They went down the long, dark passage, and suddenly light appeared. Moving cautiously, he walked in front while tightly gripping the hem of her clothes with his other hand.
She looked at the crumpled fabric and let out a quiet sigh.
Following the light, they reached a doorway. Above the frame were the words “Entrance” in green.
Past the entrance, the space split into two paths. One led into a partitioned area with men’s and women’s changing rooms, the other led off in an unknown direction, though an inspection checkpoint could be vaguely made out ahead.
“Change clothes first.” She tiptoed close to him and whispered, “We’ll meet back here after changing. Be careful.”
He rubbed his ear, it felt itchy, and subconsciously nodded obediently.
At the women’s changing-room entrance were two bins: one for dirty clothes, one with clean work uniforms.
She moved quietly, picking a properly sized uniform that looked like a doctor’s white coat. Seeing posters on each locker door showing the proper dress procedure, she followed the instructions and tucked all her hair into the cap, not leaving a single strand exposed.
She fastened the buttons and put on blue slippers.
Ugly.
And reeking of plastic.
While silently complaining, she still put everything on properly and tucked her belongings into the gap between two lockers, pushing them out of sight behind the cabinet. Because there were many blades inside, she had to be extremely careful not to make noise. Only after confirming nothing could be seen even on close inspection did she leave.
With all her weapons gone, she let out a quiet sigh. The road ahead would be a bit difficult, but it was still within her worst-case expectations.
He was already waiting at the entrance. When he saw her come out, he broke into a wide grin. “You look good.”
She gave him an odd glance and replied politely, “You’re handsome too.”
He touched his own face and smiled even more foolishly.
She: “……”
Sometimes she really didn’t want to admit it, he’d gotten the same exam scores as her, and yet people at school kept trying to pair them up.
She didn’t look that foolish.
With light around, his courage noticeably grew. Even seeing a security guard at the inspection checkpoint, he walked straight under the scanner without hesitation. A green light lit above his head, and he calmly continued forward.
Looking at the transparent door ahead, he frowned.
Why are there so many rules?
“Hey!”
“Which zone are you assigned to?” The security guard blocked his way with a baton. Behind him, she had to stop too. Her eyes immediately locked onto the baton in the guard’s hand, lighting up slightly. If she could take it, wouldn’t that make a weapon?
“You’re late, you know that?” The guard’s authority was heavy, and the baton crackled with electricity as if echoing his anger. “Half a month’s salary docked!”
“Half a month!” he blurted. “Isn’t that a bit much? We were only a little late. Do you know how much my standard of living drops if I lose half a month’s pay? I still have—”
“That’s always been the rule. If you have complaints, go talk to Director Wang yourself!”
The guard turned and walked toward the checkpoint.
Her gaze followed the electric baton the whole way. Just as she saw him about to move, she immediately pulled him back. “What are you doing?”
“You didn’t want it?” He pointed at the thing in the guard’s hand, his tone so matter-of-fact it made her chest tighten.
Wanting it didn’t mean they could take it now. Doing so here would only make things harder later. She held him back as the guard returned. “Fill in your registration.”
She took the form and scanned the list.
The most recent entry was from a month ago: Lu Renjia, fined half a month’s salary for being one minute late.
She skimmed it quickly. Late within half an hour meant half a month’s salary docked, within an hour, one month, an hour and a half, one and a half months… and so on.
If someone overslept, wouldn’t they end up working just to pay off debt?
Looking at these tyrannical rules, she couldn’t help but feel relieved this wasn’t reality. If she ever met something like this in real life, she’d fight tooth and nail to bring it down.
Everything could be deducted, except money.
The two of them each wrote a name, one wrote Wang Fu, the other Lu Qiang. It wasn’t real money anyway, so nothing would be docked from them.
After finishing, he casually tossed the form aside and shot the guard a contemptuous look. “Just you wait. If my sister finds out what you’ve done… heh.”
He then pulled her along and pushed open the door into the disinfection room. After passing through another door, they entered a completely different world.
It was brightly lit and spotless. Machines lined up in neat rows, like a production assembly line, so many you couldn’t even tell where they ended.
Most of the conveyor belts carried white powder. Others carried pink or blue powders. Some even had liquids or solid materials. There was a wide variety.
“I know the ‘heat poison’ is white powder. What are the others? New types of drugs?” she asked. She clearly didn’t know much about this and rarely came into contact with such things in daily life.
He glanced around. “Go take a look and you’ll know.”
“If we get caught again, are we just going to fake another connection and bluff our way through?”
“As long as it works.”
They were only a few steps from the conveyor belts when someone stopped them. The person wore the same uniform, but while theirs were white, this one was blue.
“Which area are you from?”
He straightened his chest, looking completely unbothered. “We were a bit late, got our pay docked already. Now we’re just getting to work.”
She: “……”
She’d expected him to pull the same act as with the security guard, something like “Just you wait!”
