Chapter 5: Birth of a Superman p1
The beautiful eyes shining in the darkness belonged to Zhongnanhai’s top agent, Yu Lan. Like a nimble cat, she was perched on a wall next to the research institute, her gaze fixed on Fang Qiang over the heads of the crowd. That perverted man, what is he doing here? Could he be involved in this case too?
Yu Lan, on a mission in Dragon City, had been working in secret for days, monitoring the movements of the American agents while also covertly investigating the Dragon City Scientific Research Institute.
She had discovered early on that the American agents were showing an unusual interest in the institute, but she couldn’t immediately determine which scientist or which research project was their target.
For days, Yu Lan had been carefully and patiently investigating each possibility, her primary suspicion falling on the most significant research achievements. Professor Mo, whose project had been neglected by the institute and eventually canceled, had naturally fallen outside her scope of interest.
Who would have thought that tonight, this very same Professor Mo would suddenly drop dead in his laboratory?
Yu Lan had witnessed his death with her own eyes.
To avoid alerting her targets, she had conducted all her investigations without involving the Dragon City police. For several nights in a row, she had secretly infiltrated the institute, hoping to lie in wait and capture one or two of the American agents who came snooping, so she could interrogate them.
The previous nights had yielded nothing, and tonight was no different. Disappointed, Yu Lan decided to search the entire institute—office by office, lab by lab—hoping to find some clue.
When she reached Professor Mo’s lab, she peered through a crack in the door and saw the old scientist drawing liquid from a small vial with a syringe and injecting it into his own arm.
Yu Lan’s first thought was: drugs.
But on closer inspection, it didn’t seem right. After the injection, Professor Mo took his own temperature and began intently calculating some data. His expression was more like that of someone who had just injected himself with an experimental drug and was observing the results.
Yu Lan knew that many scientists, when unable to find test subjects, would experiment on themselves. A sense of respect welled up inside her. Not wanting to disturb him, she quietly moved on.
After searching all the rooms, she was preparing to leave the institute. As she passed Professor Mo’s lab, she suddenly spotted a tall, thin black man standing in the exact spot she had been moments before, spying on the professor.
Yu Lan recognized him at once as an American agent.
To wear out iron shoes in a fruitless search, only to find it without any effort. Yu Lan was secretly delighted. She silently glided forward and knocked the man unconscious with a single knife-hand strike.
Just as she finished tying up her captive, she heard a pained groan from inside the lab.
It was a hoarse sound, the kind a person makes when they are being tortured to the point of collapse.
Startled, Yu Lan quickly pressed her eye to the crack in the door again. She saw Professor Mo on the floor, his face purple and swollen. One hand was desperately clawing at his own throat, while the other frantically scratched at his body.
His glasses had shattered. A sound like a wounded beast—“Heh… heh…”—escaped his throat. His expression was one of extreme agony. His lab coat was torn to shreds, and his exposed skin was covered in bloody scratches.
Before Yu Lan could decide whether to try and save him, Professor Mo breathed his last.
At that moment, researchers from the neighboring labs, alerted by the noise, came running.
Unable to linger, Yu Lan grabbed the unconscious American agent and vaulted out of a corridor on the other side. She hid her captive in a public restroom near the institute, then slipped back inside as if she had never left.
What followed was a familiar scene: researchers shouting in panic, summoning everyone working overtime or on duty. Chaos ensued. Someone called for an ambulance, someone called the police, someone called the institute’s director… It wasn’t until the police finally arrived that a semblance of order was restored.
The police began their crime scene investigation and preliminary autopsy. No one noticed Yu Lan.
And Yu Lan was happy to remain unseen, not bothering to introduce herself to the police. Her intuition told her that the old scientist had not been murdered, nor was it likely an accident. He had almost certainly died as a result of a failed experiment on himself.
Of course, there was no need to tell this to the bumbling police. Let them stay busy.
After confirming there were no other American agents nearby, Yu Lan was about to slip away when she happened to see the hastily arriving Fang Qiang.
