Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 190

Duan Yang turned off most of the lights in the laboratory. He then turned on a table lamp and sat down beside Lin Chen.

He was afraid that Lin Chen would suddenly not last in the middle of the night, so he could only use the most primitive method to disinfect Lin Chen’s wounds regularly. Fortunately, there was enough anhydrous alcohol in the lab. Although it wasn’t much use, he still cut open a lab coat, dipped it in diluted alcohol, and let Lin Chen clip it under his armpits and apply it to his forehead to lower his body temperature.

Surprisingly, Lin Chen cooperated.

There was a faint smell of alcohol in the air. Duan Yang felt that he was almost drunk. Thinking of Lin Chen’s previous words, he looked at the haggard face of Mr. Consultant lying next to him. He actually asked subconsciously, “Consultant Lin, what kind of person do you love?”

After speaking out, Duan Yang felt regret. He would surely be scolded by Lin Chen again for asking such a question.

“A very handsome person.”

What Duan Yang didn’t expect was that Lin Chen actually answered him.

“Eh? Handsome? I thought you would use some other adjective.”

“Is it too vulgar?”

“No, no.” Duan Yang thought to himself, ‘Lin Chen’s taste is really different that he actually likes handsome girls*.’

*Clarity: Lin Chen isn’t using any specific gender pronouns when he’s talking to Duan Yang, so Duan Yang doesn’t know that person is a man.

“That’s right. Handsome for everyone to see, but only I know their inner beauty,” Lin Chen added.

“Then… Do they know that you love them?” Duan Yang felt a bit tangled, but he still tried asking.

“Yes, I confessed.”

As if seeing through his thoughts, Lin Chen opened his eyes slightly and looked askance at him. “Is the next thing you want to ask is: Consultant Lin, how did you confess?”

“I’m just… asking.” Duan Yang hesitated.

“At that time… it was basically an accident. I forcibly kissed them,” Lin Chen said calmly.

Duan Yang was shocked again. “Didn’t the girl get scared by that?”

“What girl? He’s a man.”

Hearing this, Duan Yang almost bit his tongue. “What… What do you like about men?”

“You have a crush on your Teacher Duan yet you don’t allow me to like men?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Duan Yang hurriedly shook his hand. “But is the person you like also a policeman?”

“Yes. My superior.”

Lin Chen was quite ill, but he was still talking to him in a decisive tone, as if his physical illness couldn’t affect his will.

Duan Yang asked, “Will there be any problems, such as disagreement from your leaders or gossip among colleagues?”

“A lot of people talk nonsense every day. Do I have to listen to everything they say and keep it in my heart?”

“You really are…” Duan Yang couldn’t help leaning against the experiment table and stretched out his legs. “Amazing.”

“What kind of evaluation is this?”

“To be honest, Consultant Lin, I really want to be someone like you…”

Lin Chen said, “Is the following sentence: If I were like you, I might already be with Teacher now.”

“It’s impossible… It’s impossible for Teacher to be with me,” Duan Yang interrupted.

“Just say what you want. I won’t ask why.”

Duan Yang lowered his head and looked into Lin Chen’s dark, calm eyes. “Because I did something very excessive to Teacher.”

Lin Chen frowned, and his expression became serious. “What did you do?”

Duan Yang gently covered his face with his hands as he recalled that night. The feeling of remorse submerged him again like sea water. “That day, our laboratory was involved in a big project, and everyone stayed up for many days and nights, but the seniors were excited. Yes, Teacher also came by that day. There was something wrong with the experiment. Teacher stayed late and said he would sleep in the lounge. If there was any problem, we could call him at any time. There weren’t enough beds in the lounge, so originally I slept on the floor next to Teacher’s bed, but Teacher asked me to sleep on the bed so I wouldn’t catch a cold, so I went up. I… I slept on the same bed as Teacher.”

“Hmm… and then what?”

“Then, we fell asleep. I really like Teacher, so I couldn’t help but hold him and kiss him while he slept next to me. Teacher must’ve known. After that, he seemed very upset. When the experiment ended, he never came back that summer. Later, we received news that he had resigned to participate in medical assistance work. He must’ve known that I had kissed him and disliked me, but didn’t want to affect me, so he left…” Duan Yang paused, took a deep breath, then continued, “At the beginning, I called him every day and sent countless messages. I wanted to apologize to him and say sorry, but his phone was always off, and he never replied to my messages. Later, I heard news about him from an older student who followed in his footsteps. I asked her to ask Teacher for me, and he clearly expressed that he didn’t want me to come to Dana and that I should stay in China. Looking back now, I realize that I wasn’t brave enough. I should have bought a plane ticket and gone there. It’s only a short distance away, and I could have apologized to him face to face after taking a few more trips.” Duan Yang’s mood became more depressed. He couldn’t speak when he thought about all the emails that he sent that went unanswered. “It’s all my fault. I’m sorry… I’m really sorry…”

“Come here,” Lin Chen said suddenly.

Duan Yang looked at him with red eyes.

“Lower your head a little.”

Following Lin Chen’s instructions, he lowered his head inexplicably. The next moment, a thin palm gently covered the top of his head and then rubbed his hair fiercely.

“Stupid. If it’s because he hates your kisses and hugs, he can think of 10,000 ways to punish you. Why would he leave on his own?”

Duan Yang heard Lin Chen say.

……

When Duan Wanshan began his story, Xing Conglian already felt regret.

Since Duan Wanshan was dying, no matter how sweet the story he told, it would naturally be a tragedy. Although the tragedy was thought-provoking, he was still in a bad mood as he listened to it.

“Actually, I’m not that great. I gave up my high paying medical job in China and came here to the Dana Region to aid in medical care because I fell in love with one of my students.”

Xing Conglian’s cigarette just burned out, almost burning his fingers. He looked at the doctor sitting against the wall on the haystack and asked, “So scandalous? A teacher-student relationship?”

“Yes, and it’s a boy,” Duan Wanshan said frankly.

Xing Conglian stared at Duan Wanshan with wide eyes.

Probably seeing his reaction, Duan Wanshan said, “At that time, I felt like falling in love with a male student was like a bolt from the blue. He was such a naïve young man who was taller than me and surrounded me every day, calling me ‘Teacher, Teacher’, wholeheartedly respecting and admiring me. But all I could think about were things beyond a teacher-student relationship. Social norms told me that this was called a teacher-student romance, which was slightly better than other improper relationships. I felt like something wasn’t right about it. Anyway, falling in love is just like taking drugs; both stimulate the release of dopamine in the brain. I felt happy when I saw him and thought I liked him very much. To be honest, I couldn’t explain what ‘liking’ meant. There’s no reason for liking someone anyway. So, compared to others, I paid special attention to him. He thought I was targeting him, so he always looked at me with fawn-like eyes as he ran around me every day, just to make me a little happier.”

Duan Wanshan’s tone, when he talked about this matter, was indifferent. He didn’t even have the slightest painful reaction and seemed happy even.

“From when you like someone to when you make up your mind to leave them, something must have happened between now and then, right?”

“Of course. At first, it was my own inability to let go. Although I liked him, I didn’t dare pursue him. I also thought about confessing my feelings to him, but I felt embarrassed and just let it drag on. Until one day, I heard that he got a girlfriend. I watched as that girl walked into the school holding his hand. He reached out and rubbed her head. It was a beautiful sight… That’s when I realized that I could finally let go.”

“You don’t call this letting go.”

Just as Duan Wanshan put the bottle on the ground, he couldn’t find it even after searching for a while. Xing Conglian looked at him with unfocused eyes, afraid that the toxins from sepsis had invaded his optic nerve, causing his vision to gradually deteriorate. Xing Conglian reached out and picked up the bottle of “Niulan Mountain” Erhuotou, handing it to Duan Wanshan.

“Yeah, it’s not called letting go if you’ve never had it, right?” Duan Wanshan took a sip of the alcohol. “At that time, I happened to see the introduction to the Dana Region and the recruitment notice from Doctors Without Borders, so I went to participate. Looking back now, I was probably angry because I saw him with a girlfriend, but I had no reason to be. I could only torture myself. Now that I’ve risked my life here, I do have some regrets when I think back on it. Why couldn’t I think clearly back then?”

“It’s really stupid,” Xing Conglian commented.

In a daze, Xing Conglian seemed to see Duan Wanshan flipping him off with his middle finger. This kind of action was done by a man who looked like an old farmer and had the air of a suave scholar. It was so incongruous that he didn’t have time to react before he heard Duan Wanshan continue.

“It doesn’t hurt to stand and talk less. When it comes to relationship problems, not everyone can be like you; having determination, perseverance, and even full ability to pursue what they love. Many people don’t even know their feelings and let go of true love in hesitation…”

“Of course I’m not in pain because I have encountered someone with determination and perseverance, who even dares to pursue what they love,” Xing Conglian said.

Duan Wanshan almost spat out the alcohol he just swallowed. His face was flushed, and he turned his head as he angrily said, “Don’t you think it’s too much to show off your affection to a dying person?”

Xing Conglian spread his hands. “I’m just telling the truth.”

“I envy you very much.” Duan Wanshan raised the alcohol bottle and saluted him from afar.

“I envy myself too,” Xing Conglian said solemnly.

That night, Duan Wanshan probably really regarded him as a confidant and told him many things.

He hoped to spread the news and let his colleagues at the Dana General Hospital temporarily act as the dean and manage the hospital affairs. While on the topic, Duan Wanshan also mentioned that the hospital was currently lacking funds and that it would be great if someone could invest more.

Xing Conglian always felt that the other party was taking the opportunity to rob the rich to help the poor, but people like Duan Wanshan had wishes before they died that weren’t so simple. He even asked if he knew any wealthy people and hoped that someone could invest more money to facilitate the establishment of a pre-observation station for the Dana Rainforest viruses. Duan Wanshan said that if such an observation had existed at that time, HIV might not have had a chance to spread from the African rainforest and kill tens of millions of people worldwide, so it was quite important.

Duan Wanshan really talked too much. In the end, Xing Conglian couldn’t help it and asked, “Don’t you think it’s too much to ask for so much from someone you just met?”

“What can I do? I’m dying and there are still so many things unfinished. What’s wrong with just telling someone about it?” Duan Wanshan said.

Probably because he was too righteous, Xing Conglian couldn’t find the words to refute. “You might as well talk about you and your student and if you need me to bring anything to him.”

Duan Wanshan shook his head. “It’s too deliberate to specifically let him know that I’m dead and bring him my relics.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I think he’d make a great doctor.”

……

Xing Conglian walked out of the room and closed the door gently.

Many of the Gaomeng people in the factory were instantly awoken and looked at him with vigilant but questioning eyes.

Without words, Xing Conglian glanced at the door and nodded to everyone, indicating that Dr. Duan was still alive, but his life was only temporary.

Xing Conglian looked around. Wang Chao was operating the laptop in the corner, and everyone else was gone.

Xing Conglian walked over, patted the young teenager on the shoulder, and said to him, “Pull up the surveillance at home. I want to see him.”

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 189

Duan Yang didn’t wake Lin Chen up in the end.

The militants downstairs seemed to think it wasn’t enough and kept torturing the poor woman’s body. There was no more painful pleading. Duan Yang could only hear cruel laughter that was so unbridled that it pierced the sky.

He silently closed the curtains, feeling that it was enough for him to witness alone.

Lin Chen was still asleep at the other end, while Xing Conglian retracted his head back at the same time.

……

Xing Conglian returned to his subordinates and kicked open the door.

Xiao Wu and Kang An were sitting together, while Wang Chao and Xiao Liu were muttering about something.

“Boss!” The four of them stood up.

Xing Conglian didn’t bother talking nonsense with any of them. “Xiao Wu and Xiao Liu, go determine the number of available combatants among the Gaomeng people and what’s left of the ammunition reserves. We’re going to evacuate…”

“Take… How many people are we going to take to evacuate?” Xiao Liu asked anxiously.

“Everyone in this building and all the Gaomeng people who were captured by the Zaratul tribe.”

“But where are we going to evacuate? Zaratul wants the Gaomeng people, and I’m afraid that no one in the entire Dana Region, including neighboring countries, would dare accept them.”

“Do you know now?” Xing Conglian sneered coldly.

“Boss…” Xiao Liu laughed.

“At the mouth of the Dana River, in the port of Kagasi. I’ll arrange a boat to take them to a country that’s willing to accept refugees.”

“Understood!”

Wang Chao couldn’t help it. He raised his hand and asked, “Then Boss, what about me?”

“Cut the crap. What can you do? Can the five of us cover the evacuation of so many people? Of course, we have to find more people,” Xing Conglian said.

Wang Chao rolled up his cuffs and his eyes lit up. “Are we calling for some help to bring weapons? How many people should we call? I remember there are still many secret militant bases of various countries nearby. There is also a branch of the Black Hawk Security, a mercenary organization. Boss, which one should we call? I’ll handle it!”

“What are you thinking?” Xing Conglian was annoyed. “Check who has recently traveled and find three of them.”

“Three?” Wang Chao asked.

“A sniper, a heavy firepower, and a bomb expert.”

“Understood.” Wang Chao quickly took out his phone, clicked on the chat group, and sent a group message. Soon, the pinging prompt sounded like popping beans. “Boss… They said they are all free…”

Xing Conglian didn’t bother to care about how many tasks those people skipped so that they were “free”. He simply said, “Since they’re all free, let Zhang Long, Zhao Hu, and Ye Zhu come. I’ll give you the equipment list later for you to tell them what to bring.” He looked at his watch. “I want to see someone before noon tomorrow, Dana time.”

Wang Chao nodded vigorously.

As soon as his voice fell, Kang An raised his hand abruptly and said actively, “Boss, what do you need me to do?”

“Do me a favor,” Xing Conglian said coldly.

“What kind of favor, Boss? Just ask!”

“Stay out of my sight and don’t let me see you!”

Kang An made a bitter face. “I’m sorry.”

“All right. Get out and grab two of Zaratul’s soldiers and interrogate them about the layout of the mine, then scout their troop arrangements.”

“Got it!” Kang An finally recovered from the state of a wilted eggplant and rushed out the door like the wind after speaking.

“You have terrible judgment.” Xing Conglian glanced at Xiao Wu as he said coldly.

……

When Lin Chen woke up, he saw Duan Yang’s quiet face, which looked quite different.

The young man was wearing a mask and was standing in front of a test bench, staring at a blood sample in front of him. Lin Chen wondered what he was doing.

He coughed softly, causing Duan Yang to hurriedly turn his head. He put down the work at hand, squatted down after washing his hands, and put his cold fingers on Lin Chen’s wrist. He briefly measured his body temperature and heartbeat, then carefully checked his eyes.

Perhaps because Duan Yang was wearing a mask, Lin Chen felt he seemed a bit colder, but soon, the coldness in his brows was replaced by deep worry. “Consultant Lin, what’s wrong with you?”

“I feel uncomfortable all over,” Lin Chen said with a smile.

“I’m asking you very seriously.”

“I also answered very seriously. It really hurts all over. If you really develop a new type of poison, please give me the first shot.”

“Please stop joking,” Duan Yang said with a serious expression.

Lin Chen struggled to get up, and the doctor began to get angry. As a patient, he should be more obedient.

Lin Chen nodded and looked at the experiment table again. “Are you really studying the drug?”

