Translator: Bambootriangle
Translation Checker: Rin
Editor: DragonFae
The two drove away from Greenfly City, swapping driving as they drove on the highway for nearly twenty hours. The last city they passed through was Tongkou City. They passed by the Zhengyuan Restaurant at the intersection of Fengcheng South Road and Hongya Road and stopped in for a meal, before setting off again.
Due to the confidential nature of Research Institute 109, its specific location was prohibited from being displayed on ordinary navigation software, but Instructor K gave them the satellite coordinates in advance.
Bai Chunian also had some predictions about the specific location of that place. At the Triangular Pyramid Cabin, Invisible Stalker copied twenty-eight rooms. The clock time in each room represented the time when they arrived in that room. Therefore, it could be roughly calculated that after leaving Tongkou City, it only took about an hour’s drive to reach the Institute headquarters.
The headquarters of 109 Research Institute was located on an unregulated border, surrounded by the sea on three sides, making it very convenient to discharge industrial waste. Some of the equipment used tidal energy to generate electricity, saving energy to the greatest extent. In a certain smart person’s mind, it was an excellent location.
They stayed in Tongkou City for three hours longer than expected because Bai Chunian had an impromptu decision to go to Aileen’s private house to investigate. In case there was an extra synthesis booster hidden in her safe or under her pillow, they could save some time.
But it was not that simple; Aileen’s private house looked like it had been uninhabited for a long time. Only the gardener was still pruning the lush pine branches in the garden.
Rimbaud secretly avoided the nanny and housekeeper and climbed into the villa to search. Bai Chunian dressed up as a humble job applicant and took a forged resume to inquire about the whereabouts of Aileen with the gardener.
Regarding the owner’s whereabouts, the gardener only said that she probably went to work or on a business trip. When Bai Chunian asked more carefully, the gardener said that a month ago, Professor Xiao Yang, who was staying in the villa, drove away with his luggage. It seemed that he was going on a long trip, and Aileen herself watched Xiao Yang leave from the second floor before hurrying back to the Research Institute. There must have been some problem at work and she hurried back to deal with it. No one else came in or out of the villa during this period.
Aileen was a workaholic. She usually lived directly in the Research Institute. It was common for her not to go home for several weeks in a row. Therefore, the nanny, housekeeper, gardener and the others at home also worked as usual and didn’t think there was anything strange about it.
After investigating to no avail, Bai Chunian and Rimbaud drove directly to their destination.
After leaving Tongkou City, there were no flat and spacious asphalt roads to go on. The surrounding scenery also changed from neatly trimmed street trees to barren weeds. The road became increasingly bumpy. Fortunately, they were driving an off-road vehicle and it wouldn’t get knocked to pieces.
After a silver building with a 22nd century technology appearance appeared in sight, Bai Chunian parked the car on a reverse slope and used weeds to cover the car. The entire car had been covered with Han Xingqian’s M2 ability, Hurricane’s Eye, so that the car’s signal would not be interfered by any instrument, could not be tracked by cruise missiles, could not be detected by radar, nor would it be detected by the Institute’s military high precision enemy radar.
It was hot and humid this season and the weeds were full of mosquitoes. Bai Chunian opened the car window, looked down at the map and patted Rimbaud’s fishtail. The fishtail lit up with lightning blue light and swarms of mosquitoes buzzed and flew in. When they got into the car, they instantly got electrocuted, their bodies littering the ground.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“That’s it. It seems that there are no security guards at the doors open to the public.” Bai Chunian stuffed the map back into his backpack, “Didn’t you find anything like an ID card in Aileen’s room?”
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“The gardener said that except for Aileen and Xiao Yang, no one had entered or left the villa within this month. Aileen had left on her own, while Xiao Yang dragged a suitcase. The weapons were taken away by Xiao Yang. Seems like they weren’t going the same way.” Bai Chunian casually stuffed the key into his zipper pocket and glanced at the time on his watch. “It’s seven o’clock in the evening.”
He checked the equipment and glanced at Rimbaud sitting in the passenger seat.
Rimbaud lowered his head and counted the bullets in the gun one by one.
“What are you thinking about?” Bai Chunian leaned forward to Rimbaud’s side while leaning on the seat.
