Chapter 86: Replication Experiment 10
Yi Ke was not fooled by the sweet talk, because he had grown up now and believed it was only natural that his wife would think of him!
The child was no longer easy to coax, so Zhuang Ningyu could only divert his attention with work. He cleared his throat and repeated, “Wang Daqiang died at the hands of an experimenter.”
According to Zhang Yunxia’s description, the experimenters inside the rules zone followed the orders of Administrator 003—that is, Shi Cheng. So in essence, Wang Daqiang had died at Shi Cheng’s hands.
The chain of events went like this: U‑Shield accidentally escaped from the lab → a netizen made a post looking for the dog’s owner → NewCause Biotech saw the post and sent three employees to “clean up” U‑Shield → the three employees were arrested by the Order Maintenance Department → Wang Daqiang entered NewCause Biotech → the rules zone appeared.
Zhuang Ningyu continued, “Before the rules zone even appeared, Wang Daqiang had already broken into NewCause Biotech. The secretary said he was there to steal secrets, but personally, I think it’s far more likely he went there to silence Shi Cheng. After all, according to police files, the only thing this man is really good at is indiscriminate killing. Asking him to steal confidential data? There’s no guarantee he’d even understand what he was taking.”
“You mean that once NewCause Biotech’s cover was blown, its ‘backer’—for example, Hidden Titan—decided Shi Cheng had to be permanently silenced, so they sent Wang Daqiang to kill him, only to find out Shi Cheng was hiding a rules zone up his sleeve?”
“Exactly,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “At the critical moment, Shi Cheng released the rules zone and used the monsters to counter‑kill Wang Daqiang. If this theory holds, then this rules zone is a replica created by Shi Cheng himself. He definitely knows how to get out of here.”
But knowing how to leave and being willing to leave were two different things.
Once a rules zone appeared, NewCause Biotech would already have been sealed off by the Order Maintenance Department. As soon as the white fog dissipated, Shi Cheng would be arrested on the spot.
So the reason he was still holed up in Lab 9 day and night boiled down to two possibilities. Zhuang Ningyu analyzed, “First, to buy time. Second, to continue the unfinished experiment.”
Either way, the final goal was the same: to win himself more chances.
“Shi Cheng can indeed use the rules zone to build himself a temporary safe harbor,” Yi Ke said. “But what I don’t get is—why did he pull you in? If he wanted to negotiate with the Order Maintenance Department, why would he hide in the lab and refuse to come out?”
Zhuang Ningyu hadn’t figured that part out either.
Artificially modified rules zones contained large amounts of illogical content. It was like being forced to solve a test paper full of misprints and missing text and still somehow arrive at the correct answers. To make matters worse, the only part of the “question stem” they currently had was: “If you hear crying, it means your mind is severely polluted. Please come to the Purification Room for treatment as soon as possible.”
“There’s only one Purification Room on six floors, and it can hold at most two people at a time. That suggests ‘hearing crying’ is not a common occurrence,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Otherwise, they would have set up more Purification Rooms.”
To confirm his guess, he called the secretary over and had her compile the Purification Room’s usage over the past three months.
Holding a laptop in her arms, the secretary quickly typed in a long password, then turned the screen toward him. “Please review, respected Administrator 002.”
The spreadsheet was simple, with only three columns: experimenter ID, experimenter level, and time period of use—no other job positions were listed, which meant that only experimenters could hear the crying.
Zhuang Ningyu remembered Zhang Yunxia’s ID badge. She was Experimenter 055, and in the Purification Room logs there were “Experimenter 055” entries on almost every page. Each session ranged from one to five hours. Both the frequency and duration of her visits far exceeded any other experimenter.
In the “Experimenter Level” column, Zhang Yunxia alone was listed as “Senior.” Most of the others were “Interns,” with the occasional “Junior” sprinkled in.
According to this pattern, the higher the experimenter’s rank, the less sensitive they were to the crying—except for Zhang Yunxia.
Zhuang Ningyu then checked her entire mental‑pollution history since joining the company and discovered that it was only in the last half‑month that she had begun frequently entering the Purification Room. Before that, her earliest record went all the way back to when she first started at NewCause Biotech.
“What do you make of it?” Zhuang Ningyu asked.
“In reality, Zhang Yunxia exhibited a series of abnormal emotions in the last half‑month before her suicide. In the rules zone, she also started suffering high‑frequency contamination from half a month ago,” Yi Ke replied. “Half a month ago, her mind must have been subjected to some kind of stimulus.”
And it was a stimulus related to the crying.
The countdown on the Purification Room’s door display hadn’t finished yet, but the speakers embedded in the ceiling had started up again.
To the beat of: “Gene Dance Time! One, two, three, clench your fists and reach forward, now raise your arms and draw a spiral—”
The tightly shut lab doors on both sides of the corridor all began unlocking with a chorus of beeps. Pale, slender experimenters streamed out and began doing calisthenics in time with the music.
The door to Lab 9, however, remained firmly closed. Clearly, Shi Cheng didn’t need to exercise—just as the “respected Administrator 002” didn’t have to either. After all, in most companies, the rules were only there to restrain the lower‑level employees.
[We are the coders of life!]
