Chapter 82
“Are you two skin hungry?!”
Up until now, Cameron clearly remembers everything that happened before the tragic incident that day.
After getting off the plane that day, he returned to the HRG laboratory located on the southernmost outskirts of the city. Although it nominally belonged to the central research institute, it was actually separated from the main campus, situated as a standalone research unit in a desolate suburb. Cameron first went to the residential compound to drop off his luggage, then walked to the laboratory building not far away. Halfway down the concrete road, he glanced at the time on his wristwatch.
6:30 PM.
He hesitated a bit about whether to first check on Shen Zhuo in the safety layer but decided against it.
He had a backlog of work, much more important than his stupid brother, who should be meekly eating under the care of the staff at this time.
Cameron turned and continued towards the laboratory building. Just then, as if pierced through the skull by an invisible arrow, his head suddenly began to ache intensely!
Instantly, his vision went black, his eardrums vibrated with a long ringing, and the ground quickly approached his eyes, followed by the sharp pain of his knees hitting the ground. In a daze, he tried to get up, staggered forward a few steps, and then a burning pain rushed up his throat, making him vomit a mouthful of fresh blood.
At that moment, he realized what was happening.
—001 Ultra-High Energy Extraterrestrial Radiation Wave.
When the radiation intensity in that ring matrix exceeds the safety value, the radiation range will exceed five kilometers.
Something had gone wrong in the laboratory!
A sharp alarm pierced the sky, making the ground seem to tremble.
At this moment, he should actually be going to the safety layer to hide, but Cameron had no thought of escaping in his mind. As a scientist, he knew his mission. He stood up and staggered towards the back of the laboratory building. Amidst spasmodic coughing and blood spraying, he swiped his ID card with trembling hands to open the 16th safety exit. The metal gate opened, but the inner glass door was chained shut.
Crash!
Gritting his teeth, Cameron smashed through the glass with his head. The automatic alarm blared suddenly, but there was no time to care about that. He stepped over the broken glass and rushed into the corridor, staggering towards the bio-safety room on the first basement level. He kicked the door open with such force that the lock was broken in two.
This place stored special radiation protection suits, and he had to be fully equipped before entering the lab; otherwise, the lethal ultra-high energy radiation would instantly rip apart his chromosomes, causing bleeding from all orifices and gut perforation, with a death resembling that from nuclear radiation.
With a swoosh, Cameron opened the safety cabinet, instantly feeling like he had fallen into an ice cave.
Empty.
All the radiation protection suits were gone!
The alarm was deafening. Blood kept pouring from Cameron’s nose and ears, and every violent breath brought up bloody froth from his ruptured internal organs. He crawled out of the safety room, quickly thinking while looking around. His gaze suddenly caught sight of a half-open door at the end of the corridor, and he froze.
That was the vessel cultivation project room, and the 001 cultivation tank under constant environmental conditions was shattered.
It was like a broken fish tank, with liquid splashed everywhere, but the artificial vessel body inside was missing!
Had someone taken the vessel?
Or did Shen Ruozhen initiate the self-destruct program?
Cameron had no time to think it through. At this moment, a loud explosion erupted from behind him. The laboratory’s metal wall was blasted open from the inside, and several blood-covered researchers were flung out, collapsing half a wall!
Amidst the violent shaking, Cameron fell to the ground. Before he could figure out what had happened, a blood-red monster, neither human nor animal, crawled out from the billowing smoke. Its skin was ruptured, limbs deformed and twisted, and it let out a horrifying scream that pierced the eardrums. It lunged at one of the people who had been flung out earlier, tearing them apart, spilling guts everywhere!
Cameron couldn’t believe his eyes. He recognized this brutal monster.
It was actually a researcher.
It looked nothing like a human anymore. The high-energy ionizing radiation had destroyed all its DNA chains, its abdominal cavity was ruptured, and its internal organs hung outside. Its entire skeleton was broken and deformed. But despite reaching this point, it hadn’t died. Instead, it had gained some inexplicable, terrifying power. Its blood-red eyes scanned around and suddenly locked onto Cameron.
Immediately, it clawed at the air with its ten deformed fingers.
Before Cameron could struggle, he was yanked over by a tremendous force and saw the monster reaching for his heart—
At this critical moment, a familiar figure rushed in from the side, slamming into Cameron: “Run!!”
It was He Yin!
