Chapter 264
Jiang Yunu: "Oh?"
The man's tone sounded a bit melancholy, as if everything had developed to this point, but in fact this was not his original intention.
Jiang Yunu wasn't too keen on hearing a villain recount his tragic experiences, nor did she want to understand the mindset behind his evil deeds. However, right now, she and Shen Yijing hadn't yet found a way to secure a perfect escape for the entire camp, a perfect and proper end to all this. Furthermore, she hadn't yet fully understood the evil deeds this man had committed—a complete and detailed account.
She still needs more information, and Shen Yijing must also need more information so that she can bring out a larger chain of information and bring it to trustworthy people.
So, she finally followed the man's words and asked once.
"What happened?" Jiang Yunu asked, "How is everything different from what you expected?"
The honorific for the white-haired girl completely disappeared.
But the middle-aged man obviously didn't care about this.
He only cared that the white-haired girl finally agreed with him and spontaneously misinterpreted her meaning.
"Are you finally beginning to understand me?" he asked eagerly.
Shen Yijing endured it and didn't chop him.
Even though he knew that slashing at the opponent with his black knife was like attacking the moon in the water, sometimes, some impulses could not be suppressed.
Jiang Yunu didn't say anything like "I understand" or "I don't understand" at this time.
She just said: "You can speak first, I will listen first."
"I used to have more secret research institutes." said the middle-aged man.
Above his three-dimensional projection, his gaze became distant, as if he was recalling things from his previous life.
"Those research institutes didn't 'borrow' other people's territory; they're all my own space and territory," the middle-aged man continued with a nostalgic tone. "Do you know how much money it cost to own so much space and territory back then, little girl? It was a very, very large sum of money, high enough to buy a small star region in a backward region."
Jiang Yunu didn't say anything, but she felt that she had heard the sentence pattern of "My xx is enough to buy an entire oo of your backward star region" many times in the past.
The last time I heard of a similar wealth comparison, it was when it was said that a near-A-grade elemental weapon could buy a city in a backward star zone.
“…” She glanced at Shen Yijing by the way, and suddenly realized that assets far exceeding “a city” were in the hands of Captain Shen.
——Shen Yijing’s black long sword is more than just near-A level.
Shen Yijing didn't know why the white-haired girl suddenly looked at him. He was always particularly sensitive to Jiang Yunu's gaze, and his eyes turned slightly towards her: "?"
Jiang Yunu's gaze returned to the middle-aged man.
She couldn’t think too deeply about “Captain Shen was fighting with a big city in his hand”, lest she ruin the current atmosphere.
The middle-aged man didn't notice the exchange of glances between the two students.
Even the villain who planned everything could not avoid the common problem of middle-aged people when reminiscing about the past. Once he was immersed in memories, he became too self-indulgent and immersed in the pleasure of expressing himself to young people.
"Even with such a high investment and such a large sum of money, at the time, I felt it was worth it, and it wasn't a burden to me," the middle-aged man said, casually showing off his financial resources. "In the countless private spaces I own, I built research institutes one after another. I also set up different environmental simulations based on different research conditions and requirements, ensuring that the basic training environment for each institute is different. I also equipped them with researchers, experimental equipment, the finest consumables of all kinds—and of course, the most important experimental subjects."
When Jiang Yunu heard the words "environmental simulation", his eyebrows raised slightly.
On the deserted island base, the moon appeared regularly every night on the peak of the barren mountain. The "seawater" looked transparent blue and salty, but without any smell of any living creature...
She took a few seconds to recall where she had come from.
And in my ears, the middle-aged man's self-narration continued.
"However, just as all grand visions will not be easily realized, all ambitious goals will inevitably encounter setbacks. No one can escape this rule - not even a genius psychopath like me." The middle-aged man's tone not only became a little heavy, but also carried a deep and weird self-pity.
Yes, he is just a rare genius, a crazy lunatic, and he is crazy rich, has resources and status.
He's not the darling of the universe, so why should everything he does go smoothly?!
The three-dimensional projection of the middle-aged man showed self-pity, pride, and a slight resentment, as if he was still blaming the universe for treating him unfairly.
Sometimes it is very strange. People who have everything feel more and more lacking. After they have more, they want more. The expanding desire gives rise to greed, and greed is a pocket that will never be filled.
"I spent so much money, hired so many high-quality talents, and provided jobs to so many people in the eight star regions. I even didn't leave out the most backward seventh and eighth star regions. I helped many people in these two low-income regions find jobs and have the opportunity to make a lot of money!"
"But what's the reward?"
"My experiments have made no progress. Before most of my research bases were forced to relocate or be destroyed, I was unable to develop results that would help humanity achieve a breakthrough in its supernatural talents. I was unable to complete the task this universe left for humanity."
"What's even more hateful? It's that the people around me actually betrayed me!"
When Shen Yijing heard the middle-aged man talking about betrayal, his face showed no expression and he still looked calm and alert. However, Jiang Yunu, who knew Captain Shen very well, knew that Shen Yijing listened very seriously to the middle-aged man's words.
Shen Yijing is most likely still trying to deduce a reasonable source of evil from the other party's so-called "betrayal experience" that could have prompted the other party to reach this point today.
Captain Shen is still too naive and kind-hearted. Jiang Yunu thought.
She felt that the so-called "betrayal" might be completely different from what the pure and kind Captain Shen thought.