“This is the place I escaped from. In my nearly three hundred years of life, the experiences of these three years cannot be erased from my memory. It is very ridiculous for a group of human beings who claim to be superior to come together to dissect and study me.” Rimbaud raised his head and the orange clouds of the evening gradually darkened. The Research Institute Building in the distance was still dark, the windows were closed and no one came in or out.
He was betrayed and expelled by his tribe and then taken into a laboratory for transformation. He didn’t even blink when those sharp scalpels cut his body, he just felt bored.
Looking at Rimbaud’s increasingly gloomy face, Bai Chunian was afraid from the bottom of his heart that he would remember the day Pearl was forcibly taken out of his body, but Rimbaud didn’t mean to reminisce about sad things. He raised his hand and put it on Bai Chunian’s head. “Randi, I actually care a lot about the way you look at me when I twist off a human’s head.”
He rubbed Bai Chunian’s black hair. “Would you prefer a me who is compassionate and merciful?”
“I only like your true appearance.” Bai Chunian took Rimbaud’s head, kissed him wetly and murmured in a low voice, “Cry when you want to cry and laugh when you want to laugh. You are reliable when you are majestic, and you are cute when you feel aggrieved. Pretending is a dishonorable act, you don’t need to learn it.”
A faint smile appeared on Rimbaud’s lips. “Goon. (Let’s go)”
According to Professor Lin Deng’s recollection, the testing room was located on the 15th underground floor in the westernmost part of the Institute. If you wanted to go down, you had to take the public elevator or go down the stairs on foot. When you reached the required floor in the public elevator, you needed to swipe your ID card, thus they could only go down the stairs.
They got out of the car. Bai Chunian gathered weeds and completely hid the car in the incline pit. This place was still about a thousand meters away from the Research Institute. They carried small, close-fitting equipment bags on their backs and wore combat uniforms, standing in the weeds. Under the cover of darkness, they moved towards the silver building.
“It’s a quarter past seven and the security guard at the stairs will change soon. We only have five minutes.”
They climbed along the sea cliff behind the Institute and walked around to the westernmost side of the Institute. Bai Chunian used his Bone Armor fingers to cut open the steel protective exterior window, then opened it and jumped in silently.
Rimbaud climbed in, moved the steel protective window back to its original position, touched the interface with his hands, and a string of electric sparks flashed, with which the steel window was welded back to how it was before.
The protective window they climbed through was about ten meters above the ground. Bai Chunian had the inherent ability to walk silently and his limbs could land silently no matter how high he fell. Rimbaud then jumped down with a dagger in his mouth and landed on Bai Chunian’s shoulder. The alpha was used as a cushion, then he gently placed him on the ground without making any sound.
Rimbaud remained in a fish-tailed state, wearing a moisturizing bandage and carrying a small equipment bag.
When Bai Chunian landed, he pulled out a tactical dagger from the outside of his thigh with his left hand. He was already ready to kill the security guard in the air and put on his security uniform to sneak in. Unexpectedly, he missed the target.
Because there was none.
Not only was there no one, but there were no lights inside the building. It should not have been completely dark at 7:15 in the evening, but the walls of the entire first-floor hall were completely sealed and opaque. It was pitch black inside and eerily quiet.
This was somewhat different from the expected situation.
“The situation is unknown, don’t be careless.” Bai Chunian held the tactical dagger behind his back in his left hand, raised his hand to signal Rimbaud to follow him, and moved slowly against the wall.
Bai Chunian’s hearing was the most sensitive, but at this time he could not hear any footsteps or breathing. It couldn’t be ruled out that the sound insulation effect of the walls of the Institute was good, but Bai Chunian could at least be sure that the large flat space on the first floor where they are located did not have any signs of life.
Rimbaud climbed onto the wall, adhering to the metal structure of the wall like a gecko. He flicked the tip of his tail and the fishtail flashed with blue light, and he climbed on the wall for lighting.
