Loss of Control and Redemption
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Qiu Yu waited for a while, but Lu Zehou still did not continue. She couldn’t help but speak up to remind him, “Professor Lu, and then?”
Lu Zehou saw that she hadn’t noticed the undercurrents between him and Chen Cebai at all. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, and his tone was one of deep disappointment:
“Follow me!”
After speaking, Lu Zehou took out a key and opened the warehouse door.
Qiu Yu noticed that although Lu Zehou led the team in developing nanosecond-level biochemical chips, he himself did not use any high technology. Not only had he never undergone artificial skin transplant surgery, but he rarely even used chips. He always carried a large bunch of keys when he went out, like a dormitory matron in a 1920s film.
The warehouse door was an old-fashioned rolling shutter, making a loud clattering noise as it opened.
At the entrance of the warehouse, there were messy piles of cardboard boxes.
Facing them was a graffiti mural that took up an entire wall—black and red spray paint, with large, splendid flowers blooming from within a skull.
Qiu Yu unconsciously took a photo of the graffiti.
Lu Zehou glanced at her.
She said, “It has a strong artistic sense.”
“A child painted it,” Lu Zehou said indifferently. “She saw a similar pattern in a magazine and copied it. She was only eight years old, had never gone to school—what does she know about art?”
“Capital told her that the combination of flowers and skulls is a form of art, a kind of aesthetic. So she painted flowers inside the skull. She died never knowing that flowers shouldn’t grow in greenhouses, nor in ecological buildings, and even less in the skulls on magazine covers. Flowers should grow in the soil beneath her feet!”
Qiu Yu had a bad feeling. After a moment of hesitation, she asked softly, “What happened to the child?”
“Dead.” Lu Zehou’s face was expressionless. “Cause of death unknown. Probably some kind of genetic disease. Ever since humanity’s gene pool was contaminated, this kind of thing has become commonplace. The media don’t even bother reporting it anymore.”
What Lu Zehou said was true. People had become numb to such news. At first, they were outraged, but later, even when such reports were pushed right in front of them, they couldn’t be bothered to click and read further.
Qiu Yu pressed her lips together and remained silent.
She had never known how to deal with these things.
Sympathy? Sorrow? Anger?
She couldn’t find the right emotion.
No one had ever taught her how.
Just like back then, when Chen Cebai was bullied in front of her—she wanted to help but didn’t know how.
—Rebuke? Intervene?
That would only help him for a moment. As soon as she turned away, he would face even harsher retaliation.
—Take a stand and let the surrounding classmates know she disapproved of school bullying?
Maybe a few students would give her face and stop making things difficult for Chen Cebai. But over time, as she drifted apart from that group, the bullying would continue.
It was like a pack of wolves hunting a lone sheep. You could fire a warning shot, telling the wolves not to approach the sheep, but as soon as you put away your gun and turned to leave, the wolves would still pursue the sheep relentlessly.
In a worse scenario, the wolves might shift their target. Instead of hunting the sheep, their hungry eyes would turn toward you.
Further inside was a warehouse of about thirty square meters. The floor was cluttered with bedding—some clean and tidy, others covered in sweat stains and cigarette burns, yellowed and reeking of mildew.
A woman was sitting in the corner. When she saw them enter, she abruptly raised her head, her gaze alert like that of a stray cat.
After recognizing Lu Zehou, she relaxed again and continued staring blankly at the wall.
Qiu Yu noticed that silver light flickered in the woman’s eyes. She was browsing the web using a chip.
Lu Zehou said, “This is the best house I could find for them.”
As he spoke, he suddenly pointed at the woman in the corner. “Do you know who she is?”
Qiu Yu looked at the woman. “Should I know?”
Lu Zehou sneered. “I thought you were a competent journalist. She is Jessie Murphy, a former executive in biotechnology…”
Before he could finish speaking, the drone hovering midair suddenly emitted a piercing sizzle, flashing bright blue sparks before crashing to the ground with a loud bang.
Startled, Qiu Yu was about to step forward to check, but Lu Zehou stopped her and motioned with his chin toward the space behind her. “Your husband did that.”
As he said this, Lu Zehou’s expression was a mix of amusement and mockery, as if waiting for a good show to unfold.
During the short time it took to enter the warehouse, he had quickly searched Qiu Yu’s background and noticed that many of her projects had been abruptly halted. Almost every time a situation became more dangerous, someone else would step in to take over.
On the surface, it seemed like Qiu Yu’s parents were intervening. But Lu Zehou understood the nature of those corporate executives—selfish and cold-blooded to the extreme. They were too busy eliminating their competitors to bother interfering in their children’s lives.
