Dayu suddenly said, “This is the Puppeteer who is targeting the Knight Order and the Guardians’ Union, right?”
“It should be,” Qing Chen nodded. “There aren’t that many coincidences in the world. A Puppeteer born in such a dark place, and not known to the world after going out, means he’s been hiding behind the scenes.”
“His information is old, but there must be his photo in the Fire Company’s computer hard drive,” zard said while pressing down on the experimental subject, “We can get the photo and issue a warrant for his arrest.”
“That won’t work. He won’t look like Zong Cheng anymore,” Qing Chen shook his head.
It’s been an unknown number of years. The original body of the bio-engineered human, Zong Cheng, has long since died.
He has used his abilities to resurrect himself in a puppet body.
Who knows how many identities and bodies he’s changed, or what he looks like? This is even more powerful than Shendai’s method of body snatching.
He’s untraceable.
Qing Chen asked the experimental subject in front of him, “When were you released?”
The experimental subject shook his head, “It’s been too long, I can’t remember how many years. It’s dark here, there’s no way to record time. I only remember that one day the base lost power, and the doors that held us were forcibly locked. Gunshots came from outside, and the potions in the glass containers that suppressed our physiological functions gradually lost their effect. We regained our ability to move and broke the glass containers, escaping from them but being trapped in this room… until I was about to starve to death, the door opened.”Qing Chen pondered and then said to the Grand Elder and Qin Yiyi, “You two go find any remaining resources in the lab. Zard, collect all the hard drives here, the information we need is in them. Dayu, summon your paintings, and clean this place thoroughly.”
Dayu raised an eyebrow, “Why are you so good at bossing people around? And why are you cleaning this place, are you planning to stay?”
Qing Chen shook his head, “The Chen Family army will eventually chase here. I don’t want them to observe our movements through the traces of dust. Twenty paintings are left to clean, four go outside to give warning, immediately issue a warning if anyone approaches.”
After instructing everyone, Qing Chen looked at the experimental subject again and said with a smile, “Don’t try to run, don’t try to play tricks. Anyone here can blow your brains out. Continue answering my questions properly.”
Honestly, when Metahumans reach a certain level of strength, they have nothing to fear from ghosts and monsters.
If this six-person team watched The Ring together, and Sadako climbed out of the TV, she would have to do the splits for them before she had a chance to climb back into the TV…
All fear comes from insufficient firepower.
“How did you survive after you got out?” Qing Chen asked.
“I went fishing in the river,” said the experimental subject.
“You can fish?” Qing Chen asked back.
“I just need to cut my arm, and the fish will be attracted by the smell of blood. The fish in this underground river have mutated,” the experimental subject answered hoarsely, “I even attracted a giant python, enough for me to eat for a month. It’s dark here, my eyes became blurry, and then slowly adapted to the darkness, I can even see you in the dark.”
“Did you kill the guards in the lab?” Qing Chen asked.
The experimental subject shook his head, “I didn’t kill them, they were already rotten when I came out.”
Dayu asked, “Why are you asking these irrelevant questions?”
Qing Chen replied, “I need to know how long ago Zong Cheng left, to gauge the scale of his current power.”
The time Zong Cheng left this place may be earlier than we imagined, maybe even hundreds of years!
This answer even made Qing Chen feel a little worried.
If we dare to guess further, Qing Chen even suspects that even Liuyue from hundreds of years ago was a puppet created by the bio-engineered Zong Cheng.
Based on human logic: ‘After Zong Cheng left here, he experienced a period of dormancy. When he found that he could not compete with the Conglomerate, he wanted to control the military force, so he created Liuyue as an incarnation.’
The Federation army used missiles to directly flatten the army controlled by Liuyue, thinking that Liuyue was dead, but in fact, Zong Cheng behind Liuyue was not dead, he was still alive.
The number of puppets killed by the missiles did not exceed half of those controlled by Zong Cheng.
Later, Zong Cheng learned to keep a low profile. He spent hundreds of years lurking, and his tentacles had spread to every corner of the Federation.
Now, he may have created tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of puppets.
There is a question on Outer World Zhihu: If you have 100,000 loyal soldiers, what would you do with them?
Someone answered: “Let them all go to work in electronics factories tightening screws.”
Assuming that these workers only earn 2,000 yuan a month, these 100,000 soldiers would have a monthly salary of 200 million yuan…
No matter how weak a group is, once its number reaches a certain level, it will become very scary.
Especially, Qing Chen has already guessed that there are puppets of his in the core power of the Chen Family, otherwise he wouldn’t understand the Reverse Breathing Technique so clearly.
Qing Yuan, or Qing Yuan’s father, at least one of them is a puppet.
