The System Arrived Four Years Early, but the Anomaly Is Still a Juvenile

A group of people in white coats crowded into a room less than ten square meters, making the already cramped space feel suffocating.

On the hard wooden plank bed, Sanzai was pinned down by two white coats, his hands and feet held against the cold wall. Using a tool similar to what a dentist uses to keep a patient’s mouth open, they pried his jaws apart.

Another white-coated figure, wearing thick leather gloves, grabbed a handful of centipedes from a nearby iron bucket and shoved them into Sanzai’s mouth.

“Mmph. Mmph!”

Sanzai struggled violently, but this only resulted in more forceful feeding. The white coats held his jaw, forcing him to chew and swallow the centipedes.

What Shen Ge found eerie was the absolute silence throughout this ordeal. The white coats didn’t utter a single word, not even a whisper.

Even if this was punishment for Sanzai sneaking out of his room yesterday, wouldn’t there normally be warnings, shouts, or scoldings? The complete quiet was unnerving.

What also struck Shen Ge as strange were the nearly half-meter-wide holes under the beds in these rooms. Surely the hospital knew about them?

Even if they weren’t cleaned regularly, Sanzai had escaped his room multiple times. Wouldn’t the hospital have investigated? Wasn’t looking under the bed an obvious step?
Since “waking up,” Shen Ge’s consciousness was that of the adult Special Investigator Shen Ge, not the ten-year-old “weakling Shen Ge” from a decade ago. His considerations were naturally more complex.

He felt that everything, from Sanzai to the hospital itself, was permeated with a sense of strangeness. The most baffling part was that if this was a “dream” constructed from his memories, this particular segment was blurry. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall the specific details.

The director, doctors, nurses… Shen Ge had these “concepts” in his memory, and he even knew they had ultimately died by his hand. But were they really the people before him now?
Shen Ge lay under the bed, his view obstructed, so he couldn’t see the faces of the white coats. He could only infer what was happening from the sounds of them grabbing centipedes from the bucket, Sanzai’s muffled grunts, and the swallowing noises.

Although Sanzai’s pained sounds alone made it clear how terrible his situation was, only Shen Ge’s “consciousness” was currently awake. His body was still that of a ten-year-old child. Acting recklessly now would only lead to the same fate as Sanzai.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The sound of high heels clicking approached. A gaunt figure entered the room and stopped by the wooden bed.

Shen Ge recognized the footsteps. Yesterday, while his “consciousness” was still dormant, he had seen the “Director” through the eyes of his childhood self.

Back then, the young Shen Ge hid in an air vent, trembling with fear, while the adult Shen Ge in his mind quipped, “Well, well, ‘Neck-stendo Man,’ is it?”

Remembering the Director’s neck, which could stretch several meters like a certain rubber man, Shen Ge worried about a surprise “neck attack.” He feared the Director might suddenly peer under the bed, so he silently retreated through the hole into the adjacent room.

“Found you.”

A chilling voice rang out. With a rustling sound, the Director stretched her neck under the bed, expecting to see Shen Ge. Instead, she found the hole blocked by a tattered quilt.

While crawling back to the neighboring room, Shen Ge, recalling the “Neck-stendo Man” Director from last night, felt things wouldn’t be that simple. He decided to pull the old, worn quilt from the sickbed and stuff it into the hole. He then immediately crawled to the next hole and repeated the process, blocking all the holes along the way.

Hearing the commotion from next door, Shen Ge knew his guess was correct. Not daring to linger, he hurried back to his own room and lay down on the bed to rest.

Shen Ge expected the Director, or at least a supervisor, or even just a white coat, to come to his room to investigate. But he waited for hours, until he grew drowsy. Finally, a sound at the door made him sit up.

The iron door of the room was like a cell door, with a small observation window at the top and a “dog flap” at the bottom through which the white coats pushed food.

Shen Ge glanced at the contents of the metal plate: a rock-hard piece of steamed bread, a few shriveled, blackened vegetables, and some black, unidentifiable strips that could be either insects or meat. He didn’t feel hungry, so he ignored it.

