Faced with the questioning, Yue Shi blinked his large, innocent eyes, his expression clearly saying, "You're being unreasonable."
Fearing a conflict, Zhou Zhiheng hurriedly explained, "We've been under constant surveillance since entering the isolation center. Our interaction with Cai Zetao was completely normal; we didn't do anything out of the ordinary."
Suddenly, Zhao Lin chimed in, "Cai Zetao underwent a change inside the isolation chamber. That's your responsibility—don't you dare try to shift the blame!"
Zhou Zhiheng gave him a cool, warning glare before apologizing to the staff. "This young man is inexperienced and prone to talking nonsense. Please don't take it to heart."
"But speaking of which, you said earlier that Cai Zetao was in good condition and would be released after another month of observation. What's the situation now?"
A staff member from the isolation center rolled their eyes. "No need for your subtle reminders; this is indeed our oversight."
"It looks like Subject 13 managed to evade the detectors somehow, acting like a normal person. If he had been released, he would have definitely been a danger to society. It's actually better that he lost control now; at least he's locked up, and no innocent civilians will be harmed."
Within a few moments, Cai Zetao was injected with a sedative. His manic, twisted expression faded, and he lay quietly on the bed.
Unable to gather any more information from him, Yue Shi and the other two had no choice but to leave.
As they turned to head out, Zhao Lin rubbed his chin and lowered his voice. "Just now, Cai Zetao said he had been in contact with many supernatural entities. How much of that do you think is true?"
"What are you thinking?" Yue Shi asked back.
"I was thinking... Cai Zetao was willing to actively seek out the supernatural just to gain supernatural power. But he's just an ordinary human. How could he have survived in front of so many supernatural creatures?"
Zhao Lin's words made Yue Shi pause for a moment. But before he could think further, the green light on the supernatural detector in the corridor suddenly dimmed and turned a pale yellow.
Yue Shi instantly became alert. Zhou Zhiheng and Zhao Lin immediately huddled close, sticking to his left and right sides.
When encountering the supernatural unexpectedly, it was always safer to be near a transcendent.
The yellow light intensified rapidly, turning orange before their eyes, then a deep orange-red, and finally, a flashing crimson.
"Aaaah!"
A blood-curdling scream erupted from Isolation Chamber 13, sounding exceptionally eerie and terrifying in the quiet corridor.
Seeing that Yue Shi had no intention of helping and only wanted to leave as quickly as possible, Zhou Zhiheng grabbed him and whispered, "We're too close to the scene. We can't just leave them to die!"
After a two-second pause, he added in an even lower voice, "At least we have to put on a show so we won't be blamed afterward."
Yue Shi nodded in agreement and forcefully dragged the two of them back the way they came.
Though their faces were pale, they were surely willing to "put on a show" with Yue Shi.
The three arrived at the door of Isolation Chamber 13. The door was wide open, and the room was filled with a vibrant, flourishing green.
A strange body lay sprawled on the only hospital bed. It was a humanoid creature covered in green tumors of various shades. Some had already split open, with thick vines growing out of them.
It was unclear what kind of plant these vines belonged to. Several staff members were tightly entangled, slumped on the floor with their eyes closed. Their faces were full of intoxication, as if they were lost in a beautiful dream.
Yue Shi stood at the doorway, his long shadow stretching into the corridor behind him. Beside him, Zhou Zhiheng and Zhao Lin were paralyzed with nerves.
After a moment's thought, Yue Shi slowly stepped into the isolation chamber, his eyes fixed on the monster on the bed.
As he approached, the vines in the room writhed like snakes, all turning to point in his direction.
Just then, the monster turned its head in a twisted, non-human posture. Although its face was completely disfigured, it was still unmistakably Cai Zetao!
He seemed to have turned into a climbing vine plant. Leaf-vein patterns were distributed across his green skin. There was no eyeball in his left socket; instead, a gorgeous, bewitching flower bloomed there.
The petals vibrated slightly. Cai Zetao's face was contorted in pain, and his lips trembled, murmuring a desperate plea: "Save me... It hurts so much..."
The scene before them possessed a level of horror that transcended human imagination. Zhou Zhiheng and Zhao Lin were so terrified they turned and bolted.
Yue Shi was a bit puzzled, not understanding how Cai Zetao had turned into this in such a short amount of time.
Swish—
The sound of slicing air rang out as a vine lashed toward him.
Yue Shi stepped aside, his right hand transforming into sharp claws that easily severed the vine.
An aura of decay spread rapidly along the vine. Just as it was about to reach the main body, the vine acted like a gecko shedding its tail to survive, voluntarily detaching from Cai Zetao and falling to the ground as a withered branch.
Decaying Talons seemed to be an extreme counter to the plant before him. The vines stopped attacking. Cai Zetao slowly stood up, his clothes already shredded into rags that fell away with his movements.
The eerie vine plant seemed to be parasitic on Cai Zetao, yet not entirely under his control. For a moment, he seemed to have briefly wrestled back control, urgently calling out to Yue Shi for help again:
"Help me... I don't want to die..."
As soon as he spoke, all the vines in the room twitched violently, like muscles contracting, ready to strike.
Yue Shi cautiously backed away toward the door.
In the next second, a rapid sucking sound filled the air. The vines guarded Cai Zetao like sentinels, while Cai Zetao himself seemed to have his flesh and blood drained away, his body rapidly shriveling.
At the same time, the flower in his eye socket was growing, blooming at an incredible speed into a vivid, eye-catching crimson.
Even more incredible was that the petals near the stamen had actually mimicked the shape of a human face—a human-faced flower!
It was Cai Zetao's face!
The real Cai Zetao's face was distorted like a dried corpse, his wide-open mouth still emitting a pained, weak cry: "Someone... save me..."
The cold white lights illuminated this macabre scene. Then, the human face within the flower slowly curled into a smile.
Fortunately, Yue Shi had excellent mental fortitude. After a brief moment of shock, he immediately activated Raven's Secret Whispers: "Who are you?"
The human-faced flower did not respond. Instead, Cai Zetao, hearing the voice, caught it like a lifeline and used all his strength to keep calling for help.
"It hurts... I'm suffering... someone help me..."
Yue Shi remained at the door, not making any reckless moves. Both his hands had turned into talons, ready to deliver a fatal blow at any moment.
Perhaps provoked by his idle bystander status, Cai Zetao's cries for help grew increasingly shrill. The vines in the room began to surge, spreading and swelling across the floor, walls, and ceiling with aggressive force, as if they intended to fill the entire room.
Rate on N.U.
