The glaring incandescent light suddenly flickered on in the pitch-black room.
The man sitting in the center of the room instinctively turned his head, taking a long time to barely adjust to the sudden brightness.
Before coming here, they had told him it was just a simple inquiry, but the current atmosphere felt like an interrogation.
Regardless of whether it was an inquiry or an interrogation, the outcome would be no different…
He couldn’t scrape together any dissatisfaction from his heart full of disappointment; he could only squint his eyes to look ahead.
Sitting there was a man with a refined and cultured temperament, but because the light ahead was shining directly into his eyes, he could only see the man’s backlit silhouette.
He knew who it was.
The long silence was finally broken as the man spoke first: “Why do you want to change your life?”
I don’t.
He answered in the depths of his heart, but what came out of his mouth was an answer already carved into his mind: “Because I don’t like my current profession, and I don’t like… my current life.”
The man seemed somewhat puzzled: “But in the eyes of many, you are very successful. They praise you as one of the best suspense novelists in the New World.”
The man’s voice was very gentle, yet he felt as if he were being observed from head to toe. The sensation was hard to describe, but if one had to use an analogy—he felt that once this “inquiry” ended, that person could dismantle him from the cellular level into a pile of fragments and then reconstruct him perfectly without a single mistake.
He felt uncomfortable; no one likes the feeling of being thoroughly seen through.
The man’s voice continued. He was speaking calmly, passing judgment on the twenty-plus years of his past life:
“Even so, do you admit that the life you have experienced goes against your original intentions, that it is a failure, and that it is not worth saving?”
“……Yes.”
He felt his voice was unbearably dry. He had to suppress his tears to keep himself from thinking about anything else.
He felt like a clown placed under a spotlight; his initial numbness could no longer maintain his last shred of dignity.
An utter spectacle.
However, the other party merely nodded in satisfaction. With the sound of pages turning, the man closed his notebook, set it aside, and asked the final question of the day: “Then, tell me about your goal now. What is it?”
Exhausted, he closed his eyes and spat out a few words: “To become… an excellent chemist.”
……
“Where are those silly kids?”
On the first floor of the building, Li Xin walked to the locked door and peered through the gray, dusty glass window.
The cleaning lady followed behind them, frowning as she looked up: “They were taken away by the guard?”
“Yeah,” Li Xin said casually. “Do you know the guard?”
“Not really,” the cleaning lady pondered. “The guard is different from me. He has no other thoughts about this job; he’s just doing his assigned duties. I don’t know where he would have taken them.”
The main entrance on the first floor remained locked. Li Xin leaned in to take a look; it was no different from yesterday.
“Nothing for it, then.” Li Xin clapped the dust off his hands and turned to look at Yu Suheng, his tone tinged with mockery: “What does Student Yu say? Should we go find them first?”
Yu Suheng couldn’t be bothered to respond and turned to walk in the other direction.
The elevator descended steadily.
No one spoke at a time like this.
Li Xin leaned his back against the elevator railing, calmly watching his own reflection in the metal door.
After a long while, the corners of his mouth hooked up, and his slowly closing eyes masked all emotion.
When he opened them again, they reverted to that relaxed, carefree smile as if he didn’t care about anything at all.
Accompanied by a ding, he was the first to step out of the elevator, mimicking the gesture of the shadow that had brought him here:
“Welcome, everyone, to the Director’s secret base.” He stepped back with a smile, clearing a path, his voice hitting the walls and echoing back.
Ostentatious, like a circus clown.
The cleaning lady didn’t answer. Her face was pale, and even her fingertips were trembling.
Yu Suheng watched him for a moment and, before the elevator doors closed, stepped toward him.
The familiar, cold fragrance washed over him.
Almost instinctively following the scent, he collided with those deep blue eyes that made one drown.
The noise clamoring in the depths of his heart dissipated in an instant; scattered rationality and amplified emotions all retracted.
Li Xin squeezed his eyes shut tightly, feeling the sharp pain at his neck once more.
His thoughts felt as if they had been forcefully shattered and then reconstructed. His head ached as if it were being torn apart. Amidst steady breathing, his short nails dug deep into his palms without hesitation. Feeling the blood trail across his fingertips, Li Xin still managed to steady his stance.
Glancing past the person in front of him, he looked at the cleaning lady who was still standing in the elevator: “The elevator is closing. You should head back the way you came.”
