17: Chapter 17 The Mutant Trade

After saying this, Liu Kun opened up.

"Mr. Yan, to be honest with you, in the Mutant business, underground fighting is the dumbest way to make money."

Liu Kun poured himself another half glass of Moutai, drinking while drawing circles on the coffee table with his index finger.

"For one Mutant, just feeding and guarding them for a month costs three or four thousand U.S. dollars. Add in the cost of the inhibitor injections; that stuff costs five hundred a vial on the black market."

"Fighting an underground match, the cut from the bets is at most ten or twenty thousand. After subtracting the costs, the profit is as thin as a razor blade."

Yan Zheng leaned back on the sofa, the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses reflecting the dim, yellow light of the private room.

"Then does Liu Kun mean there's a more profitable path?"

"Of course there is." Liu Kun held up a finger.

"Blood and tissue samples; there are people outside buying them at high prices."

"A vial of Mutant blood, if the quality is good, can sell for twenty thousand U.S. dollars. Bone marrow aspiration samples are even more expensive, starting at fifty thousand."

"Who is buying?"

Liu Kun shook his head, rotating the jade ring on his finger.

"There are several layers in between, so I don't know who the final buyer is. But I do know one thing: those people are generous, they never haggle, and they pay whatever is asked."

"The only condition is that the samples must be fresh, shipped via cold chain, and delivered to the designated location within forty-eight hours."

Yan Zheng: ( ꉺ ᗜ ꉺ )

"Sounds like they're doing research."

"Who cares what they're doing? As long as the money hits the account, that's all that matters." Liu Kun chuckled, set down his glass, and stood up.

"Mr. Yan, talk is cheap. Come on, I'll take you to see the merchandise."

Yan Zheng straightened his suit cuffs and stood up to follow.

The two went out the side door of the VIP room, walked about thirty meters deep underground along a dimly lit concrete corridor, and Liu Kun pulled a ring of keys from his pocket to open an iron door at the end of the hallway.

The space behind the door was larger than Yan Zheng had expected.

About sixty square meters, with a concrete floor. Several moisture-proof lights hung from the ceiling, and the air was filled with a sour, rotten smell mixed with disinfectant and sweat.

Five iron cages were lined up along the walls on both sides.

Each iron cage was about two meters square and less than 1.8 meters high, with a thin, dirty sponge mat on the floor and a plastic bucket and a toilet in the corner.

Five people were locked in the five cages.

Yan Zheng pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and walked slowly past each iron cage.

The first cage.

Male, early twenties, curled up in the corner. His skin was an unnatural grayish-brown, rough on the surface like reptile scales. His hands were locked behind his back with silver metal shackles, and the skin on his wrists was chafed red and festering.

The system panel popped up a gray notification in the corner of his vision.

[Living Mutant individual. X-Gene type: Epidermal Keratin Strengthening (Intermediate). Quality rating: C-. Current status: Inhibitor locked, gene expression rate approx. 25%.]

Yan Zheng paused for less than half a second and kept walking.

The second cage.

Female, seventeen or eighteen years old, thin to the point of being gaunt, with deep-set eye sockets. However, her eyes glowed with a cat-like fluorescent color in the dim light, and her pupils were vertical slits.

[Living Mutant individual. X-Gene type: Dark Vision Enhancement. Quality rating: D.]

The third cage.

Male, bald, in his thirties, sitting cross-legged on the sponge mat. The plastic water cup in front of him was swaying slightly without any external force.

[Living Mutant individual. X-Gene type: Minor Telekinesis. Quality rating: D+.]

Yan Zheng: ( ˘ ̩ ̩ ̩ ᵕ ˘ ̩ ̩ ̩ )

The fourth cage.

Male, age difficult to determine, curled into a ball. His body temperature was significantly high, and the air in the cage had a visual distortion from the heat waves. Sweat was on his forehead, but his expression was numb, as if frozen.

[Living Mutant individual. X-Gene type: Body Temperature Manipulation (Unstable type). Quality rating: D. Note: Gene expression is unstable, risk of self-destruction exists.]

The fifth cage.

Yan Zheng stopped in front of this cage.

A young woman, about twenty years old, sat in the cage, her long black hair covering most of her face. She wore a dirty gray T-shirt, knees hugged to her chest, looking at Yan Zheng with a wary gaze through the gaps in her hair.

The system panel popped up a notification.

But this time, the border of the notification box was flickering.

[Living Mutant individual. X-Gene type: Scan failed. Direct contact or sample collection required for analysis.]

[Note: This individual's X-Gene has highly concealed characteristics; remote scanning cannot penetrate its biological signal shielding. Quality rating: Unknown.]

Yan Zheng: ( ꐦ ° ꒳ ° )

Scan failed.

Among the five Mutants, the first four could be read normally, but only this one couldn't be scanned.

"What's the matter, interested in the last one?" Liu Kun leaned over, lifting his chin towards the fifth cage.

"This girl is quite strange. She's been caught for two weeks, and no one knows what her ability is. We put three sets of inhibitors on her; logically, any ability should have been suppressed, but she just looks different from the others."

"How is she different?"

"Last week, we let her fight in a match. A one-hundred-eighty-pound strongman on the opposite side rushed over and punched her in the face."

