From Robinson Crusoe

When Chen Zhou mentioned Ivan's father, the old man who was in control of the situation immediately changed his expression.

After Chen Zhou tentatively mentioned some inside information about Unit 10003 and several important projects led by Alexei Savin, Ivan became even more anxious and fearful.

It's clear that Ivan harbors deep resentment towards Unit 10003 and the inner workings of the former Soviet Union.

Based on this analysis, Chen Zhou deduced that Ivan was probably not an official.

After all, his father had almost been killed because he was too involved with the Soviet General Staff and General Mikhail.

If Ivan had any sense, he would never again collude so deeply with the Russian authorities.

Moreover, the Soviet Union has already collapsed, and many of its past secrets have been buried in the dust of history. With personnel changes and global instability, even if Unit 10003 had continued to this day, it would never have had the same dominance as before.

Otherwise, Chen Zhou would probably have been invited for questioning as soon as he got off the plane, and it would be impossible for him to be sitting here peacefully testing each other with Ivan.

……

Seeing that the topic was becoming increasingly sensitive, Ivan was unable to figure out Chen Zhou's background and dared not continue to discuss those secret past events with this mysterious young man in public. He could only order his henchmen to disperse and then politely leave Chen Zhou a business card, telling him to come to the private zoo in the suburbs to talk in detail when he had time.

He admitted that he didn't have much malicious intent in approaching Chen Zhou.

However, a secret modification program by Unit 10003 left permanent trauma on him and those who participated in the experiment, causing them many inconveniences in their lives.

For years, Ivan and the survivors of the experiments had been seeking some kind of change, which is why he approached Chen Zhou.

Of course, Ivan, that old guy, still concealed most of the details in his words. To find out the truth, you either have to go to the zoo to continue the investigation, or you can only guess.

Chen Zhou only knew that Ivan's physical functions, at least in terms of heart strength and hearing, were superior to those of ordinary people, but he couldn't see what kind of inconvenience this old guy had, let alone what kind of injuries they had.

Seeing that Ivan had voluntarily withdrawn his henchmen and showed some sincerity, Chen Zhou did not seem to care too much on the surface, but he had already made up his mind to leave Russia first thing tomorrow morning.

This is, after all, Ivan's stronghold, and he doesn't trust him to do anything here.

As for going to the zoo in person, that's absolutely impossible. What if that old guy Ivan had malicious intentions and killed him in the zoo? He could be chopped into pieces and fed to the lions and tigers on the spot.

As the saying goes, a wise man does not stand under a dangerous wall. He would never agree to take such a big risk to explore something that has little to do with him.

……

That night, worried that Ivan would realize he was bluffing and do something like a night raid on the hotel to kidnap him, Chen Zhou barely slept.

The next morning, he called the embassy in advance to let them know that he was about to return to China and asked them to keep an eye on his flight departure time.

Although the staff on the embassy hotline did not know why Chen Zhou would make a special call to leave Russia, they still carefully noted down Chen Zhou's flight time.

After all, embassies also have consular responsibilities, which include protecting citizens' rights and interests, safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests in other countries, and responding to emergencies.

Although Chen Zhou's reporting was somewhat inexplicable, it was within the embassy's responsibilities.

……

Chen Zhou notified the embassy because he was afraid that Ivan would cause trouble midway, stop his flight, or even kidnap him on the way to the airport.

Although based on the information we have so far, Ivan may not have that much power, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Once he reports it, if something happens to him, the personal dispute could escalate into a diplomatic incident. If Ivan wants to create such a dispute between countries, he should think twice.

Besides notifying the embassy, ​​Chen Zhou had also considered even more serious contingencies—

For example, an airplane can be hit by a missile and crash directly.

However, upon closer examination, Ivan currently has no reason to kill him, and the crash of the commercial airliner is a major event that shocked the world. Even if he had a blood feud with Ivan, let alone no grudge against him, Ivan would not dare to do such a thing against the will of the world.

……

Just as Chen Zhou had predicted, Ivan's methods were limited to obtaining the passenger list, and his control over Moscow was not strong.

In this small area, he could only be considered a slightly larger local tyrant, and his connections with the authorities were not deep enough to affect flights.

The following afternoon, Chen Zhou arrived at the airport in northern Beijing and then made a phone call to Ivan—

If you have anything to say, come to Beijing North. There's no KGB here, and not many people even understand Russian. If you want to know anything, I'll tell you everything I know.