There was no fatigue in his voice, but Li Xin knew his mind was on the verge of collapse. The poisonous seed had been planted the moment he last stepped foot in here, only he hadn’t realized it.
But it didn’t matter; he still had the winning hand.
The cleaning lady didn’t back down; she followed along, suppressing the fear in her heart.
Unlike the last time Li Xin came here, this time, the entire corridor was ablaze with light.
“It’s… so quiet here.” The cleaning lady gripped her hem anxiously. If it were normal times, she would have hidden this anxiety in her heart, but now she couldn’t hide it at all. “Something is watching us…”
“This place amplifies human emotions,” Li Xin said. “If you can’t stop it, you might as well let it run wild. It’s better than dying while holding it all in.”
Standing at the familiar three-way junction, Li Xin stopped and turned his head, as if confirming the state of his companions.
“Shh.” He pressed his index finger to his lips and looked up at the red light flickering overhead, saying calmly: “Good evening, Director. One of my good students hopes to help you resolve some of your doubts.”
The red light flickered for a moment. He knew that the eyes following that light were staring from all directions, each pair filled with an indelible greed.
A mechanical voice came from above, the distorted tone hoarse and dull: “Proceed, guests.”
“You will receive the highest standard of hospitality… provided that you can actually deliver that answer to me.”
A roar came from directly ahead. Li Xin turned his head and saw another door open in front of them, revealing a pitch-black opening.
It was a malicious invitation, and they had no reason to stop here.
The lights turned on the moment their feet stepped into the room.
Seeing the scene, Li Xin’s pupils constricted.
This room had the exact same layout as the infirmary, though it looked more like a laboratory, with all kinds of equipment and drugs neatly piled inside.
Placed around the room were giant petri dishes, inside of which were soaked shadows that had been ripped open… and humans.
There was movement beside him. Li Xin turned his head and saw Yu Suheng, who had walked up next to him.
For once, his face wore a hint of disgust. He tapped the glass container holding a human eyeball next to him: “Boring, twisted hobby.”
“That is indeed a bit of a twisted hobby of mine.”
A gentle voice rang out. The Director walked in from behind, wearing that mask again. His gaze flashed across Li Xin and finally landed on Yu Suheng: “However, I must deny one thing.”
He walked to the surgical table facing everyone. As he spoke, he reached out to pull the corner of the white sheet, revealing a creepy smile: “This isn’t boring; it is one of the links that allows humans to have more choices.”
The blood-stained white sheet was ripped away with a jerk, revealing the figure hidden beneath.
Seeing the person on the bed, Yu Suheng narrowed his eyes.
It was Feng Hao, who should have been in the solitary confinement room.
He lay there completely unconscious, his chest barely rising and falling.
The Director observed his expression, putting on gloves while walking toward them.
“Teacher Li just said that you brought me an answer?” The Director walked past Li Xin and came to a stop in front of Yu Suheng. His eyes rolled around in their sockets, but his gaze remained fixed on Yu Suheng, enunciating each word: “Tell me now.”
He hadn’t expected this man to fixate on him right away. Yu Suheng didn’t answer immediately. His gaze lingered on Li Xin’s flawless, smiling face for a second before he said faintly: “I want to see Chen Dan.”
“Chen Dan?” The Director repeated the name, sighed after a long while: “Ah… you mean my most perfect case? His body is very weak, so he stays in the perfect shelter I have built for him.”
After saying that, he changed the subject: “Why do you want to see him?”
Yu Suheng: “I need to see him to confirm some things.”
He had no intention of explaining, and the Director did not refuse immediately. He remained silent for a moment, seemingly weighing the pros and cons.
Li Xin took a subtle step back, his eyes landing on the cleaning lady standing at the back of the group.
The moment she saw the Director, she had actually returned to normal. All her fear and hatred were hidden, and she quietly reduced her presence.
Li Xin frowned, but on the other side, the Director had already made his choice.
His gaze briefly met Li Xin’s, and then he stepped back and clapped his hands: “Fine.”
The black shadow responded to his call, appearing out of thin air and transforming into a door.
The Director reached out to stroke the pitch-black frame and walked over to Yu Suheng, patting his shoulder: “Please, I hope your answer will not disappoint me.”
The black, semi-illusory door made Yu Suheng understand why the cleaning lady said some rooms could only be entered with the Director’s permission.
This was indeed the best security measure.
Before entering, Yu Suheng crossed past the Director and looked at Li Xin, his voice flat: “Together?”
