Qin Hongyi followed closely behind him, her eyes scanning the surroundings with vigilance.
“Something feels wrong.”
She said, “This is too smooth.”
“Smooth?” Gu Chen walked up to the metal platform and touched the ice-cold test tube with his fingers. “To open this door, I even sacrificed my body and dignity. You call this smoo—”
Before he could finish speaking.
Gu Chen’s gaze suddenly fixed on one corner of the metal platform.
There should have been two grooves there.
One held this pale golden agent.
The other groove was empty.
On the dust at the bottom was a clear circular imprint.
Not long ago, another tube had been placed there.
“Hongyi.”
Gu Chen’s voice grew cold.
“Looks like the third person we’re looking for is even greedier than we imagined.”
Qin Hongyi stepped forward quickly and saw the empty groove.
“This is the base for twin test tubes.”
She quickly figured out the device’s purpose. “One is the gene stabilizer—the one you need. The other is a gene mutagen.”
“Mutagen?” Gu Chen picked up the golden agent.
“Simply put,” Qin Hongyi looked toward the dark staircase in the depths of the hall leading underground, “the one in your hand is the drug that turns someone into a god. The one that was taken is the poison that can create demons from hell.”
Gu Chen gripped the test tube tightly.
He suddenly smiled.
The smile didn’t reach his eyes; instead, it carried a hint of madness.
“Interesting.”
Gu Chen turned around, spun the test tube between his fingers like a pen, then tucked it away securely against his body.
“Since I’ve already gotten what I came for, this place now belongs to the Gu family.”
He snapped his fingers.
Hundreds of automated defense turrets on the walls activated at once. Their dark muzzles turned, aiming at the dark passage.
Qin Hongyi was momentarily stunned, but then realized this place had always belonged to the Gu family anyway.
“Come out.”
Gu Chen’s tone was as if he was greeting a guest.
“You took the owner’s things without even saying hello. Isn’t that too rude?”
Dead silence.
Three seconds later.
From the dark passage came the sound of slow applause.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
A figure walked out from the shadows.
He wore an elegant white suit and a clown mask painted with a comical smiling face.
In his hand, he was toying with the black-red agent.
“Excellent.”
A voice-altered tone came from under the mask. “As expected of Subject 001. Even after being put in a woman’s shell, your nose is still so sharp.”
Gu Chen narrowed his eyes.
Qin Hongyi’s military dagger had already slid into her palm.
“Who are you?” Gu Chen asked.
“Who I am isn’t important.”
The masked man shook the black-red agent in his hand.
“What’s important is that if this little darling in my hand shatters, the entire capital—no, the entire area within a hundred miles—will turn into the scene of a biochemical crisis.”
He tilted his head, and the smiling face on the mask looked particularly sinister under the lights.
“Young Master Gu, let’s make a deal.”
“Use the drug in your hand to exchange for the lives of tens of millions of people in this city. Will you trade or not?”
Gu Chen looked at him and stayed silent for two seconds.
Then, he turned his head toward Qin Hongyi and asked a very serious question:
“Who the fuck let this guy in? In this day and age, do villains who want to hold the entire human race hostage not need to get a psychiatric evaluation first?”
The corner of Qin Hongyi’s mouth curved up slightly as she twirled her military dagger in a flourish.
“I don’t know. But no matter how you look at it, he really deserves a beating.”
“Then beat him up.”
The moment Gu Chen’s words fell, all the defense turrets in the hall opened fire at once!
Boom!
Negotiation?
Only the weak negotiate.
The first rule of the Gu family: If you can solve it with your fists, never waste words.
Since they already had guns in their hands, they would first turn the opponent into a sieve, then scatter the ashes and see if there were any sarira inside.
That was Gu Chen’s logic.
Gunfire rained down like a waterfall.
Hundreds of automated defense turrets roared simultaneously. The metal storm instantly submerged the area where the clown stood.
With this kind of firepower density, let alone a flesh-and-blood body—even if a main battle tank were placed there, it would be reduced to iron powder in three seconds.
Thick smoke filled the air as bullet casings fell like rain.
Gu Chen did not relax his vigilance because of this carpet-bombing style of attack.
Under the 100% synchrony super-sensory state, he could clearly perceive that the military dagger in Qin Hongyi’s hand beside him had not loosened at all. Instead, her knuckles tightened slightly from extreme excitement.
“He’s not dead.”
The two spoke in unison.
Not only was he not dead, the opponent’s heartbeat hadn’t even faltered.
The smoke gradually dispersed.
The figure in the white suit still stood in the same spot, not even a corner of his clothes wrinkled.
