The air went quiet for a moment.

Tang Xiaoman’s newly relaxed heart jumped into her throat again.

Wasn’t this request a bit too much? This was the Containment and Management Division, after all.

And they were facing a Former Mutant Individual who could undergo mutation again at any time.

No surveillance?

No audio recording?

Could the Containment and Management Division agree to such an outrageous condition?

Tang Xiaoman’s teeth had already started chattering, terrified that No. 3 would get angry.

God knows what the people from the Containment and Management Division would do if they lost their temper!

However, No. 3 only paused for a second before nodding.

“Okay.”

Tang Xiaoman: “Eh?”

No. 3 explained in a calm tone:

“When mental pollution, linguistic pollution, dream pollution, and non-standard procedure interference are involved, isolating the records is a reasonable request. Certain information is not suitable to be preserved by electronic devices, otherwise it may cause secondary transmission.”

Shen Qingshu nodded lightly.

No. 3 didn’t say anything more.

He simply turned around and entered his authorization on the control panel next to the door.

“Cameras disabled. Audio recording disabled. External monitoring switched to vital signs monitoring mode.”

The red light above the isolation door blinked twice and turned a cold white.

“Eh, so that’s how it is…”

Tang Xiaoman blinked, suddenly feeling a bit foolish, while also wondering why Shen Qingshu knew so much about this sort of thing.

With a hiss of depressurization, the heavy isolation door slid open to both sides.

Following Shen Qingshu’s instructions, No. 3 signaled the others to step back, then invited Lin Han and Shen Qingshu to go inside.

Before entering the Containment Room, Lin Han couldn’t help but ask, “Why am I the one coming along?”

Shen Qingshu looked straight ahead, her voice even.

“Because I don’t know what to ask. You’ll be in charge of the questioning later.”

“And you?”

“To make sure he can answer.”

It sounded like a bizarre thing to say, but Shen Qingshu offered no further explanation, only adding lightly,

“Besides, there aren’t many people I trust.”

Lin Han was taken aback.

Shen Qingshu had already stepped into the Containment Room.

The temperature inside the Containment Room was very low.

In the center sat a special hospital bed.

The Former Mutant Individual was secured to the bed, his limbs and neck locked by silver-gray Restraint Rings, with fine blue currents flowing across them.

He looked even thinner than in the photo. Half of his body still had remnants of grayish-black chitin, and the black markings on his neck clung to his skin like some kind of parasitic plant.

His eyes were half-open, devoid of focus.

His lips parted and closed, letting out an almost inaudible mumbling.

“Cold…”

“No…”

No. 3 walked over to the bed and took a vial of pale blue serum from a metal case.

“This is a Stabilizer. It can maintain his consciousness for 10 to 15 minutes. After the time is up, it is recommended to terminate the questioning immediately.”

“Are there side effects?” Lin Han asked.

“For him, there is no longer much left that could be called a side effect.”

No. 3 calmly injected the serum into the Former Mutant’s arm.

The Former Mutant’s body twitched slightly, then began to convulse continuously.

“Good luck.”

After doing this, No. 3 turned and left. The quarantine door slowly closed behind him.

Only Lin Han, Shen Qingshu, and the half-human, half-monster man on the hospital bed were left in the Containment Room.

“I’m starting.”

Shen Qingshu took a small box out of her uniform pocket.

The box was old and its edges were slightly worn. It didn’t look like standard SAVE equipment at all.

She opened the lid to reveal something resembling a pair of earphones inside.

But it wasn’t an electronic device.

Its main body was made of a crystal-clear blue-and-white gemstone, with thin, curving lines that looked like naturally grown branches. No matter how you looked at it, it didn’t seem designed for listening to music.

Shen Qingshu placed the gemstone earphones onto the Former Mutant’s ears, then pulled an old-fashioned Walkman out of her pocket.

Shen Qingshu pressed the play button.

The Containment Room was quiet, so quiet that Lin Han could even hear the sound leaking from the gemstone earphones.

What the hell, this thing could actually play music, though the sound leakage was a bit severe…

Lin Han listened carefully: the earphones seemed to be playing an instrumental track. The melody was very simple, with no obvious rhythm changes. It just sounded like a slight ripple stirred up by the wind blowing across a lake.

However, the Former Mutant on the hospital bed suddenly began to struggle violently.

“Ah… Aaaaaah!”

The Restraint Ring emitted a piercing alarm.

Grayish-black chitin pulsated beneath his skin. The Former Mutant’s body convulsed intensely as miserable screams tore from his throat.

Lin Han subconsciously took a step forward, but seeing that Shen Qingshu had no reaction—as if everything was proceeding exactly as she expected—he had to suppress the countless ripples in his mind and merely asked:

“What is this doing?”

“Just ordinary psychological hypnosis.”

He’d be damned if this was ordinary psychological hypnosis. Did psychologists know their hypnosis was more intense than Professor Yang’s electroconvulsive therapy?1

Lin Han looked at the agonizing man.

He made up his mind: he would absolutely never listen to any song recommended by Shen Qingshu in the future.

Half a minute later.

The Former Mutant’s struggles gradually ceased, and his breathing slowly leveled out. His cloudy eyes remained lifeless, but the meaningless babbling from his mouth had disappeared.

He lay there quietly, as if emptied by something.

Shen Qingshu turned off the music.

“You can ask now.”

Lin Han glanced at her, but ultimately didn’t ask her anything.

At least, now was not the time.

Lin Han walked over to the hospital bed and looked down at the man.

“Can you hear me?”

The Former Mutant’s lips moved.

“I can…”

His voice was very faint, so hoarse it sounded as if it were coming from far away.

Lin Han’s heart tightened, he really could answer.

He softened his tone.

“Do you remember what happened?”

The man’s eyes trembled slightly.

“An injection…”

“Who gave you the injection?”

“They did…”

“Who are they?”

“Meta…”

The man’s throat seemed to catch.

He opened his mouth, his expression beginning to twist, but he still managed to speak:

“Meta… morphosis Society…”

Lin Han drew in a sharp breath.

The Metamorphosis Society…

Finally, a complete name had appeared.

“What is the Metamorphosis Society?”

The man’s voice was broken.

“I don’t know…”

“They said… they could make me stronger…”

“Just one injection…”

“After waking up… I would become a new human… with extraordinary powers…”

“But… they lied to me… locked me up… gave me so many injections… it’s cold…”

Lin Han’s pupils contracted slightly. This was the first time he had heard of something so shocking.

“Did they come looking for you?”

Lin Han remembered what was written in the file. Before becoming a Mutant, this man seemed to be nothing more than an unremarkable, ordinary person working as a driver.

“My… foot was injured… I couldn’t drive for a few days…”

“The company fired me… and then they found me…”

Lin Han’s fingers tightened slightly.

“How many of them are there?”

“I don’t know…”

“Where are they? Where were you locked up?”

“I d-don’t know…”

The man’s voice started to become chaotic again.

Lin Han didn’t rush him; he changed the question.

“Why did they create the Mutants?”

The man’s eyes suddenly widened a little.

“Screening…”

“Adaptation…”

“Failures… thrown away…”

“Successes… taken away…”

Shen Qingshu’s expression changed slightly.

Lin Han pressed on:

“Are you all failures?”

“Failures… all failures… so let them out…”

Lin Han only felt a chill crawl up his spine; those Mutants that attacked the neighborhood were failures that were deliberately released.

What about the successful “works”?

How many successful works had that organization called the Metamorphosis Society accumulated?

Lin Han suddenly felt that the whole thing might be even more serious than he had imagined…