Chapter 17 The Fool Has Nothing (17)

Chapter 17: Fools Possess Nothing (Seventeen)

Xu Jiu hadn’t expected that, under such circumstances, he would remain unnaturally calm—as if watching someone else’s live feed through a screen.

“You mean in the lobby of the lab building? No, sir,” he said quietly. “I didn’t see anything. I… I ran as soon as I heard the noise.”

“What kind of noise?”

“Something like the sound of metal clashing,” Xu Jiu pretended to recall, rubbing the scars on his wrist. “As if someone was swinging hundreds of knives above my head… I was terrified, and it was too dark. I didn’t know what was happening, but it felt dangerous…”

The Biomech studied Xu Jiu.

To be honest, Xu Jiu was very young.

At his age, most kids his age would still be in college—carefree, barely burdened by life’s worries. Yet Xu Jiu had already worked at Mobius for four years. Though he’d only ever held the lowest-paying janitorial jobs, compared to some rookies, he had managed to gather a wealth of trivial information from the swarm of peers, connecting the dots in his mind.

For instance, he had heard of Mobius’ augmentation program, knowing it granted subjects speed, strength, and senses beyond human limits. Successful biomechs often had enhanced physiques to match their exaggerated abilities. They could lift a car with one hand, leap onto a four-meter-high floor, and—without any tools—clearly hear the heartbeat and breathing of living beings, smell the sweat secreted by their targets, and accurately sense their body temperature.

They weren’t just natural weapons of war—they were human polygraphs. Xu Jiu had no doubt that if his heartbeat sped up even slightly, or if a glimmer of sweat appeared on his forehead, his head would be pounded into the wall behind him in the next second.

“You’re afraid,” the captain said, “but you didn’t call for help.”

“I ran!” Xu Jiu quickly raised his head. “I went to the cafeteria first—I thought there’d be people there, that I’d have a chance to call for help. But the cafeteria was already closed… So I ran toward the dormitory instead.”

The captain asked, “What else did you hear at the time?”

“Wind,” Xu Jiu answered firmly. “A long, long sound of wind, like a snake, swaying above my head…”

Years of living at the bottom had taught him the fundamentals of lying. Xu Jiu shivered convincingly, adding a few more details: “And… there was a smell.”

“A smell?”

“Yeah, slick yet faintly sweet—not like perfume, though. I can’t really describe it.”

He put on a strained expression, wrinkling his face as if racking his brain. “That’s… all I remember.”

The captain fell silent, seemingly deep in thought. Xu Jiu took a few deep breaths before mustering the courage to ask, “Sir… what were those things? Did you catch them? Will we… be okay?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” the captain said, lifting his eyes. His pale, near-translucent eyes held a clear threat. “And you don’t seem afraid of me.”

Xu Jiu’s heart sank.

No, he wasn’t afraid. After being with Number Six, there was no one left in this world he needed to fear.

“…Because I’ve seen people like you before!” He timidly raised his face, offering an eager-to-please grin. “On the day we were transferred here, I saw officers wearing the same uniform as you. When they passed by, none of us dared to breathe too loudly. I didn’t go to school for long—I don’t know any fancy words—but you all looked so impressive…”

If anyone else had said this—say, Xu Jiu’s notorious brown-nosing boss—it would’ve come off as slimy praise, breeding silent disdain. But Xu Jiu’s boyish, pale face softened the calculated tone, making him seem almost like a starstruck admirer.

The captain didn’t respond. He quietly studied Xu Jiu before striding heavily toward the door.

“Well, captain?” A garbled voice came from outside. “Does tonight’s incident have anything to do with him?”

The captain said, “No obvious flaws for now. What about your investigation?”

“No trace of the target yet,” the team member reported softly. “Only traces of fluid were found, sporadically trailing to the ventilation shaft. We sent micro-drones into the pipes, but the trail disappeared at the sewer valve.”

“Disappeared.” The captain’s expression darkened.

“Yes,” the team member nodded gravely. “Beyond that is the sealed radioactive waste storage. The drone signals were jammed. We’ll need the doctor’s clearance to advance further.”

The captain asked as he walked out, "Has the doctor been informed about this?"

"He just found out," the team member replied. Though no one around could understand their conversation, he still lowered his voice discreetly. "He... sounded kinda panicked."

"If he keeps hesitating like this, he’ll get us all killed sooner or later," the captain said coldly. "And when that happens, the very responsibility he’s been trying to avoid will be the first thing to choke the life out of him."

The two Bio-mechs were nearly at the end of the corridor when the team member casually asked, "By the way, what do we do with that disposable guy inside?"

"...Keep him. Something about him feels off to me," the captain said. "He's prey that got away from those creatures. Even if they were too busy fighting among themselves to care about him, they’ll come back for him eventually. Until then, let him serve as good bait."

"Understood."

In the holding cell, cold sweat slowly seeped down Xu Jiu’s back.

The world wasn’t full of meticulously planned, well-considered events—most were sudden, testing how quick you can think on your feet. He knew he'd slipped up, but he’d done his best.

Now, his greatest fear and worry was that the facility staff would review the surveillance footage and trace it back to the incident that happened yesterday morning—the weird collapse of the supervisor (as promised by Number Six, no one else could see its actions, but the cameras had recorded everything in full detail).

How was he supposed to explain that when the time came?

Just as his thoughts spiraled, the door to the holding cell opened again. Xu Jiu looked up to see two guards responsible for monitoring the room enter. One of them held a logbook, flipping through it absentmindedly.

"Cell A-112, Number Six!" the guard called without looking up, drawling. "Alright, let's go."

Xu Jiu tried to steady his breathing as he stood up, not knowing if this meant survival or an inescapable death.

