Chapter 153: Two Notes, One Piece of Paper

Yu Sheng quickly found those two records.

The first thing he saw was a note hastily written by an on-site operator left inside the laboratory—when this note was written, the operation had already gone out of control, the laboratory was already in a lockdown state, so the note appeared chaotic and hurried, and there were many places where the recorder had arbitrarily scribbled out or deliberately left blank for unknown reasons:

"The isolation doors have descended, alarms are blaring everywhere, hallucinations and noise are assaulting my mind, I cannot determine how long I can remain conscious, I leave this final record here, to record as completely as possible everything I have seen and felt... but my senses are being affected, so this record may contain distorted or tampered content, I hope subsequent investigators pay attention to distinguish and treat these words with caution.

"The two deep divers returning from the deep submersion device are gradually dying, neither the equipment nor the on-site medical staff can find the cause, their consciousness, or rather their 'souls', seem to have been destroyed by something before they returned to reality, now they are just two bodies still undergoing biochemical reactions, maintaining activity driven by inertia, and attempting to transmit the final intelligence outward...

"The one in better condition among them kept repeating a few strange words before completely losing the ability to speak, he repeatedly mentioned 'the crying of an infant' and 'the umbilical cord', and also 'sleep' and 'distortion', he also mentioned a word, seemingly 'ship' or a similar character, but that was nearly a scream, impossible to hear clearly...

"I cannot imagine what they saw or experienced on 'that side', that is obviously something beyond human intellect, the monitoring system connected to the deep submersion pool only transmitted various noises...

"The temperature around is dropping, but I cannot determine if it is a hallucination, XX (here scribbled out) suddenly fell into a coma, then woke up from the coma, shouting and screaming, and soon fell to the ground again.

"Unfamiliar figures are swaying within the field of vision, talking with people around, talking with us... impossible to hear clearly, and impossible to see their faces clearly.

"... suspect that they are actually laboratory staff, but I am rapidly losing memory of everyone here, everyone around looks very strange, my memory and judgment abilities are destroyed.

"Noise, like screams and cries mixed together, coming from somewhere unknown, a voice tells me to continue recording all this, but I can barely hold the pen—the vision is darkening, there is a cloying smell in the air, the final rescue attempt may have already failed, the 'Mercy' system is releasing anesthetic poison gas into the entire area...

(From here on, the handwriting of the original note rapidly became extremely chaotic and scribbled, and there is a large amount of correction content, please judge with caution—Internal Security Department)

"The crying sounds became increasingly obvious, feeling body and consciousness both sinking... a lullaby started playing, XX was trying to get us to be quiet again... it is not yet time...

"... swaying, sinking, losing control, XX said, we will wake up in a peaceful and stable new world, but... abandoned, it is a lie, I don't know...

"Breathe, breathe, crying sounds... we are connected, we embrace each other... breathe, breathe, we are together... become one... breathe..."

The first record ends here.

Yu Sheng stared blankly at those messy and eerie sentences at the end of this record, even though this was just a text copy organized from the original note, he still felt that chilling atmosphere that seemed to be soaked in the text, transmitted through the paper and seventy years of time, he imagined that day, imagined that out-of-control operation, imagined that locked-down laboratory, and everything that happened in the laboratory in the last few hours or even shorter time, unknowingly, his breathing became somewhat heavy.

"Actually, this is not the only piece of data left inside the laboratory," Bai Liqing's voice came from the side at this moment, interrupting Yu Sheng's reverie, "there are other traces or 'records' left by other on-site staff who temporarily survived, but those traces are even more crazy and chaotic, and completely unreadable, if you are interested, you can directly turn to the last page."

Yu Sheng immediately flipped the data to the end, a series of pictures taken on-site and black-and-white clear rubbings came into his eyes.

Strange scratches carved on tables or walls, abstract symbols on paper repeatedly scribbled until almost only a blob of black ink remained, strange lines written on clothes, not knowing whether they were text or abstract graphics, all were things of this sort.

Just as Bai Liqing said, it was impossible to distinguish at all.

Even professional Special Bureau investigators could not analyze any conclusions from these traces over so many years, he, an amateur, looking at them for just two eyes naturally could not see anything at all.

Yu Sheng flipped the data back to the position he had just been looking at, and focused his attention on the second record.