Chen Zhou thought Ivan would give up the search after learning he had left Moscow, but to his surprise, less than a week after the phone call, Ivan traveled all the way to northern Beijing.

The inconvenience caused to Ivan by the secret modification program seemed to be far more serious than he had imagined.

……

Upon arriving in northern Beijing, in the presidential suite of the hotel chosen by Chen Zhou, Ivan carefully checked all the video and audio recording equipment before gradually exchanging information with Chen Zhou.

Just as Chen Zhou guessed, the 10003 Unit in this world was not just an organization that only cheated people out of funding and talked nonsense. During the period of US-Russia rivalry, it actually made a lot of contributions.

Of course, the suffering inflicted by Unit 10003 and the consequences of their human experiments were disproportionate to their negligible contributions.

Initially, the Soviet Union secretly transferred Japanese prisoners of war who were growing potatoes in Siberia to conduct human experiments. Later, as the Japanese prisoners of war were tortured to death, the subjects of human experiments were transferred to death row inmates in prisons and even orphans in orphanages.

The deaths of a large number of participants spurred the development of numerous projects.

According to Ivan, he was an experimenter in a project codenamed "Polevit".

In Slavic mythology, Polevet is the god who controls forests and rivers. He has absolute control over the sounds of all things and possesses extraordinary perception.

The ultimate goal of Project Polevet was to create a group of superhumans capable of eavesdropping on secret military activities in the United States from the Soviet Union, in order to obtain more military intelligence and even core information on advanced technologies.

The initial phase of the project went very smoothly, securing substantial funding and participants. However, as the Cold War drew to a close and the Soviet Union collapsed, most of the high-ranking officers of Unit 10003 either died or went missing, making it impossible for many projects to continue.

Of course, the reason why the smoothly implemented plans failed to change the outcome of the collapse of the Soviet Union was that these plans could not create superhumans with "divine power" at all; at most, they could only create a group of ordinary people with extraordinary hearing.

These people can't even replace the bugging devices; it's wishful thinking to try and turn the tide of the war.

Ivan was among the last group of modifiers in the "Polevit" project. By then, Unit 10003 had declined and was on the verge of success, but could no longer acquire elite warriors for the modification. So the higher-ups selected lower-level staff and their offspring.

Some of the modified individuals died in their final madness, while others successfully underwent the modifications; Ivan was one of the lucky ones. According to his description, the pain of the modification process was unbearable for ordinary people, and the abilities gained afterward were far less valuable than initially thought.

After the transformation, his physical fitness only improved slightly, and although his hearing improved significantly, it was out of control.

For several years after the modification, he was exposed to a lot of noise from the outside world every day, and he could hardly get a full night's sleep without wearing heavy earmuffs.

Moreover, the complex information from his hearing can disrupt his thinking, making it impossible for him to think normally and causing him to become extremely irritable.

After struggling in pain for a long time, Ivan came to China through a friend's introduction. After learning some Eastern meditation and sitting meditation methods, he gradually regained control of his hearing and emotions and slowly returned to normal.

His hair didn't actually turn white after he turned 60; it was already completely white when he was 40.

That's not aging, but rather being tortured to this extent by hearing loss.

However, as he grew older, more drawbacks of the modification program began to emerge. In addition to his increasingly uncontrollable hearing loss, Ivan's physical functions also showed signs of overexertion, sometimes being weaker than his peers, and his organs had even become diseased.

Those cyborgs who had previously been in contact with Ivan have all disappeared in recent years, and their channels for finding a way out and alleviating their suffering by relying on information provided by other like-minded people have also been cut off.

Ivan, who had already given up hope, unexpectedly met Chen Zhou when he came to Beijing to discuss Buddhism with an old Zen master.

His uncontrollable hearing allowed him to keenly perceive Chen Zhou's uniqueness, which led him to set his sights on Chen Zhou.

At first, Ivan thought Chen Zhou was Japanese, since many Japanese prisoners of war had participated in the reformation program back then. However, after learning more about the situation, he dismissed this suspicion.

Nevertheless, Ivan remained certain that Chen Zhou either had an unclear connection with Unit 10003 or was related to some secret Chinese project.

However, it wasn't until he met Chen Zhou this time that he realized both of his guesses were wrong.

Chen Zhou was like someone who "popped out of a rock." Although he knew some of the inside stories of Unit 10003, he was unaware of the Polevet Project and had no connection whatsoever with the Chinese government.

