Twisted

Military Base.

General Vick walked heavily past wrecked jeeps and charred craters. The acrid stench of burnt oil and the stifling heat scorched his skin, making his gloomy face burn.

Quite a few soldiers were carrying blackened or mangled bodies away on stretchers.

Some were still alive, groaning in pain.

The place was utterly like a disaster site after a battle.

At the same time, General Vick knew that his path as a general had come to an end.

Two soldiers from a military base five hundred miles away passed by carrying a stretcher.

General Vick halted with a grim expression. Behind him stood Colonel Violet, blonde and blue-eyed, with a face like a porcelain doll and no expression at all.

General Vick's face darkened further. On the stretcher lay Brigadier General Kagel, his body severed in two at the waist, white spinal bones exposed, his face twisted in terror and hatred, his eyes still wide open in death.

The stretcher moved away.

General Vick withdrew his gaze. Beneath its heavy gloom was a trace of fury.

He was furious that Ba Di had slipped beyond his control, furious at his subordinates' incompetence.

He was furious that the aliens had failed to appreciate their situation, causing his initial gains to come to nothing.

As for the soldiers' deaths, there was nothing to be angry about. Dying for one's country was only natural.

A communications soldier caught up with General Vick, saluted, and reported, "General, we have a lead on Ba Di."

The gloom on General Vick's face turned fierce, cold fury flashing in his eyes.

The soldier continued, "Ba Di fought an Eagle Fighter Jet near the Snake River while piloting an Apache Helicopter, and shot down the fighter jet."

"By the time our soldiers arrived, they found only the wreckage of the helicopter and the fighter jet."

"We preliminarily suspect that Ba Di fled upstream along the Snake River. We are searching for him now."

General Vick gave his order with restrained fury. "Search with all your strength."

The soldier acknowledged the order and left.

General Vick raised his head and surveyed the military base. The charred, shattered buildings and the wounded soldiers' dying wails only made the rage in his heart deepen.

This base was finished. His career as a general would likely be impossible to preserve.

Nearly eight thousand soldiers had died. If they had died in the Cold War with the Soviet Union, no one would have objected. But they had died at the hands of an alien he had deliberately concealed. That was far too troublesome.

General Vick could only use an error in the human-soldier research to evade responsibility. Under no circumstances could he reveal that Ba Di was an alien.

Only then would everyone see value in it, and only then could he remain a general.

Naturally, he would have to hand over some actual technology.

General Vick's eyes lit up.

Amid the ruins, the only building that could still be considered intact was the Medical Building. He headed toward it.

The heavy smells of Formalin, Lysol, and disinfectant wafted over, making his nose itch uncomfortably as it struggled to adjust.

Wounded soldiers constantly entered and exited the Medical Building, while others who were gravely injured and near death were carried inside.

But it was clearly not enough. There were too many injured. Those with lighter wounds were receiving makeshift treatment on cloths spread over the ground beside the entrance. Soldiers from other bases had come to help, bringing a large number of medicines and doctors. Only then could the wounded be properly treated.

The scene was filled with frantic activity and cries of pain and grief, as though he had returned to a treatment camp for wounded soldiers after a war.

Even General Vick's face changed at the sight, becoming even more grim.

Violet followed him into the Medical Building, her expression unchanged.

The Medical Building was merely a small, three-story structure.

On the third floor, Jenny stared blankly with lifeless eyes. Bloodshot veins spread across the whites of her eyes and into her pupils. They were dry, painfully irritated, and especially terrifying. She had cried until no tears remained. In utter despair, her heart had died.

Yet her hands still clutched the small red box tightly, her finger joints white, veins bulging beneath her snow-white skin. She held it so tightly, so tightly. Even when she underwent surgery to remove the bullet that had caused her such agonizing pain—

She had never opened the red box.

