Chapter 44 Part 1

No. 1 was different from the other experimental subjects. It displayed clear anthropomorphic emotions. Lin Juan knew this, and so did Sheng Tianzong and Su Xingchen. Therefore, after Sheng Tianzong finished speaking, Lin Juan seriously considered this possibility.

He had never raised a pet and couldn’t fathom a pet’s mindset.

“Otherwise, why don’t you coax it a bit?” Sheng Tianzong coughed lightly and suggested.

“How do you coax it?” Lin Juan had no experience.

“Uh…” Sheng Tianzong recalled how he coaxed his own little ancestor. “Pick it up, stroke its fur, say some nice words?”

Lin Juan did these things for the first time, so his movements when picking up No. 1 were a bit stiff. “Maybe we should forget it and let it process on its own.”

“Could it be that No. 1 was influenced by that thing underground?” Su Xingchen spoke up. “Didn’t you say it was acting very strangely earlier?”

After thinking it over, this seemed the most likely possibility.

Lin Juan felt relieved and set No. 1 down. “I’ll take it for a check-up.”

Experiment Zone 5 was fully equipped, but it had just suffered an experimental subject riot, leaving everything in disarray. The remaining experimental subjects had been transferred elsewhere. Lin Juan first went to where the subjects had been moved, wandered around pretending to look, and then brought out No. 1.

Chu Jifan had a lot to handle. When Lin Juan found her, she was treating the wounds of the last experimental subject.

“Didn’t I say to come tomorrow?” Upon seeing Lin Juan, Chu Jifan paused her actions.

“I’m still not entirely at ease, so I brought it for a check.” Lin Juan pushed No. 1 forward.

Without Lin Juan needing to say anything, Chu Jifan noticed No. 1’s abnormality.

Normally, every time they came, No. 1 was lively. Even if its energy was low, it never skimped on clinging to Lin Juan. But today, from the moment Lin Juan brought it in until the check-up was complete, No. 1 barely moved.

After getting the check-up results, Chu Jifan’s furrowed brows relaxed. “Here’s some good news: No. 1 is acting abnormally because it’s in a critical stage of evolution.”

“Evolution?” Lin Juan recalled the scenes he had witnessed. Were those people’s hypotheses real? Could the eyeballs really evolve into the 【Angel’s Eye】?

“Do you know what it will evolve into?”

As he asked, Lin Juan closely observed Chu Jifan’s expression. He saw a fleeting blankness on her face, as if a machine was loading information, before she quickly returned to normal.

If Lin Juan hadn’t been watching so intently, he might not have noticed.

“I don’t know either. The higher-ups have always wanted us to cultivate their evolved form, but we’ve never succeeded. However,” Chu Jifan lowered her voice, “I don’t recommend you tell anyone about this. We don’t know how long it will take No. 1 to evolve successfully, or even if it will succeed. If Mr. Qiao and the others find out No. 1 is evolving, you won’t be able to protect it.”

Lin Juan naturally understood this and thanked Chu Jifan for her kindness. “I got it. I’ll pretend I don’t know for now. Do you know why it suddenly started evolving?”

“Maybe it’s related to that enzyme supplement?” Chu Jifan shook her head. “No precedent, so I can’t say for sure.”

“What do I need to do now?” Lin Juan asked.

“Give it plenty of nutrients. Any species needs ample sustenance to evolve, especially these special experimental subjects.”

Chu Jifan seemed to imply something, yet said nothing at all.

On the way back with No. 1, Lin Juan kept pondering her words.

Experimental subjects needed ample sustenance to evolve. When did Chu Jifan become an incubator? Was the lab’s destruction related to her?

Lin Juan’s intuition said yes.

Because the woman trapped underground was the only anomaly here.

Everyone followed the rules—except for that extra woman underground.

Lin Juan shared the new discovery with Sheng Tianzong and Su Xingchen. The two, who had returned in the middle of the night, exchanged a glance.

Su Xingchen said, “Captain Sheng and I went down again amid the chaos. We found the hidden door. We went down, but there was nothing below.”