“If I’m in a dream now, how do I wake up?” Shen Ge sat on the bed, leaning against the cold wall, pondering his situation.

If this was a dream, it felt far too real.

If it wasn’t a dream, then what was happening to him?
First, he was certain that time here passed differently from in reality. Since falling into this dream and witnessing events through his younger self’s “perspective,” he had seen months of “torment” by the white coats. Moreover, from the time he “woke up” this morning until now, almost a full day had passed.

If time here flowed at the same rate as reality, and he had been out for so long, surely either Little Classmate Seven or Deng Yuqi would have found a way to wake him.

Secondly, for some reason, this “dream” was incredibly vivid. The sense of touch, even pain, was almost identical to reality.

Shen Ge didn’t know what was happening to him and wasn’t willing to risk testing if “dying” would wake him from this slumber.

What if death led to a deeper sleep, or something even more complicated?

Besides, being in this mental hospital presented an opportunity to search for those “blurry” memories. He wasn’t about to pass that up.

“The mental hospital in this dream feels quite different from my memories. I recall the research here being strange, but it didn’t seem related to Aberrants.”

“But that woman Sanzai showed me in the operating room upstairs yesterday… the scars on her body seemed similar to the new female Aberrants from The Twelve Branches.”

“If the mental hospital was already conducting this kind of research back then, could it be connected to The Twelve Branches? But why wasn’t it deployed for combat until a few months ago?”

“And the ‘Director’… her ‘rubber man neck’ is clearly an Aberrant ability. If she really had that power back then, such a terrifying memory shouldn’t be something I’d forget.”

“The three toilet stalls, filled with ‘Sanzais’…”

“…”

As Shen Ge struggled to recall the details he had “seen” last night, a cold breeze brushed against him, like an icy dagger grazing his neck.

But there wasn’t even a ventilating window in the room. The observation window and the food flap on the door were both closed. No wind could get in.

Shen Ge felt the bed board shake slightly, creaking. Something seemed to be moving underneath, producing a rustling sound.

In the narrow room, these faint sounds seemed amplified. Under normal circumstances, most people would feel uneasy and panicked.

If it were the young Shen Ge in control now, he’d probably be trembling in fear, curled up in the corner.

However, the consciousness currently inhabiting the body was the adult Shen Ge from the future—a veteran of countless battles, who remained as calm visiting the insides of Anomalies as going home, and who could casually eat a meal while observing the dissection of Anomalies and Aberrants. Apart from lacking combat prowess, his mindset and awareness were far beyond that of his younger self.

Without hesitation, Shen Ge jumped off the wooden bed, yanked off the thin sheet, retreated to the opposite corner, and grabbed a chamber pot from the floor, holding it overhead like a weapon.

Several minutes passed. Shen Ge felt the room temperature drop inexplicably. A chill made him shiver involuntarily.

The sensation was too bizarre, as if he’d been thrown into an ice cellar. The terrifying realism once again screamed to Shen Ge that this was no dream!

Yet, aside from the persistent rustling from under the bed, nothing emerged. But as the noise grew louder, Shen Ge felt a cold breeze brush past his ears, neck, and nape… as if a cold person was clinging to his back, tracing fingers over his body.

“Huh.”

Shen Ge felt his breathing become ragged. A fear rising from the depths of his heart began to slowly devour his consciousness.

Thump!
Shen Ge placed the chamber pot upside down on the floor, plopped down on it like a stool, stared under the bed, and said in a flat tone, “Hey, buddy, what’s your deal with crawling under beds? Why not come out and have a chat? Talk about life plans, future aspirations?”

His teasing tone seemed to lighten the oppressive atmosphere slightly. Strangely, the rustling from under the bed actually grew quieter.

“Hey, you coming out or not?”

“If you don’t, I’m coming in!”

