“Bo Shi… sometimes makes me assist with his experiments.” “Sometimes it’s drawing blood, sometimes it’s testing my Yi Neng, and sometimes it’s fighting monsters.”
“So all those injuries of yours happened in the lab?” Lin Zhen asked, frowning.
“Yeah.” Yun Ruoxi nodded.
“Then, Sis, why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I… I was afraid you’d worry.” Yun Ruoxi spoke softly.
“Can you lift your right hand for me?” Lin Zhen suddenly looked at the girl’s right hand, which had been hanging at her side all this time.
He’d felt something was off for a while now.
Yun Ruoxi was right-handed, but today, whether eating or picking things up, she’d used her left hand.
Even when he asked Aili about it, she too had noticed Yun Ruoxi’s right hand seemed unwell.
But contrary to Lin Zhen’s expectations, Yun Ruoxi, who had always been somewhat resistant, unexpectedly cooperated this time, obediently placing her slender arm on the table, letting him pull up her sleeve.
Under the cuff, her arm was fair and delicate, the skin so soft that it seemed a gentle pinch could draw water.
“Is there something wrong with my right hand?” The girl tilted her head, a bit of curiosity in her eyes.
“Nothing.” Lin Zhen let out an awkward laugh, feeling confused. Had he guessed wrong?
“My right hand is fine after all?”
“The production crew even used close-ups to fool the viewers.”
“Fooling the bullet screen again, huh?”
“Mm…” Yun Ruoxi lowered her cuff and withdrew her right hand.
“Then, did Bo Shi ever do anything else to you in the lab?” Lin Zhen asked again, staring into Yun Ruoxi’s eyes as if trying to tell if she was lying.
But Yun Ruoxi’s eyes were pure and clear, giving away nothing. She simply shook her head and said nothing.
Seeing this, Lin Zhen could only advise: “If Bo Shi tries to do anything bad to you, you must tell us. Don’t be afraid, we’ll face it together.”
The others nodded at these words.
Yun Ruoxi was silent for a moment, then softly responded, “Mm.”
They chatted a little more.
***
After everyone left, she took her supposedly unharmed right hand out from under the table, rolled up her sleeve, and carefully pinched a fold of skin on her arm with her fingertips.
Then, right before the camera, she peeled back the entire skin of her right arm in one go.
No, that wasn’t skin.
It was something that to the naked eye looked almost identical to real human skin, fitting perfectly…Bionic Skin.
Yun Ruoxi had just used it to fool Lin Zhen and the others.
As the bullet screen filled with question marks, she tore off the Bionic Skin and set it aside.
Revealing a fair little arm, covered in scabs of dried blood.
“What’s going on? A trick within a trick? When did Xiao Xi become so cunning?”
“Wait, what’s with the knife cuts now?”
“Lao Xi just picked up a new landmine tag, huh. No wonder she’s the girl with the most new tags this season.”
“I said before, Lao Xi wasn’t acting right.”
“Is Xiao Xi self-harming? Wasn’t her brainwashing fixed already?”
Yun Ruoxi lowered her head and looked at her arm, sobbing quietly, tears pattering down.
“I’m sorry, Brother Zhen, I didn’t mean to lie to you. I just really…can’t bring myself…to say it…”
She rubbed her eyes as she cried, seemingly trying to stop her tears, afraid someone might see her like this.
The bullet screen viewers’ hearts ached at the sight.
“So what’s wrong with Lao Xi in the end?”
“She’s not being threatened by that pervert Bo Shi, is she?”
“Bad, bad, bad.”
“Ai Xi fans, you win, it’s tragedy time again.”
“That thing’s obviously from Bo Shi, right? Xiao Xi, if Bo Shi is threatening you, just nod your head.”
After crying silently for a while, Yun Ruoxi finally stopped.
She put away the Bionic Skin, turned, and left the training room, heading to the lab in the restricted area and found Bo Shi.
Dr. Forefinger took the Bionic Skin she handed him and smiled:
“So, how was it? Pretty handy, right? That’s the most advanced Cybernetic Prosthetic there is. There’s no way A Zhen and the others could see through it.”
“Mm…” Yun Ruoxi nodded in silence.
“Alright then, I helped you. Now you need to keep your end of the deal.”
Dr. Forefinger pointed to the room at the back of the lab.
“Come on, let’s go in.”
With that, Yun Ruoxi rose quietly, face numb, and followed Bo Shi into the room at the back of the lab.
“Damn, don’t tell me there’s a cow in there.”
“This scene feels just like Guilty Crown, with the heroine sneaking into someone else’s room at night behind the hero’s back.”
“So Bo Shi wants Xiao Xi’s blood to treat his illness, right? Now we know what those needle marks on her left hand mean.”
Ever since that day of questioning, Lin Zhen and the others found Yun Ruoxi had returned to her usual normal and sunny self.
She didn’t lie anymore, and every morning she no longer had strange injuries.
Only sometimes, there was a faint smell of blood on her.
To this, Yun Ruoxi explained: it was the scent she picked up during experiments for Bo Shi, from fighting in the lab.
Though this explanation was flawless, Lin Zhen still felt uneasy.
After all, he went to the lab almost every day to assist with experiments, but had never seen Yun Ruoxi there.
He’d asked Bo Shi about it.
Bo Shi said Lin Zhen wasn’t the only one with special privileges; there was another lab in the base, reserved for Yun Ruoxi alone—that was the exclusive privilege of being Number 0001, with a tailor-made Yi Neng development plan.
Lin Zhen accepted this answer, but suggested he wanted to see Yun Ruoxi’s private lab for himself.
Bo Shi agreed, but said his schedule was tight, so they’d have to go when he had free time.
And then, one night, while Lin Zhen was still asleep, he was woken up and taken to that lab he’d been so curious about.
But to his disappointment—and relief—it was just an ordinary lab.
The only difference was an extra room at the back, from which there came a faint, pungent smell of blood.
“That’s where we store experimental consumables.”
Dr. Forefinger stood at the door, his right hand on the doorknob, smiling as he asked, “Inside, it’s all animal carcasses and waste, very stinky. Do you want to take a look?”
As he spoke, the sound of animals scurrying could be heard from within.
Lin Zhen thought for a moment, yawned, and shook his head.
If Bo Shi hadn’t let him in, he might have been curious, but since Bo Shi was so open about it, there couldn’t be any secrets inside—not worth the trouble to check.
Of course, maybe Bo Shi was just trying to lure him into a false sense of security.
But Lin Zhen really didn’t think Bo Shi would play it that way.
After all, if Bo Shi didn’t want him to see, he could just refuse. There was no need to go through all this.
Besides, as the final assessment approached, all the team instructors began increasing the intensity and frequency of their training and field exercises.
These days, Lin Zhen was so busy he was exhausted almost every day.
Back in the dorm, he could fall asleep without even needing fast-sleep spray. Even his escape plans were left unattended.
So, being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night left him so tired his eyes could barely stay open.
There was no way he was going to care about some room full of animal corpses.
And so, Lin Zhen missed his best chance to uncover the truth.