Li Xin observed his expression. Before he could answer, the Director interrupted: “He won’t be joining you. I still have some matters to confirm with Teacher Li.”
The pain in his neck spread to his heart. Li Xin forcefully swallowed a groan and tugged the corners of his lips, realizing this was a warning.
Just as Yu Suheng said, the Director never trusted him, just as… he didn’t trust anyone.
“Go ahead.” The smile in Li Xin’s eyes remained undiminished.
Yu Suheng didn’t answer. Before the Director could react, he grabbed the cleaning lady’s arm and dragged her in with him.
The door melted in an instant. Noticing Yu Suheng’s final action, the Director frowned fiercely: “That woman…”
“Said she’s Chen Dan’s sister,” Li Xin said lazily.
With only the two of them left in the room, Li Xin discarded the coldness in his eyes and smiled as he walked to the surgical table to observe Feng Hao’s condition: “How is it?”
The Director knew what he was referring to.
Back at the surgical table, the Director pressed a switch, and rows of parameters appeared on a virtual light screen.
“According to the parameters, not proceeding with the memory erasure in the solitary confinement room really allows the shadow’s data and his own to reach an equilibrium,” the Director said. “But in this way, it is also impossible to import new parameters. Without the knowledge brought by those parameters, the adjustment of life trajectories is merely a formality.”
Li Xin nodded in agreement, his expression somewhat listless: “So we still overlooked something.”
This devil-may-care attitude made the Director dissatisfied. He coldly picked up a scalpel and placed it on the dashed line the school doctor had drawn on their foreheads during the physical exam.
“Teacher Li, you should have a bit of a sense of crisis.” The sharp blade sliced through the superficial skin, revealing bright red, as the doctor’s tone carried undisguised threats: “You were the one who initiated this deal. As a gesture of sincerity, I kept your thinking capabilities and gave you sufficient authority and freedom.”
Watching the bright red blood drip onto the snowy white sheet, Li Xin let out a sound of acknowledgement, indicating he was listening.
“You said you needed to negotiate with the school doctor to get what you wanted. Good, you did it, and you did it very well.” The Director continued his movements. “But that is not enough. The content of our deal was not for you to bring me data I would have obtained sooner or later, but to completely master this technology.”
He applied force, and the scalpel violently pierced into the hard skull, stopping just before the sharp tip touched the soft brain.
The Director stepped back, wiped the blood off his face, and fixed his gaze on that still-calm face: “This is far from enough.”
Looking at the bloodstains splattered on his clothes, Li Xin sighed innocently: “So, didn’t I bring the follow-up?”
“Follow-up?” The Director sneered. “Are you referring to that good-looking dangerous element and a woman full of lies?”
“You were the one who said at the beginning that this person was dangerous and needed a reason to be isolated.” The Director stared hard at that still-unruffled face, trying to find traces of lying on it: “But now, he has gone directly to see Chen Dan.”
“That was also your agreement, Director. Because you don’t trust me, you weren’t willing to put all your chips on me.”
Li Xin finally shed his mask of calmness, his gaze filled with mockery. He stood up straight, even being a bit taller than the Director, and in that overlooking gaze, the Director saw the coldness hidden beneath the fake smile.
“You…” The Director instinctively raised his hand, but then suddenly remembered that the shadow had already transformed into the “door” and was on a two-hour cooldown.
He looked up in disbelief, finally realizing that he had stepped into a trap without knowing it. The Director gripped the scalpel tightly, losing his usual composure, his voice vicious: “You lied to me?!”
This appearance was quite unlike his usual refined mask. Li Xin looked at the scalpel clenched in the Director’s hand for a moment and sighed abruptly:
“Don’t be so tense, Director.” The next moment, Li Xin actually grabbed the blade pointed at him, not caring at all as the blood from his hand flowed into his sleeve.
New, sharp pain washed away the dull, gnawing ache in his heart. Having won a moment of clarity again, Li Xin snatched the blood-stained scalpel. He watched the Director’s eyes—the look of a man watching a madman—and spoke with a bloody, gentle tone:
“Don’t worry, Director. Generally speaking, I don’t really like breaking my word.” Li Xin lowered his eyes, wiped the blood off the blade with his black sleeve, rested his index finger on the handle, and pressed it lightly against his lips, enunciating each word:
“Tonight, you will get your ‘perfect case’ as you wished, so could you please be quieter?”