Chapter 43 Part 1

Lin Juan had to remind him, “It’s not a cat. And just now, I tried to give it an injection, and it saw.”

“But it didn’t get injected, right?” Sheng Tianzong didn’t take it seriously. “Listen to me. Otherwise, what if it stops sticking to you later?”

Lin Juan didn’t think No. 1 was like a cat, but…

Looking at the eyeball trembling in his palm, he sighed. “I’ll still ask Lady Chu first if there’s another way.”

For easier contact, Chu Jifan had given Lin Juan her contact info before they left. The lab used unified communicators that could only reach internals, not link to the outside.

Lin Juan edited for a bit and sent over No. 1’s situation.

A response came back quickly.

[Chu: Afraid of injections?]

[Lin: Yeah, any other way to get the agent absorbed?]

[Chu: No wonder No. 1 treats you so differently.]

After that line, Chu Jifan went quiet for two minutes. Two minutes later, she sent a long message saying it was fine to get No. 1 to drink the agent instead.

[Lin: Is drinking it directly okay?]

Human injection agents couldn’t be taken directly.

[Chu: No problem. No. 1 has no blood vessels inside and doesn’t need blood to absorb. You just need to get the agent into its body somehow.]

Lin Juan got it. He opened the agent vial and poked the eyeball with his finger. “No injection. You eat it directly, okay?”

The eyeball stealthily cracked open a slit, confirmed there was no needle in Lin Juan’s hand, and slowly turned around.

Lin Juan grabbed a small dish, poured in the agent, tossed the pill in too, then placed the eyeball in the dish.

Soon, the agent in the dish vanished, but the pill remained untouched.

“Why aren’t you eating it?” Lin Juan nudged the eyeball, rolling it toward the pill. “You have to eat this too.”

No. 1 seemed resistant but finally ate the pill under Lin Juan’s insistence.

Not even a minute later, it spat out two pieces with a “pthoo pthoo.”

It looked extremely uncomfortable.

“What happened?” Perhaps reminded of the cat at home, Sheng Tianzong’s attitude toward No. 1 had softened a lot. Seeing it spit up the pill stirred some worry in him.

Lin Juan didn’t know either, so he called for backup.

“It can’t be because it’s too gross-tasting,” Lin Juan said.

“Could be,” Sheng Tianzong recalled his cat-raising days. “My cat acts the same with cat food it doesn’t like.”

“Should we keep feeding the remaining two?” Su Xingchen could swear he’d never imagined a day when he’d discuss with his teammates how to medicate a weird phenomenon.

Way too futuristic.

“Feed it,” Lin Juan checked the messages. “Researcher Chu said to finish it all. No. 1 lacks too many enzymes and needs major supplementation.”

With that, Lin Juan used a slender metal clamp to pick up a pill and placed it in front of No. 1. “Be good. Eat your medicine, and I’ll give you something tasty after.”

No. 1 unwillingly ate it.

“If it didn’t look so scary, No. 1 would actually make a pretty good pet,” Sheng Tianzong said, propping his chin.

“True.” Su Xingchen nodded solemnly.

As if it understood them, the eyeball turned its back and went still.

“What’s up with it?” Sheng Tianzong, who had been closely watching the eyeball, found it odd.

“You’re badmouthing it right in front of it. Of course it’s upset,” Lin Juan said. He grabbed a disinfectant wipe and cleaned the eyeball.

“I feel like Mr. Lin is already raising No. 1 as a pet. When we head out, can we take it with us?” As a cat owner, Sheng Tianzong knew that spending time with a little animal built attachment.

Especially since Lin Juan and No. 1 had been together almost constantly.

And No. 1 was so human-like.

Lin Juan casually fiddled with the eyeball without responding.

No. 1 only existed in the past. It wasn’t something they could just take if they wanted to. Besides, Lin Juan wasn’t sure if No. 1 had appeared because of his arrival or if it showed up in the normal timeline too.

What if it never appeared at all in the normal timeline?

“Alright, stop overthinking. Let’s figure out what’s really going on with this lab,” Su Xingchen brought them back to business.

“We don’t know if the time flow here matches the outside. If it does, we’ve been stuck here a while.”

“Yeah.” Lin Juan calculated—they’d been inside for three months already.

Three months without word. Lu Yanzhou must be anxious.

Director Liu and the others were probably even more so.

Time was tight, so Lin Juan and the others decided to speed things up.

Because of No. 1’s illness, Lin Juan ended up chatting more with Chu Jifan.

Every other day, he brought No. 1 to her for checkups and data scans. After supplementing the missing enzymes, No. 1 wasn’t as sleepy anymore. Its energy improved, which wasn’t exactly great news for Lin Juan.

In Sheng Tianzong’s words, if No. 1 were a pet, it’d be high-maintenance for sure.

As its energy recovered, No. 1’s appetite grew too. Every day, Lin Juan put it in the ring-shaped breeding box to get familiar with the environment.

No. 1 couldn’t stay isolated forever.

Once inside the ring-shaped breeding box, No. 1 showed extreme aggression. It attacked every eyeball in range—totally different from the gentleness it displayed around Lin Juan.

Sheng Tianzong and Su Xingchen stood outside the ring-shaped breeding box, watching slack-jawed.

“That’s brutal…” Sheng Tianzong couldn’t help but marvel.

“It’s no pet to begin with.” Su Xingchen stayed clear-headed, not fooled by No. 1’s mild facade.

The instinct of weird phenomena was to devour everything. No matter how human-like No. 1 acted, it couldn’t change its fundamental nature.