The experimenters flung their arms wide, and the corridor immediately became so crowded that Zhuang Ningyu had to press himself flat against the wall just to inch forward.
As he moved, his hand accidentally brushed against a patch of rough indentations. He looked down—
About fifty centimeters off the floor, the wall was covered in animal scratch marks: messy and sparse, but gouged deeply enough that the sharp lines had nearly pierced the alloy panel.
They must have been made by modified animals. Otherwise, the scratches wouldn’t have been so wild.
Unable to tell whether the marks belonged to a cat, a dog, or some other small animal, he snapped a photo and sent it to Yi Ke. Then he dodged an over‑enthusiastic swinging arm and, with the rhythmic “one, two, three, four” echoing behind him, took the elevator back up to the third‑floor office area.
The door to “Human Resources Department” was open as well, but no staff were inside—only the broadcast exercise track blaring in the empty space.
In the middle of the room stood a single machine, its screen glowing an eerie green. There were only two options:
- Add New Employee
- Create ID Badge
Zhuang Ningyu pressed “1.”
With a soft whir, a test tube filled with pink liquid rose up from a slot on the side of the machine. Ten seconds later, it sank back down again as the screen displayed: “New Employee Entry Failed.”
He then pressed “2.”
This time, the screen filled with dense ID codes: Experimenter XX, Cleaner XX, Secretary XX…
He tried tapping on “Experimenter 055.” In short order, an ID badge dropped out with a soft clack.
It looked completely normal—company logo plus employee info, with two intertwined raised spiral bands: the classic double‑helix DNA symbol.
Rubbing the badge with his thumb, Zhuang Ningyu’s gaze drifted back to where the test tube had appeared.
“We break life down into equations…”
The music had entered the final eight counts and would end soon.
To test his suspicion, he pressed “Add New Employee” again without hesitation, then grabbed the test tube and stepped out of the room.
In the corridor, he snatched hold of a panting experimenter who was in the middle of his routine exercise and, without a word, straightened a paperclip and jabbed it into the man’s finger.
Bright red blood flowed down the inside of the tube.
The experimenter’s eyes bulged with outrage, but as he didn’t dare question the “respected Administrator 002,” he could only watch, full of righteous grievance, as Zhuang Ningyu walked back into Human Resources.
Zhuang Ningyu slotted the tube into the machine.
Ten seconds later, the screen beeped and this time displayed: “Employee Already Exists.”
His heart sped up slightly.
It seemed he had found a way to “join” this company.
…
Outside the rules zone, his loudmouthed friend was yelling into the phone, “I am looking, okay? I am! I swear! Just give me a bit more time!”
He had no idea what karma he’d triggered. One moment he’d been minding his own business on vacation, and the next he’d been ordered to pilot a boat out to sea to find Fu Han. The engine roared as it churned white waves on the surface, and he kept emphasizing, “Just so we’re clear, I’m really not that close to him! There’s no guarantee he’ll even agree to see me.”
“You just have to pass on a message. You don’t need to be close to him,” Yi Ke said coldly.
“Fine, fine, I’ll find him for you,” his friend said, standing on deck and scratching his head. “But why him? Zhuang‑ge has already gone into the rules zone alone. Shouldn’t you be doing everything you can to sneak in after him and pull a hero‑saves‑the‑beauty? Or better yet, let him rescue you? No one’s going to interrupt you in there. You could even arrange to get a few harmless injuries—then flop into Zhuang‑ge’s arms, and bam, instant romance story.”
“You think I don’t want to go in?”
Leaning one hand against the wall, the picture of brooding masculinity, Yi Ke said, “You think my wife doesn’t want me in there?”
“You definitely want to,” his friend replied. “But whether Zhuang‑ge wants you in there is another question. I mean, he’s strong enough that pulling you into the rules zone would be easy. The fact that you’re still out here—no offense—basically means he doesn’t want you inside.”
“Nonsense!” Yi Ke shot back immediately. “There’s no way my wife doesn’t want to see me!”
His friend was about ready to die from exasperation. “Is it at all possible—and I’m just throwing this out there—that Zhuang‑ge doesn’t want you entering the rules zone because he’s worried about you?”
“Here, how about this: I’ll keep looking for Fu Han, and you keep looking for Zhuang‑ge. After all, Fu Han is just your wild guess. There’s zero evidence connecting him to this incident. Meanwhile, Zhuang‑ge has a literal track record of crushing rules zones. There’s never been a rules zone that got the better of him—only him getting the better of them.”
The signal over the sea kept cutting in and out, making it hard to hear. After a few perfunctory replies, Yi Ke hung up, thought for a bit, and then called Zhuang Ningyu again.
By now, the sky had already darkened. The secretary had brought dinner to Administrator 002: bluefin tuna, blue lobster, sea urchin… a whole spread of expensive ingredients piled together.
Yi Ke promised, “I’ve already sent a friend to look for Fu Han. Whether or not this rules zone has anything to do with him, it’s definitely connected to Fu Dong. Honey, wait for me. I’ll get inside to help you as soon as I can!”
Setting down his chopsticks, Zhuang Ningyu cut him off. “Don’t rush in just yet.”
“Why not?”
Remembering his friend’s words, Yi Ke immediately grew wary. “You don’t really not want me to come in, do you?”
