Chapter 10 Japanese Experiment Base

Chapter 10 Japanese Experimental Facility

Ji An and Tang Ning searched the entire first floor of the building and finally found the entrance to the basement in an unremarkable room.

"Mr. Ji, how did you know there was a basement here?" Tang Ning asked curiously, but Ji An didn’t answer, so she let it drop.

Opening the door leading to the underground facility revealed a staircase wide enough for two people to walk side by side. As the stairs descended, only darkness could be seen, making it impossible to see what lay below.

When Ji An was preparing to escape, this experimental facility had already occurred to him. Though he wasn’t sure if he would actually come here at the time, he still casually took Chen Chen’s flashlight—just in case the underground facility was too dark to see.

After letting the air clear for a while, Ji An felt it was safe enough and led Tang Ning down the stairs.

He walked in front, Tang Ning behind, both gripping their weapons tightly, on high alert. They were ready to attack at the slightest threat.

The stairs leading underground were made of iron, rusted and corroded over the years, with some sections even falling apart.

Ji An’s footsteps creaked against the metal, the stairs shaking precariously as if they might collapse at any moment.

This forced the two to tread as lightly as possible.

The creaking echoed in the silent air, carrying faint echoes that only heightened tension and fear.

Tang Ning kept swallowing nervously. From her perspective, she couldn’t tell if Ji An was nervous at all.

She thought, someone like him wouldn’t need to be nervous—he had the skills to handle it.

Yes, to Tang Ning, someone like Ji An, who could single-handedly take on a Level 2 zombie, was undoubtedly impressive.

The underground facility was utterly dark. The flashlight’s beam was swallowed by the darkness ahead, making it impossible to see far. The only clear area was the immediate patch of ground right in front of them.

Finally reaching the bottom of the stairs, they walked another hundred meters before encountering the first door.

It was locked. Finding a key was unrealistic, but Ji An didn’t need one. He pulled out a wire—the same one he had used to pick Tang Tang’s window lock—and now used it again to pick the security door’s lock.

Pressing his ear against the door, Ji An listened as the wire fiddled with the lock. A soft *click* sounded, and a faint smile appeared on his lips. The door opened.

"Mr. Ji, you can even do this? That’s amazing!" Tang Ning said in amazement.

Ji An didn’t respond. No decent kid would learn such a skill—one that could easily invite prejudice.

It was only born from certain tragic experiences. In the orphanage, older kids would bully the younger ones, often locking them out of their rooms at night.

Ji An slowly learned how to pick locks, sneaking back in after the older kids fell asleep.

"Let’s go. Stay alert—watch for anything behind the door," Ji An warned.

"Got it," Tang Ning replied, raising her guard.

With a gentle push, the door emitted an old, grating screech, kicking up a thick cloud of dust into their faces. Fortunately, Ji An was tightly covered, or he would’ve been coughing uncontrollably. Even through the protective suit, he could still catch the musty stench.

As the door slowly swung open, darkness spilled out like a living thing, waiting to swallow anyone foolish enough to step inside.

Silence. A heavy, unnatural silence. Not a single sound filled the space. It was this very stillness that sent a chill down their spines.

"If you’re scared, you can leave now," Ji An said, noticing Tang Ning’s fear.

"No," Tang Ning replied firmly. "I promised to stay with you—I won’t bail on you."

"I never agreed to that," Ji An said flatly. "I told you I aren’t responsible for keeping you safe."

Tang Ning chuckled lightly, "But you've already saved me twice. However, if we encounter danger even you can't handle this time, you can keep your initial promise—leave me behind and go on your own."

Ji An said nothing more, only replying calmly, "Be careful yourself."

Ji An lifted his foot gently and stepped first into the jaws of the monstrous creature, followed by Tang Ning.

The flashlight beam shone into the distance, showing nothing.

He realized they were likely in a corridor, with a room on the right side.

Even when the flashlight shone inside, nothing was visible.

Ji An didn’t enter recklessly. Instead, he picked up a broken wooden plank from the ground and threw it through a large hole in the door.

A muffled thud sounded, stirring up thick dust. Once the dust settled, there was still no movement inside the room.

Only then did Ji An kick the door open, scanning the small area illuminated by the flashlight. Seeing nothing, he entered.

The room appeared vast and barren, with no visible furniture.

As he walked, Ji An felt something underfoot. Looking down, he saw a fragment of a leg bone.

His brow furrowed slightly as he stepped around it and continued forward.

Only when he reached the center did he spot two beds placed close together, spaced just wide enough for a person to pass between them.

When the flashlight swept over the beds, Tang Ning sucked in a sharp breath behind him.

