Chapter 21

He Took Off

Shaking off the metallic shards from his pen, Juan quickly realized that the pen tip had also been shaken loose.

The pen tip was broken.

What a pity— it could have lasted a long time. Glancing at the broken pen in his hand, Juan set it aside.

He had just used that pen to smash the surveillance camera.

Suddenly feeling a sensation of being watched, he followed that feeling and spotted a camera hidden near the light bulb ahead.

He had now realized: if he felt watched, it meant the surveillance was active; if not, it meant the other side was off. In this room, he had never felt observed before, but now this sudden feeling of being watched…

It made him feel very uncomfortable…

Without thinking much, he smashed the surveillance camera.

Juan’s gaze then returned to the television on the desk, where he saw Lan’s girlfriend’s face.

He had actually been watching a video that Lan had posted.

Originally, he had been zoning out, and then, suddenly, the TV on the desk turned on by itself. He glanced at it and immediately saw Lan’s face, so he kept watching.

Then he heard Lan revealing the truth about Eden.

He also saw the video that Lan had secretly recorded as evidence.

The video was sent by Lan, but it wasn’t entirely his; to be precise, Lan had wanted to release this video before, but couldn’t go out, and it had been tampered with. Now, it was being reposted by his girlfriend.

On the screen, Lan’s girlfriend was speaking loudly: “… My boyfriend never calls me 521533; we both dislike our numeric names. He usually calls me Shanshan, so when he said that number in the video, I felt something was off. Plus, it was just a breakup; he wouldn’t spend money on an ad.”

“He is the most stingy person! Shanshan, Lan’s girlfriend, declared firmly.

On the other side of the screen, Juan and the others were left speechless.

“However, I was still quite upset when he broke up with me face to face. It was also to numb the person who posted this video, so I stormed off in anger,” Shanshan continued. “At that time, I thought it was just a prank; I thought maybe someone was waiting behind me to watch me make a fool of myself…”

“I went directly to the billboard operator, showed my ID, and requested the original video from Lan.”

“Then I went back to school and borrowed the school’s equipment to watch it over and over. After watching it, I realized there was an issue with Lan’s lip movements.”

“His mouth shape didn’t match what was being said in the video!”

“I kept watching it until I deciphered everything Lan said based on his lip movements.”

“The contents stunned me—”

“Just what he said, even though he is my boyfriend, I couldn’t trust it completely, so I kept searching for clues. In my search, I found the blue light flashing off Lan’s glasses in the video.”

“Later, I discovered that blue light was actually from a screen. Lan was reading off that screen while saying those words. So I used a more advanced machine to magnify that blue light on his lens to the maximum and restored the image quality, which revealed the last segment of the video.”

As she spoke, she nodded to the companions beside her, and soon after, Shanshan’s face disappeared from the TV screen, and a previously aired segment replayed.

It was a secretly recorded video by Lan in the storage room, and although it wasn’t very clear, people could see what they needed to see: the women with their prominently rounded bellies, and later, more information about Edenthat Lan had filmed from the computer…

Shanshan’s face reappeared on the TV screen: “I want an explanation from Eden! Where is my boyfriend now? Is what he said true? Regardless of whether it’s true or not, let me see him!”

Immediately after, Juan saw a sea of young people beside Shanshan raising their hands in unison, loudly demanding that Eden release Lan.

Even in the enclosed dormitory, Juan could hear them.

They were currently gathered outside Eden’s walls, and the sound indicated that the number of people gathering was quite substantial.

It had to be said that Lan’s girlfriend was remarkably smart; she keenly sensed that something was off with her boyfriend’s breakup video and quickly deciphered the issue. But that wasn’t the best part; the best part was that she did all this in front of her classmates, putting everything out in the open. Consequently, the video had been seen by many from the very beginning and spread rapidly.

While it was wildly shared among students, Shanshan and a group of classmates directly rushed to the billboard operator, demanding that the deciphered video be played!

One must say that this tactic worked well.

Eden didn’t have that much control over these ordinary young people.

After all, they were just useless rejects, but too precious to discard. Eden also needed supplies, so they let these young people build their own community, slowly expanding into a small society.

They had representatives in various industries managing things, but it didn’t mean that everyone in those industries belonged to them.

The people Shanshan encountered weren’t theirs; upon seeing the video, he played it directly, and even aired it on several billboards!