"How did people betray you?" Jiang Yunu finally spoke, joining the middle-aged man's reminiscences. With a rare interest, she took the initiative to ask, "Did they squander your money, ruin your equipment, or were they completely ungrateful for the 'opportunities' you provided?"
The middle-aged man looked at Jiang Yunu with a look that said, "You are indeed the girl I like."
"All of them!" the middle-aged man said with emotion, but soon turned his teeth to grit his teeth. "But of course, the most hateful thing is the last one - not only are they not grateful, they are boycotting me!"
Jiang Yunu: "Why?"
The projection of the middle-aged man waved his arms, as if to shake off the ungrateful ungrateful people in his old memories. The force was so strong that it seemed as if he was driving away annoying flies.
"I simply asked them to work a little harder, to gather more experimental bodies for me, and I even raised the price for the new batch of experimental bodies—how kind of me? In such a poor place, many people might not even earn the star coins they get from selling a single body in their entire lives."
"Not only do I give them the opportunity to make money, I'm not picky about the quality of the bodies, as long as the quantity is right."
Shen Yijing asked, "What is an 'experimental body'?"
The middle-aged man glanced at Shen Yijing, as if the young boy present had finally asked a question that he could hear.
"An experimental body is an experimental body," the middle-aged man said. "What else could it be? Of course, those backward regions are constantly being created. They won't have access to high-quality resources in this lifetime, and there's no chance they'll become successful in the future. They can't make any contributions to the universe on their own, so I'm here to give them a chance to contribute."
In the projection, the middle-aged man's expression was almost smug.
"Being a test subject and participating in a cross-era human evolution project must be the highlight of their lives, their only chance to be recorded in history—and it can also bring their families a large sum of money. Isn't that great?"
On Shen Yijing's face, the calm and indifferent expression that had been maintained for a long time shattered.
He looked speculative and incredulous.
Shen Yijing subconsciously looked at Jiang Yunu, as if wanting to gain strength from the white-haired girl.
Jiang Yunu's expression did not change. She just looked at the middle-aged man calmly and deeply.
"Why don't you just be frank?" she said softly, "The experimental body you're talking about is actually the child, right?"
After a pause, Jiang Yunu added, "You must have collected children from the seventh and eighth districts in the back row."
The middle-aged man was exposed to the truth about his "experimental body", but his expression did not change and he did not even raise his eyebrows.
"Yeah," he said, and then asked with interest, "Don't you think that describing them like this makes them sound a little more great?"
He sincerely believed that he was giving the children who were brought in for the experiment a chance.
He thought he was bestowing glory.
"Don't look at me like that." The middle-aged man's projection said to Shen Yijing, and he tilted his head slightly. "You look angry, and that shouldn't be the case. I've already told you that this is a remote star region, a place where progress will be difficult from the past to the next few decades. Inferior people in an inferior place give birth to inferior children, and those inferior children can become top-notch experimental subjects for top-notch projects. For them, this is already a class leap. I also give them money to help their families escape poverty, and even improve their family's financial situation by a level within the 'inferior circle.'"
The middle-aged man continued, "I remember this was a joint competition between the upper three districts, and you're students from the first and second districts. What's wrong? Don't you have a sense of superiority? Don't your classmates and teachers subtly and naturally look down on the lower-tier districts?"
Shen Yijing: “…I don’t have it.”
Captain Shen gritted his teeth and spoke each word clearly.
“I can’t control other people,” he said, “but I don’t.”
This theory was stated as a matter of course, and it was like dropping a weight on his head, making him dizzy for a moment.
Jiang Yunu's voice rang out.
She still sounded calm, clear, and her tone was eerily composed.
"What kind of experiments have you done with them?" she asked.
"Too much. The consumption of the experimental bodies is very high." The middle-aged man said, "Basic energy core forced activation, high-amplitude superpowers forced injection, as well as exposing the bodies to high-value superpower light for a long time, 'superpower bathing', draining the core and then refilling it in one breath, etc."
"Things like joining elemental beasts and humans, and limb alteration, are all later projects. We couldn't even develop this in the early stages."
“…”
Jiang Yunu didn't ask any more questions.
Shen Yijing was speechless.
The environment was silent for a moment, only the proud ending of the middle-aged man's words lingered in the air, gently piercing people's eardrums like a needle tip.
——Then Jiang Yunu moved.
Jiang Yunu suddenly jumped up, and the green supernatural power turned into countless supernatural vines!
Each of them had a tip as sharp as a knife, and they moved towards the man's three-dimensional projection!
With a momentum that wanted to make the projection full of holes!
"It's useless." The middle-aged man sighed helplessly. He seemed puzzled by Jiang Yunu's sudden attack, yet at the same time, he was very tolerant, as if he understood his own ignorant junior. "I'm just a projection. What good is it to attack me?"
Jiang Yunu's vines penetrated the projection, but a larger green shadow flew along the projection towards the dome and headed straight for somewhere on the high ceiling.
"You are just a projection." Jiang Yunu said, "But you are here."
She was already very close to the projection, as if she had flashed to the man's side in an instant.
The man could almost see the changes in the white-haired girl's pupils.
"I will find you." Jiang Yunu said.
Her supernatural power climbed up the dome, sank into the ceiling, sank into the walls, and flowed along her body and her feet into the floor.
"I'm coming to see you." she said softly.
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