Shen Ge stood up. He had only taken one step towards the wooden bed when he faintly heard a strange, indistinct voice calling his name from under the bed.

“Shen Ge.”

The voice was genderless and ageless, yet unlike the flat, mechanical tone of an AI. It felt like a person was calling his name, but the voice seemed ethereal and distant.

Most people would be frozen stiff with fear by now. Unfortunately for it, Shen Ge wasn’t most people. He placed his hands on the bed frame, bent over, and looked under the bed: “I’m here. What is it?”

Then, Shen Ge found himself face-to-face with a pale, deeply wrinkled visage, like that of an octogenarian or nonagenarian, pressed against the hole leading to the next room, staring right at him.

“Hi. Want to come over for a visit?” Shen Ge smiled slightly at the old face and issued an invitation.

Shen Ge was sure this old face didn’t belong to the “Director.” Although he’d only glimpsed the Director last night, he had noted several of her features.

While both had white hair and wrinkled faces, the Director seemed to be in her sixties or seventies. This face looked decades older.

“Shen Ge.”

The old face continued to call his name in a hurried tone, its entire face squashed against the hole as if trying to squeeze through.

Observing the terrifying scene before him, Shen Ge said calmly, “Sir, your physique seems to be asking a bit much of this hole. We’re this close; why not try the door?”

“Shen Ge!”

The old face’s voice grew louder, becoming sharp and piercing.

Shen Ge grabbed the chamber pot and, with a perfect bowling throw, smacked it against the old face. “I heard you the first time. No need to shout so loud. It’s annoying,” he said, his tone laced with impatience and disdain, as if he weren’t facing a terror but merely some irritating trash.

In the brief moment Shen Ge blinked, the pale, horrifying old face vanished from the hole, as if it had never been there.

“Hey?”

“You still there?”

“You came all this way. Won’t you stay for a chat?”

If he weren’t worried the thing might be waiting for him in the next room, Shen Ge would have crawled through to investigate. But with no abilities and just a child’s body, it was wiser to play it safe.

Bang!
Just as Shen Ge’s attention was still on the hole under the bed, a loud crash came from the door, as if someone was hitting it with a sledgehammer.

Startled, Shen Ge looked towards the door. Too short to reach the observation window, he copied Sanzai’s method, turning the chamber pot upside down in front of the door and standing on it.

Peering through the window, he met a single eye.

… Literally, a single eye.

Because there was no person outside, just a puddle of melted, fleshy pulp containing several eyeballs, all staring fixedly at the window.

Seeing those eyeballs, Shen Ge couldn’t help but recall the eye he had seen in the sky when he returned from the “future” on Sakura Island.

Shen Ge wanted to call out and ask the thing’s “identity,” but when he opened his mouth, he found he couldn’t make a sound. His body stiffened; he couldn’t move a finger.

Then, Shen Ge fell straight backward, landing on the floor with a “thud.” The impact made him see stars, the pain knocking him unconscious.

Shen Ge didn’t know how long he was out. He gradually woke to find himself still on the floor. Rubbing his throbbing head, he slowly sat up.

“These don’t feel much like my ‘memories.’ If I had encountered these Anomalies and Aberrants back at Rongshan Mental Hospital, would I have lived an ordinary life for over a decade? I’d have trained myself into a Schwarzenegger or Stallone, not been scanned by the system as below average.”

Shen Ge tried to recall his memories of Rongshan Mental Hospital, but aside from the vivid memory of the centipedes, the people and events were blurry… as if even the “memories” themselves felt unreal.

It was then that Shen Ge noticed the door was slightly ajar, unlocked.

Shen Ge stood up, picked up the chamber pot that had rolled away when he fell, and, keeping his back to the wall, peered through the crack of the door. Outside was no pulpy flesh or eyes, just endless darkness.

Creeeak—

Shen Ge slowly pushed the door open. With a grating sound, the door swung wide, revealing a pitch-black corridor, devoid of any lights, terrifyingly silent.