Duan Yang felt a little embarrassed. “You were sleeping just now, so I checked a few of the rhesus monkeys that were locked up. There is indeed a problem with the monkeys here.”

“Of course there would be a problem if they were injected with a high-purity drug.”

“New drugs are always different.”

“The drugs injected into the rhesus monkeys here are different from common drugs. Typically, addiction comes with severe psychological cravings, but some of these monkeys, despite being agitated and restless, don’t seem agitated because they are unable to obtain something. They seem to still be in a normal state after being injected with drugs. How long has it been? It’s impossible…” Duan Yang muttered to himself. “I didn’t understand before how the new drug developed by Zhorui Pharmaceutical was related to this kind of drug, but it may indeed affect some substance in the brain…”

“It is indeed strange.” Lin Chen struggled to stand up. “Help me take a look.”

“You—you, don’t get up.” Duan Yang pressed Lin Chen back to the ground. “I put the monkey in the lab window to show you, so just lie down and watch.”

Lin Chen thought for a while and said, “No need. I should trust your judgment.”

“Hey.”

“What were you doing just now?”

“I see that there is a sliding phase column here. I want to use the most primitive method to separate the drugs from the blood and see if we can recover it.”

“I see.” Lin Chen nodded. “But after you’re done, remember to destroy the results. Only you can know it.”

“I know.”

“Where were we?” He asked Duan Yang.

Duan Yang had an expression of annoyance at being interrupted, but he still answered seriously. “You said that the masked man captured us because only he could communicate with us here without worrying about us informing anyone else. You emphasized that this was important, and then there was no further mention of it…”

“Of course this is important. It reminds us that when making an escape plan, we must take the language barrier into account. In other words, we only have one option, which is to kidnap the masked man and escape with him. We must also make sure to control his weakness beforehand, forcing him to take us out alive.”

“Escape?” Duan Yang’s eyes widened. “Are we going to escape?”

“What else? Sit still?” Lin Chen opened some of the experimental coats covering his body and asked rhetorically.

“But how can we kidnap him?” Duan Yang thought for a while. “There are a lot of knives in the dissecting room. If all else fails, I can even load a glass slide!”

Lin Chen said coldly, “The surveillance system here tells us that once you rush to draw a knife to restrain him, soldiers will soon rush in and beat you into a bloody pulp with their AKs.”

“Then…” Duan Yang shuddered, and his face wrinkled. “You mean, just the two of us, we have to quietly subdue the masked man under surveillance and force him to take us out? How can this be done?”

“I have no idea.”

“Eh?”

“There’s only one general direction.”

“What direction?”

“For example, are you making a love potion right now?”

“What?” Duan Yang showed an incredulous look.

“What I mean is, I need a drug that will make him forget who he is and obediently follow our orders after he takes it. For example, a hallucinogenic spray that can make people give up all their possessions after a single spray.”

“There is no such drug. It’s all a lie,” Duan Yang said with a serious expression.

“Well, you’re being too honest,” Lin Chen said regretfully. “Then we are screwed.”

Duan Yang suddenly said, “You mean, a knife isn’t good, but it’s okay to drug him?”

Lin Chen nodded. “The reason why a knife won’t work is simple. We only have one chance. It’s very difficult for you to covertly control his lifeline with a cold weapon under surveillance.”

“What if it’s a needle?”

“Hmm?”

“A small syringe…” Duan Yang said suddenly, looking at the monkey outside.

Lin Chen’s thoughts turned, and he understood Duan Yang’s meaning. “I think, let’s give it a try. If it doesn’t work, we’ll just die. It’s no big deal.”

Duan Yang took a long breath, unable to laugh or cry. “Consultant Lin, you’re so sick. Can you stop joking.”

“It’s good to joke. At least it can cover up my true mood right now.”

“What are you covering up?”

“Because I’m afraid that you will lose your faith in perseverance if you know that I’m dying of illness.”

“Consultant Lin…” The young doctor frowned again.

“Duan Yang.” Lin Chen suddenly raised his voice.

The young man in front of him shuddered.

“If you want to get out of here alive, stop putting any emotion on your face.”

“I… I’ll try my best.”

……

The setting sun of the rainforest gradually descended from the side of the Xazi mountain range, and darkness gradually covered the entire forest.

Xing Conglian’s former subordinates had already scattered and worked separately while he sat alone in the room smoking.

Outside, there was the sound of hungry Gaomeng people sharing the only dry food left. The charcoal fire crackled, mixed with the voices of parents comforting their children, couples consoling each other, and, of course, the voice of the doctor checking on the patients’ condition. In short, those soft Gaomeng words fell on Xing Conglian’s ears, which made him irritable.

He flicked the cigarette butt away and fell asleep on the haystack.

The door of the room was pushed open, and Duan Wanshan’s stumbling figure appeared.

Xing Conglian opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Duan Wanshan closed the door. At the moment the door closed, Duan Wanshan’s entire body seemed as if it were being pulled from his spine as he visibly collapsed, falling to the ground with a thud.

Xing Conglian stood up and helped the man to the haystack to lie down. Duan Wanshan laid on the haystack, like a candle that had burned the last of its remaining life and had exhausted all his strength. He opened his eyes slightly and stared at Xing Conglian with a weak but serious gaze, as if he had a lot to say.

Xing Conglian felt unpleasant. “Professor Duan, you look as if you’re going to leave me with something, but I don’t want it.”

“It’s not a consignment.” Duan Wanshan struggled to reach into his pocket. “I have a bottle of liquor in my pocket. Take it out and see if it’s broken.”

Xing Conglian lowered his head and saw Duan Wanshan’s right hand trembling. He hadn’t pulled the zipper of his jacket open even halfway. He raised his eyebrows and helped out. Sure enough, there was a palm-sized bottle of liquor in Duan Wanshan’s arms. “It’s Erguotou, from my hometown, Niulanshan.”

Duan Wanshan was lying on the ground, struggling to sit up.

Xing Conglian couldn’t bear to watch anymore, so he leaned the person against the wall.

Duan Wanshan handed him the bottle.

Xing Conglian didn’t take it. “What’s this?”

“A gift as thanks.”

“This gift is too light.”

“But the sentiment is heavy.”

Duan Wanshan held it in his hand persistently and said, “I took the trouble to ask a friend to bring this from Taipei and never drank it. It has been put away for a whole decade.”

“Then I can’t accept it even more, because the next thing you’ll surely say is that you won’t have a chance to drink it in your life anyway.” Xing Conglian curled his lips and responded coldly.

“Hahahahahaha.” Duan Wanshan laughed heartily. His laughter was weak, but he seemed to have a carefree attitude towards life and death. He mustered up the strength to twist off the bottle cap and took a big swig, saying, “I still have a chance to drink.”

Under the moonlight, the doctor’s face was pale, perhaps signifying he was close to death. Surprisingly, from the old-farmer-like face of Duan Wanshan, Xing Conglian saw some traces of his youthful handsomeness. Actually, the word “youthful” wasn’t appropriate, as Xing Conglian had seen Duan Wanshan’s resume. This doctor was just in his forties, and according to the existing age classification of the United Nations, people in their forties were still considered young. But perhaps the years in Dana had aged Duan Wanshan beyond his true age.

Xing Conglian couldn’t help but say, “You can’t die.”

“Everyone has to die.”

“Your current state makes laozi feel like I went through all this trouble to come to Dana to save you, but as soon as you see me, you give up and say you’re going to die. It makes me feel like helping you is what’s going to kill you.”

Duan Wanshan shook his head. He bowed his knees and rolled up his trouser legs layer by layer. Only then did Xing Conglian see the wounds that had been covered under the trousers and had been festering for many days. It should be a gunshot wound. The wound was blocked by a wooden stick. In the rotting wound, muddy and smelly blood was still oozing out. Duan Wanshan seemed to have applied herbal medicines to the wound, but for a gunshot wound, this kind of treatment was simply a drop in the bucket.

Xing Conglian raised his eyes and looked at the doctor’s slightly flushed face after drinking, but he knew very well that this flush was more like a return to the light.

“Sepsis*. The toxins have already spread throughout my body. Even amputation won’t help. But I’m not trying to make a point. I’m just telling you that I’ll die whether you come or not,” Duan Wanshan said. “But it just wouldn’t be worth it.”

*Also known as blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body’s response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. It requires immediate treatment. Without timely treatment, sepsis can rapidly lead to tissue damage, organ failure, and death.

“Do you think it’s worth it for you to die now?” Xing Conglian asked rhetorically.

“Haha.” Duan Wanshan’s chest rose and fell with a mixture of laughter and pain. “I just have to face it head-on since there’s nothing else I can do. What else can I do?”

When Duan Wanshan responded with the rhetorical question, “What else can I do?”, upon hearing it, Xing Conglian suddenly realized that there was no other choice for someone like Duan Wanshan but to face the situation head-on. Abandoning over a thousand people and escaping alone wasn’t an option.

He sneered again and found that the number of times he sneered had increased day by day since he came to Dana.

“Have you ever thought that if you lived, with the rest of your remaining life, you might be able to save ten or even twenty times more people than those that are out there?”

“I didn’t know I was going to die either until I got shot.”

“What if you knew you were going to die?” Xing Conglian insisted.

“Do you have to ask such harsh questions?”

“It’s a very interesting proposition, and it makes sense to ask these questions to someone who is going to die.”

Duan Wanshan lowered his eyes, as if in deep thought, but Xing Conglian clearly saw the various emotions that flashed on the doctor’s face. Finally, after careful consideration, Duan Wanshan looked up at him. “I should still help.”

“Why?”

“Because no one can tell what will happen in the future. The 10,000 people in the future have their own people who can save them. And I’m pretty sure that if I see these Gaomeng people die without reaching out, then I will live in regret and guilt for the rest of my life, which is more painful than death. I think your subordinates think so too,” Duan Wanshan said slowly.

“Why do you want to be a peacemaker when you’re dying?” Xing Conglian felt that when Duan Wanshan talked about regret and guilt, he was just stating facts without any emotions. “Do you really feel regret?”

Duan Wanshan said bluntly, “This matter is weird. I haven’t investigated it clearly yet, so I don’t want to let it go. But I’m still sorry to involve you in it.”

“What do you mean?” Xing Conglian glared at him. “Do I look like someone who will be irritable because of such trivial things?”

Duan Wanshan shook his head and sighed. “Because you have been angry with your subordinates.”

“I can’t scold my own men?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I’m not angry because of them. When they came to find me, and even when you finally found me, I didn’t feel anything…”

“Hmm?”

“As long as the reasons are justified, solving these problems that make you guys suffer is just a piece of cake for me.” As Xing Conglian spoke, he took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and lit it with a snap of his lighter.

Duan Wanshan opened his mouth slightly and looked at him in surprise.

“This is the meaning of the existence of people like me,” Xing Conglian said quietly.

The rainforest was excessively bright as the silver moon rose.

After a long time, Duan Wanshan spoke. “But you’ve been constantly cranky.”

“I’m cranky because of a personal matter.” Xing Conglian’s tone turned sour again.

“A person like you would still be bothered by personal matters?” Duan Wanshan leaned against the wall and took another swig of the bottle.

Xing Conglian felt that Duan Wanshan was probably really nearing the end of his life, becoming less and less like the old farmer he was before. After all, an old farmer wouldn’t be so sharp-tongued towards his benefactor.

“If someone is waiting for you to go home, but you can’t return for the time being, won’t you feel irritated?”

“Your wife?” Duan Wanshan asked.

“No.”

“Then?”

“My… friend, but probably a future boyfriend,” Xing Conglian said decisively.

“Future?”

“Because before we established our relationship, I was suddenly reeled in by an idiot to deal with your pile of shit. I don’t know if he will accept me when I return.”

Duan Wanshan almost choked on the liquor. “Wait, boyfriend?”

“Are you homophobic?”

As soon as he spoke, he saw Duan Wanshan laugh absentmindedly. The doctor picked up the bottle and took another small sip, looking at the moon outside the window, silent for a long time.

Seeing Duan Wanshan look as if he was missing someone, Xing Conglian hurriedly stepped back. “I don’t really want to hear your love history.”

Duan Wanshan smiled. “Just listen to it. Listen to the feelings of a dying man. Maybe it will inspire you.”

“Well, alright.” Xing Conglian thought about it, then responded solemnly.

……

In the laboratory, Duan Yang was hungry.

Because Lin Chen had fallen asleep again and the masked man hadn’t arrived, he continued to complete the extraction work he had previously done earlier and also checked on all the samples he had taken from the rhesus monkeys.

He put down the lab test tube, stretched, and looked at the ground beside the experiment table.

Lin Chen had wrapped himself in a few lab coats and fallen asleep again.

Although Lin Chen was constantly joking, Duan Yang knew very well that the time Lin Chen spent awake was decreasing. He had previously diluted the anhydrous alcohol solvent in the lab to 75% and given Lin Chen a simple disinfection treatment, but it was clear that what Lin Chen needed now was a large dose of antibiotics to help  him fight the infection in his body.

He looked at the time, squatted down with the alcohol, and took out Lin Chen’s injured hand from the layers of lab coats.

Due to the infected wound on his palm, Lin Chen’s originally pale and thin hand became swollen, and his fingers were also red and swollen, doubling in size. Duan Yang used cotton soaked in alcohol to clean the wound, and yellowish pus flowed out along the wound.

The wound disinfection should have been extremely painful, but Lin Chen only slightly restlessly struggled in his sleep. He didn’t even open his eyes, which only made Duan Yang worry even more.

He capped the bottle of alcohol, stood up again, put things back in place, and only after a while did Lin Chen reluctantly wake up.

Duan Yang looked down.

Lin Chen, who had just woken up from a semi-comatose state, braced himself to open his eyes. The moment he saw him, the festering focus in Lin Chen’s eyes gathered in a very short time and instantly regained clarity.

Duan Yang thought that Lin Chen’s willpower was probably one of the strongest he had ever seen.

“Did you kill the monkey?” Consultant Lin, who was lying on the ground, sniffed the smell in the air and looked at the location of the dissection room.

Duan Yang squatted down. “I’m preparing for tomorrow’s great escape.”

“It’s all up to you, Doctor Duan,” Lin Chen said with forceful cheerfulness. “But if by then there’s a chance that my physical condition doesn’t allow you, I want you to go alone.”

Upon hearing this, Duan Yang trembled. He looked at the psychological consultant, who had rapidly weakened due to infection but had been continuously using various words to stimulate him to cheer up. He kneeled on the ground, and put his hand on Lin Chen’s hot forehead.

“Consultant Lin, I have been thinking about <The Secret> you mentioned. Although you have been talking about dying, you have never given up, have you?”

Lin Chen didn’t speak. He just lay on the ground, gasping weakly.

Duan Yang became a little anxious. He felt that he couldn’t understand Lin Chen’s thoughts more and more, so he could only try to awaken his will to survive. “Didn’t you say before that someone like that exists? Someone you want to persevere for and try to hold on until the end?!”

“Yes, of course there is.” There was a smile at the corner of Lin Chen’s mouth.

“Who is it?” Duan Yang asked smoothly.

“Of course, it’s the person I love, idiot,” Lin Chen said lightly.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 188

In the dim hut of the dilapidated factory building, Xiao Wu recounted what had happened as Xing Conglian continued to smoke. The green smoke was like a fog, suffocating and depressing the entire room.

