Chapter 48: I love you.
At the same time, on the 211th floor.
Laboratory 40 was located in the depths of the building, in the safest and most remote position. Thick walls surrounded it, with countless high-tech composite structures buried within. No sound or light could pass through, making it completely isolated from the world.
Cheng Ming didn’t know what was happening outside.
She only felt that this infiltration had been unexpectedly smooth.
The surveillance coverage automatically avoided this area, even saving her the trouble of being caught and alerting the security station. She only needed to avoid the cameras outside and, after reaching the designated passage, the destination was within reach.
She had already entered the periphery of the laboratory, passed through several safety valves, and was in a dim and quiet environment.
Behind her, the layout of the experimental area was simple, like an expanded incubation room. A faint, blue, cold light enveloped one huge glass container after another. The solution was turbid, and the contents could not be seen clearly.
There were no menacing experimental creatures as she had imagined, nor were there any dangerous technologies beyond her imagination.
This should be the area that Zhou Jia had mentioned, which had been “repaired and put back into use.” All the instruments were brand new, and there was no sign of any major disaster.
Now, in front of her was the last access control.
Looking up at the huge biological hazard warning sign, the reminder “unauthorized personnel are prohibited from entering” was posted on the side like a bloody stain. It was like standing in front of the gate of hell, and the dark red light was engraved in her pupils, and her heart couldn’t help but beat faster.
Besides fear, the feeling was also close to excitement. She only felt that the blood in her chest was slightly boiling.
Cheng Ming was not reckless. She took the protective clothing from the periphery and put it on carefully, and placed her ID card on it.
Beep. The IC card verification was passed.
Because she was worried that a mismatch would trigger an alarm, she didn’t dare to use her own to try and make a mistake, but had directly stolen Jiang Dexin’s ID card.
But the passage did not open.
The operation light screen popped up, and the input box flashed alternately, showing its presence.
As expected, a password was needed.
Cheng Ming was highly focused. She completely recalled the note from Professor Jin Xia, and then raised her hand again, and entered the numbers one by one.
Finally, she tapped on the confirm button.
Ding.
The red light turned into a white light.
The password was correct.
The silver-gray metal door slowly opened before her.
Taking back the access card from the card slot, Cheng Ming strode into the door, and the passage closed behind her again.
A prompt sound was heard. She guessed that Jiang Dexin would receive the message at the same time, but at this point, she couldn’t care less.
The built-in light source recognized the researcher’s identity and automatically turned on. Like a game starting up, one area after another was lit up, thump, thump, thump!
The scene before her was completely new.
An overwhelming amount of information slammed into her vision, giving her no time to prepare.
And she was a novice player without any guidance. After a very short alternation of light and dark, she was faced with a huge picture scroll that was like an invasion from another world, and she was at a loss.
For a moment, she didn’t know where to start looking.
In the vast central area, on both sides, thick soundproof walls divided the area. She could get a panoramic view through the open windows. The bright square lights, the safety cabinets against the wall, a series of common laboratory structures… it seemed to be a normal experimental area.
But there were unusual display walls that showed the specialty of this place.
After laboratory 40 was abandoned and left empty, it seemed to have been converted into an exhibition area, and she was the long-awaited visitor.
“Project 1 incubation field…”
“First fusion failure…”
“Fifty-seventh fusion failure, increase the concentration of Wave-Born Floating Flower Algaefungus…”
“Fusion successful, MM1 born…”
“First personality test failure…”
“Twenty-third personality test failure, increase the concentration of the inhibitor…”
“Test successful, awaiting approval…”
Cheng Ming moved her feet and read the text on the introduction screens one by one. Along with more and more questions, her footsteps became faster and faster, until she reached the end of the circular corridor.
Swish. The ceiling light turned on.
She stopped at once.
In the huge glass tank in front of her, a highly decomposed corpse was soaked.
