Chapter 197: Yongsheng Pharmaceutical Foundation (3)

Chapter 197: Yongsheng Pharmaceutical Foundation (Part Three)

Whew—

A breath came from behind her, and Zhu Ning’s body stiffened completely, not daring to make a move. She heard the heartbeat and breathing, recalling a terrifying story called "The Human Chair." It felt as if she were sitting on a chair made of a living person.

The hand around her waist was pale, tightening with each breath.

Zhu Ning felt pressure on her abdomen, the arms exerting immense force. If this continued, the protective suit would tear, and she would be broken in half.

If it were an ordinary person, they might have started attacking immediately, but Zhu Ning did not move, nor did she speak.

She remembered the two rules she saw upon entering: one was to prohibit loud noise.

Pain shot through her abdomen, and she tried to adjust her breathing, ignoring the strangeness behind her, attempting to stabilize her mind.

She blinked.

This was a purely instinctive reaction; people can control their fingers, but few can control their blinking frequency.

But this instinctive reaction led Zhu Ning to see something even more terrifying.

In the instant between closing and reopening her eyes, a human face suddenly appeared before her. A snow-white face materialized in front of her, Zhu Ning's breath caught in her throat. The back of the chair in front of her had grown a human face, the man's pale complexion making his pupils appear extremely dark.

Moreover, all the chairs in the meeting room were the same, sprouting human heads, arms, and hair.

Their forms were bizarre, some bodies incomplete. On her far left, a human thigh hung from a chair.

On her right, a half-human head lay, one eye struggling to open, staring straight at her.

The scene seemed to come alive before her eyes, leaving no time for reaction.

It was as if she were in a bizarre crime scene where bodies had been dismembered and reassembled. In front of her, a human toe grew a mouth, which opened wide as if speaking.

Zhu Ning blinked again.

Another instinctive reaction, her eyelids closing like a camera shutter.

When she opened her eyes, those strange limbs had vanished, leaving the meeting room empty.

Was this not the scene of a contaminated area, but rather her hallucination?

But hallucinations only occur when the mind is polluted, and she had just entered, believing she hadn't been contaminated yet.

Zhu Ning felt the hand around her abdomen tighten further, as if trying to meld her into the chair, making it hard for her to breathe.

She blinked again.

After a brief darkness, the limbs reappeared.

Not only that, but their movements changed. The head in front of her, originally facing away, now turned 180 degrees, upside down, its lifeless eyes fixed on her.

The same happened with the others; with each blink, these things moved, gradually approaching.

Crack—

The arm around her abdomen tightened, and the sensation on her back grew softer, as if she were sinking into quicksand. The red light on her helmet screen flashed, indicating that it wouldn't be long before they breached her protective suit and dragged her into the chair.

Zhu Ning kept her eyes open, afraid to move, having discerned a pattern.

These things always existed, but she couldn't see them at first. Blinking was the key to seeing them.

Like some ghosts can only be captured on camera, some can only be glimpsed during the blink of an eye.

These things were moving.

Logically, after entering a contaminated area, one should first experience mental pollution. Even pollutants must follow logic.

What was the logic here?

Zhu Ning had entered contaminated areas multiple times and knew not to act rashly. She carefully recalled the rules upon entry.

There was a paper on the door with two rules: only one person could enter at a time. Why?

Because there was only one slot?

If these people were once alive, they were all chosen, and one more was needed?

This hypothesis made sense. Zhu Ning followed this line of thought: if there was only one slot, and she could enter, then one chair must be empty.

Zhu Ning's eyelashes felt heavy, her eyes dry from staying open for so long without blinking.

She tried to ignore her surroundings and began scanning the area. She could feel the hands on her abdomen tightening, as if trying to crush her organs.

But she continued to scan, images from the rearview mirror showing strange figures around her.

Zhu Ning moved her eyes, the only part of her body that could still move in the pain, turning them to their limits.

