Dangerous Entity : Chapter 2

Having received Zhou Qiulin’s order, Ji Lianze did not waste any time and headed straight to the base laboratory.

The gland gene modification experiment was an experiment specifically targeted at S-grade mutants. Its purpose was to optimize pheromone capabilities and various physical data by modifying the gland gene sequence.

Currently, Ji Lianze was the only tester participating in this program, undergoing gene modification and implantation on average once a week, accumulating a total of 105 times. Today was the final day, the 106th time.

Ji Lianze walked familiarly into the laboratory, took off his coat and upper garments, and let the researcher inject two doses of reagent.

Then, lying down on a smooth white experimental table, his pulse and chest were connected to monitors. Several researchers in white coats walked back and forth, winding a variety of soft tubes around his body, with the end of each tube connected to cold machines.

Until finally, a slight stinging sensation came from the back of his neck, and a researcher attached an electrode pad to the surface of his gland.

“Supervisor-in-chief Ji, today is the final experiment. Please relax, take deep breaths, and if you have any problems midway, please press the call button in time. We will be right outside.”

Ji Lianze hummed in acknowledgment and closed his eyes. The researchers retreated outside one after another, observing data fluctuations in front of the glass window.

Before long, the gland position began to heat up, accompanied by waves of cramping pain radiating from the back of his neck.

Ji Lianze pressed his lips together silently, quietly enduring the physical discomfort and changes. A little while later, this pain would pass through the gland into the blood, flowing through all four limbs and into every cell in his body, carving a brand once more.

Having experienced this for over two years, he was more than familiar with this feeling and had long since gotten used to it.

Yet, perhaps because it was the final time, today seemed exceptionally difficult to endure. Amidst the prolonged endurance, the physical pain intensified every second.

Cold sweat broke out on Ji Lianze’s forehead, his lips turned pale, and his fingertips trembled unconsciously. He gripped the call button tightly in his palm, but never pressed it down.

Just as his brain began to lose consciousness due to the excruciating pain, several machines rang out simultaneously.

Ding.

The experiment concluded, and Ji Lianze let out an abrupt sigh of relief. The pain and burning sensation slowly subsided. He opened his eyes and waited for the researcher to pull out all the soft tubes from his body.

The door was pushed open, and a researcher walked in quickly, his voice carrying joy. “That’s great! The experiment was a complete success. We did it!”

Ji Lianze’s expression remained unchanged, betraying no emotional fluctuations, except for a little cold sweat remaining on his cheeks, revealing that his mood at the moment was not particularly pleasant.

Sitting up slowly and removing the last soft tube, Ji Lianze caught a hint of a bloody smell.

“What variable did you add today?”

The researcher’s happy expression paused for a moment, and he weighed his words. “It’s a chip with positioning and data monitoring functions. It was just implanted into your gland… It was requested by Leader Zhou.”

Hearing this, Ji Lianze merely raised his eyelids, wiped away the fresh blood overflowing from the back of his neck with an alcohol cotton ball, quickly put on his shirt and coat, and left the laboratory without uttering a word.

Outside the laboratory was a long corridor. Ji Lianze paused his steps slightly and walked to the left.

After about a hundred meters, a thick and sturdy bulletproof door stood at the end of the corridor, with two fully armed duty personnel standing at the entrance.

As soon as Ji Lianze appeared, the duty personnel immediately spoke out, “Sorry, please leave immediately.”

Ji Lianze didn’t actually want to go inside. It was just that the moment he stepped out of the lab, the back of his neck felt slightly warm, as if the chip in his gland had taken effect. The closer he walked toward this side, the stronger the sensation in his gland became.

A moment later, Ji Lianze did nothing, put on his leather gloves leisurely, turned around, and walked in another direction.

—

Every time he came out of the laboratory, Ji Lianze had to report to the same place, and this time was no exception.

Standing outside the medical room, before he even knocked, the person inside spoke first, “Come in. I could tell just by hearing your footsteps. Today is still Wednesday, I guessed early on that you would come.”

Ji Lianze didn’t stand on ceremony either, walking in and sitting down opposite that person. “The usual rules, just the most basic recovery treatment.”

Yan Lin wore a clean white lab coat, his gentle eyes fixed on the computer screen as he spared a glance at the person opposite him.

