When Wang Ke returned to the laboratory, most of the researchers had already left.
He entered the surveillance room and sat down in his usual seat.
When he looked up at the wall packed with monitors, his eyes instinctively went to the feed from No. 002's room.
A familiar figure was sitting inside.
No. 002 had come back to life, completely unharmed.
He stared, dumbfounded, too shocked to speak.
He didn't even hear his colleague calling him.
His colleague walked over and followed his gaze, then understood why he was so shocked.
"You're looking at No. 002?"
Wang Ke snapped out of it and nodded, his brain struggling to function. "He... wasn't he..."
"Dead?" His colleague interrupted, finishing the thought for him.
Wang Ke nodded blankly.
His colleague laughed and patted his shoulder. "Did your time off turn your brain to mush? No. 002 never dies."
As though a circuit had finally connected, realization flashed through Wang Ke's mind. "You mean... this is a clone?"
His colleague murmured an assent, then added more precisely, "In biological terms, yes, he's a clone. But there's no clone in the world more successful than No. 002. It's almost like regeneration. He has his original memories, his original emotions..."
"The professor once tried to clone No. 002 in batches, but he never succeeded."
His colleague's eyes shone. He, too, seemed to find it nothing short of a miracle, something science couldn't fully explain.
He continued, "Only when No. 002 dies completely in this world can the professor create another copy of him."
"No. 002 will never die...
Just like an NPC that respawns endlessly..."
Wang Ke frowned, stopped paying attention to him, and turned back to the monitors.
He was looking for No. 001's feed.
In a room with the same layout, he saw