Chapter 118

Yuan Lan took out his phone again to send a message, likely telling someone to prepare the thrombopoietin for Bai Xuechao.

After sending the message, he put his phone away and said, "Let's go."

The two continued upstairs.

Upon reaching the seventh floor, the first thing Bai Xuechao saw was a double-leaf metal explosion-proof door, which dominated his entire field of vision, completely concealing the laboratory behind it.

Because the windows were also blocked by the door, the lighting on this floor was very dim, illuminated only by the light coming from the floors above and below.

"Little Xuechao, are you sure you want to go in and see?" Yuan Lan's hand rested on the smart lock beside him. He turned to look at Bai Xuechao standing at the top of the stairs, a relaxed smile on his face, yet he uttered a threat in an extremely gentle tone, "If you go in and see, and still betray me, I will kill you."

Bai Xuechao calmly met Yuan Lan's gaze. His ruby-like eyes were magnificent and clear, like a mirror that could reflect anyone's emotions.

He could clearly see the excitement hidden deep in Yuan Lan's eyes, whether it was for the potential betrayal that might come, the chance to personally kill him, or something else entirely.

"Even if I say it now, you wouldn't believe me, right?" Bai Xuechao said.

Yuan Lan said in a coquettish tone, "Whether I believe you is my business. Whether you say it is your business. Say it~"

"Okay," Bai Xuechao said, "I will not betray you."

He thought to himself: I'll wait for you to come and kill me.

Xiao 6 knew that Bai Xuechao would not leave the Dark Organization to join the Apocalypse Society. Upon hearing this, it clicked its tongue twice and sang an out-of-tune song, "Host's mouth, a lying ghost~"

Hearing Bai Xuechao's words, Yuan Lan's lips curved into a smile. The smile in his eyes appeared somewhat ambiguous in the dim light.

"Then let's go in," he turned back to the smart lock.

Yuan Lan chose to unlock it with iris recognition. His eyes were in front of the recognition device for only a second before a "click" sound came from within the large metal door.

He reached out and pushed the door open. Bai Xuechao also walked up behind him, and the two entered the laboratory together through the wide doorway.

The equipment in laboratory number four was somewhat similar to that in laboratory number two.

As soon as Bai Xuechao entered the laboratory, his attention was drawn to a glass cabinet placed in the middle.

He stared at the objects inside the glass cabinet, his eyes widening slightly in disbelief.

...Is this for real?

The glass cabinet in the middle was rectangular, with only one level, and a table underneath it. It looked like a display case, filled with irregularly shaped blood-red crystals of various sizes. They looked crystal clear under the sunlight shining into the room, refracting a faint light.

A quick glance revealed a rough estimate of over a dozen pieces.

"What's wrong?" Yuan Lan stood diagonally behind Bai Xuechao. Seeing him staring ahead without moving, he waved his hand in front of his eyes and asked with a smile, "Are you surprised?"

Bai Xuechao turned his head to look at Yuan Lan, taking a good while before he finally confirmed, "Special ability energy crystals."

The Apocalypse Society actually had so many special ability energy crystals.

"That's right~" Yuan Lan pushed Bai Xuechao further into the laboratory, then casually closed the metal door and said in a conversational tone, "You should know how I got them, right?"

"...Yu Ruolan," Bai Xuechao said after a moment of silence, each word clear.

"Correct!" Yuan Lan pushed Bai Xuechao's back to the glass cabinet, placed his hand on the glass, and leaned over to look at the special ability energy crystals inside. "There used to be even more than this, but I used a few for experiments, so this is all that's left."

Used? How extravagant.

The Dark Organization only had three special ability energy crystals. If the old leader knew Yuan Lan had used up a few, he would probably die of envy and jealousy.

Bai Xuechao stood in front of the glass display case, his snow-white, thick eyelashes lowered, looking at the special ability energy crystals in the glass container, still feeling the shock of seeing so many.

Before this, both the Dark Organization and the officials had concluded that special ability energy crystals were scarce.

No one had ever thought that the reason for the scarcity of special ability energy crystals was that one faction, relying on a special ability, had found and taken most of them, possessing more than the Dark Organization and the officials combined.

And this was after a few had been used for experiments.

Bai Xuechao had thought that Yuan Lan would use Yu Ruolan's special ability to search for special ability energy crystals, but he didn't expect to find so many. He counted them; there were a full thirteen special ability energy crystals in the display case.

Yuan Lan was completely using Yu Ruolan as a tool.

However, the side effect of Yu Ruolan's special ability was irreversible, destining her to be a consumable for Yuan Lan.

Bai Xuechao thought of Yu Ruolan's pitifully thin presence, and the way her eyes sparkled with a hint of shyness when she mentioned Yuan Lan. He actually felt a sense of kinship with her.