Liu Kun stubbed out his cigarette, his tone filled with confused irritation.

"She fell, she bled; it looked no different from an ordinary person taking a punch. But after that strongman hit her, his right hand swelled up on the spot. When he went back and got an X-ray, three of his fingers were fractured."

"He said himself that the punch he landed on her face felt like hitting a wall wrapped in skin."

Yan Zheng didn't speak, his gaze passing through the gaps in the iron cage bars, looking at the young woman sitting with her knees hugged.

She was also looking at him.

Through the gaps in her black hair, those eyes were abnormally calm, without fear, without pleading, and without anger.

Only a cold, silent waiting for judgment.

Yan Zheng withdrew his gaze and turned to face Liu Kun.

"Five people, the conditions are not very good."

"Well, they're kept in cages, how good could they be?" Liu Kun spread his hands.

"This business is a trade of consumables; after fighting for a few months, if they're useless, we swap in a new batch. My supplier sends new ones every month; as long as there's money, we can have as many as we want."

"Who is the supplier?"

"Tsk, didn't you say you wouldn't ask too much?"

Liu Kun glanced at him sideways, but his tone was unguarded.

"It's an interstate line, coming from the south. I really don't know who it is specifically; I only deal with the middleman. Those people only care about delivering the goods and collecting the money, they never show their faces."

Yan Zheng: ( ˵ ꐦ ꒳ ꐦ ˵ )

"Understood."

He walked away from the iron cages, hands behind his back, circled the holding area, and pretended to be examining the facilities.

"Boss Liu, I have a proposal."

"Go ahead."

"You just said that Mutants who are beaten until they're useless are consumables, and disposing of them takes manpower and time."

Yan Zheng turned around, the lenses of his gold-rimmed glasses flashing under the cold white light of the moisture-proof lamps.

"How about you let me handle these scraps?"

Liu Kun had just lit his cigarette; he raised an eyebrow upon hearing this.

"Handle? How do you mean to handle them?"

"My clients do biological research. Living samples are, of course, best, but dead bodies have value too. Skeletal structure, muscle fibers, tissue slices after mutation; these things can be taken from a corpse just the same."

Yan Zheng's voice was as calm as if he were discussing the pricing standards for recycling scrap.

"The ones you've beaten until they're useless or dead were originally going to be thrown into the East River to feed the fish. Rather than letting them go to waste, why not let me help you monetize them?"

"You save the trouble of disposal, I take the waste for secondary use—everyone gets what they need."

Liu Kun held the cigarette in his mouth, squinting at Yan Zheng for several seconds.

"You want dead people?"

"To be precise, I want the waste." Yan Zheng corrected with a smile.

"As long as it's something you've determined has no utility value, whether it's dead or half-dead, I'll take it."

Liu Kun took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it between his fingers; the red light of the cigarette tip looked like a tiny eye in the dim space.

"Mr. Yan, you are a truly interesting person."

"Others come to me—those who want to watch fighting watch fighting, those who want to gamble gamble, those who want to buy blood samples buy blood samples."

"But you, you want trash."

He laughed twice, the laughter echoing between the concrete walls, carrying the smell of smoke.

Liu Kun: ( ꐦ ˙ ꒳ ˙ )

"Fine, if you want the waste, I'll even save the money on hiring someone to throw them in the river."

"But let's get the ugly talk out of the way first: once these things leave my door, they have nothing to do with me. Whether you use them for research or chop them up to feed dogs, don't drag my name into it."

"Of course." Yan Zheng extended his hand.

"Happy to cooperate?"

Liu Kun looked down at the clean palm wearing a thin glove, scoffed, and reached out to shake it.

"Happy to cooperate. But I'll say this first: the next batch of waste won't be available until after the 'Special Night' matches at the end of the month."

"No rush."

Yan Zheng released his hand and looked back at the five iron cages.

His gaze finally rested on the fifth cage, paused for half a second, and then withdrew.

Yan Zheng: ( ꈍ ꒳ ꈍ )

"Boss Liu, one last question."

"Are you ever going to finish?"

"If the young lady in the fifth cage is also determined to be waste in the future, does she also belong to me to dispose of?"

Liu Kun exhaled a puff of smoke and waved his hand dismissively.

"I already said, take whatever waste you want. But that girl hasn't fought many matches yet; whether she's waste or not depends on her future performance."

"Understood."

Yan Zheng turned and walked towards the corridor, his footsteps tapping out an unhurried rhythm on the concrete floor.

He slowed down for half a beat when passing the fifth cage; he didn't look down, but his mouth curved into an extremely subtle arc.

Walking out the iron door, through the corridor, and up the steps, the cold wind blew in.

Yan Zheng stopped at the very top of the steps, raised his hand to push up his gold-rimmed glasses, and said something to the cold January night wind that only he could hear.

"Scan failed, quality rating unknown."

"In my experience, the more unfathomable something is, the more valuable it is."

Yan Zheng: ( ✦ ᴗ ✦ )

He turned up the collar of his coat and walked towards the Antique Shop, his back fading into the thin light of Hells Kitchen.

The last sentence drifted away in the air with the wind, carrying the composure of a hunter who has marked their prey.

"Take your time, no rush. I'll be visiting Boss Liu's waste recycling station often in the future."