Just an empty expanse.

If it weren’t Sheng Tianzong and Lin Juan who had spoken of the bizarre cross and the woman bound to it underground, Su Xingchen would have thought someone was pranking him.

“Not bad,” Sheng Tianzong nodded. “We searched underground very carefully. No cross, no woman covered in eyeballs.”

“Could she have been taken away?” Su Xingchen guessed.

“Maybe you two didn’t trigger the mechanism to see her,” Lin Juan had a different idea. “Captain Sheng and I went down as two people too—the only extra was No. 1. What a coincidence that No. 1 acted so strangely, and why did it show signs of evolution after coming back from there?”

Lin Juan sorted through his thoughts. “I think there must be some connection between No. 1 and that person underground that we don’t know about.”

“Next time, how about Captain Sheng and I take another eyeball down to test?” Su Xingchen suggested. “That way, at least we’ll know if the variable is all eyeballs or just No. 1.”

No sooner said than done. Lin Juan used his position to smuggle out an eyeball.

No. 1, which hadn’t reacted for a long time, discovered the extra eyeball in its containment box. Its fur bristled all over as it accusatorily glared at Lin Juan.

Lin Juan stroked its fur and saw it regain awareness. He breathed a slight sigh of relief.

No. 1 had grown from small to large, and Lin Juan had containment boxes of all sizes. In the time it took him to grab one, the smuggled eyeball nearly got eaten by No. 1.

With quick reflexes, Lin Juan snatched the eyeball to safety and tossed it into the small containment box he’d just found. Then he threw both the box and the eyeball to Sheng Tianzong, who was waiting nearby.

No. 1 held its bristled pose.

Lin Juan tried to smooth it down, but the fur wouldn’t go flat.

No. 1’s gaze shifted from accusation to utter disbelief.

Having just recovered a thread of awareness from its daze, No. 1 felt like the sky was falling. It had only lost consciousness for a short while—how could the young man want to raise another eyeball?

It wouldn’t allow it!

With its fur fully bristled, No. 1 looked like a hissing, clawing wild beast. It glared murderously at the containment box in Sheng Tianzong’s hands, as if ready to charge and shred the eyeball inside.

“If we’d known provoking it would snap it out of it, we should’ve grabbed an eyeball sooner.” Sheng Tianzong eyed No. 1’s territorial display over its food. He wouldn’t compare it to a cat anymore.

This wasn’t a cat—it was a food-jealous dog.

“Don’t provoke it anymore,” No. 1 was surprisingly strong, and Lin Juan had nearly failed to hold it. “You two hurry and go.”

Only after Sheng Tianzong left with the containment box and Su Xingchen did, leaving Lin Juan alone in the room, did the spikes on No. 1 slowly soften.

Lin Juan amusingly poked it. “What? Don’t want me raising other eyeballs?”

No. 1’s fuzz had grown longer. Lin Juan’s finger sank into the fur when he poked, and the fuzz wrapped around his finger as if alive.

Seeming to realize it had made a silly mistake, No. 1 nuzzled Lin Juan affectionately.

Somewhat worried about No. 1’s condition, Lin Juan held it up for a closer look.

Aside from longer fuzz and a slightly larger body, Lin Juan noticed no major changes.

After evolving, would No. 1 become the original 【Angel’s Eye】?

Lin Juan didn’t know.

No one could give an answer.

Sheng Tianzong and Su Xingchen returned with the eyeball.

“We took the eyeball down. The moment we did, it went berserk just like No. 1. We couldn’t control it and had to destroy it.”

Lin Juan tossed the dead eyeball to No. 1, which chomped it down.

“Nice,” Su Xingchen said with evident admiration. “A real pro at destroying evidence.”

“Did you see the cross?” Lin Juan had to interrupt Su Xingchen, who was eager to take No. 1 out.

“No,” Su Xingchen’s expression turned grave as they got to business. “Underground was still empty. We even tentatively asked the guards outside and some lab staff we’re on good terms with. None of them knew there was another space below the underground warehouse.”

