If only she had scanned the jungle just a few hundred meters to the west of the monstrous mine. She would have seen another structure: a dilapidated, forgotten-looking warehouse, seemingly abandoned to the elements.
And if she had possessed X-ray vision, she would have seen the hidden flight of stairs inside that led deep underground. Unlike the shabby exterior, the underground was a modern and high-tech science laboratory.
Scenes only seen in horror and sci-fi movies were happening inside the laboratory. Men and women in white lab coats and face masks came and left as they busied themselves with their usual business while inside numerous glass cages, people of different caliber were chained and locked, their bodies connected to various machines. Their bodies were emaciated and their eyes looked soulless and empty.
Scenes of people dying and the sorrowful sounds of their painful cries were all blocked by the soundproofed glass cages.
In another room, a man with good-looking features in his forties stood in front of a screen monitor. He was dressed simply in a white long-sleeved shirt and black pants while a white lab coat was added on top. He looked neat, clean, and composed but the cold smile on his face exuded a dangerous vibe.
Behind him were a group of three to four people equally dressed in lab coats who looked like his subordinates.
"Medicine?"
The man's smile as he played with his phone was warm and harmless if one ignored his pale-colored pupils carrying a trace of coldness and a faint killing intent, looking like a venomous viper. He looked amused as he seemed to be answering a question.
"Medicine is used to save lives, mine... is used to kill."
He uttered nonchalantly in a low voice as his eyes expressionlessly fell on the large screen monitor in the room. On the screen, images of worm-like and colorful viruses swimming inside the bodies of the experiment subjects (people locked in the cages) were displayed.
"Sir King, the new arrivals are ready." A voice broke the silence. The person being referred to as Sir King was the dangerous man in his forties.
Sir King waved his hand and instructed, "Inject the new R series immediately."
The scenes on the monitor changed to that of a young man in his early twenties locked in a cage. His hands and legs were bound with chains as he laid on the metallic hospital bed, his eyes showing immense fear and sorrow. A cocktail of drugs was injected into his veins. It made his whole body feel like it was being torn apart and his blood was boiling. He was in so much pain that he wished that he could die. However, at this moment, he couldn't die and could only become the test subject and be manipulated by these crazy researchers.
On the glass screen, the young man's blood vessels were about to explode from the drugs. The blood vessels surged with powerful strength that constantly attacked the limits of his body.
He was sweating profusely from the pain as if he was soaked in water. His eyes were red and he was losing his rationality.
Outside the screen, data kept jumping. The technicians and researchers discussed in low tones as if the person inside the cage was just a non-living test object.
Suddenly, an alarm rang and everything went still. The young man breathed his last.
In front of the screen monitor, Sir King frowned, his eyes turning cold. Seeing this, the researchers trembled in extreme fear, not daring to raise their bowed heads.
"Follow the rules. Failure results in punishment. Get her to accept her share," Sir King said expressionlessly.
The 'her' he was referring to was in another building.
She was a very beautiful middle-aged woman who looked as if she was in her late thirties. She possessed especially striking eyes that could suck one's soul. Her eyes were cold and deep as a bottomless abyss.
Despite being led to the deathly punishment hall and receiving her doses of electrocution, the expression on her face never cracked for a second as if it wasn't anything new and surprising.
Like a block of wood, she had a dead look on her face like a lifeless person. The only shocking fact was that her striking face resembled 80% of Tang Xiya's real face.
"How's it?"
Back in the research room, Sir King slowly whispered.
He was currently gazing at a young and beautiful woman among the new batch of arrivals. She had pretty eyes but they weren't close to the middle-aged woman's drop-dead gorgeous ones. The young girl was so scared that she was trembling profusely in fear. Her whole face was stained with tears and snot as she desperately shook her head, letting out muffled cries through her gagged mouth.
"It's done, sir," responded the subordinate fearfully.
"Get rid of them."
"Yes, sir."
The subordinate nodded in apprehension, understanding what King meant without extra explanations. This was nothing new. It had been the continuous cycle in the lab for decades. Everyone in the lab already knew that unrequited love had transformed their powerful boss into a psychopath but kept it within their hearts.
Whenever 'she' , sir King's prized possession for twenty years, would get punished, whoever involved in administering the punishment would receive 10 times more pain before going to hell. Including King himself. He'd inflict on himself dozens of times more pain than what she received. Everyone was already used to it.
King's eyes fell on the crying young woman for the last time before he turned away, his expression one of utter boredom. Her fate was sealed the moment she failed to provide the desired data. She, like all the others, was merely a variable in an equation—a variable that had just been solved and discarded.
"Proceed with the next subject," he commanded, his voice devoid of any emotion. "The R series formula requires adjustment. Increase the neuro-stimulant by five percent. I want to see if the next one can break the physiological limit without immediate termination."
The researchers scrambled to obey, their movements efficient and practiced. The body of the young man was swiftly removed from the cage, and the data from his final, agonizing moments was collected and filed away. Another cage, containing a terrified young woman, was moved into position for the next round of injections.
Sir King watched the preparations with a detached air, but his pale, cold eyes were constantly drawn back to a smaller, secondary monitor. On it, the middle-aged woman was being led back to her solitary cell, her posture ramrod straight, her stunningly beautiful face still a perfect, unreadable mask. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor in her hand was the only sign she had endured anything at all.
He watched until the door to her cell slid shut, then he turned and walked towards a reinforced steel door at the back of the lab. It was time for his own penance. For his failure. For her pain. The cycle would continue, as it always had, on this isolated hell he had built—his Ghost Island.
--------------
Tang Xiya, unaware that the two pillars of her entire quest—the vast evil of the cult and her long-lost mother—were hidden mere minutes from each other, continued her journey off the island. She had survived. She had won.
And she had never, in all her lives, made a more catastrophic mistake.