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墨書 Inktalez
"Go on, what happened next?" Su Lan asked.
"You guessed it right, I didn't carry it out," Ming Junwei said, lighting a cigarette and looking at Su Lan through the swirling smoke. "The person in charge gave me a gun and instructed me to eliminate the infected researchers. I was just the safety supervisor and had no authority to interfere with the experiments. In a way, I had to comply. If I didn't do it, someone else would take over, and I would face many problems myself. I never expected that a Cosmetics Company would find itself in such a situation. It's embarrassing to admit, but when I saw the gun, I was scared. I feared that if I didn't follow orders, they would eliminate me too."
Ming Junwei's tone was flat, but Su Lan sensed deeper meanings in his words. Putting herself in his shoes, if she were Ming Junwei—a completely innocent ordinary person—suddenly being asked to kill someone, realizing she was surrounded by danger and confusion, how would she choose?
"You didn't eliminate the infected, did you?" Su Lan was now engrossed in Ming Junwei's story. At this moment, she was less concerned about the so-called mystery; she just wanted to know how Ming Junwei made his choices in that situation.
"No," Ming Junwei nodded, falling silent for a moment before speaking hoarsely. "Over the years, I occasionally think back to that scene. Perhaps I should have complied with the person's opinion. But he noticed my hesitation and brought my Deputy along to do it with me."
"The two Deputies were younger than me and had never experienced anything like this; they panicked and asked me what to do. I told them to follow the regulations and let them take the infected body while we walked to the chemical wastewater treatment workshop behind the Industrial Zone. The workshop had large machines operating that could mask the sound of gunfire. In reality, I wouldn't have shot anyone at all. That person in charge probably didn't understand the level of the ancient city testing site and mistakenly thought I could handle Class A incidents. Looking back now, it's all about fate."
Ming Junwei smiled faintly as he mimicked pulling a trigger. "One misstep leads to another; a Class A experiment ended up at a Class B testing site. And such an important task was handed over to me. I guess that experimental group only knew that the infected were dangerous but never anticipated how severe the consequences would be."
Su Lan remained silent, merely nodding in acknowledgment.
"I told my assistants that we couldn't do this; it was murder, it was a crime. They agreed with me; we were all ordinary people—taking a life is not something to be taken lightly." Ming Junwei let out a bitter laugh and shook his head gently. "Then the three of us discussed a plan to hide the infected body for now. It wouldn't be long before dawn; surely the lab personnel wouldn't dare to kill someone in broad daylight? But we overlooked one thing."
"What?" Su Lan frowned and asked.
"The infected body was right there with us," Ming Junwei said, taking a deep breath as an indescribable expression crossed his face. "We were so panicked that we even forgot it was still beside us. Although it was wearing isolation gear, it could still hear us." He paused before continuing, "The infected spoke up and told us we couldn't do that; we had to follow protocol—not only destroy it but also preserve the remains for the research team."
Su Lan was taken aback.
"Do you find it hard to believe?" Ming Junwei raised an eyebrow and stared at the table in silence for a moment before saying, "But the infected did remind me that hiding it wouldn't work; the research team would demand the remains from us. If we couldn't hand them over, we'd be in trouble."
Su Lan's expression shifted slightly as she hesitated to speak. Her woman's intuition told her that Ming Junwei seemed to have glossed over some details; logically speaking, things couldn't possibly be as simple as he described.
Ming Junwei was lost in memories, oblivious to Su Lan's hesitant expression. After a long pause, he took a deep drag from his cigarette and said, "Then I killed two assistants and threw their bodies into the incinerator. One fire, and they were reduced to ashes."
"What?" Su Lan exclaimed in shock, nearly knocking over her teacup. Her eyes widened as she stared at Ming Junwei, unable to find her voice for a long moment.
Ming Junwei let out a grim laugh, slumping back in his chair. "Just a moment before, I was panicking about having to kill someone. The next second, I personally killed colleagues I had worked with for two years and burned their bodies to cinders. But it was the only solution I could think of—eliminate the witnesses and tell the lab that the bodies were destroyed. I could come up with an excuse, saying I was so scared that in a moment of panic, I destroyed the remains. What could they do to me? They couldn't possibly kill me just because I disposed of the infected bodies. After all, my hands were stained with blood too; the worst they could do was fire me, which would suit me just fine."