“Your face is so pale. What new torture did you suffer this time?”

Ji Lianze didn’t answer, reminding him concisely, “Doctor Yan, I’m in a hurry.”

Yan Lin put his attention back on the computer screen, and after quite a while, he stood up, took out a pair of sterile plastic gloves to put on, and sprayed some alcohol on his palms.

“Take off your coat, lower your head, let me check the wound condition first.”

Ji Lianze complied, exposing the gland location on the back of his neck, where an entire patch of skin could be seen swollen and red, with several tiny bloody holes on it.

Yan Lin touched the bloody holes with his gloved hand, then pinched the entire gland area and turned on a searchlight to illuminate it.

“I’ve said it many times. I’m just a doctor, only able to save lives and heal the wounded, with no way to bring the dead back to life.”

Turning off the searchlight, he took off his gloves, his tone neither warm nor cold, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Your gland is already on the verge of necrosis. If surgical treatment is not adopted in time, you will only be able to have the gland removed in the future, and the process will even endanger your life. Health is a minor matter, but life is a major one, Supervisor-in-chief.”

Even when discussing such a topic, the emotions Ji Lianze displayed were extremely scarce, and he asked indifferently, “How much time is left at most?”

Yan Lin reacted for a few seconds before realizing the other party was asking about the latest time for surgical treatment.

“At most a year,” he replied. “But if it drags on until then, surgery might be even more difficult to perform.”

Ji Lianze said, “There is enough time.”

Yan Lin stopped at that point and did not urge him further, pointing to the treatment bed not far away. “Lie down. I’ll give you a recovery treatment first.”

—

Fengdu City was the capital of the Jiuzhou Republic, located further north. After a heavy snow at the end of winter, it had been cold for many days, but ultimately could not resist the changing of seasons, and the lingering white snow melted into the warm spring breeze.

Two months later, on the vernal equinox, Ji Lianze brought the Alliance leader’s order and arrived at the restricted zone prison.

To most people, this restricted zone prison had only been heard of by name, with very few knowing its specific location. What outsiders would never know was that it was also a large-scale experimental base.

Ji Lianze had been in the Alliance for nine years, and it wasn’t until participating in the gland modification experiment in the past two years that he learned there was a restricted zone prison within the Alliance base.

And inside this restricted zone prison was locked a person who should have died eight years ago.

That person’s name was Jiang Ye. He was once the Alliance’s youngest general and commander, an S-grade alpha with exceptionally superior genes, a genius gifted by the heavens who emerged out of nowhere and had saved the Republic from dire straits multiple times in the past, completely annihilating the rampant terrorist organization Shadow Society.

Yet such a darling of the heavens suddenly led his army in a rebellion one year after the destruction of the Shadow Society, plunging the entire Alliance and the country into turmoil and causing the deaths of countless people.

Ultimately, under multi-party encirclement and suppression, Jiang Ye’s forces were utterly routed and he was executed by the Republic for the crime of rebellion, later reduced to a prisoner whose existence was erased.

The two heavy doors swung open to the sides, and the on-duty soldiers saluted Ji Lianze. Ji Lianze strode forward, and a young man in a white lab coat greeted him.

Ji Lianze knew him; this person was the chief director of the gland modification laboratory, named Qi Teng, commonly referred to as Director Qi.

Qi Teng took the initiative to reach out and shake hands with Ji Lianze, his tone carrying a trace of respect, “The leader has already given instructions, and preparations have been made here. Please come with me.”

Ji Lianze gave a slight nod, continuing to walk inward with the other person while quietly observing the surrounding environment.

If he guessed correctly, this place should be connected to the laboratory where he underwent gland modification, and that bulletproof door guarded by duty personnel was the entrance and exit connecting the two places.

Passing through three corridors in different directions and entering and exiting several rooms, the two finally reached their destination: the central control room of the restricted zone prison.

But rather than calling it a central control room, it was more accurate to describe it as a technology laboratory.

Four complex instruments were placed inside, with several desks in the middle where three laboratory staff members were buried in their work.

In front of the main control console was a huge electronic screen displaying over a hundred monitoring areas, with each video area presenting very similar scenes: lush forests, scorching sunlight, dried-up streams, and numerous skeletal remains suspected to be of some kind of beast.

Ji Lianze’s gaze swept across those remains, and his brow furrowed imperceptibly.

