Chapter 69 - The Lnstitute (10)

The night was cold and the ward was still.

There was no sound.

It was so quiet that Chu Yi could only make out the sound of his own heart thundering against his chest, 

1.....2.....3.....4...

Ba-dump.. Ba-dump...Ba-dump

He counts time in tune with his heartbeat.

It's 11:35.

There was still twenty-five minutes left, 

This feeling of recording time with his heartbeat was familiar to him, but he couldn't remember what made him like this , nor what he had been waiting for so desperately for that he tracked every passing second. 

5....6....7....

The bathroom was still leaking.

The red blood-stains on the floor couldn't be removed no matter what. The dead cat symbolized something sinister.

8....9....10....

It's time.

Red eyes snapped open, glowing like a bloodthirsty beast ready for the hunt!

In every ward in the building, groups of tensed players opened their eyes at the speed of light and jumped out of bed immediately!

As expected, the doors were unlocked.

"To the Operating Room"

It wasn't known when Tang Shun appeared beside him but he quickly followed behind to slip out the open door. 

It was dead quiet and there was no one in sight. Regardless, none of the players made a single sound as they hurried out of their rooms in a scattered stream. They didn't have much time since the key wasn't permanent and only lasted an hour. If they ended up being locked out for the night, their mangled bodies would probably be a gruesome sight to behold in the morning.

Tang Shun and Chu Yi met up with Chao Bin at the door of the Operation room. There was no one else around them and it seemed like they were the only ones who had discovered this relatively obscure place at this stage.

"Fuck!"

The first thing they saw was a corpse. It wasn't the same mummified corpse from before. This was a fresh corpse that had been newly killed and dragged to the foot of the door.

And in dark of the night, they realized that there were multiple such bodies.

One of the most decomposed corpses seemed to have been shoved onto the floor from the operating table. It looked to have been soaked in corrosive liquid during its lifetime. The mutilated skin was completely decayed to reveal the blackened skeleton with stringy brown muscles still clinging to its bones. The most corroded were its cheeks, it had been completely rotted, and the flesh had melted away to reveal the teeth of its skull, leaving only bits and pieces of wretched skin dangling.

The corrosive liquid mixed with blood continued to drip from its body, trickling, leaving a string of sticky black marks wherever it passed.

Chu Yi and Tang Shun carefully stepped past the disgusting blood stains and made a beeline in the direction of the closed old iron cabinet.

Mu Fang was at least right about something, they could only find important clues at night.

The old cabinet had transformed into a glass medicine cabinet with scattered medicine bottled filled with unknown pills, visible behind the blurry glass.

Chao Bin came screeching from behind them, face green as he tried to avoid looking at the floor as his shoes squelched in the wake of the dead bodies.

"How do we open it?"

"I don't seem to see any keys before.."

Tang Shun shook his head, 

"More than likely, with the systems evil taste, we are going to have to search the dead bodies for the -"

Chu Yi participate in their discussion. After seeing the many strange medicine bottles in the glass cabinet, he said nothing but started searching for something. So he went out and dragged a small metal tray used to hold bloody waste during surgery and slammed it directly against the glass cabinet! The loud sound of glass shattering shocked both Tang Shun and Chao Bin, who stared in disbelief.

Chu Yi grinned broadly, white teeth abnormally bright in the gloomy darkness of the room, for some reason, Tang Shun felt that the man before him was a little wrong but neither could he pinpoint what exactly was off.

Chao Bin on the side, didn't think about that, only frightened by the decisiveness of this iceberg beauty.

"You... you be careful of broken glass."

Chu Yi smirked but ignored him, he reached out and took one of the medicine bottle from inside, unscrewed it, and found a transparent plastic sampling bag in it with an orange pill in it.

Different from the ones they were usually fed during the day.

Chao Bin noticed that there was a label on the sample bag with a chemical term he couldn't understand- CL67MTHa7, in a low whisper Chu Yi read out the long name, "Cyproterone Acetate and a long list of molecular formulas needed for organ transplant."

Tang Shun also reached in opened another bottle of medicine. Inside it was the same sample bag. This time it contained a yellow pill with another name on it. 

"B78META76, Blood Transfusion Pills."

In this way, they opened several medicine bottles in succession, all of which were filled with different pills. All the pills had something something to do with altering the human body.

Until Chu Yi found the last bottle, and this time found a printed report underneath the bottles position. It had scribbled on with an ominous red ink and had also been completely emptied of its contents unlike the others.

[After investigation, the drugs taken by the residents of this batch of potential ------- 'it was blacked out here' include but do not exclude the following, they are all taken voluntarily by the residents, however most if not all of them have exhibited signs of blood hemorrhage and limb contusion. The reason is to be investigated. The results of the physical examination of this time has found two people with compatibility with Code. #451E and the test results after combination is expected to come out next week , a comprehensive analysis will be carried out in conjunction with the physical examination report. It is expected that this times experimental batch will have a better success than last time with a corresponding mortality rate of 74. 7]

This confirmed one thing at the very least. this was an experiment. And everything surrounded the Institute was lie.

"What does this mean? What exactly is Code#451 and what exactly are they compatible with?" Chao Bin picked up a bottle. "What kind of pill is this?"

