Chapter 160: Escaping the Research Institute 05

Chapter 160: Escaping the Research Institute 05

The man in the gray jacket's eyes widened to the size of ping pong balls, looking as if he had seen a ghost.

What... what??

Did he hear that correctly???

This mysterious person actually turned the tables and accused him of being an escapee!!

The man in the gray jacket panicked, flailing his limbs, trying to break free from the restraint on the back of his neck.

But how could the ghost infant be so easily shaken off?

No matter how hard the man in the gray jacket tried, the small hands pulling at his mouth refused to let go. The thing on his back seemed glued to him, not moving an inch.

The man in the gray jacket tried to speak with his tongue pressed against his palate, but all that came out were incoherent sounds, saliva dripping from the corners of his mouth onto the ground.

The researcher couldn't bear to look anymore. Compared to Qin Fei, who was always composed, the man in the gray jacket looked much more suspicious.

As soon as Qin Fei mentioned the word "escapee," the researcher immediately operated a few buttons on his wristwatch.

Soon, the Guard Team arrived.

Coincidentally, it was none other than the captain of Police Squad 3, an old acquaintance of Qin Fei.

Before the captain arrived, Qin Fei was undergoing questioning by the lead researcher about when this strange individual had infiltrated the group and from which direction.

Seeing the Guard Team approaching from afar, Qin Fei quickly closed his mouth.

To avoid exposing his multiple identities, Qin Fei had already removed his wristwatch and badge.

However, the guard NPC recognized Qin Fei's face upon meeting him again, and now he was standing with another researcher.

Their familiar manner of interaction only further convinced the captain of Police Squad 3 that Qin Fei was indeed another researcher.

Without saying much, the captain respectfully bowed to Qin Fei and the lead researcher before swiftly taking the man in the gray jacket away.

Throughout the entire process, the ghost infant diligently clung to the man in the gray jacket's neck.

"Follow me; we're just waiting for you two." The lead researcher watched the guards leave and led Qin Fei and Lin Ye into the door.

After the three entered, the wall section that had sunk in automatically returned to its original position, and the fluorescent blue lines once again covered the wall, lighting up and fading away.

The wall seamlessly returned to its whole form, showing no signs that there had ever been a door there.

At the junction where the wall met the floor, a thin green vine, barely visible, quietly retreated into the distant drainage pipe.

Lu Cheng rubbed his face in frustration and stepped deeper into the sewer.

...

When Qin Fei and Lin Ye entered the wall, the previous 28 people were still waiting inside.

It was a cramped room, less than 20 square meters, with the same silver-gray color scheme as the outside Research Center, with metal floors and walls.

There were no windows, and after the door connecting to the Research Center closed, only a narrow door on the opposite wall remained open, wide enough for one person to pass through.

The narrow door was covered with a plastic curtain, making it impossible for Qin Fei to see what lay beyond.

With so many people crammed into such a small space, even the air felt sparse.

Among the first 28 people, players and NPCs each made up half.

They had all changed into white protective suits, but unlike the researchers' suits, which were thick and of indiscernible material, these suits were made of ordinary thin cotton.

The protective suits appeared slightly transparent under the lights, leading Qin Fei to doubt their protective capabilities.

"Hurry up, put them on; we need to go in." The researcher tossed a set of protective suits to Qin Fei and Lin Ye.

Simultaneously, he quickly approached them, holding a pen-shaped device, and tapped it against their foreheads.

"Beep—Radiation level: 18.4!"

"Beep—Radiation level: 38.6!"

"?" The researcher was startled by the number and scanned Qin Fei up and down, "Why is your radiation level so high?"

Qin Fei was stuffing his legs into the protective suit pants.

He touched his earlobe and gave the researcher a somewhat shy smile, "Sorry, leader, I don't know either."

Perhaps because his nervous and awkward demeanor seemed natural, the leader didn't press further and waved his hand, "Go to the front. When we enter the cleaning pool, you'll go in first and leave last."

Qin Fei complied and stood at the front of the line.

The moment the leader's radiation-measuring pen touched Qin Fei's forehead, a new system prompt sounded in his ears.

"Radiation concept activated!"

At the same time, a new line appeared on Qin Fei's attribute panel.

"Player's current radiation level: 38.6"

(Please note: Players should keep their radiation levels below 80 to avoid severe adverse consequences!!!)

Three glaring red exclamation marks caught his attention.

The leader pressed a button next to the narrow door, and the curtain automatically moved aside.