Xing Conglian didn’t sit on the ground but stood upright, like a javelin, without even leaning against the wall.

The voices of the two people who were telling the story on the ground became lower. At the end, Xiao Wu raised his head slightly and looked at him with a silent and focused gaze.

Xing Conglian squeezed the cigarette pack and found that he had exhausted all the cigarettes inside. He held the shriveled cigarette package tightly in his palm.

He glanced at the doctor standing by the door, and his first words were, “Dr. Duan, please go outside and wait for a bit.”

Duan Wanshan looked at him, then nodded and left.

The wooden door creaked shut, and Xing Conglian squatted down, looking directly at Xiao Wu.

In Xing Conglian’s memory, Xiao Wu had always been a young and shy boy. Xing Conglian was already in a bad mood, and now the child he raised was suddenly stolen by that pig, Kang An. When Xiao Wu was speaking, he would hide his feelings, giving Xing Conglian the bitter sense of a parent unable to control their child after they grow up and leave home.

“Let’s sort through everything,” he said slowly.

Xiao Wu nodded.

“A week ago, you received a request to arrive in the Dana Region to investigate the Gaomeng massacre. When you passed through the village of the Gaomeng Tribe, the Gaomeng people disappeared. You followed their tracks and encountered the Gaomeng Tribe being besieged by Zaratul’s forces. You accidentally fell into a trap set by Zaratul, and after being injured, you were rescued by Dr. Duan and protected until you arrived here?”

Xiao Wu reluctantly said, “That’s correct, boss.”

Xing Conglian sneered. “Such garbage. Don’t call me boss.”

Instantly, Xiao Wu’s face became ugly. Kang An was also too scared, and he could only hold back his anger.

“Boss…” Xiao Liu said weakly.

“Heh.”

The two people in front of him were silent and cautious, and their posture had changed from sitting to kneeling. Looking at the faint scars on their faces and bodies, Xing Conglian became even more angry and couldn’t help but say, “Come on, you two, tell me. If I’m not senile yet, according to regulations, you’re just here to conduct an observational survey in the Dana Region, which means you’re only supposed to observe if anything is wrong here. If you find something is wrong, you will call back and report it, then fly home. Am I right?”

“Boss, you wrote the charter, so of course you are right,” Xiao Liu said obsequiously.

Xing Conglian didn’t even say a word to this shaved-headed subordinate. He continued to look at Xiao Wu and said solemnly, “Then may I ask, Mr. Lu Zhengyan, you two observers got accidentally swept up in this incident and even stepped on a trap by Zaratul. Is this too much for me to call you useless?”

“It’s our fault, boss. We were greedy and wanted to find the matter out clearly. We accidently strayed into Zaratul’s encirclement trap…”

The words were so fake that Xing Conglian couldn’t bear to listen anymore. He stood up to leave, but his legs stiffened, and he froze in place.

Someone hugged his leg vigorously. The person holding it was Xiao Wu, the young man whom he had raised just like Wang Chao. He reluctantly turned his head and saw Wang Chao trembling as he put down his laptop and squatted beside the three of them. “Boss, although I don’t know what happened, I just saw everyone kneeling, so it doesn’t feel appropriate to stand…”

Looking at four people in a row kneeling on the ground, Xing Conglian missed Lin Chen even more. If Lin Chen encountered such a situation, he would probably cross his arms coldly and leave without turning his head. Once he thought of Lin Chen, he became even more irritable. “What with all this apologizing set? Laozi’s not a gangster!”

“Boss, it’s really miserable. We feel guilty in our hearts,” Xiao Liu said.

Through the door, Xing Conglian pointed at the hundreds of Gaomeng people outside and suddenly became quiet. “In the Dana Region, I have never seen the principle of saving people just out of pity. Since you’re here to observe and investigate, you have to get out after observation. Understand this and don’t cause trouble for others!” Xing Conglian said solemnly. “If you don’t have the ability, don’t take on the work. Otherwise, you’ll just drag others down.”

When his voice fell, the room was silent.

“When we arrived, Zaratul was killing people.” At this moment, Xiao Wu spoke up slowly. “There were the elderly and children. When they fled the village at the beginning, their formation wasn’t good. The young were at the back, while the old were still at the front. Then Zaratul ambushed them in the front. There was a burst of machine gun fire, and many people were shot… When we arrived, this was the scene we saw.” Xiao Wu was injured, so as he spoke, his voice became lighter.

Thinking about it, massacres were like this, and these were words that Xing Conglian didn’t want to hear. When he heard such inhumane stories, it also meant that his conscience would overcome his reason and prevent him from “minding his own business”. “And then what? You guys copied them and picked up your weapons and attacked?” he said sarcastically.

Xiao Wu shook his head. “Not at first. We also wonder why the intelligence was so different from the actual situation, so we just helped them behind the scenes.”

Xiao Wu said it tactfully, but the help they provided wasn’t that simple. Xing Conglian had already listened enough to their nonsense and didn’t need to listen to it again. “Okay, Mr. Lu Zhengyan, no need to keep repeating yourself. You have said so much, you’re circumventing a problem.”

“What?”

“Kang An said you went crazy and lost contact with him. What the hell happened?”

Xiao Wu lowered his head. He was quiet for a moment and was just about to speak when the wooden door was pushed open.

Duan Wanshan appeared at the door on crutches. He looked at the two people kneeling on the ground and said, “I appreciate your kindness, but it looks like your boss is more difficult than you think.”

After he finished, he slightly turned and bowed to Xing Conglian and slowly said, “If you want to know the truth, please come with me, Captain Xing.”

Duan Wanshan walked in front, and Xing Conglian followed behind. He had already walked through most of the factory, and now Duan Wanshan took him out again and walked to the warehouse in the corner of the floor. He suddenly realized that Duan Wanshan’s arrangement for the crowd gathering area in the factory seemed to have a deeper meaning.

“Just now?” he asked.

“Those are all patients with mild symptoms.”

“What about here?”

“Intensive isolation.”

Before Duan Wanshan’s voice fell, he opened the heavy iron door in front of him.

Because the door was too heavy and the chain was too old, it made a sound like an earthquake when opened. Xing Conglian quickly realized that the muffled sobbing sound that followed the roar didn’t come entirely from the door in front of him but from something behind the door.

Behind the door were rooms in which some people were locked up, or rather, could be considered people.

Xing Conglian followed Duan Wanshan and looked at all the rooms. Everyone in the room was bound by heavy cotton gauze. In addition, each of them had an iron chain tied to their feet to limit their range of activities. If it weren’t for knowing that this was an abandoned factory deep in the Dana Rainforest, Xing Conglian would have thought he had stepped into a mental hospital.

Of course, psychiatry wasn’t his specialty, but the situation in the room may far exceed ordinary mental problems.

It was difficult for Xing Conglian to describe the people he saw.

Some of their feet were worn by the iron chains, but they were gnawing on their ankles in an extraordinary, twisted position. When Xing Conglian walked by, they raised their heads and showed him their teeth full of gaps and their bloody lips.

Others tried their best to rush to the door, but because of the chain restrictions, they could only maintain a one-foot-forward posture. The distance between their legs grew larger and larger until they tripped and fell with a clatter, then they quickly got up again.

However, most of the people in the room were looking at them with vigilant eyes. That kind of vigilant eye was different from that of humans, looking more like a natural beast. Some of them curled up in a ball, while others squatted in a corner, posing like an animal about to attack.

Xing Conglian had seen many distorted humans, but he never even imagined that normal human joints could be folded to such a point. People whom he couldn’t identify by gender were entangled together in twisted poses, seemingly as if they’d been dead for a while now.

Xing Conglian stared at everything in front of him in a daze, and finally his gaze moved to the doctor, who had been silently walking in front of him on crutches. “What’s wrong with them?”

“I can’t separate them. Although it’s inhumane, we’re almost at the point of cannibalism now, so it doesn’t matter.” Duan Wanshan stopped walking, turned around, and explained to him with a determined expression. “The man’s name is Kachu and the woman’s is Soren. They were a pair of ordinary fisherman couple from the Gaomeng tribe. I won’t talk about how happy their lives used to be, because their happiness is insignificant to outsiders. When I saw them, they were arguing endlessly. Their neighbors had put up with them for three days and were about to take an ax to chop them up. At that time, I happened to be investigating at the residence of the Gaomeng Tribe. Their neighbors came to me and asked me if there was any medicine that could poison them.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that an ax was more useful.” Duan Wanshan looked at the two people in the room and continued, “But an ax doesn’t work either. The actual situation is that as long as he leaves Soran, Kachu will quickly grab something on the ground and bash his head in.”

Duan Wanshan paused, then said calmly, “Captain Xin, I’m not going to beat around the bush anymore, as I don’t have much time left. About a little over half a month ago, I became aware of a strange madness in the Dana Region, and during my epidemiological investigation of the cases, I found that the source may be in the Gaomeng Tribe’s settlement. By the time I arrived here, the situation had already become uncontrollable. Roughly ten percent of the population of the Gaomeng Tribe has varying degrees of mental abnormalities. When this happened, my first consideration was food and drug factors. However, at that time, the Gaomeng Tribe’s outpost had learned that the Zaratul Tribe was going to encircle and suppress them. For various reasons, the Gaomeng Tribe decided to migrate as a whole. Before the migration, my investigation wasn’t yet complete. After discussing it with the tribal chief, we decided to bring along those mentally ill patients.”

Xing Conglian titled his head and said seriously, “The kindness of women*.”

*Phrase used to describe a situation where a person shows excessive mercy or compassion, to the point of neglecting practical considerations or even causing harm to oneself or others.

“Of course. I am a doctor, and doctors are like this,” Duan Wanshan said confidently. Perhaps he spoke too strongly when he said “I am a doctor” and didn’t sound at all like a dying person, so the sobbing sound in the space was completely suppressed by this strong tone, and the surroundings became very quiet.

The doctor continued, “Taking mentally ill people is actually a big part of the army’s itinerary. During the march, we also considered giving up those people, but when the Zaratul Tribe asked us to hand over all mentally abnormal patients and they’d let the rest of us leave, I was very surprised. It turns out that the reason for their big fight was actually that they wanted the patients. Considering the current situation, I suspect that all patients with mental abnormalities have ingested high-purity drugs.”

“Drugs?” Xing Conglian interrupted him.

“Specifically, drugs referring to all chemicals that can cause harm to the human body.” Duan Wanshan’s thoughts were clear, and he didn’t end his narrative because of the interruption. “Therefore, I cross-examined some patients with mild symptoms about their diet and medication. The people of the Gaomeng Tribe said that before I came, a group of Doctors Without Borders would regularly come to examine them and distribute vitamins. However, some of the users didn’t have mental problems, while others had severe problems.”

Xing Conglian was shocked. “There were people pretending to be Doctors Without Borders who used the rainforest nation to conduct illegal drug experiments?”

“This is also my guess,” Duan Wanshan said solemnly. “I met your men after that. After learning that they were investigating officials, I asked them to return to the village and destroy all the drugs we didn’t bring out, because there may be poisonous drugs mixed there, and those poisonous drugs are exactly Zaratul’s goal. In fact, your subordinate, in the process of helping me destroy the drugs, had a fight with the Zaratul Tribe and accidentally ingested high-purity drugs, but his intake was very small. After a simple withdrawal treatment, he’s no longer affected.”

From start to end, Duan Wanshan’s tone was calm, without much change in feelings. The processes of blood and fire, death and pain that came from his mouth were said as if they weren’t such a big deal.

Xing Conglian thought that most likely Duan Wanshan also used this tone when he announced to a patient that their life was coming to an end, which was why he could treat his own death in such a calm manner.

“I understand,” Xing Conglian said lightly.

There was no clear statement in his words, but a gratifying smile suddenly appeared on Duan Wanshan’s deathly gray face. He said, “I can understand why you blame your subordinate. Because if my student kept doing CPR for an hour after I told him that the patient was already dead, I would also have a similar attitude as yours. In any case, they are indeed helping me. They made up the lie by saying I saved them. They probably just know you very well and want to stay to help solve the problem.”

“No,” Xing Conglian interrupted Duan Wanshan. “Didn’t you give them withdrawal treatment?”

This time, Duan Wanshan finally smiled bitterly. “It’s just a simple treatment.”

“What happens if they weren’t treated?”

“It’s hard to say…”

“Alright, I see.” Xing Conglian waved his hand. “It’s only natural to pay off debts. I’ll pay off the debts they owe you before you die.”

He didn’t know if it was because his words were too simple, but before his voice fell, there was a renewed noise around him. Xing Conglian pursed his lips and listened carefully for a while before realizing that the noise wasn’t coming from the space where they were located but from outside the factory building in the open space.

Duan Wanshan looked at his watch. His face suddenly sank, but there was no expression of grief, only disgust.

“What’s going on?” While Xing Conglian spoke, he walked towards the window, following the sound.

“During our migration, some tribal residents were captured by Zaratul as captives. They would kill one person in front of us every day to force us out of the building,” Duan Wanshan said calmly. “Now, it’s the killing time.”

……

When Duan Yang heard the noise outside the laboratory, he was inspecting the monkey room. The monkeys seemed to sense something and suddenly squeaked like crazy.

Cruel laughter came through the walls. It should be human laughter, mixed with a language he couldn’t understand. He walked carefully to the window and looked out. In the open space downstairs, the militants dragged a black woman to a dilapidated factory building.

For the first time in his life, Duan Yang saw such an inhumane scene.

Someone put a gun against the woman’s head.

The woman was dying, and her nose was pinched, forcing her to open her mouth…

Duan Yang looked away. The scene downstairs was too cruel and terrifying. Then he heard someone appear to be counting down.

He looked back at Lin Chen, who was asleep in the laboratory, hesitating whether he should wake Lin Chen up.

……

Xing Conglian was also standing by a window. He tried to hide himself as much as possible to avoid being discovered by the not-so-outstanding snipers on the opposite floor.

Duan Wanshan stood beside him against the wall, as if he had watched this scene for many days, and lightly closed his eyes. He didn’t want to watch the scene downstairs.

Gunshots rang out as blood splattered, followed by resounding laughter that filled the sky.

But the air around them seemed to drain in an instant, and all sound disappeared. Xing Conglian looked at the corpse downstairs, then slowly raised his head and glanced at the transparent blue sky in Dana.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 187

Xing Conglian naturally wanted to say, “It’s none of my business if you’re going to die.” However, upon seeing Duan Wanshan’s graying temples, he swallowed back his irritable words.

He looked at the other and knew well that if he turned around now, he wouldn’t be able to return home in a short while.

Although the two reasons mentioned by this Doctor Duan weren’t discussed at length, each of them made sense.

It was right to pay off a debt, and since the debt owed was to a dying man, it made his reasons more meaningful.

This attitude reminded Xing Conglian of Lin Chen.

So he turned around and went back to the room and kicked the subordinate, who was stubbornly sitting on the ground and refused to leave. “Tell me, how did you get saved? Is it true that I have to pay off your debts?”

……

At the same time, in the monkey room, Lin Chen endured the aches and pains all over his body. He barely managed to raise his spirits as he said to Duan Yang, “Tell me your plan.”

Duan Yang was holding the key as he opened the door to the innermost laboratory.

The air from the air conditioner was blowing in his face.

