Arrival at the laser corridor

Soon, Kaplan opened the iron door, and the mercenaries cautiously entered with their guns drawn.

It was a vast hall filled with countless small containers, each several cubic meters in size. A frigid chill constantly seeped out of them.

Anyone who had seen the first Resident Evil movie knew this was the storage facility where the Lickers were kept frozen. Once the main computer was shut down, the Lickers would become the most terrifying alien creatures, more than a hundred times as deadly as the zombies.

Seeing the strange boxes all around them, the mercenary captain looked at Kaplan. After all, Kaplan had just said this was Dining Hall B.

"This is Dining Hall B... That's what the map says," Kaplan said, frowning at the map on his handheld computer.

"Maybe you read it wrong," J.D. interjected.

The mercenary captain immediately walked over to Kaplan and looked at the computer, wanting to know what was going on. Why had a perfectly good dining hall turned into a hall full of strange boxes?

Matt spoke up from the side. "Maybe there are secrets hidden here, secrets the company doesn't want the outside world to know about... This is all classified."

Matthew Addison glanced at him without speaking, clearly suspicious of Matt's identity. He then turned to his companions and said, "J.D., Rain, Zhang Jie, watch the prisoner and guard the exit. Keep an eye out for survivors!"

The medic suddenly said, "Sir, the poison gas reading here is zero. Maybe no gas was released in this area. Perhaps the defense system here malfunctioned."

The mercenary captain nodded. "All right, Jd, Rain, Zhang Jie, there may still be survivors hiding here. Search the area, but don't go too far. Your first priority is to watch the prisoner and the exit. Understood?"

All three nodded, but Zhang Jie gave a cold laugh and pulled a cigarette from inside his clothes. Anyone who had seen the movie should have known: survivors? No, there were no survivors, but there were plenty of zombies.

Zhan Lan suddenly walked over to Zhang Jie and quietly asked, "There's something I want to know. Can we change the plot of the movie?"

Hearing Zhan Lan's question, Zhang Jie gave her a surprised look. This girl really was the smartest of all the newcomers. He immediately nodded to confirm it and said, "Go on. What else do you want to ask? Ask everything while it's still safe."

Zhan Lan smiled and laughed. Her laughter sounded like a silver wind chime, clear and pleasant. Then she said, "Can we use plastic explosives here, then? If we kill all the Lickers in this room, wouldn't we get several thousand reward points?"

Zhang Jie laughed too, though his smile was full of disdain. He pointed at the mercenaries exploring the room and said, "You're not wrong. Yes, blowing this place up would earn us several thousand reward points, but I have two questions for you. First, would they give us time to plant plastic explosives?"

"They don't know what any of these things are, or what will happen when the main computer is shut down. If they see us doing something they can't understand, they'll most likely shoot us first, and that could very well release the Lickers early. The 'Lord God' won't let you change the plot that successfully. Even if you do change it, it'll probably increase the difficulty and throw in some accidents while it's at it. Understand?"

After asking and answering his own question, Zhang Jie asked another. "Second question: what do you think is our greatest means of survival in a horror movie?"

Zhan Lan was taken aback. She touched her forehead and reasoned, "Strength? No. Luck? Not that either; it's too unpredictable, good one moment and bad the next... It must be knowing the plot, right?"

Zhang Jie smiled. "Bingo, that's right. Knowing the plot is our greatest means of survival,

so until I'm absolutely certain, I'll never change it. And if anyone tries to force a change in the plot to get reward points, I don't mind sending him to hell." As he finished, he gave a cold smile.

Hearing Zhang Jie's cold laugh, everyone turned to look at Ye Siyu. The only person there most likely to change the plot was this guy in front of them, whose actions could not be predicted by common sense at all.

Just then, the mercenary captain spoke up. "All right, move out. Everyone else, come with me."

Zhang Jie acted naturally, staying behind the main group and appearing to search constantly to either side. The mercenaries saw him but said nothing. Only Zheng Zha and the others understood that he had to follow the main group because he couldn't get more than a hundred meters away from Matthew Addison.

They passed through several more steel doors before arriving at a central computer control room. Of course, the central computer, the Flame Queen, had now gone out of control, so the entire laboratory could no longer be controlled directly from here.

Kaplan sat down in front of three central computers and tapped away at all three keyboards with both hands. Several minutes passed, however, and the iron door remained tightly shut, showing no sign of opening.

The medic asked curiously, "Why is it taking so long?"

Without looking back, Kaplan said, "The Flame Queen is an intelligent computer. Her defense system is extremely sophisticated. If her firewall were easy to break through, she wouldn't have been chosen as the laboratory's main computer..."

As he spoke, a soft sound came from the tightly sealed door, and it finally began to open slowly. Kaplan froze for a moment. He had no idea why the iron door was opening. He hadn't completed all the hacking procedures yet, so it shouldn't have opened. Frowning, he immediately checked the data to see what was going on.

Unlike Kaplan, the mercenary captain saw the door open and nodded to the others. "Pack up the equipment!"

Then he turned back to Alice, Zheng Zha, and the others and said, "You stay here."

Beyond the door was a corridor more than ten meters long, with glass walls on both sides. If not for the excessive coldness and hardness of its high-tech design, it would have looked like a passage to a magnificent crystal palace, utterly unlike the steel walls outside the door.

Having given his orders, the mercenary captain walked in on his own. He proceeded with great caution, taking every step carefully. Even so, when he reached the middle of the corridor, he jolted in surprise as the glass walls around him suddenly lit up. The abrupt sensation was enough to make an ordinary person's arms and legs go weak and break out in a cold sweat.