Chapter 360: Anti-message
Chapter 360: Anti-message
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Although a brief overview of the plan had been set, Chen Chen was still at a loss as to how the experiment would be conducted.
Even if he were to use all of the felons available to him in the Spire Experimental Base, it would still be a mere drop in the ocean. Chen Chen would have to come up with another solution to obtain enough experiment subjects to research the memetic effect.
At this time, Chen Chen left the Spire Experimental Base to walk around the streets of Eco Science City.
When Chen Chen was studying, he seldom went shopping. Ever since he founded Blacklight Biotechnology, this became a rarer practice to a point where he was starting to get detached from society.
One had to admit that Chen Chen’s habits were closer to a robot than that of a human. He would spend his mornings, afternoons, and nights all at the Spire laboratory. Now and then, he would return to his office in the research center to sit for a while before eventually returning to the Spire laboratory again.
Today would be the day Chen Chen broke out of his usual pattern for once.
As Benguela was currently weathering a cold wave, the west coast of Namibia had been filled with mist every morning for the better half of the last year. The entirety of Eco Science City was shrouded in thick mist. It was like living in a city drowned in smog.
As it was five o’clock in the morning, the sun had not risen yet. Inside the city, only a weak ray of morning light shone through the heavy cloud of mist. Several tourists who had just got off the plane were chatting among themselves by the side of the street. They passed by Chen Chen with their luggage in hand.
None of them knew that the young man they had just passed by on the street was none other than the sole owner of the city they were in – the founder of Blacklight Biotechnology.
Shrouded by the mist surrounding him, Chen Chen puffed out a relaxed breath of air. He silently stole a glance behind him before suddenly turning around and headed toward the mostly empty park by the roadside.
It was only until Chen Chen had stepped into the park when two men dressed in black sportswear with their faces hidden under the ominous shadow of their hats exchanged a knowing glance between themselves. They trailed after Chen Chen.
The two men were built extremely large with a towering figure. Their faces were concealed by the mask and cap they wore. When they saw that there was nobody around, they sped up their pace and quickly caught up to Chen Chen with just a few strides.
The moment one of the two men got closer to Chen Chen, he jabbed at Chen Chen without the slightest hint of hesitation. The cold glimmer of a steel needle flashed between his palms as he aimed it toward Chen Chen’s cervical spine!
He did it in such a quick, ferocious, and swift motion, undoubtedly the practiced craft of a trained killer. Anyone struck by this deadly blow was dead without question!
However, just as he felt like he was about to hit the mark, he felt a cold bite on his arm followed by a strange sensation like his attack had fallen short. His arm continued swinging forward following his initial inertia, but he did not feel the blow landing!
At the same time, he heard the sound of something clapping against the floor, a swift ‘thwack’. He curiously turned to the direction where the sound came from and saw a familiar hand dropping onto the floor. The cut on the hand was extremely pristine and the severed hands still clenched onto a slender steel needle tightly between its index finger and middle finger.
This hand...
It was at that moment when the man seemed to have finally registered what had happened. By the time he realized, he finally felt the jaw-clenching pain exploding along his arm as he immediately screamed. He instinctively pulled his hand back and retreated backward while shrieking in pain!
His accomplice had witnessed everything. He felt like he saw an invisible force suddenly swooping past his partner. As soon as it happened, he saw his partner’s severed hand clapping against the cold hard floor.
What he saw was nothing short of bizarre and injected a frightening cold into his heart. Still, he was a true desperado in every sense of the word. He clenched his teeth and immediately pulled out a gun and readied to aim it at Chen Chen!
However, before he could even extend his hand out, he saw his vision turning into a blur. The target in his sight suddenly warped in front of him with explosive momentum. By the time he centered his vision again, his target was standing right in front of him, inches away from his face!
At this point, he had only just lifted the gun in his hand.
At this moment, every single nerve in his body was screaming as he summoned the will in him to leap backward. Before his body could follow the command to retreat, the opponent had grabbed him by his wrist. He heard the ghastly sound of bones popping, “crack crack crack”, like rounds of fireworks!
