Chapter 66 Observation

Zhu Ning had no idea what these people were so nervous about; she didn't even have a weapon on her, and if anyone should be nervous, it was her.

*Jingle bell——*

The telephone was still ringing, but no one went to answer it.

Zhu Ning shifted her foot slightly. The people beside her didn't seem to react; their postures were somewhat unnatural, likely because someone was giving them new instructions through their earpieces.

Zhu Ning successfully opened the door of the phone booth, picked up the vintage red receiver, and the ringing stopped abruptly.

If someone could call in at a moment like this without the four individuals objecting, there should only be one person.

As expected.

A man's voice sounded from the other end of the receiver, "Good day, Miss Zhu."

The voice on the opposite end sounded very cold—not quite like Prometheus's voice—possessing a detestable kind of indifference.

Zhu Ning replied very politely, "Hello."

"My surname is Chu."

Zhu Ning went with the flow, "Hello, Boss Chu."

While listening to the phone, Zhu Ning glanced outside the booth. Those people hadn't even changed their stances; they kept their eyes fixed tightly on Zhu Ning, as if deeply wary that she might pull some trick.

Inside the laboratory, the footage of Zhu Ning entering the phone booth was projected onto the large screen.

Aside from Professor Chu conversing with Zhu Ning, the technicians appeared quite tense, still remembering how Zhu Ning had outsmarted them last time. This person was somewhat difficult to guard against.

Professor Chu's original command had been to capture Zhu Ning alive and bring her back to Eternal Pharmaceutical, but now it seemed that mission wouldn't be so easily accomplished.

Zhu Ning had quite a reputation. The greatest benefit of making a name for herself was that no one would dare to underestimate her.

People even engaged in boundless imagination internally, picturing her as far more powerful than she actually was.

Professor Chu looked at Zhu Ning on the screen, as if speaking to her face-to-face, "It seems you've broken one of my experimental subjects."

He was referring to Number 777.

The person speaking behind the scenes must be the person in charge of the experiment; Zhu Ning guessed he was probably a professor or a researcher.

She didn't know whether this individual had a direct connection to the Mechanical Aquarium incident. This one seemed more focused on experiments, whereas the operation at the Mechanical Aquarium was far too bizarre, and she hadn't yet figured out the clues behind it.

Moreover, they didn't seem to know that Cheng Mofei's employee wristband was in her possession.

She had never dealt with Eternal Pharmaceutical head-on before. The last time she had obtained a killer's miniature camera, she had exchanged a couple of sentences with the person in charge.

Unfortunately, the other party was a sore loser and cut off the communication immediately without answering a word.

Zhu Ning said instantly, "I was wrong, I didn't mean to, Prometheus made me do it."

Technician: "..."

Professor Chu fell into a brief silence on the other end, seemingly entirely caught off guard by Zhu Ning's handling style. Having been in this line of work for so long and having witnessed too many stubborn backbones, he had expected the other party to utter harsh threats and stubbornly refuse to yield.

He hadn't expected her to apologize and betray Prometheus in one fluid motion.

Zhu Ning asked, "Do you want me to be an undercover agent for you? I'm willing."

"She is really... enthusiastic, isn't she?" The technician found this scene somewhat baffling. How could there be such a person? Volunteering to be a double agent like this?

Wasn't she Prometheus's trump card? Were the benefits offered over there really that poor?

Only a loyalist who defects has any chance of being truly loyal to you. Hearing that Zhu Ning only loved money, she could betray Prometheus for money today, and she could just as easily betray Eternal Pharmaceutical to the Cleansing Center tomorrow.

A person of disreputable character.

The technician thought to himself that his valuation of Zhu Ning had dropped by two points.

She was not a top-tier premium product; Eternal Pharmaceutical could not make use of such a person.

Yet Professor Chu's interest in her remained undiminished. A smile surfaced on his face, giving the technician a creeping sense of dread.

Whenever he wore that expression, it usually meant something bad was about to happen—the truly bad kind of thing.

Professor Chu: "I didn't mean that."

Zhu Ning let out a regretful sigh, "Otherwise I could have made double the pay."

Technician: "..."

No wonder her psychic value was ultra-high yet the First Military District had no intentions of recruiting her; this kind of person was simply too uncontrollable.

Zhu Ning: "What are your plans now?"

To be honest, she didn't harbor any mortal enmity with Eternal Pharmaceutical, not to that extent yet.

Cheng Mofei's sacrifice was his own affair, and currently, Eternal Pharmaceutical had no targeted elimination plan specifically for Zhu Ning.

Nor was Eternal Pharmaceutical willing to go to any lengths to kill her at all costs. Cultivating talent was no easy task for any organization, and when the input-to-output ratio was too low, such an action became unnecessary.

Everything still had room for negotiation.

Professor Chu paused for a moment on the other end, "Huang Yaruo has gone missing."

Huang Yaruo?

It had been a long time since Zhu Ning had heard that name.

She had assumed Huang Yaruo was captured by people from Eternal Pharmaceutical; listening to this tone, Eternal Pharmaceutical hadn't been able to find her.

If Huang Yaruo was the symbiotic partner of Experimental Subject 777, she could be considered part of the experimental specimen. Finding Huang Yaruo could recoup a portion of the losses.

So Huang Yaruo wasn't dead yet.

Zhu Ning gave an "ah" sound and said thoughtfully, "You want me to help find her? But you'll have to pay me."

Technician: "..."

He could barely bear to listen anymore; Zhu Ning truly lacked any sense of backbone.

Professor Chu: "I just want to find someone to take responsibility for my losses."

Zhu Ning: "That's quite reasonable."

