Chapter 43 Part 2

Sheng Tianzong saw it too. “Looks related to that person up front.”

They’d been here ages and never heard of a prison like this under the lab.

In the gloom, they couldn’t make out details. Sheng Tianzong shone his flashlight ahead.

When the scene clarified, Sheng Tianzong’s pupils shrank sharply.

Bound to the massive cross wasn’t so much a person as a humanoid monster. Its upper body was human, lower a fish tail, covered in thumb-sized eyeballs that dropped off now and then.

Like ripe fruit from a tree.

A pipe below led who-knew-where; fallen eyeballs went straight in.

Above, two finger-thick tubes fed into the humanoid’s mouth, pumping in some unidentified viscous fluid.

What was this?

The lab’s biggest secret?

The underground prison was airtight. Dim lights lined the corners, black mist constantly seeping from the humanoid monster, filling the air.

To see better, they approached slowly.

Up close, Lin Juan saw the humanoid monster’s exterior was that of a woman. Even her face was covered in eyeballs, identity unrecognizable.

Thick chains dangled from above the cross, piercing through her body and pinning her tight. Any movement oozed foul, murky pus from the wounds.

Lin Juan could barely restrain No. 1 in his arms.

While Lin Juan studied the woman, No. 1 broke free and lunged toward her.

Lin Juan moved to intercept when his vision flickered—like TV static. After a brief freeze, the scene before him changed.

Dazzling light poured down from above, and Lin Juan squinted as he surveyed his surroundings.

It was no longer the empty underground room. What met his eyes was a resplendent cathedral gleaming with gold and jade.

No one was around. Above the cathedral loomed a massive god statue.

The statue hung its head, its gaze—seemingly sorrowful and compassionate—enveloping Lin Juan like something tangible and inescapable.

Where was No. 1?

Where was Sheng Tianzong?

Lin Juan ignored the gaze fixed on him and circled the cathedral, but he found no signs of life.

It was as if this world contained only him and that god statue.

Lin Juan stopped searching and approached the god statue.

Up close, he saw that its body was covered in countless tiny, unremarkable eyeballs.

The eyeballs swiveled to follow his movements. When Lin Juan leaped onto the statue, it seemed to come alive, its lips curling into a grin.

Lin Juan made a gesture, then smashed down with a clean, decisive punch.

The god statue shattered.

A bizarre smile froze on its face, and in those wide-open eyes lingered an expression of disbelief.

Lin Juan didn’t care whether he’d just punched a god statue or not. He dusted off his hands and jumped down.

His vision glitched again, then restored to normal. Lin Juan found himself back in the laboratory.

His body was no longer under his control—he could only watch and listen, not speak.

He saw a bird covered in eyeballs on its wings being dissected. The bird died, but the eyeballs harvested from its wings were still alive.

These eyeballs possessed tremendous energy. They could control minds, create illusions, and unleash powerful attacks. They called them 【Angel’s Eye】.

The 【Angel’s Eye】 rolled around, casting malicious, greedy, hateful gazes at everyone present.

Some recoiled in fear, while others buzzed with excitement.

Those gripped by fear tried to flee, only to discover in horror, right before they could escape, that identical eyeballs had sprouted on their own bodies.

The excited ones dragged the eyeballs—and the people sprouting them—into the laboratory.

The eyeballs multiplied, sprouting on everyone until the entire laboratory spiraled out of control.

With no other choice, the higher-ups activated the self-destruct sequence. A massive explosion reduced the whole facility to rubble.

While clearing the ruins, someone discovered a half-dead eyeball and took it away to cultivate once more.

The scene shifted again.

This time, it was Experiment Zone 5, a place familiar to Lin Juan.

Mr. Qiao personally handed an eyeball to the person in charge here. Learning from their previous failure, after two years of meticulous nurturing, they finally produced a large number of controllable eyeballs.

However, these eyeballs had lost some abilities, with their stats dropping to less than one percent of the originals.

Unsatisfied, the researchers sought to reclaim the full power of the 【Angel’s Eye】. They tried various methods and discovered that eyeballs nurtured in human bodies as culture dishes turned out even stronger.

They conducted endless experiments, combining all sorts of creatures with humans in pursuit of the perfect culture dish.

Finally, they succeeded.

They found a culture dish who survived a severe rejection reaction.

They kept this culture dish alive through every means possible, locked her away in a secret underground prison, stripped away her human consciousness, and turned her into an insensate vessel for producing eyeballs.

When Lin Juan opened his eyes again, he was back in the underground prison. Before him stood the familiar massive cross, and the woman bound to it.

No. 1 was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Sheng Tianzong.

Thus, Lin Juan knew this was the same scene from his earlier vision.

Lin Juan waited patiently.

The woman, who had kept her head bowed the entire time, slowly raised it. With just that motion, wounds split open across her body, oozing eyeballs and foul pus.

Lin Juan observed her, then suddenly froze.

Above the woman’s collarbone, he spotted a small mark—the same one he’d seen on Chu Jifan.

Was this culture dish locked in the underground prison… Chu Jifan?!

Waves rose in Lin Juan’s heart.

“Chu Jifan?” he called out tentatively.

The woman’s head-lifting motion paused.

She reacted to the name.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but it was filled with eyeballs—dense clusters growing on her tongue and in her throat—preventing any sound.

What exactly had happened?