"Go in and clean for 10 minutes. There will be a prompt when the time is up." The team leader waved his hand, herding the thirty people into the door like sheep.

Behind the narrow door was another small room.

This room had no floor; it was entirely a pool filled with a slightly green liquid.

The ceiling of the room was dotted with many small holes, much like showerheads, continuously spraying green liquid downward.

The color of the water was peculiar, causing many to hesitate.

However, Qin Fei did not hesitate. He calmly stepped down the stairs into the pool, allowing the water to slowly rise to his waist.

The liquid from the overhead shower soaked through his thin protective suit and wet his hair.

The young man casually wiped his face and smiled at the crowd by the pool's edge: "Come on in."

From what the team leader said earlier, it was clear that the water in this room was used to eliminate radiation.

The team leader followed the thirty people into the room and, seeing the group huddled at the edge of the pool, impatiently slapped the wall a few times:

"Hurry up and get in. Once the 10 minutes are over, you won't be able to stay here even if you want to!"

With that, he randomly picked someone and kicked them into the pool.

Bang! Water splashed everywhere.

The other players, fearing they would anger the NPC, quickly entered the pool after seeing that Qin Fei showed no adverse reactions to the water.

Lin Ye waded through the water to stand beside Qin Fei.

Qin Fei lowered his voice and asked, "Did you activate the radiation value concept?"

Lin Ye nodded.

But his radiation value wasn't something he just activated now.

The youth glanced around.

Others were talking nearby, their voices louder than theirs, yet the team leader researcher did not scold them.

"When we first entered the scenario, we measured our radiation levels before getting into the vehicle."

At that time, their attribute panels already had an additional radiation section.

"Got into a vehicle?"

"Yes," Lin Ye said. "There were fifty players in our batch, and after the scenario began, we were transported to a place called the 'Low-Level Life Breeding Center.'"

The breeding center was vast, comparable in size to the Research Center, with countless NPCs living there.

In the breeding center, each person had a steel bed 90 centimeters wide, where they ate, slept, and lived their daily lives.

Half of the bed was used to store personal items such as basins, cups, slippers, etc., and when sleeping, one curled up their legs and squeezed into the other half.

"There were bunk beds everywhere—"

Actually, calling them bunk beds might not be quite accurate.

Lin Ye touched his nose. "Each bed in the breeding center had fifteen tiers."

Fifteen-tier bunk beds, arranged in ten groups, could accommodate 150 people.

There were almost uncountable sets of such beds in the breeding center. When Lin Ye entered the scenario, all he saw were densely packed beds, resembling pigeon coops.

People on the lower tiers still walked on the ground, while those on the upper tiers rarely left their beds. It was said that they only went down once a day to collect food and use the restroom, spending the rest of their time in bed.

They lived there like caged animals, in a daze.

After the fifty players entered the breeding center, NPCs soon came to greet them.

"The ones who came to us were two researchers. One counted about ten people and said they would take them for labor training, while the rest were taken away by the other researcher... supposedly to some laboratory," Lin Ye explained.

Qin Fei blinked, indicating he was listening.

"Do all the people living in the breeding center look human?" Qin Fei asked.

Lin Ye hadn't seen the terrifying faces hidden beneath the protective suits of the researchers and was momentarily stunned by Qin Fei's question.

But he carefully recalled and then answered confidently, "Yes, at least from appearances, they are all human."

A thoughtful expression appeared in Qin Fei's eyes.

There were 200 players in the scenario, and the whereabouts of 100 of them were now known.

The remaining hundred were still unaccounted for.

Mi Yang and Xiao Xiao both obtained qualifications to enter the official exhibition match, but their exact locations within the scenario remained unknown.

The green liquid from the overhead shower continued to pour down, making everyone feel lazy and relaxed after soaking in it for a while.

Lin Ye pinched his thigh to dispel the drowsiness and hurriedly shared the information he had gathered with Qin Fei.

"Although we didn't stay long in the breeding center, we did learn some news. It seems that the world in this scenario was contaminated by something many years ago, and now humans all live underground."

"In this underground city, the Research Institute holds the highest status. It is the government and the religion, controlling everyone. People outside consider it an honor to enter the Research Institute."

"There are three major rules in the Research Institute."

"First, everyone inside the Research Institute must wear protective suits at all times."

"Second, the Research Institute has strict internal management with different rules and regulations for different areas, and violators will be held accountable."

"Third, researchers are the most prestigious beings within the institute and must be respected."