“From the stairwell to here, there are six patient rooms, each about five meters apart…” Shen Ge bent down, picked up a hard piece of steamed bread from the plate by the door, and then, holding the chamber pot in one hand, used the bread in the other to scrape along the corridor wall, measuring the distance as he moved towards the stairwell.

When a person is in complete darkness, their inner fear becomes amplified. Horrifying images from the past, scenes from horror movies, start playing on a loop in their mind.

It’s like trying to sleep after watching a scary movie. Even with the covers pulled over your head and your eyes squeezed shut, a terrifying image gradually forms in the darkness of your mind.

Maybe a dense, overgrown forest. Or a horrifying ghostly face.

Shen Ge, seeing nothing now, found the pale old face from under the bed flashing most frequently in his mind.

Shen Ge moved forward cautiously. In the darkness, only his footsteps and heartbeat seemed audible. But as the image of the old face grew clearer, it felt as if it were right beside him, its cold, terrifying voice calling his name right next to his ear, as if he would see it if he just turned his head.

Just then, the bread Shen Ge was using to feel along the wall slid into an empty space. Judging by the estimated distance, he should be near the stairwell.

Resisting the urge to turn around and trade barbs with the old face, Shen Ge tentatively stepped forward, felt the stairs underfoot, and slowly began to ascend.

“What floor was the operating room Sanzai took me to yesterday?”

Third floor?

Or fourth?

Startled by the supervisor yesterday, Sanzai had dragged Shen Ge up several flights in a panic. Combined with Shen Ge not being fully conscious then, he wasn’t sure exactly how many floors they had climbed.

He decided to start looking from the third floor.

Shen Ge counted the steps as he went up. Passing the second-floor landing, he could see a faint light source above. A few old lights flickered in the second-floor corridor, which was even scarier than total darkness.

But Shen Ge’s target was the third floor, so he continued up another level. With the lights, even though they were dim, he could at least walk without needing the bread to feel his way.

The lighting on the third floor was slightly better than the second, but he could hear a faint “bzzzt” of electricity. The corridor lights flickered intermittently, fully amplifying the eerie and terrifying atmosphere.

Shen Ge saw a red indicator light outside a room in the middle of the corridor. It looked like the “surgery in progress” light used in hospital operating rooms.

Moving closer, Shen Ge confirmed the sign on the door read “Operating Room,” though the characters were red, seemed to be melting, and looked like they were made of blood.

Shen Ge listened carefully at the door but heard nothing. Cautiously, he pushed the door open a crack.

The operating room was spacious. Various old-fashioned instruments and shelves lined the walls. In the center stood a single hospital bed with a person tied to it.

Horrifically, this person had no head, and their legs were amputated. Yet, they were still bound to the bed with two thick ropes wrapped in chains.

Seeing no one else in the operating room, Shen Ge pushed the door open just enough to slip inside.

Creeeak—
The operating room door emitted a piercing screech, sounding particularly horrifying and bizarre in the dim corridor. After a moment’s hesitation, Shen Ge squeezed through the gap, then closed the door behind him.

Only a single energy-saving bulb lit the center of the room, leaving the corners deeply shadowed. But the moment he entered, Shen Ge sensed movement in the shadows above.

Instinctively, he looked up. Several bloody human legs hung from the ceiling, looking freshly severed, with blood still dripping from them onto the floor.

Drip.

Even with Shen Ge’s mental fortitude, this grotesque sight gave him pause. He sidestepped to avoid the dripping blood.

Shen Ge’s body wasn’t tall enough to reach the legs hanging from the ceiling. He initially thought about pulling one down to examine it, to see if it was a real human leg or something else.

Just then, a faint, abnormal sound came from the direction of the operating table. The headless corpse strapped to it seemed to have twitched.

Approaching for a closer look, Shen Ge discovered the “corpse” was still breathing, its chest rising and falling slightly.

Shen Ge glanced around and spotted a chair in the corner. He pushed it next to the operating table, climbed onto it to get a better view.