The soaking solution should have been changed frequently, and the last change was not long ago, so the overall liquid was still clear, but the reddish-brown pieces of the corpse still had pus constantly seeping out, slowly staining the bottom water turbid.
She had taken experimental anatomy classes, and her grades were good.
So, even though the corpse was unrecognizable, she could tell at a glance that this creature was half human, half fish.
The scales were peeled off, and the bones were exposed. The messy, swollen flesh did not destroy the smooth, curved structure. In the eyes of a biology enthusiast, it had a strange and terrifying beauty.
A mermaid…
She stood below and looked up. The water ripples scattered a psychedelic light and shadow, like a gauze covering her face, making her hold her breath.
Was it an existing animal, or a man-made monster?
“Xiao Ming,” she said softly, as if to herself. “Is there really nothing you want to say? Don’t you feel familiar with these things?”
Her ears were dead silent.
A certain Fish-Fungus said nothing.
It had been like this since she had rushed out of the door without a second thought. It was probably half-dead with anger at her willfulness and was using a stubborn silence to express its dissatisfaction.
Cheng Ming didn’t care.
As usual, she used her parasitic partner to ease her tension and looked at the cubicle at the end.
The intricate cables were exposed behind the clear glass, and the electronic operation screen was quietly lit in the corner. The interfaces were shining with a tempting signal.
The experimental database.
She felt the hard object in her portable storage bag, paused for two seconds, pushed the door open, and walked into the storage room.
This place was extremely friendly to visitors, with no restrictions.
The impact of the journey had been huge, and her mind was in a mess. But thinking of the words and the year marked below, she paused for a moment, then quickly browsed through the vast amount of electronic data and, with a clear goal, found the sequence file named MM1.
Then, she inserted the disk, and while copying all the local documents, she uploaded her own DNA data.
Sequence comparison.
She had already expected it and had basically anticipated the result.
The last panel, which claimed “test successful,” was dated 2155.
And on the old group photos of the researchers, even though they were tightly wrapped, she had recognized Cheng Ran at the head at a glance.
This was indeed the birthplace of Xiao Ming.
The black progress bar moved. She stared at the pale interface, her breathing heavy, and she slowly hugged her arms.
It was a very insecure posture.
Her fingers under her protective suit were clutching each other, as if she were not facing the countdown to the truth, but the countdown to her life.
Although she herself did not understand where this panic came from.
Ding. The progress bar reached the end, flickered and disappeared, and then a reminder that the comparison was complete popped up.
The result was out.
Match: 100%.
There was no discrepancy with her guess. The Fish-Fungus had come from here.
This thought flashed by. Cheng Ming was already in a numb and blank state. She subconsciously reached out to pull out the disk.
But when her hand touched the cold metal, she immediately stared back at the screen, and her movements froze.
100%, what a perfect number.
Was there really no problem?
Her genes and Xiao Ming’s were inseparable, so she had uploaded her own sequencing results.
And what was saved here was the sequence result of the experimental subject back then.
The two were compared, and they matched completely.
…
There was a big problem.
Too big.
So big that it was terrifying, so big that she lost the ability to speak, so big that her thoughts were suddenly in a mess.
No, no, no… no!
She pulled out the disk and reinserted it, quickly reviewing what she had uploaded, and chose to compare again.
She didn’t know what she was doing. Her vision had already lost focus, but she needed to do something to give herself some buffer time… she stared at the result.
However, the result did not change.
Boom. A loud noise like a storm suddenly hit her ears. Cheng Ming lost her balance, staggered, and leaned on the corner of the table. She stared at the number, and her nerves were as if they were being pulled, cut, and sawed. Waves of dizziness and tinnitus and sharp pain.
The pain was so great that she pressed her forehead and could barely stand up straight. She bent over and gasped for breath, and the veins and blood vessels on her forehead were bulging violently, as if they were about to burst.
“Xiao Ming…” she gritted her teeth in a low voice.