There was a complete set of professional medical experimental equipment in front of them, which was different from the pure drug production factory outside. According to Duan Yang, there were more centrifuges and reactors… There was even an anatomy table separated inside. Of course, the dissecting table should be purely for the rhesus monkeys.

Overall, it was well equipped. The only problem was that the whole lab looked like it hadn’t been used for a while, as there was a thin layer of dust on the bench.

Duan Yang carefully swept the table with his hands, glanced at the surveillance camera hanging in the corner of the lab, and asked, “Consultant Lin, do you think it’s bugged here?”

With the cold air blowing from the air conditioner, Lin Chen shivered from the cold. For him, the current environment may not be as good as the sweltering cellar. He looked at Duan Yang and said, “It doesn’t matter if there is or not. Besides, we will die in two days.”

“Hey…” Duan Yang let out a long sigh, feeling helpless.

“There are no bugs here.” Lin Chen decided to change the topic.

Duan Yang was stunned. “How do you know?”

Lin Chen didn’t answer directly. He hooked his fingers at Duan Yang and pointed to several lab coats hanging on the wall.

Duan Yang understood immediately and tore off all coats and wrapped them around him.

The sudden warmth made Lin Chen feel comfortable. He put on a lab coat, barely opened his eyes, and asked Duan Yang, “How many coats are there?”

“Six… It seems like six?”

“What does this mean?”

“That there were six people doing experiments here?”

“Not necessarily, but there are signs that there were people here before. So that begs the question, where are they now?”

Duan Yang swallowed. “Chopped up by…?”

“Why chopped up?”

“Because they didn’t finish the research, so they were killed?”

“If the research isn’t complete, then why were you able to deduce from the masked man’s words earlier that he wanted you to analyze the drug components from the monkeys’ blood?” Lin Chen paused. “What kind of blood would the monkeys have to be fed to contain drug components?”

“Of course, it’s poison,” Duan Yang said.

“Since there are toxic chemicals, why has the research not been completed?”

“Consultant Lin, what are you trying to say?” Duan Yang was confused. Of course, he wasn’t like Xing Conglian, who knew everything.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning.” Lin Chen asked him, “Why do you think you were kidnapped?”

“Because I offended Zhorui Pharmaceutical?”

“To be more specific, what is your inference about the cause and result of your kidnapping?”

“Because I accidentally exposed myself during the investigation of Zhorui Pharmaceutical, so I was kidnapped by them to do research in the Dana Region?”

“That is to say, you think this entire laboratory is part of Zhorui Pharmaceutical in the Dana Region, right?”

“Is it not?”

Lin Chen laughed. “Classmate Duan Yang, I think you’re much more confident than I thought.”

“What?”

“After all, you think that your personal ability can replace the entire R&D department of Zhorui Pharmaceutical. Otherwise, why would they kidnap you and send you thousands of miles away?”

“I… That’s not what I mean. I really think it’s strange that they kidnapped us to come here.” Duan Yang’s face was about to blush. “Then… Consultant Lin, why do you think they kidnapped me?”

“Because you may be the one closest to the results of the study.”

“I don’t understand.” Duan Yang frowned.

“If you don’t understand, how can you expect me to?” Lin Chen looked at Duan Yang, motioned to the other party to turn his back to the camera. “Don’t look like you’re chatting with me so obviously. Anyway, pretend to be working.”

Duan Yang hurriedly turned around, and the first thing he did was take a cloth and start wiping the test bench. This kind of cleanliness obsession was beyond saving.

“I have some guesses, but it’s not complete yet.” Lin Chen lowered his eyes slightly. The high fever made him look at everything as if it had double shadows. He gently unfolded the wrapped white lab coat, looked at the cuffs and pockets where the edges were easy to wear, and then looked at the label. Finally, his gaze fell on the offset logo on the chest of the lab coat. It was still a jaguar and python symbol, but the golden offset print was cracked. Obviously, this lab coat had been worn and washed many times.

“Consultant Lin, what’s wrong with the lab coats?” Duan Yang asked upon seeing this.

“This coat has been worn by people for a long time.” He emphasized the last two words.

“Yes, you have already made it clear just now. This means that there have been people in this laboratory who have been doing experiments, but now those people are gone. What does this mean?”

“It doesn’t explain much. You can think about it from another perspective. There used to be a laboratory related to Zhorui Pharmaceutical deep in the rainforest, but now there are no people in this lab. This is the result we’re seeing now.” Lin Chen coughed twice in a low voice. He resisted the desire to cough violently and continued, “From the result to the reason, I think there are two possibilities. The first may be that, as you said, the successive drug researchers here have not completed their work, so they were chopped up for feed.”

“What about the second?”

“The situation in the Dana Region is complicated, and Zhorui Pharmaceutical shouldn’t have much energy to expend armed forces here. So the only possibility is that they found militants in the Dana Region as partners. That is, the leader of this jaguar and python symbol. In connection with Professor Duan’s drug research, it was highly possible that Zhorui Pharmaceutical had conducted their new drug development here. After completing the research, they left without a trace, leaving their ‘partners’ at a loss, forcing them to act recklessly and randomly kidnap people everywhere. Finally, they stumbled upon you, who ventured into this matter haphazardly.”

“This is impossible!” Duan Yang said immediately. “Zhorui Pharmaceutical develops drugs, not poisons. As you said, they found many people, so why me?”

Lin Chen felt a splitting pain in his head and finally couldn’t hold back from coughing violently.

Duan Yang hurriedly squatted down in front of him. “I won’t interrupt. I won’t. You can continue.”

“I don’t understand the relationship between drugs and medicines. This is not my specialty. It’s up to you to find out, but if your professional level is not enough, then forget I said anything.” Lin Chen looked up and glanced at Duan Yang. “As for why they found you, there could be many possibilities. Maybe it’s because you are particularly handsome. But you should think about where you posted those reports and research results on the new drug that made them discover you,” Lin Chen said sternly.

Duan Yang’s face tightened, as if he were aware of something and suddenly said, “If what you say is true, then the new drug launched by Zhorui Pharmaceutical this time really has a very serious problem. It may be a new type of neurodegenerative drug or a corresponding derivative. The R&D personnel of Zhorui Pharmaceutical withdrew from the country after the experiment was completed, leaving only the experimental animals. So they probably played a trick on the militants in the Dana Region?”

Lin Chen said, “This is just an inference, and there may be loopholes and irrationality.”

“That’s right. According to what you said, the researchers who conducted the research here before were employees of Zhorui Pharmaceutical, so why did they kidnap me instead of the previous researchers? Also, who is that masked person? Since Zhorui Pharmaceutical completed the research in this laboratory, the previous researchers should also have relevant research materials. Why did the masked person go to such lengths to kidnap us and say that all our research materials are only the monkeys here… Ah, no, he also mentioned people. Where did they come from?”

Duan Yang asked too many questions, which gave Lin Chen a headache. “I’m not sure why they kidnapped you. It’s very likely you were an easy target and that your research results were more relevant. Zhorui Pharmaceutical needed to find a partner in the Dana Region, but given their strength in the country, hiding a few researchers would be easy.” Lin Chen propped up his head with one hand, looking at the young man in front of him with a smile on his face. “And I can answer your second question as well, because all my deductions are based on the answer to your second question.”

“Consultant Lin…” Duan Yang said depressingly. “I’ve noticed that you like to keep people in suspense.”

“No, I just give you a certain amount of time to think about the problem,” Lin Chen said softly. “Well, the answer is, you have never seen a real psychopath.”

Duan Yang shuddered.

“In fact, the masked weirdo you just saw is a fraudster,” Lin Chen curled his lips as he said with disdain.

Duan Yan was momentarily stunned before he said, “Frau… A fraudster?”

“Specially, the more ignorant and backward the area, the easier it is for scammers to succeed. Often some small trick can convince others, so the primitive tribe’s rituals and shamans have a lot of say.”

“I didn’t mean that. Why do you think he’s a fraudster?”

“A person wearing a white ceramic mask and using an electronic voice changer—do you think he’s very scary?”

“Yes, it feels mysterious. Could he be our acquaintance and don’t want us to recognize him?”

“What you said is one possibility. But you can see that everyone here is familiar with him, which means he has always been dressed this way, so this kind of mystery is the feeling he deliberately created, mainly supported by acting and costumes, not by his own character.”

Hearing this, Duan Yang plucked up the courage and said, “Do you have any evidence?”

Lin Chen found it funny. Few people distrusted his judgment so much, but he still nodded and said, “Do you remember the office outside that we just passed by?”

“Is that his office?”

“Yes.” Looking at the young man’s puzzled face, he took the initiative to say, “There’s a photo of him and probably the leader of the militants hanging on the wall of the office, so I can basically be sure of this.” Lin Chen coughed lightly and continued, “But what I want to talk about is not his office, which looks like a pig’s nest, but the whiteboard on the wall.”

“I remember.”

“Can you understand what was written on the whiteboard?”

Duan Yang shook his head and said honestly, “It should be something like a chemical formula for calculation, but I’m not a chemistry major, so I can’t understand it.”

“That’s not his calculation formula, but a formula he found somewhere, copied it on the whiteboard, and pretended to bluff people on purpose,” Lin Chen explained to Duan Yang, who was still squatting in front of him. “The flow of writing when copying and writing normally is different. Generally, if we do a fluent calculation, pauses will appear at the end of each formula, but he often stops after writing half of a chemical formula and lets the pen stay on the whiteboard for a while to look at what he wants to copy before continuing to write. If you have a chance to walk out of this lab, you can pay attention to some prominent ink marks.”

“I understand.” Duan Yang pondered for a moment, then suddenly became serious. “If that is indeed a fraudster, then it all makes sense. The fraudster must have used some method to make the leader of the militants believe in him, so he was put in charge of the entire laboratory. He had been working smoothly before, but one day, the militant leader decided to collaborate with Zhorui Pharmaceutical to research a new type of drug. Originally, the research results should have been shared, and the armed group would certainly have sent someone to supervise the entire research. However, driven by the huge profits from drugs and pharmaceuticals, the people at Zhorui Pharmaceutical saw that the person sent to supervise them was a fool, so they decided to deceive their partner. As the person behind the research, the mask man could only resort to desperate measures and keep abducting people to complete the drug research.”

“Congratulations,” Lin Chen said lightly.

“What?”

“Even you can make up stories.”

“Consultant Lin, don’t make fun of me.”

“No, I’m really complimenting you,” Lin Chen said seriously. “Some investigations are carried out meticulously in order to find clear evidence and gradually piece together the truth. But sometimes, you don’t have any evidence. All you have are scattered fragments. In that case, you have to look for a possibility that connects all the pieces and roughly reconstruct the truth of the event.”

“It’s the same as our doctor diagnosing intractable diseases,” Duan Yang said.

“I’m very pleased that you can understand my analogy,” Lin Chen said half-jokingly. “But there is another important reason why he looks for people from China instead of other countries.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s also from China. In this place full of Dana language, he’s the only one who can communicate with us, and basically doesn’t have to worry about us snitching on him.”

“I understand.” Duan Yang was stunned for a moment. “But you suddenly mentioned this because it’s very important.”

“Of course it’s important,” Lin Chen said. “But Mr. Duan, I’m still a patient. I have to sleep for a bit before I tell you why this is important.”

---

Kinky Thoughts:

Well, that explains why the mask guy thinks they can reverse engineer a drug in 3 days. Also, Lin Chen needs to stop speaking in tongues. No normal human can follow that train of thought, my dude.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 186

Xing Conglian gently waved away the smell of rotting corpses in the air and looked at the person walking at the end of the corridor.

The setting sun in the rainforest fell from the ceiling, and the orange-yellow light brought by it sprinkled on that person, giving the figure a strange sense of sacredness. However, Xing Conglian felt it was probably due to the person’s identity having some kind of bonus.

Because the visitor was actually in tatters and was leaning on a wooden cane. He had dark skin and looked more like a farmer returning from the fields than an expert scholar, but this was indeed the second purpose of his trip.

In the ranch medical station, he was entrusted to find someone; a respectable and handsome doctor who was a resident of the Gaomeng Tribe. The doctor’s name was Duan Wanshan, and he was the legendary founder of the basic medical system in the Dana Region. Because he was so handsome, countless doctors from all over the world were inspired by him to come to the Dana Region and assist in healthcare.

But…

Xing Conglian looked at the person standing in front of him and felt that this person seemed to be a little bit too far from the word handsome; just like the gap between a buyer’s expectation and reality on Taobao.

But at this moment, the man who looked like a farmer walked up to him, stood up straight, bowed slightly, and extended a hand to him. “Hello.”

Xing Conglian had a cigarette in his mouth. He reached out his hand to shake hands with the person. As the sunlight fell, there was a feeling of a successful reunion after a long journey of thousands of miles.

When Xing Conglian retracted his hand, the doctor in front of him staggered slightly, barely managing to maintain his standing position.

Xing Conglian looked down and noticed that the doctor’s pant legs were in tatters; the left leg was rolled up to the knee while the right was completely down, making it difficult to see the condition of his legs, but Xing Conglian was sure he saw faint dark brown stains adhered to his right ankle.

There was even some viscous liquid dripping down his ankle.

Xing Conglian frowned and asked, “What do you want?”

……

Lin Chen felt that what he heard just now was unbelievable.

To summarize, the weirdo wearing the white ceramic mask that was standing in front of him and Duan Yang explained that the reason why he kidnapped them to Dana was because he needed them to complete an unfinished research on a neurotoxic drug. The time limit was three days, and if they couldn’t complete it, then they would become food for the rhesus monkeys, just like their predecessors.

The rhesus monkeys in the cages squeaked horribly, as if welcoming them as food. Factually speaking, rhesus monkeys were basically vegetarians, so eating human flesh may not be so pleasant for them.

As they continued on their journey, the kidnapping case became increasingly bizarre, as if it were a scene from a spy thriller movie. If they added in underground passage crossing or special forces helicopter rappelling, then for just 9.9 yuan, he could watch this strange and bizarre film through group purchasing.

But this time, Duan Yang’s reaction was faster than his.

The young man asked, “How did you find us, and why do you think we can complete this research?”

Lin Chen felt relieved as these questions hit the bullseye.

The masked weirdo laughed, making the inorganic electronic sound harsh.

“You don’t need to know this.” He stretched out his hand and pointed to the vast monkey cage around him. “The materials are all here.”

Duan Yang showed a sick look in his eyes. “Even if you want to make us the drug, are you going to give us the chemical composition analysis?”

“There is no such thing,” the masked weirdo responded and chuckled.

Duan Yang asked incredulously, “You’re asking us to create a drug out of thin air?”

“Doesn’t all scientific research start from scratch? Besides, you have my babies.”

Duan Yang frowned, thought for a moment, then replied, “You mean, some of the monkeys here have been fed poisonous products, but some have not. We need to find out which ones have been fed the poisonous products and analyze their blood composition?”

“I’m not responsible for answering your questions.”

“Okay, we can do it, but there is a requirement,” Duan Yang said.

“Do you think you’re qualified to make a request?”

“My shixiong is injured. He’s the leading figure in drug research, so I want hydrogen peroxide, iodine, and aztreonam to save him…” Duan Yang heavily emphasized. “If something happens to my shixiong, I’ll definitely not be able to complete the research, and you’ll need to find someone else.”

Lin Chen watched the young man lie without even blinking.

The masked man stood there and looked at them solemnly for a while. “Write down what you want.”

