Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Morning Light Biomedical Laboratory, Monitoring Center.

All the screens, regardless of size, were frozen on the same image—the moment Xu Suyuan's blurry figure pierced through the fire door.

Dr. Lin stood in front of the main screen like a frozen sculpture, repeatedly replaying the three-second video.

Slow motion, pause, frame-by-frame analysis.

Each time the video was replayed, his pupils behind his glasses contracted slightly, and the reflected image seemed to contain the mysteries of the beginning of creation.

Finally, when the camera froze for the thirteenth time on the moment Xu Suyuan walked out of the door, a low growl, a mixture of extreme shock and morbid fanaticism, rolled out of his throat.

"Hahaha... My experiment was a success!"

He turned around abruptly, his rationality shattering completely, replaced by a tremor that seemed to emanate from the very marrow of his bones, as if he had discovered a forbidden treasure.

"This is the 'key'! A living miracle! A-07, you are the ultimate sample!"

He roared at his subordinates, who were all silent in the room, spitting as he spoke.

"Activate the highest emergency plan! Seal off all exits, activate all tracking units!" Dr. Lin's voice suddenly turned shrill, the pressure pressing down on the nerves of every subordinate. "Search every inch of the ground and underground! She's injured, she couldn't have gone far! If we let her disappear right under our noses..."

Before he could finish speaking, his eyes, which appeared somewhat crazed under the bright light, swept across the entire room, and the threatening intent made the temperature in the entire monitoring room seem to drop several degrees.

"Think about the cost of failure."

------

In the dark, narrow pipe, Xu Suyuan crawled forward tirelessly.

Time loses its meaning here; only the fresh air carrying the fragrance of earth is her sole faith.

About fifteen minutes later, when her physical and mental strength were on the verge of collapse, a right-angled bend finally appeared ahead.

On the side wall of the bend, there is a metal insect screen covered with oil and dust. It is a maintenance branch of the ventilation duct, barely secured by a few rusted clips.

With her last bit of strength, she reached out with trembling hands and pulled open the buckle.

"Splash—"

With the sound of the metal mesh falling, a rush of air, mixed with the smell of sunlight and dust, rushed in.

Light!

It is light!

Xu Suyuan practically tumbled and crawled out of the narrow hole, landing heavily on the ground.

The long-awaited, blinding sunlight brought tears to her eyes instantly. The scorching heat burned her skin, yet it gave her a sense of unprecedented reality.

This is an abandoned "old industrial area" on the outskirts of the city.

Not far away, a dilapidated factory building, like the skeleton of a giant beast, lay prostrate in the afternoon twilight.

On the outer wall of the factory, several huge and mottled red characters are still faintly discernible: "Wei's Chemical Industry".

This is the old factory area left over from when the Wei Group started out.

Xu Suyuan staggered a few steps and leaned against a mottled brick wall covered with moss.

She tilted her head back and, with a greedy yet suffocating urge, took a deep breath of the air that belonged to freedom.

The air was filled with a strange smell of decaying plants and industrial waste, but to her it was a fragrance that surpassed all others.

She is free.

However, after this brief moment of disorientation, a fear sharper than physical pain and mental exhaustion suddenly gripped her heart—

grandmother!

How long have I been imprisoned?

A week?

Or a month?

How is Grandma's illness?

Is she still waiting for me to come home?

Overwhelmed by immense worry and guilt, she was instantly consumed by it.

She needed to know about her grandmother's condition immediately, right away!

She forced herself to look around; the abandoned factory area was deathly silent and deserted.

She had to leave this place, find a safe place, a place where she could contact the outside world.

We need to be quick!

------

Morning Light Biomedical Laboratory, Monitoring Center.

Two hours have passed since Heo So-won escaped.

All passages and exits inside the laboratory have been thoroughly searched, and there is only one result—Xu Suyuan, the experimental subject numbered A-07, has vanished into thin air in this seemingly impregnable underground facility.