"You..." Su Lan was left speechless, her lips trembling as she struggled to find words. The conversation had shifted from calm to chaotic in an instant; the contrast was overwhelming.
Ming Junwei showed no intention of letting her process this information. Seemingly tired of reminiscing about the past, he sped up his narration. "There’s not much more to say about what happened next; you can probably guess. I hid the infected body in the dormitory and then returned to the lab. Following my pre-prepared excuse, I falsely claimed that I had destroyed the infected body and even took the supervisor to see a pile of ashes in the incinerator. With blood still on my hands and my previous demeanor, although the supervisor was furious, he didn’t suspect me at all—not even asking where the two assistants had gone. He simply said that this experiment was over and instructed me to notify the upper management at dawn; they needed to wrap things up."
"I never expected everything would go so smoothly; it felt like a dream," Ming Junwei's eyes held a strange madness as he sneered. "I had already planned that once the experiment team left at dawn, I would immediately leave this place. Two Living Persons disappearing without a trace couldn’t possibly go unnoticed. The company might have connections and power, but I’m just an ordinary person—I would inevitably be blamed for it all. With blood on my hands, my thoughts began to change; looking back now, I don’t even know how I managed to stay so calm."
"Unfortunately, your vision didn’t come true," Su Lan exhaled slowly, suddenly realizing that cold sweat had formed on her back.
"Right, it's self-inflicted; it's all fate," Ming Junwei's gaze dimmed as he drained his cup filled with frost and sighed heavily. "To avoid raising suspicion, I stayed in the communication room waiting for the experiment team’s signal to finish. I had prepared my car, ready to leave as soon as they departed. But as you guessed, before dawn broke, something happened at the dormitory."
"The dormitory is a short distance from the Industrial Zone; there are many companies in the tech park where employees' families live in dorms. Previously, I thought the area was empty; that night I realized just how many people were actually there."
"When I arrived at the dormitory building, it was chaos—people were wailing everywhere: men, women, children—clothes barely on their backs, covered in blood, screaming about murder."
Su Lan furrowed her brows tightly, her palms slick with sweat as she watched Ming Junwei's Cyclops-like eyes finally overflow with tears that traced wet paths down his cheeks.
"I didn’t know what had happened but somehow sensed something terrible. I ran against the tide of crying people back toward my dormitory only to discover that things were far worse than I had imagined. The hallways and rooms were drenched in blood—it looked like Blood Plasma spilled for a movie set; stepping on it was slippery and sticky. My dormitory was on the fifth floor; can you imagine? Blood flowed down the stairs like a burst pipe—I could hear it gushing."
"Did you go back?" Su Lan swallowed hard, her throat bitterly dry.
"No." Ming Junwei shook his head, wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes with a weary smile. "I couldn't take it anymore when I got to the third floor. I saw so many people half-alive, all screaming for help—some with severed limbs, others with their guts spilled out. I saw a drinking buddy, a man, with a gaping wound in his stomach. He picked up his intestines from the ground and stuffed them back into his belly, blood dripping from his mouth. When he saw me, he shouted, 'Ming Junwei, help my wife! She's over there.'"
"I wanted to run, but my legs felt weak, and my mind was blank. I thought maybe I was dreaming when I saw her."
"Summer Rain is the infected entity," Su Lan murmured, her voice barely audible.
Ming Junwei nodded, covering his face with his hands and bending deeply at the waist.
Su Lan wanted to comfort him but didn't know what to say.
"You and her..." Su Lan hesitated for a moment before gathering her courage to ask, "Were you lovers?"
"Yes." Ming Junwei lifted his face, a smile breaking through the sorrow. "Her job was special; we weren't married and kept it private."
"So, you learned about the recruitment through her?"