Tang Shun put down the report and pushed up his glasses slightly "These are banned drugs-" he stopped to let it sink in. "Drugs like these are banned because when used on the human body, they tend to completely alter the molecular structure of the cells of our biological atoms. Essentially forcing out the human potential and giving them a brief moment of something akin to superhuman characteristics but at the same time, they completely strip the victim of their vitality and usually in less than half an hour, they would be pronounced dead."

"If what they're saying in the written report is right, what's happening to the people in this batch of experiments is that they are experiencing symptoms of rejection by the body as it resists the foreign anti-bodies that have been injected into their bloodstream."

"Much like we are right now.

"Potential here, would be the bodies ability to accept these highly toxic foreign matters without dying immediately."

Chao Bin cursed under his breath,

"What bullshit Chosen Ones, aren't they just looking for the perfect Guinea Pigs that can last a little bit longer under whatever batshit experiment they're carrying on?!"

"What kind of things are they?" Chao Bin felt uncomfortable, Although he only graduated from high school, he still understood basic pharmacology.

Suddenly he heard Chu Yi say, "Excessive use of Betamine, even diluted , will result in the slow collapse of organs, first by hemorrhaging, then comes the loss of limbs, then the lungs will slowly collapse, the skin will peel off , then the heart would slowly stop beating. And through it all, you wouldn't die immediately, instead slowly feel yourself losing life, without being able to do a single thing."

He laughed, "Familiar isn't it "

Chao Bin choked and stopped talking, because he was immediately reminded of the horrifying disaster that happened just a few days ago.

This was purgatory.

"What's exactly do they want?" Chao Bin felt as if it was time to start thinking of his resting place.

Seeing that Chao Bin was in poor condition, Tang Shun....felt amused , " Even as we speak right now, we are probably dyeing. But at a much slower rate The injection we were given on the first day was probably the Betamine, but the pills we are issued everyday are probably something that will slow down the rate of our bodies collapsing."

"If there is any paranoid player who decided to not take the pills, they're definitely going to be facing a very bad situation soon."

This was the bad taste of the system.

Hearing this result, Chao Bin were stunned, his hands stiff and cold with fright. Pity rose in his heart as he thought about the fate of those unfortunate players later on but he quickly discarded that weak sentiment.

His situation wasn't much better either

Chao Bin was suddenly reminded of something and he turned to Tang Shun,

"How much time do we have left?"

Tang Shun looked at his watch "Half an hour."

Chu Yi shook his head, "Wrong."

They turned to him simultaneously, "We only have fifteen minutes left. "

Chao Bin was confused and looked between the two, "What's going on."

Tang Shun's face gradually became serious.

"Are you sure?"

Chu Yi nodded,

"From the moment we arrived here till now, I counted 45 minutes but when I looked at the watch, only thirty minutes have passed."

Chao Bin couldn't help but doubt, "Maybe you're wrong..."

Chu Yi title his head and stared at him, like a sinister snake assessing his prey, "Maybe. But do you really want to risk me being right."

"....."

After a moment of thought, Chao Bin conceded. If he was wrong, although it would be regrettable to miss out on valuable time, it wasn't all bad but in case he was right....

Chao Bin shivered.

He couldn't imagine the consequences.

Tang Shun shrugged, 

"Then let's do it like this."

He remembered something.

Chu Yi suddenly thought of the paper written by the religious cult that he had finished reading right before he lost consciousness the last time and after signaling to the others to start looking for anything else that may be of use, he re-searched the entire room.

It wasn't until he looked near the operating table did he finally find it again, after skimming through the page once again, he found something wrong about the feeling of the paper held in his hands.

It felt bulging as if something had been placed in a hidden pocket. After noticing this, with no hesitation, Chu Yi ripped the paper in half immediately , roughly revealing the contents within. As he expected there was indeed something that had been placed into a delicately cut seam on the thick paper.

It was a miniature hard drive.

Chao Bin and Tang Shun had been attracted by the noise snd came over to look at what was happening

"There is a label on this," Chao Bi pointed out. "But how do we watch it?" Chu Yi turned and walked towards the back of the room near the electric chair.

To their surprise, he bent over and pulled a small DVD player from underneath the torture device.

"How-" Chao Bin marveled and in response Chu Yi laughed, "If I was torturing someone with this thing, I would most definitely have them watch their ugly selves, with forced open eyes as they frothed and trashed in agony. Only wishing to die quickly"

"Sometimes mental torture trancedes physical pain."

"Don't you think so too Tang Shun?"

Tang Shun smiled helplessly but did not respond

Chu Yi didn't continue to push and opened the DVD, found the socket on the side and plugged the hard drive in his hand into it, "The label says [Experiment Log] in English."

The screen blinked briefly but managed to boot up, there was only one thing inside the drive, A video report dated [D-1: Classified #0001]. After opening it, there was a long ghostly blue interlude on the screen that shown a ghastly light on the pale faces of the three as they stood around the DVD, waiting.

Then it started.

And on the screen, the first thing they saw was a faceless man, 

No features. Just a blank canvas of skin wrapped around bone.

Chao Bin shivered, that wasn't human.

He had on a pure white lab coat and wore a tag that said, [R89]

In the video, R89, the faceless creature, was walking with the camera pointing downwards, he was obviously not in the Institute at that moment. , and seemed to be walking through a dilapidated and dirty environment that is incompatible with his own image. There were no towering buildings here, only ruined walls and piled waste. With bungalows made of plastic waste cloth, even the air is gray, and the occasional sight of children who ran past in the corner of the view were dressed in dirty old clothes.

This is an abandoned planet.