Judging by the chest characteristics and build—barring the possibility of being completely flat-chested or exceptionally bulky—this was likely a male between 20 and 40 years old.

Strong, well-built. With those pectorals and abs, you could slap a Schwarzenegger or Stallone head on there, and it would be convincing.

At the severed neck, a wound extended down the torso, also stitched up with surgical thread into a centipede-like scar.

Shen Ge leaned closer to examine the neck. The cut was clean, as if the head had been lopped off with a single blow from a sharp blade.

Bizarrely, no blood flowed from the wound, but the tissue looked fresh and alive. Even without seeing the chest move, it didn’t seem deceased.

Shen Ge carefully examined the wounds on the corpse and found that although the surgical sutures were neat, the wounds didn’t seem to have completely closed, with blood seeping out in some places. In particular, a bulge appeared near the stomach, beating like a heart.

Shen Ge thought for a moment, then jumped down from the chair and rummaged around until he found a sharp scalpel. He climbed back onto the chair.

According to what Po Gang, captured from the auction, had said, they had Aberrant cells transplanted into their bodies, allowing them to use the abilities of Anomalies and Aberrants. However, the effect of Anomalous Energy on their bodies wasn’t as severe as on the “first-generation Aberrants” of The Twelve Branches, so their lifespans were relatively longer.

The success rate of this transplantation method was extremely low. The only three successful cases within the organization were all female, which meant the plan hadn’t been allocated many resources.

But the corpse on the table before him was clearly different from what Po Gang described. First, it appeared male. Second, the bulge was in the stomach area, not the abdomen.

Therefore, Shen Ge decided to open it up and investigate.

Holding the scalpel, he carefully lifted a stitch and cut it. After confirming nothing amiss, he made a decisive cut downwards.

Schlick!

The scalpel cut through the skin between the two sets of ribs and continued downward.

Although the scene was bloody and the method somewhat brutal, for a “headless” corpse, this wasn’t really a consideration.

It took Shen Ge a lot of effort to dissect the corpse, and his small body was covered in blood, but he did not rest. Instead, he peeled off the skin that had been cut open.

Inside the robust body, the “stomach” alone was the size of a basketball, and it was still thumping rhythmically, giving the illusion that it was the heart.

Just then, Shen Ge noticed something black moving within the intestines, which were bunched up around the massive stomach. Using the scalpel, he poked at it. Immediately, a centipede, about the length of a finger, crawled out from the incision.

Whether in his “memories” or now, Shen Ge had an instinctive aversion to centipedes. He reflexively flicked the scalpel, sending the centipede flying from the corpse’s abdomen onto the floor.

Standing on his toes, one hand braced on the operating table, Shen Ge used the other hand to stir the contents of the abdominal cavity with the scalpel, searching for anything related to Anomalies or Aberrants.

After working for a while, he found nothing.

Shen Ge simply used the scalpel to cut open the “stomach.” With a wet plop, as the stomach was sliced open, a mass of bloody, rotten flesh spilled out. Within this pile of decay was a half-melted face and a single, eerie eyeball.

Shen Ge felt a sense of familiarity with this eyeball, reminding him of the ones he’d seen earlier through the observation window.

But before he could ponder further, more and more rotten flesh poured from the opened stomach. The stomach seemed like a bottomless pit, disgorging vast amounts of putrid matter that quickly began to engulf the other organs and the body itself.

Blood bubbles gurgled within the rotting flesh, and faint “pop, pop, pop” sounds could be heard. As the flow increased, it rapidly filled the entire operating table.

Forced to jump off the chair, Shen Ge watched as the flesh continued to spread. In the blink of an eye, the entire operating table had transformed into a monstrosity of flesh and blood, beginning to consume the operating room.

“Flesh and blood monster…” Shen Ge couldn’t help but recall the “human experiments” related to the headquarters he had investigated earlier, which documented failed subjects turning into flesh and blood monsters.