Finally, she spotted a missing corner in the crowd. The third seat from the right in the fourth row was empty, with no bloodstains.

It wasn't obvious, like finding the difference in a picture game, but only one chair was empty.

Zhu Ning should have sat in the empty seat; she had sat in the wrong place.

"No," Zhu Ning felt her throat constrict, making it difficult to speak, "No, I'm... sorry."

"I... sat in the wrong seat."

In the contaminated area, one must do normal things when things are abnormal; if you sit in the wrong place under normal circumstances, you should apologize and then stand up.

Zhu Ning tried to stand up, but with a person's waist being the core, it was surprisingly difficult to complete the action of standing up while restrained.

She had to keep her eyes from blinking while trying to stand, a tremendous force pressing her into the chair.

Her shoulders and waist felt heavy, as if a ghost were clinging to her back.

Zhu Ning's movements were extremely slow; even with all her strength, she seemed to move only an inch from an outsider’s perspective.

Her current situation was much like that of a mouse stuck on a mousetrap, struggling desperately to free itself, possibly at the cost of a broken leg. Pitifully, she was also a mouse that couldn’t blink.

The immense pressure converged on her knees, causing them to tremble.

A simple action seemed to take her a lifetime to complete.

As she fully stood up, she heard what sounded like flesh tearing, as if two arms were being forcibly ripped apart.

A burning pain shot through her abdomen. Zhu Ning looked down; her stomach was very flat, showing nothing unusual.

But the sensation was strange, as if... as if those hands had already penetrated her body.

The ghostly hands broke through the protective suit, embedding themselves into her flesh. Two bloody arms became part of her internal organs. If viewed with professional equipment, one could see the ghostly hands mingling with her intestines and stomach.

They even pulsed slightly, becoming a new organ within her.

She felt her abdomen swell, unable to tell if it was an illusion or reality.

Zhu Ning kept her eyes open, feeling her eye sockets about to split. Even with the genetic serum, it enhanced her physical abilities, not her ability to surpass human limits by not blinking.

She was almost unable to hold on any longer.

Zhu Ning blinked, and upon reopening her eyes, the face in front of her was inches away, leaning forward.

Closer.

Zhu Ning remembered the empty seat, took a deep breath, and moved slowly, not daring to blink or look around carelessly.

Rustling sounds came from all around, the friction of human corpses against the ground. Something followed her at a leisurely pace, like a hunter watching prey, waiting for her to tire out.

Zhu Ning only blinked when she could no longer hold it, the distance between her and the approaching figure growing closer, but also shortening the distance to the empty seat.

Finally, she reached the fourth row, the empty seat in her memory.

Upon touching the empty seat, the approaching limbs suddenly stopped, as if someone had pressed pause.

Zhu Ning exhaled, finding her true position.

In the safe zone, Zhu Ning blinked several times, feeling her eyes were about to burst.

She didn’t sit down immediately but first touched the surface of the chair. This time, there was no human warmth; it was just an ordinary chair.

After checking, she sat down cautiously, always on guard, fearing another pair of hands might grab her waist.

She carefully observed her surroundings, her nerves taut, but found nothing unexpected.

Under normal circumstances, she would go through the process expected in the contaminated area.

If an ordinary person attended the Yongsheng Pharmaceutical Foundation, knowing what experiments Yongsheng Pharmaceutical was conducting, what would they encounter?

Zhu Ning didn’t have much time to think. Suddenly, she realized there was something she hadn’t checked.

She opened the right armrest of the chair. In this meeting room, the right armrest could be pulled out to reveal a small table.

The hotel’s structure was quite old, and the wooden table was a bit broken, stuck inside and hard to pull out.

But Zhu Ning’s purpose wasn’t the table; she saw an object in the gap—a file folder.

...

Outside the door.

Before entering, Zhu Ning had activated her camera sharing, with Prometheus ensuring clear communication. There were two cameras in total: one filming the external environment and one capturing Zhu Ning’s facial expressions. Dr. Fu and Xu Meng could clearly see Zhu Ning’s actions and reactions.