“We were planning to take a few more eyeballs down to check.” Sheng Tianzong said.

“No need,” Lin Juan placed the sated No. 1 back in its containment box. “The woman in the underground prison is probably a special event triggered only by No. 1.”

“Based on the lab’s timeline, at this point, Chu Jifan hasn’t become an experimental subject yet. That means the Chu Jifan who became an incubator is on a future timeline from this point.”

“The real past didn’t have us. I’m not sure if it had No. 1—probably it did, but not on this timeline. More likely after the Qiu Lishu incident, because the current eyeballs don’t have the ability to alter memories. That power should come after they evolve.”

“Mr. Lin’s speculation makes a lot of sense,” Sheng Tianzong agreed. “Without No. 1 in the real past, they surely wouldn’t abandon the research. Since we’ve reached this point in time, something major must have happened here—likely the eyeballs’ first evolution.”

Where was the key to the eyeballs’ evolution?

Lin Juan thought of the woman who became an eyeball incubator. A chilling thought surfaced in his mind.

“I’m planning to transfer to Mr. Qiao’s side somehow. In the real timeline, the key to the eyeballs’ evolution was probably on him.”

With No. 1 in hand, transferring to work under Mr. Qiao was easy. After some maneuvering, Lin Juan smoothly joined Mr. Qiao’s team.

Thanks to No. 1, Lin Juan quickly claimed an important position in Mr. Qiao’s team.

Upon accessing the core of Mr. Qiao’s experimental projects, Lin Juan discovered his guess was correct.

Mr. Qiao’s team was using human bodies to cultivate eyeballs.

They surgically implanted newborn eyeballs into human bodies and observed the growth data.

Eyeballs cultivated in different bodies yielded different data.

Mr. Qiao occasionally left the lab, taking only his trusted aides. No one knew what they did outside.

That evening, Lin Juan cleaned No. 1’s body after it finished eating.

No. 1’s fuzz had grown longer. Though Lin Juan wasn’t obsessive about cleanliness, he couldn’t stand the food residue in its fur. He found a brush and groomed it.

No. 1 thoroughly enjoyed the process, lying motionless in the water.

“Mr. Qiao.”

Footsteps approached from behind. Lin Juan turned and saw the man walking in from outside, his face lit with obvious delight.

“I’ve found a perfect host body. Little Lin, bring No. 1 and come out with me.”

Aside from Lin Juan, Mr. Qiao brought no one else.

Lin Juan followed Mr. Qiao with the containment box in his arms. “Mr. Qiao, isn’t the host body in the lab?”

Mr. Qiao’s subordinates didn’t let Lin Juan get involved in their human-body experiments. On one hand, Mr. Qiao didn’t fully trust Lin Juan and wouldn’t show him the most confidential projects. On the other, it was No. 1—No. 1 had extremely strong possessiveness toward Lin Juan. And No. 1 was the strongest among the B-203 experimental subjects. Every eyeball assigned to Lin Juan ended up as No. 1’s food in various ways.

Lin Juan inwardly chuckled at how Mr. Qiao and the other researchers looked pained yet helpless about No. 1.

His indulgence made No. 1 even more brazen.

Mr. Qiao had indirectly reminded Lin Juan to rein it in, but Lin Juan played dumb.

If not for this host body’s data being exceptionally perfect—with a high chance of producing an evolved form—Mr. Qiao wouldn’t have brought Lin Juan out.

He had to admit: none of his other experimental subjects developed as well as No. 1.

They had tested No. 1’s data and concluded it had the highest chance of success if they could truly cultivate the 【Angel’s Eye】.

His desire for success outweighed everything. Mr. Qiao decided to take the risk and bring Lin Juan out for a try.

After being here so long, this was Lin Juan’s first time leaving the lab.

Before him was no endless white mist, but a mountain path. Following it forward, he saw two girls standing together.

It was the adolescent Qiu Lishu and Fan Xiwen.

After saying something, Qiu Lishu left first, leaving Fan Xiwen alone.