"Cough... cough, cough! Who are you, and where are you going?" Yu Jing asked between violent coughs.
"I'm the director of the research institute responsible for overseeing the test in which the seven of you participated. Your current condition is unusual. Come back to the institute with me. I have something important to discuss with you—your future, and whether you can successfully save your mother."
"You!"
When Yu Jing heard the other man's identity, anger surged within him, but he held himself back from acting recklessly.
"I know you're very dissatisfied with our slaughter of innocent lives, but if we didn't do this, society would have collapsed long ago. If you want to know everything, come with me."
Perhaps because of Yu Jing's unusual nature—and because the director cared somewhat about Yu Jing himself—the usually inscrutable director actually revealed matters involving the fundamental secrets of this world.
Yu Jing stood there for a moment, pondering those words, then immediately followed the director.
"Don't these corpses need to be dealt with?" Yu Jing asked.
"My 'friend' will naturally take care of them."
Yu Jing felt a chill sweep up from behind him. When he turned around, he saw a humanoid figure surrounded by swirling black energy crouching on a tree branch in the woods behind the shattered corpses, seemingly watching the two of them leave.
The instant a pale yellow eye met Yu Jing's gaze, every hair on his body stood on end, and cold sweat soaked through the back of his clothes.
"Hurry up and follow me!"
The director's voice brought Yu Jing back to his senses. The terrifying creature crouching on the branch was no longer visible. He immediately ran toward the director's black sedan parked on the road outside the woods.
Inside the sedan traveling along the highway, the heater dispelled the chill from Yu Jing's body.
"What was that black thing just now?" Yu Jing couldn't restrain his curiosity and asked when they were halfway through the journey.
"You'll find out in due time. Knowing about it now won't do you any good. Don't speak to me again until we reach the institute. I'm currently analyzing and organizing what happened today. I'm also considering whether I should really leave you alive. After all, in practical terms, you were already nothing more than a pile of flesh."
There was no hint of a joke in the director's words. However, Yu Jing wasn't afraid. If the man had wanted to kill him, he would already have been separated from his head in the wilderness outside the city.
After traveling more than two hundred kilometers, the black sedan arrived around four in the morning at the original testing site in the A-Class City of District 19. Under the director's guidance, Yu Jing walked toward the institute's entrance.
"I remember that when we participated in the test, the bronze door was two meters farther to the left than it is now."
"During the test, our examiner gave you a score of ninety-eight for your ability to observe things. It seems that assessment was accurate."
The director took a Black Card from his pocket and swiped it across the side of the bronze door. The instant the door opened, the structure of the passage within subtly shifted, allowing the corridor to lead directly to the deepest part of the institute.
Yu Jing followed behind the director through a straight passage much like the one he had traversed during the test. The wallpaper on both sides, covered in overlapping patterned circles, seemed to affect his vision.
"So it was a visual illusion. It made me think that what I saw ahead and the path beneath my feet were one straight corridor, but in reality, we've been walking through a complicated network of hallways, right?"
The director did not reply. He walked to the front and opened another bronze door at the end.
The two of them entered a pure white room. As the bronze door closed, it completely cut off everything outside.
At the center of the room, a white square table and two chairs facing each other formed themselves out of the floor.
"Please sit. What follows is an important matter we need to negotiate, as well as the key questioning that will determine whether I deem you worthy of survival. Think carefully and answer me seriously."
In the pure white room, Yu Jing and the mysterious director sat opposite each other at either end of the white square table.
"Do you have any clothes that fit me? These driver's clothes are a little too large, and they have a strong odor inside that's making me uncomfortable. It might affect my conversation with you."
Yu Jing actually made a request before the director.
"Place your palm on the tabletop in front of you. The system will customize clothing that fits your measurements."
Yu Jing had already seen the spray that could rapidly regenerate flesh during the test, so he was no longer surprised by the advanced technology displayed by the institute. As he placed his palm flat on the white tabletop, a projected screen appeared before him, allowing him to select the style and color of his clothes.
In the end, Yu Jing still chose the same gray hooded sweatshirt and ordinary jeans as before. After changing out of the foul-smelling driver's clothes and into the well-fitting garments temporarily constructed by the institute, he felt much more comfortable all over.
"Since I've fulfilled your request, it's my turn to ask questions. First, tell me everything about the process of your resurrection, as well as your understanding—based on your own observations and deductions—of the foreign object inside your body."
When the director made this request, Yu Jing clearly sensed the atmosphere change. Any lie or concealment would be detected by the lie-detection equipment in the room.
Yu Jing thought to himself:
I don't understand much about the changes in my body, the resurrection process, or the plant in my arm. Perhaps I can obtain some useful information from this director. If I want to survive, I have to cooperate with his questions. At the same time, I need to choose my words carefully.
Having thought this through, Yu Jing held nothing back. He told the director everything about his physical condition and his deductions—the prickling sensation when his palm touched the floor in the slaughterhouse, the plant's hunger for nutrients, and the fact that his conscious will could exert a certain degree of control over the foreign object in his arm.
"As expected, construction materials with an atomic-scale structure can't prevent this life-form from invading. But you really are lucky. You actually managed to coexist with an unknown and dangerous object inside your body. Let me show you some classified data sealed away by the government in the desert during your test..."
The director operated a program on the tabletop, displaying photographs collected from the corpses of experimental personnel and soldiers in the desert.
The clothing on the corpses in the photographs was completely intact, but their flesh had all withered into mummies, without a trace of excess nutrients remaining in their bodies.
"Any life-form that comes into contact with this plant has all the energy in its body completely drained within one second."
"Why didn't that happen to me?" When Yu Jing heard the director's explanation, his right arm began to tingle.
Before you continue