“Wow, Mother of the Mutants? Isn’t that awesome? Is Mother of the Mutants in this lab? Surely not, right? These rats aren’t that capable.”
“If Mother of the Mutants really exists, I hope they can flatten human bases sooner, especially the Zhou City Base, and just wipe them all out already.”
“Can Mutants even be born? Aren’t all Mutants infected through mutation? If they can be born, is it viviparous or oviparous?”
A group of people chattered and laughed, completely ignoring the fact that this could be world-altering news.
Even the captain, who appeared the most composed, showed no sign of anxiety.
He tilted his head, listening, and interrupted a few of the team members’ jokes: “Something’s coming. Stop messing around.”
The Westerners who had just been laughing instantly quieted down. They positioned themselves at the doorway, raising their guns.
A strange creature, like a skinned monkey, peeked out from the door. It caught the scent of humans and lunged forward with a greedy roar.
What met it were fierce bullets!
That was just the beginning.
All sorts of bizarre, stitched-together Mutants charged one after another, only to be shredded by bullets.
Under this attrition, the ammunition was soon depleted.
But there were still many Mutants, blocking the doorway.
“Tch, time to loosen up the muscles.”
The only woman drew a pair of curved knives from her waist. Beneath her helmet and goggles, her eyes glinted with excitement.
Ignoring her teammates and the lack of bullets, she stomped the ground and charged forward.
“Damn, hand-to-hand combat is still the best. I’m in too. You guys do whatever!”
Another person dropped his gun and rushed forward as well.
In the end, only the young man who had held the USB remained, carrying a gun and complaining: “Why am I always left behind? This isn’t fair! Even if someone has to stay, it doesn’t have to be me. You guys want to fight with knives? Fine, I won’t!”
He turned to the girl on the ground and grumbled further: “And you too—why do you always end up here? If you had fainted somewhere else, I wouldn’t have had to deal with it.”
He muttered complaints, yet his hands never stopped moving. Every shot he fired provided cover for his teammates.
He intercepted every attack in areas the others couldn’t see.
Once his teammates charged forward, they were like rabid dogs. The twenty or thirty Mutants weren’t even enough to satisfy them. In less than twenty minutes, it was over.
Except for the young man handling long-range attacks, the others were all slightly injured, their blood mixed with that of the Mutants.
No one cared.
The dead Mutants piled into small mounds outside. Their blood had seeped into the lab. Somehow, the girl on the ground had been wrapped in a white lab coat and placed onto a nearby surgical table.
—They were afraid she might come into contact with Mutant blood and mutate.
Especially after searching the lab, they found the Mutants dead, the remaining lab staff dead, and the leftover experimental subjects dead.
The girl was the only survivor.
After confirming there were no living Mutants, they contacted the logistics team outside.
“Mutants cleared. You may start cleanup.”
“Wake up and open your eyes.” A cold voice sounded in her ear.
Yuan Li’s heart skipped a beat. She hesitated but opened her eyes.
Before her was a table. She sat in a chair, her hands handcuffed to the armrests. The surroundings looked like an interrogation room.
She was the subject; the person across from her was the interrogator.
“Name and age.”
Yuan Li’s face was wary and panicked. She tried to stay calm: “Who are you? My family has no money. Even if you kidnapped me, it wouldn’t matter.”
“I suggest you answer my questions properly.” The man across from her was tall even sitting down. Rolled-up sleeves revealed well-toned forearms. His buzz-cut hairstyle framed sharp, fierce eyes. A winding scar ran across his left cheek, adding to his menace.
The situation was pressing.
Yuan Li sensed the danger immediately.
“Yuan Li, 18.”
“Why are you in the laboratory?”
Yuan Li froze.
“What laboratory? I was sleeping at home and suddenly ended up here.”
“Oh? Do you remember what happened before you came here?” The buzz-cut man asked with interest.
Yuan Li replied without hesitation: “I just finished the college entrance exam and wanted to sleep for three days straight. When I opened my eyes, I was here.”
She suspected she had been kidnapped.
The man glanced at a small lamp on the table that looked like a toy. Seeing no reaction, he smiled ambiguously.
“What year is it in your understanding?”
Yuan Li found his wording strange, a sense of unease creeping into her chest.
Still, she answered: “2×25.”
“Ha.” The man chuckled.
He looked at Yuan Li with a gaze that mixed pity and the way one looks at a corpse, shaking his head. “I’ll ask you one last question: Do you know Mother of the Mutants?”
“What’s a Mutant?” Yuan Li’s unease deepened.
The man had no intention of explaining.
He casually said, “Wait here. Someone will come in shortly.”
“Wait!”
Yuan Li tried to stop him, but the buzz-cut man gave her no chance and left.
The door clicked shut.
In the interrogation room, Yuan Li was alone. Her handcuffed hands restricted her movement. She wasn’t wearing her familiar strawberry bear pajamas, but an ordinary black T-shirt and black work pants.
Naturally, her phone was gone.
How could she call the police?
How could she escape?
Yuan Li felt utterly helpless.
She didn’t know that the buzz-cut man hadn’t gone far. Where she thought was a wall directly across was actually a one-way mirror.
Three people stood on the other side.
A gray-haired woman, deputy head of the Cleaning Department.
A young man with silver eyes, a special psychic Mutant.
And the buzz-cut man himself.
The three observed Yuan Li through the glass. The silver-eyed youth spoke coldly: “I probed her with psychic power. She isn’t a psychic Mutant—just an ordinary person who hasn’t awakened.”
The gray-haired woman looked at the buzz-cut man: “Captain Lin, how much of a threat do you think she poses?”
“Not even a five-year-old.” The buzz-cut man’s words were sharp.
Even in the apocalypse, a child who survives safely until five isn’t harmless.
“Indeed, a pitiful child,” the deputy remarked. “If we let her go now, she probably couldn’t survive in Zhou City.”
The buzz-cut man remained indifferent: “Haven’t enough people died these past years?”
Fifty billion people had existed five years ago; only one billion remained now.
A seventy-five percent mortality rate.
“But she’s special. If she was in this lab for only a month, where was she before?”
The buzz-cut man paused.
The deputy pointed at Yuan Li: “Her bone age isn’t even twenty, yet she believes she was eighteen three years before the apocalypse.”
“So…”
The deputy spoke lightly: “I want to assign her to your squad.”