Duan Yang immediately pulled out a piece of paper from the side of a cage and quickly wrote down those life-saving items. He tore off the paper and handed it over.

The masked weirdo looked at the paper and stuffed it in his pocket. “I hope we have a happy cooperation.

Duan Yang nodded. “But where are we going to experiment? I don’t see any centrifuges inside the lab. I need a complete medical laboratory.”

The other party threw a key over, pointed to the door at the end of the monkey room, then turned around and left.

Lin Chen saw a contemplative flash on the young man’s face.

“Wait!” Suddenly, he spoke again and stopped the masked weirdo.

The other party didn’t look back.

Duan Yang raised his voice. “Even if I extract the corresponding toxin ingredients from the monkey blood, that doesn’t mean it can be used by humans. Drug research itself is a very complicated process.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have someone.” The ending tone of the masked man slightly rose. “We have everything you need.”

……

Xing Conglian saw many people.

In the large space on the second floor of the factory building, there were densely packed Gaomeng people. The windows of the factory building were covered with curtains, and those curtains looked more like patchwork or various colorful clothes and scraps of fabric.

Xing Conglian looked away. The number of people present was about five to six hundred, and everyone had reached the end of their strength. Men and women were naked, and everyone had a decayed expression and a dead silence on their faces. The air on the second floor was cleaner than that of the “morgue” on the first floor, but it wasn’t much better. The smell of so many people who haven’t bathed for a few days was terrible enough, not to mention that most of the men present had injuries on their bodies, and the air was filled with the sour smell of rotting flesh.

However, when they saw outsiders like them, the Gaomeng people became vigilant, and their faces showed the hateful eyes that those gun-wielding soldiers had shown before, with an obvious will to prefer death to surrender.

Xing Conglian pushed on the door with one hand, looked at the gray-faced doctor beside him, and said, “Mr. Duan, as I said just now, I’m here to find someone.” He continued, “Mr. Duan, I have already made it clear that I came here primarily to find my people, not to save lives or treat the injured.”

Duan Wanshan said, “I know. I’m also taking you to find your subordinate, but I just need to pass by here.”

As he spoke, he leaned weakly on his crutch and limped into the crowd. “I know you don’t care about the Gaomeng people at all since you haven’t asked us how we were forced into this situation, but the truth of the matter may be different from what you think.”

Xing Conglian looked at the painful but persistent faces and then at the back of the doctor in front of him.

Although Duan Wanshan looked seriously injured, he was full of energy when he spoke. Xing Conglian was forced to follow him and listen to his nonsense.

“First, it’s fake news saying that the Gaomeng people organized a massacre.”

“How do you know it’s fake news?” Xing Conglian asked.

“Because I released the news,” Duan Wanshan replied simply.

“Why?”

While speaking, they had already passed through the crowd and walked to the window. Duan Wanshan lifted a pair of trousers from the window, then quickly moved out of the way.

Suddenly, a whistling bullet blasted through the air, shattering the glass and piercing where he originally was before finally embedding itself into the opposite wall.

“What’s why.”

Even Xing Conglian was startled. He raised his brows and instantly understood the other’s meaning. However, it was still unpleasant to have someone suddenly tear off this veil of shame in front of him.

“I have been in Dana for many years. I understand the rules of the game in the international community too well. Zaratul is just a puppet for big countries to control the Dana Region. In 1998, 2006, and 2013, Zaratul held three confrontations here. Did anyone care about the massacre of the aborigines?” Duan Wanshan said calmly. “Maybe the international community will pay a little attention to the massacre of aborigines, but if it’s Zaratul’s doing, they will just brush it under the rug, right?”

When he said these words, Duan Wanshan didn’t feel like that old farmer. The knowledge and insight revealed in his bones couldn’t be faked. Xing Conglian rarely felt like being held by the neck and being told to “just stand by and watch” by someone. He irritably spat out the cigarette he had just lit and stepped on it. “Okay, I’m not secretary general of the United Nations. It’s not my job to deal with things like genocide.”

Duan Wanshan leaned on his crutches, tapped the ground, turned around, and walked towards the room on the other side.

“But you have to take care of this matter.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons.” Duan Wanshan’s voice became low and steady this time. “First, I save your men, so you have to repay me.”

“Former subordinates,” Xing Conglian emphasized. “The problem is that if it weren’t for you, my former subordinates, including myself, wouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

“That’s why I have another reason.” Duan Wanshan took him to the doors of several rooms. He took out a key, unlocked the chain on the first door, and walked in.

There was a small light in the room. Naturally, it was impossible to have such a thing as an electric light in a place like an abandoned mine, so the light came from a field military lighting equipment that Xing Conglian was somewhat familiar with.

The light illuminated most of the indoor space, and there were only two people in the room. One was sitting, and the other was lying flat on the ground.

The moment he saw the man lying on the ground, Kang An, who had been following him, suddenly rushed over like crazy, but before approaching the other party, he suddenly braked and became cautious. He only dared touch the other’s cheek lightly with his fingers and softly call, “Xiao Wu…”

Xing Conglian was angry to the point that he wasn’t able to speak.

The two people in the room opened their eyes at the same time. Xing Conglian obviously saw that the faces of the two invariably showed a “gone through hell” expression.

Xiao Wu, who was lying on the ground, jumped up and pushed Kang An away. He rushed up to Xing Conglian and said in a daze, “Boss, why are you here?!”

“You ask laozi, so who am I supposed to ask?” Facing the pale and concerned face of his former subordinate, Xing Conglian finally felt relieved.

“Sorry, I didn’t do a good job and bothered you,” Xiao Wu said respectfully.

“Boss, I thought I would never see you again in my life.” Xing Conglian lowered his eyes and found another person tugging at his pants while crying. “Why are your clothes so wet?”

Xing Conglian couldn’t help but kick him. “There are people outside. How do you think I got in?”

“From the river?”

Xing Conglian didn’t bother to answer. He beckoned with his hand at his subordinates and turned to walk outside the room.

There was no movement from the people in the room.

Wang Chao’s weak voice sounded. “Xiao Wu, Xiao Liu, let’s go.”

But the two people in the room stubbornly stood still.

Xing Conglian stopped and looked at the doctor standing by the door. “Maybe you don’t know much, but I really don’t like people forcing me to do things.”

“I would like you to hear my second reason why I’m asking for your help.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m about to die.”

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 185

Xing Conglian walked through the dark underground pipeline. At that time, he didn’t know that at a certain moment, Lin Chen and he were only separated by a wall.

As if he were aware of something, he stopped and raised his flashlight to illuminate the passage in front of him. The mining factory built by the British wasn’t so difficult to traverse. Most of the areas have maintained their appearance from the original blueprint, except for some creatures that were not within the scope of the plan.

In the damp and dark abandoned pipeline, a three-colored spearhead viper nestled in front of it.

Wang Chao was so frightened that he almost screamed.

Xing Conglian’s hand was stuck to the wall of the cement pipe, touching a greasy moss. He looked above his head and suddenly felt palpitations. A chill began to permeate his entire body from his chest, and a layer of goosebumps soon appeared on his arms.

He paused for a while, and Kang An squeezed in front of him and asked, “Boss, should I go?”

Xing Conglian ignored him. He recovered, drew out his dagger, and took a half step forward.  He stepped on the tail of the snake with one foot and pinched the slippery snake’s body with his other hand. The knife fell and blood spattered, then they continued to move forward.

……

In the cellar of the mine.

When Lin Chen’s consciousness was about to blur, he vaguely felt that someone was looking at him.

At that time, he was resting on Duan Yang’s lap. Duan Yang had already fallen asleep. His breathing was rapid as various chaotic images filled his head. Most of the images were related to Xing Conglian, as his consciousness no longer had the strength to restrain his subconscious.

There was a sound of breathing around that didn’t belong to him or Duan Yang. He could only open his eyes slightly. Through the thin, dim light, he saw someone standing in front of the iron cage and staring at them.

He woke up instantly.

The person outside the cage was wearing a long robe, and only after he looked closely did he realize it was a white coat, but the uniform was too long, as it went all the way down to the ankles. The person wrapped in the robe was too thin, making him look like a child who had stolen the clothes of an adult.

Lin Chen rubbed his forehead and moved his eyes with difficulty to the face of the visitor. At first glance, he simply wanted to curse. The other party was wearing a pure white mask on his face, and there were two drops of bright red blood that resembled tears falling from the eye socket, making him look like some kind of ghost.

Probably because he moved too much, Duan Yang also woke up. The moment he saw the figure outside the cage, the young man screamed, “Ah, what the hell?!”

Duan Yang’s voice seemed to awaken the sleeping beasts underground. Suddenly, many cages around them roared, and the iron cages shook, making loud clanging sounds.

“Shh.”

The masked man moved his index finger closer to his lips. What came from behind the mask was a pure electronic sound, with an inorganic coldness but also a sense of lightness that mocked everything.

Lin Chen sat up straight. He felt that Dana was a place full of insanity. Although he was dressed like a ghost, the one in front of him was still human.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

After he finished speaking, he felt that it was stupid. This wasn’t China. Speaking Chinese to the other party was equivalent to him talking to a duck.

But suddenly, he really heard the long-lost, pure Chinese. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Come… Come with me…”

The cell opened, and militants guarding the cellar pulled them out of the iron cage and walked out.

……

From the sewer to the designated location, they only traveled for about 15 minutes.

Very faint light poured down from the drain, and there was a rotten smell in the air that was different from that of underground water pipes.

They were blocked by iron fences. Kang An took out tools and wanted to remove the fence. Xing Conglian pushed the man behind him and kicked away the rusty railing in front of him with one foot.

The iron railing flew out and slammed to the ground, causing dust to kick up. Then they proceeded to crawl out of the pipe.

After a loud noise, there were running sounds on the floor, as if someone had heard movement and rushed down.

The floor was shaking non-stop. Taking advantage of the gap before an encounter, Xing Conglian didn’t choose to take out his gun. Instead, he took out a cigarette case from his wet, waterproof pocket and lit it.

The sound of dense footsteps came from around the corner and were approaching quickly. When it approached the door, a black barrel from a gun went through the door first.

After tracking the Gaomeng people for a whole week, they finally saw a bewildered rainforest warrior.

Wang Chao was holding his laptop to cover his chest and said to the Gaomeng man who was holding a gun in front of him, “Ah… Good afternoon!”

Xing Conglian took a puff of his cigarette, shook the ash, and said in Gaomengnese, “Take me to see your chief.”

……

Lin Chen’s footsteps were soft, but he had to pretend that he wasn’t in a terrible state.

With one hand on Duan Yang’s shoulder, he examined the scene in front of him.

To be honest, if he hadn’t been quite so sure that he was kidnapped deep into the Dana Rainforest, he would have thought he was visiting some kind of national laboratory.

There was only white in front of him, and under the incandescent lights was a space about the size of two basketball courts. Many people in white lab coats were busy inside the automatic door. No one would have thought that in the depths of the dilapidated and collapsed abandoned mine there would be such an advanced laboratory.

There was a weird smell of plastic in the air.

The staff of the laboratory handed over a full set of dust-proof suits. Lin Chen’s eyes kept staring at the ghostly masked man. The other party turned around and looked at them through the door, as if he were smiling at them.

He and Duan Yang were forced to stop at the door and put on light blue dust proof clothing. The moment he put on the mask, the blocked breathing made him feel as if his whole body was burning.

“Consultant Lin, where is this?”

Only then did Duan Yang recover from shock, as he asked tremblingly.

“A laboratory.”

“I know it’s a laboratory, but where is there such a huge lab here? Who’s funding this?”

The sliding door opened. The staff in the laboratory were obviously of high caliber. They just buried their heads in their work without even looking at them.

“You’re asking me, so who should I ask?” Lin Chen coughed lowly as he gave a rhetorical reply.

“I… Then what are they doing with us?” After Duan Yang finished his sentence, he hurriedly covered his mouth. “I won’t ask. I won’t ask.”

While talking, they passed an experimental table with some testers analyzing some kind of pure powder.

“Do you recognize these testing equipment and what they are used for?” Lin Chen grabbed Duan Yang’s arm and asked in a low voice.

“It seems they are meteorological chromatography, mass spectrometers, distillation towers…”

“What type of lab is this probably?”

“This should be a chemistry lab.”

“Huh?” Lin Chen paused. Thinking of the reason why Duan Yang was kidnapped, he asked, “Drug research lab?”

“I don’t think so. There are no centrifuges here…”

Lin Chen shook his head. He looked at the focused gaze beside the lab table and realized that his previous cognition was actually a little problematic. This place that looked like a laboratory might not actually be one. It should be a chemical factory.

Given that it was a chemical factory deep in the three-way zone, Lin Chen didn’t need to look at the scientific names of those powders to guess what they were.

He gently rubbed the ring with his hand as he thought of the middle-aged man who died unexpectedly and tragically as a stowaway, and the identity of the other party gradually became clear.

However, he was probably confused. He felt that although things were gradually being revealed, it was too confusing.

……

Xing Conglian had seen many miserable scenes, so the corpse in front of him wasn’t so terrifying.

In a warehouse on the first floor of the factory, there were more than a dozen corpses on the floor, most of which were young men whose bodies had been mutilated. Because the rainforest climate wasn’t conducive to storing corpses, many of them were already covered with white maggots and had a foul smell.

Wang Chao covered his mouth and nose in fright. He pressed his face tightly into his backpack. Xing Conglian looked away and then looked at the soldiers, who were pointing submachine guns at them.

The other party looked like he was going to kill them here and add them to the corpse pile.

“Bo… Boss…”

Wang Chao’s voice was tinged with sobs. Xing Conglian looked towards the corner where the teenager was pointing, only to find a young, naked Gaomeng boy sleeping in the corner of the corpse pile.

Xing Conglian sighed inaudibly.

The bald-headed bar owner started to go crazy at the door of the warehouse. He howled and wanted to rush in like crazy, causing the soldiers of the Gaomeng Tribe armed with firearms to nervously point their muzzles at them.

Kang An unlocked the safety of his gun and stood at the front.

“How many people are there upstairs?” Xing Conglian asked, throwing down his cigarette butt and stamping it out.

He didn’t know how he had offended these barbarians. In short, the other party became angrier, and their dark fingers tightened on the trigger.

At this moment, a weak voice came from the end of the dilapidated corridor in the distance. “Stop!”

Following the sound of footsteps, Xing Conglian looked in that direction and saw a person walking slowly against the sunlight.

……

After a short walk through the laboratory, Lin Chen and Duan Yang came to the last office area.

The style of the office was completely different from the cleanliness of the laboratory. It was full of all kinds of garbage. There was an old tire on the desk, paper scraps were everywhere, and a white magnetic board that was covered with black ink that scribbled out various complex chemical formulas that, at Lin Chen’s level, he couldn’t understand.

Therefore, he could only look at the masked man in front of him with more focus. The two traces of blood tears on the other’s mask were even more glaring under the incandescent light.

With a height of about 160 cm, a weight of 45 kg, and a shoe size of 6.5, he should be left-handed. Apart from this, Lin Chen found he couldn’t see any other characteristics of the other party, including gender.

He looked at the handwriting on the whiteboard again, then at the masked man, and couldn’t help frowning slightly.

“Let’s talk,” he said.

“Hee hee.” A mechanical cold laugh came from behind the mask. The man turned his head and pushed open the back door of the office.

