But the old man had no intention of letting her go.
He kicked the kneeling woman without hesitation, sending her crashing into the wall. Her body struck the wall with a heavy thud before she slid down and went completely still. The old man didn't even spare her another glance, as though she had become nothing more than an insignificant object that had already served its purpose.
He slowly walked toward Yu Weiwei, his footsteps echoing throughout the laboratory.
Yu Weiwei's eyesight had already begun to grow unfocused. Everything around him was becoming blurred, and even the old man's approaching figure appeared distorted before his eyes. But the moment he finally saw the man's face clearly, an intense hatred burst from his eyes.
The old man was Anton, the middle-aged man who had once been seen in the laboratory alongside Paul. Although only five years had passed since then, Anton had aged so drastically that the charm he once possessed had completely disappeared. His once-handsome features had been replaced by deep wrinkles, gray hair, and the appearance of an old man who had already reached the final stage of his life.
Yu Weiwei wanted nothing more than to eat this man alive.
He wanted to tear him apart with his own hands and make him experience even a fraction of the pain he had inflicted upon him. He wanted to scream, curse, and demand to know why.
Why him?
Why had they done all of this to him?
But he couldn't talk.
He couldn't move.
His body was completely broken, leaving him utterly powerless against the man standing before him. There was nothing he could do except stare at Anton with the hatred burning fiercely in his eyes.
"Tsk, why can't you just be like your fathers? What a pity. Such fine material is being wasted."
Anton clicked his tongue in annoyance, as though Yu Weiwei's condition was nothing more than an inconvenience to him. He didn't seem to care whether the young man before him lived or died. Whatever purpose Yu Weiwei had once served was already over.
Without another word, Anton turned around and walked away, completely unconcerned about whether Yu Weiwei would survive.
Yu Weiwei remained there.
One day.
Then another.
Then another.
Eventually, he lost count of how many days had passed.
His rotting body told him that he had been lying there for more than a day, but time had long since lost all meaning. His consciousness repeatedly slipped away and returned, drifting between darkness and brief moments of awareness. Every time he regained consciousness, he wished he could simply die.
Yet death refused to come.
His senses were still working perfectly well.
Perhaps that was the cruelest part.
He could smell the rotting corpse of Kiri lying not far from him. He could feel the maggots crawling over his body and hers. He could feel the cold floor beneath his broken body, and he could hear the faint sounds coming from the laboratory whenever someone passed by.
Everything reached his senses with unbearable clarity.
But he was powerless.
And scared.
He was only twenty-five years old.
There was still so much he hadn't seen. So much he hadn't done.
He didn't understand why this was happening to him. He didn't know how long he had been lying there, nor did he know whether anyone would ever come to save him. He only knew that he didn't want to die.
He wanted to see his fathers.
He wanted to return home.
He wanted to live.
But his body could no longer move.
The last time he was conscious, he heard chaotic voices somewhere nearby. They were distant and blurred, making it impossible for him to determine who they belonged to. He could hear people talking, shouting, and screaming, but the words seemed to grow increasingly distant as his consciousness slowly faded away.
Then everything went dark.
After that, he never woke up.
Not until System 001 awakened him.
And that was how Yu Weiwei's journey through countless lifetimes began.
__
Yu Weiwei woke up in a cold sweat, his breathing disordered and his chest rising and falling rapidly. It had been a long time since he had that dream.
His first death.
Even after so many lifetimes, it had left a deep impact on him.
Yu Weiwei slowly calmed his breathing before glancing at the black serpent that had returned to his wrist. The familiar creature was curled quietly around his wrist, as though it had never left.
He got out of bed and went to wash up.
Afterward, he checked the messages Ryan had sent him the previous night.
They had managed to apprehend Paul, but Anton had escaped.
As for Kiri and her group, nearly half of them had been seriously injured, while Kiri herself had fallen into a coma.
Yu Weiwei raised an eyebrow when he saw this.
He vaguely remembered that Kiri had also fallen into a coma in his previous life, but that had happened a year later.
Thinking about what happened next, Yu Weiwei pressed his lips together.
After Kiri awakened from her coma a year later, Empress Elara, who was pregnant with the triplets, was kidnapped.
It was later confirmed that Kiri had been involved in the kidnapping.
Yu Weiwei had never understood why.
Unfortunately, by that time, he had already been kidnapped and taken to one of the Red Dragon Association's illegal research laboratories. He had never gotten the chance to learn the full truth behind the incident.
Anton's laboratory.
Yu Weiwei's gaze darkened.
He remembered that one of the triplets had been imprisoned alongside him in the laboratory. The remaining two had made it home, but one had fallen into a coma from birth, while the other had developed a mental power disorder.
The child who had fallen into a coma was eventually placed at the center of a heated debate over whether he should be put inside a stasis pod.
At that time, Emperor Caspian's elder brother, Alaric, was already inside that very stasis pod.
The people in the laboratory had been debating whether Caspian would choose between his elder brother and his own son.
Yu Weiwei never learned what happened afterward.
He had been too busy trying to survive.
A faint smile suddenly appeared on his face as he remembered the precocious little guy who had been imprisoned with him in the laboratory.
If Yu Weiwei had to choose the person he missed and regretted leaving behind the most, it would probably be the two-year-old little prince, Yu Niannian.
Niannian was the name Yu Weiwei had given him.
It meant longing.
At the time, Yu Weiwei had longed for freedom, not only for himself but for both of them.
Back then, Yu Niannian didn't have a proper name.
He was 009.
And Yu Weiwei was 002.
The little boy had eventually given himself the name Yu Jiu, hoping to have a real name like Yu Weiwei.
But Yu Weiwei hadn't liked it.
Yu Jiu meant Yu Nine, and somehow, he felt that it was far too simple for the little prince.
So he gave him the name Niannian instead.
Yu Niannian.
A name that carried the longing they both had for a life beyond those cold laboratory walls.
Yu Weiwei remembered that it had been the first and last time he ever saw Niannian smile before his death.
His expression gradually turned serious.
He had to do something.
He had to prevent Yu Niannian and his brothers from ending up the way they had in their previous life.
He had never known whether the three brothers eventually reunited, nor did he know whether the second prince, the one who had fallen into a coma, had ever awakened from his slumber.
But this time, he could find out.
And more importantly, he could change it.
Putting the matter aside for the time being, Yu Weiwei opened his livestream.
The livestream had been offline ever since the day Xiao Bai was kidnapped, so the moment it went online, millions of fans immediately flooded into the broadcast.
{Weiwei, are you alright? I heard Xiao Bai was kidnapped!}
{Is Xiao Bai okay? What happened to him?}
{Weiwei, you disappeared for so long! We were worried!}
Messages rapidly covered the screen, moving so quickly that they were almost impossible to read.
Yu Weiwei glanced at them before answering calmly, "Xiao Bai is alright now. He's currently asleep."
As if his words had summoned him, Yu Weiwei suddenly noticed a sleepy-looking Xiao Bai stumbling into view.
The little guy's hair was slightly messy, and he looked as though he had only just woken up.
Yu Weiwei paused for a moment before pointing toward him.
"Oh, here he is."
{Ahhh! I have been killed by that cutie.}
{Ahhhhh! So cute!}
{ Are all those with Lin bloodlines so good-looking?!}
{Sometimes I even wonder whether they were immortals visiting the mortal realm.}
{Zhiyu baby! Look at mummy! Which colour of burlap do you want?!}
{Upstairs you better keep your hands to yourself, Lin Zhiyu is mine!}