Professor He, dressed in a radiation suit, rolled on the ground, grabbed a fallen gun, aimed at the monster’s bloody head, turned away with gritted teeth, and pulled the trigger. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The monster’s head was half blown off, and it finally fell back, collapsing to the ground.
“Professor He?” Cameron staggered to his feet. “What happened?!”
Without hesitation, He Yin took off his protective helmet and firmly placed it on Cameron’s head: “No time to explain, go to the safety layer; don’t die here with us… cough! cough cough…”
Cameron urgently asked, “What exactly happened? Where’s my mother?!”
Because his head and face were exposed to the radiation, He Yin’s facial skin immediately began to crack, with blood gushing down his temples. But he completely ignored the excruciating pain, gritting his teeth and pushing Cameron to run forward: “Today we must use the radiation to burn the spiritual entity 001 to death. If it wants to escape, it has to forcibly possess someone, and the person it possesses will suddenly develop superpowers like just now. Run, it’s very likely going to seize Shen Zhuo, you must get to the safety layer—”
He suddenly saw behind Cameron, his pupils dilating rapidly.
What no one noticed earlier was a black shadow quickly separating from the fallen monster’s corpse, rising into the air, like a demon abandoning a discarded body, whistling as it rushed toward the smoke-filled laboratory.
Immediately afterward, among the researchers lying in disarray ahead, a female figure stood up.
Her face was stiff, her eyes vacant, dragging absolutely unnatural, puppet-like stiff steps, with sharp ten fingers dripping blood, the demon’s black shadow looming over her head.
It was Shen Ruzhen.
This was probably the most furious roar of Professor He’s life: “—Let her go!!”
He Yin suddenly raised his gun but couldn’t pull the trigger due to intense shaking. At this moment, “Shen Ruzhen” waved her hand, and the telekinetic force appeared again, crashing down like a mountain and flinging He Yin whole against the wall!
With a loud crash, He Yin hit the wall heavily, his abdomen pierced by a protruding steel bar from the wall, splattering blood in front of Cameron’s incredulous eyes.
Immediately afterward, “Shen Ruzhen” just reached out and grabbed Cameron.
Cameron was instantly lifted into the air, grabbed by the throat. The strength was inhuman, his throat bone cracking instantly.
Cameron had never been so close to death in his life. In his daze, he felt the icy scythe of the Grim Reaper at his throat. He stared at his mother’s familiar yet strange face, using all his strength to squeeze out a few broken words:
“Mo… mom… don’t…”
Mom.
Shen Ruzhen’s vacant eyes suddenly focused.
In an instant, her gaze changed, as if her fierce soul as a scientist and mother was forcibly awakened from the abyss, screaming angrily and desperately under the demon’s control.
With a thud, Cameron fell to the ground. Shen Ruzhen staggered back, screaming in pain, gritting her teeth, and trembling as she tore off her protective suit, trying to expose herself to radiation to perish with the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001. But in the short few seconds of the life-and-death struggle, the spiritual entity gained the upper hand. Shen Ruzhen convulsed and bent down, and a hoarse, cold, twisted, and eerie voice emerged from her mouth, each word difficult to distinguish:
“Humans violated the deal, took my vessel, you will… pay the price…”
It was the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001.
Six years after detecting it, humanity finally heard it speak Earth’s language for the first time.
“Cough, cough—” Cameron knelt on the ground, spasmodically coughing up large amounts of blood, groping for the gun on the ground in the chaos. However, when he looked up again, “Shen Ruzhen” had already rushed forward, her steps stiff and staggering, dashing into the safety gate of the underground passage in the blink of an eye!
“Go… stop… it…”
He Yin fell to the ground, his abdomen pierced with a blood hole, each word was a gasping struggle. Cameron crawled over, futilely trying to stop the gushing blood from his wound with his hands, but it was to no avail.
“…Don’t die, don’t die.” Cameron’s ears were ringing, unable to hear himself repeating, “Hold on, Professor He, don’t die—”
“It… it’s not… your mother anymore, save Shen… Shen Zhuo…”
Blood foam bubbled from He Yin’s mouth, and in his dying moments, he shoved the gun into Cameron’s hand, then shakily raised his hand to caress his stepson’s cheek.
He seemed to want to convey some final warmth and comfort, though he only left four bloody fingerprints on the protective helmet:
“Live… Live on, child.”
That icy hand fell, and the light of life faded from Professor He’s eyes.
