Inside the sealed interrogation room, the air hung heavy in every inch of space, making even breathing feel like a sluggish burden.
Young Evans's thin chest rose and fell unevenly. The sound of his heavy, ragged breathing was magnified infinitely in the dead silence—a series of raspy gasps.
His pupils were dilated, his gaze empty. His eyes rested haphazardly on the greenhouse before him; though he appeared to be looking at something, nothing was actually registering in his mind.
Recalling those events was clearly a deeply unpleasant experience for him.
Evans's throat bobbed as if he were gathering every ounce of courage he had ever possessed before he finally spoke slowly.
"I think... that inexplicable urge, that instinct to get closer... it really was my own thought."
"But at the same time, it was more likely..."
"The thought of the Stomach of Glat."
Evans's voice was as thin as a mosquito's buzz, saturated with unease.
The short sentence fell lightly, yet the lack of volume only made the chill crawling up one's spine even more pronounced.
Evans raised his hands, his fingers trembling as he pressed them tightly over his eyes.
"It feels like it's right inside my body."
"Always inside... wriggling, pressed against my bones, crawling along my veins."
"I can't get rid of it, no matter what I do."
"It's looking at this place through my eyes. The Stomach of Glat is watching this place..."
As he said this, Evans's tone didn't rise; there was no shouting. Instead, he became increasingly calm.
He covered his eyelids, but a glimmer of terrified moisture seeped through the gaps in his fingers.
"So, the way I see it, the truth must be..."
"The Stomach of Glat considers that Anomaly to be its kindred."
As those words hit the floor, the temperature in the interrogation room seemed to drop several more degrees.
Behind the glass wall, the cluster of dreamlike pink mushrooms—designated B-121 and known as the Honest Gift—remained with their caps wilted, standing silently within the isolated greenhouse.
They didn't glow, they didn't sway, and they showed no abnormal fluctuations.
Yet it was precisely this silence that corroborated the most absurd and skin-crawling fact of all.
Evans wasn't lying.
At least, within his own perception, every word he spoke was the truth.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the base.
Dr. Cyril stood before the screen with her arms crossed, her posture straight as her eyes remained locked on the entire interrogation process.
Her focus never wavered from the B-121 lie-detection mushrooms in the corner of the frame.
She was well aware of B-121's properties.
The Honest Gift did not lie, did not make mistakes, could not be bribed, and could not be coerced.
This meant that every shocking word Evans had just uttered—words that sounded like the ravings of a madman—was a factual reality.
In a blind spot of the surveillance where no one could see, the habitually cold and majestic Dr. Cyril, who never showed her emotions, was unconsciously stroking her arm with her fingertips.
Her behavior was somewhat strange.
On that face usually defined by indifference, gravity, and logic, there now lingered an extremely faint, subtle smile.
Ren Yi's perception observed her expression from the shadows, and a strong sense of dissonance instantly rose in his heart.
It was an expression of great interest—even anticipation.
However, considering that most doctors were lunatics, Ren Yi couldn't discern anything more for the time being.
Forget it. In the world of scientific research—especially Anomaly containment research—nine out of ten doctors were crazy, and the tenth was even crazier.
As for Evans's claims... as the "involved Anomaly" of it all, Ren Yi, currently inside the sleep pod, was completely bewildered.
What on earth is all this?
Ren Yi ranted frantically in his mind, his frustration having nowhere to go.
Seriously, kid, you've woven a pretty perfect logical loop. It's consistent, well-supported, and full of drama.
But how come I don't know anything about it?
Since when am I kindred with some 'Stomach of Glat'?
And why don't I have any of these 'inexplicable urges'?
At this moment, Ren Yi felt the situation was beyond ridiculous.
It felt as if he were remotely controlling a bionic robot dog, crouching downstairs to tease the neighbor's brat.
Then, the brat turns around and gives his mother a solemn lecture: 'Look, this isn't a robot dog; this is a miniature prehistoric Tyrannosaurus Rex.'
Just as you're about to laugh, you notice an absolutely precise, infallible, and certified lie detector sitting right there.
It stamps the claim on the spot: 'The child is not lying; every word is true.'
Question: Is the problem with the brat, the lie detector, or me?
Ranting aside, Ren Yi wasn't entirely unmoved.
This strange turn of events sparked an unprecedented curiosity about the never-before-seen S-099 and that fragment called the "Stomach of Glat."
The current flow of events seemed determined to link him to that thing.
However, a containment agency wouldn't let a suddenly appearing Anomaly of unknown status come into contact with another even more dangerous, high-risk Anomaly just because of some bizarre reasons.
Another issue was that while S-099 was high-risk to this containment base, it was certainly not safe for him either.
He didn't want to go up there only to drop dead instantly!
Should he try to make contact? How could he bypass this organization and allow himself to meet it?
Ren Yi fell into deep thought.
Inside the interrogation room, B406 remained unperturbed throughout, not influenced by the eerie atmosphere in the slightest.
As a veteran errand boy, he had great professional ethics...
Which was that he was only responsible for running errands and didn't need to use his brain for anything else.
His primary mode was being emotionless, thoughtless, and feelingless—just doing the work without thinking.
Since Dr. Cyril was remotely monitoring and handling the thinking, he only needed to serve as a soulless parrot and a question launcher.
Therefore, he began to toss out questions one by one.
"You say you feel it's your kindred?"
B406 adjusted his posture, the red light in his mechanical prosthetic eye flickering slightly. His tone carried a blunt sense of "I don't believe you."
"But from what I saw, it doesn't seem to want to acknowledge you as a relative."
"Back in the lab, it attacked you without the slightest hesitation."
Are you kidding me? This false accusation is being reinforced and pinned on me automatically?
The moment those words were spoken, Ren Yi froze inside the sleep pod, mentally screaming his innocence.
He swore he had only wanted to see if he could use the youth as a sort of "springboard" for his perception. Heaven knows why the kid suddenly performed a spontaneous blackout.
At this point, Evans corrected him.
"I said the Stomach of Glat considers it kindred. As for just now..."
Evans lowered his head slightly, a hint of shame appearing on his pale face. "No... I think I might have misunderstood what happened earlier."
"That moment, I just felt my vision go dark and I fainted. It might have been caused by that vibration earlier."
"It... probably didn't attack me."
Rate on N.U.