He tentatively asked, "Am I... being released to my dorm?"

The guard raised an eyebrow and gave him a lazy glance.

"Sign here first, then collect your ID badge," he said. "Downstairs, turn left—there’s a lit room."

Heart pounding, Xu Jiu signed his name and muttered a nervous "thank you." When he reached the first floor, he quietly entered the guards’ office and saw walls of massive surveillance screens flickering with multicolored lights.

"Number Six, right?" Among the busy staff, only one friendly-looking guard stood up. "Here’s your ID badge. Take it."

Just as Xu Jiu reached out, the guard pressed down lightly on the tray holding the badge.

"Before you take it," the guard said in a low voice, "think carefully about how many lives you've got to waste if you go around blabbing about tonight. Got it?"

Xu Jiu froze, then nodded.

"If even a whisper of tonight’s events reaches the higher-ups—whether it’s directly tied to you or not—you're dead, kid," the guard continued threateningly. "Now get lost."

Xu Jiu slowly took the badge, turned, and left without a word.

Cold sweat soaked his back as he walked slowly, almost hesitantly, as if bracing for guards to leap out and pin him down at any moment.

But the scenario he imagined didn’t happen. Xu Jiu got out of lockup in one piece.

It was nothing short of a miracle—not even 'miracle' covered it.

In a daze, he made his way back to his dorm and opened the door. Unsurprisingly, all his belongings had been searched, and they hadn't even bothered to hide the mess.

His bedding was dumped on the floor, pillows and sheets scattered haphazardly. The desk and chair were shoved askew, while towels, toothbrushes, a cup, and a small bar of soap from the shelf were all piled together. On the corner, a borrowed stack of outdated magazines bore half a shoe print on their covers.

Xu Jiu stared for a moment before silently heaving the bedding up onto the bed. He didn’t bother straightening the sheets, just face-planted onto it.

Number Six had vanished.

That was a battle he had neither the ability nor the right to intervene in. Xu Jiu could do nothing—nothing at all. He could no longer recklessly rush out in the dead of night as he had before. Now, he could only force himself to pretend—pretend everything was okay, pretend he was a lucky survivor granted mercy by his superiors, pretend Number Six's departure had no impact on his life... pretend Number Six had never existed at all.

He knew the scrutiny and surveillance targeting him would persist for a long time. During this period, he had to tread carefully, suppressing all outward emotions, moving like dust—unseen and unnoticed.

No one wastes time staring at dust—unless their time means nothing.

Xu Jiu clenched his teeth. He wanted to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come.

·

Number Six gasped for air.

Its physiology didn’t support the act of breathing, but now, utterly exhausted, more than half of its tentacles were destroyed, their stumps leaking bright blue blood. Its upper body pulsed weakly, like a dying thing’s last breaths.

It was gravely wounded. The other Homoform wasn’t doing much better, but in terms of structural integrity, it still held a significant advantage over Number Six.

Shi Yesheng paced like a caged beast outside the reinforced door, its chest heaving violently, seething with rage, letting out sharp, piercing shrieks.

“I’ve caught you at last, fragment!” Its roar scraped like nails on glass. “How dare you wound me like this… I’ve changed my mind. I won’t just consume you—I’ll make you suffer before you die.”

The place was a maze of sealed chambers containing radioactive waste, corrosive metal solutions, and other toxic substances. Number Six and Shi Yesheng had fought relentlessly, tearing and devouring each other, until Number Six was overpowered and violently hurled into one of the bulkheads.

This had long become Shi Yesheng’s lair. Thick membranes coated the stagnant pools of toxic sludge, spreading a slimy organic film across the arched concrete walls, rendering them slick and viscous, like a monster’s gullet. The neatly arranged sealed chambers were also encased in a sticky, membranous layer, resembling rows of enormous, interconnected fleshy eggs, their surfaces veined with cobweb-like cobalt-blue capillaries.

Number Six was imprisoned inside one of these “eggs.”

“I’m going to destroy you,” Shi Yesheng hissed. “You care about that human, don’t you?”

Number Six threw itself against the bulkhead with a deafening crash, unleashing all its strength. Its mangled limbs thrashed like headless serpents, splattering blue blood that sizzled against the alloy—yet it couldn’t corrode through the perfected structure of the other Homoform’s lair.

—Don’t touch him!

The mental shriek ripped through their connection like a searing brand, scorching Shi Yesheng’s neural web.

—You have no right to demand anything, stunted runt!

Shi Yesheng flung the pain back in full, staring at its trapped counterpart as a vicious grin slowly spread across its features.

“You know… no, you don’t. A stunted runt like you could never comprehend the extent of intellect a perfected being like me possesses.” Shi Yesheng switched to human speech, showing off its perfect human speech. “I’m not like you. In fact, no fragment would ever be like you—wasting your soul on a worthless human.”

As it spoke, the bleeding across its body gradually ceased.

“Our kind consumes, evolves, rises to the apex again and again, reigning over lesser life—but soon, I’ll show you that beyond the poetic phrases I’ve learned from human minds, I’ve mastered far more.”

Shi Yesheng grinned, its human-like grin so unnatural it chilled the blood.

“I’ll bring your human to you. I’ll take your form and bring him here. He trusts you completely, doesn’t he?” It whispered, “Then, I’ll make you watch—watch as I digest a living man whole inside me. Lucky for us, our skin can turn clear, right?”

Number Six shrieked—a raw, endless scream—but battered, bloodied, and trapped within the fortified chamber, it could only watch as the stronger, crueler Homoform leaped away, scaling the grand vaulted ceiling before swiftly vanishing into the sewer pipes.