Jiu De Mayi carefully planted miniature pinhole cameras, listening devices, and other equipment in the corners. The devices she used were all concealed surveillance tools, capable of being hidden in cracks in the walls, ceilings, furniture, and similar places.
They consumed little power and were highly durable, able to record and monitor for long periods. They were indispensable for home burglary prevention, theft prevention, cuckold prevention, as well as eavesdropping, stealing, and covert photography while out and about.
Including the few trackers she had already attached, Jiu De Mayi had finally used up nearly all the small devices she had brought.
Damn, this place is huge. I'm about to die from exhaustion!
Jiu De Mayi felt a faint resentment born of having her nerves stretched taut for so long. However, as a ninja who had received professional training, she had excellent discipline. Though the work was grueling, she would never handle it carelessly.
The main issue was this damn place... Chen Family's base had several signal jammers. She had to keep running around to find suitable spots to tuck away her equipment. Some key laboratories were particularly important, but security was tight, so she could only install devices outside...
Sigh, if the signals could not get out, the devices could only save their recordings locally, and she would have to make another trip to retrieve them...
The hazy black smoke formed by Word of Power: Underworld Reflection drifted through the building late at night. By now, she had more or less confirmed the key locations.
First of all, most of this industrial park consisted of high-tech research institutes, medical institutions, biological research facilities, and supporting data centers invested in by the Chen Family. The place most likely connected to Death Servant research was a medical institution beside an inspection and testing center.
She had gathered a large number of imported goods manifests from inside.
Well, the contents of the manifests were not important. They were definitely sanitized information anyway. The problem was the sources listed on them.
The goods mainly came from two sources: one was a South American gang, and the other was a gang from East Asia... Why were they both gangs?
If they were gangs, then there was a problem... A huge problem.
Jiu De Mayi curled her lips. As someone from East Asia, she knew the situation back home very well. The local gang group, the Yaqi Eight Families, could be called the leader of the entire country's underworld.
There was also the Fierce Ghost Society, a gang organization made up of dangerous hybrids. However, most members of the Fierce Ghost Society had defected from the Yaqi Eight Families... Those two organizations essentially encompassed or controlled all the hybrids in the country. People like Jiu De Mayi and Emiya, who had gone out on their own, were instead in the minority.
Then, if they had established ties with hybrid organizations, and the goods required secret transactions, the ultimate purpose could basically be narrowed down to the same old fields: dragon blood research, Bloodline Potion experiments, and the like. It was hardly surprising that Death Servants were involved.
Jiu De Mayi had never heard of the other South American gang involved in the smuggling on the list she collected. After flipping through the documents for a long time, she finally found one valuable name:
"Boar Neo."
What a strange nickname. Jiu De Mayi shrugged after seeing it. She had never heard of it. She would have Chip Girl look into it later.
Human trafficking seemed rampant in South America. Could the Chen Family have been purchasing South American hybrids in bulk for bloodline experiments, thus creating Death Servants?
As Jiu De Mayi pondered, she left that medical institution full of hidden mysteries and returned to the inspection and testing center that the Chen Family Eldest Miss had entered at the beginning.
This was probably the place with the biggest problems besides that institution.
There clearly were no research projects here, yet the Chen Family Head had mercilessly escorted his own daughter inside.
From afar, Jiu De Mayi saw the ghastly white corridor beneath dense beams of light hanging from the high ceiling. Nono had been escorted from here into its depths.
At this moment, everything was utterly silent. The world was terrifyingly quiet. The pitch-black depths at the end of the corridor resembled a savage monster waiting to devour someone, as though disturbing it would inevitably summon deadly fangs to tear and gnaw at her.
Jiu De Mayi remembered that she had also attached a device to Nono. She had no idea what the Little Witch would encounter, but she could retrieve it and take a look later.
"?"
She tilted her head. Had she heard a scream?
In a hazy dream, a terrifyingly cold mechanical voice repeated again and again, "Frigga Three refuses to answer. Increase the intensity. The forty-fifth execution begins!"
An endless feeling of suffocation surged in from all directions for who knew how many times. Nono was nearly driven mad by pain as she fell toward a bottomless black abyss.
Then, at some point, the clatter of chains suddenly rang beside her ears. Bone-piercing cold forced Nono awake from that terrible dream.
—When she opened her eyes, she found nothing but darkness before her. She had been bound to a solid metal torture rack, tightly secured by heavy chains, as if she were some dangerous hybrid... Wait, why did this place look exactly like the scene in her dream?
The good news was that what had just happened was a dream.
The bad news was that the dream had become true.
Nono raised her pale little face. At that moment, a blinding light like a surgical lamp in a hospital shone down on her, forcing her to close her eyes at once.
The mechanical voice, every bit as cold as it had been in the dream, issued a merciless declaration into her ear:
"Frigga Three, begin your statement. Clearly describe the scene of the 'bloodline memory' you obtained through spiritual vision. Note that metaphors, rhetorical questions, hints, and other rhetorical devices are forbidden in such statements."
What? Nono was full of question marks. She had barely had any opportunity for spiritual vision, so where had this bizarre bloodline memory come from...
Wait, could it be referring to... those words the Ninja Master had taught her before?
"Please be mindful of the time, Frigga Three. Based on the conclusion drawn from the previous-generation sample, 'Frigga Two,' the interval between executions has been extended according to convention. You have ten minutes to recall it."
The mechanical voice withdrew for a break, and the surgical lamp abruptly dimmed. Thinking of the scene in her dream, Nono trembled faintly as she raised her eyes and looked around. At last, she saw the tall, thick, sturdy alloy walls surrounding the dark room, their surfaces gleaming coldly, as well as the source of her deadened despair beside her.
—There were two identical torture racks. Among the metal chains covered in a layer of dust were tangled red hairs she knew all too well, hanging in midair like dried, congealed specimens of dark blood threads...
Nono turned her head slightly and looked down. She could barely make out the nearer torture rack... Beneath its metal chains sat a dark-brown coffin-like container. Sure enough, a silent red-haired corpse floated in the colorless liquid within—
The color drained from Nono's face, leaving it deathly pale. Her profiling ability almost activated on its own, flooding her mind with information: cloning, formaldehyde, dozens of interrogations, and more...
That was undoubtedly another her... the corpse of another Frigga test subject!
So she was a clone, a copy of Frigga Zero—the real "Chen Motong"!
So her memories, her past, were fake...
That included the deceased mother she cherished and the family that disgusted her enough to make her want to vomit... Everything she possessed had originally belonged to the real Chen Motong.
And she had never possessed anything of her own. From body to soul, she was the lingering shadow of someone else, a false mask!
What Little Witch? What Chen Family Eldest Miss? It was all merely a beautiful outer shell painstakingly woven together. Once stripped away, the noble halo would vanish like smoke, and her vivid days would become emptiness.
A moment later, the blinding white light suddenly flared on.
With a beep, the chains tightened even further, forcibly binding Nono back to her bleak reality from the despair rapidly rising within her.
The mechanical voice sounded again. "Frigga Three, time has expired. You have not provided a meaningful statement. Increase the intensity. Begin the forty-sixth execution."
"Aaaaaah—"
Thanks to @Lord Wuchen @I'm Lucky, Not Unlucky @Singing While Delivering Oil @Hugs @Bookworm
Thanks to 20231025204041080, Book Friend 20170517230712682, Ye Hua, Book Friend 20210312220901478, Mountain Ghost, One Day Down, Sero Ultraman 21, Book Friend 20210301106463375354, Rain Sheep Bookworm, Chubby Mouse, and the Eighteen-Year-Old Bookworm of the New Book Section for the monthly votes!
Before you continue