Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

Li Su passed through the first observation room.

The iron gate was open, and inside was a small room of less than five square meters. There were no windows, only an iron-framed bed and a small window for delivering meals.

A man in his forties was huddled in the corner, skin and bones, with a vacant look in his eyes and drool constantly dripping from the corner of his mouth.

His wrists were bound with canvas restraints, but the other end of the straps was not secured to the bed frame and dragged loosely on the floor.

Li Su looked at him.

She remembered this man.

This person was already here when she was locked up three months ago.

He was also an experimental subject who became like this after being injected with some kind of psychotropic drug.

She looked at him through the small glass window of the iron gate, her heart filled with fear—she was afraid that she would become like that.

Now, as she looked at him, only one thought remained in her mind.

She raised her hand, her telekinetic energy surged into the observation room, and she tore the metal bunk bed off the floor.

The metal frame of the iron bed was twisted and deformed by telekinesis, the fixing bolts popped out of the wall, the mattress was torn in half, and the foam inside flew everywhere.

She crumpled the iron bed frame into an iron ball with a diameter of half a meter, then used her telekinesis to lift the iron ball out of the observation room and place it in the middle of the corridor.

Then she opened the second observation room.

The third one.

The fourth room.

She dismantled the iron bunk beds in every observation room, rolled them into iron balls, and lined them up in a row in the corridor.

Then she walked to the door at the end of the corridor.

It was a heavy iron door, thicker than the others in the observation room, with two keyholes: one mechanical and one electromagnetic.

A sign hangs on the wall next to the door—"Special Observation Room".

Li Su stood in front of the door, raised her hand, and placed her palm on the cold iron door.

She could feel the temperature of the iron gate's surface with her fingertips—a little lower than human body temperature, but not as cold as the iron gate of the mental hospital.

Because Zhao Yuan was once imprisoned behind this door.

When Zhao Yuan was locked inside, he was knocking on the wall, and she was knocking on the wall too.

The two communicated in the most primal way all night long.

The next morning, Zhao Yuan knocked on the wall three times, paused for a long time, and then knocked twice more.

That was the last signal they agreed upon.

Then she heard sounds of fighting, impacts, and gunshots.

Then there was no sound at all.

Li Su's palm remained pressed against the iron gate for a long time.

Then she closed her five fingers together.

The mechanical and electromagnetic locks on the iron gate were simultaneously torn apart from the inside by telekinesis, and the lock cylinders sprang out, bouncing and rolling a long way down the corridor.

The iron gate slowly opened.

The special observation room was empty.

There was only one iron bed frame inside, with dark brown stains remaining on the frame—traces left by blood seeping into the oxide layer on the surface of the iron pipes.

The bloodstains were concentrated at the head of the bed, extending from the head to the foot of the bed, as if someone had struggled violently on the bed, with blood gushing from a wound, soaking the sheets, and then seeping through the sheets into the iron pipes.

Li Su stood at the door, staring at the dark brown patches for a long time.

She didn't go in.

She turned around and faced the other end of the corridor.

At the other end of the corridor, several researchers in white lab coats were huddled together, shining flashlights in her direction.

Their faces, barely visible behind the beam of the flashlight, were filled with fear.

Li Su recognized two of the faces.

A senior researcher surnamed Wang at the research center was in charge of the cell experiments for "Shuguang-1".

The drug her child was injected with was the one that this person had tested for cytotoxicity hundreds of times in a petri dish.

Another person surnamed Zhang is responsible for data collection and analysis.

The medical data following "multiple organ failure" on her child's death report was filled in by this person.

"Researcher Wang, Researcher Zhang."

Li Su called out their names, her tone as if she were taking attendance.

Do you remember Subject A-09?

The flashlight in Researcher Wang's hand fell to the ground.

The beam of light rolled across the ground, illuminating his violently trembling knees.

"Li Su—we, we are also executors—Professor Zhou tells us to do experiments, so we do experiments—we don't do them, or we'll lose our jobs—"

Li Su raised her hand.

The first iron ball flew up from the center of the corridor and hurtled towards Researcher Wang.

The iron ball grazed his scalp and smashed into the wall behind him, creating a hole a meter in diameter.

Broken bricks and cement chunks fell and hit Researcher Wang on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

He lay on the ground, a bloody mark on his head where the iron ball had grazed him, and blood trickled down his hair, staining the collar of his white coat red.

"Experimental subject A-09".

Li Su's voice remained calm.

"FTD-7 gene mutation. Gene editing efficiency of 41%. Multiple organ failure occurred on the fourth day. Death occurred on the seventh day."

She recited the data from the death report verbatim.

"Who filled in these data?"

Researcher Zhang slumped to the ground, his crotch soaked with sweat.

"Yes, I filled it in—but the data wasn't fabricated by me—it's actual experimental data—I was just recording it—"

"Record."

Li Su repeated the word.

"You documented the entire process of an infant's life, from birth to death. You recorded his heart rate dropping from normal to zero. You recorded his blood oxygen saturation plummeting from 98 percent to 40 percent. You recorded his organs ceasing to function one by one. You filled in this data in a form, signed your name, and then opened the next blank form, waiting for the next test subject."

She raised her hand again.

The second iron ball flew up and hovered above Researcher Zhang's head.

"What was the last piece of data you recorded?"

Researcher Zhang's lips trembled, and he couldn't speak.

"I don't remember."

Li Su answered for him.

"Because you recorded too many experimental subjects. A-01 to A-11, eleven babies, every single one of them died at your hands. You can't remember any of the children's names, you can't remember any of their faces. In your forms, they are just a string of numbers."

She bent down and picked up a piece of broken glass from the corridor floor.

Those were shards of glass that flew out when the iron ball hit the wall earlier; their edges were sharp and reflected a cold light under the emergency lights.

She placed the broken glass in her palm and gently weighed it in her hand.

Then she looked at Researcher Wang and Researcher Zhang and asked a question in a calm, almost gentle tone.

"What are your children's names?"

The two researchers were stunned at the same time.

"You have children too, don't you? Do you remember your children's names?"

Researcher Wang's eyes reddened.

I don't know if it was the pain from the wound on my head or from Li Su's words.

My daughter—her name is Wang Siqi—is six years old this year.

"You remember."

Li Su nodded.

"You remember your own child's name. But you can't remember mine. Because my child isn't listed by name on your form, but by number."

"He is A-09."

She threw the shards of glass into the air, and her telekinesis carried them away.

The shards of glass split into more than a dozen smaller pieces in mid-air, each suspended in mid-air under the precise control of telekinesis, pointing in the direction of the two researchers.

"Now tell me, where is Zhou De'an?"