Chapter 223: Biochemical Proving Ground

“Hey, it really is!” KIKI also reacted at this moment, and her face began to change.

“No! This isn’t Qingshui Town!” Lin Xian’s gaze sharpened. “Look, where’s the transport ship from before?”

If there was one major difference between this place and Qingshui Town, it was that the crashed ten-thousand-ton transport ship was gone.

Other than that, all the streets, houses, and the style of the town were exactly the same.

“What’s going on? How can there be two identical towns?”

KIKI looked at this scene, dumbfounded.

Lin Xian had just thought he had gone in the wrong direction. How could there be another town after coming out of the dark forest?

Now, upon closer inspection, he noticed some clues.

The strangest thing was that as far as the eye could see, there were no zombies. The entire Qingshui Town was shrouded in a strange silence under the night sky.

“It’s dark too. This is too strange.” Lin Xian looked at his watch. It wasn’t even four o’clock yet. How could it be dark?

“We seem to have come to a strange place.” KIKI couldn’t help but shiver, feeling a chill run down her spine.

“That communicator, is there still a signal?”

Hearing Lin Xian’s words, KIKI finally reacted and quickly picked up her mobile terminal.

“Yes! And it’s closer to us.” KIKI pointed to Qingshui Town ahead. “It should be right in front.”

Lin Xian looked at Qingshui Town under the night sky, his expression darkening. “Let’s go. We’ll go back the way we came first.”

The current situation was completely different from what he had expected. So, to be cautious, Lin Xian decided to retreat. It was dark now, and if they alerted any Aberrations, it would be troublesome.

“Mmm, I’ll listen to you.” KIKI had no interest in the dark town ahead. Hearing Lin Xian say to go back, she immediately turned her bike around.

So the two of them drove their motorcycles back along the original path and rushed into the dark, dense forest.

*Vroom, vroom, vroom!*

The motorcycles weaved through the rugged forest, but the situation was getting worse. Lin Xian found that no matter how he drove, the light in the forest was already dark, and it was getting even darker.

The next moment, the two motorcycles finally rushed out. But when they looked, they were shocked to find that they had returned to the place they had just come from.

“Oh my god, we’ve seen a ghost!” KIKI was no longer calm and looked at Lin Xian. “Hey, did we encounter a ghost?”

Lin Xian’s expression darkened. He looked at the dark town in the distance and said, “Maybe we have to go over and have a look. There must be something different in there from the Qingshui Town we just went to.”

“Ew~”

KIKI’s face was full of reluctance, but she had no choice but to nod. “Alright, I’ll follow you.”

*Vroom~*

Lin Xian slowly drove his motorcycle towards the town. It was silent all around, and the sound of the motorcycle engine echoed. The orange lights of the two bikes cut through a part of the darkness.

As they got closer, Lin Xian and KIKI became more and more certain that the town in front of them was real!

On both sides of the road, all the shops and storefronts were exactly the same as in the Qingshui Town outside. Lin Xian paid special attention to some places he remembered and found that whether it was the tables and chairs inside, the signs, or even the position of the manhole covers, they were all exactly the same.

In an instant, an inexplicable feeling of oppression and separation welled up from the bottom of his heart.

KIKI felt the same way. The two of them had just come out of Qingshui Town, and in the blink of an eye, they had arrived at another ‘Qingshui Town’. Just hearing about it sounded strange and bizarre.

“How can there be an identical town?” KIKI frowned and looked at both sides, her eyes filled with astonishment.

“It should be man-made.”

Lin Xian gradually felt an unusual aura, and his expression became serious. “Everyone be careful.”

KIKI rode her bike behind Lin Xian. A gloomy and terrifying aura drilled into the back of her neck, making her shiver. She whispered, “No matter how you look at it, this place doesn’t look like it has any people.”

She took out her mobile terminal, and the program she had set up before sent out a stronger signal again.

“The communicator you installed must be nearby…”

*Beep~ Hum! Beep~ Hum!*

At this moment, a deafening alarm suddenly sounded in the town, instantly breaking the strange silence.

Lin Xian and KIKI both stopped their bikes and looked around with serious expressions. “What’s wrong?”

“It sounds like some kind of alarm!” KIKI said with a serious expression. “It sounds so strange!”

The alarm echoed through the streets and alleys of the town, reverberating in the dark alleys, the corners of closed shops, and the depths of the dark streets.

At this moment, a mechanical female voice suddenly sounded.

`Qingshui Town Proving Ground No. 3, 92nd biochemical test subject simulation begins.`

*Hiss~*

As soon as the voice fell, more fog suddenly spewed out from all corners of the town!

“Proving ground?!” Lin Xian’s face changed.

“Are we already inside that research institute?” KIKI asked in surprise.

