Wen Qian was startled by the sound. She subconsciously tightened her grip on the cat carrier’s strap. After composing herself, she looked toward Yin Zhi, only to find he had already blended into the darkness.
"Yin Zhi..." Wen Qian lifted her phone a little higher, calling his name in a very low voice. When there was no response, she immediately walked in Yin Zhi’s direction.
The small, silver-white cat sat quietly at the edge of the darkness, his back to the girl, looking exceptionally prim and proper.
Wen Qian quickly approached him. Just as she was about to pick Yin Zhi up, she glanced up, and a wave of terror instantly washed over her.
It turned out there was another door at the far end of room 503.
A cold, transparent door.
Her body felt as if it were bound by iron chains. Wen Qian stood frozen in place, a crawl of countless ants seeming to scurry up her slender back.
Through the door, she could clearly see the scene inside: countless hanging metal birdcages, holding many birds of unidentifiable species... They were fluttering their wings, continuously ramming themselves against the cages.
It took Wen Qian a moment to react. She tried hard to suppress the fear in her heart and reached out, wanting to open the door.
However, this door’s design was far more ingenious than the one in the laboratory. She searched for a long time but couldn’t even find where the lock was. She continued to feel around on the transparent glass panel, but Wen Qian still came up with nothing.
"Meow." A low meow pulled her back to her senses. Wen Qian came to and saw Yin Zhi tugging at her pant leg, gently shaking his head.
The time Gu Mian could buy them wouldn’t be long; Li Jiang would be back soon. It was only seven o’clock, so there were definitely more people than just them in the laboratory building. Someone had most likely already reported the power outage to the higher-ups.
If the power suddenly came back on, even if Li Jiang didn’t return, Wen Qian would be caught on the surveillance cameras. Yin Zhi couldn’t let her take that risk.
She fumbled around on the door panel for a while longer, still with no success.
Wen Qian met the hopeful gazes of the birds, trying her best to ignore the uncomfortable pressure building behind her eyes.
She knew she couldn’t delay any longer. Otherwise, never mind the birds here, even the Yellow-tailed Robin in room 609... couldn’t be saved.
The fury in her eyes was irrepressible. Wen Qian clenched her fists tightly, turned, and led Yin Zhi out of the laboratory at a brisk pace.
It had been a long time since she’d been this angry.
Even after entering the emergency stairwell, the rage in Wen Qian’s chest had not subsided.
Her mind flashed back to the massacre from many years ago—the streets and alleys stained red with the blood of lesser animals and Beastmen, and countless pairs of resentful, helpless eyes...
To Wen Qian, that was another catastrophe about to befall Blue Star.
She was just a child back then, with no ability to protect herself, let alone others. When faced with the animals’ pleas for help, all she could do was tug on the adults’ clothes and beg them over and over, hoping they would have a change of heart.
During that time, people were obsessed with shapeshifting animals. They saw any animal that could potentially transform as an opportunity, a way to gain wealth.
It was the first time Wen Qian understood what cowardice was, what powerlessness felt like. Dominated by fear, no matter how much she dissented, the powerful words she wanted to say were always stuck in her throat.
For a long time, her adoptive parents thought Wen Qian had developed autism. Their once sweet and well-behaved adopted daughter had become silent and withdrawn. She would lock herself in her room at night and tremble, and she would suddenly burst into tears during meals. They found a famous psychologist for her and tried everything they could, but they could never get her to open up.
Wen Qian didn’t know if this counted as being sick. She felt no physical discomfort; she just didn’t want to go outside, didn’t want to face the lifeless streets and alleys that, despite being bathed in sunlight day after day, remained utterly devoid of spirit.
Sometimes she even thought, ’Maybe humans are the real catastrophe for Blue Star?’
Although those days didn’t last long, many animal species still went extinct because of it.
There were too many people like Li Jiang who believed that the rarer the animal species, the more likely it was to shapeshift. This was only because the first Beastman to transform in front of humans had been a sand cat in its original form.
The laughable part was that they didn’t know sand cats aren’t a rare species in the Beast World. They are numerous and nocturnal, which is why they are also known as Dark Raccoons.
They hunted rare animals en masse, using cruel methods to force them to transform. It wasn’t until a huge number of animals had been tortured to death and the ecology of Blue Star was facing a crisis... that humanity finally realized not all animals could shapeshift.
The government began to take the issue seriously. They strengthened animal protection laws and Beastman laws in an attempt to protect them. They also strictly prohibited the wanton harm and capture of endangered animals.
But there were always some self-righteous old fools who believed that even if there was no direct link between endangered animals and shapeshifting, there had to be an indirect one, and that their probability of transforming had to be higher than that of common animals.
Li Jiang was one of them. To prove this theory, he had been secretly experimenting on endangered animals. Afraid of being watched, he chose birds, the least likely to be discovered.
CLOMP, CLOMP, CLOMP—
Heavy footsteps suddenly echoed from outside the emergency stairwell. Wen Qian’s first reaction was to turn off her phone’s screen and press herself into a dark corner. She had just seen Li Jiang’s phone on the desk in room 503, so she guessed he didn’t have a light source.
’But it doesn’t matter even if he does,’ she thought. ’He wouldn’t just search my bag for no reason, would he?’
Many of the windows in the laboratory building were clear, so even with the power out, the light from outside was enough to see the path at one’s feet.
Li Jiang limped into the emergency stairwell, muttering to himself, "Fucking hell, that scared the shit out of me... How dare you keep that kind of creepy shit in the lab! I’m gonna report you tomorrow!"
Just now, while searching for the Yellow-tailed Robin in the lab, Li Jiang had accidentally knocked over a glass jar. He bent down to pick it up and touched something cold and viscous...
After all, 609 was Gu Mian’s lab, so he was somewhat in the wrong for breaking something. He figured if it was anything important, he would just offer the Yellow-tailed Robin as compensation. Unexpectedly, Gu Mian, who had been standing aside watching the show, "kindly" turned on his phone’s flashlight for him.
When he saw clearly what was in his palm, Li Jiang almost pissed himself. He even forgot to scream, his lips trembling uncontrollably. In his hand was none other than a human eyeball...
He had stumbled all the way here, falling who knows how many times. The cold, sticky feeling in his palm lingered for a long time. The more he thought about it, the more sinister it seemed. Why would Gu Mian, someone who researched Beastmen, keep something like that in his lab?
When a Beastman suffers extreme pain, they can no longer maintain their human form. That eyeball was clearly...
He seemed to have suddenly thought of something and couldn’t help but shudder. If he remembered correctly, the previous occupant of room 609 had transferred the lab precisely because their eyes had been gouged out by criminals while walking at night...
Could it be...
The more he thought, the more unnerved he felt. Li Jiang couldn’t help but curse out loud. He no longer cared about the dim light; he practically jogged down the stairs.