It was an indescribable, faint voice, as ethereal as a ghost, and so hoarse that it was terrifying.
“Don’t play dead.”
“Do you know?”
“You know, don’t you!”
Yes, what mother would do this to her own daughter.
Because, she was not her daughter at all.
She was an experimental subject.
She was just an experimental subject.
She was actually the experimental subject.
Her mind was in a turmoil, and the outside world was dead silent.
Xiao Ming had never responded again. The inhibitor could not be so strong as to completely block its perception of the outside world. She had thought it was angry and didn’t want to talk to her, but now it seemed that it was not.
It turned out to be guilt.
It had tried every means to stop her, not because it really felt that there was any threat to their safety.
It was guilt.
Haha, liar.
She remembered it repeatedly emphasizing that they were one, and that it would die with her. She remembered teasing it and asking it to call her mom, and its first reaction was to refuse. She remembered its inexplicable rejection of Professor Jin Xia, and it was always trying to stop her from accepting the other’s arrangements…
Thinking about it now, every word, every detail, had a different meaning.
She was not its mother.
She was it.
It was just that her appearance was like a human, her cognition was human, and she was biased towards humans.
“Speak! Answer me!”
What else did it know? What else had it hidden?
Facing her frantic questioning, she could clearly feel that the other consciousness in her mind was retreating, resisting, as if it wanted to turn into a stone, and no matter how she pestered it, it would not move.
However, it could not be a stone.
This was Cheng Ming’s body. She was the master, and it was her vassal. The brain domains interacted, the signal was sent out, and the nerve tendrils were like hard iron pliers prying open its clam shell, probing into the sac, and the consciousness was like a spider’s web, suddenly intertwining and entangling.
Buzz!
Information flooded into her mind like a bursting tide. Her brain was like a central processing unit working at high speed, and the data reception was overloaded.
Cheng Ming fell to the ground.
The intense dizziness made her unable to maintain normal thinking. Along with the sharp ringing in her ears, countless fragments of images flashed back, and double images appeared before her eyes. The lines were bizarre and distorted.
Her memories went back, and her body was as if it had been drenched by a downpour. The sticky weight dragged her fiercely into the abyss—
…
“We’ve finally succeeded in one. Let’s start with her, our project No. 1.”
In the flickering light and shadow, “she” saw a back.
Cheng Ran was talking to many people. When she turned around, “she” saw the writing board in her hand, with the black and white number: MM1.
…
“No, she’s a monster. She has no humanity at all!” someone said in a terrified voice. “Forget it, let’s report the experiment as a failure. She’ll kill us!”
“Why is this happening? She always looks so well-behaved, but she suddenly loses control… Does she have multiple personalities?”
“Give me some time. The inhibitor is being developed,” Cheng Ran said, standing behind the glass and looking at “her.” “Maybe it can suppress it.”
…
Cheng Ran lowered her head and leaned against the transparent glass. A liquid dripped on the phone screen. “Baby…” this first-level researcher, who was usually so calm that she was cold, was crying.
“She” stretched out her small hand and tried to make a sound, “ma…ma.” Although it was indistinct, it sounded like “mama.”
Cheng Ran suddenly turned her head, her face changed.
…
The experiment was a success. She was transferred from the semi-open area to the fully open area, and many people were cheering.
Cheng Ran looked at “her” over the crowd, her expression subtle and complicated.
“She” didn’t know what she was thinking.
…
A huge explosion sounded, and a white smoke flooded over. “She” didn’t know what had happened, but she didn’t feel scared.
Because Mom was here.
Cheng Ran picked up “her.” “She” was wrapped in an unknown material and lost consciousness in peace.
…
The monster side was completely suppressed, and she grew up by her parents’ side like all normal human children.
Her mother loved her, and even if her father didn’t love her, he compromised.
She had spent the most stable and beautiful 13 years of her “life.”
…
When she opened her eyes again, Cheng Ran was holding her just as she had taken her out of the laboratory, but this time, she was going to throw her into the sea.
