ICUGW Chapter 33

Chapter 33 The House Where People Are Chased (6)

"Professor Chu, someone has entered Subject 777."

In a certain laboratory, an entire wall was covered with monitors displaying various data. The usually stable data suddenly fluctuated, producing an exaggerated peak.

The man called professor was very young. He was wearing a white coat and a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. His temperament was a bit gloomy, enhancing his deep facial features.

"The energy fluctuations are unusual." The researcher tapped the keyboard with both hands and said, "It's confirmed that someone really went in."

Someone went in as in the real inside?

A researcher asked, "The people at the cleaning center?"

Another researcher replied, "Impossible. The center has been undergoing internal rectification under Xuan Qing's leadership recently. They don't have time to hand out tasks."

There was an ongoing shift of power within the cleaning center. Most cleaners and witchers were undergoing intensive training where those who failed the assessment were not allowed to accept any tasks. As a result, the number of tasks handed out at the entire cleaning center dropped sharply within a week.

The cleaning center hasn't taken care of this contaminated house for so many years, it would be impossible for them to come and purify it so suddenly.

Moreover, they knew the cleaning center's entire task list for the next three days, and this experimental subject was definitely not on it.

"Could it be... ?" the researcher hesitated.

Professor Chu was silent.

'Prometheus? What are you planning?'

He asked, "Where did Experiment 777 manifest?"

"Rome City Residential Area, Building 22, 13th floor." Another person replied, "It's a residential area with a high occupancy rate and a dense population."

If it was in the wilderness, they can just blockade it from the outside. But in a densely populated residential area, it was almost impossible to successfully bypass the police and resolve the case quietly. This also means that they can't use hot weapons to flatten the place.

"What should we do?" asked the researcher.

Subject No. 777 was a project that has been in ongoing for fifteen years.

Give up their hard work and let it be? They are extremely unwilling. Its experimental data was very valuable. As a contaminant, it can recognize its owner and track them.

Now, it even learned to hunt independently, which was very rare among their experiments. If it was purified at this time, their years of hard work would be wasted.

But it was also too late to send anyone over because the Green Door had already recognized an owner and outsiders would not be able to open it.

There were only two outcomes for people who enter the Green Gate: either the Green Gate would be purified or the person would be assimilated by the Green Gate.

It was usually the second situation in every case, so there was really no need to worry too much.

Researcher: "Just let it be like last time."

Professor Chu was silent for a moment before making a decision, "Send someone to wait outside and kill the person in case they really eliminated the area."

The researcher agreed, but felt that Professor Chu was being overly cautious.

Although Experiment No. 777 was only rated as a Class C contaminated area, not one person has yet to return alive because of its strange internal structure.

. . .

Police Security Bureau's Branch Detention Center.

Ding Chaojie held on to the iron bars tightly. He was the only one in the entire detention room, but he could feel someone clinging to him from behind.

He didn't dare to breathe.

Ding Chaojie slowly turned his head, and sure enough, there was a green door behind him.

The green door had opened a crack, and black lines seemed to be twitching in the air inside.

"Please," Ding Chaojie said, "I didn't mean it."

"Could you please not come to me?"

"I'm begging you. I really didn't mean to kill you. It was an accident–a mistake."

Ding Chaojie kept begging in a low voice, but the green door slowly opened.

Snap—

Ding Chaojie was stunned. One of his fingers gripping the iron bars loosened.

Someone was prying his hand apart!

"Please, don't come over here! Ah!"

The second finger was pried open, and no matter how hard he gripped, it was of no use.

All ten fingers were forced apart.

Ding Chaojie suddenly felt his right leg sink, as if a hand was grabbing his ankle.

The security guard in charge of watching the surveillance video of the Public Security Bureau's detention center was dozing off the whole time and didn't see what was happening.

In the surveillance video, Ding Chaojie was holding the iron bars. Then, it looked as if someone was bending his hands invisibly and breaking his fingers one by one.

His face was full of pain and he kept shouting and screaming. He was like a puppet, unable to control his limbs at all.

Ding Chaojie took a step back with his right foot and retreated step by step.

The surveillance video kept flickering.

Bang—

The green door closed and Ding Chaojie disappeared from the detention room, as if he had never been there.

…

Zhu Ning's feet touched the ground.

She had encountered many corpses, and the feeling was the same. The "ground" beneath her was definitely a body.

Had she stepped into a crime scene?

It seemed like there was a bug in the area and she could only move backwards but not forward.

'Since it's come to this, there's no turning back. Even if there's a ghost behind me, it's still better than facing an empty house!'

Zhu Ning took another step back, and this time she walked completely into the space behind her.

Zhu Ning stumbled and had to hold on to the wall to steady herself. Under her feet was a severely decomposed male corpse. His back looked like it had been cut open by a knife, and something was trying to come out of the body.

'This looks like...a failed contamination? The contaminated spore tried to parasitized but ultimately couldn't?'

