The eight screens before Wei Yuan flickered faster and faster. He was completely oblivious to the commotion stirring around him, unaware even that the color of the lighting had shifted.
Soon, a new virus was born—one capable of transmitting through the air, liquids, and solid surfaces, encased in a protective capsid that could withstand strong acids and alkalis, and able to survive at three hundred degrees Celsius for dozens of days.
As usual, Wei Yuan submitted a testing request. Moments later, the screen indicated that it had passed the preliminary test and assigned it a name and designation, still filed under the primordial virus.
The instant the designation appeared, the lights went dead. Five of the eight screens vanished, and the main monitor went completely black for several seconds before reigniting.
Then came a deafening crack of thunder. Wei Yuan looked up just in time to see plasma drifting everywhere across the ceiling, surging like an inverted lake. In a flash, only a blinding silver-white filled his vision!
A second later, the plasma dissipated, leaving the laboratory pod's ceiling completely charred black, with the countless pieces of equipment hanging from it reduced to ash.
No matter how slow-witted Wei Yuan was, he knew by now that something was terribly wrong. He glanced at the research terminal, which had lit up again, gritted his teeth, and rushed back to it. He sent all the important-looking papers he hadn't yet had time to read to his personal account, uploaded his research findings and notes to the central server, and only then prepared to gather his things and flee.
Right then, Wei Yuan was suddenly hoisted off his feet!
Two soldiers, their necks thicker than their heads, seized Wei Yuan from either side and lifted him like a chick.
Wei Yuan struggled, but they didn't budge an inch. Hoisted in the air, he was spun around, coming face-to-face with an indescribable woman. Even with his feet off the ground, he was still not as tall as she was. Though sunglasses concealed half her face, she was undeniably gorgeous.
Yet Wei Yuan was in no mood to admire beauty; he felt only shock and terror. She was stunning, with an exceptional figure and not a single flaw in her proportions—save for her height, which clearly exceeded two meters.
With her hands clasped behind her back, the woman stood as straight and rigid as a statue, looking down at Wei Yuan like a trapped fowl. She walked over to the research terminal and pulled up all of the operation logs.
Data flashed wildly across the screen, already disintegrating into static, yet she studied it with intense focus. In just three minutes, she reviewed everything Wei Yuan had done that entire day.
She withdrew her gaze and said, "The system alarm was triggered from here. He must be part of the plan—though one of the expendable links. Prepare a soundproof room with hot water. I will interrogate him personally."
Wei Yuan was thoroughly baffled, having no idea what had happened. But seeing the two gleaming general's stars on her military uniform, he knew her rank had to be terrifyingly high. In the entire company, no more than three people could possibly hold the national rank of lieutenant general.
"I didn't do anything! I was only completing the task assigned to me! The workflow for the assignment is right in the office system, and all my operations were within my authorized scope—I didn't violate any regulations!" Wei Yuan hurriedly explained.
The woman ignored him completely. The two soldiers carried Wei Yuan down the hall and into an executive suite, where they hoisted and hung him from the ceiling. The suite's ceiling was considerably higher than ordinary rooms, yet the woman still had to duck her head to step through the doorway.
With a wave of her hand, she dismissed all the soldiers, who closed the door behind them. The room's walls then shifted color, deploying numerous cone-shaped fixtures—devices specially designed to absorb sound waves.
Panic gripped Wei Yuan, and he rushed to speak: "I'm really just an intern, I don't know anything! Whatever you want to know, I'll tell you everything! I won't hide a thing! I'll tell you right now!"
The woman slowly took off her sunglasses, revealing a face even more striking than when it had been partially covered.
Her large, bright eyes were impeccably beautiful, though it seemed as if countless volcanoes were concealed within them, ready to erupt at any second. She then removed her leather gloves. Her hands were slender and shapely, their proportions flawless, yet large enough that she could easily cup Wei Yuan's entire head in one palm.
Terror mounting, Wei Yuan tried to speak again, but she tapped his throat with a finger, rendering him unable to utter a single sound.
She then pushed Wei Yuan forward. The hook in the ceiling slid along a concealed track, conveying him like a slaughtered pig into a disproportionately massive bathroom equipped with showerheads on four sides.
