I didn't respond to Bruno's words right away.
Instead, I thought for a moment before speaking:
"That little boy who was just brought in—he was bitten, but there are no signs of infection."
At that, a flash of excitement crossed Bruno's face.
He looked at me, unable to hide his enthusiasm, and said:
"Exactly. When we first learned about it today, we found it unbelievable as well. If handled properly, we might be able to make some historic progress thanks to this boy."
Seeing Bruno's expression, my mind felt like a mess.
There were so many doubts and things I couldn't explain, but in that moment, even though I wanted to ask whatever I wished, I didn't know where to begin.
All I could do was keep staring at Bruno.
After a while, Bruno noticed my gaze.
Composing himself, he said to me:
"I'm telling you all this so you'll understand—no matter how much Suo Tian likes you or cares about the people in your group, if you cause trouble within the Headquarters, not even he will have time to save you."
I had no idea how powerful the Headquarters really was.
To me, the image of people trafficking such things only appeared in Hong Kong crime films, and they always ended up being taken down by the dashing, righteous police.
Clearing my throat, I spoke:
"I truly apologize for the trouble we've caused, but some situations really can't be explained clearly. Take that incident in our room earlier—if they hadn't bullied us first, we wouldn't have provoked them for no reason."
"You Chinese have a saying, don't you? When under another's roof, one must bow their head. Since you've moved in here, you have to follow the rules here. Suo Tian stood up for you and severely punished Team T, but the result of that will be an even stronger retaliation. After all, while Suo Tian's Team C is directly under the Headquarters, Team T, though under Team C's jurisdiction, is still a local tiger in this valley."
"Wait, Bruno!" I caught onto what he just said.
"An even stronger retaliation? That incident only happened last night. What exactly do you mean by stronger retaliation?"
"You're a smart person. With a little thought, you can connect the dots."
At his words, I froze, leaning back against the chair.
I didn't even bother being surprised that Bruno had spoken such precise, Chinese-style phrasing.
My mind was filled with only one thought, circling again and again: Uncle Qian and the others' deaths were because the people in lab coats had a hand in it…
Before I could recover enough to speak, footsteps sounded outside the room.
Hearing them, Bruno's expression shifted.
He yanked me up and pushed me against the examination table.
Just as he quickly folded up the chair, the door opened from the outside.
The man in the white coat entered with Sister T.
After scanning me quickly, the man in the coat asked Bruno:
"What's her condition?"
Bruno's expression turned official and businesslike.
He pulled out an X-ray and handed it over.
"Everything's normal."
The man in the white coat studied the film for a while, then seemed to think of something and asked Bruno:
"You're planning to put this woman together with that boy?"
"Yes." Bruno nodded.
"I believe she shares certain similarities with the boy. It'll be more suitable to observe them together in Section D."
At those words, I stole a glance at Bruno from the corner of my eye.
No wonder he had insisted earlier on putting me with Xiao Hu—it turned out that area was under his supervision.
As my gaze shifted, I caught a fleeting, shadowy smile flash across the face of the man in the coat as he listened to Bruno's words.
It vanished almost instantly, so quickly I wondered if I had imagined it.
"All right, I'll leave it to you then. Once everything is settled here, just take her to Section D."
After saying this, the man in the white coat patted Bruno on the shoulder and turned to leave.
Sister T, who followed behind him, gave me a strange look—staring at me twice with an odd expression—before also turning to go out.
That put an end to my conversation with Bruno.
There was no way to delay things any further.
After they left, Bruno led me toward Section D.
Before heading out, he said:
"Everything here is under surveillance, including Section D. Watch what you say and do."
"Mm." I nodded absentmindedly and followed behind him:
"Will I be in the same room as Xiao Hu?"
"Not necessarily."
"Will I get to see him?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
Bruno didn't slow his pace at all.
Maybe it was just because he was a foreigner, but his strides were long and quick, and I had to half-jog to keep up with him.
Along the way, we passed through the hall lined with iron racks.
There were many rows, each stacked full of vials, medicines, and other unknown things.
After weaving through more than a dozen rows of racks, the space suddenly opened up.
Unlike the front half of the hall filled with shelves, the back half was made up entirely of small glass compartments.
These rooms weren't very big—only a few square meters each—but there were many of them, all arranged neatly in rows.
They were divided into three sections by two massive iron partitions, each section marked with a large letter overhead: A, B, and C.
I looked closely.