“I get it. This place should be the Foundation’s territory. But how can such a large place be completely invisible from the outside?”

As if in response to his words, a clap of thunder suddenly sounded in the sky the next second.

*Crack!*

Lightning flashed, and dark clouds rolled.

A sense of oppression, as if a mountain rain was about to come, gradually rose from under the town!

Lin Xian was now looking in all directions and listening to everything. Suddenly, he seemed to hear a sound from the darkness ahead.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s something ahead,” Lin Xian said.

Hearing this, KIKI became nervous. She tilted her head and stared motionlessly ahead.

In the darkness, there did seem to be something, slowly moving towards the light of the motorcycles.

*Gah~ Ah~ Gurgle~*

*Goo~ Ugh*

A faint, strange sound came from the darkness, like a rotting vocal cord, constantly twisting.

“Someone is walking over.”

Lin Xian slowly reached for his black spear. He looked and saw a person stumbling into the edge of the motorcycle’s light. The next moment, everyone’s expression changed.

The thing that walked over was actually a conjoined person with dislocated limbs, pale all over. Both heads were a blood-red cavity, with no facial features visible.

Lin Xian frowned. Was this thing a zombie or an Aberration? Or a human-aberration?

“So disgusting! What is this thing?!”

KIKI’s scalp tingled at the sight, and her brows furrowed together.

“Watch out behind you!”

At this moment, Lin Xian suddenly turned his head and shouted at KIKI.

KIKI quickly turned her head. In the darkness behind her, another conjoined monster was also walking out with strange movements.

This conjoined monster looked like two rotting zombies connected together, grayish-white all over. Its sternum and organs were split, as if it were two people sewn together!

“Let’s go!”

*Vroom, vroom!*

Lin Xian stepped on the gas, and the motorcycle roared and spun around on the spot. He then raised his hand and fired several wind lances at the head of the conjoined monster in front.

*Puff, puff, puff!*

The invisible wind lances directly bombarded the featureless face. With a few muffled sounds, blood and flesh splattered from the monster’s face, but it seemed to have no effect. Instead, it enraged the twisted conjoined person.

With a strange cackling sound, the twisted conjoined person suddenly started running, its strange hands and feet flailing, and it rushed towards Lin Xian’s motorcycle with a fishy wind.

“Can’t it die?”

Without another word, Lin Xian’s power armor outputted torque. He raised his hand and threw the black spear. The magnetic control engine hummed and instantly accelerated, like a black shuttle!

*Bang!*

In an instant, one of the running conjoined person’s heads was directly blasted to pieces, with only skin and blood vessels still attached to the neck. But this only made the monster stagger. It still rushed towards them as if unaffected.

At the same time, the twisted, strange hands and torso of the conjoined person suddenly began to swell, as if it were bloated. Thick black smoke billowed from the torn wounds and broken neck.

Lin Xian saw this and knew it was bad.

“KIKI!”

“Alright!”

KIKI acted decisively. She raised her hand and grabbed the conjoined person with her invisible psionic power, stopping it from moving forward. But the next moment, the frantically struggling conjoined person suddenly began to convulse violently, and the swelling of its torso intensified!

*Bang!*

In an instant, the monster’s upper body exploded on the spot. A thick black smoke spewed out. At the same time, a large number of black beetles gushed out like blood, like quicksand.

These black beetles made a scalp-numbing rustling sound. In an instant, they gathered on the ground and quickly crawled towards Lin Xian.

“What kind of damn test subject is this?!”

Lin Xian was shocked. He didn’t know what kind of experiments the SIID Foundation research institute was conducting. Seeing these strange things, which were neither zombies nor human-aberrations, he was filled with confusion.

*Vroom*, Lin Xian stepped on the gas and turned directly into the street on the right. The motorcycle wheels ran over a few black beetles, splattering dark green liquid and black smoke, which emitted a strong, corrosive, foul-smelling smoke on the ground.

*Clang~ Clang~ Clang.*

The motorcycle accelerated. At this moment, the doors of the shops on the side of the road suddenly opened in unison, and various strange, twisted humanoid monsters began to walk out of the buildings.

At this moment, the strangeness of the entire town seemed to have come alive!

*Hum!*

In the shadows of the street ahead, countless twisted conjoined people began to appear in groups. They were not fast, but as their numbers increased, these things that were neither human nor ghost began to appear on all the streets, making one’s scalp tingle.

Lin Xian couldn’t charge directly through these monsters, so he could only keep changing direction, trying to drive into some streets he hadn’t been to before.

He turned his bike to the left, dodged the twisted conjoined people coming from the front, and passed through a very narrow alley.

When he rushed out, he was shocked to find himself on a wide street. An old department store stood tall, and across the street was a middle school with its gates tightly closed.