She opened a cabinet in the bathroom, revealing an assortment of tools of unknown purpose. She opened another cabinet packed with countless vials and test tubes containing various pharmaceuticals.
Drawing on his past knowledge, Wei Yuan was startled to realize that every fixture in this seemingly ordinary bathroom was made of sterile materials. Was this an aseptic operating room?
Wei Yuan immediately felt impending doom.
She walked up to the squirming Wei Yuan, studied his face closely, and said, "Don't be in such a rush. We haven't reached the formal stage yet; this is merely the preparatory phase. I know you have things to say, and I know what you want to say, but who knows? In a little while, you might remember things you had forgotten.
"Now is my time. Do you know what my favorite pastime is? It's handling and cleaning my prey with my own hands, ensuring they are in peak condition before they are laid out on the operating table."
Her voice was slightly raspy, intentionally kept low, so that her breathing sounded like a devil's whisper. Yet beneath that calm voice lay a simmering volcano; Wei Yuan instinctively felt that if that volcano were triggered, he would instantly be engulfed by molten lava.
The woman continued, "Oh, I haven't introduced myself yet. I am Ji Liuli, President of the company's Security Headquarters."
The moment he heard that name, Wei Yuan's eyes snapped wide. Two worlds seemed to overlap before him, the barrier between them growing paper-thin.
Yet a profound terror surged from within his body, as if violently rejecting this convergence of two worlds. Meanwhile, a voice deep within his consciousness urged him to shatter the barrier.
His body and the voice deep in his mind were at odds, leaving Wei Yuan unsure which to obey. Instinctively, he leaned toward his body—after all, the thoughts in his mind might not even be his own; they could belong to someone else, or even to those from beyond the heavens...
Just as he was on the verge of grasping something, a violent surge of fear and resistance welled up from his body once more, followed by a splitting headache so excruciating that his mind went completely blank, wiping away all thought.
At that moment, the woman took out a pair of medical gloves and prepared to put them on. The gloves were noticeably larger than those for ordinary human hands, clearly custom-made for her.
Midway through pulling one on, she abruptly took it off and tossed it into the trash can. She stepped back in front of Wei Yuan and said, "I think you need... a thorough cleaning."
His headache was so severe that Wei Yuan could barely hear what she was saying. His body writhed chaotically, his muscles even straining to tear themselves apart to stop him from remembering those things.
Then, a smooth, icy touch met his skin, instantly jolting Wei Yuan awake. It was as though his body had encountered its natural predator; overwhelmed by sheer terror, it stopped trying to harm itself and instead began trembling uncontrollably.
She ripped Wei Yuan's clothes right off him and threw them into the trash bin. The high-quality, finely crafted lab uniform tore in her hands as easily as tissue paper.
In the blink of an eye, Wei Yuan was stripped completely bare.
Right before Wei Yuan's eyes, she adjusted a specialized showerhead, selected a vial marked as highly toxic and extremely hazardous, and poured the liquid into it. She switched the water on, and the spray from the showerhead instantly turned scarlet, like fresh blood.
She reached out to test the temperature, then licked the blood-red fluid from her fingertip. Seeming quite satisfied with its potency, she brought the showerhead over to Wei Yuan and poured it directly over his head.
The ice-cold, blood-red water came crashing down upon Wei Yuan's face and body.
The water was far colder than freezing ice water. The shock of it on his skin made Wei Yuan want to scream, but his throat only rose and fell in vain. The bloody ice water streamed down his face and head; after the bitter freeze, a strange, burning heat flared across his skin, coursing through his entire body. Wei Yuan knew things were grim—this was the sensation of severe frostbite!
His skin flushed crimson in an instant, veins bulging one after another, and his heart rate surged past the two-hundred mark.
Wei Yuan wanted to scream, but could make no sound. Once more, two worlds appeared before his eyes, at times drifting apart, at times overlapping. He felt as though he were hallucinating—as if another self was splitting out from within him, pulled by an invisible external force trying to drag it out of his body.
Yet the process of tearing the two selves apart was agonizingly painful and extraordinarily difficult, like two sheets of paper glued together with the strongest adhesive; separating them now meant tearing both to shreds.
She began the cleaning—from top to bottom, thorough and meticulous.
Chapter 784