He was dead.
“….”
Cameron held the still-warm gun, standing up dazedly, staring at He Yin’s unseeing corpse, trembling, and stepping back.
Deadly radiation, smoke, and scattered limbs and blood like a scene from hell—everything seemed like an absurd nightmare.
At this moment, a tremor from the ground and a muffled explosion from the distant passage awakened him. Realizing something with a jolt, Cameron turned and frantically rushed toward the tunnel leading to the safety layer, the lights flickering. The gate had been smashed, and in the chaos and pain, he probably slipped several times and got up again, but his mind was blank. The few hundred meters of metal-enclosed passageway quickly ended.
Cameron crashed through the door into the entrance of the safety layer.
It was like a red-hot iron searing his retinas. He would never forget the scene that rushed at him.
Little Shen Zhuo was curled up in a distant corner, so terrified that he couldn’t make a sound. Reflected in his pupils was the ghastly pale face of his mother, her Shura-like figure approaching step by step, and her blood-dripping fingertip reaching within half an inch of his eyeball.
Cameron raised his gun.
At that moment, his mind was blank and turned into a void from excessive fear, despair, and pain.
In that boundless silence, he heard the gunshot as he pulled the trigger.
——Bang!
Like a silent, slow-motion scene in a black-and-white silent film.
His mother’s back shook as she was hit, then she crumbled to her knees, her long hair brushing across her young son’s face.
She fell forward onto the ground.
All strength drained from his body. Cameron’s knees gave out, and he kneeled down, losing his hearing, touch, and all senses in the void. The salty, metallic, and sticky blood surged over him like a tide, swallowing him completely.
——The next scene seemed like a cruel and brilliant twist of fate.
Behind Cameron, who was clutching his face in pain, stood Shen Zhuo from twenty-three years later, witnessing everything he alone had experienced from another perspective.
In mid-air, a black shadow was coalescing—the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001. It finally managed to struggle free from Shen Ruzhen’s dead body. Thousands of brainwaves roared, transforming into an eager, overwhelming wave, rushing at little Shen Zhuo—
Shen Zhuo’s genes did not possess the infinite regeneration ability of that “vessel,” but this child nonetheless had immense evolutionary potential.
It couldn’t wait any longer.
The lethal radiation had exhausted its energy; it urgently needed a body, and fortunately, the mind of a child was much easier to seize than an adult’s.
“No…”
Unexpectedly, just as he was about to be completely consumed, little Shen Zhuo, whose voice had been lost, squeezed out a sound. The horrific stimulus of the scene before his eyes caused his pupils to dilate rapidly, blood rushing to his head.
“Go away… go away!!”
Despite his underdeveloped brain, it erupted with a mental force surpassing that of an adult by thousands of times. It was as if a terrifying magma erupted from his soul, roaring and scorching everything, surging in all directions like a mighty torrent!
It was a scene of incredible and overwhelming power.
If anyone could record this moment, it would be the first deadly battle between human will and extraterrestrial intelligence.
The extraterrestrial mental entity couldn’t last even half a second; it didn’t even have time to change its mind and turn back toward Cameron before it was crushed and dispersed by that overwhelming force, then enveloped by the high-energy radiation, evaporating into the void like smoke.
Outside the hellish sea of blood, Cameron looked up blankly.
He saw his young brother fall backward, collapsing beside their mother’s body.
·
From that day on, Cameron’s memory entered its most numb and chaotic period.
The HRG laboratory massacre shocked the entire research institute. Police cars came, and ambulances arrived, carrying bodies covered with white cloth, with red and blue lights flashing and illuminating half the gloomy sky.
The news of the top-secret experiment’s total annihilation spread only among a few high-level officials. Everyone wanted to know what caused the accident, but the truth died with the deceased, along with the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001.
No one knew where it had gone.
In the more than twenty years since then, it has never been detected by any instruments on Earth again, as if it had never existed.
Cameron tried every possible means to find out what happened during the time he wasn’t at the institute, which led Shen Ruzhen and all the researchers to resolve to burn the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001, even at the cost of exposing themselves to radiation and perishing together.
But the experimental records from that period were destroyed in the accident, and the vessel in the cultivation tank had disappeared. He couldn’t even determine from the logs whether Shen Ruzhen had executed the self-destruct procedure.
A week after the incident, he received a call from a secret research base under the United Nations.