This pulsating, blood-red mass, with an “eyeball” at its center, matched the description of the flesh and blood monsters from the reports in every way.

Watching the rapidly spreading monster that was about to engulf the entire room, Shen Ge didn’t hesitate. He rushed out the door.

Bang—

The moment Shen Ge exited the operating room, the flesh monster smashed through the door and began spreading down the corridor in both directions.

Seeing the monster’s aggressive advance, Shen Ge quickened his pace, reaching the door at the end of the corridor. He found it led to a storage room, dashed inside, and slammed the door shut.

The storage room was small, with metal shelves on both walls crammed with various dismembered hands and feet that looked disturbingly real.

Shen Ge tapped one of the “hands” with his scalpel. The texture felt like real skin. He made a small cut; no blood came out. Beneath a half-centimeter layer of skin was a plastic-like substance.

“Simulated prosthetics?” Shen Ge looked around. Besides the shelves full of fake limbs, a pile of rolled-up body bags, tied with rope, sat in one corner.

Shen Ge approached the nearest body bag and sliced it open with the scalpel. Inside was a cold corpse.

Beneath the pale skin, black things wriggled, similar to the centipedes he’d seen in the previous corpse’s intestines.

Just as Shen Ge prepared to examine it more closely, a loud BANG echoed from the door. Something monstrous seemed to be ramming against it.

From the gap under the door, red flesh and blood began to “squeeze” into the storage room.

Shen Ge quickly scanned the ceiling and spotted a ventilation duct. Using the shelves, he climbed up, pried open the cover with his scalpel, and scrambled inside.

Shen Ge crawled through the complex network of ventilation shafts. A “thump, thump, thump” sound gradually echoed through the ducts—the flesh monster seemed to have followed him in.

After a series of twists and turns, Shen Ge found an exit. He kicked out the metal grate, looked down, and seeing no immediate danger in the file room below, jumped down.

Hearing the rustling sounds still coming from the ventilation shaft, Shen Ge didn’t dare linger. He was about to leave the file room when he heard a faint, abnormal sound from a desk piled high with folders.

Under normal circumstances, Shen Ge, adhering to the “since we’re here” principle, would have investigated. But with the noise from the flesh monster growing closer above, he just wanted to escape.

His hand was already on the doorknob when a hand jumped out from the pile of files on the desk.

And again, it was literal: a single, “hand.”

This hand consisted only of the palm; the part above the wrist was missing. There was no body, no head—just a lone hand.

It jumped down from the desk, landed on the floor, placed two fingers on the ground, and raised its index and middle fingers, which seemed to serve as its “head.”

The next moment, the hand lunged at Shen Ge.

Although lacking in combat power, Shen Ge’s experience and judgment remained. Seeing the fingers curl, he recognized the attack posture. As the hand leaped, he sidestepped, grabbed a file from the desk, and smacked it down onto the hand.

“Buddy, I met your dad over a decade from now. Even he wouldn’t dare act this recklessly!” Shen Ge slammed the file down on the hand several times, pinning it to the floor. Then, gripping the scalpel with both hands, he stabbed it down, impaling the hand and fixing it to the floor between the boards.

At that moment, Shen Ge realized with surprise that this “hand” seemed very similar to the Rank 3 Anomaly he’d encountered strolling around on Sakura Island.

“Wait, these hands, these eyes… could they be the Anomalies that were later released on Sakura Island? Are these non-human creatures mutated into Anomalies, or are they man-made?” This crucial question suddenly occurred to Shen Ge. He felt that the things he’d encountered in the mental hospital bore a strong resemblance to the future Anomalies.

In fact, aside from their “size,” they were almost identical!
“The Anomaly disasters on Sakura Island weren’t actually orchestrated by The Twelve Branches, but were the work of ‘The Celestial Stems.’ The Twelve Branches, as an international anti-Anomaly organization and the power behind Sakura Island, were actually trying to mitigate the damage.”