Why did Mom want to kill her, she didn’t know.
Perhaps the maternal love that had been controlled by hormones had finally receded, and she had discovered that she was not her daughter after all, but a potential hidden danger with a huge threat.
Her body’s self-preservation potential was stimulated.
Everything that followed was like a silent film, and she was just a bored spectator.
The sharp claws and fangs tore through the protective suit, and she easily counter-killed the enemy and pushed her into the sea.
Through the broken mask, she saw Cheng Ran’s shocked, sad, and grieving eyes.
Those eyes were crying, and they had been crying for a long, long time.
She just watched, watched, in a daze, confused. The seawater, which was full of radiation, glowed with a faint blue light, making the sky, the ocean, the land, and the whole world seem like a dream.
She also seemed to have had a real dream. Her brain’s protective mechanism took effect, and after she woke up, she had forgotten everything.
And then, like a pathetic clown, she deceived herself and went to find the truth, vowing to find her mother.
But her mother was dead.
She had killed her with her own hands.
If Cheng Ran had been watching everything she had done, she would probably have been laughing at her in anger.
How could there be such a hypocritical, insatiable, and ungrateful “daughter.”
Time went back, and she saw the very beginning again.
What a smart, what a cunning little thing.
There were so many researchers, but “she” had her eyes on Cheng Ran at a glance and begged her for love.
“She” was just clumsily imitating the human control of the vocal cords. Some people said that because “a” was the easiest vowel for a baby to pronounce, mothers all over the world had coincidentally expressed it as the same syllable—”mama.” This hypothesis was probably verified in her case.
The monster baby, who was trying to make a sound, had accidentally uttered such a syllable with a special meaning, and Cheng Ran had heard it.
From this one sound, their relationship had changed.
It was a very ambiguous and unclear change, and no one else had noticed it except for them.
Until Cheng Ran had taken a great risk to take her out of the laboratory, her parasitism had succeeded.
She had taken the place of her original daughter, had obtained all the love that the little girl should have had, and had replaced her perfect life, like the most shameless cuckoo cub, occupying the nest.
Although, from a biological point of view, this was just a way of survival.
But she had accepted the moral education of human society, and her self-awareness was human. So, what a vicious act this was.
Mama, mama, mama, mama…
From birth to death, and then to her new life.
A single title had squeezed out all the nutrients of the role of a mother for a lifetime, sucking out the marrow and exhausting everything.
From beginning to end, she was just a monster that would do anything to survive.
…
“Cheng Ming, Cheng Ming! Cheng Ming—”
She suddenly emerged from the drowning suffocation and gasped for breath.
She was so forceful that she was almost about to spit out blood. Every breath was a sharp pain, and the oxygen was like iron ingots rolling down from her mouth and nose to her whole body.
“Cough… cough, cough, cough!” A heart-wrenching cough came from her throat, and the smell of rust surged up. She lay on the ground, suspecting that she was about to vomit out her internal organs.
“Cheng Ming…” in the pause, this voice came from her own mouth. Xiao Ming was calling her.
But her ears were filled with her heartbeat. Her heart was contracting and expanding, as rapid as a death-knell drumbeat. The sounds she heard were all muffled and separated by a frosted glass, as if they were coming from another person.
What a terrifying monster.
After killing her parents, “she” could still calmly and rationally clean up the mess, return to the protective wall from the coast, peel off a dead person’s protective suit and put it on, and then faint, faking the illusion that she had not been contaminated, and easily forgetting everything.
She couldn’t tell if the memories came from herself or from that so-called “parasite,” but Cheng Ran and Cheng Jin had been killed by this body of hers. It was a foregone conclusion, irrefutable.
And it, which knew the truth, was still playing deaf and dumb, deliberately concealing it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. “Since when did you know?”
She was so pained and angry that she wanted to laugh, so she really questioned it with a smile.