Yu Ruolan was Yuan Lan's tool, and he was the tool cultivated by Jiang Yunyi.

But his situation was slightly better than Yu Ruolan's. Although the side effect of his special ability would make his body worse, it wasn't completely irreversible. Jiang Yunyi would also frequently "maintain" him and pay attention to his physical condition, of course, also because he could continue to be used only when his body was well.

Yu Ruolan's tragedy was that she had not found someone who truly cherished her.

If it were someone who truly cared for her, they would not let her use her special ability like this. After all, her presence would diminish with each use.

This girl was really unlucky to have run into a heartless guy like Yuan Lan.

At this moment, Yuan Lan suddenly spoke, "Want to know what I did with the special ability energy crystals?"

"What did you do?" Bai Xuechao asked cooperatively.

He really wanted to know.

Yuan Lan walked briskly to one of the lab tables, on which sat a test tube rack. He picked up one of the test tubes.

"This one!" He walked back briskly with the test tube, like a child sharing his favorite toy with a friend. He shook the test tube in his hand and said enthusiastically, "If an ordinary person drinks this, there's a high probability they'll awaken a special ability."

Bai Xuechao was stunned for a moment and looked at the test tube in Yuan Lan's hand.

The top of the test tube was sealed with a stopper. The liquid inside was wine-red, and as Yuan Lan shook it, it swirled slowly inside the test tube, like a glass of red wine waiting to be savored.

"Have you tried it?" Bai Xuechao got to the point.

Yuan Lan smiled mysteriously, "What do you think?"

He's tried it, this guy has definitely tried it.

Bai Xuechao subconsciously frowned and asked, "You did human experimentation?"

He didn't like human experimentation.

Duan Xingzhi had been through human experimentation.

Back when the Dark Organization annihilated a rival organization, they found Duan Xingzhi in that organization's laboratory. At that time, Duan Xingzhi was covered in scars, but his special ability potential had been fully unleashed. He was terrifyingly strong, his strength and level far exceeding that of ordinary special ability users. He was a human weapon, just a bit dull.

"No!" Yuan Lan pouted, looking very wronged, but his voice was still sickly sweet, "How could you think of me like that? Am I that kind of person?"

Bai Xuechao tilted his head and watched him perform with a blank expression.

"Alright, I am that kind of person." Yuan Lan's wronged expression instantly turned into a brilliant smile. He held the test tube and explained with a smile, "But not this one! I didn't force her. I just explained its effects, and she voluntarily drank it."

Voluntarily drank it?

At this moment, Bai Xuechao suddenly remembered what Yu Ruolan had said—

『He asked me, who is the most suitable candidate.』

He stared into Yuan Lan's eyes and slowly said, "A girl, Yanhua University, slightly overweight, with severe mandibular deviation and underbite, right?"

"Little Yu told you all that?" Yuan Lan's eyes widened in apparent surprise, but there wasn't much surprise in them. He smiled and nodded, "That's her."

Bai Xuechao felt his blurry thoughts suddenly become clear.

The name of the Apocalypse Society, the statue of the goddess reaching out to the young man in the spire hall, the four new flavors of X8 pills, the potion that could awaken special abilities in ordinary people, and the girl who voluntarily drank the potion...

They were like scattered pearls, now strung together by a clear thread, silently revealing Yuan Lan's purpose to him.

A guess surfaced in Bai Xuechao's mind.

"You want to create a large number of special ability users?" Bai Xuechao asked.

"Correct!" Yuan Lan snapped his fingers happily, "Little Xuechao is very smart, and you understand me so well~"

Bai Xuechao thought Yuan Lan's idea was quite crazy.

Currently, special ability users all awaken naturally. If there was any pattern, it was that the age of awakening special ability users had been getting younger in recent years. In the past, people in their forties or fifties would awaken, but now the oldest to awaken were in their early twenties. The number of awakening special ability users was also increasing slightly year by year.

Now, with the increase in special ability users, cases of special ability crimes had also increased. If a large number of special ability users were to be created all at once...

The world would definitely descend into chaos.

Is this Yuan Lan's purpose?

To create chaos that would engulf the entire world?

"Did you know?" Yuan Lan leaned slightly closer to Bai Xuechao's face, smiling as he met his blood-red, magnificent eyes. His sickly sweet voice had a bewitching quality at this moment, "Actually, everyone can become a special ability user."

Bai Xuechao looked at him coldly and said, "Don't try to fool me."

"Fool you? No." Yuan Lan stood up straight and asked, "Do you know how special ability users awaken?"

Bai Xuechao said, "I know."

He certainly knew this.

It could be said that the Dark Organization was the first to study how special ability users awakened.

