Chapter 145

Chapter 145

"Wuyin..."

"...Wuyin?"

"Wuyin!!"

With each call growing clearer, just when the voice seemed inches away, Wuyin suddenly opened his eyes.

Bright incandescent light directly struck his eyes, causing Wuyin to reflexively squint, raising his left hand to shield against the light. After adjusting for a moment until his vision was completely clear, he slowly lifted his head to see two young strangers in white suits, looking down at him from either side.

Thump-thump—

"Why are you sleeping here?" one of them asked, slightly reproachful.

"Sorry, sorry."

Wuyin heard his own voice, slightly smiling, "I accidentally fell asleep."

No, that's not him.

How could he apologize, especially with such a gentle and lukewarm tone?

Thump-thump—

The stranger who voiced his complaint reached out a hand, frowning, "Hurry up, or Yier will give you trouble again."

"If he wants to find trouble, he always finds a reason," 'Wuyin' sighed helplessly, reaching out to shake his hand and leveraging himself up.

"He covets your body," the one who had remained silent suddenly spoke up, "but since you have a [core] inside, he can't do anything to you for now. However, I don't think he'll let it go so easily."

"Yihai, don't make it sound so ominous," 'Wuyin's voice remained calm and gentle, like a cup of water not yet boiled, "Gengwu told me earlier they intend to use me as a template to create a batch of bionic bodies. Bionic bodies are free from illness and disaster, with all physical indicators at their optimum. Isn't that better than my artificially accelerated body still harboring a defective core? Yier has no reason to keep fixating on me."

"Jealousy," Yihai said, "Do you know what that means?"

Thump-thump—

"…Hm?" 'Wuyin' puzzled, "What do I have to be jealous of? Yier is a researcher, how could he possibly be jealous of me?"

"Ah, you lab-grown in three months, a quick success..." Yihai looked at the other person beside him, the two exchanging a resigned glance, "Truly a blank slate in the ways of the world."

Another person's eyebrows were furrowed so tightly, they seemed about to kill a mosquito, "He just can't stand to see you do well, Wu Yin, you're really clueless!"

"Ji Mao, stop scolding me all the time. If there's something I don't understand, just teach me kindly..."

"Even when we teach you, you don't take it to heart. Seeing how carefree you are, I can't stand it anymore. Yi Hai, you teach him."

"How should I teach him?"

"Teach him to be more savvy."

Thump, thump—

Amid their conversation, a regular and loud anomaly sound hovered by Wu Yin's ears, causing even the scene before his eyes to shake. Yet, the two talking non-stop around him seemed completely unaware, as if 'he' himself hadn't noticed anything odd.

Wu Yin wanted to remind them, but his body was completely unresponsive.

The noise grew louder and more chaotic, with numerous sounds flooding his mind, turning it into a mess.

Wu Yin strained to catch the clearer images and words among them. He saw a man in a wheelchair, wrapped in a black robe, his eyes hidden in the shadows yet piercingly real, followed by a frail test subject struggling to push the wheelchair, tagged as Wu Chen;

He saw the bodies of failed core genesis being moved out of the lab, tagged as Bing Xu;

He saw several researchers in masks and surgical gowns passing by him with cold indifference, whispering among themselves;

He saw a man with livor mortis on his cheeks but a timid look in his eyes, following a female researcher, constantly looking back at him, tagged as Gui You;

He saw a young man trapped alone in a transparent observation room, anxiously crouching in a corner, then suddenly rushing to bang on the glass, screaming for help, tagged as Gui Si...

Thump, thump, thump...

The pace of the anomaly sound became faster and more frantic, as if urging, as if screaming...

Suddenly, all sounds ceased, the strange anomaly disappeared, leaving only a sharp ringing in the ears, like the continuous warning tone of a heartbeat stopping.

...Heartbeat?

Wu Yin suddenly realized what this bizarre sound was—it was the sound of a heart pumping.

The moment he realized this, he felt as though he was in a corridor of memories, with the walls around him plastered with his past. The images rapidly receded, leaving him standing in fright, alone, as all the people around him vanished into endless darkness.

"Are you listening?"

Suddenly, Wu Yin heard a familiar voice—it was his own voice, the voice of 'Wu Yin'. He blankly looked up, seeing nothing, unable to pinpoint the source of the voice.

"Are you awake?"

Wu Yin didn't respond, but the voice tirelessly continued: "I know you're awake. Can you give me a sign? I'm so bored."

"How about the old signal? If you hear me, move twice. If not, just once."

...What kind of nonsense is this? Wu Yin tried to move his 'limbs', wherever they might be, and the next second, he heard the voice laugh: "So you didn't hear, huh."

Wu Yin moved several times forcefully, and the voice laughed even more joyously: "Alright, alright, I get it. Stop moving, stop, it's suffocating!"

Hearing the plea, Wu Yin finally calmed down, and after a while, a long sigh drifted over: "Gui Si begged me to help him escape. He doesn't want to stay here, to become a tool for [core] provision. He also said we should all leave, instead of being like livestock in a slaughterhouse. My mind is in chaos, I don't know what to do...