Such a person hiding behind the scenes and gradually gaining access to the core of power is truly terrifying.
No wonder he didn’t hesitate to use A-class puppets, and didn’t mind losing two Forbidden Artifacts, because these are nothing compared to the wealth and power he has accumulated over a long time.
Dayu listened to Qing Chen’s analysis and was terrified. “The Federation actually hid such a behemoth? It’s terrifying, could the whole Federation have been infiltrated by him?”
“I think you’re overestimating him,” Qing Chen said, “His puppets are indeed approaching the core power, but he may not have that many puppets. His puppets will not grow exponentially like the Guardians’ Union, but will increase and decrease.”
“How so?” Dayu asked.
“Because his life is infinite, but his puppets are not immortal,” Qing Chen said, “If he personally makes a puppet, no matter what, this puppet will naturally grow old and die. So the number of puppets he controls will increase sharply at the beginning, but once it reaches a certain stage, the number of puppets will stabilize, because the aging puppets will gradually be replaced.”
Assuming Zong Cheng can create one puppet every day, 360 puppets a year, and assuming his puppets have an 80-year lifespan after being controlled, then 360 puppets multiplied by an 80-year lifespan means he can control a maximum of 28,800 puppets.
Once this number is exceeded, when Zong Cheng creates new puppets, old puppets will also die continuously, and will not reach such an exaggerated number as hundreds of thousands.
Qing Chen thinks that Zong Cheng has not yet reached the point where he can create 10 puppets a day, otherwise he would have unified the Federation long ago.
Dayu said, “I think this is also why he must contact the core of power. He can’t turn the whole Federation into his puppets, so he needs higher-quality puppets. When he killed Ning Xiu, he actually wanted to kill Shadow. If we consider it from the perspective of interests: there might be his puppet among the Shadow Candidates of that session. Shadow blocked his path, affecting his progress in secretly seizing the power of the Qing Family, so he had to eliminate the biggest competitor first and stir up the waters.”
Qing Chen pondered, Dayu’s words make sense. If there were puppets among the Shadow Candidates of that session, then his motives would be clear.
Dayu continued, “Moreover, I also understand why he’s targeting you. Because the Guardians’ Union is expanding too fast, faster than he can create puppets, and is gradually gaining the potential to overthrow this world. His plan was to take it slow, to control the Federation by creating puppets, but then you came, and directly wanted to overthrow the foundation he had been planning for hundreds of years. He couldn’t bear you.”
At this time, everyone had finished searching. The Grand Elder painfully handed three crystal bottles to Qing Chen, “Here, this should be the Blood of the Gods.”
Qing Chen asked with a smirk, “I thought you would embezzle it.”
The Grand Elder waved his hand impatiently, “Can I be like you Knights? Besides, you helped stop the Chen Family from going to the Fire Pit, I’ll remember this favor.”
Qing Chen shook the Blood of the Gods in the crystal bottle. It had survived thousands of years and was still preserved.
And he always felt that Ren Xiaosu’s blood was different from ordinary people’s, and only after a close look did he realize that there seemed to be a faint glow inside.
He put away the Blood of the Gods. This will be the key to City 10’s research and development of A-class Gene Medicine.
Qing Chen looked at the experimental subject, “You said you ate five companions, where are their bones? You can’t have chewed their bones to pieces, right?”
“I buried them outside. If you go around to the back of the lab, you’ll see the graves on the open space. I built them with stones I picked up from the river. Sometimes I sit there for a while,” said the experimental subject.
Chen Jiazhang and others were silent. In fact, this experimental subject was also pitiful. In the end, he just wanted to cure his illness.
Dayu coldly asked, “You don’t want to kill it? Now you think it’s pitiful. Now that all the human-faced insects guarding this place are dead, if it goes out, the ordinary people will be the pitiful ones. If you don’t want to kill it, I will.”
Qing Chen shook his head, “I’m not that virtuous. I can do this myself.”
Then, he turned to the experimental subject, “I’m sorry, you can’t go out alive.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the experimental subject bared its fangs and roared again, but Qing Chen simply twisted its neck.
There are many multiple-choice questions in life, this one is not the hardest one in Qing Chen’s life, not even ranked.
“We’ve wasted too much time on this experimental subject. What do we do now? Fight our way out?” Dayu asked.
The Grand Elder scoffed, “Are you crazy? Outside is the main force of the Chen Family, and there’s the Demi-God Chen Yu. Even with nine lives, we couldn’t fight our way out.”
Qing Chen stood up and said, “With the human-faced insects blocking the way, Zong Cheng was able to leave quietly, which means there must be an escape route prepared for researchers in this lab.”