For someone from such a background, choosing to become a journalist instead of working in biotechnology was practically a taboo among the upper echelons. And yet, Qiu Yu had never severed ties with her family. Clearly, Chen Cebai had helped her parents behind the scenes more than a little.
But she was completely unaware of this—unaware that she was already an abandoned pawn to her parents, unaware of the true nature of her own husband.
Lu Zehou didn’t dislike Qiu Yu. On the contrary, he actually admired certain qualities in her.
But she was too naïve, too ignorant of the ways of the world.
How could anyone exist in this world without awakening a desire for destruction in others?
—I struggle and writhe in this twisted darkness, desperately trying to break free, yet you stand in the light, gazing at me with innocent, untainted eyes.
Why should you?
Lu Zehou smiled, waiting for Qiu Yu to confront Chen Cebai about hacking the drone.
Then, all he needed to do was fan the flames by adding one more sentence—Besides hacking the drone, your husband has plenty of other surprises you don’t know about—and he could sit back and watch the couple turn against each other.
But unexpectedly, when Qiu Yu heard it was Chen Cebai’s doing, she took a step back, let out an “Oh,” and said nothing more.
Lu Zehou’s face twitched. Unable to hold back, he reminded her, “Aren’t you going to ask him why he hacked the drone?”
Qiu Yu looked puzzled. “What’s there to ask? You said that woman was a high-level biotech executive. There are only two fates for corporate executives—either they keep sitting in their office, or they become fertilizer for the plants in those offices. Yet she’s still alive and well, which means you used some method to keep her safe. Of course, the drone had to be hacked to prevent corporate surveillance.”
“…” Lu Zehou’s face twitched uncontrollably. His gaze toward Qiu Yu was as if he were looking at a lunatic. “You knew all along?”
“Knew what?”
The veins on Lu Zehou’s forehead bulged. Almost roaring, he said, “Knew how the company oppresses ordinary people!”
He turned sharply and pointed at the woman. “—She is the last target in that serial murder case you were investigating. Can you guess who the killer is?”
Lu Zehou’s furious roar echoed through the warehouse, yet the woman didn’t even glance at him, remaining entirely immersed in her own world.
Chen Cebai’s expression was cold and grim. He grabbed Qiu Yu’s wrist and pulled her back slightly.
“Professor Lu, rein in your cynicism. She is not your enemy.”
Lu Zehou took a step back, his chest rising and falling violently as he panted heavily.
He glanced at Qiu Yu again. She was looking at him with concern and confusion.
Suddenly, Lu Zehou felt that her innocence carried a kind of animalistic cruelty.
Growing up within the company’s education system and being tightly protected had ultimately shaped this kind of innocence—one that was cruel in its own way.
Lu Zehou’s face showed exhaustion as he pressed his hand against his forehead.
Why was he even angry at her?
She, just like that woman, was a victim of this world.
Calming himself down, Lu Zehou activated the electromagnetic signal jammer before speaking. “The killer is the company.”
Qiu Yu was taken aback. “What?”
“A project classified as ‘Top Secret’ was leaked. They investigated for half a year but couldn’t find the culprit. Fujiwara Osamu lost patience and designed a battle royale ‘game,’ intending to wait for the leaker to expose themselves.”
Fujiwara Osamu was the CEO of the Biotech company.
“Before the ‘game’ started, all high-level executives received an encrypted phone call, informing them that the matter had been exposed and that special personnel were being arranged to escort them out of the city. They were instructed to disable their chip functions and avoid using network access services unless absolutely necessary.”
“Do you remember the federal government’s ‘PRISM program’? It never disappeared—it just took on a new form.” Lu Zehou continued, “The company can monitor and track your daily life through your electronic devices. The only difference is whether they choose to do so or not. Every reaction from those executives was observed and recorded by Fujiwara Osamu.”
“Some dismissed the call as a prank. Some fell into deep thought. Some contacted the company’s security department and ordered them to trace the call.”
“Jessie Murphy had received too many such harassment calls before. She didn’t take it seriously at all. She didn’t even listen to the whole message before hanging up.”
“But that was just the beginning of the game.”
“After that, Murphy was transferred out of the core department.”
“No matter where she went or what she bought, company security personnel would follow her.”
“Her phone was monitored, her access rights were revoked—even when she went to a supermarket to buy a pack of synthetic meat, the cashier would stare at her name for half a day, as if looking at a fugitive on the run.”
“Murphy recalled that phone call and suspected she was being framed.”
“At that moment, one of the executives cracked under pressure. He called the number back, frantically demanding why they hadn’t come to pick him up yet. The person on the other end said they would be there soon. When he opened the door, all he saw was the black muzzle of a gun.”
“He was the first high-ranking executive to die.”