Sheng Tianzong carefully watched Lin Juan, worried he’d take it hard.

Noticing the gaze, Lin Juan turned. “What?”

Why stare like that?

“With No. 1 acting like this, do you feel deceived?” Sheng Tianzong imagined if his sweet kitty turned out to be a violent beast—he’d have a heart attack.

“Why would I feel deceived?” Lin Juan looked at him oddly. “Isn’t that how weird phenomena are? I thought its earlier behavior was weird. This is normal.”

Brutal and bloodthirsty…

Normal?

Fine, for weird phenomena, it was normal.

No. 1 feasted in the ring-shaped breeding box.

From Chu Jifan, Lin Juan learned that Experimental Subject B-023 needed to constantly devour its own kind to grow. So once No. 1 recovered well, Lin Juan put it in the ring-shaped breeding box daily for a bit.

A few days later, No. 1 had grown twice its size.

It took both of Lin Juan’s hands to hold it now.

Watching No. 1 interact with Lin Juan always left Sheng Tianzong in a daze—especially after No. 1 went on a rampage in the breeding box each day, only to be taken out and nuzzle against Lin Juan like a spoiled pet.

Jarring. Extremely jarring.

After seeing it enough, Sheng Tianzong got used to it.

He deeply realized one thing: nothing big happening to Mr. Lin counted as big.

Half a month later, No. 1 had grown to basketball size, even more aggressive. It became inconvenient for Lin Juan to carry it around everywhere. Instead, the researchers were quite reluctant to see it go.

After all, such cooperative experimental subjects were rare.

To make it easier for Lin Juan to bring No. 1 out, a researcher gave him a small cart—like a supermarket shopping cart. Lin Juan could swap in a larger containment box and wheel it around.

“Even more like raising a pet now.” Sheng Tianzong trailed behind Lin Juan, escorting him with Su Xingchen to Chu Jifan’s place.

Over time, Lin Juan and Chu Jifan had grown familiar. Her attitude toward him had softened considerably.

On the way, they ran into a group hurrying the other direction, led by Mr. Qiao.

The group moved fast, like something had happened.

They passed without stopping, but Lin Juan paused to watch them go until their figures vanished. Then he spoke softly, “Looks like they’ve started moving.”

Supernatural abilities couldn’t be used here—it restricted ability users heavily. Some spots were heavily guarded, impossible to sneak into.

Normal methods wouldn’t work. Lin Juan said, “No openings? We can make our own.”

After discussing, the three devised an initial plan.

They spent two days refining it. Today, they waited for the perfect moment.

Sure enough, ten minutes after Lin Juan entered Chu Jifan’s office, she got a message: experimental subject riot. She needed to provide support.

“I have to head over,” Chu Jifan stood. “No. 1’s checkup might need to wait.”

“No problem,” Lin Juan had gotten the message too. “I’ll come with you. See if I can help.”

Chu Jifan quickly packed her instruments. Lin Juan glanced at Sheng Tianzong and Su Xingchen; the two stepped up to assist.

With their help, it was much easier for Chu Jifan. She didn’t refuse.

The group rushed to the incident site.

The chaos was in Experiment Zone 2. After routine feeding, the experimental subjects went berserk, shattered their containment boxes, and attacked the researchers in front.

Mr. Qiao and his team had just arrived at Experiment Zone 2 when an alarm blared from Experimental District 4.

Then Experiment Zone 1, Experiment Zone 3, and Experiment Zone 5 followed.

All five zones hit at once. The lab descended into pandemonium. Lin Juan, Sheng Tianzong, and Su Xingchen slipped away amid the disorder, heading to the underground warehouse.

After multiple checks by Sheng Tianzong and Su Xingchen, they’d spotted an unassuming hidden door in the underground warehouse. It wouldn’t open, and no one knew what lay beyond.

Lin Juan and Sheng Tianzong went to investigate it, while Su Xingchen and the other ability users seized the rare chance to scout elsewhere.

The guards at the underground warehouse had been pulled away early. Lin Juan and Sheng Tianzong made it down without issue.

Boxes lined the walls of the underground warehouse. The moment they stepped in, No. 1 twisted uneasily in its containment box.

Lin Juan and Sheng Tianzong exchanged a look. Sure enough, something was off here.

Sheng Tianzong led Lin Juan to the hidden door. The closer they got, the more agitated No. 1 became.

The hidden door was on the floor, leading downward.

“I’ve tried. Can’t open it. It has three locks that must turn simultaneously,” Sheng Tianzong said, pulling three keys from his pocket. “Got the keys already.”

Lin Juan took one, Sheng Tianzong the other two. As the keys turned, the ground shook with an earth-shaking rumble.

Lin Juan steadied himself against the wall.

Such a commotion was lucky—the lab was in total chaos outside, no one had time for this.

Beyond the hidden door lay a downward staircase, twisting into unseen depths.

Seizing the chance, the two headed down one after the other.

Lin Juan took No. 1 from the containment box and held it close—safer than leaving it outside.

The deeper they went, the dimmer it got. Not normal darkness, but like thick black mist blocking vision.

After who knew how long, the stairs ended.

Lin Juan halted and peered ahead.

The layout mirrored above: vast, dark. The only difference was a massive cross in the center, with a person bound to it.

“Why is there a person here?”

Lin Juan and Sheng Tianzong didn’t rush forward.

No. 1, quiet in Lin Juan’s arms until then, began thrashing wildly, desperate to charge ahead.

Lin Juan held it down. “No. 1’s acting off.”