The Dark Organization was not established after special ability users awakened, but had existed for decades, entrenched in Y City. It had a pharmaceutical research and development center under its banner, which had been researching how to achieve longevity for the old leader. The more well-known health supplements on the market were all products of the Dark Organization during that period.

After the appearance of special ability users, because of their strong vitality, good physical fitness, and strong wound healing ability, the old leader initially placed his hopes of longevity on becoming a special ability user and invested a large amount of funds for research.

But after a long period of research, the old leader's hope was shattered.

He had no hope of awakening a special ability, at least not within thirty years. As for after thirty years, he would have to live to that age first.

The principle of awakening a special ability began with the strange blood rain in the year 5009 of the Xia Calendar.

Ever since the blood rain, special ability molecules began to appear in the air.

Ordinary people, by breathing the air, would store a small amount of special ability molecules in their bodies, which is why ordinary people could also be detected to have a special ability value of 1-9. This was like the oxygen in the blood; as long as a person was alive, they would always have it.

But ordinary people could not absorb special ability molecules, so their special ability value would never rise to 10.

The difference between a special ability user and an ordinary person was that a special ability user could absorb the special ability molecules in the air.

When a person who could awaken a special ability breathed in air containing special ability molecules, the cells in their body would gradually mutate and become capable of absorbing these molecules, thus beginning to awaken their special ability.

When the blood rain first fell, the content of special ability molecules in the air was very high. Some people's bodies mutated rapidly after breathing this air, and the first batch of special ability users appeared.

At that time, the old leader was already 70 years old.

He was quite excited when special ability users appeared and immediately had his pharmaceutical research and development center study special ability users and special ability molecules.

Every researcher in the pharmaceutical research and development center compared their own blood and extracted cells with those of special ability users and found that only a small number of them had cells that had undergone slight mutations, and the degree of mutation was different for each person, but it was still far from that of a special ability user.

Later, after three months of observation, they discovered that the degree of cell mutation increased over time, but it was too insignificant.

At that rate of mutation, even the fastest person might take fifty years to complete the mutation.

At the same time, there was another problem, which was that the content of special ability molecules in the air was rapidly decreasing, from being more than the content of oxygen to being less than oxygen. However, the curve of the volume fraction decrease had already flattened out and would maintain a stable number in the future.

But in this way, ordinary people would be able to breathe in even fewer special ability molecules, and the time for mutation would be prolonged.

Finally, they came to a conclusion—

Not everyone would mutate by breathing air containing special ability molecules, and even if they did, not everyone could immediately mutate into a special ability user; it would take a very long time.

After reaching this conclusion, they tested the old leader.

...And then discovered with horror that if the old leader wanted to awaken as a special ability user, he would need another fifty years under the initial content of special ability molecules, and under the current content of special ability molecules, it would take as long as seventy years.

They did not dare to say it directly. Under Jiang Yunyi's instruction, they tremblingly reported thirty years, and even this drew the old leader's powerless rage.

Apart from the researchers, Jiang Yunyi, and Jiang Wen Xuan, only Bai Xuechao later found out about this matter. Even Liu Jingchun, as the leader's daughter, did not know. But even if Liu Jingchun knew, she would not be kind enough to tell the old leader. She would only watch the old leader strive to live past thirty years, and then despairingly discover that he could not awaken.

To this day, the old leader is still striving to get through those so-called thirty years.

When the special ability energy crystals appeared three years ago, the old leader was ecstatic, thinking that his chance to become a special ability user had come.

But what followed was even greater disappointment.

Special ability energy crystals could only accelerate the mutation of non-human creatures, but they were ineffective on humans. Currently, they could only be used by special ability users to temporarily increase their special ability value. So the old leader could only turn his hopes to various mutated species, hoping to find a way to achieve longevity or even immortality from them.

However, the old leader was still unwilling to give up hope, or rather, he was unwilling to give up.

Under the guidance of Jiang Yunyi and his brother Jiang Wenxuan, he believed that as long as he found enough special ability energy crystals, he could find a way to use them to make ordinary people mutate.

This was also the reason why the Dark Organization was still tirelessly collecting special ability energy crystals.

The memory ended. Bai Xuechao said succinctly, "When humans breathe air containing special ability molecules, the cells of some people will mutate, and they will eventually become special ability users."

"That's not right," Yuan Lan pressed down on Bai Xuechao's shoulder, "Actually, everyone's cells will mutate due to special ability molecules, it's just that some are fast and some are slow, and the slow ones mutate too slowly, so ordinary instruments can't detect it."

Hearing this, Bai Xuechao was stunned for a moment.

"You also think that special ability energy crystals can't promote human mutation, right?"

Yuan Lan threw out a new question, "But since it can promote the mutation of living creatures, why are only humans singled out? Aren't humans also living creatures?"