How did he acquire his extraordinary physical abilities?
Sitting opposite Chen Zhou, Ivan was completely baffled.

……

Ivan hoped to find a way to alleviate his pain by exchanging information with Chen Zhou, but he did not expect that Chen Zhou's enhancement had no side effects at all.

In this regard, Chen Zhou could not offer him any help.

However, out of sympathy for Ivan, Chen Zhou still provided some secrets that Ivan was unaware of, including the special information he gleaned from that photograph—

The abandoned factory, deserted and uninhabited, with words written in paint and a six-pointed star painted on the bottom of the chimney.

Chen Zhou originally intended to use this information to make a relatively fair exchange with Ivan. After all, Ivan was quite honest, and what he told him involved major matters involving state secrets. It would be a bit excessive for him to hide these unimportant things.

To his surprise, the information he considered worthless was actually useful to Ivan.

After obtaining this information, Ivan surprisingly offered a price of one hundred million to buy the photograph.

Perhaps fearing that Chen Zhou might think the factory in the photo contained some hidden treasure, Ivan further explained his purpose in buying the photo—

In fact, the transformation plan being carried out simultaneously by Unit 10003 was far more than just "Polevit".

Compared to extraordinary eavesdropping capabilities, the Soviet authorities preferred to acquire "human tanks" that could turn the tide of the war. It is said that if the researchers succeeded in creating a super soldier, its combat power would be no less than that of Captain America in science fiction movies.

As an outsider to the transformation project, Ivan had only heard of the code name "Super Project" from his father.

"The mute".

After receiving the information from Chen Zhou, Ivan was almost certain that a huge conversion base must be hidden beneath that seemingly ordinary abandoned factory.

The base was carrying out several super projects, such as "Rusty Body" and "Aphasia," which were code names for these projects.

As for "Confession Room 13 in the Slavic Tundra" and the six-pointed star, they are related to some kind of prophetic ability.

After carefully studying the six-pointed star and mysterious symbols drawn by Chen Zhou, Ivan believes that these symbols are inextricably linked to Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, the eccentric monk of the Tsarist era.

Rasputin, a mysterious figure who was later demonized, is shrouded in many unsolved mysteries.

In addition to his extraordinary physical abilities and seemingly tireless sexual prowess, he also possesses the ability to foresee the future and control minds.

Later generations have always considered Rasputin's methods as tricks by actors to fool the world, but during the Cold War, the Soviet Union was willing to pursue all means to achieve its goal of becoming the world's sole superpower.

Therefore, it is not surprising that research on Rasputin has been restarted in an attempt to find a way to predict the world order.

……

Ivan was so eager to get photos of the conversion base because Project Polevet was a lower-level project and was not located in the same area as Project Aphasia and others.

His transformation has clearly been successful, and his research on the mute or the corroded sacred body may also yield results.

Now nearly seventy years old, with most of his body in his coffin, he doesn't want to continue suffering. He's trying to find lost research findings to modify himself again, thereby alleviating his pain and prolonging his life.

When talking about the extraordinary abilities he might gain after finding the base, Ivan's eyes gleamed with excitement, but Chen Zhou shook his head slightly.

He was not optimistic about Ivan's prospects for the future.

Regardless of whether the aphasia program was successful or not, even if it was, just looking at the words "aphasia" and "corrosion" makes it clear that these two reformation programs have nothing to do with perfect reformation.

It might not only fail to extend lifespan, but could also bring more danger and suffering.

Otherwise, the Soviet Union, this behemoth, would not have collapsed so easily, and cyborgs would certainly have left a significant mark on the course of history.

However, he wasn't close to Ivan, and since this matter concerned Ivan's life, seeing the ruthless look on Ivan's face, and fearing that Ivan might resort to desperate measures, Chen Zhou ultimately didn't try to dissuade him and reached a deal with Ivan.

Anyway, he had absolutely no interest in the so-called renovation plan. Since someone was willing to pay an exorbitant price for that "worthless piece of paper," he might as well go along with it.

But Chen Zhou didn't want cash; he already had enough money.

He demanded that Ivan exchange gold worth 100 million, and Ivan agreed without hesitation. He then hurriedly left Beijing, seemingly to gather the gold and exchange it for the photographs.

For Ivan, who is nearing seventy, time is clearly more precious than anything else. (End of Chapter)