At this point in time, Chu Jifan was still a senior researcher at the laboratory, revered for her skill in treating experimental subjects’ complex ailments.

Why had she become a culture dish?

Moreover, at this time point, both the culture dish and Chu Jifan existed simultaneously. Which one was real?

Perhaps both were.

Lin Juan’s thoughts raced, various clues tangling together like a knotted mess. He vaguely grasped something, but he was missing the key thread.

The one thread that could connect all the causes and effects.

The woman faced Lin Juan. The eyes in her sockets were no longer her own—she couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, and had endured endless years in pitch darkness.

Every moment was torment.

The massive cross, a symbol of sanctity, had become the shackle binding her.

Those people revered the eyeballs as 【Angel’s Eye】 and used a giant cross to restrain the culture dish producing them. Was this drawn from the Bible?

There was a tale of angels as enormous winged eyeballs, their wings likewise covered in eyes.

The scene shifted once more, and Lin Juan realized he’d truly returned this time.

“Mr. Lin!”

Sheng Tianzong’s voice came from behind. Lin Juan didn’t turn around. He kept walking forward as No. 1 lunged toward the woman on the cross. Lin Juan chose the quickest method and swatted it away.

Lin Juan put some force into it, sending No. 1 tumbling into a corner, where it lay still for a good while.

By inertia, Lin Juan rushed right up to the woman.

Eyeballs rushed straight at eyeballs. Lin Juan fought down the intense revulsion surging in his chest and examined the woman, who seemed devoid of life.

He had a hunch that the key to breaking the situation lay with this person.

After a pause, Lin Juan turned back, walked to No. 1’s side, and scooped it up. “Let’s go up first. I have some discoveries.”

Sheng Tianzong raised no objections.

Once they emerged, No. 1 returned to normal. Sheng Tianzong had many questions, but knowing it wasn’t the right time, he swallowed them and stuck to the plan.

The two slipped silently into the throng of busy laboratory staff.

Su Xingchen had also returned with his team.

That evening, Lin Juan, Sheng Tianzong, and Su Xingchen compared notes.

Sheng Tianzong hadn’t seen the visions Lin Juan had. The time Lin Juan experienced firsthand had passed in just a second for Sheng Tianzong. Lin Juan recounted what he’d seen, and the three fell into contemplation.

“The matters tied to this laboratory are even more complicated than I imagined,” Lin Juan summed up.

“For now, we only know there’s someone behind the laboratory. These people learned of the existence of weird phenomena far earlier than we expected and began experimenting with it long before we even detected it.”

Su Xingchen said, “I have some findings too. We checked the Archives Room, which we could never approach before. We found many personnel files marked with light gray marks. From our deductions, the light gray mark indicates observation subjects, while the deep gray mark means failed subjects. Only a few files lack any marks.”

Su Xingchen had specifically noted down the names without marks—they were people Lin Juan rarely interacted with, the top brass of this laboratory.

Lin Juan asked, “What about Chu Jifan? Does her file have a mark?”

Su Xingchen replied, “Yes, a light gray one, followed by a question mark. Yours, Mr. Lin, has a light gray mark with an exclamation point.”

Su Xingchen fetched paper and pen. “I’ll draw it for you to see.”

What they called gray marks were actually a pattern of overlapping wings. Lin Juan stared at the drawing, feeling it looked familiar—he must have seen it somewhere before.

“I saw this pattern,” Lin Juan said as he recalled. “In the first scene I witnessed, on the wall behind the god statue in the cathedral, there was a massive overlapping wings pattern. In the second scene, amid the destroyed laboratory, it was there too.”

“This pattern is a clue.” The three committed it to memory. Once outside, they could investigate starting from it and see what turned up.

“Tomorrow, I’ll go find Chu Jifan.” Lin Juan couldn’t shake the image of the woman in the underground prison. If she was Chu Jifan, then the current Chu Jifan surely bore some traces.

Conveniently, No. 1’s abnormality stemmed from that woman in the prison. Taking No. 1 to interact with Chu Jifan might yield new discoveries.

Thinking of No. 1, Lin Juan glanced at the eyeball sitting quietly in its containment box.

As its size grew, No. 1’s appearance had changed noticeably. A layer of fine fuzz had sprouted on its surface.

From the moment Lin Juan swatted it away until now, No. 1 had remained in the containment box without stirring.

The basketball-sized eyeball was now covered in fluffy black fuzz. When motionless, it resembled a plush toy, and it even felt nicer to touch than when it was bald.

Had he really damaged it with that swat?

Harboring doubts, Lin Juan approached the containment box and opened the lid.

No. 1 still didn’t move.

Lin Juan poked it. It twitched once per poke but stayed still otherwise. It no longer pressed against him the moment he approached or leaped out eagerly when he opened the lid.

“Could it be injured?” Sheng Tianzong knew how strong Lin Juan was—that hit hadn’t held back.

Especially since No. 1’s clinginess around Lin Juan had been obvious to all.

“It shouldn’t be that fragile, right?” Lin Juan scratched his cheek. True, he’d swung with the intent to knock it out, but a specimen that could take on all its kin single-handedly shouldn’t be this brittle.

“Then what’s wrong with it?” Su Xingchen wondered.

“Could it be…” As an experienced cat owner, Sheng Tianzong guessed, “It got hit and now feels aggrieved?”