His pupils contorted into a tiny black dot. He felt his arm twisting and turning. The gun that was in his hand dropped onto the floor!
“Ah!”
He cried out in pain but being the fierce man that he was, he pulled his left arm back when he registered that there was no saving his right arm. With his left arm, he reached for the dagger strapped to his waist and jabbed it at his opponent’s neck at close distance!
“Swoosh!”
However, his dagger only hit the mirage of the person that was once there!
“Crack!”
A sharp and numbing pain sent across the back of his spine. His opponent had moved behind him without him noticing. There was hardly any time for him to turn around and react accordingly. His legs crumpled under him as he lost all sensation in the lower half of his body and collapsed onto hard concrete!
His spine was shattered with one punch from Chen Chen!
Everything went down in a matter of just two seconds. That was all it took for Chen Chen to dispatch an assassin. Without even sparing a second to turn around, Chen Chen suddenly bent his body by the waist at a ninety degrees angle to the left. At the same time, the faint sound of something slicing across the air came from behind Chen Chen!
It was the sound of a silenced pistol.
A bullet darted past Chen Chen’s waist. It barely clinched his body and tore through the T-shirt he wore!
The culprit was the man who had his hand sliced off by Chen Chen with a poker card. While Chen Chen was dealing with his partner, he took out his gun with his left hand and fired a volley of bullets at Chen Chen, completely disregarding the safety of his partner!
“Bang bang bang bang!”
The man unloaded another round of bullets but his expression only grew wider as he hammered away at the trigger. He saw Chen Chen continuously bending his body at sharp angles like Neo in The Matrix. Chen Chen moved so fast that it seemed like he was creating mirror copies of himself. Not a single shot landed even after he had emptied his barrel!
“What the f***!”
The man cried out in disbelief. He threw the gun away to turn tail and run. Before his feet touched the ground, he heard the ferocious roar of a cyclone coming from behind him. Then, his chest suddenly swelled up as if something punched through it!
His eyes immediately darted down to inspect this strange sensation he was feeling. He saw a hand drenched in blood where his chest should be. A still-beating, raw heart was thumping away on its palm!
“Ugh...”
It was only then when he felt an indescribable suffocating feeling overwhelming him. He felt all the strength in his body being drained away from the hole in his chest. His legs gave out under him as his knees slammed onto the floor...
Chen Chen coolly pulled his hand back after he saw the two men lying cold and dead on the ground.
This was a healthy heart still beating with great vitality. A brilliant red, strong and tender. Unfortunately, it did not seem to realize that it had left its host’s body and would never return to its shell ever again...
“Sir Godfather...”
Chen Chen heard Little X stutter through his earpiece. At the same time, a mix of bright lights and large shadows appeared from behind Chen Chen as several Black Knights and unmanned drones broke out of invisibility and appeared out of thin air. The tranquil park suddenly became very lively.
“I’m fine.”
Chen Chen cracked a warm smile and said in a soft tone, “Life just gets a little boring sometimes so I figured I’d find some fun of my own. Let me have my way just this once, alright?”
As he said this, he absent-mindedly discarded the fresh heart still drenched in blood and used a napkin a Black Knight handed him to wipe his hands.
As far as Chen Chen was concerned, this was only one of the many minor episodes in his life. He was hardly traumatized by this event, if at all.
“Sir Godfather, what do we do with the nearby witnesses?”
Little X asked again.
“Erase their memory. Tell them that everything they just witnessed is nothing more than a dream.”
“Understood.”
Little X replied.
As soon as Chen Chen said this, he suddenly lagged for a moment as if he thought of something.
After half a minute had passed, Chen Chen came back to his senses. While leaving the park, he whispered, “X, I think I found an instance of ‘anti-message’ in reality.”
“You mean an anti-message that exists in the real world?”
Little X was uncertain what Chen Chen meant.
“Of course.”
Chen Chen nodded. “Perhaps... Dreams?”