The first floor of the Institute’s headquarters was basically used for display and reception of partners. Various special medicines and artificial intelligence products were placed on the luxurious glass display stand. This was also the industry that 109 Research Institute used as a front to the outside world. If it were not for IOA having obtained strong evidence one after another during the past two years to expose the evil side of the Institute, many ordinary people would still be kept in the dark, thinking that the Institute was just a technology company with strength and technology. However, many people were still stubborn and as long as their investment returned and they profited, they didn’t care about the truth.
After confirming that there was no one on this floor, Bai Chunian turned on the flashlight and checked every corner.
The hall was quite spacious and the distance between various furnishings was very wide. Bai Chunian found a July issue of a science and technology magazine and a cup of fruit tea on the resting table next to the display shelf—it had long dried, covered in mold with the tea stuck to the bottom of the glass. White mucor mold covered it, with some tiny flying insect corpses scattered inside and outside the glass.
In addition to being dark, the hall was also very stuffy. When Crawler pulled the construction drawings, he said that the outer wall of this science and technology building was made of insulation material and the inner layer was made of a waterproof and vapor barrier film. The gaps were also sealed with materials with good sealing properties. The entire building had very good thermal insulation. The hall was heated by central air conditioning. The fresh air system was also extremely well-designed. Some independent display rooms use independent fans to control the indoor air.
In other words, even in the hot summer months, a brief power outage would never make the room feel stuffy.
Bai Chunian touched the elevator entrance and pressed the buttons for each elevator, but none of them lit up. Apparently the backup power supply had been exhausted.
At this time, Rimbaud also climbed back from the wall and said, “The riot tool cabinet in the corner has been broken and everything in it has been emptied.”
“Come on, let’s find the stairs.”
Bai Chunian has memorized the map of the entire institute in his mind. He had a strong sense of direction and rarely lost his way in the dark. Of course, this was also the basic quality of an IOA agent.
The hydraulic steel door at the stairway was locked and a code device was embedded in the wall next to it. However, due to the power outage, the cipher screen was dark. Even if they had the decoder given by instructor K, it would not help.
Bai Chunian used his J1 ability, Bone Armor. His strengthened left hand broke through the thick steel hydraulic door, reached into the door, and groped inside to find the artificial latch. Rimbaud climbed over the door and lay against the wall waiting for the door to open.
Suddenly, Bai Chunian’s body stiffened.
There seemed to be something cold and stiff touching the fingertips of his left hand inside the door. He clearly felt the movement and probing of the hard object.
It was a living thing.
Bai Chunian felt the hairs on his back stand on end, and a chill exploded from his scalp. He wanted to withdraw his hand, but the cold hand caught him and clasped him one finger at a time tightly.
The powerful force prevented Bai Chunian from easily withdrawing his hand, and an eerie chill began to spread along his fingers.
He calmly pulled out the tactical dagger with his right hand and cut off his left hand from the wrist without hesitation. Blood spurted out. Bai Chunian quickly retreated and silently leaned against the wall. The blood splattering from the severed hand stained a large portion of the floor and wall.
Bai Chunian pulled out the pistol from the side of his leg and pointed it coldly at the door. Rimbaud narrowed his eyes and looked at the monster behind the door fiercely.
A soft sound of a manual latch being opened came from behind the steel hydraulic door.
With a creak, the door slowly opened. Two black figures suddenly appeared behind the door.
Bai Chunian raised his flashlight and shined it in front. What appeared in the bright light was a pale hellish face with black and red cross lines.
Eris stood behind the door, his right hand interlocked with the fingers of Bai Chunian’s severed left hand. His originally puzzled expression became wonderful the moment he saw Bai Chunian.
“Oh! Da-ge, so it’s your hand.”
“…” Bai Chunian gritted his teeth, flicked his left wrist, and a brand new left hand quickly regenerated.
Rimbaud wrapped his tail around the door frame and hung upside down, and knocked Eris with a punch.
“How unlucky.”
You’re really got to hand it to our feisty lion. When things look to be getting out of hand he’s there to lend a hand to our favourite psycho
I see I see, pretending is a dishonorable act.
LOL welcome back to thw act eris XD
I’d say I find ur devotion to puppet master cute. I hope ur more feeling and hooman now tho–
Thank You for the new chapter ٩(*ゝڡ◕๑)۶♥
Aye reply and comments be poop sorry for those unrelated replies i make 😆