“Looking at it that way, that eye, the Anomalous hand, and other high-rank Anomalies probably weren’t released by The Twelve Branches. It’s more likely they were created by ‘The Celestial Stems.'”

“If that’s true, then ‘The Celestial Stems’ are far more complex than they appear on the surface. Even if the disasters in Yu Zhou, Da Jing, and Rong City were instigated by The Twelve Branches, The Celestial Stems likely played a role behind the scenes.”

Although Shen Ge had never fully trusted what the people from The Celestial Stems said, he had chosen temporary cooperation based on the circumstances and mutual benefit at the time. But now, considering the series of bizarre events in this mental hospital, perhaps “The Celestial Stems,” or the original “Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches,” were also connected to this hospital.

Shen Ge then thought of another question. If Rongshan Mental Hospital was researching Anomalies and Aberrants back then, his subsequent integration should have uncovered some clues. How could his “memory” of Anomalies be limited solely to the incident of his father consuming his mother?
And the most critical point: everyone here, from the Director to the white coats, gave off the vibe of Aberrants. Could enemies of this caliber really have been dealt with by simply setting a fire?
Squish.

Squish.

A strange sound from in front of him pulled Shen Ge back to reality. The “hand,” though impaled by the scalpel, wasn’t dead. It struggled free from the blade and was about to lunge at him again. Reacting swiftly, Shen Ge grabbed another file, slammed it onto the hand, then stood and toppled a cabinet onto the file pile.

Shen Ge jumped onto the cabinet, stomping a few times for good measure. Without stopping to confirm if the Anomalous hand was truly dead, he opened the door and ran into the dimly lit corridor.

He hadn’t gone far when a loud crash came from the file room. Then, the ceiling around the ventilation shaft collapsed completely. With a sickening, flowing sound, a large mass of the flesh monster squeezed out of the vent, instantly filling the room and spilling out the door.

Shen Ge rushed to the stairwell, only to find the stairs leading down completely filled with the flesh monster, which was now surging upwards.

Shen Ge had no choice but to run up. Reaching the next floor, he recognized from the corridor’s layout that this was the floor where Sanzai had shown him the female Aberrant yesterday.

Shen Ge ran straight to the operating room not far away. The female Aberrant was still lying on the table, but her stomach and abdomen were even more distended than yesterday, looking like she was in the late stages of pregnancy.

Hearing the sounds from the stairwell behind him, Shen Ge debated whether to simply flee or to release the flesh monster inside the woman’s abdomen, hoping the two monsters might consume each other and temporarily resolve the crisis.

Just then, the woman, who yesterday had stared blankly at the ceiling with empty eyes, slowly turned her head and looked in Shen Ge’s direction.

The woman’s lips moved. Her voice was faint, broken, as if she might die at any moment. She said to Shen Ge, “Kill… me.”

Shen Ge approached the operating table. The woman repeated, “… Kill… me.”

The woman’s limbs were tightly bound to the table. Her bulging stomach pulsed with a “thump, thump, thump.” There was no doubt what was inside.

Unlike the “corpse” downstairs, this woman’s operating table was surrounded by various instruments. Several stands held IV bottles, continuously pumping unknown drugs into her body via tubes.

“Kill. Me.”

Seeing Shen Ge hesitate, the woman repeated her plea. This time, Shen Ge detected a note of desperation in her tone.

Shen Ge’s expression darkened. He decided to act. He pulled out the tubes connected to the woman, then drew the scalpel across her throat, severing her windpipe.

The woman’s pupils dilated, her focus fading. She seemed unable to see Shen Ge clearly now. Her lips moved weakly a few more times, finally forming two words: “Thank… you.”

However, the moment Shen Ge removed the IV tubes, the pulsing in her swollen abdomen had already begun to slow. But now, the sutured wound started to tear open visibly. Then, a mass of “stomach” pushed through the opening, “sitting up” from within the woman’s corpse.

Then, with a soft plop, a small, powerful hand tore through the thin layer of the stomach, as if ripping open a cocoon.