“There isn’t,” the Grand Elder shook his head, “I didn’t see any passage. If you really want to leave, you can only risk your life by jumping into the underground river and drifting along. You might be able to escape to the end, or you might drown in the underground river. Nobody can say for sure.”
Qing Chen pondered. There must be an escape route, and Zong Cheng used this escape route to leave.
But, where is this escape route?
…
…
Atop the karst cave cliff, Chen Yu stood calmly on the edge, silently looking at the black abyss below.
A Chen Family officer said, “Sir, the elevator will be ready soon, give us 20 minutes.”
Chen Yu hummed. He looked down but didn’t know what he was thinking.
At this time, dozens of sappers brought extension ladders and quickly calculated the distance below, and began assembling the ladders continuously.
In a short while, six ladders extended to the bottom of the cliff.
Sappers moved down the ladders, and in the process of descending, they continuously used pneumatic nails to firmly fix the six ladders to the cliff.
Chen Family soldiers descended like ants, one after another, while Chen Yu flew down on a green ox.
After the officer landed first, he immediately dispersed, one group searching upstream and the other downstream.
Soon, they also saw the densely packed glass containers on the cliff and the nameplates on them.
Chen Yu saw all this, and felt that he was very close to the secret of becoming a god.
However, the next moment, he sat on the back of the green ox and saw four Li Shutongs blocking their way.
Chen Yu sneered, “Do you think this can stop me? You are already trapped. Since you have run down here, don’t even think about leaving.”
After saying that, the Mahakasri beside him flew towards the four Li Shutongs.
But the four Li Shutongs didn’t fight back, but turned and ran, shouting, “Chen Yu is here! Chen Yu is here!”
Honestly, Chen Yu had never seen such silly Li Shutongs…
But the speed of these Li Shutongs running was much slower than Mahakasri. In just a few breaths, the four Li Shutongs were all killed.
In fact, seeing his paintings overwhelm Li Shutong so easily, Chen Yu felt a sense of satisfaction.
Chen Yu coldly said, “Speed up, turn this place upside down, don’t let them run away!”
A military officer said, “Don’t worry, sir, we’ve used sonic detection to scan the terrain here. It’s a dead end ahead.”
…
…
Meanwhile, Li Shutong’s voice also reached the lab.
Dayu said, “Chen Yu is here. We have to leave now. Do you know how we should leave?”
Qing Chen looked at him and suddenly asked, “Do you think why Zong Cheng released the experimental subject before leaving? He is a cautious person, and as soon as he left the glass container, he knew to tear off his nameplate to avoid being identified. Then why would he go out of his way to release the experimental subject before leaving? Isn’t this causing trouble for himself?”
Everyone fell into deep thought.
Qing Chen said, “Because the room where the experimental subject is located is where he is going. Only by releasing the experimental subject can he go there. Let’s go, let’s do some magic for Chen Yu. A group of magicians who killed nearly 10,000 of his soldiers, disappearing into the secret room at the end of the corridor, interesting. Dayu, put the body of the experimental subject into the Space Ring.”
At this moment, Dayu suddenly realized that Qing Chen must have thought of this a long time ago, so he asked him to summon the paintings to clean up, to remove the dust and footprints.
However, he suddenly realized that Qing Chen was getting more and more accustomed to commanding him.
Thinking of the Restorative Shroud, Dayu decided to endure it for now…
At this time, Qing Chen turned and walked towards the room where the experimental subject was once held, without any hesitation.
He came to a glass container, forcefully pushed it open, and a narrow staircase was revealed underneath!
Dayu and others were shocked. They didn’t even know when Qing Chen had found this exit!
“The experimental subject probably didn’t expect that the escape route he had dreamed of was actually in the place where he had been. What a irony,” Dayu sighed.
“There are too many ironies in life,” Qing Chen said with a smile, “Let’s go, let’s leave here.”
The Grand Elder breathed a sigh of relief, “I thought I had to fight the Chen Family Demi-god again. I was mentally prepared to sacrifice myself for the Fire Pit.”
Qing Chen looked deeply at the dark lab and said softly, “Someday I’ll kill him, but not now. Dayu, release the paintings. Confuse the Chen Family soldiers and Chen Yu, and make them find this place later.”
After saying this, he fainted.
Qin Yiyi exclaimed, but found that Qing Chen’s injuries were more serious than they had guessed. The cut on his thigh from Arthur had reopened.
But he had been holding on until he found a way out for everyone, and finally let go.
Dayu looked at the unconscious Qing Chen and finally sighed, “Let’s go, don’t let his efforts go to waste. Zard, carry him.”
Everyone entered the passage one by one, while the two Li Shutongs, after carefully moving the container back into place, rushed outside.