Chapter 51: Chapter 47: Test Subject No. 1
Everything that happened in the black market quickly spread, with members of the City State Guard and the Law Enforcement Team coming to support from other areas where suppression was happening, slaughtering those who had previously hidden and tried to escape the black market.
Those fleeing were also pursued and killed.
After leaving the black market, Xu Mo and the others ran wildly, encountering many patrols of the City State Guard and the Law Enforcement Team members, whom the War Saber killed directly.
The number of people tracking them gradually increased. Xu Mo led Ye Qingdie and the others through the alleys, along the way “taking” a few items of clothing, storing away the Battle Armor, and changing into ordinary clothes.
With patrols everywhere outside, wearing Battle Armor was too conspicuous, and they could only resort to killing along the way.
In the alley, after Xu Mo and the others changed their clothes, he said to Ye Qingdie, “Qin Zhong is dead, and the black market has been slaughtered. Now that nobody recognizes us, should we just go out, split up into pairs, and head in different directions?”
“Good,” Ye Qingdie agreed, setting a time and place to regroup. Ye Qingdie and Xu Mo formed one team, and Shadow and Xiao Qi formed another.
Xu Mo and Xiao Qi were young, a big and small combination that didn’t attract attention.
The two groups acted separately. Carrying a bag, Xu Mo glanced at Ye Qingdie and called out, “Wait a second.”
Ye Qingdie looked at him, no longer treating Xu Mo as a minor.
Xu Mo wiped his hand on the wall, then smeared it onto Ye Qingdie’s face.
Ye Qingdie glared at him, clearly annoyed.
“Sister Butterfly, being too pretty also draws too much attention,” Xu Mo said.
Ye Qingdie looked at him with a smile, “Are you trying to take advantage?”
“There’s no advantage I haven’t taken,” Xu Mo muttered and ran ahead, while Ye Qingdie watched his retreating figure, thinking to herself, this brat…
The heavy atmosphere seemed to lighten a bit, and she followed Xu Mo.
Xu Mo and the others arrived at his former home, located in a densely populated area with many people who were very poor; nobody would care, and neither the Law Enforcement Team nor the City State Guard would come here to search house by house for them.
They didn’t have that many people.
Moreover, even if they did come, nobody would recognize them.
Secretary Jin, Qin Zhong, Cobra, Moke, and the members of the Law Enforcement Team were all dead.
With the black market slaughtered, there was no one left who recognized Ye Qingdie and the others, especially since they had always appeared in masks before.
The room was dirty and messy, with a faint strange smell. Xu Mo said to Ye Qingdie, “Sister Butterfly, sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Is this your home?” Ye Qingdie asked.
“I guess so,” Xu Mo nodded, “After these few days, we’ll find another place.”
“This place isn’t bad either,” Ye Qingdie said nonchalantly as she walked into the cramped bedroom and lay down, feeling utterly exhausted.
All the events of the past few days seemed like a dream.
But, they had survived.
Taking a deep breath, Ye Qingdie looked at Xu Mo, who was tidying up, and said, “Aren’t you tired? Come and rest.”
Xu Mo had been fighting all along.
The most tired one should be him, right?
“How can I rest in such a small space?” Xu Mo glanced at the cramped bedroom.
“Just squeeze in,” Ye Qingdie made room on one side and watched Xu Mo with a grin.
“Sister Butterfly, what plans do you have for the future?” Xu Mo ignored Ye Qingdie’s flirty words, seeing that her heart was heavy, and she was just trying to lighten the mood with jokes.
“I don’t know, I’ll listen to you from now on,” said Ye Qingdie, sprawling on the bed in an unladylike manner, closing her eyes.
At this moment, she didn’t want to think about anything.
The moment she closed her eyes, it seemed as though she saw the corpses littered across the black market again.
Her heart gave a painful twitch, and a tear formed at the corner of her eye.
Many of those people were like her, yet they were treated as thugs, buried forever in the black market.
Who really are the thugs?
The people of the black market, or the members of the Law Enforcement Team and the City State Guard?
……
As days passed, order in the area gradually returned, the riot was utterly suppressed, and the public’s anger slowly extinguished.
It was as if nothing had ever happened.