As the small hands fully peeled back the “stomach,” a “baby” was revealed. Judging by its size, it wasn’t a newborn but rather a toddler of one or two years.

Shen Ge was shocked to discover that the facial features of this “infant” bore a seventy to eighty percent resemblance to Sanzai. He couldn’t help but think of the children’s corpses crammed into the three toilet stalls next door.

“Using this method to cultivate ‘artificial Aberrants,’ expanding the supply of progenitor Anomalous cells, to be used later for transforming Aberrants in the future…” This idea flashed through Shen Ge’s mind. If true, it would explain how The Twelve Branches had a seemingly endless supply of progenitor Anomalous cells for their experiments.

The reason The Twelve Branches could fuse human bodies with Anomalous Energy and Anomalies—which typically reject humans—might lie in using these “offspring” cultivated from progenitor Anomalous cells.

As the generations of cultivation increased, the Anomalous Energy and Anomalous genes within these “Aberrant cells” would gradually become more human-compatible, reducing the rejection.

At that moment, a horrifying scene unfolded. The “infant” sitting on the woman’s corpse slowly reached out a hand towards Shen Ge, tilted its head, and revealed a bone-chilling smile. “Found you.”

“…” Even with Shen Ge’s steely nerves, his heart nearly skipped a beat. A newborn infant smiling at you with an expression more terrifying than a vengeful ghost was deeply unsettling.

Bang!
With a loud crash, the operating room door burst open. The flesh monster, with its single eyeball, poured in, reaching the operating table in an instant.

Shen Ge had intended to use the stool to jump over the operating table, but the flesh monster moved with surprising speed. It slammed into the table and stool, sending Shen Ge tumbling to the floor. In the blink of an eye, he was completely engulfed by the flesh monster.

Shen Ge instinctively tried to slash at the monster with his scalpel, but once fully enveloped, he couldn’t muster any strength.

Gradually, a powerful sense of suffocation overwhelmed him. As his brain was deprived of oxygen, that strange feeling of “drowsiness” returned.

“Shen Ge.”

In his hazy state, Shen Ge felt a voice calling him. At first, it was the genderless, terrifying voice of the old face, then it changed to Sanzai’s voice.

As these calls grew clearer, Shen Ge began to recognize other “familiar” voices—Deng Yuqi, Feng Chengxiu, Wang Han, Ma Chao, Lin Yin, Tu Doubi… Finally, Cheng Shengnan’s face became clear before his eyes, calling his name.

Shen Ge then realized he was lying in what seemed like a hospital room. White ceiling, hospital bed, IV drip… and Cheng Shengnan, holding one of his hands, looking at him with concern, calling his name and asking if he was okay.

“Shen Ge? You’re awake? Are you alright?” Cheng Shengnan asked.

Shen Ge was momentarily dazed. “I am…”

“You’ve been unconscious for a week. After you called the Minister, she was worried about you. She followed your instructions to put the department on high alert, and Team Leader Yang accompanied me back to the dorm. When I got home, I found you lying on the sofa in your combat suit. After communicating with Little Classmate Seven, we confirmed you had fallen into a deep sleep,” Cheng Shengnan explained.

Shen Ge frowned slightly, muttering, “Unconscious for a week? So I really was trapped in a dream?”

“A dream?”

“It’s a long story. Where am I now?”

“In the medical department at headquarters. The Minister locked it down for your safety. Team Leader Lin is personally guarding outside, taking shifts with several other team leaders.”

“Has anything happened at the department these past few days?”

“No. Although Anomaly incidents in Rong City remain frequent, none above Rank 3 have appeared so far. No dangerous situations have occurred.”

“That’s good… I want to sit up, but I can’t muster the strength. Can you help… Whoa!” Shen Ge tried to push himself up but found he couldn’t. He asked Cheng Shengnan to raise the bed for him. As he moved, he felt something in his left hand. Pulling it out to look, he saw it was a blood-stained scalpel.

It was identical to the one from his dream!