144: Do NOT go to Area B!
"Genesis..."
Li Ke woke up at this moment. Hearing those three words, he shuddered and sat up abruptly.
"That's an urban legend! It's been circulating in hacker circles that twenty years ago, there was an underground project dedicated to researching bio-humans. It was later blown up because it went out of control..."
He looked at Chen Mo in terror, "Didn't this place collapse a long time ago?"
"It didn't collapse."
Chen Mo propped himself up on his broken leg and stood, "It was just hidden."
"And someone has been maintaining this place."
He pointed overhead.
The lights in the airlock were dim, but not broken.
The air circulation system was also operating. Although noisy, it was indeed pumping in oxygen.
"Let's go."
Chen Mo walked towards the inner hatch door, "Since we're here, we should go greet the host."
The inner hatch door was sensor-activated.
The moment he approached, the sliding door opened silently.
The sight behind the door made everyone hold their breath.
It was a huge circular hall.
As large as a football field.
On the surrounding walls were neatly arranged cylindrical glass tanks.
Hundreds of them.
Most of the tanks were empty, their glass shattered, containing only shriveled tubes inside.
But dozens of the tanks were intact.
They were filled with a pale green liquid, bubbling.
And inside each tank, something floated.
Not human.
At least, not entirely human.
Some had huge mechanical prosthetics, some had transparent skulls revealing crystal chips inside, and others... were simply grotesque amalgamations of flesh and metal.
"Urgh..." Li Ke couldn't hold back and vomited again.
"Is this... a slaughterhouse?" Ninth Master's hand holding the boning knife trembled.
"No."
Chen Mo limped to the nearest tank.
He looked at the body inside that was only half intact.
The thing's face wore an eerie serenity.
"This is a display room."
Chen Mo's finger traced the glass surface, "These are all failures."
"Failures?" Su Qingxue walked over, her voice trembling.
"Yes." Chen Mo turned his head to look at her, his eyes terrifyingly hollow, "Failures Li Ke me."
"The only difference is, I survived and escaped. And they can only be soaked here as specimens."
*Ding.*
In the center of the hall, a spotlight suddenly lit up.
The beam shone directly on a control console.
In front of the console was a swivel chair.
The chair was turned away from them.
But on that chair, there seemed to be a person sitting.
Wearing a white lab coat, with gray hair.
"Alert!" Su Qingxue instantly raised her gun, blocking Chen Mo.
"Don't be nervous."
Chen Mo pushed her gun aside, "That's dead."
He walked over.
With each step, the metal floor beneath his feet echoed hollowly.
He arrived behind the swivel chair, reached out, and gently turned it.
The chair turned around.
There was indeed a person sitting on it.
A mummy.
Wearing a white lab coat from twenty years ago, with an ID badge on the chest: [Chief Researcher: Zhang Guofeng].
But in the mummy's hand, something was tightly clutched.
It was an old-fashioned voice recorder.
The thumb was still pressed on the play button, as if trying to leave something behind in the final moment before death.
Chen Mo looked at the mummy.
He recognized this face.
In the fragments of his memory, this face had appeared countless times under the surgical lamp, smiling at him with a kind yet cruel smile.
"Long time no see, Uncle Zhang."
Chen Mo said softly.
He reached out and pried the voice recorder from the mummy's stiff fingers.
The battery was still working.
Or rather, the recorder was connected to the console's power supply.
*Zzzzt—*
After a burst of static, an old, despairing voice echoed through the hall.
"I am Zhang Guofeng... Today is December 31st, 1999..."
"The experiment has completely failed."
"Professor Qin has gone mad... He doesn't want to create perfect police officers; he wants to create gods..."
"Sample A-001 has escaped... That was our only hope, and our only disaster..."
"If one day, someone can hear this recording..."
The recording suddenly cut off, replaced by heavy panting and pounding on a door.
In the background, something seemed to be cutting through a metal door with a chainsaw.
"If that's you, child... if you've returned..."
"Never go to Sector B!"
"NEVER GO TO Sector B!! That's where they're keeping..."
*Click.*
The recording abruptly stopped.
Dead silence filled the hall.
"Sector B?" Ninth Master swallowed hard, "This place has a Sector B?"
As soon as he finished speaking.
From the shadows deep within the hall came the heavy sound of hydraulics.
A massive, thick iron door painted with yellow and black warning lines slowly rose.
On the lintel were the stark words: [Sector B - Live Specimen Containment].
And from behind that door.
Came the sound of a heartbeat.
*Thump.*
Exactly the same frequency as Chen Mo's heartbeat.
No.
Stronger, more violent than his.
Li Ke a heart that had waited twenty years, finally luring in its prey...
"I guess this counts as returning home."
Chen Mo looked at the slowly opening gate to hell, pulled out the already dulled boning knife from behind his waist, and a mad smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"Since the host has opened the door."
"Wouldn't it be a bit impolite not to go in and have a good slaughter?"
Behind the door of Sector B, there were no monsters, no sea of blood.
Not even those nauseating smells of formaldehyde.
Only a faint milky scent mixed with the smell of old, moldy wood.
What greeted their eyes was a long corridor paved with pink tiles.
The walls were painted with colorful cartoon drawings—elephants, giraffes, Mr. Sun.
However, due to age, the paint was peeling. The giraffe's neck was broken, and Mr. Sun's face was split in two, as if grinning hideously.
"Am I blind?" Ninth Master rubbed his eyes, the boning knife in his hand seeming out of place, "Is this a fucking kindergarten?"
"It's an observation room."
Chen Mo dragged his broken leg, walking step by step inside.
His soles left wet, bloody footprints on the pink tiles.
"To test the effects of drugs on brain development stages, they simulated a growth environment."
Chen Mo's voice was soft, yet it carried far in this deathly silent corridor, "I used to... stay in a room Li Ke this."
Su Qingxue gripped her gun tightly, her palms sweaty.
This dissonance, this forced splicing of warmth and horror, was more chilling than directly facing a room full of corpses.
The floor was a mess.
Everywhere were dismembered dolls, torn picture books, and building blocks.
Blocks carved from some kind of white bone.
"There's light ahead." Li Ke pointed trembling towards the end of the corridor, "Is that... a nurse's station?"
Indeed, it was a nurse's station.
Except the glass on the counter was long shattered into pieces, piled with blackened documents and medicine bottles.
But from behind a door at the nurse's station, a faint blue light emanated.
It was the glow of server operation indicator lights.
"Li Ke, get to work." Chen Mo pointed at that room.
"I'm not going!" Li Ke whined tearfully, "In this horror movie scene, whoever goes is cannon fodder!"
"If you don't go, wait here to be torn to shreds by that one-eyed monster behind us." Chen Mo glanced back at the pitch-black Hall A behind them.
From there, faint, heavy sounds of metalImpact came.
That was B-002 violently breaking through the door.
"I'll go! I'll go, alright!" Li Ke scrambled on all fours towards the nurse's station.
"Ninth Master, block the door."
Chen Mo pointed at the entrance to the nurse's station, "Captain Su, watch our rear."
"What about you?" Su Qingxue asked.
"I'm going to put the children to sleep."
Chen Mo turned and looked at the rows of tightly shut doors lining both sides of the corridor.
Nameplates were on the doors.
[No. 003: gluttony]
[No. 004: Mania]
[No. 007: Delusion]
On each door was a small observation window.
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