“Where there’s a first, there’s a second, then a third… Murphy quickly realized this was a loyalty test targeting the upper management. The difference was that in the past, they were the ones conducting the tests—now, they had become the test subjects.”
“She was never loyal to the company. She had done her fair share of killing, framing, and leaking secrets.”
“She suspected that even if this was just a test, her competitors would try to cement her as the prime suspect. After all, there were only so many seats at the top. If she went down, someone else would take her place.”
“The other high-ranking executives realized this too. They had the same thoughts. And so, the battle royale officially began.”
“Isn’t it funny?” Lu Zehou’s tone was indifferent. “When Fujiwara Osamu designed this game, he merely wanted the leaker to break down mentally and confess to the company. He never expected that instead of finding the culprit, the game would trigger a chain reaction of suspicion among the executives.”
“After losing several high-ranking personnel, Fujiwara Osamu, under pressure, ordered the ‘game’ to be halted. But by that point, whether the game stopped or not was no longer up to him.”
“The remaining high-ranking executives lost trust in the company and wanted to escape the city. But they were all the company’s ‘elite backbones’—they knew too many secrets. There was no way the company would just let them leave.”
“So, the self-destruction program in their brains was activated.”
Qiu Yu recalled a news report. “The explosion on Subway Line 7?”
“No, no.” Lu Zehou shook his head. “High-level executives wouldn’t take the subway. That was just a senior employee who accidentally lost their job due to the ‘battle royale.’ Because they had been off the medication for too long, they suffered a mental breakdown and triggered the self-destruction program.”
“Of course, in the end, that explosion was officially classified as a suicide bombing incident.” Lu Zehou chuckled with amusement. “Speaking of which, senior employees should have been taking the neuro-blocker drug developed by your husband. Don’t you want to ask him why they still went insane even after taking it?”
Qiu Yu didn’t ask Chen Cebai.
When Lu Zehou said this, his expression was full of ill intent. She didn’t know why he was trying to drive a wedge between her and Chen Cebai, but she wasn’t going to fall for it.
Instead, it was Chen Cebai who spoke up coldly:
“Because its side effect is impairing the brain’s automatic regulation of blood flow. Once the medication is stopped, the patient will experience either cerebral hypoperfusion or excessive perfusion, both of which damage neural functions.”
“Some tried to replace the neuro-blocker with inhaled stimulants after stopping the drug, but this did nothing except worsen cerebrovascular diseases.”
“This is a semi-finished pharmaceutical product. Though it doesn’t have the addictive properties of stimulants, its harm is far worse than addiction. Fujiwara Osamu wanted it to be released as soon as possible. I refused.”
Lu Zehou glanced at Qiu Yu, not bothering to explain why neuro-blockers were more dangerous than stimulants. He knew that with Qiu Yu’s intelligence, she could figure it out on her own.
And indeed, Qiu Yu understood.
Her eyelashes trembled slightly. She finally realized why her parents had been so desperate to marry her off to Chen Cebai.
—Neuro-blockers were exorbitantly expensive, had no alternatives, and required lifelong use.
Unless a team developed a low-cost generic version, once Chen Cebai’s drug was released, it would completely replace inhaled stimulants.
Stopping stimulants would only cause mental fog and degenerative neurological diseases. But stopping neuro-blockers could lead to cerebral hemorrhage or ischemic stroke.
There were no gods in this world. But if Chen Cebai allowed the neuro-blocker to go to market, he would become god to everyone.
Everyone’s lives would be held in his hands.
Faced with such an overwhelming temptation, he had refused.
Qiu Yu recalled Pei Xi’s words belittling Chen Cebai.
—”Your parents married you to him because they thought the neuro-blocker would be mass-produced and distributed globally. But he foolishly clings to the patent, limiting its availability to senior employees… This man may be highly intelligent, but he knows nothing about how the company operates.”
At the time, Chen Cebai could have told Pei Xi the truth and returned every bit of scorn. But he didn’t.
Just like how he could have ruled the world—but chose not to.
The atmosphere gradually grew stagnant.
Qiu Yu was silent. The other two were silent as well.
Chen Cebai closed his eyes briefly, a flicker of irritation crossing his face.
Expressionless, he thought—if he had known Lu Zehou was so fond of meddling, he should have killed him earlier.
The only reason he had developed the neuro-blocker was to experience the thrill of solving an impossible problem.
Other than Qiu Yu, only academia could bring him a pleasure akin to kissing her.
Chen Cebai didn’t care about fame or fortune, nor did he care whether the neuro-blocker was released to the public. But once it was, it would inevitably trigger a series of tragedies.
He could be indifferent to everything, yet he couldn’t be indifferent to Qiu Yu’s feelings.