“…We deeply regret the disaster caused by the accident… We hope to invite you to continue Professor Shen’s unfinished work and carry on her research into human genetic evolution…”
“Why,” Cameron stood by the hospital window, blood seeping through the bandages on his arm, his bruised throat producing a hoarse and cold voice: “Haven’t you realized how dangerous this research is?”
There was a brief silence on the other end before the answer came: “We know.”
“But humanity should also know that the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001 is only temporarily missing; it may not be completely eradicated. The extraterrestrial intelligence it represents has not entirely abandoned its covetousness toward humanity.”
“If one day it returns with the so-called ‘evolution’ power it speaks of, the superpowers that killed all the HRG researchers today will appear on Earth thousands of times over. No matter how advanced our weapons are, they will be powerless to resist. Humanity will become lambs waiting for slaughter.”
“We must master that power in advance.”
“We are prepared for a long, arduous, and protracted struggle, Doctor. Please fulfill your mother’s unrealized ideal.”
After the call ended that day, Cameron stood in place, silently, for a long time.
Until the dim light of day swallowed his silhouette.
The other survivor of the experimental accident, the six-year-old orphan Shen Zhuo, suffered severe brain damage from strong radiation exposure and could no longer respond to the outside world, officially diagnosed as being in a persistent vegetative state.
He sat blankly on the hospital bed, like a young, lonely snow child, staring indifferently into the endless void.
“…The unknown radiation from the accident caused irreversible damage to brain nerve development…”
“He may remain in a vegetative state with open eyes for the rest of his life. The family should be prepared for this…”
The special care ward was quiet, the polished floor reflecting the white light.
Cameron squatted down, staring into those starkly clear, frozen pupils, and said softly, “You know the weak are meant to be abandoned, right?”
Little Shen Zhuo did not respond.
This child was the only lucky one in the disaster, forever left in the past, in the safety layer, in his mother’s warm embrace on that morning, slowly fading into the blue-gray mist of dawn.
Cameron silently closed his eyes.
“Goodbye, brother.”
He turned and walked out of the hospital room, the metal door sliding silently shut behind him, the white light ahead casting a long shadow behind him.
The car sent by the United Nations secret agency to pick him up was already waiting at the steps, unfolding a strange and unknown new world ahead.
…
·
Three years later, the vegetative state Shen Zhuo miraculously woke up and returned to the institute.
Shen Ruzhen’s eldest son, Dr. Eren van der Kassow, had gone into hiding to continue his research, becoming known as Cameron to later generations. He continued the first-generation HRG plan at a secret United Nations base, but the research struggled without the evolutionary sample.
Nine years later, Shen Zhuo obtained his first doctorate at the same age as Cameron had and began teaching at the central institute, with the second-generation HRG plan gradually taking shape.
Humanity’s exploration of genetic evolution never ceased, with one generation of pioneers after another walking this rugged path.
Another six years passed, and an unanticipated meteor shower occurred, with meteorites falling to Earth.
Global evolution began.
At the secret base under the United Nations, the continued genetic research of the first-generation HRG plan met with repeated failures and was on the verge of being abandoned.
But at that moment, an anonymous person within the central institute leaked top-secret information to the outside world.
The second-generation HRG laboratory, led by Shen Zhuo, had made significant breakthroughs, developing a gene interferon that could grant ordinary humans superpowers. The first phase of theoretical simulation was complete, and the second phase of product testing was about to begin.
If this research succeeded, it would mean that humanity could create a special force with superpowers at any time, granting high-level abilities through injections, rendering the world’s 100,000 evolved beings powerless.
Nuclear deterrence in the era of evolution was now hanging overhead.
For the first time, humanity held an overwhelming advantage in the battle against evolutionary forces.
After the information was leaked, extreme evolutionary organizations worldwide spared no effort to stop the HRG gene interferon research and made several assassination attempts on Shen Zhuo. However, they repeatedly failed under the central institute’s tight security.
Just when people were in a state of panic, the situation took a dramatic turn—
An explosion occurred at the Qinghai testing site, killing S-class evolutionist Fu Chen, and Shen Zhuo became the prime suspect for causing the accident.
Amidst the wave of strong protests from global evolutionists, Shen Zhuo was demoted and held accountable, and the HRG research he had spearheaded was forced to halt.