A semi-transparent dark red barrier stood in front of him. The bullets slammed into it as if they had sunk into a swamp, losing all kinetic energy before clattering to the ground as scrap metal.
“Biological force field?” Qin Hongyi narrowed her eyes.
She had seen this thing in Eden Project’s top-secret files. In theory, only a complete god-tier being could deploy it.
“No, it’s a pay-to-win item,” Gu Chen saw through it more clearly.
He stared at the shattered test tube at the clown’s feet. The black liquid was rapidly volatilizing.
What miracle? It was nothing more than a repulsion shield created by the instant explosion of high-concentration active substances.
What a wasteful bastard.
The cost of this one agent was enough to buy half of Beijing.
“Rude. Too rude.”
The clown patted the dust off his shoulder. His voice under the mask carried exaggerated heartbreak. “Young Master Gu, is this how you treat your guests? Even after being put in a woman’s shell, your explosive temper still ignites at the slightest spark?”
He raised his hand and snapped his fingers crisply.
“Since the host doesn’t welcome me, as a guest, I can only take over as master.”
Click.
From the dark corners of the hall came the heavy sound of breaking chains.
Immediately after, a series of teeth-grinding roars rose and fell.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
More than ten black shadows shot out like cannonballs, smashing heavily onto the metal floor. Their sharp claws scraped against the ground, creating strings of glaring sparks.
These things looked extremely sanity-destroying.
They had human torsos, but their limbs had mutated into insect-like segmented appendages. Their backs were highly arched, and beneath their ashen keratin skin were no eyes—only a massive maw split all the way to the ears, filled with dense, barbed teeth.
“Defective Product No. 079. We’ll just call it Glutton.”
The clown elegantly stepped back and made a welcoming gesture. “Although their intelligence has dropped to zero, they’re extremely greedy for the flesh and blood of living people.”
Roar!
More than ten Gluttons attacked at the same time. Their speed was so fast they almost left afterimages in the air. Carrying a foul stench of rotting corpses and sulfur, they pounced from all directions.
Facing this seemingly fatal encirclement, Gu Chen didn’t move.
He didn’t need to.
At this moment, the world had changed in his eyes.
It was an extremely mysterious feeling, as if he had activated a full-map hack.
Even though he clearly hadn’t turned around, the scene behind him was directly projected into his mind.
That was Qin Hongyi’s field of vision.
He could feel the coldness in his left palm—that was the sensation of Qin Hongyi gripping her blade.
He could even clearly sense the tingling and shudder that ran down Qin Hongyi’s spine as her adrenaline surged.
Perfect symbiosis.
Or rather, account sharing.
No language needed. No eye contact needed. Killing had become an extension of instinct.
“Left three, right four.”
The thought had just flashed through Gu Chen’s mind when Qin Hongyi had already moved.
Her reaction speed was 0.01 seconds faster than his thoughts.
Black shadows streaked through the air. Without even turning her head, Qin Hongyi slashed backward with her dagger, accurately stabbing into the throat of the monster behind her.
Squish!
Black blood exploded.
In the same second, Gu Chen tapped the ground with his bare foot. His body defied physical laws as he spun 180 degrees in mid-air.
Using the reaction force from Qin Hongyi’s slash, his long, slender leg came down like a battle axe. Without the hindrance of high heels, his jade-like instep was now harder than refined steel as it viciously whipped the temple of another monster.
Crack!
The crisp sound of a skull shattering was pleasing to the ear.
Two monsters fell at the same time.
Gu Chen landed and immediately leaned back.
Qin Hongyi happened to turn sideways at the same moment.
Their backs pressed tightly against each other.
The scorching body heat transmitted through their thin clothes. For that instant, Gu Chen couldn’t even tell which heartbeat was his own.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Their heartbeats were perfectly in sync.
Feels good?
Qin Hongyi’s voice suddenly echoed directly in his consciousness.
Not through his ears, but straight into his mind.
Passable.
Gu Chen replied in his heart. The knife could be a bit faster. It was off by three millimeters.
Heh, picky.
The next second, both of them exploded into action simultaneously.
If there were any spectators at this moment, their jaws would definitely drop.
These two weren’t cooperating at all—they were like two god-tier bodies controlled by a single brain.
Gu Chen bent down to dodge a sharp claw. Qin Hongyi used his shoulder as a springboard to leap into the air. Her military dagger drew a perfect silver arc, instantly harvesting three heads.
Before Qin Hongyi could steady herself after landing, Gu Chen’s hand was already supporting her waist. He used the momentum to send her toward the next target while he slid forward with a low sweep, smashing the kneecap of the monster in front of him with one punch.
No friendly fire. No collisions. No wasted movements.
It was smooth and flowing, yet extremely brutal.
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