—If she knew that he had developed a drug capable of controlling all of humanity, she would inevitably fear him.
So, he chose not to release it, limiting its circulation to within the company.
Senior employees had the means to take the drug for life. Restricting its distribution to them was, in a way, a good thing.
The more Chen Cebai thought about it, the more restless he became. His fingers, resting on Qiu Yu’s shoulder, trembled slightly. He had an urge to light a cigarette and take a heavy drag.
He didn’t know what Qiu Yu would think of him.
Perhaps, she was already starting to fear him. After all, he hadn’t outright prohibited the drug’s circulation. He had even used the neuro-blocker supply cut-off to threaten her colleague right in front of her…
Lu Zehou watched coldly with the mindset of an amused spectator.
He hadn’t intended to sow discord between the couple—he simply couldn’t stand Qiu Yu’s ignorance and wanted to tell her the truth.
He truly didn’t think the truth was all that cruel or terrifying, and Qiu Yu’s expression didn’t look like someone who had been frightened.
And yet, Chen Cebai still lost control.
His expression was cold and indifferent. Tall and upright, dressed in simple black pants and a white shirt, he exuded an austere yet superior aura—one that had nothing to do with status but with his genes and psyche.
It was human instinct to choose a mate with superior genes—just as female animals selected mates with the most vibrant colors.
And yet, someone as genetically superior as him was now losing control because of his wife’s prolonged silence.
Lu Zehou found it utterly incomprehensible.
Where was your rationality?
Where was your IQ over 200?
Qiu Yu hadn’t said a single word—couldn’t you wait a little longer?
But Chen Cebai couldn’t wait any longer.
The black viscous substance, like a surging tide, radiated an icy, terrifying aura, creeping forward inch by inch.
The scene was horrifying. The substance resembled metallic beetles yet also had the slick, slimy texture of reptiles. In short, it evoked images of all manner of repulsive creatures.
What terrified Lu Zehou the most was its unlimited ability to replicate.
This eerie, cancer-like substance was enough to fill anyone with fear and disgust.
A fine layer of cold sweat formed on Lu Zehou’s back.
He hadn’t expected Chen Cebai’s tolerance to be so poor and was starting to regret saying those words to Qiu Yu.
Lu Zehou took a step back, ready at any moment to slam the warehouse door shut and buy himself time to escape.
At the critical moment, Qiu Yu turned around and embraced Chen Cebai.
—The instant she moved, the viscous substance behind Chen Cebai activated its mimicry, blending seamlessly into the surrounding environment.
Lu Zehou swallowed hard, feeling a bead of cold sweat slowly trickling down his forehead.
He was getting older, and his ability to endure was not much stronger than Chen Cebai’s. This harrowing scene nearly gave him a heart attack.
Chen Cebai lowered his eyes, looking at Qiu Yu. His gaze behind the lenses was deep and unreadable.
He reached out and clasped the back of her neck, his thumb pressing against the side of her throat—like a predator ready to strike at any moment.
Inside the warehouse, the transparent viscous substance writhed silently, contracting and expanding, pulsating like a living thing. From it, countless long, slender “human hands” with distinct knuckles were continuously splitting and forming.
—When these hands were a part of Chen Cebai, they were akin to works of art. Every slightly raised vein carried an indescribable, ascetic beauty.
But when they existed separately, they looked more like the hands of countless dead people.
One after another, the rigid hands stretched out toward Qiu Yu from all directions.
Like their host, they assumed a posture ready to hunt.
Qiu Yu, like the woman in the corner who was lost in her own world, remained completely oblivious to it all.
She only felt a dull, oppressive pain in her heart.
She knew too little about Chen Cebai.
If she had learned earlier what kind of drug the neuro-blocker truly was, she could have defended him against Pei Xi’s slander.
She never expected Pei Xi to be so malicious. For three years, he had directly and indirectly defamed Chen Cebai right in front of her… If only she had known earlier what Chen Cebai had sacrificed, she wouldn’t have let him endure so much slander.
“…I’m sorry,” she looked up, her eyes pure yet dejected. “When Pei Xi slandered you, I didn’t speak up for you…”
With every word she uttered, all the ghostly hands formed by the viscous substance melted away and withdrew.
One second ago, the warehouse was crawling with the writhing black matter; the next, it had vanished without a trace.
Chen Cebai’s Adam’s apple moved slightly as he gazed at Qiu Yu.
His expression remained unchanged, but his gaze grew thick and scorching, as if he wanted to devour her whole.
His chest swelled and tingled. He hadn’t expected her to say that.
Indeed, her innocence was a form of cruelty—like a beast, drinking blood and eating flesh while gazing at him with clear, naive eyes.
And yet, in this cruel innocence, he found a salvation he had never experienced before.