The far-left Section A housed rabbits, mice, monkeys, and other small animals.
Seeing them in a lab wasn't surprising.
What shocked me, though, was what filled the glass cells of Section B—every single one of them held walkers.
The enclosures were packed full.
In front of one row of cells, two more people in white coats were discussing something intently, while one of them kept jotting down notes in a notebook.
At the very last enclosure, I caught sight of a walker with a completely intact face.
If not for her vacant, mechanical screaming, I wouldn't have realized at first glance that she was a walker at all.
She was a very pretty girl.
My heart skipped—I suddenly thought… could she be Xiao Hu's sister?
Lost in thought, I felt Bruno tap my shoulder, signaling me to look toward Section C.
Following his gesture, I froze, then immediately felt a surge of joy.
In the outermost two cells of Section C were Shen Feng and the others.
They must have already seen me, because in that moment they all pressed up against the glass, mouths moving as if they were shouting something at me.
But these glass compartments were perfectly soundproof.
No matter how animated they looked, it was like watching a silent pantomime.
After a while, they seemed to realize I couldn't hear them at all and stopped calling out.
Everyone's faces turned anxious as they looked at me.
Their worried gazes twisted my chest into knots.
Forcing myself to smile, I gave them a small grin and raised an "OK" gesture.
Then, swallowing down the ache in my throat, I followed Bruno further inside.
From a distance, I could already see the sign for Section D.
Past the glass chambers, the area behind was sealed off by massive iron walls, forming a series of narrow corridors.
The lights in the corridor were fairly bright.
After winding around with me for a while, Bruno finally stopped in front of a heavy iron gate.
This gate was clearly far more advanced than the others I'd seen before—even equipped with a keypad.
Bruno quickly tapped in a sequence, and with a loud rumble, the gate slid open automatically.
Behind the door was a space of about two hundred square meters, filled wall to wall with all sorts of instruments.
At the far end of the room stood several glass chambers identical to the ones outside.
Once Bruno led me inside, two people who were already there came forward and took me toward the chambers.
From a distance, I saw the two people who had been taken away from our room earlier—now each locked in their own chamber.
Not long after, I too was shoved into a separate glass room.
As soon as the door locked, I pressed against the glass, searching frantically for any sign of Xiao Hu.
But he wasn't in any of the chambers.
Finally, after scanning the entire hall, I spotted him—on a medical bed diagonally to my right.
He was lying there unconscious, surrounded by three or four people in white coats.
Bruno walked over to join them and picked up a strange-looking device, scanning it back and forth over Xiao Hu's body.
After a while, the group exchanged a few words.
I couldn't hear them, but I noticed Bruno's face suddenly turn grim.
He glanced at me—deliberately, yet subtly—before saying something to the others and then turning to leave through the main gate of Section D.
Once he was gone, several of the people in white coats also began sneaking glances at me.
While I was still trying to figure out what was going on, they suddenly moved Xiao Hu over.
He didn't seem conscious at all—he was carried on a stretcher.
To my shock, the two men opened the door of my glass chamber, dumped Xiao Hu inside, and shut the door again.
Seeing how roughly they had tossed him in, I immediately rushed forward and caught him in my arms, shouting angrily at them:
"He's just a child! Can't you be more careful?"
The two of them exchanged a glance, then sneered coldly before locking the door and walking away.
Only after they were gone did I finally have the chance to check on Xiao Hu.
His wound had already been bandaged—at least they'd shown a shred of humanity—but on his wrist I noticed a needle mark.
Looking at him, unconscious and completely unaware, I glanced back out at the people working beyond the glass and sighed helplessly.
Most likely, they had injected him with some kind of sedative.
For the next few hours, Xiao Hu remained asleep, his breathing steady.
I leaned against the glass wall, watching the people outside busily moving about, while my mind kept circling back to what Bruno had told me earlier.
And more than that—although from the start I had suspected that Uncle Qian and the others' deaths had something to do with the man in the white coat and his group, I could never figure out what possible reason they'd have.
Whatever the motive, killing that many people still seemed too far-fetched.
But then I remembered Bruno's words just now.
He had clearly been hinting at something: that Uncle Qian's death was definitely tied to these people here.
And the way he specifically brought up the connection between Suo Tian's C Team and the T Team in the valley…
I bit my lip hard.
Maybe what Bruno wanted me to understand was this: the ones the white coats were truly targeting weren't us at all—
but… Suo Tian.
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