Not to mention whether creatures like beasts would appear in the Alliance base, just the environment of the restricted zone prison in the surveillance footage revealed strangeness everywhere.

It was currently the vernal equinox; there was no such strong sunlight outdoors at all, and lush forests and dried-up streams were two mutually contradictory entities.

To produce such bizarre and contradictory imagery, Ji Lianze could only think of one possibility: this seemingly open-air prison was not actually open, and all environments were artificially controlled and monitored.

Sure enough, in the next second, Qi Teng verified his conjecture.

Pressing a few control buttons, the images on the screen began to change, shifting from the lush wilderness forest to high-rise buildings of a modern city, and after a while, changing into a dim and gloomy enclosed area.

“We test the upper physical limits of test subject S01 by changing different scenarios, and inject S01 with hallucinogens to ensure the authenticity of the experimental process as much as possible.”

While explaining, Qi Teng switched monitoring areas, frowned, and smiled helplessly, “S01 is very smart and has extremely strong anti-reconnaissance capabilities. Even with hundreds of cameras, it’s very hard to find him, and every time we let him out, it takes quite a bit of effort. Supervisor-in-chief Ji, please wait a moment.”

With that, he turned on the walkie-talkie and instructed, “Release the vertigo fog bombs, turn on the search scanner, and be careful. S01 still possesses aggressiveness; don’t let him hurt anyone.”

From beginning to end, the attitude and tone displayed by Qi Teng made it sound as if he was not describing a living person, but rather a white mouse that could be declared dead at any moment due to an experimental failure.

Ji Lianze listened quietly to every word, pressing one hand on the central control console, his fingertips tapping the desktop slowly and rhythmically.

Qi Teng said, “Why don’t you go sit over there for a while? It might take some time.”

Ji Lianze’s gaze swept across the other person and suddenly asked, “S01 has been here for eight years. Has Director Qi always been this dedicated?”

Qi Teng was stunned, feeling inexplicably that this sentence sounded a bit strange, but constrained by the other’s status, he could only force a smile and say, “Everything is just for serving the Alliance. It’s part of my duty and not worth mentioning.”

Ji Lianze didn’t reply further, walking over to sit down aside.

—

This wait lasted for nearly two hours before Qi Teng finally reappeared with a look of immense relief, “Supervisor-in-chief, S01 has come out. Let’s go over.”

Ji Lianze stood up, habitually tidying his cuffs, and walked forward with steady steps.

Leaving the central control room, the two turned into a wide corridor with no windows on either side, only solid and cold copper walls. The surrounding light was dim and the temperature was cool, bearing a striking similarity to scenes in horror movies; anyone with a weak heart passing through here would probably feel a chill in their hearts.

Ji Lianze had good eyesight and saw from afar that there was also a dark bulletproof door at the end of the corridor, outside of which stood two full rows of heavily armed prison guards leaning against the wall.

The bulletproof door pulled outward, and a sliver of light spilled out from behind the door. Iron chains and footsteps sounded simultaneously, and at the end of the gloomy corridor appeared a tall man.

Ji Lianze narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze landing on the man.

The man was wearing a white prison uniform with metal handcuffs and shackles around his wrists and ankles. He lowered his head slightly, and a very thin dark ring could be faintly seen wrapped around his neck. His lips were red, his teeth white, and his skin smooth. There was a noble kind of handsomeness between his brows, and his short black hair was slightly messy. No matter from which angle, it was impossible to connect him with someone who had been locked up in a prison for eight years.

Tap tap.

The shackles on his ankles clanked twice. Jiang Ye stood still, raising his head slightly as his chest rose and fell slowly.

In the next second, all the researchers and armed prison guards present dropped to their knees in unison, their movements extremely unified.

An intense and sharp burning-agarwood scent permeated the air, instantly enveloping the entire corridor and making people feel extremely suffocated. That was the powerful ability of an S-grade alpha’s pheromones: control and imprisonment.

Qi Teng fell to his knees, bending over and clutching his chest, completely unable to catch his breath. He tried several times to stand up but could not move.

The prison guards were the same, holding loaded firearms, but unfortunately their arms were so heavy that they couldn’t even lift them.

Except for Jiang Ye, there was only one person left standing there as if nothing were happening.

