Chapter 363 – Thirty Years of Specialized Perversion

There were only two guards at the entrance, pacing back and forth with their rifles, clearly bored. This was the conclusion Ling Mo reached by combining the shadows on the wall with his psychic detection.

“I really don’t get why you guys keep this artificial rockery around. Sure, it blocks our view, but what can those two guards see? Not to mention, we’re in the dark while they’re in the light.”

Ling Mo sighed as he spoke.

Yuwen Xuan glanced at him, a bit helpless, and said, “Buddy, you have to understand, they’re standing there just to emphasize the uniqueness of this place, to warn ordinary survivors to stay away. I bet fifty cents their guns aren’t even loaded; they probably don’t even have bullets. Besides, apart from us, no one else would sneak up here like this.”

“That makes sense. Then put on the headset, it’s time to move.”

Under Ling Mo’s supervision, Yuwen Xuan first put on his headset, then carefully concealed the activated Communicator on his person. After thoroughly checking from all angles to ensure there were no giveaways, Ling Mo waved him on: “Go ahead.”

“You got it.”

With a dash, Yuwen Xuan sprang from his hiding spot, brushed off the leaves sticking to his clothes, and headed towards the gate.

Ling Mo also turned on his Communicator and inserted an earpiece.

“Hey hey, suddenly I feel like I’m doing some spy work. Have you seen those Hollywood movies, Mission Impossible? Helping, that’s what Ethan Hunt does!”

Yuwen Xuan’s excited whisper came through the headset immediately.

“Cut out your cringy dialect-style English. Besides, isn’t that a line from 007?” Ling Mo quickly interrupted him.

“Ahahaha…”

“Stop laughing, get serious!”

If it weren’t for the fact that Yuwen Xuan had already moved past the artificial rockery, Ling Mo would have wanted to drag him back for a good thumping.

Seeing Yuwen Xuan suddenly appear, the two guards stopped in their tracks, looking over in surprise.

“Is this…” one of the guards asked, somewhat puzzled.

“Are you blind? That’s Captain Yuwen,” the other one said, giving him a disdainful look.

“It’s the famous…” He didn’t finish his sentence before his companion elbowed him.

“Captain Yuwen, what brings you here so late…”

“I just finished up with some work and thought I’d swing by, I have a matter to attend to,” Yuwen Xuan said with a smile.

The two guards exchanged glances, thinking that this place was the back hill, and the word “swing by” seemed a bit too casual…

However, they were well aware of Yuwen Xuan’s reputation and could only continue with a smile: “May I ask what the matter is? We have to make a record; it’s the protocol, please understand.”

“About those Mutated Beasts and zombies’ bodies that were sent back these past few days, I want to know if there are any research results yet. I have to head to the front lines after this; can’t keep going on without any information,” Yuwen Xuan said.

“That makes sense… The record is made, Captain Yuwen, please come in.”

After Yuwen Xuan entered the building, Ling Mo heard the two guards pull out their walkie-talkies.

“Hello? Is this Research Lab 3? Captain Yuwen has arrived. Which Yuwen? No way… Yeah, that one,” the guard holding the walkie-talkie moved closer to the gate, peeked inside, then lowered his voice and said mysteriously, “A specialist in perversion for thirty years, the rookie killer, Yuwen Xuan…”

“A rather fitting description,” Ling Mo nodded to himself from the bushes.

With the layout of the building unknown, he planned to wait for Yuwen Xuan to scout ahead before making a move. So, for now, he had no choice but to crouch in the bushes and wait.

With nothing else to do, Ling Mo felt conflicted for a moment and, somewhat guiltily, controlled the maid to move behind him.

A pair of small hands slowly reached towards Ling Mo’s waist…

“Ah, that feels good… It’s just that having an extra pair of hands on your back is a bit strange…”

Inside the research building, Yuwen Xuan was making his way through the lobby towards the upper floors. The first floor was all offices, nothing worth searching.