"Sort of." Having revealed everything, Ming Junwei seemed much lighter. He took a deep breath and said with a hint of amusement, "We spent very little time together; we hardly saw each other throughout the year. Once, I jokingly suggested that I could work as a doorman at her company so I could see her every day. She thought I was kidding and said it was perfect since they were hiring security guards at the branch office. I asked a few more questions that didn't touch on her work details, and she didn't pay attention, so I got the information and left my business to become a security guard."
Su Lan understood everything—the background and the sequence of events—so there was no need to ask further. In fact, when she heard about Ming Junwei killing his assistants, she had already guessed much of it; after all, who would kill two colleagues for someone they weren't even related to? Su Lan could imagine what happened next: an unexpected incident in the facility meant that as the safety supervisor, Ming Junwei's first task would be to seal off the area and notify higher-ups and emergency units. But he was the safety supervisor of the experimental zone, and both assistants had been reduced to ashes. At that moment, having just killed his colleagues and witnessed his lover turn into a monster that devoured people, it was remarkable that he hadn't lost his sanity; how could he have thought about anything else?
Summer Rain had become infected due to an experimental accident, leading to her death and transformation into a corpse. The dormitory building was filled with staff members from the facility who were peacefully asleep in their dreams when a sudden bloody massacre unfolded during the night—an uncontrollable nightmare.
As for how Ming Junwei convinced Summer Rain to hide in the dormitory or how he killed his colleagues—those details didn't need further exploration. This also explained why Summer Rain in the Underground Testing Facility had become relevant; for Ming Junwei, encountering another person with the same name who was similarly trapped by fate would inevitably stir up memories of the past. Perhaps driven by guilt and regret, Ming Junwei tried every way possible to help her escape from captivity. Unfortunately, fate did not favor them; both Summers Rain were unable to escape their tragic destinies and ultimately perished in this catastrophe.
Reflecting on their first meeting and those months of traveling far and wide—who would have thought that this carefree fellow who shielded his companions from bullets and drank like there was no tomorrow would have such a painful past?
"You are right, no one is innocent. People say your teachers are the culprits, but in reality, if I had followed the orders of that person in charge and killed Summer Rain, perhaps none of this would have happened."
"No," Su Lan shook her head sadly, wanting to say something but not knowing how to begin. If one were to trace back to the root of the issue, the responsibility would lie solely with The Establishment and rca. She, Ming Junwei, and Summer Rain were merely insignificant ants whose lives were not worth mourning. They were not the ones stirring up the storm; they were not the ones controlling the chaos. They were merely bearing the consequences, soaked in blood and tears.
"The situation spiraled out of control; you were lucky to survive back then." Su Lan murmured to herself, recalling the past that Ming Junwei had mentioned at Oda Manor, a wave of inexplicable frustration rising within her.
"I didn't finish my sentence," Ming Junwei sighed softly, saying, "When I said I was hiding alone in the office, that wasn't entirely true."
Su Lan raised her eyelids in confusion and asked, "Then what?"
"I was with Summer Rain," Ming Junwei smiled, watching Su Lan's shocked expression. He nodded and continued, "I don't know what happened to her. Do you remember when we were at Oda Manor? The villagers locked their infected relatives inside their homes. In fact, I was the first person to do that."
"So when Yifan and Xiao Jin couldn't stand it anymore, I didn't let them interfere. On one hand, I didn't want to cause trouble; on the other hand, I understood those villagers. I understood that feeling—having a beloved family member suddenly turn into a bloodthirsty monster. As relatives caught in an unknown situation, we felt heartbroken and reluctant. Even though we knew they would never return to normal, we couldn't bear to let them completely disappear and rot in the ground."
"I tied her up with rope and hid with her in the office, watching her skin shrivel day by day—turning purple and blue—until only a layer of skin clung to her bones. I couldn't bear it any longer; I went into the hallway and stole some decaying corpses to feed her, just like feeding a child. During the day, I would pull back the curtain slightly to let her bask in the sunlight, but it was useless. Summer Rain was gone; all that remained tied up was a Zombie."
"I used the gun given to me by the person in charge to end her suffering. After that, I left the compound."
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