Duan Yang couldn’t help screaming again and grabbed Lin Chen’s hand vigorously.

Lin Chen narrowed his eyes and looked into the dim space. Behind the door were countless small iron cages that he couldn’t see the end from a glance.

Inside the cages were taupe wild monkeys. Those monkeys had pink faces. When he was in college, Lin Chen had specially studied this kind of monkey. Their scientific name was rhesus macaque, and they were an important species used in scientific experiments in various countries around the world. A single rhesus monkey costs more than 10,000 yuan in the international market, so the value of nearly a hundred experimental monkeys in this lab alone was worth millions. Probably only in places like the Dana Rainforest could there be such an unscrupulous supply of monkeys.

The thin, masked man stopped in front of a cage.

The light shone on his pale mask. “Giving you a choice. Do something for me or be chopped into feed and fed to my babies.”

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 184

“Boss, can you please not speak with a tone that suggests any restaurant would do for dinner tonight?” Wang Chao took two steps back, almost wanting his boss to see how many armed militants were surrounding the factory building.

Zaratul’s men were not grazing sheep. They were all bloodthirsty, inhumane individuals. Although those militants were now picking their feet and smoking behind the bunker, Wang Chao had no doubt that as soon as they revealed any trace of their presence, they would be shot into pieces by their assault rifles.

“Is there a difference?” Xing Conglian exhaled a mouthful of smoke and said, “If you don’t want to go in, we can leave now.”

“But boss, why do we have to go in by ourselves? Can’t we think of other ways?”

“It’s too late.” Xing Conglian shook the ashes from his cigarette. “The Gaomeng Tribe has been besieged there for at least 48 hours. Why don’t you think Zaratul just rush in and kill them?”

“Why?” Kang An asked. “Boss, I don’t understand this matter anymore. Why did the high-ranking Gaomeng Tribe, who were once killers, become the target of massacre? How did the Gaomeng Tribe provoke Zaratul and be driven here? Why is Zaratul besieging and trapping the Gaomeng people here instead of attacking them?”

His boss looked at Kang An and pointed to his face and asked, “Do I look like an encyclopedia?”

“Boss, I’m really confused. Please tell me,” Kang An said stubbornly.

Xing Conglian said, “Zaratul spent so much time driving the Gaomeng people here for only one reason. Their boss wants to catch them alive.”

“Boss, it feels like you have a long-standing relationship with Zaratul,” Wang Chao suddenly said.

“Fuck off.” Xing Conglian even had a layer of frost on his brows. He seemed to have the momentum of quickly flattening Zaratul, then leaving.

Comrade Xiao Wang, who was glared at, didn’t dare speak again. “Find the blueprint of that factory.” His boss changed his foot on the stake and hooked his fingers at him.

There were only four of them; a useless technical dog, a brainless bar owner, and a mentally ill person who only had love on his brain. Only his boss, the lovelorn dog, was all the combat power left. But how could one person be worth a thousand? He could only say, “Boss, this is an illegal building at first glance. I might not be able to find blueprints online!”

“Cut the crap.”

Comrade Wang Chao swallowed his saliva and didn’t dare talk nonsense anymore. His hands were flying, cackling the keyboard for a long time, until he finally dared to say, “Boss… I really can’t.”

Hearing this, his boss raised his binoculars, scanned the abandoned sign at the entrance of the factory, and said, ‘This should be a mine built by the British. It has the style of a Bredensen Mine. Look online for a similar model.”

“Oh!” Comrade Xiao Wang’s eyes lit up. Soon, a similar factory floor plan was laid out in front of him. Looking at the similar factory layout on the drawing, he almost wanted to kneel and call his boss dad. “Boss, it’s really there!”

As he spoke, he turned the screen around and looked up at his boss.

In short, he didn’t know what his boss was looking at. After about ten seconds, his boss nodded, turned his head, and walked back.

Wang Chao hurriedly closed the laptop, but Kang An had followed after Xing Conglian before him.

“Boss, how do we get in? You can’t just leave us like this. Xiao Wu may be with the Gaomeng people inside there!”

When Wang Chao heard this, he wanted to pick up his notebook and smack Kang An unconscious.

Soon, they were back at the Dana River again. His boss glanced at the river, then tilted his head and said to Kang An, “Go down.”

As expected, there would be casualties!

Kang An let out an aggrieved sigh and said, “Me… Why?”

“Didn’t you ask how we’re going to get in?”

While speaking, his boss also began to take off his shoes slowly. “The mines have sewage treatment systems, and the drainage outlet is in the Dana River. We’ll enter through the drainage outlet.”

“Boss, what you say makes sense. Why didn’t I think of it?” Hearing this, Kang An began to take off his clothes without hesitation.

Wang Chao looked at the wide and turbid river in front of him. The sound of rumbling water rushed toward his face. He then looked back at the Zaratul militants patrolling in the sun in the distance. Those dark guns were illuminated coldly under the sun, but he felt as if the two men undressing in front of him were completely dismissive of it.

“Boss, I… I’m not going in, right?”

“Yes.” Xing Conglian’s answer was straightforward.

Just as Wang Chao wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, he heard his boss say, “There are no wolves in the rainforest, so you won’t die.”

Comrade Xiao Wang trembled with fright. Thinking of the many sinister legends of the Dana Rainforest, he wept. He took out his waterproof bag from his backpack and began to pack his electronic equipment. His boss and Comrade Kang An, who was mentally handicapped, each picked out some lightweight firearms and packed them in waterproof bags. In the end, when the three of them had finished packing their things, the Gaomeng man, who had been watching the entire thing, stared at him bewildered.

“Boss Xing, are we going to sneak into the factory from the water?”

“Oh, keep up and don’t get lost,” Xing Conglian said as he picked up his backpack and carried it on his back.

Kang An was also ready to make final preparations before going into the water. “Boss, I only have one last question. If the Gaomeng people are besieged by Zaratul, why don’t they ask for help? Why didn’t anyone come save them?”

“Why didn’t they ask for me?” Xing Conglian sneered.

“Who would they call?”

“You.”

Before his voice fell, his boss had already jumped into the water first.

……

Lin Chen developed a fever before arriving in Dana that evening.

The gauze attached to his palm had been torn off by Duan Yang long ago, and the sutures began to fester. It was no longer itchy, leaving only the pain of corroding flesh behind. The wound was exposed to the rain and passed through a cabin full of bacteria. With little sleep in the past few days, it wasn’t surprising that it became infected.

Before the helicopter landed, there was a vast expanse of greenery outside the porthole. He remembered the words Mrs. Jiang used to describe the Dana Region and felt that she was indeed a student of science. Her choice of words wasn’t exaggerated, but he didn’t expect that he would set foot on this land one day and in such a bizarre way.

As Duan Yang helped him out of the helicopter, the propeller fanned the reddish-brown sand all around them, causing them to choke and cough involuntarily.

What was even more bizarre than kidnapping them to Dana was that there was still an abandoned factory in the rainforest area. Lin Chen looked around, and through the gaps in the dust, he could see armed men with guns. There were things around the abandoned factory buildings that he couldn’t name, so he considered them to be rockets.

With guns pressed against them, they bypassed two factory buildings and were escorted to a place close to the river.

Lin Chen looked up. Half of the factory building had collapsed, and the corroded and rusted tower cranes traversed the middle of the factory building.

Just when he was worried about sheltering from the rain, someone casually pulled the planks off the ground and pushed them into the cellar.

Their trip was probably related to dark, confined spaces.

There were only two dim wall lamps in the cellar, illuminating the entire long corridor. On both sides of the corridor were iron cages for holding wild animals. Some cages were empty, while others had people locked up. The lights were too dim, so he could barely see the blurry figure crawling in the cage along with some dried things that he didn’t know were blood or vomit.

The sound of iron chains was heard as someone opened an iron door. It seemed he and Duan Yang were confined together in the same cage.

They sat on a pile of haystacks. The surroundings were damp and sultry, and he could hardly see Duan Yang’s face clearly.

He leaned against the cage. The previous short walk had exhausted his last trace of physical strength. Lin Chen didn’t know if it was because he was suffering from a fever, but he felt the air he sucked into his lungs was terribly hot.

Duan Yang pushed him, measuring his heartbeat with one hand and stroking his forehead with the other, as he did to the unidentified middle-aged man in the dark cabin of the fishing boat.

Lin Chen gently touched the iron ring in his hand and heard Duan Yang’s voice full of worry. “Consultant Lin, close your eyes and rest for a while.” The young man stretched out his leg and said to him, “It’ll be more comfortable for you to use my lap as a pillow.

Lin Chen finally knew that getting sick couldn’t be avoided by being mentally strong. He didn’t refuse and laid down. The moment his body touched the cold iron bars, he felt a throbbing pain all over.

He coughed lightly.

“Consultant Lin, you told me about your ‘tips’, but in fact, you don’t believe in it at all, do you?” Duan Yang asked.

Since they were in a foreign territory, naturally they couldn’t talk about the conspiracy of a multinational pharmaceutical company or the undercover encounter on the fishing boat. They could only say irrelevant things casually. Of course, the most critical issue was that, in a desperate situation, the details of right and wrong weren’t really important.

“Of course. Do I look like the coaxing type?” Lin Chen replied.

“No, but I think what the book says may make sense. Why don’t you try to believe it, and if you persist, I think we can escape?”

“Duan Yang.” Lin Chen looked at the wrinkled face in front of him and said, “You make me feel as if my life is in danger, but it’s not that easy for me to die.”

“After listening to the tips you told me, I have always had a very strong feeling.”

“You think you’re going to see your teacher?”

“Yes.” Duan Yang’s tone was firm.

“Using hints with your intuition isn’t effective on me. I’m not the type that’s easily influenced by suggestion.”

“Consultant Lin.” Duan Yang was suddenly discouraged, and his scowling face got tighter.

“What?”

“Why are you so difficult?” Duan Yang said almost at a loss.

Lin Chen laid on the ground and laughed. Duan Yang was really cute. If he could stay with such an interesting person in the last period of his life, it wouldn’t be too boring. At least it was better than trying to avoid thinking about things that would make him feel regret, such as Xing Conglian.

“Your expression is wrong,” Duan Yang said.

Lin Chen changed his posture and laid on his side. “If your wound hurts to death like mine and you have a high fever and can’t get treatment, your expression will be the same as mine.”

“You’re being too negative, Consultant Lin. There’s no one you especially want to meet? Can’t you persevere?”

“Yes.”

“Then think about that person, okay? As long as you will it, they might show up!”

“Not good.”

“Why?”

“It’s nothing. I’d rather he not be here and not know these things,” Lin Chen said calmly.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

Well, if there’s a will, there’s a way…

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 183

After the little doctor finished speaking, the ship they were on suddenly touched something.

Everyone in the cabin shook violently.

“What’s the matter? Did we hit some rocks?” Duan Yang grabbed Lin Chen’s hand and instantly changed back to the nervous little doctor he was familiar with.

“It shouldn’t be.”

The sound of the motor stopped, and the footsteps above their heads became clearly audible, making everyone silent.

Suddenly, a piercing sound of drilling rang out on the deck above their heads. In the dark space, the sound seemed to echo in everyone’s head, causing all the stowaways to shrink back to the corner in fright. Duan Yang raised his head subconsciously as Lin Chen said, “Close your eyes.”

The next moment, there was a loud clicking sound, followed by the wooden boards being opened. The bright light from the sky poured down from above their heads.

The sudden light after more than ten hours of darkness made Lin Chen’s eyes sting. He covered his eyes and heard someone walking down to the cabin from the deck.

“Wake up. We’re getting off the boat,” the visitor shouted in a drawn-out tone.

Lin Chen’s eyes were barely opened when he saw someone holding a gun and kicked the middle-aged man who had passed away. There was no response from his feet. The man reached out his hand and tried to slap the middle-aged man to see if he could wake him, but was hugged tightly by a frightened villager.

“Please, save my brother. My brother could still be saved!”

“What, he’s dead?” The gunman probed the middle-aged man’s nose and then pressed against the middle-aged man’s neck, then suddenly stopped. “Damn, he’s really dead. What bad luck.”

There was no other emotion in his tone except impatience. It sounded like he was regretting that an animal had died early before the sale rather than a living person.

Some people in the cabin began to sob softly again. Their voices were low, but no one dared ask, “Why are you treating us like this?!”

At this time, any question would seem foolish as the breath of death was spreading like a virus.

Another person went down from the deck to the cabin. The person was wearing a loose-fitting green military uniform with shoulder insignia loosely fastened. He kicked the middle-aged man on the ground, cursed something, then bent down and forcefully lifted him onto his shoulder. The middle-aged man’s relative kneeled beside the body and wailed loudly, but someone hit him on the shoulder with the butt of a gun and told him to quickly catch up with the rest of the group.

Lin Chen deliberately fell behind with Duan Yang. The red-eyed, dark-skinned villager stumbled to their side and sobbed. “My brother’s life is too hard. How did he end up in such a mess like this?”

The salty, wet, and bright sea breeze slowly poured in. Lin Chen felt himself being pushed to stand up and followed the group to the deck.

Sure enough, the ship had already docked on the pier. He looked around. On one side was the long coastline. On the other side was the blue transparent sea with white seagulls in the sky, looking as if they had landed on some kind of expensive resort island. However, they saw the obvious dilapidated military vehicles and barricades on the distant coast, as well as the soldiers lazily basking in the sun, which indicated this wasn’t in fact a resort island. In their neighboring country, Xinni, there had been a group of idle rebels occupying a small area of the coastal region from south to north of Xinni for more than ten years. For various reasons, Xinni hadn’t yet been able to capture this area. It turned out that they had arrived in Li Jingtian’s home country. Lin Chen looked at the darkened reef ahead and sneered.

The villager was talking behind them. Suddenly, Lin Chen stopped. “What did you just say?”

“I… I didn’t say anything?”

At this time, Duan Yang asked, “You just said, that uncle just now, his parents have already passed away?”

“Yes, they passed away a long time ago. My poor brother is probably confused due to illness, so he thought my uncle and aunt were here.”

Hearing this, Duan Yang seemed to think of something. He put his hand in his pocket and grabbed Lin Chen. There was some commotion on the starboard side of the deck. The dead body of the middle-aged man was exposed to the sun on the deck. Two fishermen had spread a large net, wrapping the body from head to toe, then casually threw it into the sea, with one person holding the head and the other the legs. Seeing this scene, Lin Chen felt a ringing in his ears. He could hardly hear the loud wailing, but the moment the body was thrown into the sea, it left a deep impression on him.

There were stones tied to the fishing net that were wrapped around the body. As the body that had lost its soul flew into the sea, it made a parabola and then sank straight into the water.

Everyone on the boat looked towards where the body was dumped, and at this moment, Duan Yang took Lin Chen’s hand.

“Consultant Lin, did you know that only a simple operation is needed to save that uncle?”

His words were somewhat inexplicable, and what was even more inexplicable were Duan Yang’s actions.

He looked at the young man, and the other party gave him a bitter smile. After he said this, Duan Yang let go of his hand and walked forward as if nothing had happened.

Lin Chen was terrified. There was a small and warm ring clinging to his palm, which was quietly handed over by Duan Yang just now when he took the opportunity to speak to him.

