A night passed, and Eight Evils’ patience was completely exhausted.
The people from the Deceit Investigation Bureau had been monitoring the situation inside the containment unit.
Seeing that it remained fast asleep without any movement, they couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Little did they know that in a blind spot hidden from their view, the tips of its tentacles were splitting into transparent, thread-like filaments.
These filaments blended into the liquid and flowed out through the pipes.
In a matter of moments, they invaded the surrounding high-end, precision instruments.
BZZT—
The lights in the containment room flickered, but quickly returned to normal.
The next second, the instruments and surveillance cameras were completely overridden.
Eight Evils casually hacked into the Investigation Bureau’s network.
It had no interest in the bureau’s secrets; with a clear goal in mind, it pulled up the employee files.
It wasn’t this one.
It wasn’t that one.
…None of them were her!
Anger gradually colored Eight Evils’ eyes.
Why wasn’t Mother in any of them?!
Finally, its gaze landed on the last consolidated file—the temporary workers’ archive.
The Investigation Bureau’s official employees all had individual files.
However, because there were so many temporary workers, and most either quit halfway or sacrificed their lives, they didn’t get separate documents.
Eight Evils narrowed its eyes slightly and clicked open the consolidated file.
A moment later, a gleam of pleasant surprise burst in its eyes.
It found her.
***
Saturday.
Bian Ying slept until noon before finally dragging herself out of bed.
She took out a pack of instant noodles that was about to expire.
Thinking about how she had narrowly escaped death yesterday, she decided to treat herself a little better.
So, she extravagantly added a sausage.
After finishing the noodles, Bian Ying sat down in front of her computer.
This computer was a secondhand piece of junk her boss had dug out from the warehouse.
Out of “great mercy,” he had rewarded it to her so she would have no obstacles when working overtime.
Bian Ying stared silently at the blank document in front of her.
She had been staring at it for half an hour, completely at a loss on how to start.
Her last report had been written by AI, and she had been caught.
The one before that had been a compilation of the “best of the internet,” and she had been caught for that too.
Her boss had warned her that if she was caught again, she would have to write the report right under his nose and wouldn’t be allowed to get off work until it was finished.
That absolutely wouldn’t do.
Among the temporary workers, Bian Ying was the most eager to clock out.
The moment her shift ended, she would vanish from her desk.
“Sigh…”
An hour later, she let out a heavy sigh and resigned herself to typing.
However, the moment her fingers touched the keyboard, the computer in front of her froze as if infected by a virus.
BZZT—
Immediately after, the blank document was swallowed by blackness, and a single word frantically multiplied across the screen: Mother.
Through the laptop’s built-in webcam, Eight Evils finally saw the person it had been yearning for day and night.
Both its main body and its clones were trembling with excitement.
Bian Ying subconsciously picked up her phone.
CLICK.
She snapped a photo as evidence.
Her computer had a virus, so she couldn’t write the work report.
Her boss wouldn’t have any reason to blame her, right?
A hint of secret delight flashed in Bian Ying’s eyes.
In a good mood, she patted the screen.
“Thanks, bro.”
She didn’t have any secrets on this computer anyway, but this virus invasion had just done her a huge favor.
Mother praised it!
The screen stuttered for a second, followed immediately by an even more joyful clamor.
“Mother Mother Mother Mother Mother…”
A cold, robotic voice—mixed with various other synthetic tones—suddenly rang out.
The overlapping sounds echoed, filling the room.
It was so noisy.
Bian Ying covered her ears.
What was going on lately?
Why was she running into so many mama’s boys?
That Deceit was one, and the hacker behind this virus was another.
She took a deep breath.
“Look at whatever you want, but can you please not pollute my ears?
It’s really loud,” she said, rubbing her ears.
The voices stopped.
A moment later, a line of text appeared on the screen: Mother, I want to come find you.
If it weren’t for Mother, how could it have ever willingly let that group of people contain it?
Bian Ying was speechless.
Was this hacker a love-starved pervert?
She flipped the middle finger at the webcam, her tone laced with a hint of lethargy.
“If you’re so capable, then crawl through the network cable and find me.”
[Okay.]
[Wait for me, Mother!]
Bian Ying furrowed her brows, feeling a vague sense of unease.
Forget it.
It was just some perverted hacker.
She didn’t believe the other party would actually dare to come to the Lower District.
Bian Ying quickly tossed the thought to the back of her mind.
Looking at the computer, which had returned to normal, she felt a bit indignant.
At the very least, leave the virus behind for her!
Just as Bian Ying was about to start composing her masterpiece, one, two, three…
eight tentacles suddenly popped out from behind the computer screen!
Eight Evils’ joyous voice followed.
“Mother, I’m here~”
The scene before her was absolutely horrifying.
How was the Investigation Bureau doing their jobs?!
They actually let a high-risk Deceit escape!!!
She subconsciously reached to her side to grab something, but then she remembered that the Energy Gun Tan Linyan had given her had long been taken back.
Bian Ying only managed to grab a fruit knife.
“Mother?”
The tentacles tried to get closer, but were met only with Bian Ying’s vigilant, nervous glare and the gleaming silver tip of the knife.
The look in Mother’s eyes as she gazed at it was completely unfamiliar.
Eight Evils’ Brain domain filled with a strange, sour feeling.
Terrified that Mother wouldn’t acknowledge it, it blurted out a barrage of questions.
“Mother, do you not remember me?
I’m Eight Evils, the name you chose for me yourself.
“What happened to you?
Your powers are all gone, your appearance is much younger, and most importantly…”
She had lost her memory.
She had forgotten everything about them.
As Eight Evils’ panicked questions rained down on her one after another, Bian Ying belatedly realized something.
Did this Deceit mistake her for its mother?
“I’m a human, a genuine human,” Bian Ying said, attempting to correct the Deceit’s mistaken notion.
Unexpectedly, although Eight Evils felt baffled, it obediently nodded.
“Of course I know that.”
Bian Ying was rendered speechless.
She realized she had just learned an incredible secret.
A Deceit’s mother…
was a human?
Bian Ying took a deep breath.
This Deceit harbored no ill will towards her solely because it thought she was its mother.
If it were to find out the truth, she would probably die an uglier death than anyone else.
For once, she advised in a gentle tone, “I’m a human.
I can’t give birth to a Deceit.
You should go find your real mother.”
Eight Evils sounded dazed.
“Mother, I was created by you, not born to you.”
Created?
How could a human possibly possess the immense ability to create a Deceit?
She certainly wasn’t the Creator—she was just an ordinary corporate slave!
The more Bian Ying listened, the more it sounded like sheer fantasy.
Could this Deceit have suffered a cognitive malfunction during its containment?
Regardless, she had to placate it first and find an opportunity to report this to the Investigation Bureau later.
“Alright, alright, alright.”
Bian Ying didn’t want to argue about this topic with it anymore.
With a headache, she looked at the blank document that still didn’t have a single word written on it.
Since Eight Evils wasn’t going to kill her right now, this work report was actually giving her a bigger headache than her own personal safety.
If only she could close and open her eyes to find a three-thousand-word work report with clear logic, comprehensive content, and three pages dedicated purely to praising her boss right in front of her.
That would be wonderful.
In Bian Ying’s eyes, Monday’s public denunciation session was far more terrifying than this mama’s-boy Deceit of unknown origins!