158: Chapter 158 The Prince Nearly Becomes a Vessel for the Moth's Descent

Rockefeller III pushed open the heavy alloy door, his footsteps faltering for a moment at the threshold.

This was an isolated experimental zone, far larger than any of the previous containment rooms.

The walls and ceiling were entirely lined with electromagnetic shielding copper mesh, the floor was covered with anti-static medical rubber mats, and the four walls were embedded with operating monitors and vital sign monitoring panels.

All the equipment was of the latest generation.

ECG monitors, brainwave oscilloscopes, blood oxygen saturation sensors, and temperature sensing arrays—instruments that had just been modified from commercially available models—all flashed with quiet, regular light points across various screens.

And in the very center of this laboratory, there was only one hospital bed.

A member of Grey Alien lay upon it.

Its grayish-white skin, illuminated by the cold backlight of the monitors, gave off a faint matte sheen.

Its large head rested on the pillow, tilted slightly to one side.

Two extremely thin IV tubes extended from the medical port at the crook of its arm, connecting to the row of infusion pumps nearby.

Its body was covered in various tubes and lines:

Vital sign monitoring electrodes were attached to both sides of its cranium and chest, a breathing tube was inserted through its nasal cavity and extended downward, and blood transfusion lines were secured along its arm.

On the screen of the main monitor beside the hospital bed, a green waveform pulsed with a steady and uniform frequency.

Rockefeller III stood where he was, holding his breath.

Samuel stepped in behind him, but when he saw the grayish-white, large-headed body on the bed, he stopped dead in his tracks, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, his face frozen in a stagnant silence.

Isabelle DuPont stood inside the door frame, her hands hanging in front of her, fingers tightly clasped, lips slightly parted, but she could not utter a single word.

After Jacob Rothschild entered the room, he slowly withdrew his hands from his coat pockets and let them hang at his sides, lowering his head to stare at the member of Grey Alien lying quietly on the bed for several seconds.

William Vanderbilt V was the last to enter.

He walked to the side of the hospital bed and stood quietly, his large hands—which had held whiskey glasses steadily for decades—trembling slightly as they hung before him.

The entire room was quiet to the extreme.

So quiet that everyone could hear their own heart pounding irregularly against their ribs inside their chests.

No one dared to breathe heavily, no one dared to speak.

Even the slightest friction of military boots against the anti-static rubber mat had completely vanished.

Those failed batches of vessel bodies they had discussed outside, those failed experimental subjects prepared for the Mothman's consciousness to cross twenty-six hundred light-years, suddenly retreated from everyone's minds.

In this room, there was only that hospital bed.

Only that grayish-white member of Grey Alien covered in tubes on the bed.

Only that stable and continuous green heartbeat waveform on the monitor.

No one doubted his identity.

Everyone had confirmed who he was the moment they pushed open the door!

Rockefeller III held his breath and slowly walked to the left side of the hospital bed.

His leather shoes made no sound as they stepped on the anti-static rubber mat.

He stopped at the edge of the bed and looked down at the various medical tubes inserted into the grayish-white skin of the member of Grey Alien.

Then, he saw the incision at the heart.

It was a longitudinal incision about several inches long, tightly closed stitch by stitch with some kind of extremely fine biological suture.

The suture marks were delicate, the edges clean, with no signs of redness or infection; instead, new gray skin could be seen beginning to heal naturally along both sides of the suture line.

The location of this wound perfectly matched all the information he had previously heard from Edward:

The Longevity Faction had captured this Fourth Prince from Zeta Star in the underground garage of the Las Vegas City Hall, removed his heart intact from the living body, and transplanted it into the chest cavity of a certain Longevity Faction official.

Then, for some unknown reason, after losing its heart, the body of this member of Grey Alien was not destroyed or dismembered, but instead ended up in the hands of Solomon Crane and the Crane Family.

Now, which experimental vessel from the cold storage this new heart of the member of Grey Alien came from was not the focus of his thoughts.

The rhythmically pulsing green waveform on the main monitor screen was telling him that the new heart was fitting Prince Dao Dun's body perfectly, with stable blood pressure, saturated blood oxygen, and active brainwaves.

Whether Solomon wanted to provide a living specimen of Grey Alien for the Mothman, or to continue using the member of Grey Alien for vessel experiments, he had given Prince Dao Dun a chance to live again.

Over on Samuel's side, the few armed personnel who had first rushed into this laboratory were standing in the corner of the room, surrounded by a whole array of monitoring instruments that were still emitting a low hum.

The leader of the assault team held a thin paper file with both hands and walked up to Samuel, his hands trembling violently.

Samuel lowered his head to take the file, opened it, and scanned through it, the color draining from his face at a visible rate under the cold light.

Isabelle DuPont only glanced at a few lines of the same record from behind him before snapping her gaze back, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the buckle of her cloak.

Jacob Rothschild did not crowd forward, but quietly watched as Isabelle read the general contents of the document to him and William in an extremely low voice.

After hearing it, he tucked his hands back into his coat pockets, his jaw slightly clenched.

William Vanderbilt V listened to those words without a word, slowly set the whiskey flask he had been clutching onto a nearby unobtrusive terminal base, and took two deep breaths, his broad chest heaving.

Samuel took the file and walked over to Rockefeller III.

As soon as he reached the bedside, he unconsciously hunched his shoulders and handed the file over with both hands, his voice pressed extremely low.

Prince Dao Dun was still sleeping, and no one dared to speak loudly in his presence.

However, the moment Rockefeller III saw that Samuel's hands were trembling as he handed over the file, he knew everything.

He snatched the file and quickly flipped from the first page to the last.

The content inside was not complicated.

The file also recorded the research and development data for the Mothman vessel bodies.

But it was not using humans for experiments; it was using the bodies of Grey Alien.

The various parameters in the entire record formed a cruel and stark contrast to the previously failed human vessel bodies:

All cell compatibility indicators were marked green, and the nervous system adaptation rate was nearly perfect.

The vessel capacity was highly compatible with the target population at the level of basic physiological parameters.

There was zero theoretical risk of rejection regarding the carapace counterparts, forelimbs, compound eye lattice structures, and wing membrane tension balance.

The summary section at the end of the record, written with a tone completely different from all previous "failures," was filled with anticipation:

"Once this member of Grey Alien has fully recovered from the heart transplant surgery, the formal development of the Mothman vessel body will commence immediately."

"By then, the Crane Family will possess a perfectly adapted, flawless vessel host. The Mothman's armed forces will be able to cross twenty-six hundred light-years of void without losing a single soldier, gaining a body on Earth that can be perpetually replaced."

"The rule of Moth Star over Earth will begin from this moment!"