Lin Chen didn’t dare look at it in the crowd. God knew what Duan Yang suddenly handed over. Taking advantage of the opportunity to line up to go ashore, he and Duan Yang fell to the end again.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I just found it in my pocket.”

“Is it yours?”

“I don’t remember having it in my pocket. It was probably stuffed into it by the dead uncle before he died.”

“How did you know?”

“I remembered that when the uncle was talking about his parents, he seemed to put his hand on my trousers. What do you think this means, Consultant Lin?”

Lin Chen thought, ‘How could I possibly know what this means? Being kidnapped is bad enough, but encountering a sudden death of a stowaway in the cabin and the weirdest thing was the stowaway told a lie before he died and quietly stuffed a circular, round thing that resembled a ring into your pocket. To make matters worse, you even gave me the thing. Why do I always stumble into these kinds of things?’

“Aren’t you a psychologist? Can’t you speculate on the dying psychology of that uncle?”

Lin Chen felt that his temper wasn’t very good since Xing Conglian left. Otherwise, he shouldn’t be as impatient as he was now when he heard what Duan Yang had just said. “I’m not a fortune teller.”

“But…”

“Think of it as the deathbed of a stowaway with delusional memories who handed you his family heirloom.”

“But you obviously know that this isn’t the case. That uncle… that uncle is very strange.”

“Why strange?”

“Perforation of the stomach is not a common disease in ocean voyages. How could he have a sudden perforation?” Duan Yang murmured.

“Stowaways, stomach perforation—why is it so uncommon?” Lin Chen asked back.

Duan Yang frowned. He lowered his voice and put his mouth close to Lin Chen’s ears. “Do you think there are drugs in his stomach, or he swallowed something hard before he left, which caused his stomach to perforate?”

“I don’t know. This should be your judgment as a doctor, but it shouldn’t be drugs.”

“Why?”

“Do you think traffickers who own this line still need to smuggle drugs through human flesh?”

“You’ve already guessed it!” Duan Yang gave him a depressed look.

“A person who still remembers to leave clues for you before he dies is mixed in with a bunch of stowaways. If it’s not a drug dealer, then who is he?”

“It can’t be an undercover agent, right?”

Duan Yang’s voice was so loud that Lin Chen couldn’t help but kick his calf. The young man staggered, and suddenly there was a strange look in his eyes. “What did he give me?”

“The size is either a family heirloom or a positioning device.” Lin Chen held the ring tightly in his hand. “This is just speculation, mainly to give you some confidence in your survival. Remember not to tell anyone about this thing. Fortunately, he secretly stuffed it into your pocket. If he had given it to you openly, would you have shouted it out loud for the whole world to know?”

As they spoke, they had already been taken to what looked like an 18^th– or 19^th– century transit station for human trafficking rather than a customs office. The two-story building by the small seaside had a few wooden tables where office workers sat with their feet up, while ceiling fans spun above. The room was crowded with smuggled immigrants from all directions, including men, women, and even people who looked like beggars. The officials inspected each person like they were inspecting livestock, and cries and resistance could be heard constantly. They would tear open women’s clothes, pinch their breasts, and haggle with the smugglers.

After a transaction was reached, the office staff took out a stamp and would stamp their “goods”; sometimes it would be on the face and sometimes on the back of their hands, indicating ownership.

Lin Chen and Duan Yang were taken out separately and sent to a table in the corner. There were python and jaguar flags on the table, and the office worker was sleeping there.

The person escorting them woke up the office staff and communicated in an unknown language for a long time. Suddenly, the office staff nodded, picked up the seal on the table, and stamped the backs of their hands.

Duan Yang rubbed the seal that had a python and jaguar pattern on his hand vigorously, only to find that the thing couldn’t be rubbed off. He said to Lin Chen with a sad face, “Consultant Lin, we have become pork in a meat factory.”

“Well, it’s still the kind that passed quarantine.”

“Please stop joking.”

They were taken out of the small building individually and finally came to a dilapidated military airfield.

A transport helicopter with rusty wings was waiting there, but the people sitting there weren’t the familiar people that were sitting in the cabin. On the contrary, there was a group of heavily armed mercenaries instead. Their eyes were sharp, and they raised their chins to look at Lin Chen and the others. Obviously, they were going to be transported to an unknown place with these mercenaries.

This showed two points. First, the place they were going was extremely dangerous. Second, the person who kidnapped them wanted them to arrive at their destination as soon as possible, so they chose helicopter transportation, which was much more expensive than sea transportation.

Lin Chen looked at Duan Yang’s face. He was afraid this young doctor, who had covered his mouth and nose because he was dissatisfied with the air in the cabin, didn’t know just how terrible the situation he was in.

He glanced at the blue sky and white clouds outside the window. Holding onto the relic of the middle-aged man who didn’t leave any name for him, his gaze finally fell on the blue stamp on the back of his hand.

……

Just as Lin Chen was scratching his head and thinking about the meaning of the python and jaguar pattern on the back of his hand, Xing Conglian was stepping on a tree stump, holding his binoculars, and looking coldly at Zaratul’s arrogant golden banner in the distance.

The python wrapped around the jaguar symbolize Zaratul’s own ambition to swallow an elephant, but this wasn’t the point. The point was that all entrances and exits around the mines were heavily guarded, and this place wasn’t like the rumored abandoned mines from long ago.

In the distance, smoke and dust rose, and low cement factories stretched endlessly, with some of them partially collapsed, revealing rusted cranes inside. Some intact factories seemed to have people coming in and out. There were even helicopters hovering from afar that landed within the mining area.

It was true that the abandonment of the mines was a fact, but the scale of vehicle access here within an hour showed that it wasn’t exactly as stated in the intelligence.

“Boss, this is… Is Zaratul engaged in a secret factory here?” Kang An’s uneasy voice sounded.

“Are the Gaomeng people really here? Is this a trap, like you said? Why did the militants in Zaratul drive all the Gaomeng people here?” These questions belonged to Wang Chao.

“Does it look like your boss is a fortune teller?” Xing Conglian impatiently.

“Boss Xing, where are my people? Are they dead? Why can’t I see them?” The bar owner also pulled on him and asked.

“There.” Xing Conglian stretched out his hand and replied casually, pointing at a dilapidated factory building in the distance.

Moda Nar snatched the binoculars and looked at them for a long time. “It seems there are many soldiers surrounding that factory building. Why do you think my people are locked there?”

“The places we passed along the way have already indicated the route of your people. They were driven here from east to northwest. They will inevitably encounter the long-awaited resistance of the Zaratul militants. Now that they have encountered resistance, your people will choose to find a bunker. If they aren’t killed, they will enter the factory to hide,” Xing Conglian answered.

“Fuck, does that mean those Zaratul bastards are besieging my people? I’m going to fight them!”

After the bar owner finished speaking, he rolled up his cuffs and rushed over.

Xing Conglian kicked the bar owner to the ground. “Sir, if you walk another fifty meters, you will be stepping on a minefield. Can you go court death on your own and not drag laozi into it?”

The bar owner was so scared that he hurriedly crawled back.

“Boss, what are we going to do now? If the Gaomeng people are really trapped in that factory, what’s going on?” Wang Chao asked.

“God knows. Since we’re here, let’s go in and take a look.” Xing Conglian glanced at Kang An, who took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth.

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 182

Wang Chao didn’t understand.

However, he looked up the mine pointed out by his boss, which was indeed once one of Zaratul’s industries. In recent years, all the rare metals there had been dug up, and the mining area was abandoned as a result.

He didn’t know how his boss deduced that Zaratul would drive the entire Gaomeng Tribe to the mining area. This matter was essentially unreasonable, but what was reason in a broken place like Dana? Perhaps Zaratul just wanted to take their men to play with human lives on a whim, so they decided to flatten the Gaomeng Tribe, which wasn’t impossible.

In short, it was right to trust his boss’ judgment. As a good dog leg, Wang Chao began to search for the fastest route to the mining area.

There were two ways to get to the abandoned mine from where they were. One was the water route, and the other was the land route that was roughly reclaimed by various forces in order to cut down trees to open paths to the mines.

But no matter which route they took; they would encounter the heavily guarded Zaratul Tribe.

Comrade Xiao Wang Chao looked at the vast river of the rainforest in the distance and didn’t understand. He was playing games at home a few days ago and ordering lemon black tea for takeout. Why did he suddenly have to go to the rainforest dungeon to defeat Zaratul the Great Demon King?

He finally looked up at the cloudy sky. Life was truly unpredictable…

However, his boss obviously didn’t have these thoughts. As soon as he could figure out the target location, he immediately jumped back onto the boat, setting off on the water route.

Compared to the land route, the water route had no cover, which wasn’t conducive for concealment, but seeing his boss look like he couldn’t wait to go home, Wang Chao didn’t even dare let out a fart.

The further they went, the more turbid the water of the Dana River became. It was full of muddy sludge, turning brick red. The scene on both sides of the river wasn’t as green and pleasing as before, and a large number of trees had been cut down. The Dana Rainforest was rich in expensive wood species, such as mahogany, ebony, and rosewood. Whenever expensive wood species grew, there were a large number of laborers and armed men with guns.

Every time Wang Chao saw these places on the banks of the river, he felt like his heart was going to jump out of his throat.

Perhaps it was the intimidating force that made the whole world retreat on his boss’ sour face; surprisingly, they didn’t encounter any recklessly armed militants along the way.

Thank goodness.

At night, they tied the boat to the shore and camped by the river.

They didn’t expect to see any starry skies in the rainforest. It had already rained a while ago, and now it seemed like it was going to rain again. Wang Chao had killed all the mosquitoes in the tent and looked towards the river. In the dark night, his boss was barefoot, sitting alone on the banks of the river, smoking a cigarette. It was unknown what he was thinking.

“What’s the matter with the boss recently? He looks kind of weird.” Kang An leaned over to Wang Chao and asked.

“I don’t know,” Wang Chao said succinctly.

“Is it lovelorn?”

Hearing this, Wang Chao gave Kang An a blank look. “How could that be?”

“Then what else?”

Wang Chao turned around, put his hands on Kang An’s shoulders, and shook him. “You dare ask what’s wrong? How dare you ask this? If you didn’t bring the boss to this place where birds don’t shit*, why would he be so weird?!”

*(鸟不拉屎) Metaphor used to describe a barren and remote place where birds rarely fly by.

“But there’s a lot of bird shit here.” Kang An pointed to a pile of something that was pulled down from the top of the tent by a macaw or some other kind of bird as he said this.

Comrade Xiao Wang hurriedly dodged to the side and almost spat out.

“If it’s not lovelorn, then the boss is in love,” Kang An said suddenly.

Wang Chao opened his mouth wide, wanting to marvel at Kang An’s reflex arc.

“It’s the Mr. Lin you’re always peeking at, isn’t it? The boss turns out to be gay.”

Kang An’s tone was so calm that Wang Chao pounded the ground and said, “Can’t you talk about the boss’ sexual orientation without using that tone of ‘oh, so the boss likes men’?”

“It’s normal to be gay. After all, I’m gay.”

Wang Chao looked up at the sky and sighed, wanting to return to normal society and speak with people with normal brains.

“But Mr. Lin doesn’t seem to be the type that the boss likes.”

“Wait, how do you know?”

“Because I always thought a guy like the boss would like someone who is naïve and sweet, like those soft boys and girls who are like cakes,” Kang An replied.

“You perverted. Why am I discussing this topic with you!”

“Mr. Lin is different. Mr. Lin looks aloof and indifferent. When you take a bite, it’s like biting into crystals, making your teeth ache. It turns out that the boss’ taste is so hard that he truly lives up to his reputation.” Kang An sighed.

“Isn’t that good?!”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re so annoying. What’s wrong?!”

“Two people who are in love should complement each other. Look at me, I’m a smelly and hard stone in a toilet while your Xiao Wu Ge is like a blooming flower in the wind.”

“I don’t get what Xiao Wu Ge sees in you.”

“Hey. But the boss and Mr. Lin look more like the same type of person.”

“I don’t see it. How do you know? Have you met before?”

“No, no, it’s just a feeling that one is strong and the other is stronger. It’s okay when things are good, but if they have conflict, given our boss’ personality, do you think he might directly confront and overpower the other person?”

“Kang An.” Comrade Xiao Wang looked at his boss smoking by the river and suddenly wanted to light a cigarette.

“What?”

Comrade Xiao Wang kicked him to the ground and grabbed Kang An by the neck as he shouted, “Don’t fucking set up a flag* for laozi!”

*Foreshadow.

……

On the vast sea, the dilapidated fishing boat was still adrift.

In the dark cabin at the bottom of the fishing boat, Lin Chen didn’t know that he had become the object of gossip.

He was incredibly thirsty, and his lips were peeling. He was so hungry that his chest was pressed to his back. The cabin smelled of dead fish and excrement. With the lurching of the waves, he estimated according to his own biological rhythm that the fishing boat had been traveling on the sea surface for more than 12 hours. They had most likely arrived in the territorial waters of another country. Experienced smuggling groups must have relatively safe routes, so the likelihood of being intercepted by the coastal guard of another country was slim. They could only leave their fate to chance.

He leaned against the bulkhead and sat in the most energy-saving way. Duan Yang was taking care of a patient not far from him.

During the 12-hour voyage without seeing the sun, the wound on his palm became painful and itchy, and there was no sign it was healing, but it wasn’t he who fell ill first, but the middle-aged man who had talked to them before.

A few hours ago, the middle-aged man had sudden, acute abdominal pain. The cry of pain almost overwhelmed the roaring fishing boat motor. The first reaction of the villagers who were locked in the bottom of the cabin was to knock on the cabin ceiling. However, the people above deck simply asked “What’s the matter” and left.

There were still footsteps above their heads, but the sealed deck showed no sign of opening again.

The villagers beat on the deck angrily, but got no response. Without food for 12 hours, they quickly lost the strength to riot. Their emotions changed from anger to panic, and they realized that this gold rush wasn’t as good as they imagined.

Without any medical equipment, Duan Yang could only make a simple diagnosis for the villagers. The preliminary judgment was that it was an acute gastric perforation. Although he didn’t know the cause of the disease, in the vast sea, even if he knew, it would be meaningless.

The middle-aged man curled up in a ball. His face was as white as a dead body, and his expression looked like he was in extreme pain. His previous cries had exhausted all his strength, and he was in so much pain that he could no longer shout.

Two villagers, together with Duan Yang, stayed by his side. One of them grabbed Duan Yang and said anxiously, “Doctor, please save my brother. Can you save him?”

Dung Yang’s fingers kept resting on the middle-aged man’s neck, while the other hand lightly pressed his abdomen without saying a word.

The villager knelt down in front of Duan Yang and banged his head on the floor, kowtowing. “You’re a doctor, so you can save people. My brother has five children. If something happens to him, his cruel wife will throw them all away and remarry. You must save him!”

Perhaps hearing mentions of children, the curled-up middle-aged man suddenly opened his eyes and looked at Duan Yang with tears. Not knowing where the strength came from, he grabbed Duan Yang’s arm with one hand and held it tightly.

Seeing this situation, Lin Chen finally stood up. He leaned against the bulkhead as he walked to Duan Yang and sat down beside the seriously ill middle-aged man.

Someone in the cabin began to sob softly because of his movement.

Lin Chen looked at Duan Yang, and to his surprise, the young man’s eyes weren’t red. His expression was calm and solemn as he let go of the fingers holding the middle-aged man’s neck, which felt like bitter bark, and took his hand.