He reviewed the building’s blueprint in his mind and muttered, “The experimental subjects should be stored away, not likely in any lab. Probably in a cold storage. But the building has been modified, and the blueprint doesn’t show the purpose of each room…”

He hadn’t gone far when an old man with graying hair ran down from upstairs, anxiously calling out, “Captain Yuwen! Don’t wander off, you’re here to see the research results, right? I’ll take you there…”

“Dizzy, I underestimated how unwelcome he is.”

Through the earpiece, Ling Mo could sense the old man’s urgency, it seemed that Yuwen Xuan had been marked as a dangerous individual in their minds.

He wondered if Yuwen Xuan would manage to shake him off…

“Enough waiting, it’s time to move.”

About ten minutes later, with no sign from Yuwen Xuan, Ling Mo led the Zombie Puppet slowly from the woods to the left side of the building, then silently slipped to the side of the security door.

He tried pulling it, finding the door securely locked.

“Looks like I have to double as a lock-picker again.” Taking a deep breath, Ling Mo focused his mental power.

A mental tentacle separated from his Mental Sphere and slowly passed through the keyhole, twisting behind the door.

Once it wound around the door handle, Ling Mo’s gaze intensified, and the tip of the tentacle materialized to actually grasp the handle, then slowly began to turn it.

This was the reality of the Object Control Ability. To anyone who couldn’t see the tentacle, this scene would seem quite magical.

“Eh? This lock is broken… and it seems something is propping it from the inside.”

Ling Mo quickly manipulated the tentacle to feel down the door, indeed encountering an obstruction.

Moving the obstacle with the tentacle proved difficult, but after about thirty seconds, Ling Mo successfully pushed the door open.

Ling Mo and the Zombie Puppet quickly slipped inside, and then, without anyone to close it, the door slowly shut on its own.

A metal box used to prop the door was full of various odds and ends, including tools, and was quite heavy.

Without clear information, Ling Mo hadn’t rashly used brute force. What if he made a noise and alerted someone?

He looked at the door lock with a hint of surprise, and then, with a puzzled frown, he carefully sealed the door back to its original state.

This place must have been a surveillance room once, with a narrow passage that soon brought him to an electrical distribution box on the wall next to a small door.

Following the principle of “better to waste a second than to overlook a detail,” Ling Mo decided to open the door and take a look inside.

Before pushing the door open, he had already extended his mental Tentacles, sensing no one inside.

“Well, a bathroom…”

Ling Mo quickly spotted a sink and was about to close the door when he suddenly felt something was off.

He leaned forward to take a closer look and his mouth dropped open.

Sitting on the toilet was a corpse with a neck twisted in an eerie manner, its eyes rolled back.

After recovering from his initial shock, Ling Mo pulled out his tactical flashlight, closed the door, and leaned in for a closer examination.

The body was still pliable, suggesting that death had occurred not long ago. There was a hand-written name tag on the chest that read “Wu Youcai.”

“This name… That’s right, it’s the monitor on duty tonight. He was supposed to start his shift at 7 p.m.”

Ling Mo quickly recalled the name from the duty roster that Yuwen Xuan had provided; he had taken note of it as well.

He hadn’t thought the list would be of much use, but it turned out to be quite handy.

With too few clues and nothing but a body, Ling Mo, with his rudimentary knowledge of examining wounds, could only deduce that the person had died from a broken neck.

“If only I’d finished watching the 700 episodes of ‘The Young Detective’… But even so, it leads me to surmise that there’s either no one in the surveillance room now or… the killer is inside.”

Ling Mo tried to sense again, then opened his eyes in frustration: “Damn it, there really is no one!”

The empty surveillance room was devoid of anything, even images… All the screens had been smashed to bits.

Faced with this situation, Ling Mo was at a loss for words.

It seemed that the assailant, like them, wanted to take advantage of the night to do something clandestine.

The door lock must have been broken by the assailant as well.

For a moment, he thought of Ban Yue. With the intelligence of zombies, it was indeed possible for them to do something as foolish as smashing screens.

If someone really wanted to turn off the surveillance, they could have just pressed the “off” button clearly marked on it!

However, he then noticed another small door inside the room; opening it revealed a corridor that led further into the building.