One Kidney for Two

Watching the syringe of medicine slowly enter his veins, Li Wei smiled with an inscrutable expression.

"Doctor Fang, will I be fine after this injection?"

Doctor Fang instinctively avoided the gaze fixed on his eyes.

"Yes."

"Then thank you so much, Doctor."

"No need to thank me. It's my duty. I have other patients to see, so we'll stop here for today."

After speaking in a hurried manner, he pushed open the door and left the room. He looked more like he was fleeing in panic, utterly unwilling to face Li Wei.

"Mom and Dad" had a problem. The doctor had a problem. The injection that had just entered his body had a problem too!

Li Wei walked to the window and looked at the azure sky, blue as though freshly washed.

This town was most likely the biggest problem of all.

Yet Li Wei was not worried in the slightest. What he feared most in games was not encountering any problems. He wanted to see exactly what he would face next.

He lay quietly on the bed, and within minutes, Li Wei felt several deeply troubling changes occur in his body.

It was as if he was gradually losing his brain's control over his limbs. Other than remaining conscious, everything below his neck felt anesthetized, beyond either sensation or control!

Li Wei was certain that the "antibiotic" Doctor Fang had injected was taking effect.

He did not panic. He merely narrowed his eyes and silently watched the door.

Sure enough, before long, "Dad" pushed open the door and entered from outside.

Their gazes met. His eyes flickered, yet he did not look away.

"Xin Cheng, it's been seventeen years. Today, it's time you learned some things!"

Li Wei merely stared into his eyes, mimicking the personality and tone Xin Cheng should have had in his memories. His voice was anxious and panicked.

"Dad, I don't know why my body can't move! That crazy woman must have poisoned me. Doctor Fang's medicine didn't work!"

"Dad" walked to the bedside. As he spoke comforting words, he lifted the immobile Li Wei from the bed onto his back.

"It's all right. Dad will help you."

He carried Li Wei downstairs, with "Mom" following behind. She was no longer crying, but all her former tenderness and care were gone. Expressionless, she looked like a corpse.

"Mom and Dad" brought Li Wei out of the house and into the small storage shed behind the yard where miscellaneous items were kept.

Before being taken into the shed, Li Wei saw the figures hidden in the shadows along the street!

There were countless of them, as if everyone in the entire town had gathered near this street!

Among them, Li Wei vaguely spotted the lame woman in a white lab coat. A group of people had restrained her and covered her mouth. Her face was filled with agitation and fury, but no matter what she did, she could not break free.

The cramped storage shed was pitch-black, with an old wire-frame bed inside.

In Xin Cheng's memories, this was the bed he had slept in as a child. Later, after he grew taller, it had been thrown into the shed.

"Dad" placed Li Wei on the bed while "Mom" turned on a lamp.

Under the dim light, Li Wei saw "Mom" trembling as she carried a toolbox out of the corner. At the same time, "Dad" swiftly put on a blue surgical gown, mask, cap, and gloves.

"Xin Cheng, you actually aren't Mom and Dad's son. You're an experiment!"

"An experiment?"

Li Wei watched "Dad's" movements. The atmosphere in the shed was inexplicably chilling, as though something horrifying was about to happen.

"That's right, an experiment! An experiment that was meant to become humanity's greatest achievement! But an accident that should never have happened occurred today, causing the experiment to fail. The higher-ups have ordered that you must be destroyed!"

"But how could Mom and Dad willingly let you die like this?"

The only part of "Dad's" face visible, his eyes, was filled with unwillingness and resolve.

For a moment, Li Wei even had the illusion that he truly wanted to save him.

"Dad" took a deep breath and removed a scalpel and medical scissors from the toolbox "Mom" was holding.

"You are the culmination of Mom and Dad's seventeen years of effort. According to the original contract, if we raised you until you were twenty, we would receive everything we were supposed to get—enough to repay the seventeen years we spent raising you!"

"But now the experiment has failed. You'll be destroyed, and your mother and I will receive nothing. That means we've wasted seventeen years for nothing!"

"You've always loved Mom and Dad the most. You definitely wouldn't allow something like this to happen, would you!"

His voice suddenly became agitated. Blood filled his eyes, which looked as if they might burst from their sockets as he glared fiercely at Li Wei.

"Anyway, you're doomed to die! Then help Mom and Dad recover some of our losses one last time, all right? As a treasure created from the samples of 3.76 million outstanding men, Xin Cheng, every organ in your body is worth a fortune!"

"Mom and Dad don't want much. We'll only borrow one of your kidneys! After seventeen years of raising and caring for you, all you need to do is repay us with one kidney before you die!"

"You're a good child! You've always been a good child willing to listen to Mom and Dad! So you'll definitely agree, right!!!"

His face beneath the mask was twisted and hideous. Though his words sounded like a question, his hands did not care whether Li Wei agreed.

"Mom" unbuttoned Li Wei's shirt at the side while "Dad" found the left side of his waist and brought down the scalpel!

Under the dim light, tiny specks of dust drifted through the air. In that cramped space reeking of mold, a thick scent of blood was added.

Li Wei could not feel his body, so naturally, he felt no pain as his skin was cut open.

Such a gloomy, terrifying environment did not affect him.