“Hurry up. If you don’t meet today’s quota, another half month’s salary gets docked!” The woman in blue looked at the two of them, both very young, and her expression softened slightly. “Don’t think that just because you’ve got connections you can act recklessly. You still have to follow the rules here. Otherwise, when the higher-ups find out…”
She pointed her index finger up at the ceiling. “Even that person won’t be able to cover for you.”
“Got it, got it,” she replied, unusually taking the lead in speaking. “It was just an accident this time.”
The woman waved her off and told them to hurry to their stations before leaving.
“Why did she suddenly appear just now?”
She looked back at the metal wall behind them. When they’d been observing earlier, there had clearly been no one there…
It was only a few steps, yet someone had suddenly appeared behind them. It was far too eerie.
“That looks like an elevator button, doesn’t it?” she suddenly said, pointing in the 3 o’clock direction.
“Yeah.”
“If this is the basement level and there’s an elevator… how many floors does this place actually have?” she muttered, starting to get a headache. Just how deep had this apartment complex been dug?
This basement level was already very large, and the ceiling was high too, around five meters. If there were two such levels, that was already at least ten meters underground.
What an enormous undertaking.
“Let’s get familiar with this floor first.”
For reasons unknown, the two of them seemed oddly confident as they openly wandered the first basement level. When they met people in white uniforms, they didn’t even glance at them. When they ran into people in blue, they simply smiled and nodded, and somehow got through without issue.
It felt like a spy game: one leading the way, one covering the rear. Eventually they reached the elevator. Seeing only the numbers 1 and 2 on the panel, they both quietly relaxed a little.
Too many floors would make things harder to control.
When the elevator doors opened, a long corridor lay beyond. There were many doors on both sides, but they didn’t rush in blindly.
Still in formation, one watching ahead, one watching behind, they reached the very end, where a thick iron door stood with a passcode lock.
“We can’t get in.” He crouched to examine the lock carefully. In the end he said, a bit reluctantly, “If we punch in the wrong code, an alarm goes off immediately. We can’t afford to gamble on it right now.”
She stood on her tiptoes, craning her neck to peek through the square glass panel above the iron door, but the harder she tried, the more frustrated she got.
Without looking away, she tapped his arm. “You’re taller. Look inside and see what’s there.”
He touched the top of his head with mild regret. If she’d kept touching it a bit longer, he wouldn’t have minded.
“It’s all instruments and equipment. I don’t really get it, but I think we should let Doctor Xi take a look.” Someone with a medical background would know more. He peered inside with his 5.0 vision. “There are reagents too. A group of people in protective suits, all wrapped up, doing experiments in there?”
As soon as he finished, a scream came from inside, not very loud.
“Ah!”
“I was wrong, I was wrong!”
“Sister Yue, I was wrong, I really was, please let me go!”
“I promise I won’t run anymore. I… I’ll even go find you more tenants. I swear, I really swear!”
“Ah——!”
“Sister Yue!”
“Sister Yue…”
The screams grew more and more miserable, the volume gradually fading. She couldn’t see what was happening, but he could see everything. He didn’t dare say a word, though, communicating only through gestures.
After she gave permission, he carefully lifted her up like a child so they could both peek in from different angles.
A woman stood there in a blood-red leather coat and crimson sky-high heels. Her long black wavy hair flowed down her back, giving her an elegant, commanding presence.
They couldn’t see Sister Yue’s face, but the woman being tortured was clearly visible.
She was someone they had never seen before.
Her lips were cracked and peeling, her eyes and cheeks deeply sunken. Her face was covered in whip marks of varying severity. Her messy hair was yellowed and coarse, plastered to her head. She wore a spaghetti-strap dress whose original color was no longer recognizable. Every bit of exposed skin was covered in bruises and bloodstains, there wasn’t a single intact patch on her body.
Even so, she was still pinned to the floor by two people in protective suits. Another in protective gear held a syringe, needle pointed up. He pushed it slightly, and a few drops of liquid dripped out.
Sister Yue took a few steps back.
“Zhou Lan… don’t blame me for being ruthless. You should know, for what you’ve done, you deserve to die a thousand times over.”
“I put in so much effort, stayed up all night just to clean up your mess. This really isn’t my fault.”
She slowly crouched down and lightly patted Zhou Lan’s face a few times.
“Being able to contribute to my work is your blessing. If you really want to blame someone…”
She stood, drawing out her tone, taking a disinfectant wipe handed to her by a bodyguard and wiping her hands in disgust.
“Blame yourself for not behaving. You were my best friend, how could you betray me?”
“Zou Yue! You’ll die a miserable death!”
Zou Yue let out a cold laugh, waved her hand, and the researchers who’d been waiting immediately injected the liquid from the syringe into Zhou Lan’s body.
“Ugh…”
Watching Zhou Lan’s convulsing face, Zou Yue fanned the air in front of her in disgust.
“Take her away. Inject her once every hour. Let’s see how this latest batch of research turns out.”
With that, she discarded the wipe and turned toward the iron door.