The NPCs living in the breeding center revealed that life outside the institute was much freer, but no one was willing to leave.

Of course, they couldn't leave even if they wanted to.

Once humans enter the Research Institute, they must live there for life; no one has ever been known to return to the world outside the institute.

When Lin Ye asked why those people didn’t want to leave, several of the NPCs he spoke to showed expressions of fear on their faces.

The NPCs did not elaborate, only vaguely telling Lin Ye that it was safer inside the institute.

"Safety?" Qin Fei savored these two words.

Although Qin Fei had only been in the institute for less than two hours, he already had a clear understanding of whether it was safe or not.

If this place could be called safe, then how badly had the world outside the institute deteriorated?

"Do you have to take a vehicle from the breeding center to here? Did you see the environment outside the vehicle?" Qin Fei asked.

Just the area occupied by the Research Center and the breeding center is unimaginably vast.

Leaving the institute would undoubtedly be extremely difficult.

Lin Ye shook his head: "No, the vehicle was completely sealed, without a single window open."

The two wanted to continue chatting, but the ten minutes passed in an instant.

An alarm sounded from the ceiling, and the overhead shower stopped working.

The researcher, who had been comfortably soaking in the pool, frowned and stood up, climbing out onto the shore.

"Line up, one by one, and exit through that door," the NPC pointed to another narrow door opposite the pool.

The people in the pool climbed out one after another.

Qin Fei opened the attribute panel and checked the radiation value again; it had dropped to 5.68.

Here, "radiation" is a completely different concept from the "pollution" found in all games. Even players like Qin Fei, who are immune to any pollution, cannot escape the harm of radiation.

Qin Fei's clothes dried rapidly within a minute after stepping out of the cleaning pool, as did his hair.

The liquid used to clean radiation was noticeably different from water, evaporating at an astonishing speed.

Passing through the plastic curtain opposite the pool, the overly bright light immediately blinded everyone,

revealing a room of extreme cleanliness, with walls and floors as white as snow. This room resembled the outside Research Center, filled with pipes and conveyor belts, but the equipment here was not as massive as in the Research Center, being of normal size.

Many people were in the room, all wearing the same thin protective suits as Qin Fei and his group.

When Qin Fei and his group entered the room, the others looked up briefly before returning to their tasks.

"Congratulations on successfully passing the selection and becoming a proud trainee low-level worker!" The researcher NPC tapped the wall.

A piece of paper was posted on the wall, with large characters at the top.

"Rules for the Low-Level Operation Area"

1. Working hours in the low-level operation area are from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM, 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM, and 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM. After 10:00 PM is free time.

Qin Fei couldn’t help but twitch when he read the first rule.

Working eleven hours a day would violate the Geneva Convention even for prisoners of war.

2. The low-level operation area is divided into the conveyor belt area, sorting area, mixing area, quality inspection area, and control panel operation area. Each section has its own detailed work guidelines, which should be thoroughly read and memorized before starting work.

3. Eating and drinking are prohibited in the work area.

If someone is caught eating, report them to the shift leader or any researcher. The institute supports and encourages such reporting.

4. All tools in the work area are labeled with the institute’s logo.

Do not use tools without labels, and do not remove any labels from the tools.

5. There are no faucets in the work area.

If you find a faucet, immediately leave and do not touch it with any part of your body; otherwise, you will be responsible for the consequences.

6. All staff in the work area must wear protective suits, which are issued based on the worker's rank. There are slight differences in style and protection level, but all protective suits are white.

There are no other colors of protective suits in the work area!

Many people were overwhelmed by the amount of information, but Qin Fei remained clear-eyed and focused.

After reading the rules once, he silently recited them in his mind, ensuring he remembered everything, then turned to examine the layout of the operation room.

Seeing everyone diligently doing their work, the researcher nodded in satisfaction: "Someone will soon come to assign your respective workstations."

He coughed and warned:

"Remember, you are still in training, equivalent to a probationary period of 15 days. If you fail the training assessment, you will be returned directly to the low-quality experimental product disposal room and won’t even qualify to enter the laboratory!"

Most players didn’t understand what the researcher was saying, but the native NPCs showed expressions of terror.

Qin Fei raised an eyebrow.

Low-Quality Experimental Specimen Disposal Room.

Wasn’t that where he came from?

From what the researcher implied, above the disposal room was the laboratory, and within it, regardless of the type of experiment being conducted, there was one essential ingredient.

That ingredient was human beings.

In that case, those thirty-odd players who were directly taken from the breeding center to the laboratory must be in a dire situation.