Did it contain a ring, or Ba Di's heart, or her hopes, or despair? When General Vick arrived and saw Jenny like this, the rage in his heart nearly exploded. He wanted nothing more than to strangle Jenny to death with his bare hands.

Jenny had played a crucial role in Ba Di's escape from the base.

If this foolish woman had not fallen in love with Ba Di and been used by him to take him to the Negative First Floor to bask in the sun, how could Ba Di have escaped?

Jenny bore ninety percent of the responsibility for all of this.

As for the rest, General Vick had never guessed that Ba Di had endured for a year and three months, learning all their personalities, mentalities, behaviors, and habits before finally gaining his freedom.

It was not something that could be accomplished merely through Jenny's love.

It was also because every one of them had their own flaws and limitations that Ba Di had been able to exploit them.

But General Vick did not care about any of that. He was the one in power and had every right to blame those beneath him. If he said you were wrong, then you were wrong.

A towering rage surged up in General Vick's heart. His fingers twitched several times as he wanted to draw his gun from his waist and shoot Jenny dead on the spot.

But he could no longer afford such a loss. Jenny's biological knowledge was far too important—important enough for him to endure this anger and force it down.

Ba Di had seen this very point in General Vick, which was why he had not taken Jenny with him. If he had taken her along, they would have had no chance of survival in the aerial battle.

To General Vick, Jenny was an extremely important researcher. In some respects, she was even more important than Slade and Dean Bo Li. That was why General Vick could suppress his rage. He could not afford to lose anything valuable again.

Compared with the value Jenny had created in the past and would create in the future, his anger was not worth mentioning. General Vick deeply suppressed his fury.

He appeared before Jenny, his face icy and his voice carrying a terrifying rage pressed deep within his throat. "Ba Di deceived you. He deceived everyone."

Upon hearing Ba Di's name, a trace of life finally appeared in Jenny's bloodshot pupils. Her tightly pressed lips conveyed unbearable pain, while the white-knuckled fingers clutching the red box could not tighten any further.

"He has been using you." General Vick's voice was frighteningly dark.

The pain in Jenny's eyes deepened, the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes twisting as though they were about to burst.

"Using your love for him."

Jenny's hands trembled. She gritted her teeth, her face contorted.

"Using your love to escape this place."

Her entire body began trembling uncontrollably.

"To him, you are nothing but an object."

"Something he can discard once he has used it."

General Vick's words stabbed into Jenny's deepest pain. Remembering Ba Di's cold, merciless gun barrel aimed at her and the shot he had fired at her, Jenny could not stop shaking.

"Shut up!!"

Jenny abruptly sprang up from the bed, her eyes wide with fury and her face twisted. After screaming sharply, she clenched her teeth in utter agony.

General Vick glared at her with a chillingly cold gaze. "Isn't that the truth?"

"He destroyed everything I had and destroyed your love."

"Do you still want to be with him?"

Jenny froze, staring at General Vick with bloodshot eyes.

Of course she did. How could she not? Ba Di was the one she loved most.

General Vick's words were like a drop of ink falling into clear water, instantly polluting and twisting Jenny's love.

"We will catch him. We only need your help."

"He is your most beloved biological specimen. How can you let him escape?"

"He can only stay in a cage. Don't you want him?"

Her eyes widened further, and her face slowly twisted into madness. She plunged her fingers into the bullet wound beneath her collarbone, deep into the flesh. Blood flowed from the wound, staining the bandaged gauze red. The intense pain stimulated her mind as never before, bringing a lucid, warped clarity.

"Ba Di..." Her face was crazed and her gaze icy. Blood ran down from her wound as resentment and unwillingness filled her voice.

General Vick watched Jenny with a cold expression, narrowing his eyes slightly.

"Get up. You need to see what a heartless alien beast he truly is."

Jenny's crazed face suddenly filled with anger. Her eyes turned glacial as she shouted coldly, "Shut up."

With that, she lowered her bare feet onto the icy floor and followed behind General Vick out of the room.