A blaze broke out in the black market and burned for several days, turning everything to ashes.
The inhabitants of the black market were labeled as thugs and were eradicated, with few survivors.
The City State Guard and the Law Enforcement Team withdrew, and life slowly returned to the streets. The gene experiments were no longer mentioned, as if everyone had forgotten.
Or rather, they did not want to remember, nor did they dare to remember.
Eventually, those memories would fade completely.
Xu Mo and his group were now wanted criminals of the City-State, with posters of them in Battle Armor plastered all over the streets and alleys. Three were in Set Armor, one in ordinary Battle Armor, their faces unseen.
They had fought their way out, their hands stained with the blood of many members of the City State Guard as well as the Law Enforcement Team.
However, as Xu Mo and his companions, clad in ordinary clothes, walked down the street, no one recognized them.
Seeing the bustling crowd, it was as if the past incident had never happened.
Xu Mo remembered Master Batu’s words, could anything be changed?
History is nothing more than a series of cycles.
Watching those numb faces, if not for numbness, what then?
Without weapons and unable to unite, how could they resist?
It seemed that they could only become numb and accept it all.
Outside the burnt market, the sign on the door was already blackened by smoke.
Xu Mo and the others looked inside, a pile of ashes had scorched everything to the ground.
There were sins and ideals.
The passersby no longer spared the market a glance.
“It’s over,” Ye Qingdie whispered as she looked at the ashes inside.
Everything ended just like that.
Many people had died.
Some had paid the price, people like Cobra, Secretary Jin, and Qin Zhong had paid their dues.
But what about those behind the scenes?
“Do you think the experiment continues in some secret factory somewhere?” Ye Qingdie asked in a low voice.
Xu Mo did not answer.
He did not know how to answer this question.
The experiment bases were all secret, disguised as other factories, the Valen Armory had been discovered and destroyed.
But what about the other factories?
Are the experiments still going on?
“My child…” From afar, a voice reached them, making Xu Mo’s heart twitch.
He looked in that direction and saw a woman running frantically, looking around in search of her lost child.
Ye Qingdie and the others also directed their gaze that way and felt an indescribable sadness.
People in the street held their children tight; some even held them close and hurried away from the place.
Looking around at everything, Xu Mo showed a self-mocking smile and looked up at the light above his head!
……
Underworld City State Main City, a factory—a secret experiment base.
In an office, a middle-aged man wearing a white coat and glasses scrutinized a photo in his hand.
There was a knock on the door from outside.
“Come in,” the middle-aged man said.
A uniformed figure entered the office, placing their right hand on their chest, saluted the middle-aged man and said, “Sir.”
“Mhm.” The middle-aged man nodded and said, “Come here.”
The uniformed figure approached and the middle-aged man handed him a photo.
It was a family portrait, two parents with their child.
The man was handsome, the woman elegant and beautiful, both clad in different types of uniforms that indicated a certain status.
The girl, only four or five years old, was charmingly cute, shielded between her parents and smiling broadly.
If Xu Mo saw the girl, he might find her somewhat familiar.
“This is a photo from over a decade ago. The man was once an elite member of the City State Guard; he committed crimes and became a fugitive, escaped with his daughter and has been missing for many years without a trace. The mission was then suspended,” the middle-aged man said intently.
“Before fleeing, the man injected himself with an unfinished Genetic Evolution Liquid. Based on the experimental data over the years, we observe that such incomplete gene evolution liquid leads to the body continually becoming obese, so by now he should be extremely fat, and the girl is probably now eighteen or nineteen years old.”
“They should be far from the main city now. Deploy the City State Guard and notify all regional Law Enforcement Teams to locate them, mission level S-ranked,” the middle-aged man said coldly. They had searched the entire Main City years ago and hadn’t found them. Now, after all these years, the man must have fled to some remote area, but that didn’t matter, the underground wasn’t very large.
“Yes, sir,” the officer saluted.
“Go ahead.” The middle-aged man nodded, the officer took the photo and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Watching the officer’s retreating figure, the middle-aged man squinted his eyes.
The perfect match for the S sequence Spiritual gene evolution liquid, Experiment Number 1, fifteen years had passed—what had become of the girl from then, who was now a woman?
Had she lost control of her mind?