Chapter 16: Seeking a Person

Li Cheng held his breath, focusing intently on the changes in his body. His strength, speed, and endurance showed no significant fluctuation, and no new organs had appeared on his limbs.

Only the facial muscles faintly itched.

"Huh? This is…"

He rushed to the mirror on his wardrobe, examining closely, and saw his face subtly shifting, the details of his features altering.

"The number of facial muscles has increased, and their sensitivity is higher."

The human face has only about forty muscles total—the orbicularis oris, levator anguli oris, zygomaticus minor, levator labii superioris, transverse part of the nasalis, orbicularis oculi, and so on.

Control over these muscles allows the face to form expressions like joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness.

Now, Li Cheng could not only control each muscle's stretching and contracting, but also make them swell and compress, dragging along the lateral nasal cartilage and ear cartilage in the process.

"The range of modification includes, but is not limited to, facial contour, shape of features, and skin texture. With makeup as an auxiliary, finer details like pore size, skin tone, and number of eyebrows can also be adjusted."

Li Cheng manipulated his eyelid folds, repeatedly switching between single and double eyelids. "Though I can't completely alter my skull structure, fooling surveillance cameras and erasing all trace of my original appearance is still easy."

He held his breath, focusing—his face first transformed into the infected man from earlier that day, then into his wife.

Perhaps due to absorbing their blood, these two faces shifted with exceptional ease, their resemblance extremely high—even up close, differences were hard to detect.

"Wait, how is there a third preset face?"

Li Cheng's expression twisted; he patted his face, relaxed his muscles, and randomly shifted into Luo Zhengxin's face.

He remembered—he'd thrown the ball at Luo Zhengxin's face, causing him to bleed; then, during their attempt to stop him, Qiu Yourong and Qiu Yingxun had smeared Luo Zhengxin's blood onto him.

"This works too?"

————

At the same time, in the exorbitantly priced city of Yin, the Yin Branch of Prometheus Laboratory.

Security chief August Perez stood with arms crossed, frowning deeply.

Behind a blast-proof glass panel, he could see the sterile, dust-free lab, where automated robotic arms suspended from the ceiling on rails were manipulating an ancient quartz crucible eighty centimeters in diameter.

The crucible's exterior was covered in moss; inside, it brimmed with thick purple liquid.

A six-axis robotic arm stirred the crucible repeatedly with a wooden stick, and occasionally, bizarre objects floated up—bird bones, mushrooms, animal eyeballs.

"Now introduce the blood."

A researcher wearing a mask and goggles issued the command; another robotic arm, holding a test tube, slowly poured a small amount of blood into the crucible.

Puff!!

The crucible immediately erupted in thick purple smoke, which rose slowly, coalescing in midair into a human face, then gradually dissolving.

Over fifty high-speed cameras placed around the room had captured thousands of images, transmitted via data cables to computers, ultimately forming a 3D model of a teenager's head.

"Found it! Luo Zhengxin, seventeen, second-year student at Zhuoyue High School in Yin City, ID number 310106."

An operator found matching data in Yin City's household registry, hesitating: "But according to surveillance footage, on the night the Infection Body appeared, he was at home. Also, the blood left at the scene was AB-type, which doesn't match Luo Zhengxin's blood type."

"Huh?"

August raised an eyebrow. The Nephilim Fragment was important, but not critically so—it occasionally surfaced on the black market, sold to interested organizations or individuals.

He'd requested this perfect-grade 【Ectic Cult of the Wraith Crucible】 from his superiors mainly at the request of a friend at Gen-Sys Biotech—they were exceptionally interested in anything related to the Infection Lord.

(Also, the Special Affairs Bureau disliked external forces acting recklessly in the city and forbade Prometheus from conducting open, large-scale searches.)

"The crucible's blood-tracking ability shouldn't malfunction…"

August paused, then turned to the operator: "What's his family background?"

The operator replied: "His parents run a small cosmetics company—nothing notable. But his aunt married into the Lu family."

"Direct or collateral line?"

"Collateral."

"Then it doesn't matter." August waved dismissively. "Where is he now? Send someone."

————

On the fifth floor of Longheng Mall in the city center, Luo Zhengxin, dressed in streetwear, browsed luxury stores, selecting clothes for tomorrow.

His cousin Lu Zhicong was coming to Yin City; according to his mother, the Lu family was a true aristocratic clan—he had to treat them well.

Suddenly, his stomach ached faintly; Luo Zhengxin's face paled, and he hurried toward the mall restroom.

As soon as he entered, two burly men in janitor uniforms grabbed him on either side and dragged him into the farthest stall. Another man placed a "Under Maintenance" sign on the restroom door, blocking entry to outsiders.

The air seemed to carry a foul, rotting odor.

"What are you doing? Let me go!"

Luo Zhengxin had never encountered anything like this; his face turned deathly pale as he struggled violently.

But the men remained unmoved. They drew a syringe, extracted a full vial of blood from his arm, scanned him repeatedly with some device, and barked, "Where were you last Wednesday at midnight? What were you doing?"

"At home! Watching TV at home!" Luo Zhengxin's shoulders were pressed down hard; his face slowly neared the toilet bowl's surface, his voice rising in pitch.

The man barked: "Where did you hide the Infection Lord's Nephilim Fragment?"

"What Infection Lord? What Nephilim Fragment? I don't know!"

The lie detector confirmed Luo Zhengxin wasn't lying. After several more questions, Prometheus agents confirmed he knew nothing, reluctantly released him, and pulled a flashbulb-shaped memory eraser from a box, flashing it at him.

"."

After an indeterminate time, Luo Zhengxin awoke, finding himself seated on the toilet. "Huh? Why is my face wet?"

He extended a finger, wiped his cheek, and cautiously licked the unclear liquid clinging to his fingertip. "Why is it slightly salty?"

(End of Chapter)