“No unnecessary firefights with them.” Lu Shangjin handed him a syringe while rolling up his own sleeve to inject himself. “Hurry up.”
“What is this?”
“My father’s serum.”
The Chameleon Omega gland serum could block thermal detection, gait sensors, and surveillance cameras, though it could not hide them from the human eye.
Xia Jingtian hesitated for a moment before quickly injecting himself.
“The effect lasts only an hour. You must get through the three detection gates to the underground cryogenic chamber within half an hour.” Lu Shangjin put on his spiked gloves with anesthetic needles and lightly descended the stairs. “You go distract the patrol on the left; I’ll open the door.”
“Copy that~” Xia Jingtian pressed his lips together, tapped his earpiece, and descended from the elevated platform from another direction. He landed silently, like a hunting big cat.
Lu Shangjin pressed his temple and swiftly approached the thermal detection gate.
Avoiding the patrol drawn by Xia Jingtian’s diversion, Lu Shangjin pried open the front cover of the keypad lock, carefully lifted the wires, activated his J1 extreme vision—his right pupil converging—and used fine needles to manipulate several micro-switches.
The gate slowly rose to the top before immediately closing again. Lu Shangjin replaced the cover and stepped inside.
When the gate neared the ground, less than half a meter above, it was briefly controlled, and Xia Jingtian rolled in, righting himself and adjusting his bulletproof vest. “Hey, were you going to leave me outside?”
“It’s dangerous in here.” Lu Shangjin frowned, continuing forward.
To the right was a row of sealed laboratories; to the left, neatly arranged open-grid doors led through a dozen or so interconnected corners.
A foul stench quietly filled the corridor.
Xia Jingtian glanced back. Lu Shangjin squatted to unlock the second code lock.
The sound of metal scraping the floor approached slowly. Xia Jingtian tensed, spun around, raised his M16, squatted, and scanned his surroundings. Nothing.
“Hurry up, seems like someone’s coming.” Xia Jingtian ground his fingertips against cold sweat.
Lu Shangjin’s right eye glowed a translucent blue from overuse, his fingers delicately probing the wires with micro-needles. “I’m as fast as I can be.”
The rustling stopped, yet the sense of approaching danger remained. Xia Jingtian eased his breath, index finger on the trigger, licking his lips. “What if we run into PBB?”
“Your gland DNA would be blacklisted. Gland hunters worldwide would see your bounty notice, and until your death is confirmed, you’d have to hide everywhere.”
Lu Shangjin stayed focused on unlocking. “Regret it?”
“My brother said, die under the peony.” Xia Jingtian exhaled slowly, listening carefully.
Lu Shangjin said nothing, though he felt certain his brother didn’t mean it literally.
The faint metallic tapping grew closer.
Tap, tap.
Intermittent, like a predator lurking outside its prey’s sight.
Lu Shangjin felt it too. Sweat coated his fingertips, but he could go no faster; one mistake would trigger the alarm.
“He’s here.” Xia Jingtian clenched his teeth, T-shirt sticking to his back with cold sweat.
From the corridor shadows, something approached. Suddenly, a steel claw glinted in the light.
Then it stepped fully into view, growling low.
A half-cybernetic dog with a reinforced glass neck cover, half German Shepherd, its limbs and jaw mechanically enhanced.
The glass neck shield contained culture fluid, within which a human gland throbbed independently.
“Shit.” Xia Jingtian froze. “Dog… Lu Shangjin… dog Lu Shangjin.”
The half-cyber dog lunged with razor-sharp teeth. The detection gate slowly lifted. Lu Shangjin dragged Xia Jingtian inside through the narrow gap. Xia Jingtian pressed the gate down with double gravity, a muffled thud against the wall followed by the sound of claws scratching.
“….” His heart raced. He exhaled and turned.
Lu Shangjin drew two silenced pistols from his tactical belt, spinning them in his palms before engaging the safeties, aiming forward.
A dozen similar cyber-dogs approached, saliva dripping.
“???” Xia Jingtian’s back hit the door.
“You trained in combat?” Lu Shangjin asked, frowning.
“Of course.” Xia Jingtian swallowed hard, raising his M16 beside Lu Shangjin. “Last time was last month in the internet café with my roommate—duo queue.”
Lu Shangjin’s head hurt.
Each cyber-dog’s neck housed a human gland linked to its mechanics, driving powerful hind legs to leap. Its teeth could crush a human thigh.
Lu Shangjin fired. The leaping dog’s head was hit, sending it flying backward.
Xia Jingtian’s magazine contained specially designed gravity rounds: slower fire, silent, infused with cougar-specific J1 energy. Upon impact, gravity amplified a hundredfold, pinning the dog to the floor in a dented pit.
The shattered dog slowly stood again.
Lu Shangjin stepped back, astonished at the revived dozen dogs.
“….”
The glands in the neck shields throbbed. One lunged, and Lu Shangjin dodged, locking its neck with his forearm.