The atmosphere in the monitoring room was oppressive.

Dr. Lin stood in front of the main screen, his eyes bloodshot, but more than that, he was filled with the fervor of someone who had discovered a new continent.

On the screen in front of him, a communication request was answered, and Wei Donghai's face appeared.

"Dr. Lin Zhenghua," Wei Donghai said in a pressured tone, "I hope to hear good news from you."

"Chairman Wei, please look at this!"

Dr. Lin ignored the pressure and excitedly waved his hand, projecting a surveillance video onto the main screen.

In the scene, amidst the roars of her pursuers, Xu Suyuan's figure resolutely crashed into the tightly closed fire door, and then—like a drop of ink dissolving into clear water, silently passed through it.

"Did you see that? Matter penetration! It's not violent destruction, it's a 'phase' change? Or the beginnings of local spatial folding? All our previous models underestimated the ability of extreme mental stress to interfere with physical reality!" Dr. Lin's voice trembled slightly with extreme excitement.

In the video feed, Wei Donghai's body suddenly leaned forward.

"...Just like Chen Guohua. No, this isn't the same..." he muttered to himself, his breathing suddenly becoming heavy. "Chen Guohua became unusually strong, but she..."

Wei Donghai's gaze was as sharp as a hawk's as he stared intently at the screen: "Dr. Lin, are you sure the surveillance footage didn't miss anything? There are no signs of editing?"

"I guarantee this with the credibility of a scientist, Chairman Wei!" Dr. Lin exclaimed, "This is not a fabrication! Considering Chen Guohua's case, I believe we may have inadvertently... touched upon a realm beyond our current physiological understanding! Xu Suyuan's peak brainwave and stress hormone levels in the experiment were the highest among all the subjects. If extreme emotions really are some kind of 'catalyst'..."

Wei Donghai fell silent.

greedy.

A greed a hundred times stronger than when he wanted to study Chen Guohua's corpse instantly consumed his reason.

Chen Guohua is already dead; the only value of his specimens is for autopsy.

But the test subject is still alive—a sample capable of wielding "supernatural abilities" in this real world!

If one could master this power... if one could mass-produce these suicide soldiers... even, if one could transplant this power into oneself...

I want her.

Wei Donghai tried his best to suppress the trembling in his body and spoke.

"Yes, it has to be her! And it has to be as soon as possible!" Dr. Lin interrupted, his mind completely absorbed in his deductions.

"Her condition is unstable; her abilities have clearly just awakened and are still evolving. Every second she spends outside is causing data loss and environmental variables to contaminate the purity of the sample! My team needs to immediately analyze all the residual biometrics she showed before and after crossing the access control point to predict the likelihood and conditions of her next ability manifestation..."

"Dr. Lin!" Wei Donghai emphasized, interrupting the scientist's mutterings. "Listen, from this moment on, the Dawn Biological Laboratory is under Level One lockdown." Wei Donghai's voice turned cold and ruthless. "All researchers and security personnel with knowledge of the matter are to be cut off from all external communications. They must take care of all their needs within the base. Until the experimental subjects are brought back, anyone who dares to step outside the gate, or utters a single word to the outside world…"

He paused, his tone chilling: "I'll let him know what it means to suffer a fate worse than that of an experimental subject."

Dr. Lin then slightly detached himself from his frenzied deductions: "I understand. Within three minutes of discovering the penetration phenomenon, I activated the internal emergency protocol, and all researchers and security personnel in the relevant areas have been temporarily isolated. The special ports for network communication have also been physically locked down."

"Very well, I'll take charge of the arrest operation," Wei Donghai said coldly. "Dr. Lin, you need to provide her physiological data and behavioral profiling. Prepare all the information you have on hand."

"Don't worry about the police. I'll keep a close eye on them, and we'll have people stall for time. A new era is coming, Dr. Lin. In this dog-eat-dog world, those who can master this special power before others are gods!"