Chapter 23: The Investigation Report

The document was dense with academic jargon. While many of the technical terms were beyond Xia Mi, she relied on the reading comprehension skills she had honed over the years to extract the information she needed.

All four eggs had been cultivated by a research institution called “Etornit.” Etornit assigned these eggs to different sequences based on the unique characteristics they displayed.

The common trait of the Y-sequence eggs was that they were picky eaters.

They had no interest in ordinary food. Instead, they craved intense desires that far exceeded those of average humans, and they were capable of suppressing their appetite for the sake of a more delicious “meal.”

They could release pheromones that constantly stimulated human desire, pushing people to break through their physical limits for the sake of those cravings. Once these people underwent Zhuo transformation, their power would be significantly enhanced.

However, this power was tied to the person’s own vitality. Physical limits existed to preserve human life and extend longevity; once those limits were breached, the person’s lifespan would plummet.

Part of the energy required for Zhuo transformation was provided by the Nest, but the rest came from the individual’s own life force.

The higher the degree of transformation, the closer the person drew to death.

The stronger a Zhuo-transformed human became, the shorter their life would be.

The “Zhuo” of the Y-series favored this kind of “food.”

Etornit had commissioned the pharmaceutical research institute where Zhang Xun worked to use the lives within the entirety of Building 6 to nurture these four eggs, hoping to cultivate an even more powerful “Zhuo.”

After Zhang Xun placed the four eggs in Building 6, he followed Etornit’s instructions to observe and record their progress.

He hadn’t expected that he had chosen the wrong person for one of them. Room 416 was occupied by an unemployed man who hadn’t been able to find work for a long time. If his lease hadn’t been signed on a yearly basis, he wouldn’t even have had a place to live.

The man in 416 had become extremely depressed after losing his job and quickly developed an addiction to alcohol, drinking a bottle of high-proof spirits every day.

Because the alcohol content was so high, he soon showed symptoms of alcohol poisoning, and his hands often shook.

When Zhang Xun first gave the egg to the man in 416, the man did indeed take good care of it.

But he couldn’t stop drinking, and once he had money, he bought even more expensive and higher-proof spirits.

During one drunken episode, his shaking hands dropped and shattered the bottle.

The egg, which had not yet grown, washed down the drain.

On the very day the bottle broke, the man from 416 vanished.

He rarely contacted his parents back in his hometown, sometimes going six months without sending a single message. He had no girlfriend and was unemployed; no one noticed his disappearance except for Zhang Xun.

The property security guards eventually noticed he hadn’t appeared for a long time and contacted the landlord.

Fearing the man might have committed suicide, the landlord and the property management used a spare key to open the door to 416. They found no signs of suicide, no illegal drugs, and no suicide note. The apartment was relatively clean, with nothing in the trash but a shattered bottle.

They sent a message to the tenant of 416. To their surprise, the man who had been out of contact for so long actually replied, saying he was working a short-term job out of town and would be back in a while. He also warned the property management and the landlord not to enter his home while he was away.

Relieved, the property management and the landlord dropped the matter and did not call the police.

In reality, however, that message had been sent by Zhang Xun.

To monitor the growth of the four eggs at all times, Zhang Xun had installed surveillance in all four households and planted plugins in their phones, allowing him to send messages from their numbers when necessary.

The man from 416 had effectively evaporated the day the bottle broke.

As early as the night of the breakage, Room 416 had become a miniature Nest, cutting off all communication with the outside world. The surveillance had gone dark, and no one knew what had happened that night.

Under normal circumstances, the Disposal Bureau would have been able to detect the Nest. But since Zhang Xun had placed the eggs with premeditation, he had naturally installed counter-reconnaissance devices.

The devices were provided by Etornit and could only mask Zhuo energy within a small radius, becoming ineffective if the area exceeded 50 square meters.

After excluding the common areas, the net area of the apartments in Building 6 was only about 40 square meters. One device was just enough to mask a single room, which resulted in a Domain forming within 416 without alerting the Disposal Bureau.

Zhang Xun had originally assumed that after the incident in 416, more supernatural events would occur in Building 6, which would inevitably draw the attention of the Disposal Bureau and likely cause the experiment to fail.

He had quickly moved all relevant items and data, preparing to flee the country himself.

Yet, after the tenant of 416 vanished, the “Zhuo” designated Y-054 simply disappeared into thin air without causing any incidents.

Recalling the characteristics of the Y-series, Zhang Xun suspected that Y-054 had sensed even more delicious food and had gone into hiding, entering a state of Zhe.

Zhang Xun reported this to Etornit. The institution stated that everything was within controllable parameters and instructed Zhang Xun to help cover up the disappearance of the 416 tenant while continuing his observations.

It was just then that the property management and landlord came to investigate the tenant’s whereabouts. Zhang Xun spotted them through the surveillance and quickly used the tenant’s phone number to send the message, dispelling their suspicions.

And so, the matter of 416 was kept hidden.

A few days later, Zhang Xun noticed that the water meter for 416 was moving. Even though no one was living there, a large amount of water was being used. It was clearly the work of Y-054.

Zhang Xun knew there was an active “Zhuo” inside the apartment. He didn’t dare visit Building 6 in person, so he could only continue to pose as the tenant of 416, paying the water bills and occasionally replying to messages to handle the landlord’s complaints.

He didn’t understand what this free-roaming “Zhuo” wanted or why it was hiding for so long.