“Ugh.” He growled in pain.
A bloodied spike pierced his forearm; the dog bristled with sharp spikes. The gland inside the neck shield was a J1 porcupine alpha, bio-traits grafted onto the German Shepherd test subject.
Lu Shangjin struggled to draw his pistol, firing five shots at the gland. It shattered, and the dog collapsed.
He bit his bandage, expertly stopping the bleeding. “The main drive is the gland.”
Simultaneously, Xia Jingtian kicked off two half-cyber dogs, leaped onto a lab counter, firing repeatedly at the artificial glands on their necks.
Lu Shangjin tossed his pistol, vaulted to the steel ceiling vent, grabbed his AWM from behind, heavy as it was, and aimed at the remaining dogs’ neck glands.
Each shot shattered a gland, and the dogs collapsed as their main drive was destroyed.
Lu Shangjin relaxed, landing and catching his breath.
He squatted to examine the scattered corpses.
“New weapon…?” Xia Jingtian flipped open a corpse, human glands spilling onto the floor—both alpha and omega, all J1.
“Could the missing high-level omegas have been experimented on here?” Xia Jingtian pressed his chest, nausea rising.
Lu Shangjin lifted a dog’s headplate, finding artificial eyes glinting with electronic surveillance light.
“They’ve been discovered.” Lu Shangjin’s heart sank.
Only the final door remained. They couldn’t give up now. If they missed this chance, obtaining stem cell samples later would be nearly impossible.
They had to gamble: would Lu Lin’s security reach it first, or would they get the samples?
Meanwhile, the dogs’ surveillance relayed their movements to Lu Lin’s control room.
Lu Lin sat quietly, watching the footage, pressing a few buttons.
“You’re here. Our family reunion… he’ll be pleased.”
Through the third detection gate into PBB’s underground, a massive dome filled with corridors awaited. Lu Shangjin received directions from Bi Ruijing, finding a relatively safe route to the cryogenic lab.
Xia Jingtian walked beside him, occasionally glancing at Lu Shangjin’s pierced forearm, hastily wrapping it to prevent blood stains.
Lu Shangjin remained expressionless, occasionally warning him of anti-intrusion lasers.
“They cut your foot in 0.01 seconds.”
“I don’t have your eyes; how would I see them?” Xia Jingtian lifted his foot carefully, stepping where Lu Shangjin had gone.
Unexpectedly, they triggered no security system, and the cryo lab doors opened easily.
A cold draft hit as Lu Shangjin scanned the space.
Countless battery-shaped cryo tubes were evenly distributed on tables, each labeled with gland type and grade.
Upon entering, the code gate closed automatically behind them.
Xia Jingtian grabbed the handrail, heart sinking. “Locked.”
Lu Shangjin scoured the control panel for the floppy-eared rabbit A3 stem cell sample.
The panel repeatedly prompted for a clearance card.
“Shit.” Lu Shangjin gritted his teeth, clutching the console, searching every tube. Overuse burned his eyes; tears mixed with blood streaks.
Xia Jingtian searched elsewhere, lacking Lu Shangjin’s extreme vision, checking names one by one.
The mistake: this batch had not only M2+ stem cells but also tens of thousands of J1s mixed in—over a hundred thousand tubes.
A3 flickered before Xia Jingtian; he rushed closer, excited but disappointed.
“Hamster A3…” Memories stirred vaguely. He whispered, “Name… Cang Xiaoe…”
He turned, seeing Lu Shangjin frozen at a test bench.
“Found it?” Xia Jingtian ran over. Lu Shangjin bent down, lifting a small child from beneath the bench.
A gray floppy-eared rabbit omega, tiny, starving, dehydrated, barely alive.
Seeing Lu Shangjin, it curled in fear, ears trembling in its hair.
Lu Shangjin cradled it, soothing with pheromones to calm it.
The file he snatched from gland hunters contained a photo of this child.
“The others?” Lu Shangjin gently stroked its head.
The little gray rabbit, calmed, whispered: “Killed… glands… taken…”
Its wristband displayed its name and gland type: floppy-eared rabbit, awakened but undifferentiated, differentiation potential: A3.
The two exchanged shocked glances.
Even with A3 potential, it didn’t guarantee A3-level differentiation—yet it was a gift from heaven.
Extracting stem cells from glands was far more harmful than from bone marrow; taking from such a small child risked halving its life, leaving permanent damage.
But it was the best choice. Searching for Yan Yi among hundreds of thousands of samples would take longer than the security team eliminating intruders.
Xia Jingtian likely thought the same, or perhaps hadn’t thought at all. He raised his loaded M16. “Take him.”
A stranger stirred no compassion in Lu Shangjin.
Yet the gray rabbit raised its fearful face, clutching Lu Shangjin’s neck, hiccupping softly: “Thank you, brother.”
Lu Shangjin froze; a taut string in his heart was painfully plucked.
…
“Keep looking.”