I talked to Ji Mao about this yesterday. He told me to stay out of it, but I think Gui Si is right. Why should we stay here? Why do we have to die if core genesis fails? Why do we still have to die even after it succeeds?

...Recently, Gui You has also been missing, Geng Wu's periods of sleep are getting longer, and every time I look for him, I can only meet the researcher he's coexisting with. Yi Hai hasn't come back since he was taken away last time. Gui Si said his core had a problem and had been destroyed by the researchers."

After rambling on, another sigh followed, this time with a tremble, "Is it true... Was Yi Hai really destroyed?"

Wu Yin grew impatient. Why the tears? What's there to cry about? And crying in his voice, no less. If you don't want to be livestock, then just run away. Isn't it easy to abandon the body and escape as a [core]?

After sobbing for a while, the voice calmed down, asking with a cry in its tone: "What do you think?"

Who said that?

A touch of warmth pierced through the darkness, enveloping Wu Yin with a comforting heat, prompting him to subconsciously recall the warmth of a human palm.

...the warmth in the palm? Wu Yin suddenly found it odd, why would he know the temperature of a human palm? When he was clearly a...

A...?

What was he?

"Right, it's been so long, and I haven't named you yet. Always calling you 'you', no wonder you never respond to me."

The voice paused, as if in thought: "...I asked Geng Wu, and he said our condition is called a chimera. The technology for rapid human body cultivation was not yet perfect back then. Yi was too eager for results, leading to you being absorbed by me during the embryonic development phase. Actually, we were supposed to be twins.

Hmm... It's also unclear who the elder brother is, so I'll be your brother.

So, logically speaking, I am Wu Yin, so you should be Ji Mao. But Yi Mao is already taken, so you are... Wu Yin point five?"

……

"Don't like that name? Then, I'll give Wu Yin to you, and I'll take another name. What should it be...?"

Even without any response, 'Wu Yin' entertained himself by picking out names.

Chimera, twins...

Wu Yin faintly heard a harsh buzzing roar, drowning out the sound of a heartbeat, with rhythmic undulations under his feet slowing down, and the darkness gradually becoming distant, a beam of light appearing in the unknown afar.

"Yin also represents the tiger in the twelve zodiac animals, so, how about I call myself Wu Hu? Hoo-hoo."

...where did this idiocy come from?

"Wu Yin."

"Wu Yin?"

The howling sound grew louder, carrying with it a soft, faint call.

So annoying.

"Wu Yin..."

The howl, ghostly and shrieking, tore at the eardrums.

Shut up!

"Leave this place, Wu Yin, leave here..."

"Leave this place!"

……

—Amidst the sharp howls, Wu Yin suddenly regained consciousness.

He trembled, still in shock, breathing rapidly... if he still had a nose and mouth to breathe with.

For he was now in his core form, like a dark red pickled vegetable, brined in a glass jar, constantly jostling and shaking. The jar was tightly wrapped by a dark green vine, the actions of a mutated devil's ivy desperate and reckless, its branches extending out ten meters from the cabin's ceiling light in a swift motion, then rapidly continuing to race across the carpet.

Wu Yin rolled around in the saline solution for several turns, expelling a series of fine bubbles like a drowning victim.

Wu Yin—slow down, slow down!

The mutated devil's ivy turned a leaf, running while pressing the foliage against the glass to peer inside—Are you awake?

Wu Yin could still hear nothing but the nauseating howling noise made by the sailors, preoccupied with nothing else—Leave this place.

Leave this place...

His words seemed to overlap with the voices of the past.

Wu Yin sneered in his heart, finally understanding his origin and his obsession with his true self.

He is Wu Yin, yet not Wu Yin; he and another person together constitute Wu Yin.

During embryonic development, he was absorbed by his twin brother, becoming an organ within 'Wu Yin'.

And that organ is precisely—

[The Core]

That beautifully featured body did not belong to him, but to someone prone to foolishly howling...

The mutated devil's ivy had grown a bit smarter over time, but only slightly—How do we leave this place?

Wu Yin—jump into the sea!

The ivy halted its roots, looking around, then suddenly leaped onto the glass window, struggling to find a gap—These windows are all sealed shut; we can't jump out!

Wu Yin—then look for a gap!

The devil's ivy, feeling wronged, continued searching with the glass jar in tow, finally finding an open crack at a turn. The stairwell door was open, and a team of armed bodyguards rushed in. Overjoyed, the ivy attempted to dart through their legs to escape downstairs.

But the bodyguards weren't blind; a barrage of bullets followed the ivy's leaves, shredding them and breaking the glass jar carrying Wu Yin. Saline solution splattered everywhere, and Wu Yin rolled two meters on the ground, only to be wrapped up by the resilient mutated devil's ivy again, continuing the escape downstairs.

It's unclear if the sailors had new orders, but the bodyguards switched from bullets to nets and electric batons.

As soon as the ivy descended to the first floor, another pair of armed security personnel sprang up, trapping it from both sides. In panic, it wrapped the little flesh ball and darted into the third floor.

Mutated devil's ivy—what to do, what to do!

Wu Yin, shriveled and contracted into a withered meatball—...I need saline.

Mutated devil's ivy—Would seawater do?

Wu Yin—...