Chapter 95 - The Institute (36)

[<PLEASE ENTER ACESSS CODE>]

Chu Yi's sultry drawl sounded lightly in the harsh depths of the room, 

"Acess Code is Black Cat."

[<ACESSS GRANTED>]

With the hissing whoosh of released air, the hidden door of the confinement room finally cracked open to reveal the tightly guarded secrets inside.

The atmosphere in the room was gloomy and cold, the glaring white light stinging their eyes that had adapted to the omnipresent darkness in the windowless building, there was a faint rusty scent that intertwined with the sticky and greasy fragrance of roses.

The felt as if they were stepping into a new dimension, the sight of blood and rotting corpses disappearing behind the encroaching shadows as the door shut behind them.

As Chu Yi and the others stepped onto the marble floor, a series of shallow, pressed footprints were left in the accumulated grey dust, the farther they walked the longer the trail of steps detailed their intrusion.

This was a kind of lab.

It was fully painted a cold sterile white, the room itself was cramped and the dust and dirt was evidence that it had been abandoned for years.

The low hanging ceilings gave people a feeling of psychological pressure and staying here for long enough would give the illusion of being slowly suffocated to death.

The wrecked environment was accompanied by hanging metal arms from overhead, a broad metal surveyor belt along with dusty cabinets that contained spilled glass beakers and broken gene chambers.

At the far end of the room, a cold silicone chair was turned over sideways, the restraints on the side were somehow still locked and there were also splatters of dried blood falling beneath it's head.

A small file cabinet, bottles carrying indecipherable labels, a cold metal operating table equipped with broken valves, dragging wires and broken glass thoroughly summed up the contents of the room.

An abandoned laboratory.

The room had been thoroughly ransacked before their arrival and their first thought in their minds was that another group of players had found this place before them.

That thought was quickly dismissed however because Chu Yi could not sense the lingering breath of any people here and even the traces left behind previously had been thoroughly corroded by dust mites and translucent spiderwebs.

The players hadn't been around long enough that all tracks would be covered so quickly,

There were shards of broken glass all over the floor, a large amount of dark brown blood had dried up at the forefront of the room and the unfinished work owned by the previous occupant had been haphazardly scattered over the room. There were traces of dragging everywhere, and the entire room resembled the aftermath of a murder crime,

In the middle of the hall, shredded paper scraps were piled up to form a huge snow-capped mountain, the amount of paper trash was almost as tall as the top of the ceiling,

What happened here...

The three carefully walked into the depths of the room, cautious to avoid the numerous glass shards beneath them, 

"Sci–Sci–"

There was a rustle as something dark flashed quickly in their peripheral vision, 

All heads sharply turned, muscles tensing in preparation to attack, however soon after realizing what it was, they relaxed their shoulders. The sound came from a small white mouse that had scampered across the room after being alarmed by their presence, 

Chao Bin couldn't help but sigh in admiration, "Even in such an enclosed place, creatures like those would always manage to survive."

Chu Yi was noncommittal, the white mouse was the general breed of lab rats and judging by the rat dropping around the blood stains on the floor, those rats hadn't survived by eating themselves.

Chao Bin was relieved and took a short step forward, 

There was only time to hear the shattering crunch of glass underfoot when the distracted Chao Bin suddenly let out a howl in pain, grabbing onto his right foot with a face distorted in sharp agony.

Lodged into his boot was a sharp piece of shattered glass, evidently it had somehow punctured his shoes and plunged into the flesh of his foot.

"Shit–" 

"Someone get it out–"

Tang Shun reached out a hand to stabilize his hopping figure and regardless of Chao Bin's ugly face, yanked the piece of glass shard out mercilesly–

"Ow!–"

Tang Shun flung the glass to the side and handed Chao Bin a hemostatic patch, pupils deepening slightly at the smell of blood, he looked away.

Chao Bin accepted the patch with a tearful face and reluctantly applied it to his foot after cleaning the wound. The glass hadn't cut very deep therefore there wasn't much blood but he still couldn't help but limping slightly as he walked.

"Why am I so unlucky...."

One injured and two neurotic players observed the wrecked room,

Chao Bin cringed, "This place gives me haunted vibes. The flickering lights, shattered glass, dried blood stains and mysterious hidden room. The only thing missing now is a monster to come jumping out of the shadows to kill us–"

"Sci– Sci–"

Chao Bin froze and felt his soul leave his body, his heart staggered and lodged into his throat–

"Sci–"

it came again, face graying in fright, he subconsciously grabbed onto the nearest Tang Shun and dragged him away from the sound, 

"Run!"

Tang Shun laughed, "Look closer."

He glanced behind them incredulously, a familiar mouse scampered across the room, 

"Cough––"

He immediately released his grip, 

"It's just the mouse... haha... I was just scaring myself ba...."

Chu Yi looked at him and spoke lightly: " If there were monsters, you'd be the first to die."

Chao Bin gaped, opening his mouth wanting to refute this but the words were stuck in his throat, in every horror movie, the person to plant the first red flag would always be the first to get murdered. 