He stared at the excited, nervous, savage, ugly faces of "Dad" and "Mom," unable to help marveling that the plot team was truly inventive.

"Mom and Dad" moved quickly. They were clearly hiding what they were doing from the people outside and did not dare waste too much time.

Before long, "Dad" removed a bloody organ from Li Wei's body!

"Mom" took out a cooler she had prepared beforehand and stored the organ away as if it were a treasure.

"Dad" removed his bloodstained surgical gown and looked at Li Wei, who had not cried, made a fuss, screamed, or uttered a single sound from beginning to end.

When his eyes met Li Wei's calm gaze, "Dad" froze. Uneasily, he asked,

"Xin... Xin Cheng? You... you don't hate Mom and Dad?"

Hearing his question, Li Wei chuckled. That smile alone made "Dad" take an involuntary step back.

"How could I hate you, Dad? Didn't you borrow this kidney from me? You can just pay me back with two kidneys later."

His words sounded innocent, as though he still had not understood the situation.

"Dad" was no fool. He had already sensed that something was wrong with his son.

But things had reached this point. No matter how much was wrong, death would soon erase it all.

"Fine! Dad promises you! If there's a next life, Dad will give you two kidneys!"

When that promise came from his mouth, it seemed as though it could ease the slight guilt and unease in his heart.

As he spoke, "Dad" lifted the oil drum in the shed and splashed the entire barrel of gasoline throughout the room. The pungent smell instantly flooded the cramped space.

"Mom" quickly cleaned away the bloodstains and changed Li Wei into a brand-new set of clothes, concealing the stitched-up wound at his waist.

"Mom and Dad" did not look at Li Wei again. They placed the cooler containing the kidney in the shed's basement, then hurried out of the little room together.

Li Wei merely watched them silently and murmured in a voice only he could hear.

"There's no need to wait until the next life to repay a debt."

But "Mom and Dad" were destined not to hear him. They emerged from the shed together, appropriate grief and sorrow on their faces.

The people who had been hiding in the shadows had already openly surrounded the entire shed. Looking at "Mom and Dad," who had only just come out, Doctor Fang—the nominal highest-ranking administrator of this testing ground—frowned and stepped forward.

"Why did it take so long? If you hadn't begged me to leave you some private space, I would have gone in to check."

"Dad" looked utterly dejected as he spoke in a dry voice.

"After raising a son for seventeen years, anyone would need time to accept it, wouldn't they?"

His performance drew sympathy from some of the experiment's participants. Xin Cheng had grown up under everyone's watchful eyes. Even if he was an experiment, many of them had developed feelings for him.

Not to mention the "Mom and Dad" who had lived with him day and night.

Doctor Fang sighed, stubbed out the cigarette in his hand, and said nothing more. Instead, he walked to the shed entrance and peered inside.

After clearly seeing Li Wei lying intact upon the wire-frame bed, he did not go inside. He turned around again, faced away from the shed, and waved a hand.

A lit lighter was tossed into the gasoline. Flames erupted instantly, completely swallowing the little storage shed in seconds!

"626!"

A grief-stricken shout echoed beneath the blue sky.

The silver-haired, lame girl knelt on the grass with vacant eyes. The matter had become irreversible, and no one around her restrained her anymore.

She simply stared blankly at the shed engulfed in flames as two streams of tears slid uncontrollably down her pale cheeks.

The people around her looked at her with disgust.

Everyone at this testing ground believed that the lame girl named Feng Zi was the true culprit behind Xin Cheng's death!

But because of her identity, no one dared do anything to her.

Feng Zi had fallen into utter despair. She did not care in the slightest how those so-called researchers, who had already lost their humanity, viewed her.

She had fought desperately to return to this land, where her father had poured all his effort, hoping to reclaim the things that had been defiled.

Today's desperate gamble was her final attempt.

The key and the biohuman would produce a reaction beyond everyone's imagination. This was a taboo among taboos!

Feng Zi could only place her hopes on that taboo, which had always existed in legend, yet whose consequences no one knew.

Perhaps it would let the people at this testing ground see his value. Perhaps they would be willing to keep him for further research, or even send him to the Disciplinary Bureau, rather than brainwashing him into some so-called erotic toy.

But these people would rather burn 626 to death!

They left no room for compromise and cared nothing for any feelings!

"123! Pull!"

A shout rang out. In the distance, the demolition crew that had rushed over after receiving the news began dismantling the testing ground. Half of the azure sky that Xin Cheng had praised in essays since childhood came crashing down.

Behind the false sky were heavy, low-hanging clouds, grayness burying everything. That was the real sky, oppressive enough to make people unable to breathe!

The vast buildings surrounding this "theater" also began to be demolished one by one. The wind thick with ash and haze finally claimed this superficially bright and beautiful land without restraint.

It lifted the hem of Feng Zi's white lab coat and swept through the silver hair before her forehead.

Her sapphire-blue eyes coldly watched the people who had stopped watching and gradually dispersed, preparing to leave this testing ground.

This experiment, which should have lasted twenty years, had failed halfway through. These people were all considering what arrangements the company would make for them next. For researchers, they had to demonstrate their research value to their employers, or they would lose everything.

Research?

That was merely the title those profit-seeking hyenas gave to their bloodsucking, flesh-eating acts!

Feng Zi clenched her fists and memorized every face here!