On each bed lay shattered human skeletons, scattered limbs. One skull on each bed, their empty, gaping sockets fixed on Ji An and Tang Ning.

A medical tray lay at the head of each bed, holding a scattered scalpel and a pair of forceps.

Beside each bed stood a monitor—one intact, the other smashed on the floor in pieces.

Ji An didn’t hesitate. He placed his hands on the monitors and took both.

Just then, he noticed two clipboards near the monitors. Opening them, he found two medical records.

Tang Ning leaned in to look but could only decipher a few scattered words. "This is Japanese. Mr. Ji, do you understand Japanese?"

"Yeah, a bit." But the way Ji An’s focused reading suggested more than just "a bit."

As he read further, his frown deepened. Tang Ning asked curiously, "Mr. Ji, what does it say?"

"These are the medical records of two patients." Ji An flipped a page, skimmed it quickly, then tossed it aside.

"Two patients? But aren’t operating rooms supposed to be single-use? How were these two operated on at the same time?" Tang Ning questioned whether her memory had faded after so long in the apocalypse.

"Normally, yes. But this was a kidney transplant surgery." A flash of disgust crossed Ji An’s face. "A live donor was needed for the transplant."

Tang Ning pieced it together—this underground lab beneath the hospital, performing illegal kidney transplants—and instantly understood.

"So this was a black-market hospital, unqualified for such surgeries, or the kidney sources were illegal," Tang Ning gasped.

Ji An gave a grim nod. "The kidney donor was a healthy 17-year-old boy named Li Yaozu, with no medical issues."

"Li Yaozu... That name rings a bell. I feel like I’ve heard it before." Tang Ning tapped her head, then suddenly remembered. "That’s right! He was the missing student from the boarding school in our area!"

At her reminder, Ji An also vaguely recalled. "He vanished suddenly from school. It sparked a massive outcry—police and parents searched for ages but never found him. How did he end up here? Had he been trafficked?"

"Not likely." Ji An found a medical record cabinet in the corner and pulled out several files, almost all of which were organ transplant surgeries. Among them was even a heart transplant case, though this one was clearly an experiment. Both the organ recipients and donors were Chinese citizens, all healthy students aged seventeen or eighteen with no prior illnesses—yet the experiment had failed.

"This has to be a Japanese-run lab and organ transplant facility." Ji An waved the medical record folder in his hand. "All these files are organ transplant records. And aside from a few failed experiments, every surgery involved a Japanese recipient and a Chinese donor."

Tang Ning’s face hardened. She asked, almost sure of the answer, "All the recipients were Japanese, and the donors were Chinese?"

"Yes," Ji An nodded. "And these unwilling donors were all healthy teens."

Ji An listed a few familiar names, and Tang Ning's gaze grew increasingly fierce. "I remember these kids—they were all missing children. Three of them were even classmates with Li Yaozu. That school must be connected to this Japanese-run hospital."

Ji An suddenly recalled, "The school Li Yaozu disappeared from was a foreign-funded institution invested by the Japanese. Now it seems the students there were essentially livestock—walking organ banks for these Japanese. Whenever they needed transplants, the school would conduct 'health check-ups' to match organs, then select the healthiest, most compatible student."

"Why the hell didn’t these Japanese bastards get wiped out by the zombie virus?" Tang Ning cursed under her breath. "Sick bastards!"

Finding nothing useful in the operating room, Ji An led Tang Ning out.

They pressed further down the hallway, where it forked—now with a path to the left.

Ji An still chose the right side. Another busted, unlocked door greeted them, along with scattered bones on the floor—but at least no danger.

This time, even without Ji An pointing it out, Tang Ning recognized it as a laboratory, filled with unfamiliar equipment and glassware.

She could tell this equipment was pricey, judging by how differently Ji An handled it compared to the monitors earlier—with way more care, like handling treasure.

There were many pieces, but they were swiftly stored away in just a few minutes.

Moving forward, they found yet another lab. Just as Ji An was about to enter the same way, bony hands suddenly punched through the door.

Ignoring pain, the arms kept pushing forward, splintered wood flying straight at Ji An’s face.

Leaning back slightly, Ji An swung his right arm—a blade flashed, slicing through the air—and the shriveled arm hit the floor, blood spraying in droplets onto him.

Yet even without its arm, the bloody stump kept jabbing forward, as if determined to stab Ji An to death with it.

Ji An struck again, another flash of steel, and the zombie’s second arm was severed clean at the shoulder.

This seemed to enrage the creature. It snarled in rage and lunged, now trying to bite Ji An with its teeth.