Chapter 208: Documents

Chapter 208 The Files

Shen Qisheng didn't get angry at the taunts. Instead, upon hearing these words, he was so excited he almost stood up.

"You... are you really Shen Qingci?!"

Shen Qingci looked at him and did not answer.

"Seize him!"

Shen Qisheng's excited voice was shrill and piercing, echoing through the space filled with the sound of surging seawater.

His withered finger pointed in Shen Qingci's direction, his finger trembling.

But no one paid him any attention; everyone was fleeing for their lives.

Shen Qi stood beside Shen Qingci, tilting his head slightly, his voice low: "Sir, should I go grab him?"

Shen Qingci spoke calmly: "No need. Since he can sit here, he won't allow anyone to get close to him."

Shen Qisheng heard this.

The corners of his mouth slowly curled up, a hint of admiration flashing in his eyes.

His trembling hand pressed a button on the armrest of his wheelchair, and the tightly closed door behind him slid open silently. A crowd poured in.

They wore matching black uniforms, their movements precise and their steps synchronized, as if they had been stamped from the same mold.

They quickly gathered around, forming a dense human wall around Shen Qisheng's wheelchair.

Shen Qisheng was lifted high by his men, his wheelchair and his withered body rising above the crowd.

He looked down at Shen Qingci from above, his grin growing wider, admiration and greed mingled in his eyes.

"You have always been my favorite descendant." His aged, hoarse voice drifted down from above with a strange benevolence. "With you, I can live forever."

As soon as the words fell, a portion of the black-clad men protecting him broke away and advanced toward Shen Qingci.

Shen Qingci stood quietly, leaning on his cane.

The seawater had already risen past his calves. His face was calm, and his gaze swept over the approaching black-clad men, settling on Wu Qiang.

"Leave."

Wu Qiang glanced at him, his lips moved as if to speak, but he said nothing more. He turned and hurried away.

The black-clad men came closer.

Shen Qingci still stood there, leaning on his cane, his face calm. Shen Qisheng squinted, looking at his utterly expressionless face, and unease slowly rose in him.

He couldn't help but urge: "Seize him quickly!"

Buzz—BOOM——————

A loud noise.

All the lights went out at once. The lit screens blacked out instantly. The machines shut down.

The research institute fell into darkness.

In the darkness, there were sounds: the rush of seawater, rapid breathing, muffled gasps.

Fear spread in silence.

"Where are the emergency lights? Turn them on!" Shen Qisheng's voice was especially harsh in the darkness.

No one answered him.

They fumbled in the darkness, shouting and cursing, descending into chaos.

After a long moment, the emergency lights finally flickered on.

Dim yellow light illuminated the space now submerged in seawater.

But Shen Qingci was gone.

Shen Qisheng gritted his teeth and scanned every corner, unwilling to give up.

Those black-clad men stood there, no longer moving.

The seawater had already reached their knees, icy cold. The instruments began to smoke and sizzle.

The air was filled with the smell of burning, mixed with the salty, briny smell of the sea, nauseating.

"Get out!" Shen Qisheng hissed through gritted teeth.

The black-clad men lifted his wheelchair, wading through the water and heading outside.

The seawater kept rushing in, submerging those priceless instruments, submerging the data that recorded countless lives, submerging Shen Qisheng's obsession of more than a century.

-

Meanwhile, beneath the central square.

Lu Lin was flipping through the files, the paper making a slight rustling sound between his fingers.

From Shen Qingci's birth year onward, records existed for every year. Each page was densely packed with writing, filled with photos.

Lu Lin sat in front of a temporary workstation. The emergency light above his head cast a glaring white light onto the yellowed pages.

He turned the pages one by one, his fingers trembling slightly.

The first page was the record of the day Shen Qingci was born.

Weight, length, cry volume, pupil color, even the frequency of his first cry was noted.

It was handwritten, in neat characters, using blue-black ink. Decades had passed, yet the color had not completely faded.

Next to it was a photo: a wrinkled newborn, eyes closed, wrapped in a white swaddling cloth.

Lu Lin peeled off the photo and put it in his pocket. This was what his brother looked like as a baby.

Then came the third day, the seventh day... the fifteenth day.

Each day had its own records and data.

Body temperature, heart rate, blood indices, responses to various stimuli.

Lu Lin couldn't understand those professional terms; he could only look at the trend arrows to determine how each index changed.

When he turned to the twenty-third page, his fingers paused.

That year, Shen Qingci was two years old.

The records were no longer routine monitoring data but surgical records.

The handwriting was neat, the ink had turned black, and the strokes were more heavily pressed than before, some even piercing through the paper.

Under the column for surgical procedure was written: Bone marrow aspiration.

Under the column for anesthesia: None.

Under the column for purpose: Live cell harvest and genetic data collection.

Lu Lin stared at the word "None" for a long time.

His fingers pressed on that line, knuckles turning white bit by bit, the paper deeply indented under his fingertips.

He turned to the next page, then the next.

Age two, bone marrow aspiration, no anesthesia.

Age two years three months, lumbar puncture, no anesthesia.

Age two years seven months, tissue biopsy, no anesthesia.

Age three, open-chest surgery, heart tissue collection, no anesthesia.

Every line was like a knife stabbing into his heart.

As he flipped further, the yellowed pages recorded even more detailed content—Shen Qingci’s genetic data had been altered since birth. Those meticulously edited gene sequences had systematically erased the emotional responses he should naturally have had.

Measured doses of medication were mixed into his daily meals, mixed into his milk powder, seeping little by little into his blood, his brain, his still-developing nervous system.

There was only one purpose: to create an experimental subject—one without feelings, without fear, without terror, one who wouldn’t cry even in pain, wouldn’t resist, wouldn’t make a sound.

A perfect, inexhaustible living specimen.

Lu Lin’s breathing grew heavier and heavier, his chest heaving.

His face was cold and savage, his body trembling uncontrollably, his eyes bloodshot. He wanted to kill Shen Qisheng, torture him to death, make him suffer unbearably, make him watch himself die, powerless.

Tears hit the paper, soaking a small spot.

Lu Lin looked down, staring at the words smudged by tears—the data recording how his older brother had been treated as an experimental subject from the age of two, those cold, inhuman, nauseating numbers and terms.

His throat was dry, tinged with a metallic sweetness, and from it came stifled gasps.

The emotional stability he had maintained for so long shattered completely in that moment.