To them, Zhu Ning’s movements were very peculiar. She first entered the meeting room and conducted a routine inspection, then chose a chair to sit down.

Everything was normal until her expression suddenly turned pale, as if she had encountered something painful.

“What, what’s wrong with her?” Dr. Fu whispered. He had seen all of Zhu Ning’s public mission videos and knew her background. Her expression clearly indicated she was in trouble.

Two reception staff in pure white uniforms smiled at them.

Dr. Fu felt uneasy, avoiding large movements and speaking in a low voice.

Xu Meng frowned; Zhu Ning’s reaction was abnormal. Her eyes were wide open, pupils dilated, as if she had seen something the camera couldn’t capture.

Was there contamination?

Xu Meng considered going in to help Zhu Ning.

“She’s...” Dr. Fu, who was entering the contaminated area for the first time, struggled to find the right words, “like she’s being pushed by something.”

Zhu Ning’s movements slowed significantly. Dr. Fu stopped watching the live stream, curious about what she had seen.

He dragged the video progress bar backward, slowing down the playback speed.

The video played at ten times slower, with some frame drops. Dr. Fu watched this segment repeatedly.

Zhu Ning stood up, but something was pushing her down. What exactly did she see?

Suddenly, Dr. Fu's movements halted; in the moment of playback, he saw a figure ahead.

In the upper right corner of the screen, a man turned his head back. Due to frame skipping, the image was blurry and distorted, stretched twice as long, with his eyes widened unnaturally.

Dr. Fu stared intently at the figure, as if making eye contact through the video.

He could even discern the man's features: very thin, with sunken cheeks and eyes.

Suddenly, the figure moved, which was even more bizarre because Dr. Fu had paused the video. Zhu Ning on the screen was still, but the figure was moving.

It leaned forward, the angle growing larger, casting an increasingly bigger shadow on the screen, the face elongating, the eyes spreading apart, the image flickering like a skipped frame.

He... was getting closer, as if about to burst out of the screen!

What is this thing?

Dr. Fu felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He wanted to call for Xu Meng's help, who was right beside him, or inject himself with a dose of mental healing agent, but he was frozen, like prey caught in the gaze of a predator.

Suddenly, there was a click.

Xu Meng had already reached for the gun at her waist, the front door opened, and Zhu Ning stepped out.

Seeing Zhu Ning, Xu Meng did not relax. "How did it go?"

As soon as Zhu Ning emerged, two employees immediately turned around, smiling warmly at her.

They bowed deeply and handed her a room key.

The receptionists' smiles seemed sewn on, and Zhu Ning felt her own mouth ache from looking at them for too long. She took the key.

This must be the standard procedure: attendees of the Foundation's defective products event sign up after the event and receive free accommodation.

Zhu Ning examined the key and explained briefly, "There's contamination inside. Only one chair is safe to sit on, so don't choose the wrong seat."

Xu Meng asked, "Did you sit in the wrong place?"

Zhu Ning rubbed her abdomen, feeling bloated. "Yes, I was grabbed by a pair of ghostly hands."

Xu Meng asked, "How's your body?"

"Fine, just a bit of stomach pain..." Zhu Ning was about to say more when she noticed something off about Dr. Fu, who hadn't spoken a word since they arrived.

Dr. Fu was behind Xu Meng, half his body shielded by her. If any danger arose, Xu Meng would protect him.

Now, Dr. Fu stood motionless, his breathing slow, as if he didn't exist.

Zhu Ning asked, "Dr. Fu?"

Dr. Fu, nudged by Zhu Ning, snapped out of it and replied, "You're out?"

Zhu Ning frowned. Dr. Fu looked normal, but in such a place, the more normal someone appeared, the more abnormal they might be.

Xu Meng, noticing the file in her hand, asked, "What's that?"

"A defective product's personal information," Zhu Ning paused, then added, "Or rather, the previous victim's information."