Jiang Ye corrected his line of sight, meeting Ji Lianze’s gaze directly across a distance of over a dozen meters.

The corners of his lips twitched, and suddenly a smile appeared as he said softly, “An S-grade omega.”

Simultaneously with those words, Ji Lianze clearly felt that the burning-agarwood scent in the air grew denser, carrying a crushing momentum as if to crush the entire space. The agonizing appearance of Qi Teng beside him confirmed this.

“Supervisor-in-chief… neck ring… suppressor…”

Qi Teng was nearly curled up on the ground, his face red and purple from oxygen deprivation, and he reminded him with a hoarse and difficult voice.

Ji Lianze’s attention remained fixed on Jiang Ye. As the other party released more and more pheromones, his half-clenched fingers moved.

The air seemed to freeze for a split second. Jiang Ye’s face turned pale abruptly, veins bulging on his forehead, and dense dark red blood vessels spread outward from that circle of dark rings around his neck, even creeping to the lower part of his cheeks and jaw, looking terrifying.

A moment later, Jiang Ye’s body sank, and he dropped to one knee on the ground.

At the exact same instant, the confinement on the researchers and prison guards was lifted, and everyone let out a ragged breath in relief.

Unhurried footsteps sounded, approaching Jiang Ye step by step. Shortly, a pair of black military boots glowing with a cold light appeared in Jiang Ye’s field of vision.

Ji Lianze lowered his head and dropped his gaze, seeing the dark ring on Jiang Ye’s neck deepen by another fraction, his skin covered in ferocious blood vessels, and the gland position at the back of his neck congested and swollen, giving the illusion that it was about to burst in the next second.

That circle of “dark rings” was the neck ring suppressor buried beneath the skin. When activated, it exerted extremely strong suppression on the gland. If he wasn’t mistaken, every cell in Jiang Ye’s body would produce excruciating pain and a sense of powerlessness at this moment, and the more he tried to release pheromones, the stronger this feeling would become.

Yet he merely knelt on one knee, maintaining the same posture and forcing himself not to collapse to the ground.

An S-grade alpha, and an enhanced S at that—even with his suppressed gland, the power contained within his body was enough to make people wary.

Ji Lianze bent his knees, half-squatting in front of Jiang Ye, bringing his gaze level with the other’s, clearly capturing those beautiful eyes within his vision.

Staring at each other for a moment, Jiang Ye blinked, his casual tone carrying a hint of innocence, “Officer, it hurts a lot. Spare me, I know I was wrong.”

Watching the familiar yet unfamiliar face before him, Ji Lianze involuntarily recalled what Qi Teng had said earlier.

“During the experiment, S01 exhibited symptoms of memory confusion, and his brain automatically cleared a portion of his memories. The impact produced by this interfering variable is generally irreversible.”

Jiang Ye indeed did not recognize him.

The strong suppression inflicted by the neck ring continued. Jiang Ye wanted to say something more, but suddenly felt the back of his neck loosen, followed by a faint cedar scent entering his nasal cavity, miraculously relaxing both his body and mind while greatly pacifying the violent urges surging within his body.

While feeling relaxed and calm, Jiang Ye wanted to release pheromones again, only to find that he couldn’t concentrate. His body and mind were immersed in the crisp, icy cedar breath, and his limbs gradually felt weak.

He acutely realized that this omega was releasing pheromones. Not only was the other party immune to his suppression, but he could also carry out compulsory soothing, leaving him with no way to resist.

And what was even stranger was that, surrounded by such concentrated pheromones, the people around him showed no reaction at all. Logically speaking, low-grade mutants could not easily withstand the pheromones of an S-grade omega.

Unfortunately, Jiang Ye didn’t have much time to think. With a click, Ji Lianze unlocked his handcuffs and shackles.

The supervisor’s consistently cold voice sounded, “Special heavy criminal Jiang Ye, number 3107, congratulations on serving your full sentence. Starting today, I am your first supervisor, Ji Lianze.”

With those words, Ji Lianze extended his right hand toward the person in front of him.

Looking at this person’s iron-fisted and impartial appearance, the corners of Jiang Ye’s mouth curled into a smile that grew wider and wider until it filled half his face. He grasped the glove-wearing hand, feeling the cold temperature of the leather glove, and responded leisurely.

“Supervisor, I really like your pheromones.”