The corpse was in a lying position, with the fingers curled up and tightly grasping the edge of the skirting board, as if he was trying every possible way to escape before dying.

Zhu Ning came out from behind the TV wall. It was her first time entering another space at such a tricky angle. She had bumped into the wall for the nth time this day.

She tried to go back but discovered that her palm could not pass through, and the wall turned back into a solid wall.

The house was unusually damp and cold, with her helmet panel showing the temperature of only sixteen degrees.

The space was equally quiet, only the slight noises made by Zhu Ning echoed within.

Out of caution, Zhu Ning did not look back after entering the different space, but took another step back and carefully moved her feet away from the corpse.

Then she froze.

Something seemed to move at the back of her neck.

Although the work clothes in the cleaning center completely cover the skin, it still simulates the feeling of normal uncovered skin.

Now, Zhu Ning clearly feels something touching her neck. It was a little itchy like...hair?

Zhu Ning was very brave, but her heartbeat couldn't help but quicken at that moment.

'Ha ha ha...it can't be above right?'

Tick-

A drop of water fell on the helmet, making a dull sound. Because it was so quiet, the sound was very obvious. She raised her head silently with a straight face.

A woman's pale face greeted her. She was hanging upside down from the ceiling wearing a red dress and lying on all fours. Her long hair was also hanging down, just landing on Zhu Ning's shoulders.

Tick-

Tick-

Tick-

The woman's pale face was wet, and water was constantly dropping down, like she had been soaked at the bottom of a well all night.

It took Zhu Ning a while to process what she had seen.

The woman's limbs were stretched out, as if she was holding onto the ceiling by some suction force. On her back was a huge... snail shell?

The entire snail shell was light yellow and even has a beautiful black spiral line. If you look closely, you will see that the snail shell grows from the spine on the back.

'A snail... person? Is she a contaminant?'

No wonder there was no sound. Snails don’t make any noise.

Zhu Ning glanced around with her peripheral vision. The other dimension was exactly the same as Huang Ya Ruo's home, but the furniture was placed in the opposite order of the house that Zhu Ning had just visited.

If the sofa was placed on the left in the previous house, the sofa here was placed on the right. The two houses were symmetrical, but this one was obviously older and more dilapidated.

The furniture was covered with a thick layer of dust. There was rotten food and withered flowers on the dining table, and the walls were covered with mold and moss.

There were a total of six wriggling snail people in the living room, some wearing suits, some wearing sportswear, and one wearing light pink pajamas. From their clothes, one could even guess the type of person they were in the past.

As soon as Zhu Ning came in, the snail people seemed to have collective consciousness and looked at her in unison.

Snails were mollusks, so the limbs of snail people were soft. After seeing Zhu Ning, they slowly moved their limbs and crawled towards Zhu Ning.

In a strange and damp house, a room full of snails with human faces were slowly crawling towards her.

She didn't know why, but even though their movements were slow and shouldn't pose much of a threat, she felt a strange feeling in her heart. It was even more frightening than the pig men.

The fish men and pig men she encountered before didn't have human faces, so when she saw them, her brain immediately recognized them as monsters.

But these snail people were very human-like.

Snails can climb higher, and they would also leave a long trail of slime wherever they climb. Looking at the snail people, they seem to have these characteristics too.

The entire environment was suitable for snails to survive. It was very humid, and the house was covered with green plants; a bunch of red mushrooms even grew next to the sofa. If someone wasn't in the know, they would think that this was a giant incubator.

This might be the real contaminated area.

Zhu Ning suddenly understood how the 2,500 cubic meters of contaminated area was calculated. The house before was obviously not larger than a swimming pool, but if the space of the house could continue to expand, then everything would make sense.

Zhu Ning had been to three contaminated areas, and this was the first place she was eager to get out of. It was so weird that she didn't want to stay for another moment.

The clue to get out should be on the snail people.

The remaining five snail people looked like ordinary people. There was a snail man next to the TV, and if you look closely, he seem to be special.

The man had a square face and a very strong build. He didn't look like an ordinary person. He might have been doing some security work before he became a contaminant.

He was also wearing a watch on his wrist, flashing a faint light every now and then.

'Wait.'

Zhu Ning frowned.

That was not a watch. That was a cleaning center employee bracelet!

The cleaning center employee wristband was a status symbol used to contact the cleaning center and get support from various departments when necessary.

Even if you die in a contaminated area, the positioning function can show your last location, making it easier for someone to collect your body.

There were three types of employee bracelets: silver for cleaners, black for witchers, and pure white for technical and management staff.

Zhu Ning couldn't have made a mistake. The snail man was definitely wearing a black employee bracelet on his wrist.

A witcher?

Witchers far surpassed cleaners in both mental and physical abilities. Zhu Ning had already experienced this after being beaten up in the fighting arena for days.

A witcher actually died here?

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