“I’m so tired.” In the next moment, the middle-aged man was relieved. Lin Chen saw a hint of hope appearing in his gloomy expression. “Isn’t it okay to die?”

“Yes, that’s a relief,” Lin Chen said.

“My child will still grow up.”

“Even if your wife is unwilling to raise them, our country’s welfare system will ensure that they grow up to the age of 18 safely.”

“It’s okay. My parents are still alive, but I can’t be filial anymore.”

“They might think you made a lot of money in Dana and don’t want to go home.”

“Yes, they probably will.”

The middle-aged man laughed, and at the last moment of his life, he kept a smiling face as he let go of everything.

After Lin Chen finished speaking, he put his hands on the middle-aged man’s face and gently closed his eyelids.

The soft sobs in the cabin turned into howls, and the death of the middle-aged man seemed to make everyone foresee their own future.

Lin Chen pulled Duan Yang back to their previous positions and sat down.

Duan Yang touched his forehead first, then simply measured his heartbeat. He pulled Lin Chen’s hand to check the wound and finally heaved a sigh of relief.

Lin Chen kept looking at him. Probably because he stared at him for too long, Duan Yang touched his face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“You’re not as I imagined.”

“Why so different? Do you think I’ll cry bitterly?”

Lin Chen didn’t answer.

“After all, I am a doctor. I have seen deaths that are much more tragic than this. Compared to you police officers, I’m the one who deals with death every day.”

“Nn.”

“Very early on, the first time I went to the hospital for an internship, it was teacher who took me.”

“Teacher Duan?”

The young man was stunned for a moment and suddenly felt relieved. He scratched his head. “It was. I like him very much. No. To be precise. I love him.”

Lin Chen was surprised by the confession that came so suddenly. “I didn’t ask you this.”

“There’s nothing to hide. I just like him. I remember the first time I saw a patient die. I was very sad, and I rushed out of the ward crying. I still remember the feeling of heartache. I thought it was my fault that I couldn’t save that person. My teacher, who was in the ward at that time, knew about it.”

“Then what?”

“Then teacher transferred me to the ICU and asked me to face critically ill patients every day.”

Lin Chen was surprised. “So strict?”

“During that time, I probably cried every day, and I didn’t want to be a doctor anymore. But then it was fine. After a long time, it was almost the end of my internship period when teacher suddenly came to me.”

“Hmm?”

“He took me to the morgue.” Duan Yang grimaced. “Teacher asked me what I have experienced during this time.”

“What did you say?”

“I said numbness, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.” Duan Yang sighed. “Teacher looked at me solemnly when he heard this. He said that a person who is numb to death can’t become a good doctor and wanted me to change my major as soon as possible.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Yes, I didn’t. After all, I still want to be a good doctor. At that time, I thought, if doctors aren’t numb to death, how can they endure so many separations of life and death every day? So I asked my teacher this.”

The young man’s eyes were beautiful as Lin Chen looked at them quietly.

“Teacher told me that doctors cannot be numb to death. What doctors have to do is respect death. What we respect is not the result of death but the entire life process of human beings, from birth to death. People always want to live longer and avoid death, but there must be death in life. This is the law of nature. A painful but also a beautiful process. As doctors, we must look up to the course of life, straighten our waists, and face every challenge that death poses to us.”

After the young man finished speaking, there was still crying in the cabin. The speed of the fishing boat gradually slowed down, but the sound of the motor was still loud.

He looked at the sole electric light in the cabin and said, “It’s great.”

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Kinky Thoughts:

What Duan Yang is talking about is compassion fatigue or burnout, which is basically what he experienced by witnessing so much death.

People who experience compassion fatigue may exhibit a variety of symptoms, including lowered concentration, numbness or feelings of helplessness, irritability, lack of self-satisfaction, withdrawal, aches and pains, or work absenteeism.

According to studies, between 16-85% of healthcare workers in various fields develop compassion fatigue.

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Author: 长洱 / Chang’er

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 181

Just as Lin Chen used the principles of success to fool Duan Yang, Wang Chao also felt he needed to be taught something.

Of course, it wasn’t because he was also trapped in a desperate situation. He just wanted to drink something warm—the scene in the village in front of him was too weird.

It was hot and humid in the rainforest, showing signs that heavy rainfall was coming. The village was covered with a layer of white, gauze-like mist. The surrounding mist had the same color as milk, but the taste wasn’t as sweet and instead had a fishy smell.

They stepped forward on the fallen leaves all over the ground, unable to move forward for a while.

The front was empty.

The tawny land was overgrown with weeds. Plants grew especially fast in the rainforest. Some green vines had entangled thatched huts unique to the Gaomeng people, as if they were forbidden territory.

There was no one inside the huts. Sporadic thatches fell to the ground, and they found in one of the huts a little girl’s pink blanket that was hanging on the fence.

There was no one in the hotel. All that was present was a dilapidated wooden sign that was swaying with the empty wind, which showed “Accommodations” in the Dana language.

Walking along the village, they saw a simple elementary school with a construction aid sign and a medical station for Doctors Without Borders. Wang Chao followed Xing Conglian into the medical station and walked around. There were no people or doctors, but the medicine inside the cabinets was gone, leaving only empty white hospital beds that gave off a cold feeling.

Next to the medical station was a trendy shop that had its doors open. Many things on the shelves were scattered everywhere, looking like a mess.

Xing Conglian walked out of the medical station and turned towards the shop.

Wang Chao followed him in light steps and suddenly accidentally stepped on something slippery that he almost fell. Because the surroundings were too quiet and weird, he didn’t dare yell out loud and could only swallow his scream back down his throat. He covered his mouth and lowered his head. There was a clump of brown fungi on the ground. The fungus he trampled on looked like a horrific animal limb.

He raised his head and saw that his boss had already walked into the shop. After glancing at the things on the shelves, his boss squatted down and began to look through the messy goods thrown on the ground.

Wang Chao hurriedly followed and almost tripped again over the debris on the floor. He took a closer look and found that the ground was littered with everyday items such as condoms, paper cups, and soap, leaving no place for him to stand.

He peeked at his boss’ face again and saw the anger in his boss’ expression was fading and had turned rather cold.

“Boss?” he asked tentatively. “What the hell happened here?”

After he finished speaking, he noticed Xing Conglian’s sharp gaze sweeping towards him, so he quickly fell silent.

“What do you think is missing here?”

Wang Chao carefully bypassed the things on the ground and walked to Xing Conglian’s side, where he looked at the pile of colorful items on the ground.

“There’s no food?”

“What else?”

“There’s no drinking water, sweets, or alcohol…”

“What does this mean?”

“It means… someone took away the necessities to sustain life, but what about the alcohol?”

“To survive in the wild, alcohol is extremely important,” Xing Conglian replied.

Kang An and Moda Nar, the Gaomeng bar owner, walked at the end. The bar owner looked at everything around him as his eyes changed from suspicion to shock, and then from shock to horror. Finally, he took a few steps forward and stepped on the plastic bags all over the ground. He grabbed Xing Conglian’s collar and said angrily, “What the hell is going on here? What did you do to my people?”

Xing Conglian looked at Moda Nar’s expression as if he were saying, “Excuse me, are you mentally ill?” He stretched out his hand and pulled the bar owner back, picked up a box of cigarettes on the ground, opened it, took one out, and lit it. He then said to Kang An as he raised his chin, “Go back and get those two just now.”

“Why Boss?” Kang An was unsure of Xing Conglian’s intention.

Xing Conglian let out a puff of his cigarette and simply said, “Go.”

Perhaps because his boss was in a bad mood and was too scary, but Kang An stopped talking nonsense and quickly turned around and ran away.

“Where is your tribe’s ammunition depot? Do you know?” After he finished ordering Kang An, Xing Conglian lowered his head and picked out a pack of red things from the corner of a pile of debris, threw it to Wang Chao, and then walked out of the store without looking back.

Wang Chao took a closer look, only to find that his boss had just thrown him a bag of Skittles. He followed happily after. “Boss, Boss, didn’t you say you wouldn’t take a single needle or thread* from the masses?”

*(一针一线) Idiom referring to something very small.

“Shut up,” Xing Conglian said impatiently.

As the distant relative of the leader of the Gaomeng Tribe, Moda Nar was privy to some tribal secrets. He took them to the jungle outside the village and searched for a while before he mysteriously opened a giant tree and then walked in.

Wang Chao followed him into the tree, stunned. The trunk was hollow and hot. The stagnant air smelled strongly of gunpowder. Sure enough, there was a small cellar under the trunk.

When the lights came on, the scene in the cellar made the bald bar owner scream.

All the neatly placed ammunition boxes were overturned, and all the army-green iron boxes were empty, as if they had been looted. Just standing there, they could imagine the chaotic scene when the soldiers of the Gaomeng Tribe were fetching ammunition.

Moda Nar fell to his knees, covered his face, and started crying, only to receive a kick from Xing Conglian.

The bald bar owner looked at him with red eyes. “We’re late. My people are all missing!”

“Why are you being so emotional?” Xing Conglian said irritably.

Wang Chao whispered, “Boss, are the Gaomeng people so fierce? Did the entire village set off to fight some other tribe? Which tribe provoked them to this point? This must be some kind of revenge for killing the chief and taking the princess, right?”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Xing Conglian bit into the cigarette butt as he said lightly.

“Not likely. I heard the Gaomeng Tribe is more civilized and doesn’t have the position of a princess,” Wang Chao said regretfully. “But isn’t that what Kang An’s intelligence says?”

“Heh, usually the men go out to kill, but there aren’t even any old people or children left behind the village?”

“Then why did the people here suddenly disappear?”

“Maybe they ran to save their lives,” Xing Conglian said.

Thinking of the medicines and the life-sustaining necessities that were taken, Wang Chao took a deep breath. “Even the ammunition was taken away. Someone is chasing them, so they have no choice but to leave the village. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then where did they flee to? The radius of their action in a week is too large. Where can we find them, Boss?”

“Heh.”

After responding, Xing Conglian walked out of the underground ammunition depot with a cigarette in hand. Without saying a word, he stepped on the rotten leaves all over the ground and returned to the dock.

On the wide river in front of the dock, a good show was being staged.

Wang Chao hurriedly brought a wooden stake. In the distance, Kang An was chasing after the two poor militants who had just been beaten by his boss until they spat blood.

Kang An grabbed the side of the boat in the water, turned over, and punched one of them into the water with a left hook. The other man swung his oar at him, but Kang An quickly grabbed onto it and used his strength to pull the other man into the water as well. At this point, Kang An had already occupied the high ground and had decisively taken an oar and struck twice, leaving the two armed militants dizzy and helpless on the water’s surface. Perhaps feeling that his previous actions weren’t fierce enough, Kang An then dove into the water and dragged the two unconscious militants back as if he were dragging dead dogs from the river.

Wang Chao kept observing Xing Conglian’s face and saw that his boss took a last puff of his cigarette expressionlessly and stamped out the cigarette butt.

In front of Xing Conglian were the two militants lying on their stomachs. Kang An had woken them up. When they saw the scene in front of them, the two militants looked as if they had seen a ghost. They crawled back but were blocked by Kang An from behind.

Xing Conglian asked angrily, “Tell me, where are the people?”

“I… We don’t know… We were just passing by!” One of the militants, probably European or American, replied in stumbling Dana.

“Do you mean to tell me that in such a big rainforest, you have nothing to do but leisurely pass by here?” Xing Conglian stepped on one of the militants’ shoulders and sneered. “Aren’t you afraid of being hung up by the Gaomeng Tribe to dry?”

“It’s true that we’re just passing by by chance. Please believe us!”

“How boring.” Xing Conglian tapped the militant’s shoulder with his toe. “You came here on a whim, so you must have known that the Gaomeng Tribe had left in advance. And the reason you know this is because either someone tipped you off or you witnessed the entire tribe being hunted down. So, tell me, where are the people of the tribe?”

The two militants on the ground trembled. They looked at each other and exchanged a look. “We can’t say. The other party is too powerful. If they find out that we leaked information, we’ll die without even a grave.”

Xing Conglian took out a gun and put it to one of the militants’ foreheads. “Alright, if you don’t tell me, you’ll die now.”

When it came to showing off and intimidation, Wang Chao only admired his boss.

“Three days ago, we met a large group of the Gaomeng people. It was already dark at that time, so we rushed through the rainforest and found a big tree to rest on. Gunshots rang out in the second half of the night, and a dense group of Gaomeng people ran past us with a group of terrible soldiers chasing after them.”

“Yes, those soldiers were so well equipped that we dared not speak up at all and just hid tremblingly in the trees.”

“They were incredibly cruel. The ones from the Gaomeng tribe who fell behind were instantly killed.”

Xing Conglian interrupted the two. “Okay, just say it directly. Where are those soldiers from?”

“We saw a sign of a python entangling a jaguar,” one of them answered.

“Zaratul?” Xing Conglian frowned.

The other person’s hands started to tremble. “Can you say that name in a low voice. My heart is pounding just from hearing it.”

When he heard the name, even Wang Chao felt his stomach churn.

The three things: python, jaguar, and Zaratul—these things represented the Dana Rainforest Liberators Alliance. They were the most brutal militants in the Dana Region. Although the name of this organization sounded democratic, it was only in name. In the past ten years, the leader of the arm group and the tyrant of Zaratul had massacred nearly 50,000 people in Dana. The United Nations had repeatedly tried to intervene, but all their attempts failed. After all, the situation in Dana was too complicated. No matter which forces intervened from the outside world, they would be attacked by all the primitive tribes, militants, and mercenary organizations here.

It was precisely because dealing with Dana brought fewer benefits than costs that it had created today’s three-way zone.

Listening to the vivid account of the two militants describing a scene of bullets flying and blood splattering as if killing people was as easy as cutting melons, Kang An’s face immediately turned green. “Boss, Xiao Wu, and the others must be in great danger!”

Xing Conglian ignored Kang An and said, “Wang Chao, bring up a map.”

Wang Chao immediately turned on a tablet and brought up a three-dimensional topographic map of the entire Dana Rainforest. “Boss, please look.”

Xing Conglian handed the tablet to the two militants and said, “Where did you see the Gaomeng tribe three days ago?”

The two militants were still lying on the ground. They stared at the vast green on the tablet, studied it for a long time, and finally delineated an area northwest of them. “It’s probably here.”

Xing Conglian nodded after connecting the tablet.

Kang An came over anxiously and asked, “Boss, this is where they were three days ago. Where would they be now?”

Xing Conglian narrowed his eyes and kept zooming in on the entire area. “The first question you should ask is, Zaratul wants to kill people, but why haven’t they killed all of them in a week?”

“Why?”

“Because they don’t want to kill everyone.”

“I don’t get it!”

Xing Conglian didn’t speak anymore. He first marked the location of the Gaomeng Tribe’s garrison, and then marked the location where the entire tribe appeared three days ago. He connected the two points together, glanced at the tablet, kept zooming in on the picture, and moved the position of the map. Finally, he leaned back slightly, pointed to one place, and said, “Here.”

Wang Chao looked at the map and found that the location pointed out by Xing Conglian was an abandoned mine located in the rainforest.

“Boss, what does Zaratul want to do?”

“Drive the herd away and enter the designated trap,” Xing Conglian said flatly.

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