“We don’t seem to have been here before,” KIKI looked a bit unfamiliar and said to Lin Xian.

“This should be where the transport ship crashed outside,” Lin Xian said immediately. The central area of Qingshui Town outside was a mess, and the department store had long since collapsed, its original appearance unrecognizable.

At this moment, Lin Xian looked at a few vaguely familiar staircases and immediately realized that this location was a ruin outside.

“Lin Xian, look quickly! Is that school lit up?”

At this moment, KIKI suddenly shouted.

Lin Xian’s gaze swept over. In the school’s teaching building, there were a few faint, dim yellow lights. They looked very strange and abrupt in this fog-filled town.

“Could there be people?”

“Let’s go in and have a look first.”

Where there was light, there were wires. No matter what kind of trap or experiment, as long as he could get to the control system, he would have a way.

*Vroom*, the motorcycle rushed directly through the middle school gate. The surroundings suddenly became spacious. The square, flower beds, playground, and teaching building were all familiar school scenes to Lin Xian.

It was empty under the darkness. The motorcycle was like driving on a black ocean. He could only follow the light in the teaching building to guide his direction.

“Hey, those monsters didn’t follow us in.”

KIKI looked back and found that the conjoined monsters were all frozen outside the school gate, motionless, as if something was separating them.

More and more monsters gathered, blocking the school entrance so tightly that no air could get through, but they just didn’t step inside.

“There’s definitely something strange here. The entrance to the research institute might be here.”

Lin Xian looked back. The strange-shaped test subjects were constantly gathering, blocking the school gate more and more densely. From a distance, under the night sky, countless twisted silhouettes stood there, a chilling sight.

“It doesn’t look like there’s anyone in here.”

“Then we might have found the right place!” Lin Xian said.

*Screech~*

The motorcycle stopped under a dilapidated teaching building. The ground was covered with all kinds of books and waste paper. The wheels made a rustling sound as they drove over them.

Lin Xian stopped his motorcycle and looked at the dim yellow light on the teaching building. Without pausing, he grabbed his black spear and electric knife and prepared to go up and investigate.

Since it was a proving ground, there must be a safe exit, and there might even be monitoring equipment.

Lin Xian and KIKI, one after the other, rushed directly into the teaching building from the main entrance.

…

At this moment, in a bright room, several staff members in research uniforms were seriously observing the research data on their computer screens.

One of the female researchers suddenly saw a few unfamiliar figures on the monitoring screen. Her face changed, and she quickly pressed the intercom in front of her.

“Report, unknown intruders have appeared in Zone F.”

“Scan for vital signs.”

“Two unregistered personnel detected. Monitoring information has been uploaded.”

On the other side, the experimenter turned to the security director behind him. “Director Feng, there are two unknown intruders. Should we stop the experiment process?”

“Hmm?”

Feng Chun frowned, immediately picked up the mobile terminal in his hand, and flipped through the monitoring footage. A few clearer images extracted the facial information.

“Just some unlucky guys. It doesn’t matter. Let them die. If they don’t die, send them to Agency No. 2.”

“Yes.”

“Wait.” When Feng Chun flipped to the last person, the mobile terminal suddenly flashed a warning.

*Beep, beep, beep.*

[Foundation key observation personnel detected. Secrecy level: One]

“What?!” Feng Chun looked at the young man who was the first to rush into the teaching building area on the mobile terminal, his face changing drastically. “Level one personnel?”

“Quick, quick, stop the release of test subjects in Zone F! Inform Miss Hua immediately!”

*Clang, clang, clang!*

In the monitoring hall of the research institute, all the staff members were instantly in a flurry of activity.

[Weather system shutdown]

[Biological inhibitor No. 0912 re-injected]

[Weeping classroom closed]

[Disaster corridor stops releasing food-luring gas]

…

*Click, clack.*

In the corridor, a group of staff members hurried past. Hua Xiaoling walked quickly in front, listening to her subordinate’s report.

“Miss Hua, it’s confirmed to be the Foundation’s special attention target, Lin Xian. He is currently at the Qingshui Town proving ground. There are two people.”

“Where did they come in from?”

“It should be the test subject jungle of Agency No. 2.”

*Click*, Hua Xiaoling stopped. “How did they get in from there?”

The assistant’s face changed, and he shook his head.

Hua Xiaoling’s eyes flickered slightly. “Alright.”

“Then Miss Hua, should we invite them in?”

Hua Xiaoling pondered for a moment, then said directly, “Initiate area separation. See if we can isolate Lin Xian. Take this opportunity to test the characteristics of his mechanical Esper ability.”

The assistant frowned upon hearing this. “Then his other team member, are we going to…?”

Hua Xiaoling walked forward quickly and said calmly, “Don’t worry about it for now.”

“Yes.”

…

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