight, awakened by two screams and the sound of shattering glass, anxiously searching for something as they opened their mental networks.
In addition, she witnessed an even more terrifying scene.
This wasn't the only creature to escape from the laboratory.
In the direction of the office area, a creature resembling a giant spider was perched on the outer wall. In the center of its eight fat limbs was a pale head, rotating 360 degrees as if searching for something.
There is also a rest area where a pale humanoid figure walks. At first glance, it appears to be carrying two knives on its back, but upon closer inspection, those two knives are actually its own bones, bone spurs growing from its shoulders, and those bone spurs are taller than its own body.
The moment Ruan Chen's mental network opened, all the movements of all living beings stopped.
Ruan Chen sensed it, but she didn't pay attention. Her mental network found the location of the underground laboratory and began to explore deeper underground.
Deep within her consciousness, a hoarse woman's voice suddenly echoed, as if it had been produced by a burned vocal cord; the sound sent chills down her spine.
"...Master...we've found you, Master..."
It was emitted by that tentacle creature.
As the tentacle creature's voice triggered a switch, a chorus of sounds echoed through Ruan Chen's mental network, one after another, "Master...you've finally arrived..."
"We've been waiting for you for so long..."
"Do you still remember the promise you made back then...?"
"Master, you must remember to keep your promise..."
Ruan Chen's head started to throb violently again, and a jumble of images exploded before her eyes.
Are these creatures calling to her? What did she promise?
She found the underground laboratory, and Ruan Chen felt a tremendous attraction pulling at her mental network, exactly the same as what had happened during the day.
This time, she couldn't calm herself down or escape this situation. The filthy artificial mental network in the underground laboratory entangled Ruan Chen's mental network like a dodder vine, and Ruan Chen couldn't shake it off.
This time, those chaotic images took shape in her mind. She saw her adult self slashing open the hidden door of the laboratory, her face smeared with blood, standing in the middle of the laboratory, looking around, her eyes filled with heartache and calmness, as well as the pain and hatred of being betrayed.
That was her from another timeline.
She heard "her own" voice, and it was indeed a promise: "I will come back, and I will give you freedom."
That wasn't her, yet it was definitely her.
So Ruan Chen, standing in this long river of time, spoke in the void, in her spiritual world, "I remember my promise, I will give you freedom."
His tone was like that of a king who took everything for granted.
The joyful shouts drowned out her; the filthy mental net loosened its grip on Ruan Chen, and all the escaped creatures turned and walked in the same direction.
They received the promise, they awakened their master's memories, and it was time for them to go back and wait.
However, Ruan Chen was not in a hurry to break away from this mental network.
As she was forcibly dragged down by this artificial mental network, she returned to the underground laboratory and "saw" what was happening there.
Unlike the darkness and silence above ground, where there is no signal and no world, the underground is brightly lit, and several people are busy at the control panel in the central control room.
She saw her mentor and heard him speak, "Increase the signal jamming by one bar! Take everyone under control by dawn. Nothing that happened here must be transmitted out!"
"Professor Duan, what about the students? They are all geniuses; they've probably woken up long ago."
Another, older professor said nonchalantly, "I'm not worried about my son Wei Feng. Even if I tell him, he'll understand. But Lao Duan, your student is a problem. Can you handle him?"
The third professor spoke up—the deputy director of the Martial Arts Research Institute—"If all else fails, put her in a petri dish. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Her abilities alone are worth all the garbage here combined, worth more than a decade of our hard work."
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