The researcher's job was to bring people from the breeding center. Now that his task was complete, he turned and left the workshop.

Everyone stood in place for a moment. After a while, a supervisor in protective gear approached them.

As described in the manual, the style of protective gear varied according to the worker’s rank.

The supervisor's clothing was much better quality than that of lower-level workers, with thicker fabric and a mask included.

Qin Fei checked his radiation level again. In just over ten minutes, it had risen from 5.68 to 5.93.

The NPC supervisor divided the thirty new workers into five groups of six each. Qin Fei was assigned to the assembly line area, while Lin Ye was sent to the sorting area.

"Group leaders, come collect your teams!" The supervisor ordered, and immediately, five NPCs hurried over from various corners.

Qin Fei followed the assembly line group leader through the workshop and soon arrived at his designated station.

The work in the assembly line area was very simple. Each person or pair managed a conveyor belt, placing items on it according to the frequency of the indicator light.

Qin Fei was assigned a large plastic basket. A circular label with an eye symbol was stuck on the front, presumably the logo of the Research Institute.

Below the logo, in red spray paint, was a line of neat characters: "Low-Level Work Area Dedicated Collection Basket."

The contents of the basket looked peculiar—like fist-sized black glass spheres at first glance.

Qin Fei picked one up and examined it closely. He found that the outer shell was actually transparent and hollow, but it was filled with something, making it appear solid.

It was 2:38 PM, still within working hours. After assigning their stations, the group leader quickly returned to his own position.

The indicator light was installed next to the conveyor belt and flashed approximately every 15 seconds.

Following the light's frequency, Qin Fei placed the balls from the basket onto the conveyor belt. For ten minutes, he worked like a robot.

Viewers in the live stream were getting impatient.

"Isn't this plot a bit boring?"

"I'm here for a horror live stream, not to watch someone work."

"How lucky are these players? In other streams, people are either struggling for survival in sewers or fighting monsters to the death. Oh, and some are even on dissection tables."

"I’m getting sleepy..."

The work on the assembly line was too simple.

Although the workshop rules seemed strict, such easy tasks could hardly go wrong for anyone with functional limbs.

Qin Fei had fully adapted.

Initially, he worried about potential traps with the indicator light, such as sudden changes in frequency or skipping a few times to trick players into mistakes.

But there were none.

After more than ten minutes, the indicator light continued to flash at the same regular intervals.

It was a straightforward indicator light without any traps. Now, Qin Fei didn’t need to look at the conveyor belt; his hands could do the job automatically.

He began to sneak glances at others in the workshop.

The difficulty levels of the other areas were similar to the assembly line.

Several players were scattered throughout the vast workshop, some squatting by large basins picking things out, others operating levers near machines against the wall.

Indeed, this was a low-level work area, and the work was indeed low-level.

Spending an entire day here, Qin Fei doubted they would make any progress in exploring the scenario.

If they spent eleven hours a day in this workshop, wasting at least five days, Qin Fei thought it might be better to sneak into the sewers tonight.

However, plans never kept pace with changes in scenarios.

While Qin Fei was observing other NPCs in the workshop, the veteran employee opposite him, who shared the same conveyor belt, suddenly widened his eyes and cried out.

Something went wrong, and the glass sphere he held slipped from his hand and fell to the ground.

The NPC's face instantly turned pale as paper.

The glass sphere rolled a few times and stopped beside another player's feet, shattering with a crack.

Something emerged from inside the broken shell.

All the players watching were shocked to discover that inside the glass sphere was a small section of tentacle.

The tip was black, gradually fading to deep purple towards the base.

The tentacle segment was about ten centimeters long. Despite being severed from its original body, it showed signs of life, wriggling on the ground with tiny suckers at its base gently quivering.

The moment the glass sphere shattered, Qin Fei felt an incredibly familiar presence emanating from the tentacle segment.

Simultaneously, the player closest to the tentacle segment’s face changed dramatically.

He was standing there perfectly fine, but suddenly he began to tremble violently, large beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.

Without hesitation, he took out a bottle of replenishment potion from his personal space and quickly poured it into his mouth, barely managing to stop his plummeting SAN value.

...It was too intense.

The corruption came with such overwhelming force that within mere seconds, the player's consciousness was nearly torn to shreds by an immense power emerging from the void.

His entire body went limp as he collapsed onto the ground, crawling backward on all fours.

"Quick! Pick up that thing quickly!!"

Not far away, the supervisor, while running over, shouted in panic.