".....you–"

Chu Yi raised a slender brow, 

He had nothing to say.

Chao Bin could only accept it, wanting to cry but had no tears, wasn't this just typical cannon fodder behavior....

Chu Yi lips rose slightly and he turned away from the melancholic teen,

"Judging from the situation here, the people here had also experienced something unexpected and probably dangerous. So sudden that they had to destroy the documents and shut down the room urgently."

"This doesn't feel like the real official lab of the Institute but more of a forbidden experiment being conducted outside of prying eyes by someone in the Institute. Someone who was caught and had to suspend operations and destroy all evidence before anyone else could find out."

"Look–" Chu Yi stood on the glass slag and pointed up at the multiple wires hanging down from the ceiling. "There used to be a glass screen there, probably to monitor data reactions. The person in charge of the suspension shredded all the paper documents, but facing the glass screen—"

"He chose to destroy it with violence."

Tang Shun pondered: "The glass screen is only a media for broadcasting. The real information would always be stored in the computer memory, indicating that the person was in such a hurry they couldn't be bothered to care or....there was another person here that tried to destroyed the database in their place."

There were many of such broken screens hanging from the ceiling, their wires had long lost their power and did not short-circuit, they only dangled dangerously in the air like a bunch of colorful venom snakes.

Chao Bin's eyes lit up, "So doesn't that mean, that on the file database ssomewhere here in the lab, there is information that the person didn't manage to destroy–"

Chu Yi nodded and once again stepped over the glass slag, "We just have to acess the interface first."

Chu Yi's moved with a clear purpose in mind and after following his line of movement, they were suprised to see that amongst the many broken shards and glass, there still seemed to be a screen that was working relatively fine, although it flickered constanlty as if it had been smashed with a heavy bat, the screen still occasionally shuttered in tandem to the lights overhead.

Chu Yi stood below the stuttering screen and calmly followed the traces of the wire connected to its back with his gaze. There must be a source of power here that would cause the screen to blink.

"Bingo."

The voice he used to whisper under his breath, seemed to contain dark excitement, like an evil spirit waiting for a deadly performance to begin.

Chu Yi signaled to the two and pointed to something hidden by the fallen chair in the corner, there was nothing at first glance but after tentatively shifting away from the dried blood and removing the heavy chair did they see the wires behind it.

Chu Yi's brows instantly furrowed, 

The connection port between this hanging screen wires and other parts of the room is in the northern part of their relative position, and a large part of the corner was taken over by at least a dozen winding wires that were ceremoniously plugged into a dying socket. They were all tangled into one giant mess, and no matter how much he stared, he didn't see a way to unfurl it today.

But what filled him with consternation was that one of the wires was pretty badly burnt and the cut ends were scorched into a grey matter.

No matter what, if one of the wires were damaged, it would prove difficult to start up the interface of the hanging screen. However he didn't feel that they had time to waste trying to figure out how to turn on the screen, there was a budding sense of crisis tickling his heart that persisted even after his first meeting with the new variable in this copy.

He couldn't be sure why for now, but he knew that the man's appearance would bring unexpected troubles to him..

Chief neurosurgeon Chu calmly stared at the hundreds of connected wires for two seconds, then rolled his eyes restrained calmly, and removed his sight from the broken wires.

He has always been very uncomfortable with this kind of thing. Rather than sitting here and dealing with tangled wires and data signals, he would rather go through a thrilling chase of death with a few of the mutants locked underground.

Chu Yi turned his head to the others just in time for Tang Shun to speak up, 

"I have a way, let me try it."

Chu Yi raised an eye curiously but still stepped aside to make way for Tang Shun, 

He kneeled and gently handled the grouped wires in his fingers.

Tang Shun's fingers are long and beautiful, when he fiddles and turns the wires into various angles, he resembled almost as if was playing a piano.

In fact, it wouldn't be hard to believe that a man like that would know how to play the piano. Gentle, intelligent, mannered, he seemed more of refined prince than had accidentally strayed too far from his fairytale. 

Of course, this thinking was just a mistake..

Tang Shun carefully sorted out the connected wires, looking attentive, his almost transparent eyeballs shifted quickly, his eyelids drooped slightly, and he seemed very quiet, even with a calm and introverted temperament.

"Brother Chu, who do you think secretly occupied this place."

Chu Yi paused at the sudden way of addressing and looked confusedly at Chao Bin, the youth looked back at him obliviously waiting for an answer.

After a few seconds of disconcertion, Chu Yi finally turned wrapped his head around the question, 

" A lunatic."

Chu Yi's voice was playful and he hummed the words through grinning lips, Chao Bin was slightly taken aback, this wasn't what he had expected,

"...why do you say that?"

Before he could answer, there was the sound of static starting up behind him, he turned back–

Tang Shun just finished connecting the last wire, and easily twisted the entire cable sheath twice to reinforce it. He held the terminal in a leisurely manner, touched the corner of his mouth with a smile, and without further hesitation plugged the wires back into the terminal–

[<Ding!>]

[<Scanning Database>]

[<Remaining Data Found: 1>]