“…”
Xiao Ming said softly, “Since I had enough energy. I remembered everything after that viral infection.”
At this time, it was frank again.
No wonder it had to urge her to find food for it every week at the beginning, but later, when she was busy with work, it was fine even if she didn’t care about it for a month or two.
Because the ability that had been suppressed by the inhibitor had revived, and the memories had also been gradually unsealed.
So the last time she had tried to explore its memories, she hadn’t seen much, and she had been rejected very seriously.
No wonder she always had trouble establishing relationships with the people around her, although they were all very concerned about her. Qu Ying, Jiang Dexin, Han Xuhua… even Cheng Ran.
Yes, she didn’t even know her own mother, and her mother didn’t know her either. She rarely paid attention to Cheng Ran’s past, and she had never been her true self in front of Cheng Ran. She was always pretending, pretending to be what her mother expected her to be, or to be more direct, she was a heartless monster, pretending to be human.
The mockery she had once had for Xiao Ming had all turned into a boomerang that had pierced into her own flesh and blood, a bloody and sharp pain.
She always kept a distance from everyone. What kind of person was she?
Xiao Ming had once sharply raised this question. The answer was selfish, indifferent, and alienated from society.
She didn’t even know her mother. Her mother was just her anchor for being human. So she was so eager to find Cheng Ran’s whereabouts, wasn’t she also looking for herself… you brought me into this world, and you left. So who am I?
The fear and insecurity she felt every time she faced Xiao Ming now had an answer. It was her body’s instinctive reminder.
Unfortunately, with so many abnormalities, she hadn’t noticed any of them.
“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Cheng Ming laughed tragically. “Say it! Why didn’t you say anything?”
She could use self-defense to absolve herself, but she couldn’t face the self that was stained with her mother’s blood, and even more, she couldn’t face the fact that her mother had wanted to kill her.
So she could only turn the gun on herself, on Xiao Ming, on the so-called real “monster” in her body.
“…”
Xiao Ming knew very well how bad her mental state was now and said concisely, “For your own good.”
The day she had forgotten, the most crucial sixteen hours, was a high wall of defense erected by her brain.
The wall had collapsed, and even though two thousand days and nights had passed, she was still easily crushed by guilt.
Her spiritual world was only an inch away from collapsing.
“You think you’re protecting me, don’t you?” Cheng Ming looked up at the dazzling ceiling light, her whole body trembling. “Haha, how great.”
It was all lies!
Talking about humanity, morality, and character with a monster was just asking for trouble. Survival of the fittest. For them, they could be despicable, shameless, and sinister, and would do anything.
Survival was paramount.
Even when faced with the “host’s” extreme anger and curses, it would only say, “I just want you to live.”
It was an understatement, and it was not ashamed.
Living was being a winner.
“I want you to die,” Cheng Ming murmured. “I really want to die with you.”
“…”
Xiao Ming seemed even more helpless than her. “Don’t hurt yourself. I’ll mistake it for you wanting to die with me.”
Cheng Ming slowly curled up and leaned against the cold metal plate of the equipment, repeating, “What are you still alive for… why aren’t you dead yet…”
“I want you to live.”
“I don’t want to! I hate you, I hate you!”
But for every sentence she said, there was another voice in her head that contradicted her. It was childish, stubborn, and sincere.
“I like you.”
“I hate you!”
“I love you.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Cheng Ming was on the verge of a breakdown.
“…”
It was like an AI that had been set with a bottom-level program. Even if its creator was tired of its existence and wanted to pull its plug and destroy its system, it still repeated it one last time before the world was annihilated—
“I love you.”
I love you, and I want you to live, so I will eliminate all potential threats to you without any regard for the consequences, even if it’s the people you love deeply.
What a cruel, barbaric, and unreasonable love.
Given that they were one, in the end, this so-called love could only be attributed to one word—selfishness.
A living being’s bottom-level program was its genes.
Love was the selfishness engraved in the DNA.