As soon as the TV station staff saw the video, they immediately forwarded it before Eden’s people could intervene—

There are always passionate people in any era and in any place.

Among everyone, the youth are the most likely to be the passionate ones, and unfortunately, Eden, with its slogan of the future of humanity, has the largest population of young people.

This led to the current situation: outside the tall white walls, more and more people gathered outside Eden, shouting slogans, demanding that Eden provide an explanation.

“Eden! Let Lan and Mia come out! Let the others who became hosts in the video come out! Let us see what they look like now and tell us whether all this is true or not!”

Many people were crying, and every one of them was born here, without a father or a mother. For these people, Eden was their father and mother, and children deeply love their parents. Unless there were special reasons, why would they be willing to doubt it?

As more and more people cried, their slogans grew louder.

The same situation was happening not just outside the walls but also inside.

“Is it true? Lan…485321? I suddenly realized I haven’t seen him for a day; thinking carefully…” The researchers gathered in small groups, discussing the same topics as those outside.

Just then, Juan’s TV suddenly turned on by itself and played that video; the same thing happened on various screens inside Eden. As a result, the researchers in Eden also saw this video.

Even those working in Eden did not all know the truth about it. Most of them had long been engaged in only part of the research, seeing only pieces, and they didn’t realize anything was wrong with their work.

More and more researchers came out into the corridor; it was instinctive. When faced with doubts, they instinctively sought others for answers.

However—

A group of fully armed men in black walked down the hallway. One by one, they raised their weapons and began to attack these confused researchers.

It was Dr. Maria, who had belatedly realized that trouble was brewing outside, and she started to send people to intervene.

“Hey! Why are you hitting us? Could it really be a problem…” One tall male researcher, who was quite strong and bold, resisted the attack from the men in black. Not only did he defend himself, but he even managed to bind one of them. He hadn’t planned to do anything but acted on instinct when faced with an attack. Unexpectedly, the man he had subdued pulled a gun from his pocket and shot him directly in the chest—

Just as he was halfway through his words, the tall researcher’s eyes widened in shock as he collapsed.

With that bullet fired, the psychological defenses of the researchers completely shattered.

“Someone’s been killed! Someone’s been killed!”

“Is that video real? My sister disappeared three years ago; she was also working in Eden. Did Eden say she went out to work? Could that be a lie? Has she been turned into a host by you? Where is the host laboratory? Has anyone seen it?!”

“My sister too! She also applied for an outside job four years ago—”

…

Everyone was in chaos, and the black-clad men found it impossible to subdue them easily again. People began to resist fiercely, and in response to this intense resistance, the armed men had no choice but to use more bullets.

Screams, the sound of running, crashes, and gunfire… all intertwined, plunging Eden into complete chaos.

Juan appeared at this moment.

Walking against the tide of the panicked crowd, both the direction he was walking in and his leisurely pace made him stand out among everyone.

A black-clad man set his sights on him.

Aiming at Juan, the black-clad man decided to shoot him directly.

However—

Being exceptionally sensitive to malice, the moment the man looked at him, Juan’s eyes precisely locked onto him in the crowd. The black-clad man was still stunned, wondering why the other person was staring at him without blinking. In the next second, as he pressed the trigger, he saw that the person had vanished from his sight. Suddenly, a gust of wind swept in from his front, and alongside it, someone silently appeared at his side, pressing down on the barrel of his gun.

Completely caught off guard, his mind went blank, and his finger pulled the trigger.

With a dull thud, he saw the person lift up a hand that now had an extra bullet hole in it, furrowing his brow.

“Ah, I forgot this body isn’t strong enough.”

It seemed the person said this before everything went dark for him, and he lost consciousness.

As Juan’s body fell, he once again “took off,” silently appearing in front of one black-clad man after another. Then, behind him, one black-clad man after another fell down in succession.

And this “succession” was only how it appeared to Juan; his movements were too fast for others to see; to them, it looked like those black-clad men had collapsed all at once!

He even had the spare moment to knock out the black-clad men while also smashing all the surrounding surveillance cameras.

Not all the panicked researchers noticed all this, but it didn’t prevent them from realizing that the black-clad men chasing them were dwindling. They joined forces to take down the remaining black-clad men and began to burst into research room doors that usually prohibited their entry—

As for Juan, he continued to weave between the black-clad men.

“Lan” and “Mia,” huh?

After knocking down one black-clad man, he quietly “took off” again.