After all, cultivating experimental subjects took a tremendous amount of effort on their part, and since they had been crushed into ruins by Zhu Ning, someone indeed needed to take responsibility.

While communicating, Professor Chu zoomed in on Zhu Ning's face, carefully observing her facial features.

Previously, Zhu Ning had always worn a helmet; even when he later discovered her identity, the information he saw was just photographs.

This time, what he saw was an intensely vivid face. The opponent was composed, wearing a high ponytail with a few stray wisps of hair fluttering at her temples.

Zhu Ning didn't care much about her appearance—it wasn't an exquisitely polished style of dressing, nor was she a well-educated young lady. Merely judging by the naked eye, she looked like an ordinary person who had just finished a night run.

Yet, she somehow felt vaguely familiar.

"I am not short of subordinates, nor am I short of double agents."

To him, those were merely consumables, and no matter how powerful an Esper was, they remained nothing more than consumables.

Professor Chu: "I need a new experimental subject."

Zhu Ning frowned. What did that mean?

Zhu Ning had destroyed his experimental subject, so Professor Chu needed Zhu Ning to make restitution for that part.

He didn't want money, nor did he need Zhu Ning's labor; he wanted a new experimental subject.

Professor Chu tapped his fingers on the desktop, "Miss Zhu, I am very keen on observing you."

Zhu Ning: "..."

A pervert?

Professor Chu's voice was unhurried and steady, as casual as saying he would very much like to go on a date with her.

This time, Zhu Ning didn't take it quite so lightly; she was starting to get genuinely annoyed by him. She feared neither acting as an undercover agent nor entering a full-scale battle.

What she loathed was the other party's tone—condescending, as if Zhu Ning were nothing more than a laboratory mouse.

She would never allow artificial intelligence to take over her body, nor would she ever become a test subject for a pharmaceutical corporation.

Professor Chu: "Your data across all metrics should be quite fascinating."

An ultra-high psychic value in a defective product was definitely no accident. Professor Chu recalled the ability she had used last time; the special powers she had displayed alone numbered two.

Carrying various contamination artifacts on her person, she might be hiding a portion of her strength, and this might not even be the limit of her capabilities.

From a scientific perspective, Professor Chu desperately wanted to cut Zhu Ning open to take a look.

She didn't quite resemble a natural human; she herself looked very much like an experimental product.

If the destruction of Experimental Subject 777 had initially left him somewhat infuriated and resentful, now he felt genuinely grateful to Prometheus.

Otherwise, he might never have had the chance to meet someone so interesting.

Zhu Ning's gaze darkened, "What if I refuse?"

Professor Chu's gaze lingered and wandered over Zhu Ning, almost possessing a tangible substance, like a sharp scalpel where every resting point of his sight marked a place to cut.

Inside his mind, he had already dissected her countless times. "You cannot refuse being observed."

Zhu Ning could fly into a rage and slaughter the four hitmen in front of her, but she could not refuse potential observation.

That wasn't a direct attack laid out in the open, but something far more covert.

Eternal Pharmaceutical possessed countless eyes; there were countless observable surveillance cameras. Zhu Ning could guard against enemies, but she could not guard against eyes.

Gaze.

The surveillance cameras in District 103 were countless, and eyes made from contaminants wouldn't even be detected.

Zhu Ning could find a house and lock herself inside, which would be safe, but could she hide in a safe house for the rest of her life?

Sooner or later, she had to step into the crowd, unable to tell which passersby were genuine pedestrians and which ones were undercover observers hidden among them.

Once she was targeted by Professor Chu, that observing gaze would cling to her like a clinging bone, sticky, damp, forever affixed to her skin, leaving behind the trace of an icy glare even when temporarily evaded.

Zhu Ning might never be able to shake it off until the day she died.

After death, she would be dissected by others, studying the trajectory of every blood vessel, examining the structure of her heart, opening up her brain to search for its inner mysteries.

In life, she would be a living test subject; in death, a dead test subject.

She could never eradicate that gaze.

*I am not imprisoning you, nor am I killing you; I am merely observing you.*

This constituted a form of psychological contamination.

Spiritual contamination did not exist solely within contaminated zones; even within the daily lives of ordinary people, psychological contamination could be inflicted upon another person.

Or perhaps this behavior itself was part of the experiment—to see whether a human could survive under continuous psychological contamination.

She would forever search for spying eyes, wanting to flip over and check beneath her bed when trying to sleep.

She would instinctively want to look back over her shoulder while walking.

While eating, she would always feel as though someone in the opposite building was observing her.

She would never feel a sense of safety, always feeling that a shadow was closely tailing her.

Clinging behind her back as she fell asleep, thrusting a single eye out of the ventilation duct while she showered.

As time dragged on, she wouldn't even be able to tell whether those gazes were real or merely figments of her imagination.

No one could maintain their sanity under such sustained and intensive observation; sooner or later, she would go mad, and Professor Chu was simply wondering how long that process would take.

A week? A month? A year?

He hoped that day would arrive soon.

Zhu Ning: "Are you trying to shatter my psychic stability?"

She was no longer the novice who had just stepped into the wasteland world; the deeper her understanding of contaminants, the better she could reverse-engineer the other's logic.

It was difficult for a person to maintain sanity under constant observation; that very process was one of dismantling psychic stability, driving Zhu Ning step by step toward madness, and subsequently triggering a contamination zone.

Just as they had once done to Huang Yaruo.

Professor Chu fell silent.

The technician, having followed him for so long, rarely saw him display such an expression, furrowing his brow as he stared at Zhu Ning, as if looking at an intractable, difficult problem.