The sight of the man who had drunkenly harassed her sister immediately ignited her anger. She wanted nothing more than to give him another severe beating. But first, she had to figure out if he had any connection to her investigation. Let the police interrogate him. Once I get a confession from the American agent, I can solve this mystery.
With that thought, she vaulted up, slid effortlessly down the institute’s outer wall, and vanished into the night.
***
The investigation into Professor Mo’s death quickly concluded.
The Dragon City police confirmed that no outsiders had entered the institute that night. All the staff working overtime had alibis for one another, and there was no evidence of a grudge, a crime of passion, or a robbery-homicide.
Therefore, Professor Mo’s death could only be a suicide. The motive was clear: he was distraught over his research project being canceled, and his latest experiment had once again failed. In a moment of despair, he had taken his own life.
As for the cause of death, the autopsy determined that the deceased had injected himself with a potent poison. Although the exact composition of the toxin was unknown, it was certainly a compound of various organic poisons. And the only person capable of synthesizing such a complex drug was Professor Mo himself.
In other words, it was a simple case of suicide, with no suspicious circumstances.
The only slightly bizarre detail was the discovery of a small, lizard-like animal carcass at the scene of death. The creature’s blood had been completely drained, making it a nauseating sight.
An animal expert later identified it as a juvenile chameleon. The police concluded that Professor Mo had drained its blood for some experiment and didn’t give it much thought.
Professor Mo’s death garnered almost no public attention.
The local newspapers only briefly reported the old scientist’s suicide in a small corner, with an inconspicuous headline and minimal space.
As for Fang Qiang, the police did not give him much trouble this time. Their questioning about Professor Mo’s death was largely matter-of-fact. Once they understood the circumstances, they quickly ruled him out as a suspect.
Aside from Officer Ruan Lin rewarding him with a few crisp slaps, the police only reprimanded him for “assaulting an officer,” gave him a stern lecture, and hit him with a hefty fine before releasing him.
Fang Qiang didn’t argue. The moment he left the police station, he headed straight for the institute.
His heart was overflowing with grief. He was in no mood to worry about anything else. Right now, there was only one thing he needed to know—what was the true cause of Professor Mo’s death?
Fang Qiang refused to believe that Professor Mo would commit suicide. He remembered that on the night they parted, the professor had been so optimistic, so excited, so energetically engrossed in his experiment. Even if the subsequent test had failed, Professor Mo would have been, at worst, extremely dejected, but he would never have taken his own life.
I have to find out what happened.
With this conviction, Fang Qiang didn’t even go home. He ran straight to the institute.
It was already nine o’clock at night.
Since the case was closed, the police cordon had been removed. Using his own key, Fang Qiang easily entered Professor Mo’s laboratory.
He flipped on the lights. As far as he could see, everything was just as it had been that night.
The only new addition was a chalk outline of a human figure in the center of the floor—the spot where the professor’s body had lain.
Fang Qiang knelt, gazing at the outline. The professor’s face and voice seemed to appear before him, and tears began to stream down his face.
He remained there for a long time, lost in grief. When he had calmed down a little, he stood up, feeling completely lost.
How should he investigate? The police must have searched this place thoroughly. If they didn’t find anything unusual, what chance does an amateur like me have?
Fang Qiang frowned. His intuition told him the professor’s death had to be related to the synthesis agent. He began to check the vials one by one.
There were hundreds of vials in the lab, containing different substances—gaseous, liquid, and solid—in a dazzling array of colors. The police, knowing next to nothing about chemistry, hadn’t bothered to inspect them carefully.
But Fang Qiang was familiar with them all. He could even identify each one without looking at the label.
He muttered to himself, his eyes scanning intently for his target…
Suddenly, a jolt went through him. His gaze locked onto two small vials in the corner of the desk.
He remembered it clearly. That night, before he left, the professor had pointed to these two vials and gleefully told him that the synthesis agent had been successfully created. All they needed was a suitable chimpanzee next month, and they could begin formal testing.
At the time, both vials had been full of a transparent liquid. But now, one of them was empty.
Fang Qiang’s heart pounded. He ran to the desk, pulled open a drawer, and found Professor Mo’s experiment log.
