Chapter 759: Project Number 5473
Project Number 5473
The floating brains hovered level with the second floor of the apartment building. When Lin Ye looked down, he could see the complex folds on the surface of a brain.
Lin Ye did not rush downstairs. Right now he could only slowly absorb the poor-quality spiritual energy in the environment by coming into contact with it.
But even using this relatively safe method, some unstable mutation structures still appeared within his body.
If he did not adjust those mutation structures, it would not take long before his body completely collapsed and turned into a pile of rotten flesh.
Fortunately, Lin Ye was very skilled at flesh-and-blood Alienation, and he knew how to modify those unstable mutation structures.
He began to slowly adjust his bodily structure to adapt to this environment.
Half an hour passed before Lin Ye completed the initial adjustments, and now his body would not suddenly collapse.
Lin Ye opened the rooftop door and left the rooftop via the stairs. He did not go straight down, instead checking the abandoned rooms in the building.
There was nothing special inside the rooms. It looked like some sudden abnormal incident had occurred here. The residents hurriedly took some important items and left the residential complex.
Lin Ye changed into a more fitted set of athletic clothes. If this was another organization Plane, then the orange prison uniform would have been too conspicuous.
After searching some of the abandoned rooms, Lin Ye found a fairly sturdy kitchen knife and a Spiritual Energy Pistol loaded with twelve rounds.
Once prepared, Lin Ye walked out of the apartment building.
The brains did not attack him. Gray bundles of nerves hung down to the ground, swaying in the wind like branches.
Lin Ye skirted around those nerve bundles and headed for the complex gate. On the road outside there were some abandoned vehicles. He planned to find one that still worked and take a quick ride around the city.
But before Lin Ye reached the complex gate, a man with a strange smile on his face entered the complex and blocked his way.
The man’s movements and grin made people uneasy. It was an inhuman feeling.
“May I explain my faith to you?” the man asked.
He pulled his mouth to an extreme, to the point where all his teeth were pushed outside his lips.
“Talk to it instead.”
Lin Ye calmly drew his gun and fired, blowing the man’s head apart.
The headless corpse fell to the ground. Lin Ye did not stop walking and brushed past the corpse.
A snow-white brain floated over and pushed its nerves into the man’s body. Soon enough, a brand-new snow-white brain crawled out from the corpse, even though its original brain had been blown apart by Lin Ye.
Lin Ye ignored what was happening behind him and did not change his trajectory. He left the complex through the gate.
Outside the complex was a concrete road. Across the road was a row of shops, and beyond them another residential complex.
Lin Ye started to inspect the abandoned vehicles nearby, and before long he found a motorcycle that could be started.
There were many obstacles on the road, so a motorcycle was a good choice.
Lin Ye started the motorcycle, and the roar of the engine echoed through the street.
Boom!
A purple-black giant worm burst from the ground and swallowed the motorcycle in one gulp.
Because the environment was filled with poor-quality spiritual energy that could not serve as a sensing medium, Lin Ye could not use his mental energy to perceive the surroundings. He only noticed the slight trembling of the ground, so he jumped off the motorcycle and hid to the side.
After swallowing the motorcycle, the giant worm writhed around nearby for a while before retreating back underground.
'…There’s this thing too?'
Lin Ye had to give up on using vehicles and continue on foot.
He had only taken two steps when he saw a group of pseudo-humans with bizarre smiles turn the corner and enter the road.
The pseudo-humans noticed Lin Ye and began to sprint toward him.
“Can’t get enough, huh?” Lin Ye drew his kitchen knife and met them head-on without stepping back.
Boom!
Another giant worm shot up from the ground and swallowed the sprinting pseudo-humans in a few bites.
The giant worm burrowed back underground, leaving the road with only Lin Ye again.
'…Fine, I guess.'
Lin Ye sheathed his kitchen knife and walked lightly toward the restaurant across the road.
It seemed the poor-quality spiritual energy contained some substances that could substitute for flesh and blood, which was why Lin Ye’s alveoli had grown so fast earlier. But that substance was highly unstable; to truly strengthen his body he still needed to eat something normal.
Lin Ye found a deli and opened the door, but a chicken leg ran out from inside.
'…Alright then.'
He changed to a noodle shop instead; he did not want any more mobile cooked food.
There were a few bags of spare flour inside the noodle shop. Lin Ye kneaded dough and made some hand-pulled noodles, then dropped them into the pot of boiling water beside him.
“Boss, a bowl of noodles, please.”
A woman wearing a protective suit sat at the counter. She removed her protective mask and spoke to Lin Ye.
“What kind of noodles?” the owner asked.
Lin Ye had noticed the woman earlier. She looked relatively normal—at least much more normal than those pseudo-humans.
“Anything. I don’t have particular tastes.”
Singularity rarely ate normal food. It preferred the higher-efficiency energy bars.
“Are you an organization member?” Lin Ye set two bowls of noodles on the table as he passed the counter.
“Mm, my name is Singularity. I’m a researcher with the organization.”
Singularity tasted the hand-pulled noodles. She did not dislike the flavor.
“Did your organization dump me here? What happened here? What do you need me to do?”
Lin Ye felt like he had just found the main quest in some trash RPG.
“I need to determine which subproject you were spawned from before deciding how to handle you.”
Singularity pulled a small device that looked like a handheld detector from her pocket and scanned Lin Ye.
“You’ve activated multiple research projects?” Lin Ye felt a headache coming on. He did not want to deal with the organization’s research projects, especially those with low numbers.
“Yeah, situation’s urgent. We enabled most of the research projects that could help with this situation, including some dangerous ones from the top ten project list.”
Singularity looked at the detector’s screen and showed a somewhat strange expression.
“What’s wrong? Am I a subproject produced by one of those top ten dangerous projects? Or did your device fail to produce a result?”
Lin Ye was used to the organization’s various shady operations, including, but not limited to, throwing him into a Salvation Cult’s mine pit to become a sacrificial offering.
“No, you’re a subproject of research Project Number 5473. We believe it was not successfully activated, because activating it requires extremely stringent conditions.”
Singularity glanced at Lin Ye with some curiosity.
“What kind of anomalous phenomenon is that?”
Lin Ye finished his hand-pulled noodles and asked casually.
“That’s a research project related to traversing time and space, though we previously thought it didn’t actually exist.”
Singularity finished her noodles as well. The small talk ended; it was time to get down to business.