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Chapter 178: Chapter 178: Thrilling Experiment
What kind of people would be kept in a pigpen?
Inside the pigpen, there were men and women who all appeared quite young, grouped in threes, totaling twelve people in a single pigsty.
None of them showed any signs of resistance, merely sitting quietly in a pile of weeds, accepting tableware from the meal delivery staff when it was time to eat. — They clearly had not lost their sanity.
They were just like normal people.
If they were just like normal people, why would they stay quietly in the pigpen? Why didn’t they resist?
The video was very long, seemingly a continuous recording over twenty-four hours a day. Han Yi pressed the fast-forward button to watch and after a while, he opened several videos from later dates.
Most of the people in the pigpen were gone, and those who had remained had completely changed their appearances! They had become grotesquely fat, deformed! Their bloated lower bodies had burst their trousers, and their shirts were torn and ragged. They were all down on all fours on the ground, howling frantically like pigs.
The food distributed during meal times was no longer food for humans, but blood-drenched Mutant Beast corpses. The staff in white protective suits would throw a dead Mutant Rat into the pen, and the people inside would pounce on it fighting for food.
Han Yi slightly frowned, and directly selected the last video to open.
Only one person was left in the pigpen, a woman. But it was hard to recognize her as human, as she constantly slammed into the guardrails and walls, agitatedly crawling around inside.
"Is she hungry?" Lu Changyuan suddenly said aloud.
Everyone stared at Lu Changyuan with wide eyes. Normal people watching this kind of video would definitely be shocked. Who would calmly analyze whether this humanoid creature was hungry?
Lu Changyuan pointed to the time in the upper right corner and said, "The earlier videos all showed them being fed once by noon, but this time they weren’t fed."
Han Jiaojiao’s forehead furrowed, thinking: Brother Lu, you are really attentive...
Han Yi dragged the progress bar to the end of the video, and there was no scene of anyone being fed.
"It seems that the evacuating personnel forgot to deal with her," Han Yi said emotionlessly, "The previous ones all died suddenly; they probably thought this one wouldn’t live long, and the evacuation must have been very rushed, so they missed her."
Lu Changyuan slowly shook his head and said, "Then she went days without eating and, unable to bear the hunger, she came out to find food on her own, but because she was too fat, she didn’t get far and has been scavenging near the farm."
Han Jiaojiao couldn’t help asking, "But why did she... turn into a pig?"
"It must have been some kind of experiment, and someone had set up a temporary lab on the farm," Lu Changyuan said, and suddenly "Oh," as if he had thought of something, he continued, "Such a laboratory wouldn’t be the only one. Any experiment involving human subjects would require hundreds of repetitions for verification, unless it was abandoned midway. — No research can succeed with just a dozen or so trials."
Han Jiaojiao frowned in disgust. Although she faintly felt that Lu Changyuan’s speculation might be true, she still resisted the possibility. The thought of people using living humans for experiments sent chills down her spine from the depths of her heart.
It’s too terrifying...
Lu Changyuan tried to argue his hypothesis from various angles.
"Look at these people, the ratio of men to women is exactly the same, have you noticed? Six men to six women, and their ages also look almost the same. It suggests they were specifically chosen people. Normally, the smaller the variation among experimental subjects, the smaller the deviation in the experimental results."
The more Lu Changyuan spoke, the more convinced he became, and he couldn’t help but lament, "In the current situation, someone who has the manpower and resources to conduct human experiments must be one of the few notable figures in the country."
"Could it be something the base is doing?" Zhu Changfu asked. Speaking of a few notable figures, he first thought of several generals and elders.
Lu Changyuan shook his head, "Ji Huajun is a very reputation-minded old stubborn. Moreover, he believes in proving one’s worth through military might. If it were weapon research and development, I suspect he would be interested, but this kind of... Heh, he would definitely not get involved."
Disdain flickered in Han Yi’s eyes, and he spoke coldly, "It must be related to Long Yueze."
Lu Changyuan was startled, then quickly realized, "Right, timing wise, the lab’s evacuation is very close to the date Long Yueze took Qin Wenhao away, and Long Yueze came to Beicheng Base precisely to discuss the development of Ability Potions. Since the potions are not finished, who can guarantee what their effects might be? For all we know, injecting them could turn out exactly like what happened to these people in the video."
Lu Changyuan’s words sent chills down Han Jiaojiao’s spine. Although she knew about the potions, she’d never imagined they were created through such cruel experiments.
In her previous life, she hadn’t known about Long Yueze, but the Ability Potions were very famous, used practically in every base. Once injected, they granted Abilities, and people rushed to them, inflating their prices drastically. The only downside to these Ability Potions was their addictive nature; the awakened Abilities could only be maintained for a period before they gradually disappeared, and the body became relatively weaker, requiring regular injections to sustain the Abilities’ effectiveness.
Thus, ordinary people weren’t qualified to use them because they simply couldn’t afford the cost of the potions. Usually, it was the influential people without Abilities who wanted to experience the taste of Superpowers, so they would take an injection.
Besides Ability Potions, there was another type of Enhancement Potion developed for Superpower Users, which could enhance Abilities, quicker and more significantly than absorbing Crystal Cores, with the same downside of dependency. She heard there were other drawbacks too, but in her previous life, since she wasn’t a Superpower User herself, she didn’t pay much attention to this area, and most of what she knew was hearsay; she couldn’t vouch for its accuracy.
Han Jiaojiao couldn’t help but edge closer to Han Yi.
She snuggled up next to Han Yi, thinking silently in her heart that she and her brother must stay far away from Long Yueze, who was simply insane to use living people for experiments...
According to Lu Changyuan, to successfully develop these potions, it might take hundreds and thousands of failed experiments... In other words, every failure results in a person turning into such a monster...
The more Han Jiaojiao thought about it, the more horrified she felt.
Suddenly, Lu Changyuan stood up abruptly! Everyone inevitably turned to look at him as he turned and ran toward his room, shouting loudly, "Where are those files? Where’s my desk?!"
The voice of Yan Xiao floated in from outside—"Brother Lu, all your stuff has been moved out; it’s in the yard."
Lu Changyuan rushed out in a flurry, returning shortly while carrying a stack of papers and slamming them down in front of Han Yi, quickly flipping through them until he stopped at one, pointing at a particular spot and said to Han Yi, "Look at this mission!"
Han Yi slightly furrowed his brow, picked up the paper and started reading. Han Jiaojiao also leaned in and read out loud, word by word, "North Suburban Farm... Mutant Pig?"