In the same year, at the age of forty-one, Cameron, leveraging his family background, connections, and unparalleled intellect and skills, was appointed head of a secret management organization under the United Nations Security Council. His first action upon taking office was to personally fly to Asia to attempt to bring back the brother he had abandoned twenty years ago.
However, he was still a step too late.
Shen Zhuo had been kidnapped, tortured, and nearly killed by fervent supporters of Fu Chen. Nielsen, well-prepared, acted with lightning speed, rescuing his future political ally just in time.
In front of the International Supervision General Administration building in Basel, Switzerland. The sky was drizzling, and Shen Zhuo was wrapped in a black coat, with only a glimpse of his cold, handsome, pale chin visible under the edge of the black umbrella.
Nielsen leaned in, but Shen Zhuo’s eyes showed no emotion as he extended his hand for a simple handshake.
Journalists from various countries gathered, flashes flickering incessantly, capturing the image of this new Chief Supervisor of Shenhai.
In the continuous rain, an armored Chevrolet was parked by the roadside. Behind the car window, a pair of indifferent gray-green eyes quietly watched the scene in front of the commission building.
“That person is one of the newly appointed top ten global supervisors, named Shen Zhuo.” An official on the other side of the car seat leaned over and whispered, “He’s a tough character. Somehow, he managed to kill Asia’s only S-class, Fu Chen. There’s secret intel saying he’s developed a gene interferon that can give ordinary humans superpowers…”
“I know,” Cameron replied calmly, retracting his gaze.
“I know him.”
Over twenty years ago, in the family dormitory of the research institute, the sounds of He Yin clumsily making formula came from the kitchen. Shen Ruzhen stood smiling, arms crossed by the cradle, while the young Cameron frowned in disgust, staring at the loudly crying baby. The baby’s face was smaller than a palm, looking like a wrinkled pink monkey.
“Misty rain on the begonia flowers… Let’s call him Shen Zhuo. Hopefully, he’ll be smarter in the future.”
“If he isn’t smart, being good-looking is also fine. If he is neither smart nor good-looking… then let him be happy.”
“Being a happy little fool is fine too, Shen Zhuo.”
…
As time returned to the beginning, joys and sorrows vanished, and life and death overturned and disappeared.
All the vicissitudes turned into an unknown long song, spiraling up, winding away, and vanishing into the distant sky.
Inside the armored car, Cameron closed his eyes, then opened them again.
His gaze pierced through the vast expanse of time, his pupils sharply narrowing, emitting a keen light, looking incredulously at Shen Zhuo and Bai Sheng in mid-air:
“…What are you two conjoined twins doing in my head?!”
The world instantly crumbled, turning into countless fragments that were scattered in a rush!
The feeling of weightlessness suddenly hit, like falling from a high altitude. In the next moment, the three simultaneously opened their eyes.
The scene of tracing back disappeared, and they returned to the real office.
“…Huff, huff…”
The blood-red ‘A’ on the back of Shen Zhuo’s left hand had vanished. Panting, he pressed his forehead, his hair soaked with cold sweat. Just as he was about to say something hoarsely, he was suddenly pulled into a strong embrace.
“It’s okay… It’s okay.” Bai Sheng hugged Shen Zhuo tightly, pressing his head into his shoulder and continuously kissing his pale, cold forehead.
“It’s all over. Don’t be afraid. I’ll stay with you, it’s all over now…”
Held in the familiar embrace, Shen Zhuo inhaled the clean and pleasant scent of Bai Sheng’s neck. After several seconds, his tense body finally relaxed, the breath caught in his chest finally released, and he raised his hand to hug Bai Sheng back firmly.
With this unbreakable support, he finally found a bit of strength amidst his deep exhaustion, barely standing straight: “I…”
“Do you two have skin hunger or something?!”
They turned simultaneously, seeing Cameron leaning against the wall, still in the posture of being dragged to the wall, one hand on the back of his neck, looking disheveled and exasperated:
“Do you know the meaning of the word ‘privacy’? Do you know that using mind-reading abilities on others without permission violates EHPBC Charter 6-13 Human Rights Ordinance?!”
“…”
Shen Zhuo exhaled, releasing Bai Sheng, and turned to Cameron, looking down at him.
“You’ve been holding the core data of the first-generation HRG for over ten years without any results. You don’t have the right to speak.” He said calmly, “My useless brother.”
For every Ko-fi received for a perticular novel, I will release a new chapter!