That was a work note hastily written by a monitoring staff member left outside the laboratory—it was very short, but the content was obviously clearer and easier to understand.

"The lockdown procedure has been initiated, the 'Adulthood' operation failed, my colleagues are summarizing and transferring the data that needs emergency preservation according to the procedure, I leave here the final record of the situation inside the laboratory.

"Forty minutes after the lockdown, the life reactions inside the laboratory began to drop rapidly, our communication with the internal personnel was interrupted, they might already be unable to communicate rationally with the outside world.

"Fifty minutes, the monitoring system recorded unusual noise, sounds similar to infant crying echoed inside the laboratory, and other sharp and chaotic sounds, sounding like... roars. The life reactions in the monitoring area approached zero, but what was terrifying was that some internal personnel who had completely lost vital signs suddenly started moving under monitoring, although they only moved for a very short time, that was already a quite terrifying scene.

"As if something suddenly drilled into their already dead bodies, driving these shells to stand up and walk, they moved stiffly in the laboratory, as if... curiously observing this place.

"Then, those shells fell down one after another.

"Sixty-five minutes after the lockdown, the laboratory gradually quieted down, the strange noises and roars completely faded. All personnel life reactions disappeared.

"Seventy-two minutes after the lockdown, the facility remained in a closed state according to standard safety procedures, the monitoring area completely fell into silence, all noises and unknown energy reactions had disappeared. Now the Internal Security Department has taken over the area, planning to open the doors in twenty-four hours to take my colleagues home..."

The record ends here.

Yu Sheng still kept his head down, maintaining the posture of reading, only after several seconds did he suddenly take a deep breath, then slowly exhale.

This was the first time he had seen such "operation records", they were more... unsettling than he imagined.

He raised his head and saw Bai Liqing looking at him quietly, as if she had been looking like this for a long time.

"This is different from what I imagined at the beginning," after being silent for a few seconds, Yu Sheng frowned and shook his head, "I thought I would see exploration records about the Black Forest or some other 'subset'..."

While speaking, he suddenly understood the advice of that "Teacher Su" to himself before, understood why the other party specifically reminded him to come here to take a look at the operation records left by the Special Bureau back then.

This data recorded by operation personnel from seventy years ago... was indeed a completely different perspective from the intelligence outlined by the children in the orphanage based on experience regarding "fairy tales", and the information revealed therein was completely beyond his imagination!

Bai Liqing was not surprised by Yu Sheng's words.

"'Fairy tales' show completely different postures to children and to adults, what we have recorded is its more dangerous and essential side."

"Behind the stage..." Yu Sheng suddenly said softly.

Bai Liqing frowned slightly, as if she quickly associated and understood something from Yu Sheng's sentence.

But just as she was about to open her mouth to say something else, a sudden ringtone interrupted the actions of everyone in the room.

Yu Sheng raised his head in surprise, then turned his head along with Bai Liqing's line of sight to look at the side.

Across that huge window, a laboratory staff member wearing a protective suit was waving at this side.

Bai Liqing quickly picked up the phone on the table, placed the receiver to her ear, after listening to just two sentences, her face which always lacked variation suddenly had an unusual expression.

"Confirmed?" she asked the receiver quickly.

The staff member in the laboratory held the receiver in one hand and nodded vigorously with the other.

Yu Sheng looked completely confused, unconsciously moved closer to Bai Liqing's direction: "What's going on?"

"... The analysis results of that 'piece of paper' are out, they have restored its original appearance." Bai Liqing put down the receiver, turned her head to look at Yu Sheng with a complex expression, then quickly operated a few times on the console on the table.

The center of the huge window suddenly lit up, floating an extra image, in the center of the image was the appearance of the restored "piece of paper".

Yu Sheng slowly opened his mouth wide, looking in shock at the familiar pattern on that paper, and several lines of text.

"This is..."

"An old version of the Special Bureau deep diver's work ID, but the name has been erased," Bai Liqing said softly, she lowered her head, her gaze swept over the data in front of Yu Sheng, then gently flipped it open, opening the page with the list, "... it is theirs."

Yu Sheng gently took a breath.

His tone carried disbelief: "That is to say... the 'hunters' in the Black Forest are the deep divers who executed the 'Adulthood' operation back then?!"

(End of this chapter)