Zhang Xun submitted a report to Etornit. They informed him that Y-054 wasn’t holding back for the sake of a delicious “meal.” Instead, it had sensed a far more terrifying “Rong” forming within the Nest. Out of fear, it had no choice but to enter a state of Zhe.

But Y-054 would not stop there. The Y-series were a greedy breed with voracious appetites. To taste more delicious “food,” they could evolve a terrifying level of intelligence and set traps for their prey.

At the same time, Y-054 would realize its own strength was insufficient to consume the prize. Therefore, it would choose to first devour the other eggs of the same series to bolster its own power before attempting to consume that even more terrifying “Rong.”

Zhang Xun only then realized that Etornit’s goal was never to cultivate Y-series experimental subjects, but rather to capture that unformed Rong.

Of course, none of this mattered to Zhang Xun. He was paid to do a job. Whether it was cultivating eggs or capturing a Rong made no difference to him, and he couldn’t care less whether the people in Building 6 lived or died.

He used various methods to observe Building 6 and noticed that some strange mosquitoes had appeared in the building.

These mosquitoes congregated on the 7th floor, growing by consuming the water from the resident of Room 710. They seemed to be strategically plotting something.

Zhang Xun had also researched why Y-054 chose the resident of Room 710, eventually concluding it was about positioning.

According to his analysis, the growing Rong had to be living on the 7th floor. Y-054 wanted to set a trap on that floor but was afraid of being discovered by the Rong. Not daring to get too close, it chose a position that was neither too far nor too near.

Room 710 was the optimal distance determined by Y-054’s assessment.

Based on this, Zhang Xun judged that the Rong was located somewhere between Rooms 701 and 704.

He had even conducted a serious investigation of the residents in those four rooms, attempting to find the presence of the Rong among them.

Zhang Xun knew that the Rong’s desires had to be far beyond those of an ordinary person, as without a terrifying level of desire, one could not merge with a Zhuo. Consequently, he first ruled out the female college student living in Room 703, Xia Mi. There were plenty of unemployed college students, and Xia Mi’s parents were both alive and well. Even if she didn’t have a job, her parents could support her, so she wouldn’t harbor any particularly intense desires.

Based on his past research, Zhang Xun judged that the will to survive was the strongest human desire. The Rong was likely in Room 701 or 704.

Life was far too difficult for that mother and son in Room 704; their desires were bound to be incredibly intense.

Meanwhile, Room 701 was occupied by a cancer patient who underwent chemotherapy at a hospital several stops away. She endured immense pain every day. To stay alive, she had sold her house and rented a cheap apartment, pouring all her money into treatment. With such a terrifying will to survive, the resident of Room 701 was the most likely candidate for the Rong.

Xia Mi nodded repeatedly as she read this section. She knew she was just an ordinary person, and the organization breeding the Zhuo had provided a very compelling reason!

Aside from Y-054, Zhang Xun’s primary subjects of observation included Y-057. Unlike Y-054’s dormant approach, Y-057 had developed an emotion similar to a parent-child bond with the human Liu Yunxia. This was a very interesting phenomenon.

The information Xia Mi had seen earlier regarding Y-057 had come from this very report.

As for Y-055 and Y-056, they were unremarkable. They grew in a mundane fashion while Y-054 had already cast a dragnet around them. Once the time was ripe, Y-054 intended to immediately devour its two kin to bolster its own strength.

On the night of September 20th, the day before the Nest formed in Building 6, a small nest appeared in Room 1127. Y-056 had hatched.

However, Y-056 was different from Y-054. It didn’t completely consume the resident of Room 1127. Instead, it parasitized his body, moving about like a normal person.

On the night of September 21st, a friend of the resident of Room 1127 stayed over at his invitation. Zhang Xun judged that Y-056 wanted to use its human identity to capture food. It had developed a personality different from Y-054.

But Y-056’s plan failed. On the night of the 21st, Y-054 apparently decided the time was right and expanded a massive Nest, enveloping all of Building 6 within it.

Before the Nest formed, Zhang Xun saw white, soft-bodied forms flowing out of the water pipes in Room 803. This was the silhouette of Y-054.

It seemed Y-054 intended to devour one of its kin to increase its strength before attempting to capture the Rong.

Since Room 803 was located directly above the area of Rooms 701 through 704, Y-054 would attempt to attack the Rong after consuming Y-055 and the two residents in Room 803.

Zhang Xun’s observation report ended there. The final entry was timed at 10:00 PM on September 21, 2024, right when Xia Mi had discovered the mosquitoes.

Zhang Xun knew nothing of what happened after that.

After Xia Mi finished reading the long, arduous observation report, all the questions in her heart were answered.

In short, there were four eggs, and the one that hatched first wanted to hog all the food for itself. Thus, it spent two months casting a wide net.

It wanted to eat the growing Rong and its three siblings as well. It was incredibly greedy.

Xia Mi remembered last night, while she was lying in bed, hearing a violent argument coming from Room 803.

At the time, she had just assumed it was a young couple fighting. Looking back now, it was No. 4 Zhuo devouring No. 5 Zhuo.

After the couple’s argument, the auntie in Room 704 had beaten and scolded Xiao Pi. The intense desires within them were activated by the Zhuo, turning them into terrifyingly powerful Zhuo-corrupted humans.

At the same time, a knock had come from Xia Mi’s door.

Presumably, Y-054 had come from Room 704 and knocked on her door.

As it turned out, death had been knocking at her door from the very beginning.